The Lord of the Rings... 19 Years Later

long time ago in 1937 j.r.r tolkien decided to write a novel called the hobbit a book for children about a short guy who goes on a wonderful adventure little did tolkien know how popular his story would become but when it did he decided to write a more mature story afterwards this time it was a trilogy called the lord of the rings trilogy and little did he know how popular that would also become throughout time as movies and tv became more popular there were attempts to adapt tolkien's grand epic such as these animated movies that is frankly a lot of fun to watch but in 1995 a man named peter jackson decided he would take an attempt at adapting this lord of the rings trilogy to the big screen after years of hard work during the pre-production the actual production and post-production the lord of the rings trilogy began with the fellowship of the ring in 2001 and concluded with the return of the king in 2003. these films went on to become three of the most successful films imaginable not only were these films huge hit amongst casual audiences but hardcore tolkien fans were mostly pleased and critics themselves loved these films the box office numbers didn't hurt anything either return of the king is tied to this day for the most successful movie at the oscars winning 11 oscars including best picture almost never does it happen where a blockbuster movie wins best picture but lord of the rings managed to pull it off this trilogy managed to capture the awe and imagination almost everyone who watched it i remember when i was younger and these movies came out and for years all i could think about was re-watching the movies playing the video game adaptations of the movies and running around with my plastic swords pretending i was aragorn fighting a bunch of orcs but even with all this passion for the trilogy in the 2000s that passion has not faded all these years later this trilogy was so popular that amazon decided to gamble over a billion dollars on the most expensive show ever made in the history of tv so what made lord of the rings so popular how did a story that was originally written in the 1950s moves so many people decades upon decades later what makes these movies arguably three of the best movies ever made well let's go back in time almost a century to the beginning and i mean the beginning john r rr tolkien's influence on the fantasy genre is immeasurable he wrote the hobbit in 1937 and then went on to write his lord of the rings trilogy in the 1950s tolkien created his world of middle earth pretty much from scratch the characters the places and even original languages all stemmed from the mind of tolkien even though he borrowed some of the races of middle-earth from old european folklore like elves and dwarfs he put his own spin on them and made those races into their own he also created some new races for his world like the hobbits and the orcs yes that's right every time you have seen some sort of orc in a fantasy story just know that it came from tolkien there's no denying that the modern fantasy as we know it today has taken heavy influence from tolkien's work sometimes a little too much if it weren't for tolkien many of our beloved stories probably wouldn't exist it should be noted that even though tolkien is seen as the father of fantasy the genre did exist prior to the hobbit in 1937. stories such as alice in wonderland the well at the world's end time and the gods and the king of elflyn's daughter are just some stories that had built their own realized fantasy worlds before tolkien built his but where tolkien became the father of the fantasy genre was with how he pioneered the fantasy genre prior to his works with the hobbit fantasy stories were more about stories of escapism characters would begin their stories in the ordinary world of planet earth and would somehow make a journey to a whole new world the laws of physics and basic rules of reality didn't apply to these worlds these worlds were as the genre's name suggests simple fantasylands where anything was possible they didn't have strict rules or maps or made up languages these fantasylands weren't meant to be fully functioning worlds they purely served as a means of taking the characters on a journey where they would become reformed by the time they returned to the real world so in these fantasy stories earth and its rules still existed and characters would begin and end their stories on earth but the world they journeyed to was truly a fantasy since these fantasy lands didn't have any strong world building or established rules and limitations they were often seen as juvenile before tolkien the fantasy genre was directed towards children with little room for adult interest and this is where tolkien revolutionized the genre middle earth wasn't a world that a character entered and left by the end of the story middle earth was the world of the story everything about middle earth in the story of the hobbit was real from the locations the races the gods the religions and the magic systems were all real in this story this wasn't so much a fantasy land anymore as it was its own world the term tolkien used to describe middle earth was a secondary world because you could literally learn about its history and its cultures like it was a real place and that is how tolkien really revolutionized the genre so if you were to dive deep into this new world of middle earth he created for the hobbit the influences on tolkien's life are noticeably prevalent in these stories there are two major influences on tolkien's work european inspiration and catholic inspiration tolkien was an expert in old english literature and it is no secret that the poem beowulf had an immense influence on tolkien beowulf's dragon has striking similarities to the dragon in the hobbit both dragons are ferocious sherry agreed for gold fly at night and