Ten Years Later: LORD OF THE RINGS and THE HOBBIT

With the release of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, I thought it was a good time to write a little post about the legacy of this film franchise.

Young people of today who barely remember a decade ago and think of SPIDER-MAN as an "old movie" may not be able to fully appreciate the full impact THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy had.  It was rightfully labeled as the STAR WARS of our generation, and not only on the obvious level that it was an action/adventure trilogy, but in the way it was a benchmark that sparked imaginations and inspired the emerging group of filmmakers.  If you're a filmmaker and were a child of the 1970's, you remember the release of STAR WARS damned well!  LORD OF THE RINGS served that same purpose for my colleagues.  Recently I've been hearing people refer to Nolan's BATMAN trilogy as their generation's STAR WARS; sorry, but as good as those films may have been, I simply don't think that's true at all; if it is, it may be a few years before it becomes apparent with today's youth.

LORD OF THE RINGS was seen as the answer to THE PHANTOM MENACE and the two Chris Columbus-directed HARRY POTTER films: it showed modern technology could create wonderful vistas never seen before while ALSO making an engaging film and a modern epic.  A few years earlier TITANIC had been a mega-hit sensation, but LORD OF THE RINGS was able to do the same while sustaining it over two sequels.  The remaining HARRY POTTER films would draw heavily on the model LORD OF THE RINGS had set, as would the NARNIA films, THE GOLDEN COMPASS, and AVATAR.  Even PAN'S LABYRINTH, though an entirely original (and in my opinion superior) fantasy film was marketed to remind audiences of LORD OF THE RINGS.

During the release of LORD OF THE RINGS, I was finishing high school and starting college, which I feel was the ideal age to experience this event.  Even more ideal was being in film school and learning the craft of filmmaking in the immediate aftermath of this release, when everyone was talking about these movies.  Furthermore, LORD OF THE RINGS became one of the first movies to really utilize the innovation of the DVD.  DVD's had started to replace VHS tapes around 1997 and were catching on by 2000.  "Collector's Sets" with hours upon hours of making-of material were beginning to emerge, but FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING was one of the first times I saw a movie truly make use of the Extended Edition format.  Perhaps what says the most is that in 2001 DVD's and VHS were still about comparable to one another on the market, while by 2004 VHS was semi-obsolete.  What happened during that interim?  The trilogy happened!

In college, we were all learning what visual effects were from looking at the behind-the-scenes of LORD OF THE RINGS, the DVD's of which I guarantee could be found in at least 65% of the students' dorm rooms.  I learned what color-correction and color-grading are because of LORD OF THE RINGS.  I learned that you do your picture-editing first, then visual effects, then scoring, and finally sound-mixing, in that order, all because of LORD OF THE RINGS.

Now at this point in the blog, you might be rolling your eyes at me and telling me I need to stop "fanboy-ing," so let me be the first to point out that the movies are not perfect at all.  Rewatching the trilogy recently, I noticed how Hollywood they are, and how many cliched action and horror movie tropes Peter Jackson relies on in his storytelling.  Yes, it's dumbed down from Tolkein's writing (by the way, I happen to like Tolkein's books a lot and feel the films compliment the source material well.  There are some elements in the story done better in the film than they were in the book.  But, on the whole, if I had to choose one, then the books are the superior versions).  Merry and Pippin make lame jokes, and the scene where they agree to join the Fellowship only to then reveal they don't even know where they're going completely undermines the integrity of the characters.  Finally, the worst moment in the entire trilogy is Galadriel's weird freak-out when she's offered the ring and her voice gets all fucked up!  I hate that scene; it belongs in a B-movie of lesser quality, and I felt that way when I first saw it eleven years ago.

But all of this aside, the trilogy was still a remarkable achievement in the scale of its production, especially when looked at as one long film.  When I learned how big the set was and all the details of the shooting schedule, there was a time when I considered it the single most ambitious production in all of cinematic history [knowing what I do today, I might say CLEOPATRA (1963, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz) or WAR AND PEACE (1966-68, dir. Sergei Bondarchuk) might be more deserving of that distinction].  It also helped that Peter Jackson was an incredibly charismatic person that audiences loved from the start.  Here was a true guerrilla filmmaker with a genuine love for the art-form and immense passion for the material.  As my dad put it: "No wonder these hobbits are all so dirty; the director of these movies looks like a homeless person!"

So now we come to THE HOBBIT, a prequel that has spent the better part of a decade in development hell.  I won't go into all the controversies; anyone who knows me knows that I disapprove of 3D, and while the radical idea to project at 48 frames per second could potentially have made this film just as much of a game-changer as LORD OF THE RINGS was with the DVD format, the public backlash suggests this won't be the case.  But I have now seen AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, the first of the new trilogy, and I have to say, Jackson did the impossible.  He has created a film that feels like an organic continuation of the saga, despite the time discrepancy between productions!

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is a very fun and charming film with moments that show a larger scope.  Yes, the tone is much more juvenile and lighthearted than the previous films, but that is fitting of the book.  Is it as good as LORD OF THE RINGS?  Simply-put, I don't think it could possibly have the ground-breaking effect the trilogy had ten years ago; that was just pure lightening in a bottle, whereas this time we all knew what to expect.  This film won't sweep the Oscars as its predecessors did.  But as a continuation that manages to successfully feel like the first new LORD OF THE RINGS film in a decade, it's a success that leaves me wanting to see the sequels, and better yet, it's a fun time at the movies.

LORD OF THE RINGS was certainly not the best movie I saw during my college years, but regardless it was the movie of my college years.  Maybe I'm letting the nostalgia take over, but that was just such an exciting time for movies, and we all sensed they were changing forever.  As 2012 comes to an end, the future looks grim for Hollywood movies.  With indie cinema on the rise and the entire model of distribution being revolutionized, not to mention public dissatisfaction with so many films, the entire Hollywood system might soon be obsolete.  But at least knowing that there are two HOBBIT sequels on the horizon has filled me with some comfort.  And if a film can make you want to come back, continue the story, and be fulfilled, then it is doing what the movies are all about.  AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY has opened a new door on a new Hobbit-hole, and that door to Bag End will never be closed again.