Tolkien story with the editor snd the division of the books is a bit funny. Initially, they wanted to publish it as 7 books I believe, to which Tolkien protested, and they cut it down to 3. The book titles also were not chosen by him: Tolkien admitted not knowing which were the exact Two Towers, and he disliked Return of the King for being a spoiler and he would prefered the title War of the Ring

@@stephenlaing2152 Yeah but his family also tried to make money off the unfinished cliff notes version of The Silmarillion that Tolkien did not think was anywhere near close to finished. Tolkien was a very interesting writer when it came to The Lord Of The Rings. He had no formal writing experience and didn't know how to properly plan a story or write and rewrite parts. As such, he would write his entire story from start to finish in order, and whenever he came into a roadblock or wrote himself into a corner, he would throw the whole story out and start again until it was completed

@@stephenlaing2152 No the OP is correct in that it was right after world war 2 and there was a paper shortage. This was a financial decision because they COULD have released it as one huge tome but it would have been so exorbitantly expensive at the time that no one could have afforded to buy it and we all would have lost something for that. This is explicitly stated in the extended edition extra discs from the publisher.

@@Lordgrayson Yup one of the guys in the extras discs likened his writing approach to waves coming on to a beach. Each would get a bit farther but it would return all the way back to the start.

What do u mean it just felt like a movie not a history lesson on my the books were like that

I see what you did there. ;)

I'd argue they've aged better....movies just don't look or even feel like this anymore

💯. Saw them all recently back to back.... They stand up. Classics.

Ehh, some of the CGI is a bit dodgy, but I'm with you in sentiment.

Some of the CGI did in fact age. The practical effects are as always great.

I was too young to have witnessed the original STAR WARS trilogy. But I was exactly the right age for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And, by God, it was epic!

Goosebumps in the theaters.

I genuinely wish they didn't. There are so many thematic inconsistencies, not to mention the decision to cut out the barrow-downs in the first movie is like a knife to the heart. It completely changes the whole meaning of their journey. They don't realise that any little change makes the themes slightly different, and with a world as complex as Tolkien's, attempting an adaptation is an exercise in futility. Most people will never read the book, they will only see the films, and they will come away with half of the half of the half of his world. I'm glad for the people who FOUND Tolkien through the films... But I know that those are very few, sadly.

@@Midorikonokami Awww, the film wasn't a one to one recreation of the books. Unlucky. Some of us are able to understand that the books are unfilmable. 10 different directors will have 10 different versions. The ones that cover the bits you are whinging about will skip other bits. The fact you are unable to step back and see the films as a highlights reel is quite sad. I love the books and I love the films. After the disaster that was Rings of Power, these films look even better.

@@MidorikonokamiAs long as you don’t tell this to everyone who likes the movies, I respect your opinion.

@@Midorikonokami There were always going to be changes to the source material to be able to make it filmable. What the movie needed to do was respect Tolkien and his vision, have the main themes flow throughout the movie, and bring the world of Middle Earth to life in a believable way. I think they did a great job in achieving that. I'm ok with certain things being cut to make it flow better as a movie.

​​@@Midorikonokami I hear you, and I know many Tolkien readers who might agree with you. But I have read the LOTR books long before the movies were made, and I loved them. But I ended up loving the movies, too! While I didn't like all of Peter Jackson's choices, I felt that he has created a fully believable version of Middle Earth with all it's big and small magical creatures, which I could fully embrace. And some of his casting choices have been brilliant. I cannot imagine a better Gandalf than Sir Ian McKellen. And Andy Serkis and motion capture created a wonderful Gollum whom we could hate, pity, laugh at, and even love very deep down in our souls. Gollum felt like a real person with a heart and a soul . And the movies have aged incredibly well. Twenty years later they still look great, and younger generations of viewers can still embrace them. I just wish that these younger viewers will eventually read the books, too! Too many of them don't - and they don't know that they are missing a great experience!

