May 8, 2025 • 51 mins
In the second of five special episodes to celebrate this podcast's 300th episode, focused on J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings was 18-years-old by the time Peter Jackson started considering making his own version in live action. Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh wanted to make something high fantasy, but kept coming back to Tolkien's stories.
Acquiring the rights from Saul Zaentz took a while, and at the time Jackson was contracted to Miramax, so Harvey Weinstein took charge.
With a planned two-film adaptation, filmed back-to-back, this The Lord of the Rings adaptation was worked on under Miramax. Then the budget started to balloon, but parent company Disney refused to help.
Jackson was given an ultimatum by Weinstein - either reduce the number of films to one, continue with two on a heavily reduced budget, or abandon the project entirely and find another studio willing to take it on within four weeks.
Jackson and his "fellowship" would choose their own quest to find a new studio, and they ended up at New Line Cinema, where something incredible happened...
This episode is Part 1 of a three-part story, as well as Part 2 of a five-part group of episodes. You don't need to have listened to the previous episode, but it might help for context of the story as a whole to this point.
I would love to hear your thoughts on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring [Part 2 of 5] !
Verbal Diorama is now an award-winning podcast! Best Movie Podcast in the inaugural Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards and is also now nominated for the Earworm Award at the 2025 Golden Lobes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You cannot pass.
Stand out.
I am servant of the Secret Fire.
Wielder of the flame of Arnor.
The dark fire will not availyou, flame of Ulung.
(00:29):
Go back to the shadow.
You shall not pass.
(01:23):
Family, you fool.
In a world overflowing withmovies, we need a hero.
Someone to separate the badfrom the good.
(02:10):
Hi everyone, I'm Em andwelcome to verbal diorama, episode
298, the Lord of the Rings,the Fellowship of the Ring.
This is the podcast that's allabout the history and legacy.
Maybe you know and maybe you don't.
That is never late FrodoBaggins, nor is she early.
She arrives precisely when shemeans to welcome to Verbal Diorama.
(02:30):
Whether you're a brand newlistener to this podcast, welcome
back regular returning listeners.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for choosing tolisten to this podcast.
I am so happy to have you herefor the history and Legacy of the
Lord of the Rings theFellowship of the Ring this is a
bit of a momentous occasion.
This is the first of a threepart special trilogy of episodes
(02:53):
that's going to be making usweb to the 300th episode of this
podcast.
But just a huge thank you toeveryone who listens to this podcast
who supports this podcast andhas continued to listen to and support
this podcast over the last sixyears and almost 300 episodes.
It genuinely is incrediblereally that I have you here, but
also thank you so much foryour support because it genuinely
(03:15):
means so much.
So here we are, the run up tothe 300th episode of Verbal Diorama.
This is basically the secondof a five part episode on the history
and legacy of the Lord of theRings, focusing on Peter Jackson's
trilogy but then sandwichedbetween two animated versions, Rath
Bakshi's the Lord of the Ringsfrom 1978, which was last episode,
(03:38):
and 2024's the Lord of theRings the War of the Rohirrin, which
will be episode 301 of this podcast.
Now if you haven't listened tothe last episode on the Lord of the
rings from 1978, youtechnically don't need to.
But I would recommend it evenif you haven't seen that movie because
Tolkien's history as well ashis estate's control of the material
(04:01):
is important to know forJackson's movies as well as Saul's
ain't linked to the rights asI'm going to come to the estate didn't
have anything to do with theseadaptations by Peter Jackson, but
Saul Zainz is a key figure sothis is technically the second of
a five part complete story,but the first of three interconnected
(04:22):
stories.
And because Peter Jacksonfilmed these movies back to back,
I want to split out the makingof them all covered across the three
episodes, but also talk aboutthe trilogy as a whole across the
three episodes.
And if you're wondering why, Iguess it's because one does not simply
walk into Mordor.
It takes time, planning a team.
(04:44):
I don't have a team.
I have Evie and Peggy on hand,Therp cuddles and Purrs, and maybe
at the end Gandalf will haveto summon the eagles for a quick
rescue.
Because this is kind ofunprecedented what I'm doing for
these episodes.
This episode will be focusingon the beginning of Peter Jackson's
vision for the series, hisdealings with Miramax, the move to
New Line Cinema, the variouschanges that they made to the source
(05:06):
material, and specifics on theFellowship of the Ring, including
the casting choices for theentire series.
And I also want to focus inthis episode on the incredible costume
design for the series as well.
The next episode will befocusing on the Two Towers, the Battle
of Helm's Deep, and theintroduction of and technology surrounding
Gollum, as well as I also wantto go into the production and art
(05:29):
design choices for the entire series.
The third episode and the300th episode of this podcast will
be focusing on the Return ofthe King, but also the visual effects
by Weta Workshop, the musicacross all of the movies by Howard
Shaw, how the Return of theKing became one of the biggest Academy
Award winning films of alltime, as well as the everlasting
(05:51):
legacy of these movies,specifically from fan culture to
setting a precedent that PeterJackson's Hobbit trilogy then had
to follow.
The final episode, episode301, will be on the recent anime
the War of the Rahirim, butalso the effect the Lord of the Rings
and the Hobbit has had on NewZealand's tourism and film industries,
(06:13):
plus also the retaining of therights to the Lord of the Rings and
also the future of thefranchise as well.
Now, in all honesty, as Isaid, this is kind of unprecedented
how I'm tackling these threemovies, because these three movies
were not made to be tackled individually.
They are three parts of acomplete story and they were filmed
(06:35):
back to back.
So a lot of the productionstories and the stories behind the
scenes actually cover allthree movies.
So I don't even know if thisis even gonna work in the way I intend
it to work.
But just like Peter Jackson,I'm gonna Do it anyway.
He did three movies shotsimultaneously out of sequence.
But I'm gonna do threeepisodes recorded in sequence but
(06:57):
containing details from thesimultaneous shoot.
So these episodes will telleach story but also one big story
suitable for the One Ring.
I do feel a little bit likeSauron's eye is trained on me and
this does feel like a bit of aquest in all honesty.
But I am going to reach theend of the quest and hopefully I've
not bitten off more secondbreakfast than I can chew.
(07:19):
Here's the trailer for theLord of the Rings.
The Fellowship of the Ring.
The start of the number one trilogy.
In the lands of Middle Earthlegend tells of the dark Lord Sauron
and the ring that would givehim the power to enslave the world
(07:42):
lost.
For centuries it has beensought by many and has now found
its way into the helm of themost unlikely person imaginable.
Sauron needs only this ring tocover all the lands in darkness.
What must I do?
(08:02):
The Ring must be destroyed.
The Ring must be cast backinto the fires of Mount Doom.
There is evil there that doesnot sleep.
Sauron's forces are already moving.
They will find the Ring andkill the one who carries it.
Come on, Frodo.
(08:25):
I cannot do this alone.
You have my sword.
And you have my bow and my axe.
This task was appointed to you.
And if you do not find a way,no one will.
The enemy has many spies.
(08:47):
Birds, beasts.
Something draws near.
I can feel it.
Get off the road.
Hide.
Almost.
Remember, Frodo.
The Ring is trying to get backto its master.
It wants to be found.
Let us hope that our presencemay go unnoticed.
(09:16):
They are coming.
We must turn back.
Wish the ring had never cometo me.
Back, you devils.
I wish none of this had happened.
(09:37):
You will find your courage.
If you want him, come andclaim him.
You shall not pass.
(10:16):
The future rests in the fateof the One Ring which has been lost
for centuries.
Powerful forces areunrelenting in their search for it
but fate has placed it in thehands of a young hobbit called Frodo
Baggins who inherits the Ringand unwittingly becomes the savior
of Middle Earth.
A daunting task lies ahead forFrodo when he becomes the Ring bearer.
(10:37):
To destroy the One Ring in thefires of Mount Doom where it was
forged.
He's joined by eightcompanions to aid him in his quest.
They are the Fellowship of the Ring.
Let's run through the cast ofthis movie and most of the movies
going forward but we'll focusprimarily on the cast of this movie
we have Elijah Wood as FrodoBaggins, Ian McKellen as Gandalf,
(11:02):
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn,Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee, Sean
Bean as Boromir, Billy Boyd asPeregrine Took, Dominic Monaghan
as Mary Adot Brandybuck, JohnRhys Davis as Gimli, Orlando Bloom
as Legolas, Liv Tyler asArwen, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel,
(11:24):
Christopher Lee as Saruman theWhite, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Ian
Holm as Bilbo Baggins and AndySerkis as Gollum.
The Lord of the the Fellowshipof the Ring has a screenplay by Fran
Walsh, Philippa Boyens andPeter Jackson was directed by Peter
Jackson and was based on theFellowship of The Ring by J.R.R.
(11:47):
tolkien.
And the story of the Lord ofthe Rings starts as all good stories
should, with Michael J.
Fox.
Sort of, but not really.
But before Peter Jackson wasthe Peter Jackson of the Lord of
the Rings trilogy, he wasPeter Jackson.
Risky weird horror director,but one of his most underrated movies
(12:07):
actually came about in 1996and I've done an episode on it too.
It is a wonderful movie.
It's episode 103 of thispodcast that movie stars Michael
J.
Fox and it is the Frighteners.
How does the Frighteners haveanything to do with the Lord of the
Rings?
Well, apart from a couple ofscary scenes, not much.
But it's really a story ofwhat's going on behind the scenes
(12:28):
of the Frighteners.
That's important becausepretty much everything in the Frighteners
is a precursor to what PeterJackson would do next.
Everything from the balancebetween practical effects and CGI
to the New Zealand basedproduction and the fact that Universal
offered Peter Jackson theopportunity to make King Kong led
to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
(12:49):
Spoiler.
He didn't make King Kong nextafter all, but he would go on to
make King Kong after these movies.
The creation of Weta Digitalfor Jackson's movie Heavenly Creatures
would be pivotal to the story too.
After the Frighteners, PeterJackson and his partner Fran Walsh
wanted to do something highfantasy and original.
(13:09):
Original being the operative word.
But everything they thought ofsounded very Tolkien.
And Jackson wondered whyHollywood just didn't want to seem
to touch the Lord of the ringssince Ralph Bakshi's version in 1978,
which, as I mentioned lastepisode, Jackson saw as a child and
it made him curious to readthe books and find out more.
