Peter Jackson interview on "The Lord of the Rings" (2002)

director Peter Jackson is here while you may not have heard of his first two films bad taste and meet the Feebles or even his 1994 oscar-nominated Heavenly Creatures you most certainly have heard about his latest it is the Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring it has grossed over 700 million dollars today and has been nominated for 13 Academy Awards including three for Jackson best film Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay the film is based on the first of the three mythological novels by jr. are talking it is the story of a hobbit named Frodo and his quest to keep a magical ring out of the hands of evil here is a scene from the film the language is that of Mordor which I will not utter here although in the common tongue it says one ring to rule them all one ring to find them one ring to bring them all and in the darkness fight I am pleased to welcome Peter Jackson to this table for the first time walk thank you and congratulations thank you very much thank you is this the movie you set out to make yeah I mean it's very interesting because as a director I kind of I I have got a good ability at the very beginning when we're first starting to write the screenplay I've quite a good ability to imagine the film in my head like you know even the very first page of the script as we do it I can start to imagine the camera angles the music I can start to feel how the film is coming together and I sort of have this imaginary film starting to be put together and that's right back at the beginning and I'm in this case we started this process about five or six years ago and then what happens during the course of the movie is that this this film that's playing in my head always gets modified because as you design the sets you know then the sets that we've designed replace the ones that I originally sort of imagined and then as the actors come on board their faces put fit into the characters I imagine and so my little internal movie is always changing and being updated so that um it's it's you know it always ends up better everything every time my film in my head gets changed it's improving all the time there's always all these other people are coming on board and giving their input into it and so on yeah I mean I I'm incredibly proud of the film I I you know it's well I mean the reality is is probably better than what I imagined because I you know I imagined something at the beginning I didn't imagine Ian McKellen playing Gandalf at the beginning you know and when he comes on board Wow and Elijah Wood and all the other actors it's so it's exciting creatively it's exciting because you there's always new things happening when everybody else gets involved what's amazing about it is that you have made three films in one yes span of time yes yes that that was it's really you know a tribute to New Line Cinema to Michael Lin and Bob Shaye because they they've taken a gamble that I think will probably go down in history as one of the all-time get you know Hollywood Gamble's because you know nobody nobody has ever said we'll pay for three films three big-budget expensive complicated films will shoot them all together before we released the first one because we don't even know if the first one's going to succeed on all of the box-office I mean it's a hell of a risk and a hell of a burden on I mean a hell of a weight for you to carry yeah yeah it has been I mean there hasn't been a single day while we were shooting that we that we didn't feel that way did you feel the weight of we've got a lot riding on this other responsibilities I mean the fate of the studio to some degree we were told was was riding on these movies that time it would be it would have disastrous consequences for the studio for the company if these films didn't work or the first film didn't work an extra frame did you as you were making these I mean can we expect the second and third the first is out there's a lot of good reviews when look at all the nominations and people are saying terrific things about it for the most part mmm do you think the second film and the third film will match that wait that's the other side they have to be better than that they they have to be because that's sort of the way it needs to work um it's an interesting process because what you have to imagine is that I'm not really in a position now as they you know the director of the Fellowship of the Ring which was released at Christmas and it's been as you say reasonably successful I'm not nothing to say reasonably successful yeah I'm not really in the position to sort of say okay now I'm about to start working on the next film so I've got a now do this this and this to the next film to make it bigger and better and where we had this in the first one we're going to have ten of those in the second one you know because I'm not really in it position because they're all film but they were all done at the same time so to some degree even though we're editing the way yeah we're cutting the movies and we're still able to do a little bit of creativity and shaping and things there's definitely more opportunity for that the films that the films are what they are the three of them were shot together at the same time they're a continuation of the same story so if you like the first one you should like the second one yeah and even more emails you'll be more into this we made at the same time you know they were all filmed together you know so we were just on a roll so it going through this great sort of essentially nine-hour story what's the status of second and third well there there's rough cuts of both those films I mean I've seen them both and they're very very very rough form and what we're doing now with the second one because that's where all of our attentions on the second movie and I'm bet halfway through doing a proper kind of fine curve here you are at 18 years old in New Zealand English parents who moved to New Zealand began to make little 8-millimeter films yeah at 18 years old you read torquing yeah yep I did yeah at 34 you start making the movie yeah 34 30 began the whole process yes you're now 40 41 40 40 yeah with you investing a lot of your time yes yes I mean it's going to be eight years but from the beginning to the end of the third movie when we release it next Christmas it's going to be eight years but I well I mean I mean I think they're eight years incredibly well spent yeah III wanted to be a filmmaker as you