What Happened to Peter Jackson?

[Applause] Captain Midnight it's hard for me to describe how much I love The Fellowship of the Ring don't get me wrong I love the other two Lord of the Rings films too but to me there's something about the fellowship it's beautiful often practical production design incredible score and small scale at least compared to the later films all add up to just being endlessly rewatchable to me like I'm sure it is for Millions of others as well I'd also guess that I'm not alone in how important those Lord of the Rings DVD extras were to me hours and hours of material detailing nearly every aspect of production granting viewers an unprecedented level of candid access to the creative process that we just almost never get to see anymore being so young at the time I think these views behind the scenes were some of my earliest memories of understanding that people have to actually create these films movies don't just appear out of thin air they're the products of hundreds or even thousands of people's Artistry and hard work and at the center of it all was Peter Jackson probably one of the first film directors I Knew by name and for years I thought of him as one of the biggest names in movies right next to Spielberg James Cameron and anyone else he'd want to put on that level of Blockbuster film making But as time has gone on I feel he's kind of faded from that conversation and to be fair much of that seems to be by choice as he focuses on document iies and other projects that couldn't be farther from Lord of the Rings or his earlier horror films and I think it's made for an interesting career maybe at times a disappointing one but definitely worth examining and not without its highlights but first I should probably take a step back to give the full context of his career because based on his first three films bad taste meet the feebles and Dead Alive you never would have guessed that Jackson had Oscar winning Grand scale fantasy adaptations in his future these movies all have much more in common with early Sam Ramy or an adult swim short from 10 to 15 years later than they do with JRR tolk's work they're all a lot of fun and worth seeking out especially Dead Alive or brain dead as it's called outside of North America I'm going to call it Dead Alive for the rest of this video because that's what I'm used to but honestly brain dead probably the better title anyway with his next few films you can see the groundwork for Lord of the Rings being set even if it never would have been obvious at the time heavenly creatur saw him tackle far more serious subject matter and where Dead Alive featured tons of frenetic camera work and creative Gore Heavenly Creatures basks in its slower paced dark moodiness it's a genuinely unsettling movie unlike his first Hollywood film 1997's The Frighteners which is a lot more immature taking him back to his slapstick horror Roots but in a more family-friendly package it was a huge commercial and critical flop at the time I actually like the movie well enough but I'll admit Roger eirt had a pretty good line when he said last year I reviewed a 9-hour documentary about the lives of Mongolian yak herdsmen and I would rather see it again than sit through The Frighteners but despite the film's perceived failure it was absolutely essential in Jackson's development as a director because it was here that he first really embraced digital effects on a large scale now okay to be fair that's kind of an oversimplification after all he'd already co-founded his digital effects company w a digital in 1993 and it played a big role in the production of Heavenly Creatures but it was The Frighteners where the company was really put to the test and pushed into The Cutting Edge of what was possible at the time something that ended up being very helpful for Lord of the Rings I won't cover those films here they've been so extensively well documented elsewhere but instead I want to talk about what happened after them there was of course 2005's King Kong a bloated Beast of a film that I find pretty wildly uneven but definitely not without its merits Jackson had actually planned to do a different version of King Kong in the 9s and it's clear that he has a lot of love for the original and its stop motion effects if you haven't seen this one it's definitely worth checking out and I honestly prefer it to the more recent monsterverse stuff it's not on Lord of the Rings level but it definitely feels like it's from the same director working on the same Grand scale and then that just kind of stopped that's not to say that he stopped making movies after com there's been a few very ambitious documentaries The Lovely Bones and you know that unfortunate Trilogy that we'll get to in a second but King Kong seems to be the last time he was actually excited about bringing a really Grand non-documentary Vision to the screen in a way that people kind of expected him to keep doing post Return of the King The Lovely Bones is a mid-budget literary adaptation with a great cast that just came out kind of flat and uninteresting honestly even on revisiting I just didn't find that much to to talk about here and The Hobbit movies were basically forced upon him at the very last minute three films that he never intended to direct and seem not to enjoy making there was a Halo movie that he was supposed to produce and maybe direct