J.R.R. Tolkien: Influence on modern culture

Transcription

By Esmay Huizer
Class: 5H3
Teacher: Mr van Dongen
Subject: English
Submission date: 4 March 2014
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Table of contents:
Prologue .............................................................................................................................................. 4
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 5
1. J.R.R. Tolkien and his books
1.1. Early life .......................................................................................................................7
1.2. School time.....................................................................................................................8
1.3. Oxford University .........................................................................................................9
1.4. World War I ............................................................................................................... 10
1.5. The Inklings................................................................................................................ 11
1.6. The Hobbit ................................................................................................................. 12
1.7. The Lord of the Rings................................................................................................. 13
1.8. The Silmarillion ......................................................................................................... 15
1.9. The end of his days .................................................................................................... 16
2. The influence and inspiration of Tolkien on writers of fantasy and science
fiction
2.1. High Fantasy .............................................................................................................. 17
2.2. The Chronicles of Narnia ........................................................................................... 18
2.3. A Song of Ice and Fire ................................................................................................ 19
2.4. Harry Potter ............................................................................................................... 20
2.5. Tolkien Shop ............................................................................................................... 22
2.6. Conclusion................................................................................................................... 23
3. The inspiration of Tolkien on movies and directors
3.1. Peter Jackson ............................................................................................................. 24
3.2. James Cameron .......................................................................................................... 26
3.3. The Lord of the Rings ................................................................................................ 27
3.4. The Hobbit ................................................................................................................. 31
3.5. Visual Effects .............................................................................................................. 34
3.5.1 Motion Capture....................................................................................................... 35
3.6. James Cameron’s Avatar ........................................................................................... 38
3.7. Conclusion................................................................................................................... 39
4. The presence of Tolkien in (everyday life of) New Zealand
4.1. Weta Workshop ......................................................................................................... 40
4.2. Weta Digital................................................................................................................ 41
4.3. Tourism and marketing ............................................................................................. 43
4.4. Air New Zealand......................................................................................................... 47
4.5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 48
5. The Tolkien fandom
5.1. Fans around the world ............................................................................................. 49
5.1.1 My story ................................................................................................................. 51
5.2. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Christopher Lee ...................... 55
5.3. Tolkien Week and Hobbit Day .................................................................................. 56
5.4. TheOneRing.net ......................................................................................................... 57
6. Criticism
6.1. Criticism on Tolkien’s books ...................................................................................... 59
6.2. Criticism on Peter Jackson’s movies........................................................................ 59
7. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................61
Epilogue.............................................................................................................................64
Sources ..............................................................................................................................................65
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Prologue
I would like to thank some people in my foreword. First of all I would like to
thank the person who made writing this paper possible: J.R.R. Tolkien. Second of
all I would like to thank Peter Jackson and his devoted cast and crew for
adapting the books of Tolkien in a motion picture and by those films introducing
me to the world of Tolkien. I also would like to thank my parents for supporting
me throughout the years in everything involving Tolkien and for reading my
paper. And last but not least I would like to thank Mr van Dongen for accepting
this subject, for giving fair feedback and for correcting my paper very quickly.
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Introduction
I have chosen this subject because I have been a fan of Tolkien, and especially
The Lord of the Rings, almost all my life. I was introduced to films of The Lord of
the Rings when I was just 6 years old. People around us spoke about The Lord of
the Rings films and said that it was something that we absolutely had to see.
However, my parents were not so sure about it, it is a fantasy story and how
could that be good. But when we saw the videos in the store for €5 each, we
decided to give them a shot, The Return of the King had yet to be released so it
were just The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. When we watched
them, we were immediately sold, as young as I was, I cannot remember the first
time I have watched them, but what I can remember is that I loved them right
away. When The Return of the King was released, we could not go to the cinema
because I was too young as well as my brother. Today I still regret that I have
never experienced the films cinema, perhaps when last Hobbit film will be
released they will release The Lord of the Rings once again in cinema, like they
did with Harry Potter.
When I was about 8 years old, I started to understand the story a bit better and I
started searching images of the actors and became more interest in the
development around it, this was probably because we once borrowed bonus
material from our cousin and I found that highly interesting. Since the first time
we have seen them we have watched the films every year spread over three days.
Throughout the years I became even more interested in the story, I started
searching the names of the actors and I started making lists of the actors. When I
was about 10 years old, I bought the limited edition of The Lord of the Rings this
was my first introduction to the extended edition and the more extensive bonus
material. About a year later, I bought the special extended edition, which
contains more bonus material and I found this highly interesting. I watched all
the 26 hours of bonus material and thereby I developed a deep respect for the
making of those films, since then I have admired the project, all the people
involved and the entire world of Middle-Earth. This made me do research to it
and with the news that The Hobbit would be adapted, I decided to read the books,
I read The Hobbit when I was 13 and I liked it. However, I was not so impressed
as I was with The Lord of the Rings films. I then started to read The Fellowship
of the Ring in Dutch, but I just could not get through it, I decided not to read it
further until a year later, when I tried it in English and that was so much better,
the names which irritated me the most were now the trusted names and the
pacing felt a lot better.