(13:30):
Even with Bakshi's ambitiousattempt at a rotoscoped Version no
one in Hollywood seemed towant to talk about the idea of making
it fully live action.
It seemed to be outside of therealm of possibility and also expense.
As CGI technology begandeveloping in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, there wererenewed considerations about whether
(13:52):
a live action adaptation mightfinally be feasible.
However, the technology wasstill deemed insufficient or too
expensive for the massivescale required.
Jackson also is seemingly anunlikely choice for this long awaited
adaptation.
He was primarily known as alow budget, visceral horror comedy
director and he wanted to takeon a movie deemed unfilmable, especially
(14:17):
in live action.
Question mark Jackson wascontracted to Miramax Films at the
time, but via the go toMiramax, Jackson's agent tracked
down the Tolkien film rightsto Saul Zaintz.
And it turned out that Zainzowed Harvey Weinstein a favorite
and it was all down to theEnglish patient.
20th Century Fox hadoriginally agreed to finance the
(14:40):
English Patient with JeremyIrons and Juliet Binoche, but withdrew
that financing when directorAnthony Minguela insisted on casting
Ralph Fiennes instead.
This left Sainz in a difficultfinancial position.
Halfway through filming inItaly and North Africa, they ran
out of money.
This is when Weinstein andMiramax entered the picture, providing
approximately $6 million tocomplete the English Patient.
(15:04):
In exchange, Miramax acquiredthe North American distribution rights.
The English Patient went on tobecome a critical and commercial
success, winning nine AcademyAwards, including Best Picture in
1997.
The film ultimately grossedover $230 million worldwide against
its $27 million budget andSaul Zainz was then indebted to Harvey
(15:27):
Weinstein.
So when Jackson went toWeinstein inquiring about the rights
to the Lord of the Rings,Weinstein went to Saints and optioned
the rights to Tolkien's work,with Jackson pitching one film based
on the Hobbit and a two partadaptation of the Lord of the Rings
shot back to back, releasedsix months apart, it was an unprecedented
(15:48):
level of ambition.
And this was in the mid-90s,years before anything concrete, just
preliminary talks.
But Saul Zaynt was impressedwith Jackson's passion and like Ralph
Bakshi before him, Jackson wasall about keeping it true to Tolkien's
vision.
While the distribution rightsof the Hobbit remained with United
Artists, Sainz agreed tolicense the rights to the Lord of
(16:10):
the Rings eventually.
It took a while, basically ayear of negotiations between Saints
and the Weinsteins.
It took for Jackson to agreeto make King Kong with Universal,
only for them to then cancelKing Kong in 1997.
It was after the suddencancellation by Universal.
That pushed Jackson and Walshinto beginning the process of sorting
(16:31):
out the rights with Weinstein,which then took a further six weeks.
Miramax rejected the idea ofthree films, but acquiesced to the
idea of two when they realizedthat doing it in one would be unmanageable.
A screening of Bakshi'sversion at a story conference put
this into perspective.
No one wanted to be getting tothe Battle of Helm's Deep and then
(16:52):
stopping the story again.
Jax's initial idea was for two films.
The first would be called theFellowship of the Ring, which would
cover the novel of that nameand the Two Towers.
And then the sequel would bethe War of the Ring, which would
cover the Return of the King.
The first film would haveended with Saruman's death and the
second would start with theBattle at Minas Tirith.
(17:14):
The Weinsteins agreed on twofilms and a budget of $75 million
total, which seems prettyludicrous for what they were trying
to achieve.
But financial issues will beforthcoming at this point.
The Weinsteins are keen toAmericanize the cast.
But Harvey Weinstein, beingthe absolute worst that he is and
always will be and was at thispoint was already blacklisting actresses
(17:38):
who refused to sleep with him.
So while Jackson wasinterested in casting Mira Salvino
and Ashley Judd, Weinsteindissuaded him from considering them.
No one knew at the time bothSilvino and Judd had been sexually
harassed by Weinstein.
And of course it would takedecades for that revelation and the
myriad of others to come to light.
(17:58):
Writing the scripts andcondensing Tolkien's extensive story
into two films would be a task.
And in mid-1997, Jackson andWalsh began writing with Stephen
Sinclair.
And Sinclair's partner,Philippa Boyens joined them to write
two scripts in 14 months of147 and 144 pages respectively.
(18:18):
At the same time, Weta Digitalwere working on developing new proprietary
software and conceptuallydesigned the films, including buying
designs from Rav Bakshi.
Jackson and Miramax agreed toa 110 day filming schedule.
Jackson had already built filmfacilities in Wellington through
his company, Weta Workshop.
This gave them a base ofoperations with existing technical
(18:41):
capabilities for a shootbeginning in April 1999 for a Christmas
2000 and Memorial Day 2001 release.
But the budget was beginningto worry Miramax, who asked for cost
cutting rewrites.
They sent producers to NewZealand to oversee the work.
One of them, Marty Katz,reported back that the movies would
(19:02):
cost Double that initial $75 million.
Budget, and Miramax justdidn't have the funds for that.
So Miramax went to Disneychairman Joe Roth and CEO Michael
Eisner to light the beaconsand request budgetary aid for the
Lord of the Rings.
Eisner himself had recentlydemanded Disney cut its own costs,
and so the parent companydeclined to help.
(19:25):
Eisner would say it was due toWeinstein refusing to allow him to
review the project or meetwith Jackson.
Fran Walsh would suggest itwas due to a lack of faith in the
project, specifically in PeterJackson's ability to make something
that was a bit more familyfriendly than his previous films.
After unsuccessfully trying toget other studios on board to partner
(19:45):
with them, Miramax insteadsuggested making just one movie and
commissioned Jack Leckner tocondense the story from two films
to one.
He suggested cutting Bree inthe Battle of Helm's Deep, losing
or using Saruman, mergingRohan and Gondor, and making Eowyn,
Boromir's sister, shorteningRivendell and Moria, losing the Balrog
(20:08):
and the fight in Balin's Tombin the process, as well as having
Ents prevent the Uruk Hai fromkidnapping Merry and Pippin.
It was essentially anultimatum from Harvey Weinstein.
Jackson could either condenseall three books into a single two
hour film, make two films witha drastically reduced budget, or
(20:28):
abandoned the project entirely.
Jackson refused to compromiseon what he felt would destroy the
integrity of Tolkien's work,in particular the suggestion to combine
everything into one film thatwould have required cutting major
storylines and characters.
Miramax then declared thateverything Weta had done thus far
and also the scripts, belongedto them.
(20:49):
Weinstein gave Jackson aboutfour weeks to find another studio
willing to take on the project.
If unsuccessful, Miramax wouldproceed with their condensed version
with another director to bewritten by Hussein Amini, who was
a fan of the work they'dalready done up to this point.
Weinstein used his typicalbullying tactics to try to get Jackson
(21:09):
to agree to his requests,including trying to call Jackson's
bluff that Quentin Tarantinowas going to direct.
Miramax agreed to put thefilms in turnaround for that four
week period only.
And if Jackson couldn't findanother studio willing to make his
movies, they would make them,but without the scripts or Weta's
work, after being told legallythey didn't have ownership of either.
(21:32):
They also demanded that if hedid find another studio, that that
new studio would have to repayRemax's investment plus agree to
give them 5% of the revenue.
Jackson and his manager KentCannings, began Frantically pitching
to other studios with a 35minute making of video to use to
promote the work they've doneso far.
(21:53):
Sony declined disliking the script.
20th Century Fox declined dueto Saul Zainz and potentially the
issues surrounding the English Patient.
Polygram were interested, butwere being bought by Universal at
the time.
When Jackson and C approachedNew Line Cinema, where Jackson's
friend Mark Ordesky worked,something unexpected happened.
(22:15):
New Line Cinema were known asthe House that Freddie Built.
They were known primarily as ahorror franchise studio with A Nightmare
on Elm street and TexasChainsaw Massacre both being successful.
In 1994, Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles became the highest grossing
independent film of all time.
While the company hadsustained some losses in the late
(22:36):
90s, CEO Robert Shea knew thecompany needed a new lucrative franchise,
and he'd heard about Miramaxacquiring the rights to the Lord
of the Rings.
When Mark or Deschi approachedhim to suggest they get involved,
Shea initially refused becauseof the Weinstein's demands.
But he met with Jackson.
Now Bob Shea intuitivelyunderstood that Tolkien's three book
(22:59):
structure provided a naturalframework for three films rather
than two.
Or indeed one.
And this was something Jacksonimmediately liked.
The Sound of Moonlightinsisted on three films rather than
two.
Shea also recognized thepotential for a major franchise at
a time when studios wereincreasingly focusing on tentpole
(23:19):
properties.
Three successful films wouldgenerate far more revenue than one
or two.
While the upfront investmentwould be enormous, around $300 million
for all three films, shootingthem simultaneously created significant
production efficienciescompared to making them separately.
By producing three films atonce, they could spread marketing
costs and build audiencemomentum across multiple releases
(23:43):
rather than betting everythingon a single film.
Most importantly to Bob Shea,as a smaller studio operating under
the Time Warner umbrella, theyneeded a breakthrough project to
compete with larger studios.
There was nothing bigger ormore ambitious than the Lord of the
Rings.
It was a risk, but unlike backin the 70s, they had the technology.
(24:05):
Wetter Digital was at theforefront of motion capture and cg,
and filming in New Zealandoffered remarkable geographical diversity
within a relatively small area.
Within short distances, theycould access mountains, forests,
volcanic regions, rollinghills and plains that closely matched
Tolkien's descriptions ofMiddle Earth.
(24:26):
Not to mention the New Zealandgovernment providing significant
tax breaks and financialincentives to attract the massive
production.
Jackson, Walsh and Boyen setabout writing three new scripts,
consulted Tolkien's biography,letters and scholarly books written
on his works.
The expansion to three filmsallowed much more creative freedom.
(24:46):
And while the three filmsdon't correspond exactly to the trilogy's
Three volumes.
They represent a three partadaptation which is a more chronological
approach to the story.
Frodo's quest becomes the mainfocus with Aragorn as the main subplot,
and he would be transformedfrom confident king in Waiting in
the books to a more reluctanthero in the films.
(25:08):
There were structural changes,character alterations, significant
omissions, added elements andtonal shifts.
Notable differences includedthe timelines being compressed from
17 years in the books to amatter of months in the films.