and that never materialized I'm not saying that he hasn't done anything worthwhile since Kong I actually love get back and the fact that it indirectly made a new Beatles song possible is pretty mind-blowing he's still working with technology in interesting ways in the documentary format but it's just looking less and less likely that he'll sink his teeth into another film with the scale of Lord of the Rings or the slapstic energy of say meet the feebles and that's okay but it makes me a little sad too I wish we'd gotten three more films from him with the budget of those hobit movies that weren't him returning to material that he just didn't seem excited to re-engage with I see a lot of parallels between Peter Jackson and George Lucas they both had early films that were radically different than the trilogies they'd eventually become known for they both had risky successes that made them A-list directors almost immediately they both made prequel trilogies a decade or more later they both founded digital effects companies initially for their own movies that then went on to be major players in the industry at large there are obviously big differences here too like the fact that Jackson actually directed all three Lord of the Rings and Lucas hired others to helm Empire and Jedi so I don't want to go too hard on this idea that they're basically the same gu or anything but they do seem to share something above all that I find really fascinating they both seem to retreat from narrative film making into technological tinkering both of Jackson's recent documentaries they shall not grow old about World War I and get back about the Beatles are vehicles for Jackson to explore new technology and make very old footage look new again if he actually pulled that off or not is another topic I know some people wish he had just left the Beatles footage untouched and get back but I'll grant that it was a really interesting Avenue to explore but as far as non-documentary films go especially on the grand scale that he used to make them he seems happy to produce rather than direct with films like Tintin and Mortal engines again this kind of parallels Lucas he claims to make experimental short films just for himself and his friends and instead of going back to directing he's produced movies like red tales and Strange Magic all of this makes me wonder if directing these massive trilogies and then having everything you ever make afterward compared to them it's just a burden that these two don't really feel like dealing with anymore especially when they had massive companies to occupy their time and you know more money than they could ever spend obviously both of them are free to do whatever they wish George Lucas doesn't seem to want to share his work with the public anymore if he is actually making these short films and Peter Jackson may feel a lot more creatively fulfilled making documentaries with Cutting Edge Tech and working with his childhood Heroes than he does directing a big budget drama or action movie maybe The Hobbit experience really did put him off all of that forever as much as I respect Jackson's documentary work and will gladly check out any new stuff he decides to release I do kind of hope this isn't the case even if he doesn't want to deal with production on the level of those Hobbit movies again where hundreds of millions of dollars are on the line I mean really who could blame him I do wish we could go back to the DIY lowbudget feel of his early work just a guy who is obviously thrilled to be making movies I love Lord of the Rings they're crowning achievements of Blockbuster Cinema in my book but just as with Lucas I sometimes wonder what would have happened if these big trilogies never existed if there were movies in the vein of Dead Alive or Indie dramas like Heavenly Creatures or in Lucas's case THX and American Graffiti that we would have gotten in their place I guess when all is said and done I just have to accept that the Peter Jackson of today is not the guy who made the fellowship or the much younger man who made Monster masks for bad taste in his mom's oven it's been a long time since he's shown any interest in the comedic gory slapstick comedy of his early career or to committing himself to a narrative project as sprawling and complex as Lord of the Rings he's still doing worthwhile work even if I wish he would revisit or expand on some of those things but he doesn't seem to have interest in going toe-to-toe with James Cameron as a Blockbuster aour either like I once expected and I should be okay with that even if it was a little hard for me to accept it as someone who always hoped he had another Lord of the Rings level film in him that's apparently not where his creativity has taken him and I respect that even if I find it a little Bittersweet here's a special tip for the fellas and girls who have not already joined Captain Midnight's new 1940 flight Patrol you'd better hurry up and join at once because there's a big Adventure ahead the thing to do now is to get started because we're going to have not only barrels of fun but loads of free gifts and prizes too

Channel: captainmidnight

Views: 339,808

Keywords: Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, Return of the King, The Hobbit, Get Back, analysis, review, commentary

Id: LxkXMni1lfc

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2024