"he knew the complete biography of every character" Tom Bombadil

I can't remember precisely, but isn't George RR Martin another author like that? I seem to recall that he has like multiple generations worth of a family tree for every character, and lots of the minor ones as well. Where they were from. What means their family had. Do they have friends or rivals? Were they in any wars? It's a super complicated approach, but it makes their stories feel like slices of history!

@@2leftframes I dont think so. Martin describes it like that: “I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.”

@@stylefreak2344 Very interesting! It's always cool to hear different writers talk about their styles :) I especially loved the discussion between Stephen King and George RR Martin from a while back on productivity. Thanks for sharing!!

@@stylefreak2344 Gardeners vs Architects is a distinction that's commonly used to refer to how one writes plot/story. GRRM is absolutely a gardener, bit the reason it works so well for him is because his characters are written to a ridiculously high degree. To use the gardener analogy, if the garden is the plot being left to grow on its own, then everything from the seeds to the soil are what writers like GRRM and Tolkien refine to an incredibly high level of detail. It's what makes plot feel so natural because while the characters actions aren't necessarily planned and micromanaged, their individual histories influence their choices in a way that feels real and human

And then there is the Hobbit trilogy which is the complete opposite and forced into being another trilogy because that had worked before

@@ToMtRoOpEr05they could have made one two hour movie and basically done the book word for word, but nooooo, the studio had to have a trilogy

On what grounds did they believe in jackson? There were none.

@@RevanReborn3950BBY they could have done the same with tLofR but no, they had to have pj's abysmal trilogy. If you enjoyed tLotR how can you not enjoy The Hobbit trilogy? It's the exact same paradigm *except* he was truer to the book than he was with tLotR.

@@KeldorDAntrell wtf are you on? Are we both talking about the two trilogies directed by Peter Jackson, and the LOTR books and the Hobbit? There is 10 times more stuff going on in the LOTR than in the Hobbit, and the LOTR movies are much more faithful. Yes there are issues with the movies, but overall it conveys the important themes and messages of the books in a very faithful way, while the Hobbit trilogy is almost as bad as ROP, only better because there wasn’t willful ignorance as opposed to being put in a shit situation by the studio

That is absolutely incredible John!! Thank you so much for sharing :) I have to ask. Was he a good golfer?

@@2leftframes Thanks for the reply. Yeh he was pretty good. I stood and watched him while he was on the driving range practicing before we went out on the course. The mists of time and all that but i remember meeting Sean Connery, George c Scott ( who wouldn't sign my autograph book), Formula One legend Jame Hunt and several UK TV stars.

@@johnbarrett4846 He was Scaramanga in those days! the dark hammer days were long before!

@@khav11 It was also 10 years since he was a Bond villan. What's your point?

@@johnbarrett4846 Dracula was 30 years before so i win , old timer.

The extended edition Dvds are still, 20 years later.... THE standard of what can be fine with dvd extras and making of documentaries

Couldn't agree more man. Cheers

At age 35, I’m already feeling this.

Absolutely good insight. Yeah. Once you make a one MONUMENTAL work in your lifetime it will take a lifeforce out of you.

No doubt! I'm sure the thrill of lengthy night shoots, and overwhelmingly dense scheduling becomes a LOT more taxing as the years go by.

i dont think Jackson could again, he put 100% of pure passion into it, he is not that passionate to the level of LOTR with anything else so it would be hard for him to find that same level of passion out.

The main issue is that Peter Jackson is more interested in fanciful over the top action sequences that the story, and he's so far gone he can't make a compelling movie anymore. You.can see this slide as the LOTR movies progress. Then even moreso in King Kong, and then the Hobbit trilogy

Look at fucking Halo. The staff behind the series were genuinely retarded. They wante dto make their own corny series instead, and had zero respect for the source material. Tolkein did the character development/history/lore approach to writing a story, that Halo and the Clone Wars are known for now. I think Christopher Nolan might be making a clone wars movie according to rumours. But damn it would be sick seeing a properly done Halo movie.

it will be a symbol of honesty , respecting a source material and witted mind, Peter Jackson.

the film won't ever be made like this too because the cast is all white. No way they could ever get away with that now.

