Peter Jackson's first steps into Middle-earth with “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” was incredible as it followed Frodo and his good friend Samwise Gamgee as they fight their way to Mordor in one of the greatest trilogies of the early 2000s. You can guess that my excitement level was high when they finally announced “The Hobbit” would come to the big screen in its own series, though as many could have guessed it was a terrible venture that overwhelmed its director at the high cost of making a mediocre follow-up to its previously successful trilogy.
In this video you can see a rare breakdown of how the films were riddled with countless issues following the drop of its original director Guillermo del Toro and as Jackson was ushered in to pick up the pieces of over a year of preproduction. Obviously Jackson had a huge part in the success of the original prequel trilogy and as many would have thought it would have been an easy transition. Though as you can see in the behind the scenes he was exhausted and constantly battling creation of props same day as shooting.
I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
— Peter Jackson
Having always been a huge fan of the series it was great to see “Lord of the Rings” come to life and walk me through Middle-earth with stunning detail. So you can imagine my excitement when “The Hobbit” was announced in three new films. As pre-production issues and stalls in director changes halted the movies success from the start it wasn't hard to know ahead of time the film would not grow to its fullest potential leaving me to never even see the last film of the series. Sorry Peter, those latest films were terrible from so many angles but luckily had nothing to do with you.
[via The Verge]
I haven't seen any of the hobbit movies, but this really reminds me of the making of documentary that comes with the blade runner final cut. Really worth a watch.
Should have been one film and that would have made it heaps better - oh, and sticking to the storyline of the book too...
exactly this. It felt too much like a money grab. "The Hobbit" is a good story, but there was too much filler in the movies.
Huge LOTR fan here. Saw the Hobbit and still haven't bothered to see the second and third in the series. They kind of remind me of the Star Wars prequels with all the green screen and filler, though obviously the stories behind the creation of each are way different. PJ looks entirely run down and defeated, bummer to watch that.
Yea, it's really upsetting to watch. I loved the LOTR movies but the Hobbit was the first book I read and had super high hopes considering the first trilogy created was the lesser known story.
I actually walked out on the first hobbit in 48fps and never watched any of the other movies. This video made me never want to be a movie director.
Totally forgot about that! Ha. Yea I could def tell a difference but don't think it was such a headache I had to leave.
It didn't give me a headache, it just made it feel so cheap.
You do realise that they were also offered in the usual frame rate, right? So many think that doing it in 48fps was a bad idea but creative geniuses are those who push boundaries and break new ground for better or worse.
Certainly. I wanted to check out something new. I didn't walk out because of the frame rate. I walked out because I was bored.
I think we can all relate to this. Some clients don't communicate exactly what they want. We need that extra time to collaborate before the day of the shoot. We need it in order to make something special. How awesome can you make an impromptu photoshoot? As PJ said, It is only experience that got him through much of it.
I mostly don't know what I'm doing before I'm on "the set".
Any guides and tips on pre planning is much appreciated :) (Not my strongest suit)
As in filmaking, preproduction is everything. Actually books on motion picture preproduction, location scouting, and scene blocking would still be helpful in still image production work.
It's true, that the Hobbit films were not as solid as the LoTR Trilogy, but they were not awful. Like the Star Wars prequels it was a bit disappointing, but there are some very solid moments in the three movies. By not watching them you miss out on a really solid performance from Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug and some decentness in Thorin's redemption.
Art is hard and sometimes not always as successful as we want it to be. For those of you who swear you will not finish the series, come down off of your high horses. Our "good" material is probably far worse than Mr. Jackson's "bad" material and you only do yourself a disservice by not analyzing these films further to find his missteps as well as his successes so that you might learn from them.
but didn't you see, they made Lee Morris feel cheap. haha just picked Lee as people of walmart.
So much this! they have been on cable the past few months and I have re-watched them all a few times. I thought they were very good. I think the acting from pretty much everyone in the films is really what helped
I feel sad for people who "walk out" on movies.Not giving something a chance.. and a second chance is the wrong attitude to have when viewing art.
It should have been 1 movie and faithful to the book. But Nooooo, lets monetise it as much as we can...
Sadly the truth for many big budget adaptations these last 15 years in movies.
This just further confirms what I've suspected since seeing the first film of The Hobbit.
In TLOTR, Peter and his team got to take their time and make the movie THEY wanted to make. Yes, the films deviated from the standard plot line, slightly, but I always thought PJ and team did a good job of justifying those additions/changes and the final product looked amazing and real and they were all so very proud of the depth of detail.
In The Hobbit, they didn't get to make what they wanted. New Line essentially gave them carte blanche and wrote checks. Then Warner Brothers buys New Line and all WB sees is dollar signs. I highly suspect PJ was strong armed by the WB executives into extending it into 3 films, adding tons of technology that made the film look fake, and pushing story lines that didn't exist, but would sell (Legolas, new female elf, love affair between elf/dwarf, etc).
So I don't blame Peter, I blame Warner Bothers. I'm hoping after a decent amount of time, PJ will write a biography confirming.
Agree and hope that is the case. I don't think its Peters fault by any means but its just alarming to see how distraught he was in this BTS in not being able to have full control of essentially a world he created to start with.
I wasn't a a big fan of the Hobbit films, especially the battle of 5 armies, but hell all things considered they came out pretty good.
Never watched the last episode. TLOTR was alright. Hobbit puts one into sleep.
The songs....oh the horror. Some things once seen can never be unseen.
Never understood the hating on The Hobbit.
I still like them
same here buddy
It's not fair you used a 6 min clip out of a NINE HOUR documentary. I have seen it all lol. Yes I'm kinda tragic.