are rather old furthermore the shire is reminiscent of rural england and eisenguard is reminiscent of industrial england the shire is painted as this wonderful place of happiness people work outside they live on the farms there's a strong sense of community people go to taverns for fun this is the ideal world that tolkien loved and that's why it's portrayed as such a wonderful place comparing that to eisenguard it's seen as a place of full-on construction devoid of life destructive to nature and has no sense of community this comparison between the shire and eisenguard exemplifies tolkien's world view of england at the time the kingdoms of men such as rohan and gundor also have european influences rohan is from the goths scandinavians and the medieval anglo-saxons anglo-saxon influence is prevalent in the culture and the language of rohan while the goth influence is seen with the rohirum's connection to horses gundor is inspired by the eastern roman empire or the byzantine empire the celtic influence can be spotted with the elvish language with tolkien comparing the two these are just some examples of the european influence on tolkien now the other major influence is that of catholicism tolkien himself has said that the lord of the rings is a fundamentally catholic work we see plenty of people throughout lord of the rings struggle with the temptation of the ring it doesn't matter how good or evil you may be all of them are victims to the temptation of the ring we see with gollum that he was once an ordinary hobbit but once he comes into contact with the ring he kills his best friend and cousin and slowly starts to lose his humanity over hundreds of years he may have been gifted with a long life but not a very fulfilling one even someone as good-hearted as bilbo can become demonic at the thought of getting the ring boromir someone who is a good and noble man sees the ring and claims he can use that power to destroy sauron that's part of the ring's temptation you can't use the power of the ring to destroy the power of the ring and in the climax of the story even someone like frodo who has been able to resist the temptation throughout the entire trilogy gave in to the power of the ring beyond the allegory of the ring tolkien also has three christ figures illustrated in his story frodo gandalf and aragorn since i am no catholic of my own i'm gonna quote this article the catholic origins of lord of the rings which says it best link in the description below frodo is a christ figure as the ring bearer if the ring is seen as synonymous with sin then bearing the ring is like carrying the burden of sin christ bore the burden of sin by carrying the cross in other words frodo is a christ figure by carrying the burden of sin as christ carried the cross gandalf is seen as a christ figure in his death resurrection and transfiguration the wizard lays down his life for his friends at the bridge of casa doom and is later resurrected as gandalf the white his transfiguration is evidenced in the part where his friends first see him in his resurrected form but his garments are so white and dazzling that his friends are forced to cover their eyes and gandalf is forced to wear a grey cloak over the white aragorn is the third major christ figure because he is the true king he has the power to descend into the lands of the dead and to have the power over the dead themselves to release the dead from their curse of course this reminds us of christ's descent into hell after his crucifixion to liberate the souls of the dead so those are the three christ figures in lord of the rings the last catholic influence i want to talk about is the destruction of nature tolkien was a major skeptic of industrialization and its effect on nature as i mentioned earlier the shire is representative of the best of rural england the elves are also a species that live in strong harmony with the forests when eisengard is destroying the forest of fangorn to build his army the ants are forced to take action they don't want to get involved in the battles of men but when their lands are threatened they take action against isengard the catholic and european influences on lord of the rings are not hidden they are front and center these influences are a big reason why the books were so beloved back then and why the movies are so beloved now and peter jackson and his team made a concerted effort to translate these influences into his films which is an effort that must be commended speaking of peter jackson let's jump forward in time some 40 to 50 years to the production of lord of the rings most of my videos that i do i talk about the story and whether or not it's good or bad lord of the rings is a great story no doubt but on this channel i want to talk about movies and shows the story of lord of the rings originates from the 1950s a long time before the movies were created i'm not here to take away from the brilliant job that jackson and his team did at adapting this story but at the end of the day they didn't create the story they didn't create the characters and the themes of lord of the rings that was all tolkien so while i can sit here and talk about every detail of the story and why it's great i want to take the time to really focus on the movies themselves and what they contributed to its big success and yes while the fantastic story is a big part of that i would argue that the impossibly great production of this trilogy is just as important to its success as the story i would argue that there are three movie productions of the past 60 years that contributed the most to the advancement of the film industry the production of the original star wars the production of james cameron's avatar in the production of the lord of the rings trilogy what's crazy about the production of the lord of the rings trilogy is how different its initial conception was originally jackson was