20 years ago, our theaters were graced with
the beginning of what stands as one of the greatest cinematic achievements of all time. Peter
Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, is a once in a lifetime triumph - and it’s insanely dedicated
production landed at the perfect time to intersect several major shifts taking place in Hollywood.
The budget, production time, and balance of practical and computer generated effects are
all key results of a perfect intersection of a madman’s dream, and the willingness of so many
to give everything they had to this definitive fantasy series. How's it going everyone, my
name's Graeme,and welcome to 2 Left Thumbs. These movies mean the world to me, and I couldn’t
pass up the opportunity to gush about them - while also celebrating this monumental anniversary - by
taking a step back to marvel at what was achieved, and outline why it’s unlikely we’ll ever see
anything like the Lord of the Rings trilogy again. First I’d like to look at the cost of producing
these movies. Their budget was simultaneously one of the largest ever seen, yet made for a cost
that pales in comparison to what is seen for the average blockbuster today. When averaged across
3 movies, you could view the $300 million cost as perfectly legitimate. But it really isn't that
simple. It's a miracle these movies were given that sort of money! I really can’t oversell how
influential Tolkien, and his novels were to not just fantasy, but fictional works and storytelling
as a whole. As the literal grandfather of fantasy, nearly every dungeon you’ve ever quested in,
or dragon you’ve ever faced has some roots in Tolkien’s work. Our collective concept of Elves
and Orcs comes nearly entirely from his original outline. Authors like Stephen King cite The
Lord of the Rings as the biggest influence on his epic ‘The Stand’. And Tolkein’s writing was
so prolific, that it is commonly cited by almost every early sci-fi creator. I could go on and
on. But to summarize, the majority of fantasy, sci-fi, and numerous other works of fiction owe
it all to JRR Tolkien. You would think this sort of prevalence would guarantee any adaptation of
JRR’s work all the gold of a Dragon’s hoard. But keep in mind, that from a filmmaking perspective
this was still a totally unproven IP, asking for hundreds of millions of dollars and the good will
to be allowed to produce multiple movies at once, put in the hands of a small-time director known
for making low-budget horror. Not to mention that fantasy movies were seen as silly kids fair,
with no real appeal for the general audience. Fantasy was entirely relegated to books and
tabletop games. Our only film adaptations were goofy and schlocky works like ‘Willow’, or
‘The Princess Bride’. Fun, but nothing that took itself seriously. And pretty much anything outside
of those comedies were total failures, like 2000’s ‘Dungeons and Dragons’. Those movies didn’t take
them seriously, and neither did the audience. To say this trilogy was a risk would be *wildly*
underselling it. Fantasy movies had a terrible track record, and were barely even attempted
through the 90s. Now, taking on one of the most “precious” fantasy series of all time, became
the unlikely passion project for a niche horror director - whose budgets usually landed in the
$5 million range, with his most expensive movie being $26 million. So at the time when fantasy
adaptations were at an all-time low - always seen as childish or too nerdy - they were suddenly
taken seriously by a man who made gorey, horror comedies, asking for nearly $300 million?
Fat chance!! At the time, elite directors like Spielberg and Ridley Scott, working on “bankable”
movies, would only juuust touch that $100 million range on the HIGH end of their budgets. Asking
for 3x that, all at once, easily made The Lord of the Rings the most expensive production of all
time. The only other pre-LOTR movie still on the list of most expensive films ever made, is James
Cameron’s Titanic, which clocked in at a whopping $200 million. Originally Jackson only came asking
to greenlight 2 movies, but after quickly proving that he was onto something special, he was
approved to expand it to a full 3. This trilogy was so ambitious, that it’s upfront costs and
production timeline are still seen as one of the biggest gambles ever taken. It spent many years
in pre-production, making sure every detail of the script, design, costuming, pre-viz, and everything
else was perfect. And even then, they were changing things on the daily! It’s easy to view
it all as worthwhile in hindsight. But principal photography took 438 days, meaning all the cast
and crew spent well over a year on these 3 movies, when the average principal for a single movie
is only about 4-10 weeks. They were essentially spending 20 weeks PER movie here! The Lord of The
Rings was an epic on a scale seldom attempted, and for good reason! Jackson was pitching it as
a “fantasy Braveheart” - wanting that realism and seriousness in his movie. Braveheart
was backed by a mega-superstar, Mel Gibson, and only capped out at a $70 million budget.