say ever since I was a ten-year-old and you know the Lord of the Rings but for somebody that loves escapist cinema like I do that loves visual effects that loves films that sort of transport you away and that's what I want to do with my life I mean I'm very very lucky I'm one of those people that get to do their hobby as a career yeah basically and you early when you wanted to do yeah and and but I you know I regard myself as being pretty lucky and especially it's you know I mean the Lord of the Rings is the ultimate project I mean why wouldn't I want to spend eight years on a three Lord of the Rings films I mean why not it is the wonderful book to adapt it's fantastic but didn't are you going to go through the rest of your life people saying how can you top this or do you have to do something dramatically different by dramatically different I would say I mean I don't have a career plan but I I mean people are asking me that the common question that I'm getting asked now quite a lot is wow this you know they see me as this New Zealand filmmaker that's always lived in New Zealand and I've made you know low-budget films and and everybody says well after this is going to and all these doors and you've got the key to the kingdom and you're going to be able to come to Hollywood and rule Hollywood and I actually just want to stand New Zealand making my stuff down in New Zealand so in a funny kind of a way without wanting to sound sort of ungrateful that I don't see this film really is opening up particularly doors that I care to go through you know that I sort of I'm an independent filmmaker I have my own little set up a New Zealand that I've been making films on there for 10 or 12 years and I'm very very happy to continue probably probably make it a little bit easy to get financed for films however yeah you mentioned new line for a second there and the bet that they're making on this yeah the interesting thing is I understand it you and always wanted to make the three of them at one time but you presented the idea to Bob Shaye to do to hoping that he would bite and say why not three well there's a there's a there's a long legend or there's a longer story behind that up I'll try to give you the short version of the long story and you like the history of because it is very interesting I mean people don't realize really how close this film came to not happening at all it was originally a Miramax production we started developing it with Miramax in about 1996 you know quite inquired about the rights in 95 Saul Zaentz had the rights as a famous producer meeting his patient in this patient and we we called Harvey Weinstein and said to Harvey you know we'd love to love to do this we have a first-look deal with Miramax which meant we had to take any project that wanted to them so we called up Harvey and said we'd love to do this he said who's got the rights and we said Saul Zaentz and he said well that's great because I'm making the English Patient with Saul right now and he owes me a big favor because the English Patient was about him not to be made and then Harvey snipped and grabbers so so that was our first piece of great luck is that how he happened to be working with Saul and still had the right so so that legal stuff happened and the rights became you know became available to Harvey and so we started develop it with Harvey we pitched the idea of three films and Miramax didn't really want to take that risk but we agreed on to two Lord of the Rings films you know two and a half hours like five hours total which we thought we could we could adapt the book the three books on that way so we did a screenplay as we developed it over the course of about two years at the same time as writing the scripts Miramax were also putting a lot of money into basically pre-production on the film we hired a team of 30 or 40 people that we were designing the movie we were location scouting we had visual effects being done we had monsters being made computer work was happening a lot of money was spent in fact it was a better twenty million dollars got spent during this time and then we ran into a real snag because by the time we'd finish writing the screenplays and doing a lot of the development we were able to come up with a much more definitive budget of what it was going to spend it was going to at that point these two movies were going to cost about one hundred and thirteen hundred and forty million to make and javi said well I have only have an ability to go up to 75 million on a film and of course Disney owns his company so I understand I'm not entirely certain but I do understand that Harvey went to Disney in the ask permission for to spend extra money to make these two films and was refused refused their permission so Harvey was in a real Jam and he turned to us and said look you know I've got a problem I just cannot go ahead with these two films so why don't we just make one and we said so you want us to make the first one first and release it which is sort of the common sense approach then and and then if it's accessible we'll go make the second and he said well no no I just want to make one Lord of the Rings film so we've got to figure out a way to lose all the story and to compress it all into one movie so we didn't really feel comfortable with that at all in fact we just felt it was a recipe for disaster but that did anybody that had read the book that went along to a movie titled the Lord of the Rings was just going to be was going to be disappointed was gonna be shocked at what this two-hour version was actually going to be like and we just did why would you do that when it was guaranteed to disappoint but anyway Harvey had no real choice and he said this is the only thing I can do so we at that point we literally walked away from the project and we said to Harvey we can't be involved in this anymore and we've been on it for two years so it was a fairly we were over it we were over here in New York and had this head that's rather gruesome meeting at the Memex office and just said look you know we can't be involved in how he said I mean he understood it was like we were both in a jam and javis heart was always in the right place but he could he had nowhere to go and we so we got on the plane back to New Zealand it's like a 20-hour flight and we felt now that we'd come to the end of The Lord of the Rings which was a tragedy it's because you put so much emotional investment into these these things when you work on them so long and and our agent Kim