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New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movies in the Works at Warners, New Line


Chen G.

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On 06/03/2023 at 2:45 PM, Nick1Ø66 said:

I think The Hobbit has the better argument for being one film. 

 

Each Lord of the Rings film has its own structure, acts, climax, etc. and they play as three individual, though connected, pieces. I also think it's obvious that Jackson's, let's say, restraint, was less evident by the time he got to editing and post on ROTK.

 

You made this point before, and I think in the case of both trilogies its something of a sliding scale, obviously. Each Lord of the Rings entry definitely has its own standalone structure: all the films do except that The Desolation of Smaug has a "false" climax (which I adore) and The Battle of the Five Armies starts in medias res. Otherwise, even those two films have the function of setup, complication and resolution.

 

Of course, setpieces can have their own internal narrative structure: Helm's Deep has a three-act structure all of itself. The first "act" of the extended Fellowship of the Ring has one. This is surely also the case in other films: its especially true of films from the days when films were scripted with an intermission of mind and so a film like The Bridge on the River Kwai has two parts each with a fully realized three-act structure. Works in other narrative fields have that function, too: cf. programmes that involve the first act of Die Walküre played totally in isolation, because its just so goddamn satisfying on its own.

 

And yes, there is a difference made by the attitude taken in the editing and by the use of pickup footage. But on the whole I'd say the three entries in both trilogies are more of-a-piece than not. Even speaking just for the editing, all three films were assembled simultaenously, and for about a month's worth of time Jackson actually worked on all three edits simultaenously, and while each film has its own editor credited for it, the fact of the matter is the films were being worked on by an entire editing department that worked across all three, and Jamie Selkirk (credited for the third film) acted as supervising editor for the trilogy as a whole (in fact, as "Post-Production Supervisor"). And we all know about a not insignificant amount of footage that had been handed around from the edit of one film to the other.

 

Furthermore, since we're talking about the extended editions, when was each extended edition cut? While cutting the theatrical cut of the next film. So while the films did have three editing periods, there is more overlap than one might think.

 

 

On 06/03/2023 at 2:45 PM, Nick1Ø66 said:

Like Jackson, I was introduced to Lord of the Rings by Bakshi, and FOTR remains my favourite film among the three. I do agree that Return of the King has an amazing payoff, and while it's not the best film in the trilogy, I think there's an argument that it has the biggest emotional impact. "You bow for no one" gets me choked up every time, and is among my favourite scenes in the trilogy, along with the return to the Shire. But I also think, while FOTR and TTT, in their extended editions, are pretty much perfect films, ROTK has some (albeit minor) flaws that cause it to dance just on the outside of perfection.

 

 

See, I personally don't look at films looking for perfection of execution. I'm looking for the overall impact, and the impact of The Return of the King is to me not comparable to that of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers... I would even say combined. Its mostly the result of its function as the climax, I think.

 

I also think its the one that is most unified by theme: which, appropriately enough, is the theme of friendship and companionship, which I think is apt because its very central to Tolkien' story too. And its the most forefront in that film, and by a mile: its in the cutting. So we cut from Smeagol and Deagol - a failed friendship - to Frodo and Sam: the juxtaposition alone makes one antsy. Then there's, I think, a tremendous moment when Merry and Pippin are reunited on the battlefield, and from that we cut to...Sam rescuing Frodo from Cirith Ungol. And then we cut from Gimli's "Aye, I can do that" to what I think its handily the apotheosis of the entire series with Sam's "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you!", so all these friendships are juxtaposed in the editing in remarkably clever ways. There's nothing quite like that in any of the other entries.

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A story about the forging of the rings of power would be great to see on screen. 
 

I think the North is the most likely though. 

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On 20/03/2023 at 11:11 AM, Bilbo said:

A story about the forging of the rings of power would be great to see on screen. 

 

I used to think that, too. That Annatar could be the Mephistopheles to Celebrimbor's Faust, and possibly Galadriel could be his Gretchen.

 

Then Amazon did it...

 

And its not just the way Amazon did it: its that you can't do the forging of the Rings without dedicating at least some considerable screentime, and some dialogue, to...actual forging; nor is it just that a man standing at his forge for scene after scene isn't...the most thrilling cinema, its that in having the characters talk about it, you almost MUST fall into the kind of "scientification" that Amazon did to it, where they talk about why they're round ("circular form would be ideal [to] let the power bounce off itself"), why they're rings, why there's three of them, etc...

 

And nothing - NOTHING - ruins fantasy like scientification (Tolkien himself rightly coined that term, derisively). I said before that depicting creation myths onscreen - be it the creation of Mordor, of Mithril, or whatever - is a flawed enterprise because you're depicting the undepictable; and, if that's the case, the story of the creation of the Rings IS a creation myth par excellence.

 

War in the North is much more matter of fact: literally just a war and some personal tragedy coming Arvedui's way. Its totally absent the metaphysical elements that made the second age so tricky to adapt. Really, all the third age stories are very "earthy" in that way, which is a good thing.

 

I also think Warners will avoid any overlap with Amazon.

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On 20/3/2023 at 5:19 AM, Bilbo said:

Sorry. I’ve never heard of this Amazon thing. 

 

I heard there was a 4th Indiana Jones movie as well. I've got nothing. As far as I'm concerned, Indy is still riding west into the sunset from Petra.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/3/2023 at 1:43 AM, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Yeah, I've read Sibley's book. And Nathan's book, they're both quite good. Both give some good insight into the early days how the project came together, the negotiations, key players (including some interesting Weinstein stuff) etc, but neither is a comprehensive "making of" the trilogy. I'm talking about something that goes into detail on every aspect of the production. Again, something as thorough and in-depth as Rinzlers book's.


The Ian Nathan book is a frustratingly bad book. He has so much access to the film makers but largely just regurgitates stuff from the DVDs and other books. 
 

It’s so all over the place. Like literally. At one stage he’s going “chronologically” through the shoot. He gets to August, talks about how busy everyone is… and then goes on to talk about Andrew Lesnie being hired in May 1999. The whole book is all over the place in its scope and timeline. It’s far more about the business of making the films rather than the actual making of the films. And he’s a very poor writer. But unfortunately, he thinks he’s the dog’s bollocks. 
 

A Rinzler style look at the films would be amazing and hopefully someday it will happen. But hopefully Ian Nathan is done with middle-earth. 
 

The Sibley book is great though! 

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1 hour ago, Bilbo said:

A Rinzler style look at the films would be amazing and hopefully someday it will happen. But hopefully Ian Nathan is done with middle-earth. 

 

I actually spoke with Ian two or three times and he told us - and to Nerd of the Rings - that he considered making a book in that style but Jackson was reluctant to see it done.

 

I personally like the approach of the Sibley book. I don't necessarily need a blow-by-blow description of every day of the shoot: I'm much more interested in getting a feel for the production, the creative process and important milestones. The real blessing of the Sibley book is that large swathes of it are given to lengthy quotes of Jackson, Walsh et al, and this was all circa 2004 so the making of the films (~1997-2002) is relatively fresh in their minds.

 

And as far as I can tell, there's none of the disingeniousness of the Rinzler books, which for all their detail are very much trying to walk a line in telling the Lucasfilm-approved narrative, replete with a few passages that have been doctored by Lucas!

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1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

I actually spoke with Ian two or three times and he told us - and to Nerd of the Rings - that he considered making a book in that style but Jackson was reluctant to see it done.

Thank Christ. If it’s ever done it shouldn’t be done by him. Jackson just publishing the call sheets for ye shoot would be a better read than whatever IN would do with them.

 

 

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