Certain chapters andcharacters were omitted, like the
Scouring of the Shire and Tom Bombadil.
Certain elements like theelves fighting at Helm's Deep were
(25:31):
added and elements thatTolkien kept ambiguous were defined.
The Tolkien estate would becontacted by Jackson, Walsh and Boyans.
However, the estate chose todistance themselves from Jackson's
adaptations.
They had no creative controlover Jackson's films and disagreed
with many of his creativechoices, particularly the emphasis
(25:51):
on battle sequences and thealterations to character motivations
and personalities.
Christopher Tolkien inparticular was concerned with preserving
his father's literary legacy.
He viewed the books as seriousworks with deep philosophical and
linguistic foundations ratherthan action adventure stories.
In a 2012 interview with LeMonde, he famously stated that the
(26:13):
films eviscerated the booksand turned them into action movies
for young people.
In addition, he wasuncomfortable with the merchandising
and commercial aspects thataccompanied the films and objected
to the transformation of hisfather's work into commercial entertainment
projects.
Nevertheless, Jackson waspassionate about making films that
were not only faithful toTolkien's works, but that took advantage
(26:36):
of everything available in thelate 90s and early 2000s.
I'm going to go into thevisual effects in more detail in
the episode on the Return ofthe King, but we're talking cutting
edge CGI and motion capturescale miniatures, forced perspective
as well as production design,creating multiple size sets.
This was truly an epicproduction of nothing that had ever
(26:57):
been accomplished before andlikely never will again to this scope
and scale.
Jackson began storyboardingthe trilogy with Christian Rivers
in August 1997, effectivelycreating a rough black and white
2D version of the film.
Jackson showed excerpts ofthese animated storyboards to allow
potential cast a view of thefilm's style.
(27:17):
And casting started in earnestin 1999 and it was a global surge,
prioritizing acting abilityover star power.
Jackson wanted actors whocould blend together rather than
standout stars who mightovershadow the story, with a strong
focus on New Zealand andBritish actors for the roles.
Now, of course, in a movieabout the Lord of the Rings, casting
(27:40):
Frodo would be Key theoriginal idea was that all the hobbits
would be played by Brits,based on Tolkien's version of the
Shire as based on middle England.
Over 150 young British actorswere auditioned, including Dominic
Monaghan who would go on toplay merry Scottish actor, Billy
Boyd, who would be Pippin andOrlando Bloom who would be cast as
(28:02):
Legolas.
But none of them were Frodo.
Once American Elijah Wood sentin an audition tape of himself dressed
as Frodo reading lines fromthe novel.
The British Hobbit rule was dropped.
Wood was the first to beannounced to have joined the cast
as Frodo.
In a Press release on 10 July1999, Jackson would say that Frodo
(28:25):
was a critical role and theactor needed to have a great depth
of range.
Quote While we looked at manygood actors, it was clear from the
moment that we met Elijah thatwe had found Frodo Baggins.
He has an enormous naturalability to draw an audience into
a story and the dramatic depthto hold them there.
Jed Gyllenhaal famouslyunsuccessfully auditioned for the
(28:47):
role of Frodo.
Several well known actors wereconsidered or approached for key
roles.
With Russell Crowe approach toplay Aragorn, he declined.
Daniel Day Lewis reportedlyturned down the role multiple times
and Nicolas Cage wasconsidered but chose not to pursue
it.
Stuart Townsend was initiallycast as Aragorn, but was deemed too
(29:07):
young and replaced in threedays by Viggo Mortensen.
Mortensen read the book on theplane over and received a crash course
lesson in fencing from BobAnderson and began filming the scenes
on Weathertop straight away.
And just in case I forget tomention, next episode, the dude broke
two toes kicking a helmet forthe Two towers.
(29:27):
He's not acting, he's reallyin genuine pain.
He also lost a tooth taking asword to the face.
Viggo Mortensen is still hotby the way.
Just in case you were wondering.
Sean Connery was offered therole of Gandalf but turned it down,
reportedly because he didn'tunderstand the script.
He also turned downpotentially a $450 million payday
(29:50):
from the cut of the profits hewould have received.
Christopher Plummer wasapproached for Gandalf but declined.
Patrick Stewart wasconsidered, but while filming the
first X men movie in 1999, hisfriend and co star Ian McKellen was
instead cast as Gandalf.
McKellen couldn't join theshoot at the beginning due to his
commitments for X Men, so hejoined in January 2000 and worked
(30:14):
mostly with the Hobbit scaledoubles Including Kieran Shaw, who
doubled for Frodo.
Shah, who is 4 foot 2, wouldsay that Peter Jackson's movies were,
quote, the best job I ever didin my life.
And this is a guy who's workedon multiple Star wars movies.
Krull, Raiders of the LostArk, Titanic, Aliens, the Chronicles
(30:34):
of Narnia, and Doctor who.
Shah has held the GuinnessWorld Record as the shortest professional
stuntman since 2003.
On the opposite of that, PaulRandall, who's seven foot tall, doubled
for Gandalf opposite Elijah Wood.
A massive fan of the novel fordecades, Christopher Lee had dreamed
of playing Gandalf.
(30:54):
But by the time Jackson wascasting for his movies, Lee was in
his mid-70s and deemed himselftoo old.
Instead, Jackson cast him asSaruman as it was a less physically
demanding role.
Lee was the only member of thecast or crew who ever met Tolkien
in person.
While fan expectation wasalways going to be high for an adaptation
(31:16):
of such a literary epic, thecasting choice of Liv Tyler proved
initially to be controversial.
One of only two major femalecharacters in the movies, until we
get Aelwyn, Tyler's Arwen wasbeefed up considerably from the book
version, bringing her out ofRivendell and helping Frodo escape
the Black Riders.
Tyler also learned how tospeak Elvish for the role, something
(31:39):
that impressed Jackson immensely.
Sean Astin, new castingdirector Victoria Burrows, and his
father, John Astin, had workedpreviously with Peter Jackson on
the Frighteners.
But when his agent contactedAstin about the role of Samwise Gamgee,
he admitted that despitegraduating from UCLA with a double
degree in history and AmericanLiterature and Culture with honours,
(32:03):
Astin had to go to a bookshopto look up Tolkien.
As well as learning about theplot, Astin was tasked with nailing
a British accent.
In a short space of timebefore the audition, which he agreed
to do, his wife found adialect coach to help him, and the
dialect coach believed thatAstin was getting the part.
Like much of the cast andcrew, Astin's wife and daughter were
(32:24):
able to live with him in NewZealand while he filmed for the approximately
14 months or 438 days ofcontinuous filming, with his daughter
Alexandra, even cameoing inthe Return of the King as Eleanor
Gamgee, Sam's young daughter.
This was one of the longestcontinuous shoots in film history
at that time.
All three films were shotsimultaneously rather than sequentially,
(32:47):
which was a revolutionaryapproach for such a massive project.
As the actors traveled toWellington, their new home for the
next couple of years, Jacksonwanted his cast to bond before Filming
began on 11th October 1999.
The principal actors trainedfor six weeks in Sword fighting with
Bob Anderson, who once taughtErrol Fling archery, riding and boating
(33:10):
as well as in Tolkiense.
Is that a thing?
It is now, basically, so theycould pronounce his verses correctly
and this fellowship became areal fellowship.
When not filming, they learnedto surf together.
They took trips to Thailandand Australia.
They went skiing,snowboarding, whitewater rafting
and bungee jumping.
(33:30):
They played football on setwith Sean Bean and Dominic Monaghan
ribbing each other as theirfavorite teams clashed.
At the end of filming, theentire fellowship, save for John
Rhys Davis got matchingtattoos of the elvish symbol for
nine.
In total, up to seven unitsfilmed simultaneously in different
locations across New Zealandwith helicopters used to traverse
(33:53):
the often difficult terrain.
While Jackson oversaw thewhole production unit, directors
included Alan Bollinger, JohnMahaffey, Jeff Murphy, Fran Walsh,
Barry Osborne and Rick Porraswere monitored by Jackson with live
satellite feeds.
Filming took place across morethan 150 locations including the
(34:13):
Tongariro National Park,Kapiti Coast, Upper Hut, Kaitoki
Regional Park, Queenstown,Fernside, Fiordland national park
and Southern Lakes.
And the production employedover 2,400 crew members at its peak,
with nearly 50,000 props created.
The first scene filmed was thewooded road sequence in the Fellowship
(34:34):
of the Ring where the hobbitshide beneath a tree from a mounted
Ringwraith, which pays homageto the same scene in Ralph Bakshi's
1978 animated version.
Six day weeks of 14 to 15 hourdays were commonplace.
21 cameras and 4.5 millionfeet of film were used.
There were 350 different sets,some as large as city blocks.
(34:55):
30 kilometers of road werebuilt for the film and a total of
330 vehicles were used,including that one that had to be
digitally removed from thefilm for the DVD release.
In this movie specifically, wemeet the inhabitants of Hobbiton
of the Shire.
Based on the Warwickshirecountryside Tolkien grew up in and
around.
It's not classed asWarwickshire anymore.
(35:17):
It's now classed as West Midlands.
I say this as a Warwickshire girlie.
The creation of Hobbiton forthe Lord of the Rings was an extraordinary
feat of production design thatbegan years before filming did.
The team discovered theAlexander family sheet farm near
Mata Mata in New Zealand in 1998.
Peter Jackson chose it becausethe rolling hills and lake perfectly
(35:38):
matched Tolkien's descriptionsof the Shire.
Construction began in March1999, nearly nine months before filming
started.
The New Zealand army helpedbuild an access road to the remote
location.
The production plantedflowers, vegetables and hedges, imported
mature apple and plum treesand wired artificial leaves to them
(35:59):
when shooting in winter.
37 individual hobbit holes of60%, 75% and 100% scale sizes were
built along with the largeparty tree and mill.
Designer Alan Lee andproduction designer Grant Major ensured
structures looked as if they'dbeen there for centuries by using
natural local materials,incorporating existing landscape
(36:22):
features, creating weathered,aged appearances and having gardeners
establish real gardens thatwere actively growing.
Vegetables in the gardens wereedible and harvested for use by the
catering team during filming.
The original Hobbiton for theLord of the Rings was largely temporary,
though made of polystyrene andplywood facades.
(36:42):
After filming of the Lord ofthe Rings, it was mostly dismantled,
leaving only basic structures.