chemins here in the meantime while we were flying about 20 hours back to New Zealand he had called Harvey and he said look you know Peter and Fran who's by who by partner they've been working on this for two years however you got to give them at least a chance to take this somewhere else if you can't do it there may be someone who can and so Harvey because Harvey was prepared to hire other filmmakers to make a single film vision as Harvey had spent 20 million and he wasn't able just to kill it he was now going to have to find someone else to do his movie so he could at least get get his investment back and so how he said okay this this there's two conditions one it's got to be it's got to be the two films somebody's gotta agree to do two films cuz I'm offering to do one so somebody's got to agree to the two the second condition is who if somebody wants to do it they've got to write me about four weeks from now to write me a 20 million dollar cheque so we we were now faced with the job of him to go to LA to Hollywood and try and convince somebody to write Harvey a twenty million dollar check and and finance to Lord of the Rings movies so we we were in we arrived in New Zealand with US news and we had four weeks and so we had all this visual material all our designs our creatures we had a lot of stuff and rather than just go into a Hollywood office and just like do a verbal pitch we thought we've got to make use of all this wonderful visual material that we have because it was it was pretty amazing and so we decided to make a documentary because and so for the first week of our four we got a video team in we interviewed ourselves you know talking about the Lord of the Rings it was like a mate of making of the Lord of the Rings before it got made you know but the interesting thing with that tape is that is that we're all trying to sit there be really positive and confident I'm being interviewed and I'm saying you know the most wonderful thing about talking story is a but but we're all dying inside because this is like the project it's going to unless this works but it's all over and we are hoping and we're but we're trying to not show that and we're all you know so we did all this lovely photography of these these monsters where we turn them on turntables and lighting them and we did it all priests which it ended up being 36 minutes long and so then we get them in week number two we go to LA and we we now have to hit Hollywood without without with our videotape and try and get someone to do this and and and by the time we arrived in LA our agent has gone through every studio every producer who could possibly raise money and he's virtually been turned down by everybody even without seeing the tape without meeting us people just say no we don't to do it you know Lord of the Rings 2 movies 20 million dollar check to Harvey no no no no no and by the time we arrived in LA there were only two meetings or only two people who wanted to even meet with meet with us everyone else had passed and the first one was Polygram who saw our tape and they loved it and they said look we this is fantastic we really really want to want to do it and we thought great right and then they said but our company this was 1998 and they say that but our company is being sold Polygram was now being up was up for sale and they said there's no way we could do this until the sale process is complete and we said well we've got like you know two and a half weeks how quick these are going to get sold and they said I was going to Mountain months away so that we walked out the door that was a no-go in one last shot new line new line cinema was our last shot who had agreed to have a meeting and at this point we were we were worried that we were going to be known as as failure so with new line we we tried to create the impression that we were really busy taking meetings and so you know we hit this one meeting but like we'd phoned up new line and same meeting meeting you 19 o'clock no no no we can't do 10 we've got a meeting know one o'clock know we're busy at 1:00 about 3:30 and we tried to create this impression that we were kind of really being sought after and we were gonna quit because I mean it's terrible as nothing you had know but we had nothing though so we turned up we turn up at our new low meeting and Marco disky you know who's executive a new line who who was an old friend of mine natural effect and I knew that he was a huge Lord of the Rings fan mark had set it up and Matt was Mark was really excited about the idea of doing this and I met Bob Shaye who had known earlier and Bob Bazar really straight guy so you know we knew we'd get you know we get some sense from barber buddy he was going to do so we sat down he he had a private meeting with me first he said look Peter I just wanna before I see your tape I just want you to know that if we don't do this I want you to know that you're always welcome to bring projects to me in the future so I thought oh well this is the cleanser and setting you up for the fall yet the fall so we win and we put the tape in and we were and he plays it and he just sits there completely silently just watches it and we just nervous we can't stand it he's in the wind the same room as he is and he's just watching much of 36 minutes and as the tape comes to an end he says I don't get it and I thought okay any turns he says I don't get it why why would you be wanting to do to Lord of the Rings films it's three books isn't it shouldn't shouldn't it be three films and I think what's he saying here was he saying here and he said them he said look look we're interested but we're basically interested in three movies and and it was that I hope you got up and when I went Kristi well yeah I felt like yeah I mean it was unbelievable and out you know it these sorts of stories don't really happen they are not so you're left there saying I want to make three movies we can go back to New Zealand we went back to New Zealand that the Miramax and and and uline lawyers got hammering out how he got his chick right and we've got five percent on board ya know how he's on fire Tyler's executive producer or what he deserves it I mean javi was there at the very beginning and gave us a lot of support when we needed it so it's sort of it's everybody's come out okay okay so all of a sudden it's a go you can spend how much money for three movies well at that point you see we only had budgets for two movies so then we had to write rewrite the script so we throw out our scripts