​@@dizzydazed8055Shouldnt be anything wrong with it, given LOTR's historical/mythological influences. At the time people could just accept that fact and be okay with it. Now people will get upset. Crazy world we live in today lol.

yes, Aragon would have to be played by Idris Elba and Gimli Kevin Hart (for da comic relief)@@FrancT-

@@FrancT- I don’t think anyone actually gets upset at that. People still love these movies

When I thought of titling the video that way, I really couldn't resist!

I'd even call it an hommage !

Do you think the characters were done correctly? They weren’t. At all. Peter Jackson strikes me as a vapid, shallow man who had no idea how to adapt the characters to the big screen. One need only look at how contemptuously he treated Gimli. But, really, every character was mistreated.

​@@junglemoose2164Get some hugs and remake it better

@@junglemoose2164 your clearly a miserable bastard lmao stop projecting

@@junglemoose2164He did turn Gimli into a walking joke, that's true.

@@kentl7228 If you like the film, fine. But none of the characters in the film are the ones in the books. I just can't like the films. I've tried. Also, try to not to excuse bad filmmaking just because no one has yet to do it better.

It certainly wasn't difficult to omit him from the first movie. I believe the plan was only ever to tease his presence? But the hadn't nailed down the motion capture yet. So even in that small tease, it's a different character model, without any performance capture, fully obscured by shadows. It's totally effective! It was an excellent creative decision that gave them an additional year to perfect everything they wanted to achieve before a proper reveal of the character. So the technical limitation, and storytelling worked in their favor. But it was still a purposeful choice to not show anything before it felt ready to be shown.

But Gollum was in the first movie, albeit very briefly. When they're in the mines of Moria, he's following them, and Gandalf points it out to Frodo. It shows a closeup of Gollum's eyes.

If my town ever did a ~12 hours screening of the extended trilogy, I'd drop everything to go spend my day doing that haha

@@2leftframes I don't want to gloat or anything, but about a month ago I went to a theater screening of the TLOTR Trilogy in Los Angeles. All day Saturday from 10am to 1130pm. They showed the extended versions of Fellowship and The Two Towers. Unfortunately, The Return of the King was the theatrical release since they were only showing the films on 35mm print and they never made The Return of the King Extended Edition on 35mm, but was still a fantastic showing. The organizer of the screenings said that 500 people had purchased all day passes (myself included). All those people, in one theater, all sharing that same experience will go down as my most memorable and enjoyable movie watching experience... or until they do another marathon, maybe next year.

i was obsessed with waiting until Two Towers and ROTK came out (i casually went to see Fellowship with a friend, thinking it was going to be an "ok" movie, man i was wrong). i remember in class bugging my friend who had read the books already describe what happens in the following movies, When he said a ghost army was in the movies, i couldnt wait the years to see that play out

No Marvel movie could ever come close to being as great as The LOTR trilogy

Avengers Endgame i don't even consider it as Masterpiece. Hate to compare it But the 1st three LOTR trilogy is absolutely a MASTERPIECE!!! It's just in another level that we may or may not see until another 20,30 or 40 years to come But won't happen everytime or usual. That's why it's very special.

I don't think they're the greatest films ever made, since they don't add anything to the books. They actually take away from them a bit, since they're made to sell toys and they have action scenes, which takes away a lot of authenticity.

​@@Siegfried5846 ...so basically what you're saying is that Lotr is not the best book adaptaition ever made. Covering all of the origin(al) is not in the definition of what's a good movie and not covering it all doesn't make it a bad movie, otherwise all movies based on books would be bad movies, because (as far as I know) there is no movie that is exactly like the book. On top of that, if they added anything to the original, people would start saying that they took too much creative liberty and abused the original. On a different note: yours circular reasoning. Just because they make money from selling toys, doesn't mean that's the reason for why they made the movie in the first place. You want to make money from a movie, yes, especially from an epic like Lotr, because it sells well and because you have to cover the costs of such an enormous undertaking somehow. And relying only on sold copies and tickets is not only naive but also very stupid. There are movies ad/or TV series that were solely and specifically made to sell toys (basically all cartoons whose characters are being sold as toys by Mattel) but although I don't know for sure, because I can't look into the heads of the people responsible, I'm quite sure that Lotr isn't one of them and was never supposed to be.