working for miramax to develop the lord of the rings duology the two films would be the fellowship of the ring and the war of the ring however as pre-production was beginning co-founder of mirror max harvey weinstein pushed to turn the story into one film that's right this sack of wanted the lord of the rings trilogy to be one film jackson said he would agree if he can make the film four hours but weinstein wanted it to be one two hour film imagine telling the entirety of lord of the rings in two hours inevitably jackson and his team left miramax and joined new line cinema new line ceo robert shane told jackson that he wanted three films and would give him a budget of 300 million dollars jackson enthusiastically accepted and pre-production began nowadays it doesn't seem unlikely to give a big movie that kind of money but if we were to travel back in time 25 years this was a gigantic gamble for new line cinema 300 million dollars is 100 million per movie and even the top-notch directors at the time were lucky to get 100 million dollars for a big movie george lucas got 115 for the phantom menace and that was seen as a pretty much guaranteed financial hit there was nothing to suggest that this lord of the rings project would work jackson himself wasn't even a proven director he worked on horror comedy movies that had almost a budget of around 26 million dollars now he was being handed 300 million dollars for three movies even if we put things into perspective today it's extremely rare that all three movies in a trilogy can get greenlit at once most of the time the most famous trilogies that we know began with a single story that was a massive hit and then the studio gave them the green light to make a second or third film what often happened here was that the later films would suffer because the first movie was a complete three-act story then the writers would try and turn the second and third movies into a second and third act story often time writers didn't have the luxury of committing to a story over three movies because they weren't given the luxury of a guaranteed second and third movie the alien movies had a fantastic first movie struck gold again with the second movie but the third one was pan the terminator movies had a fantastic first movie again struck gold with the second movie but got panned for the third the only trilogy i can really think of that landed all three films was the original star wars trilogy and even then return of the jedi is mostly seen as the weakest of the three when iron man came out in 2008 the first avengers movie wasn't guaranteed to even happen the team behind doom took a huge gamble making part 1 because there was no guarantee that part two would ever happen so rarely is it the case that an entire trilogy is greenlit from the start the only examples that i can think of of trilogies that were greenlit from the get-go were the star wars prequels the star wars sequels and the hobbit trilogy the hobbit trilogy should never have even been a trilogy the star wars prequels disappointed a lot of people on many levels regardless of what fans may say today and the star wars sequels didn't even take advantage of planning out all three stories at once so jackson getting all three lord of the rings films greenland at once gave the story a huge advantage at becoming successful because the seeds could be planted for a 12 hour story and this all ties into a larger point i want to make when tolkien created his world he put every ounce of his blood sweat and tears into creating middle earth middle earth is one of the most detailed fantasy worlds ever created and tolkien's effort did not go unnoticed so in the spirit of tolkien new line and peter jackson devoted historic levels of time and resources into this production as you'll see in a second the passion and effort that went into creating these movies arguably rivals the dedication that tolkien put into his own story pre-productions for movies usually take on average three to seven months before cameras start rolling and usually a bit longer for larger movies the lord of the rings trilogy from the second they got the green light to make three movies the second camera started rolling had a pre-production of 26 months during this time jackson and his team had devoted countless hours to art design workshops of sets and locations and costume design art design for the trilogy began in august of 1997 where jackson began storyboarding the movies jackson wanted a gritty realism to the story often citing 1995's braveheart as an example it was imperative that the world of middle earth feel as real as possible and that involved creating this gritty look that the films possess and not the look that the hobbit possesses jackson made it an effort to be as faithful to tolkien as possible tolkien values the importance of nature in his stories that became of the utmost importance to jackson's team they decided to film the trilogy in new zealand mostly due to its beautiful lands that could capture the scope of middle-earth and while designing other locations for the trilogy they wanted it to have the presence of nature too notable tolkien illustrators alan lee and john howe were brought onto the project and they were responsible for designing bag end helms deep the black gate the balrog moria ederas ministereth in many locations again jackson was committed to doing the extra work to make the world feel exactly like tolkien's world moving on to what was created in the workshop for this trilogy it is completely stunning the weida workshop as they called it had five major design elements armor weapons prosthetics creatures and miniatures john howe was the supervisor on armor and he and his team together made 48 000 pieces of armor they forged hundreds of swords around 10 000 arrows 500 bows and even some crossbows for the urukai the dedication to the armor was so intense