It was reconstructedpermanently for the Hobbit trilogy
years later with permanentmaterials, and this version remains
today as a major touristattraction with 44 permanent hobbit
holes.
I have been to Hobbiton and itis as magical as you would expect
(37:04):
it to be.
The costume designed for theLord of the Rings trilogy was led
by designer Angela Dixon, whowon an Academy Award for her work,
and it was an enormous undertaking.
Dixon and 40 seamstressesworked on over 19,000 costumes for
the films.
Due to the large shootingschedule, 10 versions of each costume
(37:25):
were made per character, with30 more of the stunt scale and other
doubles all in all, meaningthat each design had 40 versions.
Jackson had a requirement ofrealism, so the costumers went to
great lengths to make costumeslooked lived in, wearing away color,
stuffing pockets and dirtying them.
Each race had their owncultural identity in Middle Earth,
(37:48):
and this was also expressedwith clothing and armor.
The Hobbit clothes wereinspired by English, rural and Victorian
country styles, with earthynatural fabrics, warm colors and
simple practical designsreflecting their lifestyle.
Even Hobbit class was shown inthe clothing.
Frodo being wealthier than Sammeant Frodo had slightly finer fabrics.
(38:11):
The Elves had art Nouveau andart Deco influences with flowing,
elegant fabrics in silvers,pale blues and sage greens.
Details were hand embroideredwith nature inspired patterns.
The Rohirrim had Nordic andAnglo Saxon influences, with horse
motifs integrated throughoutin rich greens, golds and earthy
(38:32):
tones.
Gondor had Byzantine andMedieval European influences.
Black, silver and white colourpalette, with the white tree of Gondor
as a recurring motif.
The Orcs and Uruk Hai clothingwas made to look asymmetrical, as
if it was made by actual Orcswith industrial crude leather and
metalwork.
(38:52):
The clothing also incorporatedbone, teeth and scavenged materials,
suggesting they scavengedtheir kills.
Over 2000 suits of armor werecreated, again with each culture
having distinct armor stylesrequiring different techniques.
Urethane plastic was used forarmor pieces, along with leather
reinforced with resin andlightweight aluminium.
(39:14):
Weta Workshop developed slushmolding techniques to produce armor
pieces efficiently.
Hero pieces, which were theclose up armor, were crafted with
more detail than background pieces.
Each piece was artificiallyaged to look worn and authentic by
paint washes, sandblasting andchemical weathering.
The attention to detail in thecostuming helped create a believable
(39:36):
lived in world where eachculture had a distinct visual identity
while functioning practicallyfor the actors during extensive action
sequences and long shooting days.
And there really is no easyway to segue into it.
But this is the point whereI'm going to segue into the obligatory
Keanu reference of thisepisode, which is basically a part
of the podcast where I try andlink Keanu Reeves to pretty much
(39:59):
every movie that I feature forno reason other than he is Keanu
Reeves and he is the best ofmen and unfortunately he has nothing
to do with the Lord of theRings at all.
However, the easiest way tolink him to this movie is to say
that Keanu starred in theMatrix with Hugo Weaving.
Hugo Weaving played AgentSmith in that movie and he plays
(40:20):
Elrond in the Fellowship ofthe Ring.
I don't know what I'm gonna dowith the other two movies.
I guess we will wait and seewhat I manage to get out of the bag
for those two.
But as I mentioned earlier, Iwant to talk about the music and
the incredible score,specifically in the episode on the
Return of the King and that'ssomething very different.
I usually do talk aboutindividual aspects of the movie,
(40:42):
but because this is across theseries, I want to focus on it in
one episode.
Obviously this movie did havea song by Enya called Let It Be,
which would end up becomingaward nominated.
But considering the incredibletask to actually get the Lord of
the Rings made, the next taskwas going to be how do we get people
who don't necessarily knowTolkien's work to come and see this
(41:06):
movie and the two movies thatare going to follow.
The website for the Fellowshipof the Ring and the Lord of the Rings
in general debuted two yearsbefore the Fellowship of the Ring
was released and it containedregular production diaries and behind
the scenes content to keepfans engaged and became a hub for
exclusive content.
The production newauthenticity to the books would please
(41:28):
the fandom, but gettingeveryday cinemagoers involved was
something completely differentthe first featurette trailer was
released in April 2000 and wasdownloaded over 1.7 million times
in its first 24 hours,breaking Star Wars Episode 1, the
Phantom Menace's record.
And this feature at trailer iscited as drawing in the general audiences
(41:50):
because it tended to focus onthe emotional journey of the characters
and so you didn't need to be aTolkien fan or a Tolkien scholar
to enjoy this movie and not tomention this movie involving a love
story and some battlesequences which would in turn create
entry points for viewersunfamiliar with the books.
The world premiere of the Lordof the Rings, the Fellowship of the
(42:12):
Ring occurred at LeicesterSquare in London on 10 December 2001.
It was released wide on 19December 2001, which was a Wednesday,
meaning that its firstofficial week of release in the US
had it at number three becauseit had technically only been out
for two days at that point.
Of course, it went to numberone in its second week and stayed
(42:34):
there for four weeks, onlydropping to fourth in its sixth week
behind Black Hawk Down, SnowDogs and A Beautiful Mind.
The Fellowship of the Ringremained in the US top 10 for eight
weeks on a production budgetof $93 million.
The Fellowship of the Ringgrossed $313.4 million domestically
(42:55):
in the US and $555 millioninternationally for a total worldwide
gross of $868.4 million,making it the second highest grossing
film of 2001 and the fifthhighest grossing film of all time
at the time of its release.
So they really didn't need toworry about non fans of Tolkien enjoying
(43:17):
this movie.
Nor did they need to worryabout critics either because the
Lord of the Rings, theFellowship of currently still holds
an approval rating of 92% ofrotten tomatoes, with a consensus
reading full of eye poppingspecial effects and featuring a pitch
perfect cast.
The Lord of the Rings theFellowship of The Ring brings J.R.R.
tolkien's classic to vivid life.
(43:38):
The Fellowship of The Ringreceived 13 Academy Award nominations
for Best Picture, BestDirector, Best Supporting actor for
Ian McKellen, best adaptedscreenplay, Best Art Direction, Best
Cinematography, Best CostumeDesign, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup,
Best Original Score, BestOriginal Song for Enya's May It Be
Best Sound and Best VisualEffects, winning in four categories
(44:02):
Best Cinematography, BestMakeup, Best Original Score and Best
Visual Effects.
It also earned 13 nominationsat the 55th BAFTA Awards for Best
Film, Best Director, BestActor in a Leading role for Ian McKellen,
best screenplay adapted BestCinematography, Best Costume Design,
Best Editing, Best Film Music,Best Makeup and Hair, Best Production
(44:23):
Design, Best Sound and BestVisual Effects, leading to wins in
the categories for Best Film,Best Director, Best Makeup and Hair,
Best Visual Effects, and alsotaking the Orange Film of the Year
award.
Howard Shaw's score also won aGrammy and May Be by Enya received
a Grammy nomination of a totalof 800 award nominations.
(44:45):
The Fellowship of the Ring won475 awards.
Like all of the Lord of theRings movies, there is an extended
version with 30 minutes of newmaterial, 19 minutes of the Lord
of the Rings fan club creditsfor those who contributed financially
in exchange for a credit, fourcommentaries and three hours of bonus
material.
(45:05):
The theatrical version is 178minutes, the extended version is
228 minutes on the VHS or DVD,or 238 minutes if you have the extended
Blu Ray.
In 2007, the American filmInstitute named it one of the hundred
greatest American films inhistory, being both the most recent
film and the only filmreleased in the 21st century to make
(45:28):
it into the list.
In 2021, the film was selectedfor preservation in the United States
National Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress for being culturally,
historically or aesthetically significant.
And as this is the first partof a three part story, I'm going
to stop it here with the hopethat you will return next time.
(45:50):
Because as of the end of thismovie, the Fellowship is broken,
Boronier is dead, Frodo andSam are venturing off alone to Mordor
with Merry and Pippin captured.
But not all hope is lost.
Next week the story continueswith the Tin Towers and even more
History and Legacy of the Lordof the Rings.
(46:11):
Thank you for listening tothis episode.
As always, I would love tohear your thoughts on the Lord of
the Rings, the Fellowship ofthe Ring, and as always, thank you
for your continued support ofthis podcast.
If you want to get involvedand help this podcast grow, you could
leave a rating or reviewwherever you found it.
You could find me and followme on social media.
I'm at verbal diorama acrossall the social medias and you can
(46:34):
like post, share, post,comment on posts.
It all helps with visibility.
Or you can just simply tellyour friends and family about this
podcast and about this episode.
If you enjoy what I do forthis podcast or you simply want to
support an indie podcaster whodoes literally everything on her
own and you have some sparechange, you can financially contribute
to the upkeep of this podcast.
(46:56):
You're under no obligation andthis podcast is free and will remain
free for you to listen to regardless.
But if you do get value out ofmy work.
There are a couple of ways youcan help if you have the means to
do so.
You can make a one offdonation@verbaldiorama.com tips or
you can subscribe to thePatreon to support the show@verbaldiorama.com
(47:18):
Patreon all money made goesback into this podcast by paying
for software, subscriptions,website hosting or new equipment.
I am hugely grateful to thepatrons of this podcast.
They are Claudia, Simon,Laurel, Derek, Kat, Andy, Mike, Luke,
Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa,Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas,
(47:40):
so, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny,Ali, Stu, Brett, Philip M, Xenos,
Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam,Elaine, Kyle and Aaron.
If you want to get in touch,you can email general hellos, feedback
or suggestions toverbaldioramail.com or you can go
to the websiteverbaldiorama.com and fill out the
(48:01):
little contact form.
I would love to hear from you,especially with the 300th episode
coming up.
And if you've never contactedme before and you've always wondered
if you contact a podcaster, ifthey will reply, yes, I will absolutely
reply.
Might take me a little while,but I will reply.
Alternatively, you can contactme on social media as well.
Please feel free to get intouch and say hello and finally I
(48:25):
know.
What it is you saw, for it isalso in my mind.
It is what will come to passif you should fail.
The Fellowship is breaking.
It has already begun.
(48:47):
He will try to take the the Ring.
You know of whom I speak.
One by one, it will destroythem all.
If you ask it of me, I willgive you the One Ring.