After I had finished The Fellowship of the Ring, I read The Two Towers and The
Return of the King not so much later. I was quite impressed by the books, but
somehow, probably because I am so used to the films, I liked them better. The
books though, gave The Lord of the Rings more depth for me, which made me
understand it better and made me want to know more of the world and history
Tolkien created. It also made me more curious about Tolkien as a person.
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On 12 December 2012 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released. This
made me and fans around the world go back into Middle-Earth. That year was
the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit. I find it very intriguing
that even after 75 years a story still exists on this level and through the films
getting a new life. Fans around the world anticipated The Hobbit: An Unexpected
Journey and considering myself a fan, I just could not stay behind and I
anticipated The Hobbit so much that when the film release came closer and closer
I could only think about The Hobbit. So when I went to the midnight premiere of
The Hobbit in IMAX, I was in awe and it was my first Middle-Earth film in a
cinema so it was very special for me. Now that The Hobbit was released, I went to
it another 5 times in cinema, I just could not get enough of it. 10 December 2013
is the midnight premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which I will be
visiting. I am again super excited about it, and I am hoping it will surpass An
Unexpected Journey.
I think that after my explanation, you can tell that The Lord of the Rings and The
Hobbit play a very large role in my everyday life, and to be honest I cannot even
imagine a life without The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. For me the films
and the books have become so much more than just an ordinary book or film, it
has become a part of me and my life. There is no day that I do not think about it,
somehow it has become something where I care about so much and it enriches my
life. Because The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit play such a large role in my
life and I am still so interested in it, I found that Tolkien was an amazing subject
to choose for my ‘’profielwerkstuk’’. I am always wanting to know more about him
and everything involving Tolkien. Although I can say I know a lot about The Lord
of the Rings and The Hobbit, I have never had the time to actually learn a lot
about Tolkien himself, the most important persons of my story. This is a perfect
opportunity to start doing research on Tolkien.
In my paper I will do research on the influence of Tolkien on modern culture.
First of all I will tell something about Tolkien himself, afterwards, in chapter
two, I will look at some books in which Tolkien’s influence is noticeable, in
chapter three I will tell something about the movies which were made possible by
the books of Tolkien and how this has made several other movies possible. In
chapter four I will tell something about the influence of Tolkien in New Zealand,
in chapter five I will tell something about the fans of Tolkien, this includes my
own story, and finally in chapter six I will tell something about the criticism
Tolkien and Peter Jackson have received.
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1. Tolkien and his books
J.R.R. Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien was a writer, he has written The Lord of the Rings and The
Hobbit, his most famous works. These days his popularity is growing because of
the films that are made from his books. He has a lot of influence these days in
books, films, games, music and most of the entertainment industry.
1.1 Early life
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein,
Orange Free State, South Africa. Born as the first son of English parents Arthur
and Mabel Tolkien, he and brother Hilary spent the first years of their life in
South Africa. In 1894 Mabel decided that South-Africa was not a suitable
environment for raising two young sons. She went all by herself from
Bloemfontein to Birmingham, England. Since Arthur Tolkien had to stay in
Bloemfontein for his job he could not go with her. In 1896, when Ronald (the way
they called Tolkien) was just four years old, a tragedy took place. His father
Arthur died, while he was still living in South Africa.
Mabel became a single parent, but she dedicated her life to the care of her sons.
Just a few years after her husband had died, she became part of the roman
catholic community. As a result, her family would not help her anymore. Ronald
stayed a loyal roman catholic all his life and Roman Catholicism was to play a big
part in his books.
Mabel gave her boys home education. In those years it became obvious that
Ronald had a great interest in languages. This interest would form the basis of
what would become his well-known fantasy languages such as Elfish.
The life of the boys and their mother became harder since Mabel was suffering
from diabetes and her family refused to help her. On November 4th 1904 the
worst thing that Ronald and Hilary could imagine happened, their mother died
from the consequences of diabetes. The boys stood alone. They were taken under
the care of Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the oratorio of Birmingham. They
were placed with their aunt Beatrice. They would spent the rest of their youth in
Edgbaston, Birmingham.
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1.2 School time
The environment of their aunt Beatrice was everything but challenging for
Tolkien, he just was not stimulated enough. Therefore he spent most of his time
on King Edward School. The teachers of King Edward soon noticed that Tolkien,
like his mother noticed before, was excellent in learning and understanding
foreign languages, as well as the English language. With the encouragement of
practically every teacher, Tolkien only became more interested in languages, in
particular classical languages.
One day, his teacher George Brewton gave
Tolkien an Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf.
This was Tolkien’s first encounter with the
Anglo-Saxon language. This encounter
made him so interested, that with the
basis of Anglo-Saxon words and his
philological study, he created new words.