And even with everything working in it’s favor, it only earned $200 million! Cracking $300 million
at the box office could land you as the highest grossing movie of the year, let alone earning
something closer to half a billion, or a full-on billion, that’s much more commonly seen today. The
“$100 million budget movie” was a new phenomenon, suddenly gambling that your movie *needed* to
earn $200 million or more just to break even. That seems like small potatoes now, but this
all came before Hollywood’s hyper-inflated blockbuster approach, which is now built on
the foundation that your movie is pretty well a flop if it doesn’t land in the Top 10 movies
that year, earning 1/2 a billion or more. This trilogy of movies, that seemingly didn't have an
audience, coming from an unproven director - now collectively had to earn at least $600 million.
And if they wanted to be truly profitable, closer to a billion! And as we now know, it earned that
several times over. But that's some BIG dollars to “put it all on black” and let it ride. There are
only a few examples in the history of cinema that took anywhere near this risk, and frankly,
the others either don’t really come close, or are somewhat incomparable. I touched on this
in my “Unadaptable Dune” video, as that was the literary franchise that had felt next most likely
to be given the reverence and attention necessary to greenlight and fund a full film series all
at once. The fact that Villeneuve, one our most celebrated working directors, tackling one of the
most well-beloved and anticipated works of fiction of all time (in many ways seen as the sci-fi
equivalent of The Lord of the Rings) couldn’t even secure a deal for 2 films at once, let alone 3.
Even now, Dune was approved for it’s Part Two, and NOT Three! Underscoring what a mountainous task
it is to secure this sort of commitment from any studio. Shortly after Jackson’s massive success,
we saw franchises like ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ attempt to greenlight 2 movies
at once each. The difference there, is neither original movie was made with sequels in mind, and
they were only approved for a 2nd and 3rd, once the first movies proved to be massive successes.
The Matrix sequels get some additional credit in my book for actually filming simultaneously - with
the TWO of them, matching the budget of all three Lord of the Rings movies - but also for having the
sheer gall to release only 6 months apart. That’s a unique risk all of it’s own! And as a tangent,
on a tangent, I want to praise the budgetary management skills for The Lord of the Rings:
because even though these Pirates movies were only a half-decade later, the two of them cost 150%
what it took to make all three Lord of the Rings movies. More recently the Avengers 3 and 4 were
originally announced as Infinity War Part 1 and 2, then set to be filmed simultaneously. But this was
eventually split down the line into two - spending the time to develop them individually, and not
overwork any of the cast or crew. Those Avengers movies were 2 of the MOST anticipated movies,
in the literal biggest franchise of all time, that were guaranteed to be funded, made,
and billion dollar box office hits each, and they *still* couldn’t make the logistics of
filming 2 movies at once work! There was then a window where every young adult novel adaptation
did a Part 1 + 2 franchise ender. Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games all took this
route. But I don’t think anyone could argue those were a risk. Mission Impossible is now currently
filming 7 and 8 at the same time. So again, our example is a proven mega-hit franchise,
which is aiming to wrap up the story before the lead actor kills himself by pulling some
insane stunt, where he tries to shoot himself out of a cannon into the mouth of a live lion.
That series is also coming off a financial and critical high that all but guarantees they will
see their return on investment. So while they have chosen to brave the back-to-back shoot - there’s
no real risk there. We now have the next FOUR Avatar movies coming up. And I suppose an argument
could be made for those to be on the same level, seeing both the time and money that’s gone
into those films? But four, 1/4 billion dollar movies would never have been greenlit, if they
weren’t following the literal highest grossing movie of all time. And personally, I don’t think
there’s anything I could really care less about than that money-printing vanity project, of making
4 sequels to an average movie with great CGI. So while budgeting for and filming multiple films
at once has been attempted in similar ways to The Lord of the Rings a handful of times since, it’s
always been done as continuations of successful, lower risk series. They are then often unable
to manage the scheduling and logistics needed to pull it off. And quite frequently, they're
left scrambling to cobble together the story for these sequels, having not built the three
films in a way that serve as a: beginning, middle, and end. They kind of exist as a very
compressed beginning-middle-end at the start, with then a weird second middle, and end - with
the next two movies. So from the perspective of their long-lasting appeal, The Lord of The Rings
is always going to have that advantage. And, above ALL else (in the same vein) that trilogy is the
only one of these series that actually managed to maintain it’s quality from start to finish! It’s
one of the greatest film trilogies of all time, and actually managed to benefit from this insane
production scale, rather than getting lost in it’s own mind-boggling marshes. Which leads me into
the insane pre-production effort for this trilogy. A feat of collective creativity, ingenuity, skill,
imagination, perseverance, and patience that is unlike anything that ever came before, or *likely*
will ever be seen again. The actual filming of this trilogy took place over a much larger stretch
of time than would typically be seen. Like I said, principal photography lasted about 14 months! But
what is even MORE mind blowing than that, is the amount of time that went into pre-production!