we had to rewrite the scripts was the scripts for three films is a very different structure to two so that was a there was another 18 months I mean this is now getting into 1999 they budget out at they into that budget out at 207 70 million because we were able to put a whole lot more stuff back into the movies that would cut out and then and you know and and we went into basically into production in October 1999 Prideaux all three movies two hundred and seventy million dollar budget two hundred and seventy for shooting days and we got going talk about casting the casting for the Lord of the Rings was vital it was vital on on several levels it was vital one because it's one of the most beloved books of all time and everybody that reads that book has a mental image of these people in their minds and when we do - I mean we're fans of the book so we were determined to get the casting write that we had to cast people that felt like they had stepped out of the pages of the book we didn't want to cast big stars because that is distracting I mean I think if you're taking if you're taking characters from a famous book and bringing them to life you don't want a huge superstar face because at the book and the the star kind of don't kind of gel we wanted wonderful actors who like chameleons who could just bring the characters from the book to life first and foremost secondly it was important because we were asking our cast to come down to New Zealand where we were shooting for 15 months I mean really 18 months because I had to come down six weeks ahead for rehearsals and so we're saying we were asking all of our actors to leave their their homes their families or bring their families with them come down to the strange country that had never been to for 18 months so we wanted to make sure that we were casting people that really were prepared to commit to that and and the byproduct of that which which I have come to realize I didn't really think about it at the time is that the spirit of the cast was wonderful because I realized that none of these people were actually making a job decision they weren't they weren't making a what's what's my next film going to be oh I think I might just do this film you know I've got three or four I can choose I'll do I'll do Lord of the Rings I mean because it wasn't that normally they'd be on a movie for three or four months I mean the decision to come to New Zealand for 18 months was like a lifestyle decision much more so than just a gig and so we ended up with actors down in New Zealand that basically as a group felt well we're not going to spend this amount of time on a single project without ending up with something we're really proud of you know what I mean it's like and that wouldn't happen every movie it's like this was not a job this was like 18 months I want this to be great yeah because I'm here 18 months and they just arrived they does it let's get going this is we want this to be great and in that that let lasts for the entire shoot I actually think that spirit is a spirit of it's a spirit of putting your heart and soul into something and and I think that shows on the screen I think that really comes across on the screen and New Zealand as a place contributed to that for you as the movie well New Zealand as a location for the Lord of the Rings is perfect I you know I mean I I mean I mean using a filmmaker and I love and work there so for me it was easy but I think that if any filmmaker anywhere in the world was doing the Lord of the Rings New Zealand would be like right up on the location as it's an unspoiled Britain so to speak yeah well you know talking I mean the middle-earth that Tolkien wrote about was not is not a other planet it's it's a mythic prehistory of Europe and so these sort of New Zealand has these unspoiled kind of primitive European landscapes essentially all right talk about the castle it first of all that we'll see in a minute Frodo but Elijah Wood yeah the most important casting the most important casting you know I mean you know that the problem with getting the casting wrong if you cast a Frodo for instance that sort of irritated you you know and you always see movies with somebody and always you back to you then then we were we were not we were not sort of spoiling one film we were spoiling three movies so the cat you know it was a lot riding on it and Frodo is a very very important character in the movies but he's also an incredibly difficult character to play and to cast an actual fact because I always regard Frodo as being the everyman character that you know when you read the book this is back from the book that when you read it I think you sort of channel you channel a lot of your imagination through the character of Frodo in the book because he's experiencing the journey he's the innocent he's like us I mean we like the hobbits really and and he's going these places he's going places that we'd never want to go and he doesn't want to want to go you know and yet he's having to deal with it so so he's so in a way Frodo is the audience of the film and those sorts of characters are fiendishly difficult for actors to play because they they have no gimmicks you know they have no quirks so tell me why Elijah well I'll tell you about alive I mean we we were convinced that Frodo was going to be an English actor because we wanted the hobbits to basically be English as Tolkien really wrote them so we went to London and we started auditioning we didn't we did we couldn't think of any actor to play Frodo I mean you know names like Ian McKellen immediately catch up again Dava nion home for Bilbo but but Frodo we had nobody in mind so we thought it would be an unknown English actor young young kid so we went to England we auditioned we're in London auditioning for about a month and we had probably seen about 300 Frodo's dangling rejecters there were two or three that were okay but nothing nothing magical you know because it's photo he'd be magic magical and every time the casting room door opened and some young nervous nervous young actor would come in you were we were saying as this could be Frodo and you sort of know within 10 seconds that I wasn't really it wasn't really Frodo and it was it was a worry but we were plugging on and then our casting director John Hubbard said to us one day when we arrived to do some more casting he just hid our packages just come in the mail and we said oh yeah he says it's from Elijah Wood and it was a videotape a VHS tape just been a package sin to