HOBBIT ON NEW, PERILOUS JOURNEY
Why director Peter Jackson returned to Middle Earth
After the Lord of the Rings success, it made dollars and sense to go back to a Middle-earth movie future.
The first Peter Jackson fantasy series earned a whopping $3 billion US at the box office world wide (and attracted lots of Oscar love for the last film).
Of course, Jackson’s more-is-better formula applies to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit novel, too, so fans get to enjoy another trilogy as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. The first instalment in the three-part adventure, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, opens to a great deal of anticipation Thursday.
The special effects might be more refined but the action is as intense as ever.
Sixty years before the Lord of the Rings, we are introduced to the reluctant hobbit hero Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) who is cajoled into an act of bravery. He ends up leading 13 dwarfs on a quest to reclaim their kingdom and a treasure.
Along the way, they meet up with some familiar folk; as good and as evil as they ever were. Gandalf (Ian McKellan) shows up. So does Frodo (Elijah Wood), Old Bilbo (Ian Holm), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Saruman (Christopher Lee) and Gollum (Andy Serkis) whose precious ring proves to be pivotal again.
Throughout the trilogy, Baggins and his comrades also face off with Goblins, Orcs, vicious Wargs, deadly giant spiders, not to mention shape shifters and sorcerers.
As usual, the attention to detail of Tolkien’s themes is loyally adhered to by screenwriters Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro (who was to direct The Hobbit films but begged off in 2010). The cast and crew returned to what they knew best: the panoramic vistas of New Zealand.
Filming of the trilogy began in March of 2011 at Wellington’s Stone Street Studios and throughout the country’s North and South islands. The production moved to Pinewood Studios outside of London, then returned to New Zealand, wrapping the series in July of 2012 after more than 266 days.
“When we made The Lord of the Rings,” Jackson said during an interview, “I was absolutely sure it was going to be a once-in-alifetime experience.
“None of us believed that we’d ever be venturing into Middle-earth again, ”he added.
They return with a few alterations, but the same group of over-achievers working out the logistics for hundreds of cast and crew on more than 90 sets, while using thousands of prosthetics, wigs, props, weapons and costumes.
Back are director of photography Andrew Lesnie, production designer Dan Hennah, composer Howard Shore, makeup and hair designer Peter Swords King, Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor, Weta Digital’s Joe Letteri, and costume designers Ann Maskrey and Bob Buck.
When Jackson and his team were developing The Hobbit, they understood it contained similar Lord of the Rings’ themes about greed, madness, innocence, bravery and leadership, but Jackson figured the Hobbit tone would be a little lighter and not quite as ominous.
“The darkness that will descend on this world is brewing but hasn’t yet expanded,” noted the director. “So we wanted to reflect that visually by making it feel a bit more gentle, and have a bit more of a storybook quality in the design and photography.”
Jackson also decided to shoot with dedicated 3-D digital cameras at the new 48-frames per second (as well as standard formats) to provide the option of a more intense visual experience.
And he called on Andy Serkis to repeat his performance-capture rendition of the obsessed Gollum. Certainly, the improved computergenerated technology gives Gollum a more vivid look. The English actor admitted that it took him a while to get the raspy Gollum voice back, but he’d been fine tuning his movements as a motion-capture expert on other projects.
Serkis had famously played the giant ape in Jackson’s redo of King Kong. He was the super-smart chimp in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and most recently he played the animated captain in Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, co-produced by Jackson.
The actor also embraced the added responsibility of working as a secondunit director on The Hobbit.
“Peter (Jackson) has known that I’ve wanted to direct ever since our experience together on The Lord of the Rings,” he said. “Peter told me: ‘Look, this will be a chance for you to expand into filmmaking on a big scale.’
“And it proved to be the most extraordinary, challenging, and immensely life-changing experience.”
Some fans have said the same thing about Lord of the Rings. Time will tell if The Hobbit saga will receive the same devotion.
In the meantime, they await An Unexpected Journey and will likely look forward to The Desolation of Smaug in 2013 and 2014’s There and Back Again.