(49:07):
You offer it to me freely.
I do not deny that my hearthas greatly desired this.
In place of a Dark Lord, youwould have a queen.
(49:28):
Not dark but beautiful and terrible.
Afterborn.
Treacherous as the sea.
Stronger than the foundationof fear.
Oh, shall love me and despair.
(50:01):
I pass the test.
I will diminish and go intothe west and remain Galadriel.
I cannot do this alone.
You are a ring bearer, Frodo.
To bear a Ring of power is tobe alone.
(50:27):
This is Nen, the Ring ofAdamant, and and I am its keeper.
This task was appointed to you.
And if you do not find a way,no one will.
Then I know what I must do.
(50:50):
It's just I'm afraid to do it.
It.
Even the smallest person canchange the course of the future.
Bye.
(51:21):
It.
You cannot pass.
Stand out.
I am servant of the Secret Fire.
Wielder of the flame of Arnor.
The dark fire will not availyou, flame of Ulung.
(00:29):
Go back to the shadow.
You shall not pass.
(01:23):
Family, you fool.
In a world overflowing withmovies, we need a hero.
Someone to separate the badfrom the good.
(02:10):
Hi everyone, I'm Em andwelcome to verbal diorama, episode
298, the Lord of the Rings,the Fellowship of the Ring.
This is the podcast that's allabout the history and legacy.
Maybe you know and maybe you don't.
That is never late FrodoBaggins, nor is she early.
She arrives precisely when shemeans to welcome to Verbal Diorama.
(02:30):
Whether you're a brand newlistener to this podcast, welcome
back regular returning listeners.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for choosing tolisten to this podcast.
I am so happy to have you herefor the history and Legacy of the
Lord of the Rings theFellowship of the Ring this is a
bit of a momentous occasion.
This is the first of a threepart special trilogy of episodes
(02:53):
that's going to be making usweb to the 300th episode of this
podcast.
But just a huge thank you toeveryone who listens to this podcast
who supports this podcast andhas continued to listen to and support
this podcast over the last sixyears and almost 300 episodes.
It genuinely is incrediblereally that I have you here, but
also thank you so much foryour support because it genuinely
(03:15):
means so much.
So here we are, the run up tothe 300th episode of Verbal Diorama.
This is basically the secondof a five part episode on the history
and legacy of the Lord of theRings, focusing on Peter Jackson's
trilogy but then sandwichedbetween two animated versions, Rath
Bakshi's the Lord of the Ringsfrom 1978, which was last episode,
(03:38):
and 2024's the Lord of theRings the War of the Rohirrin, which
will be episode 301 of this podcast.
Now if you haven't listened tothe last episode on the Lord of the
rings from 1978, youtechnically don't need to.
But I would recommend it evenif you haven't seen that movie because
Tolkien's history as well ashis estate's control of the material
(04:01):
is important to know forJackson's movies as well as Saul's
ain't linked to the rights asI'm going to come to the estate didn't
have anything to do with theseadaptations by Peter Jackson, but
Saul Zainz is a key figure sothis is technically the second of
a five part complete story,but the first of three interconnected
(04:22):
stories.
And because Peter Jacksonfilmed these movies back to back,
I want to split out the makingof them all covered across the three
episodes, but also talk aboutthe trilogy as a whole across the
three episodes.
And if you're wondering why, Iguess it's because one does not simply
walk into Mordor.
It takes time, planning a team.
(04:44):
I don't have a team.
I have Evie and Peggy on hand,Therp cuddles and Purrs, and maybe
at the end Gandalf will haveto summon the eagles for a quick
rescue.
Because this is kind ofunprecedented what I'm doing for
these episodes.
This episode will be focusingon the beginning of Peter Jackson's
vision for the series, hisdealings with Miramax, the move to
New Line Cinema, the variouschanges that they made to the source
(05:06):
material, and specifics on theFellowship of the Ring, including
the casting choices for theentire series.
And I also want to focus inthis episode on the incredible costume
design for the series as well.
The next episode will befocusing on the Two Towers, the Battle
of Helm's Deep, and theintroduction of and technology surrounding
Gollum, as well as I also wantto go into the production and art
(05:29):
design choices for the entire series.
The third episode and the300th episode of this podcast will
be focusing on the Return ofthe King, but also the visual effects
by Weta Workshop, the musicacross all of the movies by Howard
Shaw, how the Return of theKing became one of the biggest Academy
Award winning films of alltime, as well as the everlasting
(05:51):
legacy of these movies,specifically from fan culture to
setting a precedent that PeterJackson's Hobbit trilogy then had
to follow.
The final episode, episode301, will be on the recent anime
the War of the Rahirim, butalso the effect the Lord of the Rings
and the Hobbit has had on NewZealand's tourism and film industries,
(06:13):
plus also the retaining of therights to the Lord of the Rings and
also the future of thefranchise as well.
Now, in all honesty, as Isaid, this is kind of unprecedented
how I'm tackling these threemovies, because these three movies
were not made to be tackled individually.
They are three parts of acomplete story and they were filmed
(06:35):
back to back.
So a lot of the productionstories and the stories behind the
scenes actually cover allthree movies.
So I don't even know if thisis even gonna work in the way I intend
it to work.
But just like Peter Jackson,I'm gonna Do it anyway.
He did three movies shotsimultaneously out of sequence.
But I'm gonna do threeepisodes recorded in sequence but
(06:57):
containing details from thesimultaneous shoot.
So these episodes will telleach story but also one big story
suitable for the One Ring.
I do feel a little bit likeSauron's eye is trained on me and
this does feel like a bit of aquest in all honesty.
But I am going to reach theend of the quest and hopefully I've
not bitten off more secondbreakfast than I can chew.
(07:19):
Here's the trailer for theLord of the Rings.
The Fellowship of the Ring.
The start of the number one trilogy.
In the lands of Middle Earthlegend tells of the dark Lord Sauron
and the ring that would givehim the power to enslave the world
(07:42):
lost.
For centuries it has beensought by many and has now found
its way into the helm of themost unlikely person imaginable.
Sauron needs only this ring tocover all the lands in darkness.
What must I do?
(08:02):
The Ring must be destroyed.
The Ring must be cast backinto the fires of Mount Doom.
There is evil there that doesnot sleep.
Sauron's forces are already moving.
They will find the Ring andkill the one who carries it.
Come on, Frodo.
(08:25):
I cannot do this alone.
You have my sword.
And you have my bow and my axe.
This task was appointed to you.
And if you do not find a way,no one will.
The enemy has many spies.
(08:47):
Birds, beasts.
Something draws near.
I can feel it.
Get off the road.
Hide.
Almost.
Remember, Frodo.
The Ring is trying to get backto its master.
It wants to be found.
Let us hope that our presencemay go unnoticed.
(09:16):
They are coming.
We must turn back.
Wish the ring had never cometo me.
Back, you devils.
I wish none of this had happened.
(09:37):
You will find your courage.
If you want him, come andclaim him.
You shall not pass.
(10:16):
The future rests in the fateof the One Ring which has been lost
for centuries.
Powerful forces areunrelenting in their search for it
but fate has placed it in thehands of a young hobbit called Frodo
Baggins who inherits the Ringand unwittingly becomes the savior
of Middle Earth.
A daunting task lies ahead forFrodo when he becomes the Ring bearer.
(10:37):
To destroy the One Ring in thefires of Mount Doom where it was
forged.
He's joined by eightcompanions to aid him in his quest.
They are the Fellowship of the Ring.
Let's run through the cast ofthis movie and most of the movies
going forward but we'll focusprimarily on the cast of this movie
we have Elijah Wood as FrodoBaggins, Ian McKellen as Gandalf,
(11:02):
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn,Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee, Sean
Bean as Boromir, Billy Boyd asPeregrine Took, Dominic Monaghan
as Mary Adot Brandybuck, JohnRhys Davis as Gimli, Orlando Bloom
as Legolas, Liv Tyler asArwen, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel,
(11:24):
Christopher Lee as Saruman theWhite, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Ian
Holm as Bilbo Baggins and AndySerkis as Gollum.
The Lord of the the Fellowshipof the Ring has a screenplay by Fran
Walsh, Philippa Boyens andPeter Jackson was directed by Peter
Jackson and was based on theFellowship of The Ring by J.R.R.
(11:47):
tolkien.
And the story of the Lord ofthe Rings starts as all good stories
should, with Michael J.
Fox.
Sort of, but not really.
But before Peter Jackson wasthe Peter Jackson of the Lord of
the Rings trilogy, he wasPeter Jackson.
Risky weird horror director,but one of his most underrated movies
(12:07):
actually came about in 1996and I've done an episode on it too.
It is a wonderful movie.
It's episode 103 of thispodcast that movie stars Michael
J.
Fox and it is the Frighteners.
How does the Frighteners haveanything to do with the Lord of the
Rings?
Well, apart from a couple ofscary scenes, not much.
But it's really a story ofwhat's going on behind the scenes
(12:28):
of the Frighteners.
That's important becausepretty much everything in the Frighteners
is a precursor to what PeterJackson would do next.
Everything from the balancebetween practical effects and CGI
to the New Zealand basedproduction and the fact that Universal
offered Peter Jackson theopportunity to make King Kong led
to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
(12:49):
Spoiler.
He didn't make King Kong nextafter all, but he would go on to
make King Kong after these movies.
The creation of Weta Digitalfor Jackson's movie Heavenly Creatures
would be pivotal to the story too.
After the Frighteners, PeterJackson and his partner Fran Walsh
wanted to do something highfantasy and original.
(13:09):
Original being the operative word.
But everything they thought ofsounded very Tolkien.
And Jackson wondered whyHollywood just didn't want to seem
to touch the Lord of the ringssince Ralph Bakshi's version in 1978,
which, as I mentioned lastepisode, Jackson saw as a child and
it made him curious to readthe books and find out more.
(13:30):
Even with Bakshi's ambitiousattempt at a rotoscoped Version no
one in Hollywood seemed towant to talk about the idea of making
it fully live action.
It seemed to be outside of therealm of possibility and also expense.
As CGI technology begandeveloping in the late 1980s and
early 1990s, there wererenewed considerations about whether
(13:52):
a live action adaptation mightfinally be feasible.
However, the technology wasstill deemed insufficient or too
expensive for the massivescale required.
Jackson also is seemingly anunlikely choice for this long awaited
adaptation.
