I'm going to give the crowds a week or two to die down before venturing out to my beloved Great Clips Imax at the MN Zoo to see the Hobbit. In the meantime, I felt it would be fitting to revisit Jackson's original trilogy and see where my thoughts and feelings toward it stand nearly 10 years since it theatrically concluded. Sure, I've watched bits and pieces of the individual movies over the years, but until last week, I hadn't made a concerted effort to ingest all three films chronologically. It was also a great opportunity to show them to my son in advance of The Hobbit, as he had never watched them start to finish in order.
My awareness and appreciation of Peter Jackson dates all the way back to 1989, when I first read about his debut feature Bad Taste in the pages of Fangoria magazine. I sought it out at the local mom and pop video store and was instantaneously hooked. It had the kinetic verve and audacious gore of early Sam Raimi, but filtered through a charming Kiwi sensibility. I eagerly devoured Dead Alive and Meet The Feebles as they became available stateside and my admiration of his work grew exponentially through the years. I was one of the few who saw The Frighteners theatrically and recall walking out of the theater 100% assured it would be a monster hit, finally catapulting Jackson to the upper echelon of film makers. Alas, it was not to be. That was still 5 years away. No, it wasn't until the release of The Fellowship of the Ring that the masses would at last be made aware of Jackson's brilliance. Fellowship forcefully confirmed what I and other horror fans had known for over a decade: the dude has serious chops.
I went into Fellowship knowing nothing of the Lord of the Rings (I still have never bothered to read the books), only showing up because it was the new film from Peter Jackson. It vastly exceeded my already high expectations. Attaching Jackson's attention to aesthetic detail and intuitively involving camerawork to such a solid thematic and narrative foundation produced what is easily one of the most transporting series of films of all time. When people talk about world building in regards to the cinematic art form, look no further then LOTR for the definitive example of how it's done. I fell hard for Fellowship. I can think of few films that so perfectly blend action, humor, drama, beauty and ugliness in such meticulously measured proportion. There's just nothing wrong with the film on any level, apart from some dated, wonky effects that honestly only add to its charm.
Then, a strange thing happened. With the release of each new installment, I found myself growing less and less interested in the series. It became a matter of diminishing returns. Perhaps I'd had enough of the world after Fellowship, having never been much of a fantasy fan. Or maybe I lost the thread of the story once so much involved mythology was brought to the forefront without thorough explanation. In any case, I can pinpoint the precise moment I began to lose faith in the films. It was in Two Towers after Gandalf reappears as the White Wizard in the forest to Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas (take that spell check!). They come into a clearing and Gandalf whistles to summon his horse. A beautiful white stallion appears from a distance and languidly gallops up as the music swells and all the characters look on in reverent amazement. It's a grating, indulgent moment that does nothing for the story. Sure, Fellowship had similar scenes, but as the films went on, they began to buckle under the weight of such self important asides. Of course there's still a million magical things in Two Towers and Return of the King, but in my mind, the damage had been done and the veil had been lifted.
After re-watching the films, I find my original opinion largely unchanged. I still find Fellowship to be the best and the other two to be relatively tiresome with intermittent blasts of inspired film making and action packed lunacy. I believe Fellowship works best as a film because it has tangible, threatening antagonists our heroes must overcome. Between Saruman, The Balrog and the rampaging Uruk-Hai, we have a strong sense of who the villains are and the measures that must be taken to defeat them. As the series progresses, it abandons such traditional notions for its nemeses and instead focuses on the deleterious effects of the one Ring on the soul of mankind. While fascinatingly heady for a blockbuster to dwell on the precarious bonds between men and existential spiritual turmoil, it's not particularly compelling from a cinematic perspective. Don't get me wrong, Jackson works wonders using perspective tricks to make the one ring a real character and to illustrate the insidious reach of Sauron. But at the end of the day, it's a frigging ring and a stationary flaming eye on top of a tower. Seeing these two unknowable entities destroyed can inherently never be as thrilling as watching Aragorn face off with and ultimately behead an imposing Uruk-Hai warrior.
To me, that is the defining moment of the trilogy. Maybe it's just my deeply rooted love of monsters talking, but for my money, the series never topped that final fight in Fellowship. The moment when Aragorn jumps in to save Boromir from the killing blow and does battle with that foul beast has undeniable immediacy and stakes. The shot of the monster, relieved of one of his arms and run through by Aragorn's sword, pulling the blade through his stomach while snarling and gnashing, brutally and succinctly sums up the the threat faced by all of Middle Earth. It's maybe my favorite shot in all of Jackson's filmography. A pure, uncluttered presentation of the battle between good and evil. There are certainly more breathtaking spectacles to behold throughout the films. The marvelously staged and executed battle for Helms Deep and the absolutely insane ollyphant sequence during the siege on Minas Tirith come to mind in terms of showstoppers. But the technology overwhelms the meaning and none of it feels as real or terrifying as that one-on-one showdown alone in the woods.
Truthfully though, there's just so much to love about these films that I can forgive the fact they probably would have worked better as an HBO miniseries. So many exceptional performances to note. Of course Ian McKellan is gravitas incarnate as Gandalf, but Bernard Hill deserves special mention for his portrayal of King Theoden of Rohan. He manages to put a much needed human face on the proceedings after things get implausibly fantastical. I also feel compelled to give Orlando Bloom a shout out for his positively unearthly work as Legolas. The dude gets a lot of crap for being a pretty boy lightweight, but there's no denying how unimaginably badass he makes that elf seem. Cate Blanchett is a remarkable presence as well, the films could have benefited from more of her Galadriel. Andy Serkhis obviously created a character for the ages with Gollum, working in concert with Weta digital to overcome the stigma Jar-Jar had attached to mo-cap performance and provide the film with unexpected pathos. On the negative side, Liv Tyler is an utter joke and every time she appears on screen is pure death.
Howard Shore's score is a once in a lifetime event where the music fits the films world so well as to be downright eerie. The themes that run through these movies are burned into our collective cultural brain forever. Not simply because they're catchy or repetitive, they legitimately seem to have sprung from some ancient communal memory of a world we knew in a past life. The effects range from astonishing to eye rolling, but all can be appreciated for the ingenuity and craftsmanship involved in their creation. I distinctly love the old school touches like miniatures, models and using tall and/or child stand-ins to achieve the Hobbit height difference.
These films are legendary, and rightly so. Even if some aspects work better for me than others and some don't work at all, they're still grand fun to watch and get lost in. They have heart and high adventure spilling out from every frame. Being able to stretch out viewings over several nights at home makes the daunting task of consuming them all the more palatable. Peter Jackson's LOTR films are a pop culture miracle and generational touchstone whose impact and influence will be prominent for decades to come. I look forward to seeing The Hobbit, regardless of the middling reviews. I can't wait to journey back to middle earth, visit some old friends and hopefully make some new ones.
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