Just because we don’t have enough fantasy films based on children’s book series, this February will see the release of yet one more: The Spiderwick Chronicles. The books tell the tale of three siblings who, having moved to the mysterious Spiderwick estate, discover a secret world of fairies and goblins who are battling for possession of Narnia a powerful ring a field guide. Yeah, that’s it.
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In 2004, the Academy decided to honor The Return of the King, the third entry in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings epic, with their Best Picture vote. Peter Jackson also won Best Director, and the film bagged nine more awards that year. Is it truly the best of the three? Critically, the films are almost neck-in-neck, having been passionately endorsed by reviewers all over the world. Though many say it suffers from an over-long ending and cuts an important message from the book, The Return of the King was still a fitting end to a legendary film series.
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The second installment in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings had fundamental problems from the start. As the second part of a three-part story, it covers mainly the plateau level of the narrative arc; the hero’s introduction and rise of action has already happened, and the climax is a long ways off. For this reason, many film goers found it tedious. Is it possible for such a classic story to suffer from sequel-itis?
If it does, it certainly wasn’t J.R.R. Tolkien’s fault. He wrote The Lord of the Rings as one long book, until publishers made him trisect it. As the middle segment of a novel, The Two Towers makes sense: a drop in action is expected as the story plateaus. But can it stand on its own? The author tried his hardest. Fascinating characters like Gollum/Smeagol take the stage, a wonderful metaphor for the evil inside all of us. Frodo and Sam finally find refuge with Faramir, a character made strangely sinister for the film when writers realized there wasn’t enough peril. It all builds towards climax, and though the end drifts off into ambiguity, it would be hard to film the story any other way.
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Nearly every shot in the Lord of the Rings films required some kind of special effect, computer animation, or visual trickery. A live-action adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work had not yet been attempted for this very reason - it’s just too fantastic to capture without the use of today’s technology. Director Peter Jackson, however, was not content to merely create a visually pleasing trilogy. He wanted it to be perfect - down to the last detail.
All of the armor, weapons, and costumes were handmade, even those seen only briefly. Each link of every character’s chain mail was forged by hand. Wherever possible, live actors and animals were used in place of CGI. In need of horses for a battle charging sequence, Peter Jackson put out an open casting call to all New Zealand riders and their mounts. For the impossibly large battles, he had a special computer program developed to create realistic troops. Peter Jackson both exhausted and replenished the resources at New Zealand’s Weta Workshop, which has since become the go-to company for models, prosthetics, and computer animation. The amount of money that Jackson poured into their efforts allowed them to expand considerably. When Disney began production on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, they went straight to Weta.
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In adapting one of the 20th century’s most beloved novels, Peter Jackson knew he’d have to tread carefully. Much material was cut due to time constraints, but his passionate treatment of the stories and themes has set the precedent for fantasy cinema. Recent and upcoming novel adaptations like Stardust, The Golden Compass, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Seeker inevitably face comparisons with Jackson’s Oscar-winning triumph.
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