He was primarily known as alow budget, visceral horror comedy
director and he wanted to takeon a movie deemed unfilmable, especially
(14:17):
in live action.
Question mark Jackson wascontracted to Miramax Films at the
time, but via the go toMiramax, Jackson's agent tracked
down the Tolkien film rightsto Saul Zaintz.
And it turned out that Zainzowed Harvey Weinstein a favorite
and it was all down to theEnglish patient.
20th Century Fox hadoriginally agreed to finance the
(14:40):
English Patient with JeremyIrons and Juliet Binoche, but withdrew
that financing when directorAnthony Minguela insisted on casting
Ralph Fiennes instead.
This left Sainz in a difficultfinancial position.
Halfway through filming inItaly and North Africa, they ran
out of money.
This is when Weinstein andMiramax entered the picture, providing
approximately $6 million tocomplete the English Patient.
(15:04):
In exchange, Miramax acquiredthe North American distribution rights.
The English Patient went on tobecome a critical and commercial
success, winning nine AcademyAwards, including Best Picture in
1997.
The film ultimately grossedover $230 million worldwide against
its $27 million budget andSaul Zainz was then indebted to Harvey
(15:27):
Weinstein.
So when Jackson went toWeinstein inquiring about the rights
to the Lord of the Rings,Weinstein went to Saints and optioned
the rights to Tolkien's work,with Jackson pitching one film based
on the Hobbit and a two partadaptation of the Lord of the Rings
shot back to back, releasedsix months apart, it was an unprecedented
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level of ambition.
And this was in the mid-90s,years before anything concrete, just
preliminary talks.
But Saul Zaynt was impressedwith Jackson's passion and like Ralph
Bakshi before him, Jackson wasall about keeping it true to Tolkien's
vision.
While the distribution rightsof the Hobbit remained with United
Artists, Sainz agreed tolicense the rights to the Lord of
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the Rings eventually.
It took a while, basically ayear of negotiations between Saints
and the Weinsteins.
It took for Jackson to agreeto make King Kong with Universal,
only for them to then cancelKing Kong in 1997.
It was after the suddencancellation by Universal.
That pushed Jackson and Walshinto beginning the process of sorting
(16:31):
out the rights with Weinstein,which then took a further six weeks.
Miramax rejected the idea ofthree films, but acquiesced to the
idea of two when they realizedthat doing it in one would be unmanageable.
A screening of Bakshi'sversion at a story conference put
this into perspective.
No one wanted to be getting tothe Battle of Helm's Deep and then
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stopping the story again.
Jax's initial idea was for two films.
The first would be called theFellowship of the Ring, which would
cover the novel of that nameand the Two Towers.
And then the sequel would bethe War of the Ring, which would
cover the Return of the King.
The first film would haveended with Saruman's death and the
second would start with theBattle at Minas Tirith.
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The Weinsteins agreed on twofilms and a budget of $75 million
total, which seems prettyludicrous for what they were trying
to achieve.
But financial issues will beforthcoming at this point.
The Weinsteins are keen toAmericanize the cast.
But Harvey Weinstein, beingthe absolute worst that he is and
always will be and was at thispoint was already blacklisting actresses
(17:38):
who refused to sleep with him.
So while Jackson wasinterested in casting Mira Salvino
and Ashley Judd, Weinsteindissuaded him from considering them.
No one knew at the time bothSilvino and Judd had been sexually
harassed by Weinstein.
And of course it would takedecades for that revelation and the
myriad of others to come to light.
(17:58):
Writing the scripts andcondensing Tolkien's extensive story
into two films would be a task.
And in mid-1997, Jackson andWalsh began writing with Stephen
Sinclair.
And Sinclair's partner,Philippa Boyens joined them to write
two scripts in 14 months of147 and 144 pages respectively.
(18:18):
At the same time, Weta Digitalwere working on developing new proprietary
software and conceptuallydesigned the films, including buying
designs from Rav Bakshi.
Jackson and Miramax agreed toa 110 day filming schedule.
Jackson had already built filmfacilities in Wellington through
his company, Weta Workshop.
This gave them a base ofoperations with existing technical
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capabilities for a shootbeginning in April 1999 for a Christmas
2000 and Memorial Day 2001 release.
But the budget was beginningto worry Miramax, who asked for cost
cutting rewrites.
They sent producers to NewZealand to oversee the work.
One of them, Marty Katz,reported back that the movies would
(19:02):
cost Double that initial $75 million.
Budget, and Miramax justdidn't have the funds for that.
So Miramax went to Disneychairman Joe Roth and CEO Michael
Eisner to light the beaconsand request budgetary aid for the
Lord of the Rings.
Eisner himself had recentlydemanded Disney cut its own costs,
and so the parent companydeclined to help.
(19:25):
Eisner would say it was due toWeinstein refusing to allow him to
review the project or meetwith Jackson.
Fran Walsh would suggest itwas due to a lack of faith in the
project, specifically in PeterJackson's ability to make something
that was a bit more familyfriendly than his previous films.
After unsuccessfully trying toget other studios on board to partner
(19:45):
with them, Miramax insteadsuggested making just one movie and
commissioned Jack Leckner tocondense the story from two films
to one.
He suggested cutting Bree inthe Battle of Helm's Deep, losing
or using Saruman, mergingRohan and Gondor, and making Eowyn,
Boromir's sister, shorteningRivendell and Moria, losing the Balrog
(20:08):
and the fight in Balin's Tombin the process, as well as having
Ents prevent the Uruk Hai fromkidnapping Merry and Pippin.
It was essentially anultimatum from Harvey Weinstein.
Jackson could either condenseall three books into a single two
hour film, make two films witha drastically reduced budget, or
(20:28):
abandoned the project entirely.
Jackson refused to compromiseon what he felt would destroy the
integrity of Tolkien's work,in particular the suggestion to combine
everything into one film thatwould have required cutting major
storylines and characters.
Miramax then declared thateverything Weta had done thus far
and also the scripts, belongedto them.
(20:49):
Weinstein gave Jackson aboutfour weeks to find another studio
willing to take on the project.
If unsuccessful, Miramax wouldproceed with their condensed version
with another director to bewritten by Hussein Amini, who was
a fan of the work they'dalready done up to this point.
Weinstein used his typicalbullying tactics to try to get Jackson
(21:09):
to agree to his requests,including trying to call Jackson's
bluff that Quentin Tarantinowas going to direct.
Miramax agreed to put thefilms in turnaround for that four
week period only.
And if Jackson couldn't findanother studio willing to make his
movies, they would make them,but without the scripts or Weta's
work, after being told legallythey didn't have ownership of either.
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They also demanded that if hedid find another studio, that that
new studio would have to repayRemax's investment plus agree to
give them 5% of the revenue.
Jackson and his manager KentCannings, began Frantically pitching
to other studios with a 35minute making of video to use to
promote the work they've doneso far.
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Sony declined disliking the script.
20th Century Fox declined dueto Saul Zainz and potentially the
issues surrounding the English Patient.
Polygram were interested, butwere being bought by Universal at
the time.
When Jackson and C approachedNew Line Cinema, where Jackson's
friend Mark Ordesky worked,something unexpected happened.
(22:15):
New Line Cinema were known asthe House that Freddie Built.
They were known primarily as ahorror franchise studio with A Nightmare
on Elm street and TexasChainsaw Massacre both being successful.
In 1994, Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles became the highest grossing
independent film of all time.
While the company hadsustained some losses in the late
(22:36):
90s, CEO Robert Shea knew thecompany needed a new lucrative franchise,
and he'd heard about Miramaxacquiring the rights to the Lord
of the Rings.
When Mark or Deschi approachedhim to suggest they get involved,
Shea initially refused becauseof the Weinstein's demands.
But he met with Jackson.
Now Bob Shea intuitivelyunderstood that Tolkien's three book
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structure provided a naturalframework for three films rather
than two.
Or indeed one.
And this was something Jacksonimmediately liked.
The Sound of Moonlightinsisted on three films rather than
two.
Shea also recognized thepotential for a major franchise at
a time when studios wereincreasingly focusing on tentpole
(23:19):
properties.
Three successful films wouldgenerate far more revenue than one
or two.
While the upfront investmentwould be enormous, around $300 million
for all three films, shootingthem simultaneously created significant
production efficienciescompared to making them separately.
By producing three films atonce, they could spread marketing
costs and build audiencemomentum across multiple releases
(23:43):
rather than betting everythingon a single film.
Most importantly to Bob Shea,as a smaller studio operating under
the Time Warner umbrella, theyneeded a breakthrough project to
compete with larger studios.
There was nothing bigger ormore ambitious than the Lord of the
Rings.
It was a risk, but unlike backin the 70s, they had the technology.
(24:05):
Wetter Digital was at theforefront of motion capture and cg,
and filming in New Zealandoffered remarkable geographical diversity
within a relatively small area.
Within short distances, theycould access mountains, forests,
volcanic regions, rollinghills and plains that closely matched
Tolkien's descriptions ofMiddle Earth.
(24:26):
Not to mention the New Zealandgovernment providing significant
tax breaks and financialincentives to attract the massive
production.
Jackson, Walsh and Boyen setabout writing three new scripts,
consulted Tolkien's biography,letters and scholarly books written
on his works.
The expansion to three filmsallowed much more creative freedom.
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And while the three filmsdon't correspond exactly to the trilogy's
Three volumes.
They represent a three partadaptation which is a more chronological
approach to the story.
Frodo's quest becomes the mainfocus with Aragorn as the main subplot,
and he would be transformedfrom confident king in Waiting in
the books to a more reluctanthero in the films.
(25:08):
There were structural changes,character alterations, significant
omissions, added elements andtonal shifts.
Notable differences includedthe timelines being compressed from
17 years in the books to amatter of months in the films.
Certain chapters andcharacters were omitted, like the
Scouring of the Shire and Tom Bombadil.
Certain elements like theelves fighting at Helm's Deep were
(25:31):
added and elements thatTolkien kept ambiguous were defined.
The Tolkien estate would becontacted by Jackson, Walsh and Boyans.
However, the estate chose todistance themselves from Jackson's
adaptations.
They had no creative controlover Jackson's films and disagreed
with many of his creativechoices, particularly the emphasis
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on battle sequences and thealterations to character motivations
and personalities.
Christopher Tolkien inparticular was concerned with preserving
his father's literary legacy.