(Basically: everything that takes place before the first time that director says, “Action”). Even
if we exclude the multiple times The Lord of the Rings development changed hands, undergoing
light development under various studios, and the early personal efforts from Jackson
and Walsh starting back in 1995. If I instead start the clock once it found its home at New
Line, through to actual filming: The Lord of the Rings spent 26 MONTHS in pre-production!
Nearly TWICE as long as it spent filming! 9 months per movie is actually pretty typical.
Investors are forking over big bucks, but they’ll be able to gauge progress quickly (you know,
month-to-month) comparing it to a vast history of production timelines to observe that everything
is on track. But with 26 months of build-up, this means the studio had to fund over 2 full years
of work *before* cameras even started rolling, with no comparable examples to know their money
was being well spent. Two years is longer than it usually takes to go from pre-production through
to a theatrical release! How about some examples? I could compare this to blockbuster movies in
more recent years, like Iron Man. Now, they may not immediately feel like a great comparison
given the current landscape of how superhero franchises are just cranked out of this well-oiled
machine. But Iron Man was another untested IP, coming at a time when superhero movies were
still seen as corny and made for kids or nerds; funded knowing fully well how much would ride
on that one movie's success. Iron Man had also been in development on and off for many years. But
major pre-production on films doesn’t really begin until a director is attached. After Jon Favreau
was hired, it took about 11 months before filming began. How about Iron Man 2? The same director
signed on to return, and major casting was already complete - so you could hit the ground running,
right? Well… that pre-production still took about 9 months. How about another blockbuster
that released only a year before Fellowship? Something that came at a time that was a little
less CGI reliant, and working at a similar time, with similar resources. For this I would look at
a movie like Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’. An epic, action-driven, period drama, that would require
loads of set, costume, and design work to bring to life. I couldn’t find an exact timeline, but
we know the first draft came in April 1998, and filming began the following January. So even
this massive, swords and sandal revival only spent around 8 months in pre-production! And
Ridley Scott was barely given more than $100 million to do so. The Lord of the Rings $300
million budget, 26 months of pre-production, and over a year spent filming are all staggering
on a level that I can’t really describe. So many people gave so much of their lives to
these movies. You can only only remotely get a sense of it by watching the extremely extensive
behind-the-scenes ‘Making Of’ featurettes for these movies. If you’re a fan of this film series,
and have never watched these - nothing will make you appreciate the artistry of filmmaking more
than watching these behind-the-scenes special features. (Exasperated sigh) It just reminds me
how much I still miss really well made special features… I don't want to see a 10 minute look
at how things were made! I wanna see 2 hours for every hour of film that was actually released!
I want to share a few standout anecdotes from these special features, showcasing how not
a single corner was cut, and the true love, care, time, effort, and craftsmanship that was
put into these movies. No, the Hobbit actors are not running around barefoot. They made these shoes
that looked like bare, hairy feet that then needed to be molded, and “cooked” in a special oven ahead
of their fitting. The way they were glued on, and hidden with the makeup - they then had to
be destroyed to be taken back off. In order to achieve this, they had to run that oven 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, and turned out 1,800 *pairs* of these feet over production. The
Battle of Helms Deep alone took 4 months to film, with nearly every day of filming needing to be a
night shoot! That means this 1 battle took *twice* as long to film as most movies! The massive door
for Helm’s Deep was built SO well, that they weren’t able to break it with their battering ram.