@@Red80008 When I said that they take away from the books, I meant that they aren't as good as the books. They cheapen them quite like how they added modern dialogue and fully changed Frodo's personality. Furthermore, they go by way too quickly. Especially the bit in the beginning without Tom Bombadil. The toys wouldn't be a problem if the films weren't changed just so that they could sell toys. If you look at the character designs, they're all made to sell as many toys as possible, and it's quite sickening to me now that I watch them as an adult. They barely even look medieval, since that wouldn't sell enough. I do like the films, especially for the music. But the film makers' greed holds back the story. There's no denying that.

@@Siegfried5846 OH MY GOD, what would be the point of Tom Bombadil, he is fascinating yes, but he would literally be worthless to the story the movie was trying to tell, what about the barrow wights? you could say that because they didn't film that of that they wouldn't have the swords of Westernesse. As for the toys, "the only real effort at LOTR toys was made by Knickerbocker in 1979 to go with the ANIMATED film of the prior year. The line consisted of six figures and two horses: Aragorn, a riding Frodo, Samwise, Gandalf, a riding Ringwraith, and Gollum. The line ended after only nine (I cannot find the other 2) characters being produced around two and a half years after it began. The largest reason the line concluded was that Lord of the Rings was being made into a big-budget film trilogy shot together and scheduled for release during Christmas in 2001-2003, and the property was licensed to Toy Biz. Even though the Toy Vault line was based on the literary aspects of LOTR, it was felt that it would be best to end the line to avoid any confusion over the products." www.toymania.com/archives/metoys/metoyshistory.shtml that's my link to the only proof I could find of toys. edit: Wait also build a bear made some pretty far after the movies nerdist.com/article/new-lord-of-the-rings-plushies-build-a-bear/ . As for Frodo's personality change, that's because they didn't have a timeskip of 17 years which isn't really loyal to the book but quite minor, but what's REALLY bad about this argument is that your ALSO forgetting about when Samwise and Frodo experienced infighting for no reason over Gollum spilling bread over Gamgee, that's WAY dumber with a filler moment that didn't matter, that just wasted time, or how about when they decided not to add in the scene at the end of the book where the ring proclaimed at Gollum that if he touched it again, he would throw himself into the fire, that's how the ring was destroyed in the fire, not a deus ex machina of dumb luck where Gollum slipped, THAT'S a really good thing to criticize, there's a bunch to criticize about these masterpieces, but being made to sell toys, that's just terrible, also calling the filmmakers greedy is subjective, I guess maybe your right under that logic but whatever. By the way of course they were made in modern accents, this film had to make back half a million bucks, they wouldn't be some strange movies that only hipsters would like for being unpopular then hate for becoming main stream, like you. TLDR please give sources and have a better argument YOU HIPSTER WANNABE

​@@Siegfried5846 Do you ever expect movie adaptations to be as expansive as any book? the nature of moving a book to a movie is "cheapening" it. It's what scenes and dialogue they keep and leave out what will make an adaptation good or bad, which is difficult as hell. I think LOTR did a great job on what would and wouldn't transfer well to film

The experts were the only logical choice, they won’t make it look real, that is the real way just in costume which was brilliant.

Glad to hear the additions felt worth a rewatch :)

Lord of the Rings is far above Star Wars. Star Wars and Empire are great films but Jedi definitely doesn't hold up as well.

I hope so too! The worst part, is that due to an editing kerfuffle, I think this video rendered at much lower quality overall :( I hope that doesn't chase off too many potential viewers!

For Most people, Star Wars old trilogy are their trilogy when they grew up But for me Lord of the Rings first trilogy is my Star Wars.

I did the same. Wore my first extended set out lol had to rebuy the whole lot

Frames and moments from these movies are seared into my brain to a degree that very few other films have ever accomplished.