He viewed the books as seriousworks with deep philosophical and
linguistic foundations ratherthan action adventure stories.
In a 2012 interview with LeMonde, he famously stated that the
(26:13):
films eviscerated the booksand turned them into action movies
for young people.
In addition, he wasuncomfortable with the merchandising
and commercial aspects thataccompanied the films and objected
to the transformation of hisfather's work into commercial entertainment
projects.
Nevertheless, Jackson waspassionate about making films that
were not only faithful toTolkien's works, but that took advantage
(26:36):
of everything available in thelate 90s and early 2000s.
I'm going to go into thevisual effects in more detail in
the episode on the Return ofthe King, but we're talking cutting
edge CGI and motion capturescale miniatures, forced perspective
as well as production design,creating multiple size sets.
This was truly an epicproduction of nothing that had ever
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been accomplished before andlikely never will again to this scope
and scale.
Jackson began storyboardingthe trilogy with Christian Rivers
in August 1997, effectivelycreating a rough black and white
2D version of the film.
Jackson showed excerpts ofthese animated storyboards to allow
potential cast a view of thefilm's style.
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And casting started in earnestin 1999 and it was a global surge,
prioritizing acting abilityover star power.
Jackson wanted actors whocould blend together rather than
standout stars who mightovershadow the story, with a strong
focus on New Zealand andBritish actors for the roles.
Now, of course, in a movieabout the Lord of the Rings, casting
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Frodo would be Key theoriginal idea was that all the hobbits
would be played by Brits,based on Tolkien's version of the
Shire as based on middle England.
Over 150 young British actorswere auditioned, including Dominic
Monaghan who would go on toplay merry Scottish actor, Billy
Boyd, who would be Pippin andOrlando Bloom who would be cast as
(28:02):
Legolas.
But none of them were Frodo.
Once American Elijah Wood sentin an audition tape of himself dressed
as Frodo reading lines fromthe novel.
The British Hobbit rule was dropped.
Wood was the first to beannounced to have joined the cast
as Frodo.
In a Press release on 10 July1999, Jackson would say that Frodo
(28:25):
was a critical role and theactor needed to have a great depth
of range.
Quote While we looked at manygood actors, it was clear from the
moment that we met Elijah thatwe had found Frodo Baggins.
He has an enormous naturalability to draw an audience into
a story and the dramatic depthto hold them there.
Jed Gyllenhaal famouslyunsuccessfully auditioned for the
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role of Frodo.
Several well known actors wereconsidered or approached for key
roles.
With Russell Crowe approach toplay Aragorn, he declined.
Daniel Day Lewis reportedlyturned down the role multiple times
and Nicolas Cage wasconsidered but chose not to pursue
it.
Stuart Townsend was initiallycast as Aragorn, but was deemed too
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young and replaced in threedays by Viggo Mortensen.
Mortensen read the book on theplane over and received a crash course
lesson in fencing from BobAnderson and began filming the scenes
on Weathertop straight away.
And just in case I forget tomention, next episode, the dude broke
two toes kicking a helmet forthe Two towers.
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He's not acting, he's reallyin genuine pain.
He also lost a tooth taking asword to the face.
Viggo Mortensen is still hotby the way.
Just in case you were wondering.
Sean Connery was offered therole of Gandalf but turned it down,
reportedly because he didn'tunderstand the script.
He also turned downpotentially a $450 million payday
(29:50):
from the cut of the profits hewould have received.
Christopher Plummer wasapproached for Gandalf but declined.
Patrick Stewart wasconsidered, but while filming the
first X men movie in 1999, hisfriend and co star Ian McKellen was
instead cast as Gandalf.
McKellen couldn't join theshoot at the beginning due to his
commitments for X Men, so hejoined in January 2000 and worked
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mostly with the Hobbit scaledoubles Including Kieran Shaw, who
doubled for Frodo.
Shah, who is 4 foot 2, wouldsay that Peter Jackson's movies were,
quote, the best job I ever didin my life.
And this is a guy who's workedon multiple Star wars movies.
Krull, Raiders of the LostArk, Titanic, Aliens, the Chronicles
(30:34):
of Narnia, and Doctor who.
Shah has held the GuinnessWorld Record as the shortest professional
stuntman since 2003.
On the opposite of that, PaulRandall, who's seven foot tall, doubled
for Gandalf opposite Elijah Wood.
A massive fan of the novel fordecades, Christopher Lee had dreamed
of playing Gandalf.
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But by the time Jackson wascasting for his movies, Lee was in
his mid-70s and deemed himselftoo old.
Instead, Jackson cast him asSaruman as it was a less physically
demanding role.
Lee was the only member of thecast or crew who ever met Tolkien
in person.
While fan expectation wasalways going to be high for an adaptation
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of such a literary epic, thecasting choice of Liv Tyler proved
initially to be controversial.
One of only two major femalecharacters in the movies, until we
get Aelwyn, Tyler's Arwen wasbeefed up considerably from the book
version, bringing her out ofRivendell and helping Frodo escape
the Black Riders.
Tyler also learned how tospeak Elvish for the role, something
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that impressed Jackson immensely.
Sean Astin, new castingdirector Victoria Burrows, and his
father, John Astin, had workedpreviously with Peter Jackson on
the Frighteners.
But when his agent contactedAstin about the role of Samwise Gamgee,
he admitted that despitegraduating from UCLA with a double
degree in history and AmericanLiterature and Culture with honours,
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Astin had to go to a bookshopto look up Tolkien.
As well as learning about theplot, Astin was tasked with nailing
a British accent.
In a short space of timebefore the audition, which he agreed
to do, his wife found adialect coach to help him, and the
dialect coach believed thatAstin was getting the part.
Like much of the cast andcrew, Astin's wife and daughter were
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able to live with him in NewZealand while he filmed for the approximately
14 months or 438 days ofcontinuous filming, with his daughter
Alexandra, even cameoing inthe Return of the King as Eleanor
Gamgee, Sam's young daughter.
This was one of the longestcontinuous shoots in film history
at that time.
All three films were shotsimultaneously rather than sequentially,
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which was a revolutionaryapproach for such a massive project.
As the actors traveled toWellington, their new home for the
next couple of years, Jacksonwanted his cast to bond before Filming
began on 11th October 1999.
The principal actors trainedfor six weeks in Sword fighting with
Bob Anderson, who once taughtErrol Fling archery, riding and boating
(33:10):
as well as in Tolkiense.
Is that a thing?
It is now, basically, so theycould pronounce his verses correctly
and this fellowship became areal fellowship.
When not filming, they learnedto surf together.
They took trips to Thailandand Australia.
They went skiing,snowboarding, whitewater rafting
and bungee jumping.
(33:30):
They played football on setwith Sean Bean and Dominic Monaghan
ribbing each other as theirfavorite teams clashed.
At the end of filming, theentire fellowship, save for John
Rhys Davis got matchingtattoos of the elvish symbol for
nine.
In total, up to seven unitsfilmed simultaneously in different
locations across New Zealandwith helicopters used to traverse
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the often difficult terrain.
While Jackson oversaw thewhole production unit, directors
included Alan Bollinger, JohnMahaffey, Jeff Murphy, Fran Walsh,
Barry Osborne and Rick Porraswere monitored by Jackson with live
satellite feeds.
Filming took place across morethan 150 locations including the
(34:13):
Tongariro National Park,Kapiti Coast, Upper Hut, Kaitoki
Regional Park, Queenstown,Fernside, Fiordland national park
and Southern Lakes.
And the production employedover 2,400 crew members at its peak,
with nearly 50,000 props created.
The first scene filmed was thewooded road sequence in the Fellowship
(34:34):
of the Ring where the hobbitshide beneath a tree from a mounted
Ringwraith, which pays homageto the same scene in Ralph Bakshi's
1978 animated version.
Six day weeks of 14 to 15 hourdays were commonplace.
21 cameras and 4.5 millionfeet of film were used.
There were 350 different sets,some as large as city blocks.
(34:55):
30 kilometers of road werebuilt for the film and a total of
330 vehicles were used,including that one that had to be
digitally removed from thefilm for the DVD release.
In this movie specifically, wemeet the inhabitants of Hobbiton
of the Shire.
Based on the Warwickshirecountryside Tolkien grew up in and
around.
It's not classed asWarwickshire anymore.
(35:17):
It's now classed as West Midlands.
I say this as a Warwickshire girlie.
The creation of Hobbiton forthe Lord of the Rings was an extraordinary
feat of production design thatbegan years before filming did.
The team discovered theAlexander family sheet farm near
Mata Mata in New Zealand in 1998.
Peter Jackson chose it becausethe rolling hills and lake perfectly
(35:38):
matched Tolkien's descriptionsof the Shire.
Construction began in March1999, nearly nine months before filming
started.
The New Zealand army helpedbuild an access road to the remote
location.
The production plantedflowers, vegetables and hedges, imported
mature apple and plum treesand wired artificial leaves to them
(35:59):
when shooting in winter.
37 individual hobbit holes of60%, 75% and 100% scale sizes were
built along with the largeparty tree and mill.
Designer Alan Lee andproduction designer Grant Major ensured
structures looked as if they'dbeen there for centuries by using
natural local materials,incorporating existing landscape
(36:22):
features, creating weathered,aged appearances and having gardeners
establish real gardens thatwere actively growing.
Vegetables in the gardens wereedible and harvested for use by the
catering team during filming.
The original Hobbiton for theLord of the Rings was largely temporary,
though made of polystyrene andplywood facades.
(36:42):
After filming of the Lord ofthe Rings, it was mostly dismantled,
leaving only basic structures.
It was reconstructedpermanently for the Hobbit trilogy
years later with permanentmaterials, and this version remains
today as a major touristattraction with 44 permanent hobbit
holes.
I have been to Hobbiton and itis as magical as you would expect
(37:04):
it to be.
The costume designed for theLord of the Rings trilogy was led
by designer Angela Dixon, whowon an Academy Award for her work,
and it was an enormous undertaking.
Dixon and 40 seamstressesworked on over 19,000 costumes for
the films.
Due to the large shootingschedule, 10 versions of each costume
(37:25):
were made per character, with30 more of the stunt scale and other
doubles all in all, meaningthat each design had 40 versions.
Jackson had a requirement ofrealism, so the costumers went to
great lengths to make costumeslooked lived in, wearing away color,
stuffing pockets and dirtying them.