Those words, at the time of his creation,
did not mean so much for him.
In 1908 Tolkien was placed from his aunt
Beatrice to friends of the oratorio. From
now on he was fostered by the family
Faulkner. Tolkien made himself at home
and made new friends with other foster
children. Among those friends was Edith
Bratt. He and the three years older Edith were more than just friends. They fell
in love with each other. Their love did not last long, their foster dad banned
Tolkien from speaking and writing to Edith until he was twenty-one years old.
Sir Faulkner thought it was unacceptable that Tolkien was insisting on a
relationship with an older girl, whom had not had much education.
In the meanwhile Tolkien had built a strong friendship with his friends on King
Edward school. With each other they created the tea club, what was later called
the Barrovian society, the so called T.C.B.S. The friends came together on a
regular basis, where they showed each other their written things, and judged
each other’s work. For this friends Tolkien wrote his first poems. This was
Tolkien’s motivation to keep writing and improving himself.
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1.3 Oxford University
In 1910, Tolkien was admitted at Oxford University, after he had got a
scholarship after two attempts to earn one. At Oxford University he studied
Classical languages. Tolkien was the first of the children who lived with Mr
Faulkner who went studying and was determined to graduate. He was mainly
interested in the Norwegian myths and Finnish folklore, in which he felt at home
for its fantasy and magic.
Tolkien saw Oxford as his second home, in the halls of Exeter College, Oxford.
Tolkien lost some of his interest in Greek and Latin, which his study partly was
about. He left Greek and Latin behind and started with Germanic literature. He
now picked up the thread of his created language and spent most of the time
designing it, while he should be studying. Therefore he decided to start research
into Gothic languages, and got a preference for the Welsh language.
When Tolkien turned 21, Edith came back into the picture, he had never
forgotten her but Tolkien kept his word to Mr Faulkner, never to speak or to
write with Edith until he was 21. When this day finally arrived, just one minute
before he turned 21, he wrote a letter to Edith, in the hope that they could start
their romance again after three years. Tolkien got an answer he was not hoping
for, Edith was engaged, which grieved Tolkien deeply. However, Tolkien was
determined to get to Edith. He went by train to Cheltenham, where Edith lived.
He asked her to marry him and to his great surprise she said yes. Although they
could not get married right away, Tolkien was delighted.
J.R.R. Tolkien leaning on the vine at Oxford University, 1914.
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1.4 World War I
In 1914 Germany declared war on England. Tolkien, who was expanding his
imaginative ideas on a high level, signed up for a programme to fight for his
country. The T.C.B.S., which came together even after all those years, was
convinced Tolkien would become a poet. In 1916 Tolkien joined, together with his
faithful companions of the T.C.B.S. the battle of the Somme. One of the bloodiest
battles in all history became a huge tragedy for Tolkien. He lost all his friends
from the T.C.B.S. He received a tragic letter from one of his friends, which made
him overcome the war, but at the same time carry a huge burden. When all of
Tolkien’s friends had died, he got trench fever. As a result he was not able to
fight anymore, and he was placed in a hospital. After his recovery he was unable
to go back to the war, and thus his life was saved.
After the tragic loss of his friends, those friends on who Tolkien could count and
judged him on his work the way he wanted, he started with the idea of creating a
whole new mythology. Thus he started working on what would become his life’s
work and most expanded mythology he
would ever create, The Silmarillion.
In the meanwhile on November 16th 1917,
his wife Edith gave birth to their first son
John Francis Reuel. After the war had
ended Tolkien applied at the university of
Leeds. With great astonishment he got the
job and just a few years later he was asked
whether he wanted to become professor in
old English on Pembroke College in Oxford.
With great pleasure he took the job. In
1920 his second son Michael Hilary Reuel
was born, who would be followed by a third
son, Christopher Reuel, born in 1924 and
later Tolkien’s and Edith’s first daughter
Pricilla, born in 1929.
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1.5 The Inklings
When Tolkien had become a professor on Pembroke College in Oxford, he had
again developed some close friendships, among who Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis,
creator of The Chronicles of Narnia. Tolkien and Lewis were colleagues, both
shared their World War I experience, their belief in God and perhaps most
important, their love of Norwegian Myths. They meant a lot to each other, they
criticized and stimulated each other but above all they gave each other a good
amount of support.
Pub The Eagle and Child
Together they joined a reading group, called the Inklings. Members of the
Inklings read each other’s work and they criticized those, often unfinished works.
When the reading group split up, Tolkien and Lewis used the name for a new
group set up by them. Their group followed the same principles as the old
Inklings. The group was formed basically of male friends, who shared the love of
literature. The group met every Thursday in the pub the Eagle and Child in
Oxford. Just as the formal Inklings they showed each other’s work and hence
Tolkien started to introduce his rich fantasy to a few friends, those small but
complicated parts should form the basis of The Silmarillion.