The team had to come into set, and strategically weaken the door, so that the actors could actually
smash their way through. The ground-breaking software ‘MASSIVE’ was developed from scratch to
handle the unprecedented scale of battles taking place - allowing for semi-automated animation to
drive these epic scenes that could never be done with extras or hand-animation. MASSIVE allowed
for up to 20,000 CGI orcs and soldiers to battle it out. This tech has since been refined, and
improved, and is now an industry standard, being used in the likes of World War Z, Ben-Hur, and
John Carter. The first movie would have included one more massive action set piece coming towards
the end of the film, with an on-river ambush, with boats crashing and flipping, and Legolas
showing off astride the boat, firing arrows every which way. And the *whole thing* got washed away
in a state-of-emergency level flood. Yeah. There are things in this already nearly 12 hours of
wonder that didn’t even make it to film! There are leaves constantly falling during the Council of
Elrond. But this was actually filmed indoors. The solution? Crew members spent weeks collecting real
fallen leaves. BUT they turned brown too quickly, leading to them being hand painted to retain some
color. A half dozen crew members then stood above the set, dropping and collecting leaves throughout
filming. The Orcs forging weapons under Isengard were in fact staff members of WETA, in costume,
crafting actual weapons that would then go on to be used in the film. Which ended up being upwards
of 2000 weapons, and 10,000 hand crafted arrows. The elephant-like Mumakil (AKA the Oluphaunt)
was the largest prop ever built, needing to be transported in pieces across over a dozen trucks,
to then be built on location. And my personal favourite (this has stuck with me for YEARS!) was
a pair of guys whose only job it was for 2 years, was to hand-link together 12.5 million rings to
create chainmail. This is 13,000 rings, and 3 days work, just to make ONE suit. And that’s one of the
easier styles of suits to craft. And THEN 3/4s of the thing is gonna be covered in some tunic! These
guys had calloused fingers, weird inside jokes, no fingerprints, and seemingly loved every minute
of it. The time needed to make movies this way simply isn’t given any more. With inflating costs,
wonky Hollywood accounting that requires movies to earn twice their budget just to break even, the
constant rush to turn movies around quickly, the arms race to capitalize on the newest trend, and
through a million other potential factors - even the biggest movies made today aren’t given
anywhere near this length of rope to work with. But all that time and detail, the physical
constructions - all of it was made tactile and tangible. And the more the actors can feel that,
the more we the audience buy into it. You believe every second of this that you're seeing on screen
because it's *real*! While the “artistry” of these films goes hand in hand with all the work put
into pre-production, I felt I needed to single out this series' perfect intersection of skill
and technology, which was entirely a product of its time. Remember how The Lord of the Rings was
both incredibly expensive, and incredibly cheap? Well it also simultaneously has some of the best
practical effects, costumes, sets, and designs ever crafted - while also making use of cutting
edge CGI that breathed additional life into the story that could not have been possible only a
few years prior, and would have become too big of a crutch only a few years later. Anyone who has
seen the behind the scenes are probably wondering why I didn’t include examples like the famous
“Big-atures” (massive, to-scale miniatures) that are really undersold by the term “miniature”. The
Big-atures were physically constructed, to then be digitally merged with actual location shooting.
Taking maximum advantage of both mediums. Or, look at the wildly complex feats of engineering
and skill that created the rotating tables, a staggered horse carriage, multi-scale rebuilt
Hobbit-holes, and a thousand other examples of practical effects that allowed actors like Elijah
Wood and Ian McKellan to physically share a scene, while appearing to be completely different
sizes from one another. I wanted to include moments like the big-atures, or these forced
perspective shots, or any other hand-built moments to discuss what a relic this trilogy
is in terms of CGI and effects. Why would you ever build this camera-tracked warping set-piece
table, when you can simply shrink one character in post-production? Peter Jackson came from a
background of low-budget horror movies, before any notable visual effect technology would have
been available. He was no stranger to stretching both budgets and his imagination further
than others. And now that it was available, it was potentially still cheaper and with a better
end result to still do it in-camera. It’s what drove him to approach the world of Middle Earth
with as much realism as possible. The few times simple greenscreen character-shrinking was used
is now kind of noticeable. Even at the time, you could tell something was maybe a *little*
off. Whereas these forced perspective shots will never age a day! That same practical approach
is why the horror-like Orcs and other ghouls still look totally hardcore! You just don’t get
that snarling, physical, tactile grossness with CGI creatures. Creating a 3D model allows you to
bend and twist your movie-monster beyond humanoid proportions and limitations - but everything
usually looks just a liiiittle too clean. But the other side of that coin, is CG creatures
like the Cave Troll still hold up shockingly well! Film somewhere dark, desaturate the whole scene,
limit the amount it physically interacts with things, and: yeah, I can’t believe how
good this thing still looks! They were working with the absolute best of what both
practical and visual effects had to offer, blending the two near seamlessly, matching the
suspension of disbelief that JRR Tolkien’s own writing was famous for. As a more highly specific
example, but something that is so precise in its timing of popularity. There's this rather funny
phenomenon that took place in the early 2000s, with the advent of digital “color-grading”.
