Concluding Thoughts: What Changed with Peter Jackson?
It’s hard to make a case that any pre-Jackson takes on Lord of the Rings is a classic. Some (the Finnish miniseries The Hobbits) are surprisingly good. Others are quite fun in their limited way (Gene Dietch’s The Hobbit). And some (Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings) are interesting experiments simultaneously showing the good and bad of a period where no one had written the epic fantasy rulebook.
After Jackson’s trilogy appeared, everything changed. Filmmakers had a canonical model for how to make a fantasy epic. As discussed elsewhere, one could argue that many fantasy movies have gotten blander after Jackson’s trilogy (or, at least, too many fantasy movies today look too much like his movies). On the other hand, the product has become more balanced, even if innovation has decreased.
One thing that these projects clearly show is that Tolkien is fundamentally a tough author to adapt. His work had a way of transgressing subgenre lines—The Hobbit reads like a children’s fairytale, and much of that children’s fairytale flavor continues into the early chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring (Tom Bombadil, the party). Like Kenneth Grahame or T.H. White, he produced vivid stories where incidental details or setting descriptions (poems, how people lived their everyday lives, the history) feel just as important as the driving plot.
All these details make Tolkien’s work unusually hard to adapt. It takes a skilled screenwriter to determine what is incidental, what is the main narrative, in his work. Consequently, every adaptor has to reshape Tolkien’s material more than they might for another author. Fans may argue that staying true to the story matters most, but sometimes change cannot be avoided.
Another thing these projects clearly show is that having a great director isn’t enough. Film studies enjoy talking about auteurs, directors who orchestrate meticulous visions. Some directors certainly plan more than others, and some are able to exhibit high levels of control by taking their time with a movie. For example, Mirrormask director Dave McKean spent the better part of a decade making his fantasy film Luna—doing the writing, directing, visual design and even some of the music himself. Jackson has a similar reputation for doing more than just directing. His first feature-length film, Bad Taste, featured him working as director, co-screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and actor (in two roles). He would perform slightly less roles in later projects, but it’s rare to find a Jackson film (even the ones he produces for others) where he isn’t performing two to three functions.
However, one good creative mind in the director’s chair only goes so far without good technicians to implement the work. The Keepers has some interesting features that were presumably director Natalya Serebryakova’s plans—getting a cinematographer to shoot closeup images of the ring and getting an editor to intercut those scenes. However, the cinematography (and the costumes, and the sets, and the acting) don’t match up with the directorial vision.
As important as it is to have a talented director coordinating the team, the rest of the filmmaking team has to be well-built to make a good film. Consequently, Bill Warren argues (in an book on Jackson’s influence Sam Raimi) that an auteur is not a director who generates all the ideas and dictates those ideas to the team: the best auteurs cast a vision, then take in everyone’s input and guide the elements into that vision.
Jackson’s great success wasn’t merely the fact that he had a great vision. He also had Wingnut Films, a team he’d started building on his first film that expanded and grew over time—gaining special effects experience bit by bit, acquiring talent bit by bit. He had the vision, and a great team who supplemented and followed his vision.
Jackson is one of many cases where a well-built team working with a great leader made great speculative fiction movies. Walt Disney coordinated his company’s animated films, but he had a team of animators, “the Nine Old Men,” working under him. During the same period RKO was releasing Disney’s animated movies, RKO producer Val Lewton used a well-organized team to create acclaimed fantasy and horror movies like Curse of the Cat People. Ray Harryhausen gets the credit for his monster designs but had an animation studio implementing his designs. Hammer Film Productions had some star directors like Terence Fish, but “the Hammer Family” of personnel working together made all the company’s impressive sci-fi, horror, and fantasy films.
As Warner Bros plans a Lord of the Rings reboot, as fans argue over whether Rings of Power is worth the hype, as other fans wait to see if War of the Rohirrim is worth the hype, and still other viewers debate why so many attempts to make great fantasy films (and great sci-fi and great horror and great superhero films) have faltered, these lessons may prove useful.