You also have to factor in that Hollywood stopped giving a fuck about storytelling in favor of ideologies people frankly don’t agree with, which is they’re going to Asia for stories. Talk to any foreigner and they’ll be baffled at how much propaganda is on our Televisions and movie screens.

@@Anayoththat’s just inaccurate. Foreign flicks are known for having government propaganda, especially China.

Dune is the only thing that even comes to Lord of the Rings

Eru Ilúvatar

@@Itstwofourteen 😊 👍🏻

@@stephenlaing2152 That would have been the worst LOTR in history. Dude is a walking Ed Hardy jean. 300 is meh and the Znyder cut is the biggest "sniff my own farts" piece of media I have ever seen.

Teach... leadership? That's so interesting! How? Why!!

"And used to hang themselves" lmao dude u made me spit saliva at work and make my coworker think once more im eccentric. What a good one 😂

My plan had been to watch Rings of Power on my own, then watch it again more critically. I think I watched 2 episodes, and just sort of forgot about it? I didn't hate it. But neither did I really care about what was happening. I should probably dust that off to give it another chance

​@@2leftframesI would be interested to hear your take

@@2leftframes I got farther than you did, but I didn't make it to the end. I didn't think it was as horrible as some people did. No, it doesn't live up the the movies visually, but that's a pretty tough bar to meet even with the fairly large budget they had to work with and a lot of it was pretty good (visually). I started watching it with the expectation that it wouldn't really be Tolkien, and I was right about that. It really felt like they had set out to replicate everything they thought was especially popular in the movies whether it made sense for a second age story or not (and without any understanding of why they were popular). So we got Hobbits (er, I mean Harfoots) and Gandalf (er, I mean the Stranger) and Eowyn, but as even more of a girl boss (er, I mean Galadriel). Galadriel is probably the worst of these - the real Galadriel was around in the second age, but she was never a warrior. She was, on the other hand, known for her wisdom. So they turned her into an arrogant and rather stupid warrior woman and wrote her husband and daughter out of existence. Which means that there is no Arwen in the third age, sorry Aragorn. While all that was a big disappointment, I had decided in advance that I would try to give the non-Tolkien story a chance to win me over on its own merits. Unfortunately, the story was so full of holes and so many of the main characters were so unlikable that although there were a few parts that I enjoyed I lost interest long before the end. In general, it seemed like they took a similar approach to plotting to that which they had towards characterization. They had what they thought were cool scenes to build towards, and they didn't worry too much about making sure that any of them made any sense in and of themselves. They worried even less about finding a sensible way to get to them. I think I made it through 4 episodes before I gave up, but that was only because I wanted to make sure I'd given it a fair chance.

@@stephenlaing2152brave of you to walk in this comments section and claim that Jackson’s LotR is “crap.” Brave, and stupid, as that is a patently false statement by any measurement.

You bet!!

@@2leftframes 😁😁😁😁😁

@@2leftframes can't you upload it in a higher res? looks like 480P right now

@@StagnantMizu I wouldn't go *that* far. But it definitely lost some quality in the transition. I had to work with pre-rendered video in order to alter it, and this is the consequence :( If I ever have to do that style of video transitioning again, I'll more heavily experiment with how to avoid such dramatic losses in video quality. My apologies that it took such a notable quality hit

@@2leftframes ah unfortunate; still high quality content though, keep it going!

I'm glad my video helps give some perspective on the scale of this production :) I've also heard good things about Fables overall! Even if that one storylines seems rather farfetched ;)

I never got to experience the lotr release because I was a child but leaving Dune it felt to me like I experienced something similar. The scale, the score the epicness of it all. Dune is a masterpiece, I hope the sequels can live up to it.

A massive W for using BFME II OST as the BGM for this video. Best lotr game ever.

That's how I feel about Jurassic Park. It's okay to like both

To quote an elementary-aged teacher of all things Spanish: Porqué no los dos?

It makes me so happy that that can be felt and heard! It took a long time making videos to go from nervous monotone, to over-done "youtuber" voice, to finding a most natural cadence that is more like me at 101% haha. I'm overdoing my natural rhythms and intonations a hair for the sake of presentation. But there's still room for my own emotions to come through :) Thanks a million for the new recommendations!! I'll be slotting those into my goodreads asap!