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1.6 The Hobbit
It is widely known that Tolkien had a rich imagination, which he at the point of
the Inklings slowly but certainly introduced to the world. He above all cared for
his wife and children and he loved to entertain them with bedtime stories. This
phenomenon started with Christmas, at the time their first son was young. He
wrote a completely illustrated letter that came from the Arctic. Tolkien could
illustrate exceptionally well. Stories he used to write were light of heart and
meant no harm at all.
To earn some extra money, Tolkien marked exams. One day he found a blank
piece of paper, which in his opinion was ‘the best thing that could happen to an
examiner’. Without any intention he started to write: ‘In a hole in the ground
there lived a hobbit’ the moment he wrote that particular sentence he had no idea
what a hobbit was. Hence he decided to take a further look at the concept of a
hobbit and after a while he got an image of a hobbit. He named it Bilbo Baggins.
Hobbits are small people, also called Halflings, who live in a peaceful place called
the Shire. Hobbits are in tune with nature and live in holes under the groundnot, as Tolkien describes in The Hobbit, ‘’holes with worms and oozy smells, no,
this was a hobbit hole which means comfort’’. Bilbo goes on an adventure with
thirteen dwarves and a wizard, Gandalf. He must help to reclaim the home of the
dwarves and defeat the dragon Smaug.
In the first place Tolkien wrote
The Hobbit as a bedtime story
for his children. His children
remember that their father
told the story for quite some
time, but always made up
another ending, endings that
never made it in the original
version of the book. A friend of
theirs, Elaine Griffiths, was
the only one who saw The
(unfinished) Hobbit. She loved
the story and told the London publisher George Allen & Unwin to contact
Tolkien. Tolkien showed his unfinished work and the publishers were happy with
it, they asked him to finish it and so he did. He eventually finished The Hobbit in
October 1936. The publisher Stanley Unwin asked his 10 year old son Rayner to
read it. He did and said it was a suitable story for children aged 6 to 9. However,
he was enthusiastic about it, therefore they decided to publish it. The book was
eventually published on September 21st 1937. The book was praised by critics and
was awarded as best children book of the year by the New York Herald tribune.
It would become one of the most successful and best known fantasy stories, for
both children and adults.
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1.7 The Lord of the Rings
After the major success of The Hobbit, publisher Stanley Unwin wanted Tolkien
to make a sequel. Tolkien started working again, and showed pieces of The
Silmarillion, Mr Bliss and Farmer Gilles of Ham. However, Stanley Unwin found
none of the stories suitable for a sequel. He wanted to see more hobbits. Now that
Tolkien knew this, he started to think further in the world of the hobbits and
expanded his imagination and came to Frodo Baggins, the nephew of Bilbo. He
soon noticed that he could not stick to the childish stories and his writing became
a lot darker.
The Lord of the Rings is partly written during World War II, during the war
Tolkien stayed professor but saw how the school adapted to the war, namely to
students who had to join the army. After the war had ended Oxford had to pick
up the thread again. Tolkien was named Merton Professor of English Language
and Literature. This was the beginning of a period where his until so far close
friend C.S. Lewis was pretty much out of the picture. Tolkien now had a higher
position than Lewis and despite Tolkien’s effort to keep writing him and sending
him pieces of The Lord of the Rings, he was ignored. They saw each other less
often and Tolkien had a hard time dealing with the fact that he did not like
Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia at all.
The Lord of the Rings
Late 1949 Tolkien finally finished The Lord of the Rings after twelve years of
hard work. He again tried to send Lewis the now fully typed out The Lord of the
Rings. Lewis responded to this and he thought it was exceptional. Tolkien tried
to publish it at the company that also published The Hobbit. It was given the
green light, although, due to the nature of the book and the high paper prices
after the war, they could not publish it. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as we know
it today, was originally meant as a 1500 page book. However, the publisher came
with the suggestion to make a trilogy of it so it could be published since if it had
stayed a whole book it probably would never have been published. Tolkien
agreed. Although it seemed possible to name it just Lord of the Rings part 1, part
2, part 3 it was not appealing enough and George Allen & Unwin, together with
Tolkien, came up with some titles. The books were named The Fellowship of the
Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The Fellowship of the Ring
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was logically chosen since the reader follows the Fellowship on its journey, The
Two Towers was chosen in Tolkien’s view, although no one actually knew which
towers he meant, he did once mention, to make it clear that it is the tower of
Orthanc and the tower of Barad-Dur. He was not happy about the decision of The
Return of the King, since you know what is going to happen at the end. However,
he did agree with it, considering that they had to have a suitable title, and
publishing it as a whole book was impossible.
When it was finally published in 1954, five years after it was finished and
seventeen years after the publication of The Hobbit, it became clear that The
Lord of the Rings appealed to a whole new audience than The Hobbit did back in
1937. It was not, like The Hobbit, a book for children anymore, it dealt with
themes such as death, war and corruption, which is definitely not for kids.