London and I had heard Elijah's name but I'd never seen a film he done so actually I actually had no face for Elijah I didn't know what the visor looked look like but Fran Walsh my partner's he had seen the ice storm and she said ah no no and this this this kids pretty good he's an American but he's got this really interesting face and so we put the video tape in and Elijah head basically he was in LA and heard that we were in London and weren't going to come to LA and so he then he really wanted to get this role and so he'd had heart you'd hired a dialect coach to teach him this is all what he did himself without us even knowing about it hide a dialect coach T German accent he'd gone to the local costume higher and he'd got the sort of cheesy kind of Hobbit costume on he'd gone up into the trees somewhere up behind his house with a friend and he just videotaped his own audition where he was because he didn't have our script so he was reading from the book and he was like doing Frodo parts from the book and and I just put I put this video tape in and literally I mean not having known who Elijah Wood was really I just thought he's wonderful he's absolutely great bingo bingo and so Elijah Elijah cast himself roll tape here's a scene in which Frodo is being chased by the evil Dark Riders and he decides to leave the Shire you then there is ian mckellen yes now Ian was quite different to Elijah ian was a name that we had right from the very beginning where where we thought about all the perfect candles who would be the perfect end of it was a fantasy casting we could we were the lucky people that could sit there with the Lord of the Rings and say now if we were making a movie who would we cast because we were wet we were making a movie we had to catch somebody so we he and McKellen was it from from day one for us I mean no we no other choice no no we know Anthony Hopkins no no Anthony Hopkins we thought would be interesting for Bilbo but then but then we you know but we fell in love with the anomaly we would have loved the idea of Ian why McKellen we wanted obviously an English actor we want an English actor of a certain stature and we wanted somebody who would bring Gandalf to life in a way that that didn't he's he's a chameleon Ian that's what I love about Ian is he he's not an actor who who puts his own stuff right in your face when he's playing a role he he absorbs himself into this character and he out comes the character emerges and that's the sort of actor that we wanted and we wanted somebody obviously who can I mean the Shakespearean quality of Ian as this experience was perfect for Tolkien because Tolkien's language is kind of heightened and it's not easy it's not easy to say the dialogue that Gandalf has to say in the film without it sounding a bit cheesy so it's so you know you need a great actor they make it sound wonderful to go from the cheesy to the to the great and one in one easy step and so Ian is obviously wonderful at just being able to to be wonderfully believable I wish the ring had never come to me I wish none of this had happened so do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us there are other forces at work in this world Frodo besides the mill Aviva and I tell you what I mean people people should just realize how absolutely difficult that's role was to play because I I have a huge dislike of wizards in films and books I mean Wizards are not great characters and the Lord of the Rings obviously my biggest problem was the fact that you have a wizard with you who in a sense when one way they've become cliches I've ever become cliches since the Lord of the Rings I mean Tolkien created this character and since then since the 1950s everybody is obviously just done versions of Gandalf and all sorts of different things so this is the prototype but nonetheless it's the long beer that's the pointy hat it's the staff it's what you you know imagine a cliched wizard to be like and so Ian and I worked very very hard to to basically play him not as a cliched was it at all but to take to take a lead obviously from talking because Tolkien had had talking had designed a character and Gandalf who is an ancient spirit a very powerful spirit and immortal who never dies who's been sent down the middle earth to combat evil to help fight this evil and he is for some reason aren't quite know why but he ends up being put in the body of an old man so you basically got a mind which is which is which is young and vibrant and and but you've got he's stuck in this old carcass and with creaky bones and he doesn't have the energy that he really wants and it's frustrating for him being stuck in this body and that that leads to all sorts of interesting possibilities you said about this that you wanted the costumes and the actors to give the audience a sense of authenticity that make it real make it real that's I think that was important because the fantasy genre in terms of movies I don't think has ever really succeeded wonderfully well I mean there's been some movies but been okay but they Hollywood seems to let confidence in this particular genre for some reason and you know you can name over the last hundred years of cinema you can name the great westerns and the great spy movies and the great cowboy films I mean the great musicals you know but the great fantasy films I mean it's a genre that's that that no one has really kind of come to terms with very well I believe in a and I wanted I thought I thought well we need to reinvent the genre a little bit and I just thought well you know why don't we just take our lead again from talking I mean it's there in the book he wasn't writing fantasy I don't believe in the 12 years that he was sitting down in his little epic room up in his house writing this thing in a longhand I don't believe for a minute he thought he was writing a writing a fantasy story not one minute he was a an Oxford professor who was who dedicated his life to a love of mythology ancient mythology which is not fantasy this is very different mythology is different to fantasy and and and talking always mourned the fact that England's mythology had been eradicated by the Norman invasion 1966 the mythology is based on are all stories that are passed down from generation to generation before the printing presses and you know the Greek mythology's of the Trojan horse and Achilles and things they survived through the years that the great Norse Sagas survived through the years but England when the Normans invaded whatever stories