Film Apart from the odd duff moment (hesaidit!.gif), this past season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been a marked improvement on the first. Although Sauron was a presence and a notional antagonist in the first series, having him being revealed and moving to centre stage helped to focus the story immensely and create connections with the rest of the Tolkien adaptations.
With that in mind, here's a carefully developed timeline of where the series fits in relation to Peter Jackson's films. New releases will be added as and when Warner Bros realise they're licence is about to run out and they need to release something like The War of the Rohirrim, the proposed Golum prequels or pressgang the hobbit actors into filming some version of The Scouring of the Shire.
The Second Age
ROP 1.1 A Shadow of the Past ROP 1.2 Adrift ROP 1.3 Adar ROP 1.4 The Great Wave ROP 1.5 Partings ROP 1.6 Udûn ROP 1.7 The Eye ROP 1.8 Alloyed
ROP 2.1 Elven Kings Under the Sky ROP 2.2 Where the Stars are Strange ROP 2.3 The Eagle and the Sceptre ROP 2.4 Eldest ROP 2.5 Halls of Stone ROP 2.6 Where Is He? ROP 2.7 Doomed to Die ROP 2.8 Shadow and Flame
The Third Age
FILM The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
FILM The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
FILM The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
FILM The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
FILM The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
FILM The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
FILM The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
"Throughout the LOTR and Hobbit series, the filmmakers have pushed the limits of the rating system, always achieving a hard PG-13 label for both the theatrical and extended versions. With Five Armies, they have for the first time crossed the limit and been given an R rating, though only for the extended edition.
"I see this as something of a betrayal of the fans, especially families, who have fallen in love with this franchise, sharing the films over many years. The reason for the R rating is probably entirely due to some extreme violence and cruelty. Certainly there is no sexual basis for such a rating, and the mild profanity mentioned above, introduced with the character of Thorin’s cousin Dain seems unlikely to have been a significant cause of the stricter rating."
To be fair, my enjoyment of these films is about being in that world, and indeed it's the character moment I appreciate more than a lot of the action which is formally quite repetitious in the end. The extended BotFA received a 15-rating in the UK though and I can see why that's problematic if you're adaptating a children's novel.
Film Now that The Hobbit films have wrapped up, last month I decided it would be a good idea to slip straight into The Lord of the Rings trilogy in their extended edition. Not having my dvd copies to hand I thought I'd buy them on blu-ray instead.
There appeared to be two options.
The boxed set, which is the extended trilogy on blu-ray, but also the special features from the dvd version on repressings of the original dvds which I already own from buying the films ten years ago and nothing new. For £120.
Or the single disc releases and now here's the rub.
Undaunted I bought the other two anyway on the assumption I might able to find the other in a shop.
Oh.
I could not find the other in a shop. Tried HMV. Tried That's Entertainment. Tried Fopp.
Fopp finally informed me that the disc was deleted two years ago, a fact which they seemed somewhat annoyed about because they had dozens of copies of the other two films which were practically unshiftable.
I've emailed the WB's publicity to ask them about this. We'll see. They tend to ignore my emails.
Film Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of JRR Tolkien and having just this afternoon completed watching the appendices on the extended version of The Hobbit's The Battle of the Five Armies have decided, mainly out of curiosity at the production schedule, to put all of the extra features in some kind of viewing order should anyone want to visit these extras in such a way as to experience the entire production process.
As with the original The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit was filmed all in one go, or at least one eighteen months principal photography and another three months of "pick-ups" which amounted to shooting a whole extra film's worth of footage as the project was extended from two to three films, much to the chagrin of the sorts of people who don't like very long films. I very much enjoy very long films and could have done with each of these being at least another hour if not more.
The following will not be an accurate portrayal of the actual order the films were shot. It's obvious from looking at the documentaries that some sequences were shooting simultaneously by different crews with actors shifting between. In constructing the list, where possible, I've put documentaries with conflicting date labels in the release order of the films, which also means it won't seem too odd when they purposefully don't show footage for anything which hadn't been released at the time.