Each race had their owncultural identity in Middle Earth,
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and this was also expressedwith clothing and armor.
The Hobbit clothes wereinspired by English, rural and Victorian
country styles, with earthynatural fabrics, warm colors and
simple practical designsreflecting their lifestyle.
Even Hobbit class was shown inthe clothing.
Frodo being wealthier than Sammeant Frodo had slightly finer fabrics.
(38:11):
The Elves had art Nouveau andart Deco influences with flowing,
elegant fabrics in silvers,pale blues and sage greens.
Details were hand embroideredwith nature inspired patterns.
The Rohirrim had Nordic andAnglo Saxon influences, with horse
motifs integrated throughoutin rich greens, golds and earthy
(38:32):
tones.
Gondor had Byzantine andMedieval European influences.
Black, silver and white colourpalette, with the white tree of Gondor
as a recurring motif.
The Orcs and Uruk Hai clothingwas made to look asymmetrical, as
if it was made by actual Orcswith industrial crude leather and
metalwork.
(38:52):
The clothing also incorporatedbone, teeth and scavenged materials,
suggesting they scavengedtheir kills.
Over 2000 suits of armor werecreated, again with each culture
having distinct armor stylesrequiring different techniques.
Urethane plastic was used forarmor pieces, along with leather
reinforced with resin andlightweight aluminium.
(39:14):
Weta Workshop developed slushmolding techniques to produce armor
pieces efficiently.
Hero pieces, which were theclose up armor, were crafted with
more detail than background pieces.
Each piece was artificiallyaged to look worn and authentic by
paint washes, sandblasting andchemical weathering.
The attention to detail in thecostuming helped create a believable
(39:36):
lived in world where eachculture had a distinct visual identity
while functioning practicallyfor the actors during extensive action
sequences and long shooting days.
And there really is no easyway to segue into it.
But this is the point whereI'm going to segue into the obligatory
Keanu reference of thisepisode, which is basically a part
of the podcast where I try andlink Keanu Reeves to pretty much
(39:59):
every movie that I feature forno reason other than he is Keanu
Reeves and he is the best ofmen and unfortunately he has nothing
to do with the Lord of theRings at all.
However, the easiest way tolink him to this movie is to say
that Keanu starred in theMatrix with Hugo Weaving.
Hugo Weaving played AgentSmith in that movie and he plays
(40:20):
Elrond in the Fellowship ofthe Ring.
I don't know what I'm gonna dowith the other two movies.
I guess we will wait and seewhat I manage to get out of the bag
for those two.
But as I mentioned earlier, Iwant to talk about the music and
the incredible score,specifically in the episode on the
Return of the King and that'ssomething very different.
I usually do talk aboutindividual aspects of the movie,
(40:42):
but because this is across theseries, I want to focus on it in
one episode.
Obviously this movie did havea song by Enya called Let It Be,
which would end up becomingaward nominated.
But considering the incredibletask to actually get the Lord of
the Rings made, the next taskwas going to be how do we get people
who don't necessarily knowTolkien's work to come and see this
(41:06):
movie and the two movies thatare going to follow.
The website for the Fellowshipof the Ring and the Lord of the Rings
in general debuted two yearsbefore the Fellowship of the Ring
was released and it containedregular production diaries and behind
the scenes content to keepfans engaged and became a hub for
exclusive content.
The production newauthenticity to the books would please
(41:28):
the fandom, but gettingeveryday cinemagoers involved was
something completely differentthe first featurette trailer was
released in April 2000 and wasdownloaded over 1.7 million times
in its first 24 hours,breaking Star Wars Episode 1, the
Phantom Menace's record.
And this feature at trailer iscited as drawing in the general audiences
(41:50):
because it tended to focus onthe emotional journey of the characters
and so you didn't need to be aTolkien fan or a Tolkien scholar
to enjoy this movie and not tomention this movie involving a love
story and some battlesequences which would in turn create
entry points for viewersunfamiliar with the books.
The world premiere of the Lordof the Rings, the Fellowship of the
(42:12):
Ring occurred at LeicesterSquare in London on 10 December 2001.
It was released wide on 19December 2001, which was a Wednesday,
meaning that its firstofficial week of release in the US
had it at number three becauseit had technically only been out
for two days at that point.
Of course, it went to numberone in its second week and stayed
(42:34):
there for four weeks, onlydropping to fourth in its sixth week
behind Black Hawk Down, SnowDogs and A Beautiful Mind.
The Fellowship of the Ringremained in the US top 10 for eight
weeks on a production budgetof $93 million.
The Fellowship of the Ringgrossed $313.4 million domestically
(42:55):
in the US and $555 millioninternationally for a total worldwide
gross of $868.4 million,making it the second highest grossing
film of 2001 and the fifthhighest grossing film of all time
at the time of its release.
So they really didn't need toworry about non fans of Tolkien enjoying
(43:17):
this movie.
Nor did they need to worryabout critics either because the
Lord of the Rings, theFellowship of currently still holds
an approval rating of 92% ofrotten tomatoes, with a consensus
reading full of eye poppingspecial effects and featuring a pitch
perfect cast.
The Lord of the Rings theFellowship of The Ring brings J.R.R.
tolkien's classic to vivid life.
(43:38):
The Fellowship of The Ringreceived 13 Academy Award nominations
for Best Picture, BestDirector, Best Supporting actor for
Ian McKellen, best adaptedscreenplay, Best Art Direction, Best
Cinematography, Best CostumeDesign, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup,
Best Original Score, BestOriginal Song for Enya's May It Be
Best Sound and Best VisualEffects, winning in four categories
(44:02):
Best Cinematography, BestMakeup, Best Original Score and Best
Visual Effects.
It also earned 13 nominationsat the 55th BAFTA Awards for Best
Film, Best Director, BestActor in a Leading role for Ian McKellen,
best screenplay adapted BestCinematography, Best Costume Design,
Best Editing, Best Film Music,Best Makeup and Hair, Best Production
(44:23):
Design, Best Sound and BestVisual Effects, leading to wins in
the categories for Best Film,Best Director, Best Makeup and Hair,
Best Visual Effects, and alsotaking the Orange Film of the Year
award.
Howard Shaw's score also won aGrammy and May Be by Enya received
a Grammy nomination of a totalof 800 award nominations.
(44:45):
The Fellowship of the Ring won475 awards.
Like all of the Lord of theRings movies, there is an extended
version with 30 minutes of newmaterial, 19 minutes of the Lord
of the Rings fan club creditsfor those who contributed financially
in exchange for a credit, fourcommentaries and three hours of bonus
material.
(45:05):
The theatrical version is 178minutes, the extended version is
228 minutes on the VHS or DVD,or 238 minutes if you have the extended
Blu Ray.
In 2007, the American filmInstitute named it one of the hundred
greatest American films inhistory, being both the most recent
film and the only filmreleased in the 21st century to make
(45:28):
it into the list.
In 2021, the film was selectedfor preservation in the United States
National Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress for being culturally,
historically or aesthetically significant.
And as this is the first partof a three part story, I'm going
to stop it here with the hopethat you will return next time.
(45:50):
Because as of the end of thismovie, the Fellowship is broken,
Boronier is dead, Frodo andSam are venturing off alone to Mordor
with Merry and Pippin captured.
But not all hope is lost.
Next week the story continueswith the Tin Towers and even more
History and Legacy of the Lordof the Rings.
(46:11):
Thank you for listening tothis episode.
As always, I would love tohear your thoughts on the Lord of
the Rings, the Fellowship ofthe Ring, and as always, thank you
for your continued support ofthis podcast.
If you want to get involvedand help this podcast grow, you could
leave a rating or reviewwherever you found it.
You could find me and followme on social media.
I'm at verbal diorama acrossall the social medias and you can
(46:34):
like post, share, post,comment on posts.
It all helps with visibility.
Or you can just simply tellyour friends and family about this
podcast and about this episode.
If you enjoy what I do forthis podcast or you simply want to
support an indie podcaster whodoes literally everything on her
own and you have some sparechange, you can financially contribute
to the upkeep of this podcast.
(46:56):
You're under no obligation andthis podcast is free and will remain
free for you to listen to regardless.
But if you do get value out ofmy work.
There are a couple of ways youcan help if you have the means to
do so.
You can make a one offdonation@verbaldiorama.com tips or
you can subscribe to thePatreon to support the show@verbaldiorama.com
(47:18):
Patreon all money made goesback into this podcast by paying
for software, subscriptions,website hosting or new equipment.
I am hugely grateful to thepatrons of this podcast.
They are Claudia, Simon,Laurel, Derek, Kat, Andy, Mike, Luke,
Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa,Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas,
(47:40):
so, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny,Ali, Stu, Brett, Philip M, Xenos,
Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam,Elaine, Kyle and Aaron.
If you want to get in touch,you can email general hellos, feedback
or suggestions toverbaldioramail.com or you can go
to the websiteverbaldiorama.com and fill out the
(48:01):
little contact form.
I would love to hear from you,especially with the 300th episode
coming up.
And if you've never contactedme before and you've always wondered
if you contact a podcaster, ifthey will reply, yes, I will absolutely
reply.
Might take me a little while,but I will reply.
Alternatively, you can contactme on social media as well.
Please feel free to get intouch and say hello and finally I
(48:25):
know.
What it is you saw, for it isalso in my mind.
It is what will come to passif you should fail.
The Fellowship is breaking.
It has already begun.
(48:47):
He will try to take the the Ring.
You know of whom I speak.
One by one, it will destroythem all.
If you ask it of me, I willgive you the One Ring.
(49:07):
You offer it to me freely.
I do not deny that my hearthas greatly desired this.
In place of a Dark Lord, youwould have a queen.
(49:28):
Not dark but beautiful and terrible.
Afterborn.
Treacherous as the sea.
Stronger than the foundationof fear.
Oh, shall love me and despair.
(50:01):
I pass the test.
I will diminish and go intothe west and remain Galadriel.
I cannot do this alone.
You are a ring bearer, Frodo.
To bear a Ring of power is tobe alone.
(50:27):
This is Nen, the Ring ofAdamant, and and I am its keeper.
This task was appointed to you.
And if you do not find a way,no one will.
Then I know what I must do.
(50:50):
It's just I'm afraid to do it.
It.
Even the smallest person canchange the course of the future.
Bye.
(51:21):
It.
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