It’s an Epic Film That Still Feels Groundedīack in 1998, Jackson told the Los Angeles Times about his goal of “nailing fantasy” with the trilogy, of making a genre Lawrence of Arabia.
Since Jackson’s trilogy, we’ve seen more and more indie filmmakers leaving their mark on blockbuster cinema by making huge yet personal films, like The Matrix sequels, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, or Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi.
In The Fellowship of the Ring alone, Jackson puts the audience in a constant state of terror in the first half, making viewers identify with the hobbits who venture out into a dangerous world for the first time and encounter unspeakable horrors like the Nazgûl, who are shot mostly in extreme closeups like the most iconic horror monsters, and the giant Watcher in the Water creature outside of the Mines of Moria. For one, Jackson infuses the trilogy with moments of sheer horror that reflect the filmmaker’s roots, whether it’s a fight against a giant spider or the grotesque designs of the orcs and Uruk-hai. And yet, what makes LotR so special is the fact that, despite the big production effort, it still feels like a Peter Jackson film through and through. Having Jackson handle an epic adaptation with a multi-million-dollar budget was a huge risk, but today, recruiting indie filmmakers to tackle big tentpole blockbusters is commonplace, with everyone from Chloé Zhao and Matt Reeves to James Gunn and Colin Trevorrow making similar jumps. His only previous Hollywood movie, The Frighteners, remains a horror-comedy gem, but one that never really broke big despite its stellar cast. For the 20th anniversary of the first film in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, we’re leaving our second breakfast behind, exiting our hobbit hole, and simply walking into Mordor while we revisit the ways The Lord of the Rings trilogy changed blockbuster cinema forever.ĭespite the Size of the Production, It Feels Personal and Isn’t Afraid to Get Weirdīefore The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson was known in small horror circles for his weird, violent, gory movies that had earned him a cult following.
Shot back-to-back-to-back, featuring a cast mostly of unknowns, the films remain one of the most beloved trilogies ever made, a tale of good versus evil that is full of doom and violence but remains hopeful and optimistic, with incredible battle sequences and intimate character moments, made with groundbreaking practical and visual effects. Before Marvel and superheroes dominated pop culture and the moviegoing calendar, before a movie about a woman who falls in love with a fish man was able to win Best Picture, before it became common to hand multi-million-dollar tentpole movies to indie filmmakers, there was Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.
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