Even without revisiting the documentaries themselves, listing the dates together like this offers some idea of the production challenges of these films in terms of planning and knowing what footage for which film can be captured when and how much of the production occurred on the fly due to the limited pre-production time. The appendices are pleasingly honest about how Peter Jackson was really against it after having taken the films over and was often very lost indeed.
To be thorough, we must begin with ...
The Films
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition)
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (Extended Edition)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Extended Edition)
The Commentaries
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition)
The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (Extended Edition)
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Extended Edition)
Production Appendices
UJ1: Opening
DS1: Opening
FA1: Opening
UJ1: The Journey Back to Middle-Earth
2011
UJ1: Riddles in the Dark: Gollum's Cave (March 2011)
UJ1: An Unexpected Party: Bag End (March-April 2011)
UJ1: Bastion of the Greenwood: Rhosgobel (May 2011)
FA1: In The Dungeons of the Necromancer: Dol Guldur (May 2011)
UJ1: A Short Rest: Rivendell & London (May & July 2011)
DS1: Business of the State: The Master's Chambers (August 2011)
FA1: Fire and Water: Attack on Lake Town (August 2011 / April 2012)
DS1: Shelter on the Long Lake: Bard's House (September 2011)
DS1: The Woodland Realm (September 2011)
UJ1: Over Hill ...: The Misty Mountains (September-October 2011)
DS1: Flies and Spiders (September-October 2011)
UJ1: ... Under Hill: Goblin Town (October 2011)
UJ1: The Forest Ledge (October-November 2011)
UJ1: Return to Hobbiton (October-November 2011)
DS1: Queer Lodgings: Beorn's House (November 2011/March 2012)
UJ1: The Epic of Scene 88: Strath Taieri (November-December 2011)
FA1: Under the Shadow of the Mountain: Rock & Pillar Range (November 2011)
DS1: Down the Swift Dark Stream: The Forest River (December 2011)
FA1: In the Wake of the Dragon: Lake Pukaki (December 2011)
2012
DS1: A Warm Welcome: Lake-town (February 2012)
DS1: On the Doorstep: The Lonely Mountain (February 2012)
DS1: Inside Information (March 2012)
UJ1: The Battle of Moria: Azanulbizar (April-May 2012)
DS1: Barrels Out of Bond: The Elven Sluice (May-June 2012)
FA1: The Gathering of the Clouds: Erebor (May-June 2012)
UJ1: Edge of the Wilderland: Pick-ups and the Carrock (July 2012)
FA1: Many Partings: End of Principal Photography (June-July 2012)
UJ1: Home is Behind, the World Ahead
DS1: ... Into The Fire
2013
DS1: A Chance Meeting (May 2013)
FA1: The Clouds Burst: Dale (June 2013)
FA1: A Last Desperate Stand (June 2013)
DS1: Erebor Rekindled: The Dwarf-Forges (July 2013)
FA1: Out from the Gate: Erebor Pick-ups (July 2013)
FA1: The Last Stage (July 26th, 2013)
Pre and Post Production Appendices
UJ2: The Company of Thorin
UJ2: Mr. Baggins: The 14th Member
UJ2: Durin's Folk: Creating the Dwarves
DS2: Summoning Smaug: Last of the Fire-Drakes
DS2: The Last and First Dragon
DS2: Conversation with Smaug
DS2: Into the Dragon's Lair
FA2: Beneath The Thunder: Forging a Battle of Five Armies
FA2: A Master Plan, Long in the Making
FA2: On the Front Lines of a Virtual Battlefield
FA2: Turning the Tide
The Peoples and Denizens of Middle-earth
UJ2: The Stone Trolls
UJ2: Radagast the Brown
UJ2: Goblins
UJ2: Azog the Defiler
DS2: Beorn: The Shape-Shifter
DS2: The Spawn of Ungoliant
DS2: The Men of Lake-town
FA2: Tauriel: Daughter of the Forest
FA2: Thranduil: The King of Wood and Stone
FA2: Dain Ironfoot: Lord of the Iron Hills
FA2: Realms of the Third Age
UJ2: Hobbiton
UJ2: Rhosgobel
UJ2: Rivendell
UJ2: The Misty Mountains
UJ2: Goblin Town
DS2: Beorn's House
DS2: Mirkwood Forest