In layman’s terms, color-grading is the art of tinting, saturating, and otherwise manipulating
the colors of your footage after filming to better achieve the look and tone the director intended,
but could not achieve in-camera. This is something that had been done for decades before (a lot
of the time used to simply brighten a picture after a dark shoot). But this series landed just
after that tinting process had gone from costing 10s of thousands of dollars - achieved through
photochemical processes applied to physical film; to instead being free, accessible toolsets
in professional editing software. Digital color-grading emerged in prominence in the early
2000s, first really seen in ‘O Brother Where Art Thou’, shot by the legendary Roger Deakins.
We have non-digital examples that came out around the same time as that, like The Matrix and
Swordfish, which used photochemical tricks that created their distinctive tints. Or Saving Private
Ryan and Minority Report, which used ENR silver retention to add their grim, desaturated look. It
wasn’t something you could manipulate per-frame, testing and retesting, adjusting anything beyond
primary blue, green and red shades. Right here now, in my editing software, I can do more to the
color grading for free in about four seconds than they could have done with thousands of dollars in
a full laboratory setup. And that was a totally new thing! Many Directors of Photography hated
these techniques, and refused to make use of it. Disagreeing with both the physical way of doing
it, and the digital. But the Lord of the Rings trilogy embraced this advancing technology with
a visionary restraint that expanded the artistic value of every frame, adding to it on multiple
levels, and presenting this fantasy world in a way that wasn’t previously possible without turning
it into some hacky rainbow that wouldn’t hold up. (I mean, they still had to go all-out on at
least a few shots though. You can’t blame them for maybe having a bit too much fun with this
from time-to-time, right?!) The late, and great Andrew Lesnie is one of the many heroic members of
this crew, being instrumental in bringing the now iconic look and tone of these films to life, both
in camera, and when they were touched up after! The Lord of the Rings movies came at a time
where not just CGI took a massive leap forward, the ability to produce computer-generated scenery
and characters were the result of these massive steps forward. We wouldn’t have the 20,000 soldier
fights, or mythical creatures like the fiery Balrog brought to life without those. At every
corner they were pioneering! Making use of this brand new arsenal of computer-driven tools. And
perhaps most impressive, was the on-set work of Andy Serkis as Gollum - as a leading example of
the use of motion capture technology - that has since defined Serkis’ career, and became a staple
of the industry. For the first time, actors could physically share the scene with a CG character,
allowing for immersive performances and in-camera interactivity. While the process has been refined
a lot, even within the span of these movies, (in many ways creating the technology necessary to
do so) it's even more amazing seeing the practical ways they blended these. If Andy Serkis goes
splashing around in water, you can't really edit him out without destroying the look of the
water and the splashes. They then have to film and re-film this set (with and without him) removing
what they can, adding others back in, making use of visual effects and practical splashes - there
was never a one-stop solution. Every simple looking detail in these movies is the result of so
many people putting forward the best of what they had to offer. The effects necessary to achieve
Gollum *at all* were SO new, that they purposely excluded the character beyond this one obscured
shot in Fellowship, because the technology needed to achieve any more than that was not ready in
time to be applied to that first film. Luckily for us, The Lord of the Rings became the perfect
outlet to test and develop these new techniques, while rarely being easy, or cost-effective enough
to ever be the obvious solution. And since this whole conversation is rather inter-connected, this
circles back to the production team for a second. Those that worked on the miniatures actually
had the craziest production schedule of anyone! Starting their work building these well
before filming began, straight through principal photography, and continuing to do so through
post - essentially up to The Return of the King wrapped post-production. This entire team put in
nearly 1000 days designing, building, filming, and blowing up these mini-monster sets! As I close
this video out, I want to zoom in for a moment, to really highlight the perfect storm that led
to what is still one of the greatest trilogies ever made. New techniques like Color Grading and
Motion Capture are now standard practice. They individually don’t really qualify as a “never to
be seen again” component of these films. But it’s worth admiring the ways Jackson and Co pioneered
filmmaking, wisely selecting and wielding the best tool for each job - rather than defaulting
to what may now be seen as cheap shortcuts. Even by the time the 3rd movie was released, we
could see Jackson leaning more heavily on CGI, resulting in instances like the floaty, green
ghost horde; or a rubbery video game Legolas, completely defying physics. Many of these
moments still look incredible, but in my mind, really flirt with a questionable line by current
standards. These moments that, you know, didn’t really look that good at the time, didn’t really
rear their head till that third movie. As silly as Legolas shield-boarding down the stairs is - it