Audiences were mainly separated into two groups, one group thought it was a
literary masterpiece, others thought it was boy-like and without a lot of character
development. Even though there were different opinions it became more and
more successful. What makes Tolkien’s book so special is that Tolkien was not a
professional writer and he dared more than the average writer. Tolkien, for
example, tells in The Two Towers first the story of Frodo and Sam until a certain
point, he then leaves the end completely open and switches from Frodo and Sam
to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, making the reader wonder what is happening to
the others while reading one of the two, which creates a certain tension. This also
goes for The Return of the King. He also uses a flashback for a very important
and grand battle, something a professional would not have done. This made it
exciting to read and people have seen it since the 1950’s as a book everyone has
to read or at least know about it, and that is exactly what was going to happen. It
actually became the most widely read book after the bible.
Map of Middle-Earth
With the rising success, there was just one person who did not like those
staggering numbers, Tolkien himself. He did not like the attention, he now got
recognised in the street and received loads of fan mail, which he, despite his
slight dislike, answered once in a while. He acquired a huge fan base, and
nowadays he still has one of the largest and most devoted fan bases in the world.1
1
See chapter 5
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1.8 The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion is Tolkien’s life work. He had worked on it from 1914 to his
death. The Silmarillion tells the beginning of the fictional world of Middle-Earth
and how elves, dwarves, men and all the other races came on the planet. It is a
compilation of stories and it contains a great deal of information and is probably
only interesting for those who really want to know more about Middle-Earth and
its origins. Due to this the publisher never wanted to take the risk to publish it.
When Tolkien came to the end of his life, he realised that his masterpiece and its
whole mythology would never be published. He kept working on it, but with the
thought that it would never be published during his lifetime. His son Christopher
promised him to finish the book.
When he died in 1973, his son Christopher read all his father’s chaotic pieces he
had written for The Silmarillion. He realised that if he made a whole completed
book of it and finish it, it could stand a chance of publication. After his great
effort of putting it together, four years later in 1977 he tried to publish it, just
like his father tried several years ago. With success, the publisher, still George
Allen &Unwin, agreed and gave it a chance. Christopher Tolkien illustrated the
book and eventually on 15 September 1977 it was published.
Those who read it saw it as a lesser book than The Lord of the Rings, mostly due
to its lack of a heroic story like The Lord of the Rings had. Even though the
critical response was overall negative, there were some people who praised the
book.
The Silmarillion does not only tell the origins of
Middle-Earth, it is rich for its languages which
Tolkien created. Some of these languages are
Sindarin and Quenya of the elves, Khuzdul for the
Dwarves, Rohirric and Gondorric for the men of
Rohan and Gondor (mainly used in the Lord of the
Rings), and the black speech of Mordor. Most of
these languages are written on a small scale,
although for fictional languages they are quite
extensive. Sindarin and Quenya, or just Elvish, are
the largest and can be counted as a real language
for their large vocabulary, grammar, its exceptions
and its characters.
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1.9 The end of his days
With the growing success of the fandom around The Hobbit and especially The
Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was followed by fans everywhere and received fan-mail
from around the world. Tolkien never found a place where he and Edith could
completely relax. In 1959 Tolkien retired after 40 years of being an academic.
Still living in Oxford, Edith suffered from joints problems, reducing her mobility.
This and the fact that they lived kilometres from the centre of Oxford, made them
decide that they had to move one day.
Nine years later, in 1968, they moved from Oxford to Bournemouth. They fitted
extraordinary well in the society, since Bournemouth housed people of the same
age and class. Bournemouth had provided them a place where they spent a whole
lot of holidays, and gave them friends for life. The peace, the area and the friends
made Edith very happy even though she suffered from several things. Tolkien
could not be happier either, if his wife was content he was as well, not only that,
he now had the time again to work on The Silmarillion.
On 29 November 1971, Edith passed away after a short illness. Tolkien grieved
immensely and without his beloved Edith he did not see a reason why he would
stay in Bournemouth, after all the move back to Bournemouth was mostly done
for Edith. Tolkien decided to move to Oxford again. He was very satisfied to be in
the city again, where he dined at the college, visited his children and spent time
with his oldest friend. Although his grief for Edith never left him, he spent his
days content. Christopher Tolkien made him the promise to finish the
Silmarillion if his father could not end it. Not soon after this promise, J.R.R.
Tolkien died on 2 September 1973, after a sudden illness.
On the grave of Edith and Ronald, Beren and Luthien is engraved, a reference to
the mortal man and the immortal elven maiden from The Silmarillion. They fell
in love with each other and with this Luthien gives her immortality away and her
life with her own people. After all Tolkien always saw Edith as his Luthien and
he was Beren. In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Tolkien describes
sailing to the undying lands (sort of heaven for elves), meaning death as: ‘’the
end?.. No this is not the end. Death is just another path, one that we all must
take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass…
And then you see it… White shores, and beyond a far green country under swift
sunrise’’.