DS2: The Woodland Realm
DS2: Lake-town
FA2: Dale: City of Men
FA2: Dol Guldur: The Hill of Sorcery
FA2: Erebor: The Lonely Mountain
Music
UJ2: The Songs of Middle Earth
DS2: The Music of The Hobbit
DS2: Overture: Music of the Wilderland
DS2: 1st Movement: The World of Men
DS2: 2nd Movement: The Halls of Erebor
Bonus Features
FA2: Butt-Numb-A-Thon 2011 Greeting (B)
FA2: "Rivers of Gold" Music Video (B)
FA2: The Real Adam Brown (B)
Film As some of you might be aware, I'm in the process of watching my way through all of Disney's official animated films in release order, the first time I'm seeing most of them since I was a child, if I saw them back then at all what with video not having been invented and the nearest cinemas bus rides away.
Film As someone who actually thought the theatrical release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey's Extended Edition was too short, I'm pleased to see Peter Jackson is indeed releasing an extended version which amongst other things will hopefully iron out a few of the pacing issues. He's told Empire about some of the bits and pieces he's putting back in:
"You are going to get more Goblin Town, and the Great Goblin singing his song," adds Fran Walsh, Jackson's other half and fellow screenwriter. "It is a great song, but it was just another delay in terms of moving the story along."
Does anyone actually watch the theatrical cuts of Lord of the Rings given the choice?
"At one point, Jackson edges dangerously close to the fine line of intellectual rights. “The Quest of Erebor,” a story contained in Unfinished Tales, retells the opening chapter of The Hobbit from Gandalf’s point of view. In it, Gandalf justifies his uncanny attraction to Bilbo, a hobbit with “a love of tales” and “eagerness in his bright eyes.” In the film, Gandalf chidingly asks when Bilbo became more interested in china and doilies than in adventure, mirroring those lines from Unfinished Tales. “I wonder if the Tolkien estate will sue over it,” Drout said. “They are litigious.”
The piece then goes on to flesh out some of Jackson's fudging. Given the uplift in sales, you would think the Tolkien estate would just have made all of the material available to Jackson to play about in. Perhaps this is why the original, orginal plan for two Hobbit films then another throwing together piece of Tolkein lore to bridge the gap between the two book adaptations didn't ever come to fruition.
Peter Jackson I think when it was originally announced that a film trilogy was being made of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, the director was the farthest thing from our minds. The smuggest amongst us actually had an idea he might have a good go at it. ‘Heavenly Creatures’ proved he could handle actors; ‘Meet The Feebles’ showed a keen eye for puppetry and fantasy; ‘The Frighteners’ offered both. Perfect really. But I don’t think any of us knew how perfect it would actually be. Here is a man who’s taken some really great literature and spun it off into some magnificent films that appeal to a wide audience without completely ruining the spirit of the source material. By comparison, see what kind of a mess George Lucas is currently making of his own source material. Watching the documentaries which accompanied the Extended versions, two things struck which sort of explain why Jackson has made such instant classics: as well as hiring a bunch of youngsters just out of art school to design everything, he hired two artists who had been visualizing Tolkein for years; when he cast the wrong man in a key roll, rather than just making do, he took the difficult decision of recasting on the fly and made the correct choice. I mean let’s face it, on the strength of ‘A Perfect Murder’, did you think Viggo Mortenssen would be this good? [profile, interview, related]