still looks more believable, because we can see that a real person is doing it! Viggo Mortensen
has famously commented on the CGI bug that bit Jackson, coming to dominate his work ever since:
“Peter was always a geek in terms of technology but, once he had the means to do it, and the
evolution of the technology really took off, he never looked back. In the first movie,
yes, there’s Rivendell, and Mordor, but there’s sort of an organic quality
to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it’s grittier. The second
movie already started ballooning, for my taste, and then by the third one, there were a lot of
special effects. It was grandiose, and all that, but whatever was subtle, in the first movie,
gradually got lost in the second and third. Now with The Hobbit… it’s like that to the power
of 10.” There are countless things across these 3 movies that simply could NOT have existed without
CGI, yet there are so many practical solutions that would have lost that timeless appeal if
it had been attempted with computer technology instead. As Viggo said, look no further than ‘The
Hobbit’ trilogy to see a direct example of how money and CGI cannot replace the love and respect
for the source needed to create a classic film trilogy. Obviously The Hobbit movies had loads of
production issues, starting out as only 2 films, with Gillermo Del Toro set to direct. And by the
time it was 3 movies and Peter Jackson was brought back on board - there was simply no time allotted
to that previous route - even if the studio was willing to tolerate it. Layer that with Jackson’s
deepening love of special effects, and there was never much hope for those movies. We have
shameful examples like the Pale Orc, going from this insane, horrific practical design, to the
rubbery CGI one we ended up with. The technology was notably better than ever for Gollum, and
Smaug looks absolutely brilliant. But with just 2 of those movies costing more to make than
the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy - and the general quality of the films themselves - I don’t
think anyone can really argue that it was worth it. There are already moments in that trilogy
have aged more poorly than a lot of what was attempted with Lord of the Rings. Even comparing
the behind the scenes of the Hobbit trilogy, it’s almost tragic to watch. Everything was rushed,
operating with an over-inflated budget, while practical effects were traded for green screen
and shortcuts - while also carrying the burden of somehow living up to those originals, all weighed
against those films. While I’m sure the production wasn’t completely joyless, you can physically see
Jackson’s exhaustion in those making-of The Hobbit videos, with Jackson often commenting on the
struggles of production and how tired he felt, rather than staying up for four straight
months of night shoots, sharing the wonder of what they were accomplishing. There’s infamous
moments, like Ser Ian McKellen crying on set, claiming that performing alone on a green stage is
not why he became an actor. And understandably so! My heart bleeds for him. They brought back as many
elements from The Lord of Rings as they could, tried to catch lightning in a bottle twice,
and proved that it really wasn’t meant to be. Peter Jackson’s dedication to realism, the
obvious enthusiasm from everyone involved, the passion to do the source material justice,
and being given the resources to do it all - led to what is still the most critically acclaimed
trilogy of all time - essentially sweeping the Academy Awards with Return of the King. For the
record, 3 years in a row - and a set of films that feel that they’ve barely aged a day 20 years
later. For the record, while they didn't win every Oscar, every year - it's pretty well accepted
that the Academy realized it was about to be three consecutive “no contest” years, and opted
to give other movies a chance for those first two years. Physical sets, costumes, and more
never have to worry about aging poorly, as there are no technological limitations that could have
hindered their creation. Yet the timing was right to give the audience otherworldly environments,
creatures, and setpieces believably interacting with all the affectionately hand-built components.
The practical and visual effects work to perfectly capture and blend the imaginations of both Tolkien
and this film crew, to deliver something that transcends the medium. I still believe The Lord of
the Rings are some of the best movies ever made, and a magical culmination of 1000 perfectly timed
people and events, opportunities and limitations, risk takers and dreamers; and so much more! These
movies were released at a formative time in my life, and set the bar at a young age for what
movies could achieve. My mom loves to tell the story of me being so scared of the Orcs after
seeing Fellowship in theaters at 8 years old, that I insisted on sleeping in their room that
night. By the time The Two Towers rolled around that was long forgotten, and I had become a
zealot, rewatching that movie over and over. At this point, I have watched the Extended trilogy
every single winter since it’s release, and will likely continue to do so for the rest of my life.
If you have seen these movies a 100, a dozen, or 0 times, I highly recommend that you set aside
some time over the holidays, set your phone aside, and give the trilogy your full attention for
it’s 20th anniversary. Maybe even watch those behind the scenes videos if you never have before?
Soak in the majesty of it all. Because the result is something to be treasured, and each of the
three films has earned its status as one of the greatest films ever made. And collectively, this
trilogy is on a scale of realized ambition that set it apart from everything else. And we’ll
likely never see anything quite like it again.