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2. Tolkien’s influence and inspiration on writers of Fantasy and
Science Fiction
The influence of Tolkien can be found throughout fantasy books and science
fiction. Tolkien has created a new sub-genre in writing, High Fantasy. This subgenre is very distinctive and can be easily recognised, it can be found throughout
a large number of books. Besides the sub-genre, Tolkien made quite an
impression on writers and through this his influence can be found. That is what
this chapter is about: the influence of Tolkien that can be found in modern books.
2.1 High Fantasy
Tolkien is seen as the ‘father’ of High Fantasy. This genre is distinguished by
having creatures such as elves, dwarves, dragons, goblins and other significant
fantasy creatures or mythical creatures. Often the story is set in another world or
invented place, in Tolkien’s example Middle-Earth. Sometimes there is a
constructed language and the characters follow a quest most of the time.
Only after the popularity of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit writers around
the world wanted to create something similar, now that this type of literature
became more in demand. Thus far writers have written things similar to The
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The fantasy and related story line, which
Tolkien set up, can be seen in practically any Modern Fantasy or science fiction
story these days (books from the 1960’s to now). No Modern Fantasy book has
escaped the rich imagination of Tolkien.
Characters are easily recognisable, like heroes, aided, in most cases, by
assistants. Then on the other hand you often have a dark lord who wants to see
the world burn or just the hero character. This represents good versus evil, one of
the main themes of The Lord of the Rings.
That said, those assets have never gone away in fantasy, which I will explain
with examples like The Chronicles of Narnia (written by a close friend of
Tolkien), a Song of Ice and Fire (a great admirer of Tolkien), and Harry Potter
(J.K. Rowling read books of Tolkien in her youth and she used names and
characters similar to names and characters written in The Lord of the Rings).
17
2.2 The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is a seven-part book series written by C.S Lewis, an
Irish writer (born 29 November 1898 – died 22 November 1963).
He is mostly known for The Chronicles of Narnia and as close friend of Tolkien,
but was also writer of more fantasy novels. As said in the first chapter, Tolkien
and Lewis were part of the Inklings, where they shared their written drafts and
then gave each other feedback. With both having a great interest in Norwegian
myths they created several stories apart from each other and shared them with
great pleasure.
Even though The Chronicles of Narnia was published before The Lord of the
Rings, it was greatly influenced by Tolkien. In the time that they saw each other
less often, Lewis finished the first volume of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion,
The Witch and the Wardrobe. Lewis sent his book to Tolkien to get feedback.
Tolkien did not like the book at all (in the eyes of Tolkien the tales written by
Lewis were inconsistent in the story lines and childlike).
C.S. Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia is good example of High Fantasy. It is set in another
world with mythical creatures and a fantasy world, Narnia. The children appear
in Narnia after entering a wardrobe, which turns out to be the entrance to the
world, here they are faced with a quest. Lord of the Rings and Narnia were first
published at around the same time (1950’s); the first novel of Narnia before The
Lord of the Rings, however, it is Tolkien rather than Lewis who is recognised as
the father of High Fantasy. This is probably because Lewis’s stories have less
‘’depth’’ than Tolkien’s: there is no constructed language and the story is more
geared to children.
When you look at the work of Tolkien and Lewis it becomes obvious how much of
an influence they had, in terms of sources and on each other. The influence of
Norwegian myths becomes obvious in both books as well as their belief in God.
18
2.3 A Song of Ice and Fire
A Song of Ice and Fire is a high fantasy series, by George R.R. Martin, first
published in 1996, with so far five books and two stories yet to be published. The
author admired the books of J.R.R. Tolkien since his childhood. He always
wanted to write an epic fantasy even though he did not have any specific ideas.
In 1991 he started writing A Game of Thrones, which he published in 1996.
Martin could not name it into one specific genre, Fantasy, Science Fiction,
Horror. He did mention that Tolkien was his largest influence. The story is set in
medieval times, similar to that of Tolkien, even though Tolkien’s Middle-Earth is
not really medieval, it represents something similar. The Middle Ages have been
the traditional background for epic fantasy, before and after Tolkien. ‘’However,
in Martin’s eyes the Tolkien imitators were writing ‘Disneyland Middle Ages’
without grasping the true brutality of the time’’ 2.
To him historical fiction appeared much grittier and realistic to him. He saw the
dramatic possibilities of the Middle Ages and its wars as something which would
be great writing about. Even though the historical fact would make people more
aware of this time, to create more empathy he wanted to make original fictional
characters. Thus he created something that combines the rawness of medieval
times with the magic and fantasy in which he was inspired by Tolkien.
A Game of Thrones has become a popular series on television. It is when you see
The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones that you realise how much they
have in common, it is more obvious than when you read the book, with the
visualisation of your own mind. The visualisation on screen makes it more clear.
One example, besides all the things which make it to a High Fantasy series, is to
compare Sean Bean in both series in terms of costumes and hairstyle.