had been nurtured were eradicated by them and so England's mythology was like medieval stuff like Robin Hood and King King Arthur I mean it didn't go any further back than that so so talking thought he wanted to create a mythology for his country for England and this is what he did he spent his lifetime doing the stories of middle-earth and the Segre you know and in the history the history of the mythology that the concept as he always says he said I imagine this took place in England in Europe some seven or eight thousand years ago this is this and so we thought okay okay so what we'll do with the movie is we will we will pretend that this is history but just as if we were making an ancient Roman film or making Braveheart you know about Sir William Wallace you know you know we'll pretend that these guys existed it's history it was real that that let's let's make the movie with that weight of authenticity in the designs that look the performance is everything so so that that was our mantra you said that you made the movie that you didn't make the movie that tokin would have made but you made the movie he would have enjoyed well I hope he would have enjoyed I've got no idea whether he would enjoy it i but you had some reason to say that I I made them we what we tried to do with the movie because there's also a lot of themes and talking obviously more than just the plot those others well there's um I mean there's a lot of themes and talking friendship I mean he was mentorship me he was in the first world war he was that he was in the trenches he went into World War one with his classmates you know his school chums and by the end of World War one only two of them were still alive he saw he saw men die saw friendship and a fire he understood what what what that was like in Frodo and Sam's relationship pretty much based on that he said he was born a hundred years too late that he would have liked to have lived in England in a pre-industrial age in the early eighteen hundreds before in the middle of that century the chimneys and the factories started sort of spreading across the landscape and a lot of the Lord of the Rings is about that the destruction of forests and the the rise of metal and machines he hated machines he said that the most evil creation ever visited on this on this world was the internal combustion engine and and he hated the idea of people being slaves to the machine like when we turn on the TV that the TV is controlling us now we're slaves to the to the television where slaves to that to the motorcar with the the ring in the movie in the book the ring is is is a symbol for the loss of free will that the ring takes away your free will he also and obviously it's relevant today but it was written you know this book was largely written in the 1940s one of the one of the strong themes that you know everyone talks about the good versus evil which is kind of true but but in particular he was he strong theme of The Lord of the Rings is that if you if you turn your back on the lessons of the past if you ignore what's gone before you and he's obviously probably talking about post-world War One Germany and when what happened during the 30s if you turn your back if you ignore what what what is happening in you and you and you don't learn from the lessons of the past you know you will suffer did you have some kind of mechanism in a sense so that you could make sure that you were true to talking well we we didn't want to put any of our I know certainly in terms of the thematic material we didn't want to put any of our own baggage I mean we had no interest in putting our messages into this movie but we thought that we should honor Tolkien by putting his messages into it and we thought he cared about things we you know he Dino the countryside and and then in the rise of evil and and he cared passionately about certain issues and we thought what we should do to honor him is to make sure that that that his what he cared about ends up in the movie that's what we tried to do someone one of your actors said that there was that the most inspired moments of making this movie came from doubt and panic when you're when you're in any movie you are basically you have a feeling once you start shooting as the shooting of the movie that there's the thing love is that's when the actors are involved you are you're you're on a train you can't get off because the Machine starts rolling you know upwards of a million dollars a day is being spent by this huge organization that end and it often feels it doesn't it's not only just like you're on a train you can't get off it feels like you're running in front of the train laying the rails down there's a thing there the things coming up behind you and and you it get creates a very exciting adrenaline pumping kind of tight crew creative time when you know you wake up in the morning at the end of this day you've got to shoot this part of the movie you're not going to get any other time to do it because it's got to be done today and often in our case you know at the end of the day we were all getting in buses and driving a completely different location so we didn't even have a possibility of coming back tomorrow to finish it so you just you just go there and you want to make the best film you can and and you just you just just just it's just creative energy that happens one thing you added to this is female characters we didn't add female characters we expanded a little bit we are when Liv Tyler's character was really the one that we expanded slightly not not another huge amount in order to do to serve an audience well it wasn't for commercial reasons I mean if we were strictly commercial you know Liv would have been in the film from the beginning to the end I mean if we were hit because she's obviously wonderful and the more the more that the bitter really to some degree from a commercial point of view but but then obviously would not have been undone being talking know the character of our one who lived who lived plays very very wonderfully she is barely in the book I mean she's just such a tiny character in terms of what talking wrote and yet she does play an important part because she is the ELL she's an elf she's an immortal she never dies she lives forever and she and is in love with Aragorn an arrogance a mortal man just like we are he has a lifespan a natural lifespan and the the only way that the two of them can be together as if she gives up her immortal life and and becomes a and stays with him and