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Interview with Peter Jackson on LoTR Bloopers
erth writes "Newsweek has an interview with Peter Jackson asking him what he thinks about some of the most famous and/or obvious bloopers in the LoTR series. Moviemistakes.com has more Fellowhip of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King bloopers as well for your snickering pleasure." I just wanted to give my props to Jackson and all- we took off early yesterday to see the final film. It was everything I hoped for... except for the bits that I expect I'll have to wait for the extended edition DVD to see. And I was to busy grinning ear to ear to notice any serious bloopers.
The Oscars have been irrelevant for years, much like the Grammy's, the Heisman Trophy, etc., and any other award granted by a cadre of geezers too out of touch to bother with actually perusing the candidates. Personally, I thought Fellowship was very deserving, but A Beautiful Mind pushed all the right Academy buttons (Oscar winning actor portraying a mentally ill genius, cha-ching!).
Probably the worst part for Jackson's chances is that most of the Academy members likely haven't read the books, and there is a popular perception that the movies are more geared to appeasing Tolkein fans instead of a broader audience. All the same, I'll be watching in March, hoping against hope that he wins. Why? Because it will give him that much more clout with the studios on future projects...
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"And I was to busy grinning ear to ear to notice any serious bloopers." Anyone else out there catch themselves grinning like an idiot in the dark during these movies? I know I did. I was worried when I heard they were being made that they couldn't live up to the material, but Mr. Jackson did himself proud.
I recall hearing from a couple of sources that Tolkien actually did intend for Middle-Earth to be the same earth that we stand on right now. After all, he was trying to provide a mythology for the Britons, whom he felt did not have a grand mythology in the same way as the Norse or the Romans. The only source that I can find at the moment is from here, but it does contain the following:
I'm sure that I can dig up more sources from "Letters of J.R. Tolkien" or other books should you require more evidence.
You're right that there aren't any elves, Maiar, or Valar around nowadays, but remember that they all reside in Valinor now, beyond the reaches of men. Sauron was defeated, Saruman's spirit was blown away by the wind from the west, and who knows what happened to the Ents, Trolls, and Orcs. The Fourth Age was the Age of Man, and here we still live.
No, of course it's not real, but it's still a wonderful fantasy - far beyond anything the movies showed you. My fellow readers of The Simarillion and The Bible would understand what I'm talking about when I say how much Tolkien's work paralleled Biblical creation.
I live in L.A. and one of the more noxious Oscar-season practices is for publicists to actually visit the nursing homes where academy members are clustered for special "viewings" -- I have three academy members who live in my apartment building: all of them are over 60.
Conventional wisdom at this point is that "RoTK" is this year's 300 lb. gorilla at the Oscars. Where New Line is going to end up screwing themselves is that they are submitting for four potential nominees in Best Supporting Actor and two in Best Supporting Actress. Acadmey voters will tend to go elsewhere if split. See New Line Cinema's awards-shill for RoTK for more information (Flash Required).
Maybe the Oscars are irrelevant to you but they are a cottage industry here in L.A., not to mention one of the top rated shows in the world every year. Finally, a lot of non-blockbuster movies and smaller studios depend on a nomination if not an award for their marketing: The Pianist did most of their box office and almost all of their DVD sales as a result of their Oscars.
Los Angeles (and Hollywood) is a factory town, like any other factory town anywhere in the world -- our products just tend to get noticed more. Don't kid yourself: a lot of people's year-round financial well-being depends on the Oscars, both in Los Angeles and around the world.
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> They are all horribly framed, overlighted in an horrible, cheesy manner, and the music is always way overboard.
Interesting. Bear with me for a second here. For contrast I'm going to compare to David Lynch's "Dune"
First off - if Lynch had been allowed to make it a 4 hour extended DVD then most of the movie's problems would've arguably been solved. With that in mind, the style Lynch used was an odd dark mixture, the lighting was convoluted, the scenes were framed in a very "staged" manner, the set was just plain over-the-top weird, and the score by Toto was incredibly melodramatic. I loved it. It fit perfectly with the mood Herbert developed so well in the novel. It fit perfectly with a quasi-religious messianic jihad sci-fi story set in the year 10000AD.
Back to LotR. Tolkein's storytelling is highly grandoise while still being deeply intimate, his elves are glowing with mystique, his scenes are rich and fantastic, even the colors seem saturated when reading the novels. What you describe as horribly framed, overly lit, cheesy and overboard, I would describe simply as 'Fantasy', especially Tolkien fantasy. Peter used that style I think in a similar manner to the way Lynch went over the top with his style in filming Dune, albeit in a more accessable, less esoteric way. And I think in both cases it worked GREAT. Sci-Fi is funky strange worlds. Fantasy is fantastic magical worlds. It's only cheesy when some goof applies it to say.. The Titanic.
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