Sean Bean as Boromir
in Lord of the Rings
Sean Bean as Eddard Stark in
A Game of Thrones
2
Quote compiled by Wikipedia. Originally from http://entertainment.time.com/2011/04/18/grrm-interviewpart-2-fantasy-and-history/
19
2.4 Harry Potter
Harry Potter is one of the most popular book series of this time. The first Harry
Potter book was published in 1997, as the first of eventually seven books written
by J.K. Rowling, an English writer born in 1965.
Those who read or watch Harry Potter find the series very intriguing, they see it
as a new concept and something of one of a kind. Although Harry Potter deals
with a new kind of theme, J.K. Rowling must have got her inspiration from
something, it is impossible that someone just takes a pen and paper and creates a
whole new world. She got her inspiration, like almost every other writer in
fantasy these days, from Tolkien directly or indirectly.
Fans of the work of Tolkien noticed, while reading Harry Potter, the many
similarities between Tolkien’s and Rowling’s work. Some of those fans said that
Rowling copied Tolkien and that Harry Potter is just a childish Lord of the Rings.
This statement is not correct, however, it is a fact that Harry Potter is a High
Fantasy story. (This makes it quite similar to The Lord of the Rings, because of
the fact all the High Fantasy can be dated back to The Lord of the Rings, as also
there is a hero and assistants and the dark lord and an imaginary place.)
The comparison of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter causes quite some
discussion among fans and it almost becomes a battle between those sides. Some
Tolkien fans claim Harry Potter is a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings. J.K. Rowling
has said that she has indeed read The Lord of the Rings in her teens, but then
never took a look at it anymore. Simply claiming Tolkien was not a major source
of inspiration. This is possible, although it must have been quite a major
inspiration considering the large amount of similarities with both The Lord of the
Rings and the overall High Fantasy genre.
To make the similarities clear I will give some examples. First of all the
comparison of good and evil. Both The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter have a
clear vision of good and evil. In the case of The Lord of the Rings, men, elves,
dwarves, and (some) wizards represent good, which is thoroughly expressed in
‘the Fellowship’, where all the racial beings are combined. They fight against the
Dark Lord Sauron, the forger of the evil One Ring, whose power is unimaginably
large. In The Lord of the Rings the One Ring has to be destroyed to destroy
Sauron, and save the world from evil. If Sauron gets the ring there will be no
more dawn for any good in the world.
Gandalf and
Dumbledore
20
In Harry Potter, all the good wizards and men represent the good. They fight
against the evil wizard, Dark Lord Voldemort and his loyal followers, deatheater, who want to rule the world and annihilate the good world, all good wizards
and men.
Other comparisons are the Nazgûl, black cloaked ghosts, once men, who fight for
Sauron and Dementors, black cloaked ghosts who fight for Voldemort. The large
spiders in both books, the forbidden forest in Harry Potter and the old forest in
Lord of the Rings, both not so nice to be in, the wizard who help the hero in the
stories, Gandalf and Dumbledore, the helpers of the Dark Lord who are both good
and evil at the same time, Saruman and Professor Snape, Gollum and Doby,
creatures who are servants of the hero, the giant eagles in The Lord of the Rings
and the giant eagle-like creature in Harry Potter and on and on. Then not to
forget some major similarities in names. Wormtongue and Wormtail, Bagshot
row and Bathilda Bagshot, Longbottom leaf and Neville Longbottom.
Another fact that shows that Rowling must have got her inspiration from
Tolkien: in one of his poems Tolkien wrote that Dumbledore is dialect for
bumblebee, and let it just be Rowling who uses the word Dumbledore. The issue
of it can never be proved whether she took this directly from Tolkien, since she
denies that she ever read something from Tolkien besides The Lord of the Rings.
All in all, it seems quite obvious that Rowling owes quite a lot to Tolkien.
21
2.5 Tolkien Shop
The influence of Tolkien cannot only be found in books. A man in Holland was
inspired by Tolkien to start his own business in books. He later added in other
things, and now his shop is fully dedicated to Tolkien.
In Leiden, Holland, there is a unique shop called the ‘Tolkien Winkel’ (Tolkien
Shop). It was founded in 1986 by Rene van Rossenberg. When he read The Lord
of the Rings he was sold and loved the way Tolkien wrote. He started to buy
things like calendars in the style of Tolkien from England in the 1980’s, however,
due to high shipping prices he decided to buy 5 calendars instead of one for
himself. He knew that he had friends that would like to have those things. When
he realised that items, like calendars, were very much in demand in the
Netherlands, he thought of founding something to buy things from foreign
countries in large amounts and then sell them in The Netherlands again. In the
Netherlands, the books of Tolkien were quite popular but there was no business
in it like in other countries. This small business, more like a hobby, was executed
for several years. When it went so well and being crowded with stuff he decided
to open a shop in 1986. Instead of having boxes everywhere, he could now show
his collection. With a large private collection he decided to start a small museum.