that two people had the job of linking together a chainmail for an entire year that is all they did linked chainmail for an entire year when it came to prosthetics the workshop created 1800 orc bodysuits to go with 10 000 orc heads one of my favorite nuggets of intro from the pre-production was that 1800 pairs of hobbit feet were created for the actors no they didn't just walk around barefoot they actually wore these feet looking shoes while filming apparently the prosthetics for gimli's nose were so complex that it took four hours every morning to get completely right when it came to the weapons in lord of the rings jackson and his team had to take a lot of creative liberties considering many of the weapons were never depicted in the books the designers of the show went as far as to create new weapons for the story such as arwin's elvish sword hadafang furthermore over 19 000 costumes were made for the trilogy fun fact elijah woods stated that this one orc from return of the king was designed to resemble harvey weinstein i just love that so much i hope everything that i've explained in the past few minutes or so emphasizes how impressive the pre-production was and how much detail went into it right here what i just spoke about is what i think contributed the most to the success of the trilogy but it doesn't stop there not only was the pre-production incredibly long but the actual production was insane it usually takes around three to four months to shoot a single blockbuster movie but the lord of the rings trilogy took together 438 days to film which is around 15 months total so around 5 months per movie and that all happened back to back for 483 days straight what should be praised about this production should be how clever jackson's team was at creating certain shots yes the cgi in these movies are revolutionary but the tricks that went behind certain camera shots are far more impressive than that it's no secret that jackson loved to use force perspective for certain shots such as the moving table that frodo and gandalf set at in the fellowship what's so genius about these kinds of effects is that they will never age cgi will age over time and some movies created 15 or more years ago no longer hold up in the 2020s but practical effects like these will never age i could be watching these movies in 40 years and they will still continue to amaze but if i had to choose a single aspect of the production that impressed me the most it would be the miniatures or as jackson called them the bigatchers of course the production team didn't create an entire castle like helm's deep or ministereth that would be huge but what they did do was create miniatures of the castles that were well larger than people themselves just look at this picture of peter jackson standing in this miniature of helm's deep what this allowed the production team to do was put an immaculate amount of detail into these sets so when they would be blended with scenes with real actors not only would they blend beautifully but it would add an extra richness to the world these bigatures as they called it are what i think contributed the most to the realness of middle earth in these movies and unfortunately these bigaters are probably something we will never see again the last part of the production that i want to discuss is the visual effects of the creatures yes the effects behind creatures like the trolls or the watcher in the water or the balrog are incredible but the effort that went into creating gollum is next level if you want in-depth detail on how great of a job this team did with gollum then you should definitely watch this video but originally gollum was supposed to be a completely cgi character when andy circus played him in pre-production the team was so impressed with his voice and his movements that they decided to go down the route of motion capture because george lucas pretty much invented the concept of motion capture with jar jar binks jackson was able to replicate that with gollum that's right if it weren't for jar jar binks in the phantom menace we would never have had gollum in lord of the rings i love phrasing it that way because it's so funny but anyway if you want to see more about the production of these films the behind the scenes material that comes with the dvds and blu rays of these movies are some of the best behind the scenes videos you will ever see so 100 go watch those if you haven't already i don't need to repeat myself any further here when talking about how impressive this production was the effort that went into these movies is unmatched and should be applauded for the rest of time sticking to aspects of the movies that are great other than just the story i want to talk about the battles specifically helms deep and a little bit of minas tyra also riding a battle in a book is far different than riding a battle in a movie the lord of the rings trilogy managed to turn these two battles into two of the best battles ever to hit the big screen now i have a minor hot take i actually think the battle of minas tirith is better than the battle of helm's deep both are perfect battles but i just prefer the one in return of the king i'm gonna make an analogy here on what makes a great battle but this analogy may be speaking to the wrong people if you are a fan of any sporting event what would you say classifies as a good game usually the best sports games ever are the ones that were close throughout where in the last minute or so it was anyone's game if you are a fan of a specific team or player participating in a game of course you want your team to win now if your team blows out the competition you'll be happy but you wouldn't say it was a good game now if your team gets blown out not only will you be furious but you'll still acknowledge that it was a bad game if the game is closed throughout that means there are going to be moments