@@2leftframes Oh I forgot about this comment haha. You're welcome, man. I recommend First Law to start off with, the other two can be kinda hard to get through lmao. But if you want to challenge yourself, they're extremely rewarding.

Well said! I've grown up watching behind the scenes on as many movies as possible, and eagerly eat up things like "VFX Artists React" series from Corridor Digital. While I certainly don't *know* everything about how films are made, I like to think I have an above-average awareness of how that pipeline looks, and how often the production is to blame! I regret that I may have framed anything in this video that made it sounds like the artists themselves were to blame for any of it. I have other videos talking about the MCU, which obviously has an increasingly rocky reputation for their CGI. I'm FULLY aware that is the fault of poor/lazy planning, cost cutting, short turnarounds, and excluding key people with the know-how from the actual filming process. In those videos I default to laying blame on the studios - as VFX studios are STACKED with talent who can create movie magic when given the time and resources! Thank you for expanding on that and taking the time to further educate myself and others. Cheers!

@@2leftframes Thanks for taking the time to reply! To reiterate I really enjoyed your entire video and it didn't sound like you were blaming the artists at all. It's just I have seen many many videos that gloss over this fact about CGI or don't mention it EXPLICITLY, which sort of continues this rhetoric about CGI. We don't expect everyone to know about it and not every creator is as passionate about VFX as you seem to be, so it sort of sucks to hear in the majority of film essays out there. Also to be frank many VFX Artists are not huge fans of Corridor Digital 😅as a lot of their takes are wrong or they sensationalize mistakes or tech to the detriment of the industry - I do like episodes where they have actual CG Supes on though. I recently had a shot of mine broken down incorrectly xD But they are certainly accessible entertainment and very good at that! I would actually recommend watching breakdowns or interviews from vfx houses themselves (Weta, DNEG, Framestore etc.) - unfortunately you are very correct in that films rarely release hours long behind the scenes for anything anymore which is a shame. Keep up the great work - Your passion and your research very much shows in the work you do!

@@maryfaceeggo The guest appearances on CD are often the most informative episodes! Although I've definitely assumed they are more or less correctly analyzing shots when they tackle any of that themselves. A video dispelling common myths or misconceptions on VFX production, with real industry examples and insight, could be really neat! If you have any interest (or the ability with NDAs an whatnot) in chatting directly about any of that, it could be a lot of fun! DMing me on Twitter is probably easiest? 2_left_thumbs. No pressure! Thanks again for the chat :)

@@2leftframes wow that's such a cool idea! I'll try to contribute what I can, I am very passionate about this topic! I'm actually more on IG as I'm not active on Twitter at all but I'll msg you my user on Twitter :)

@@ShadowDragon-cw7wb -During Lord of the Rings, their were unions, but they were controlled by the Australian unions. I remember the unions going on strike and when the interviewer asked the head of the union what they wanted, she had to admit that she didn't know. AQ lot of the things the unions were asking for were totally impossible and they knew it. So why were they asking for them? Because that is what the Aussie unions wanted them to ask for.

A work of love *&* money.

Nobody worked on that for free nor should they. Regardless Peter Jackson is awesome, LoTR is awesome, unions are awesome.

It was a work of love, but they made a lot of money doing it. Which is how it should be.

I always watched them on my boxset dvds haha. A lot of them are uploaded directly on youtube. But I think if you want the *full*, high quality collection, purchasing is easily your best bet. The next most likely to have them **all** would be... less than legal means ;)

Tolkien was a devout Christian. His works undeniably mirror biblical teachings and history.

@@stephenlaing2152ah, but he didn’t say J*hova. No need to stone him… yet.

Too much pipe smoke.

God could have done a bit more inspiring when it came time to make the Hobbit. He dropped the ball on that one a bit.

@@ProfessorPescatrue lol

I went and subscribed to Listening In so I remember to check them out. It looks like they haven't uploaded in over a year?

Thanks so much! I'm always glad to hear that my videos feel they are of that quality