dies with him and so it's a wonderful who bittersweet love story that's there in the book and we just simply wanted to have a little bit more screen time to sort of to make that work for the movie so so we did to enhance it a little bit Thanks minute yeah speaking of Eragon here's where Frodo meets Eragon played by Viggo Mortensen what do you want a little more caution from you that's no trinket you carry carry nothing deed I can avoid being seen if I wish but to disappear entirely that is a rare gift why you frightened yes not nearly frightened enough I know what else you who's the audience for this movie is it adults and kids yes all it's all arranged late to 80 80 and Beyond you had final cut well yeah I can't remember on our concert I think I share final cut with Bob Shaye but you know it was a very collaborative process and I mean as you know I I just had the most wonderful experience as a filmmaker because there was never any real argument or conflict that any time we had disagreements we'd sit down with listen to each other's points of view new line were very collaborative and you know I mean as a filmmaker and as an independent filmmaker as somebody who does pride their independence and doesn't consider themselves a studio guy I I have no complaints I mean it was it was a wonderful filmmaking experience for me nothing now that you look at it that you would have been do differently um well it's probably a better question to ask me in 10 years time because that's when you get a little bit more perspective on the film I you know I've just finished cutting and I'll turn it a version of the Fellowship of the Ring which was interesting because why would you do that for the DVD ah because we obviously theatrically you see we we had a lot riding on this movie as we discussed I mean you know a huge amount of stake the first film had to work the box office or it would have been it would have been something you don't even want to want to think about that it would've been terrible so so we you know we had a lot of a lot of there was a lot of discussion obviously about how long the film has to be and I obviously believe ultimately the film should be as long as they need to be because a film is something that you just have to feel your way through it as you get you're cutting it and we we ultimately you know obviously had a movie that was nearly three hours long which commercially is a little bit risky but nonetheless we everybody felt strongly that the film worked length but in doing so we certainly we cut it at a pretty quick pace we know which is one of the reasons why I think that three hours people enjoy it because most people come out of it saying they didn't feel like three hours I think that's that is because it pays as long but but what we what we had to what we had to lose in our cutting process is a lot of little character moments we're where most of the characters in fact have wonderful little scenes where they get developed where we learn more about you know Aragorn and we and Merry and Pippin and the guys and so I would just I've judged just recently just before I came over here actually last week I finished cutting a DVD version of the film which is 30 minutes longer so there's now a three and a half hour version of this movie which I love I love the fact that DVD it's not really a director's cap because I I consider the directors cuts the one that went out in the movies but this is like an alternative extended version for people that would like to see so what would I see in that version I don't see in the original version you'll see a lot of scenes a lot of scenes um you know that they're 30 minutes of extra footage is like sprinkled all the way throughout from the pacing so someone falls in I don't see it's a little character memorizes little character development with a pause a couple of guys have a little scene together and then they move on I mean it's it's it's good it's a pretty good stuff actually and I looked at their and I thought well this is actually this is this is good I don't think it would have been a good idea to release that version of the cinemas but it's good that people will be able to see it on DVD your fascination with the notion escapism yeah is white well I believe strongly in breaking the barrier when you go see movies and what I mean by that is that obviously the movie-going process is one in which you walk into a darkened theater you sit in the chair and 20 feet away there's a screen and you watch the screen and when I was a kid as we all were I'm sure the same to you every time I used to go to the movies when I was 12 I'd leave my chair I wouldn't be in my chair anymore I just go into the screen and I'd be I'd be there I'd would just be lost in the film and as an adult that doesn't happen very often to me anymore now you know and I don't know whether it's because I'm getting older or because the films up doing that anymore but I was I tried as much as I possibly could with the Lord of the Rings to recreate that type of movie where where where the the audience can just get lost and just go into the movie and just become part of a film because that is your passion well if this kind of genre or not yeah is that what you think distinguishes you as a filmmaker I there's a sense of being urgent about that idea I I mean Hitchcock Gumm Hitchcock came up with my favorite quote as a film quote he he once said some people's films are slices of life - slices of cake and I love that that does that that's where my heart is slices of cake yeah any what was the most difficult hurdle to overcome for example there you've got characters of different size yeah so you got to figure the relationship and we've got them all through the movie I mean and they react with each other and so everything has to be different yeah the size of a glass yeah in your hands it can't be the size of a guy's if I'm a little person no no we had to build a lot a lot of things twice you know a lot of sits at the be booked twice bag in which is a sit that we've seen in some of the clips here where you know Gandalf and Frodo are talking with the Ringo's and the fire for instance that that bit was quite a large a whole little building a little hobbit house and we had to build that twice so that when Elijah was shooting his scenes he was in a bag and that was the appropriate size for Elijah as a hobbit so the ceilings were quite high and there were books on the shelves and chairs that he cuz he could sit in and then for all of the shots of Ian