where your team has some minor victories like scoring some points and there will be moments where your team suffers some minor defeats like where the other team scores some points if you were to look up all the best sports matches in history they're all games that were either close throughout or there was a blowout but the losing team managed to come back and win the same thing applies to a great battle if you were to map the tension of a battle the great ones will always look like that of a heartbeat with levels keep on going up and down except as the battle progresses the tension will get higher until a point where the good guys either win or lose so any great battle must have two important components contrast and escalation a contrast between moments of victory and defeat and an escalation in rising tension so let's take a look at helm's deep helmsdeep begins with silence kind of like the calm before the storm the old dude shoots an arrow and the elves shoot a bunch of arrows a little minor victory then the urukai shoots some crossbows and they raise their ladders a minor defeat so there's some fighting on the wall and another thing i want to point out is that there shouldn't just be a contrast between mini victories and defeats but also moments of levity but here you need to be more careful because you don't want a stark contrast between tension and levity or else you will have a tonal problem since this is the beginning of the battle the tension is quite low so you can get away with moments of levity and the ongoing count between legolas and gimli is a great way to do that so we cut back to the battle and we saw the wall blowing up and the urukai marching up the stairs to breach the front gate obviously the wall blowing up is a major defeat but the way it's filmed shows that it happens gradually we don't just see the wall blow up instantly we see the urukai place the bombs then this one dude running with a torch for a bit this builds tension and payoff for when the wall blows up another aspect of this battle that i want to add that is really important are these wide shots when you have a battle that takes place in one location understanding the geography of that location is crucial so this way when major beats are happening you know where they are happening and how close they are to your characters if i were to ask someone watching this movie for the first time to draw a simple map or outline of helm's deep they could easily do it you have the castle you have the wall you have the stairs you have the caves these wide shots where we get a clear view of the battle does a perfect job at illustrating the geography of helm's deep we know aragorn legless and gimli are on the wall and theodin is on the castle nothing is more frustrating than when something is going on and you have no clue where your other heroes are and why they aren't helping so again these wide shots are perfect back to the battle after the wall is blown up we get some victories the elves shoot down a bunch of urukkai we get this badass charge and the glass surfs down the stairs in an unrealistic but cool way aragorn signals for retreat and haldi or dies these are some defeats notice that when he is dying though there aren't any moments of levity yeah you can have a minor victory afterwards like aragorn jumping on this ladder but if legless were to make a joke right before or after haldier died then that would be a tonal problem so the rest of the battle is pretty much moments of victories and defeat the fight by the gate is a victory they are treat again which is a defeat then they march outside for a minor victory and then gandalf and the rest of the rohirum show up and pretty much seal the deal as a victory there's two last things i want to say there's a crucial detail added to the story about why gandalf's arrival works gandalf doesn't just show up out of the blue like a deus ex machina and save the day from certain defeat he specified that he would arrive at the first light on the fifth day so that changes the perspective of the battle it's no longer simply about them winning they just need to survive long enough for gandalf and his reinforcements to show up so when gandalf does end up arising at sunrise it feels earned because our heroes managed to survive until then they weren't just randomly saved the only criticism i have of this battle is that it wrapped up a little too quickly for me when gandalf arrives the battle is over within two minutes we get this wonderful wide shot of the scenery but we clearly see that the urukai have a substantial part of their army left the battle easily could have gone on a bit longer but instead the urukai retreated right away not the biggest deal in the world just a minor complaint if we were to look at minas tirith it would pretty much go the same way i don't want to sit here and go through every narrative beat because that's unnecessary this battle is filled with victories and defeats victories and defeats and then an ultimate victory at the end and again i want to point out how stunning these wide shots are just like helm's deep a viewer can map out exactly what is happening and where it is happening during this battle we know where the castle is we know where palm oil fields is and we know where air grown arrives later on all these moments here are what make a great battle this is why the battles of helm's deep and ministereth are two of the best battles ever put to screen i know i said i wouldn't discuss this story that much but one aspect that i do want to discuss is the ending because this is a bit more specific to the movie the only real criticism that the return of the king seems to ever get is in regards to its ending the common complaint is that the ending is too long and that it shows like five or six different endings before the movie actually ends i for one completely disagree with this notion and here's why the reason some people argue that the ending is too long is because a little under 30 minutes pass from the moment the ring is destroyed to the final shot of sam and his family since the destruction of the ring is the climax of the trilogy having an extra 30 minutes of story continue on after that is a bit unnecessary what people don't seem to realize is that the destruction of the ring is not the climax of the story it's the climax of the plot the plot is the external events of the narrative the people of middle earth need to destroy the one ring that is the plot of lord of the rings this story is the lessons that we learned from the characters themselves and their journeys this is internal usually the climax of the plot and the story happen in close proximity to each other like in avengers endgame when tony kills thanos killing thanos is the climax of the plot because that's what they've been trying to do for so long but the climax of the story is tony sacrificing himself because he began the mcu as someone who was selfish and now he's committed to the most selfless act possible the plot and story both climaxed the moment tony snapped his fingers in lord of the rings the climax of the plot is when the ring is destroyed but the story of lord of the rings is about how the ring affects our characters if frodo actively destroyed the ring then that would be the climax of the story because he would have overcome any temptation but that's not what happened frodo failed to destroy the ring and gave into its power he's frankly lucky that gollum was there to fight for the ring because if he wasn't sam probably wouldn't have killed frodo and then frodo would have just walked away just like a coelodor had after the ring is destroyed every time we see frodo he is troubled because he knows he failed and he knows he ended up giving in to its temptation frankly frodo probably pondered suicide here when he was on the edge of the cliff only for sam to convince him otherwise when they're outside mount doom there's a moment of relief for frodo but also a moment of shame when frodo's in bed he's ecstatic to see everyone but once sam shows up he frowns not because he hates sam but because it's a reminder of his failure frodo suffered some deep emotional trauma in his journey to destroy the one ring and it haunts him through all these different endings when everyone bows to frodo and the other hobbits at minas tira frodo doesn't smile because he doesn't feel worthy of that praise when he talks to sam in his home he still looks visibly ill and haunted at what happened at sam's wedding he smiles briefly but the shot ends with him frowning again even during frodo's final goodbye he looks like someone who is suffering but once frodo steps on board the ship that is leaving for the undying lands he smiles this moment here where frodo smiles is the climax of this story frodo is able to find inner peace with what happened to him on mount doom the reason i appreciate this ending so much is because peter jackson and the writers have a fundamental understanding of the most important parts of lord of the rings with any narrative of any kind the story is always more important than the plot the plot is there to serve the story and weaker movies are where the reverse is true when the ring is destroyed we feel an overwhelming sense of relief but we aren't emotionally moved by that event a moment like sam carrying frodo is a far more emotionally powerful scene because it's all story sam's determination to help his friend is something we all admire and appreciate and it's arguably the best moment in the trilogy frodo's final goodbye to his friends is an emotional moment because not only do we know this is the last time they will see frodo or happy he found inner peace after struggling for so long in any story really the moments that are more likely to make you cry or be emotional in any way or moments that are story focused and not necessarily plot focused peter jackson understands this and made the right call with the ending could it have been shorter maybe but those are my two cents on why this ending is perfect [Music] so lord of the rings all these years later why does it remain as popular as it is the success of this trilogy was so immense that amazon gambled a billion dollars on a show set in the lord of the rings universe of course it's easy to say that the reason this trilogy is so popular is because these movies are arguably some of the best movies ever made but i think it's more than that adapting a story isn't what makes a story great what made the jackson films so popular and has kept them so popular all these years later is the level of depth that both tolkien and peter jackson put into their respective works human beings are simple the more time you put into something the more invested you will be in that something say you watch the lord of the rings movies and you love them great now you can watch the hobbit trilogy or the amazon show do you love those well you can go play some of the video games or buy some of the action figures do you also love those or you can go read tolkien's books himself including the silmarillion which includes hours upon hours of lore that you can read about and immense yourself in the most popular franchises have endless ways you can enjoy it outside of its main movies or shows and lord of the rings is no exception the immaculate production and execution of this trilogy is probably something that will never be replicated again so let's take a second here and appreciate how lucky we are to have a trilogy as great as lord of the rings all these years later

Channel: The Gold Man

Views: 1,002,606

Keywords: lord of the rings, lord, rings, tolkien, peter jackson, frodo, atagorn, rings of power, video essay

Id: uXMAgwcP7e8

Length: 30min 44sec (1844 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022