McKellen he wasn't in the same sit he was next door in an exactly identical set but about two-thirds of the size so that Ian's one he had the stoop under to get under the doorways and if he stood up he banged his head on that on the roof and it was - because he's a big guy at the hobby he's much taller than the hobbits and so he he didn't fit in the bag in very well but that meant that even the chairs which were all hand-carved they had to be replicated smaller the tables the books the stuffs on the floor the rubbish everything had to be made smaller for his version so a lot of things had to be built at two different sizes and I mean this was one of those movies where where every single thing in the film had to be built yet there was not one item we could go to a props warehouse and rent and we head to also then think think of the cultures because because the Lord of the Rings tells a multicultural kind of story so in the hobbits the hobbits are eating with knives and forks now when you go to the where the elves live they've got knives and forks but they have to be completely different because those knives and forks I mean you know so we studied we thought now if you're an elf and you're immortal and you live for 3,000 years what would your knife and fork be like don't know what we want what what design influences would have steered you towards coming up with with something that you used to to her to cut your Brussels sprout with so we we hit that we put a huge amount of thought into the cultural design I mean Richard Taylor grant major Ellen Lee I mean a lot of wonderful designers who fortunately are all people that have been up to these Oscars now so I'm so pleased that their work has been celebrated in that way because I tell you everything thousands and thousands of things that we made at all with a view to creating a fictitious cultural backgrounds to to influence the design of these different places that we go through answering talking's question about himself what period of history would you prefer to have lived in I am well I'm unreasonably comfortable with wither with with today actually because you live in New Zealand well and I and I like TVs and things I am I I don't really and the internal combustion engines okay in cell phones and the cell phones are okay and movie cameras movie cameras and cinemas I mean I I love the movies so I guess I actually I I would find it hard to imagine a world without movies to be completely honest what is that about oh it's just I mean as escapism as I say it's a storytelling - yeah I mean I guess I guess I guess I guess if you were living two or three hundred years ago you it would be oral stories that would be sitting around telling tales around but the attraction of you in movies is it gives you the tool to tell Moo tell stories um well I love telling stories because I love having stories told to me I mean I love movies I'm a movie fan I've loved going to see movies as long as I can remember and and through loving movies as an audience I've come to love the ability to make them could you have made a beautiful mind probably I mean you know in some respects Heavenly Creatures is it's not the same subject subject matter as a beautiful mind but it certainly that type of movie as a psychological drama so I've done that yeah in the bedroom is going to mean um don't know I mean in the bedrooms not not not quite the slice of cake there that I'd be going after could you make King Kong I'd love to make income why well the original King Kong as my is my all-time favorite film the 1933 version I saw that when I was 10 which was the reason why I wanted to become a filmmaker actually is the same King Kong that's the ultimate escapist film and I was working on a remake of King Kong for a while and then Universal the studio who were doing it that decided not not not to go ahead with it and we we had Lord of the Rings kind of in the wings at that point so we were able to do our jump straight onto that project the king can come straight will you ever get a chance to making I hope so I am it's a universal question really they'd have to come and decide that they'll come back and decide to do it Dave some I assume the chances they'll do that is yes celebrated because of Lord yeah I mean we put a couple of smaller films we want we want to make I mean friend and I are um I mean heavenly creatures which which is a is a New Zealand based drama from sit in the 50s a true life story that that was a wonderful experience for us we loved making that film and so we're probably going to follow up the Lord of the Rings with a couple a couple of you know smaller more drama based um films of that sort I mean she's been your partner for in the filmmaking business for a while yeah well friend friend I've got two kids so so we're partners in life as well and uh yep she's she and I worked together on films from you know for the last 12 12 or 13 years here when you look at movies today you know what do you like about the way they are going or what don't you like I think Hollywood Hollywood is is stop taking risks Hollywood Hollywood has become a little bit safe and a little bit of recycling the stuff we light and in a sense what I feel very proud about this particular year and I really hope it helps influence films that are made all around the world not just Hollywood but it's actually interesting that down under New Zealand and Australia with Lord of the Rings from New Zealand and Moulin Rouge from us from Australia that that two films from that part of the world have in a sense you know they've reinvigorated their particular genres that we did fantasy and bears did the musical and you know both films are being set that you know are being sort of celebrated in a way for sort of an for breathing new life into enter these genres and you know I really would love to see more of that risk risk-taking and an imaginative kind of just just go for it happening with some of the big-budget Hollywood films that are being made because that's they seem to have forgotten how to do that a little bit much success at the Oscars thank you that's good to have you here thank you Peter Jackson director the Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring the most Academy Award nominations currently seen in theaters around the country thank you for joining us see you next time

Channel: Manufacturing Intellect

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Length: 51min 20sec (3080 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2016