You can now admire his collection, which includes the first editions from The
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and even signed books and letters by J.R.R.
Tolkien.
Until 2000 he only sold books and did some marketing involving the books and
the animated movies, however, when The Lord of the Rings trilogy was made,
popularity was boosted. With a lot of commercial merchandise, he started to sell
things from the movies and these days he depends on the films. His most
important clients were John Howe, the design artist of The Lord of the Rings and
Peter Jackson, the director himself. The shop is these days known around the
world, and with The Hobbit being released last year and the release of the second
Hobbit this year, popularity will only increase.
Van of the Tolkien Shop
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2.6 Conclusion
The influence and inspiration on writers of Fantasy and Science Fiction books of
Tolkien can be found throughout an enormous amount of books, but the named
examples are the ones which are probably the most popular and through this it
becomes clear how much of a influence he actually has or had. Through the books
it became even possible to start a small business by some people. This business
was amplified when Peter Jackson made The Lord of the Rings. This leads us to
the next chapter on the inspiration of Tolkien on movies and directors.
23
3. Tolkien’s inspiration on movies and directors
3.1. Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson, born 31 October 1961, is a New Zealand filmmaker. As a child he
already loved films, especially King Kong (1933). When he received an 8mm
camera from his parents, he started making short movies with his friends. He
loved recreating special effects from series and films. He once recreated King
Kong. When he was 17 years old, he saw The Lord of the Rings, by Ralph Bakshi.
He really liked the film and the story itself, that is why he decided to read The
Lord of the Rings. He read the books on a train from Wellington to Auckland.
With the landscapes in New Zealand, Peter Jackson enriched his imagination
and gave the written words of Tolkien shape in his mind. He always dreamed of
the day there would be a live action film.
In 1987 Weta was founded, a company that, these days, makes costumes and
props, miniatures and other things, by Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger, both
good friends of Peter Jackson. At that time it made costumes, make up and
features for short films. Peter Jackson, who is co-owner of Weta, used those
things for his movies. At that time he often played in his own films, which is a
feature he never forgot because in all his films he is known for his cameos (short
appearances). In 1993 Weta divided into two separate branches, Weta Workshop
(physical effects) and Weta Digital (digital effects). Weta Digital was founded by
Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk for the film Heavenly Creatures
for digital effects. Since then they have worked together and supplement each
other. Peter Jackson is, together with Richard Taylor and Jamie Selkirk, coowner of Stone Street Studios, in Wellington. Almost all his films are filmed in
Stone Streets Studios, which is within walking distance from Weta.
When The Lord of the Rings was made, the relative young Weta was the main
company for the making of the films. They did an enormous amount of work for
the realisation of the films. Peter Jackson is still very interested in the special
(visual) effects, which put Weta to the test since Peter Jackson wanted superb
visual effects. This made both Weta Digital and Workshop work day and night
and the deadlines were set every day. Richard Taylor (head of Weta Workshop)
worked 100 hours a week for seven years to finish his work. Their work did pay
off though, with three Academy Awards for visual effects and 14 other Academy
Awards.
At the moment (from 2008) Peter Jackson is making The Hobbit trilogy in which
he again shows wanting to push the boundaries of film technology by using 48
frames per second (FPS (or Higher Frame Rate, HFR, as used by cinemas to
indicate that the screening is in 48FPS)) instead of 24 frames per second. This is
daring since this is the first cinema film that uses this. However, Peter Jackson
as well as James Cameron believe that the future of film lays in 48FPS, since
film has to keep up with technology. Last December, when the first Hobbit,
24
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was realised it received mixed reactions.
Some believed it was amazing because you are being sucked up into the world
others thought it was too realistic and therefore horrible because it did not feel
like a film anymore but something of real life. That is the group that sees cinema
as something to escape from the real world, sadly it is also the group that comes
with another handful of complaints, for example they claim that it causes
headaches and several other pains. However, the intention of Peter Jackson and
co is to reduce blurring in 3D and with that also reduce the number of medical
issues sticking to that. 3
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson is known for his devotion to fans, during the production of his films
he posts things on the web like production blogs and the progress that is being
made. He also organises worldwide fan events where fans can ask questions
about the movie. When The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were nominated for
the Oscars, fans of TheOneRing.net, a fan site which keeps fans posted about the
production and gives news about others film involved things, they organised a
party for The Return of the King, The Return of the One Party, which Peter
Jackson wanted to attend. For The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey they did the
same, the One Expected Party, however, The Hobbit did not win Oscars like The
Return of the King did, Peter Jackson sill wanted to attend. Peter Jackson has
won three Academy Awards, and he has received nine nominations. He has won
three times for Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Best Director, Best
Picture and Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.
The fact that Peter Jackson was able to adapt an ‘’unfilmable’’ book, according to
the standards of Tolkien (as mentioned by himself), into a highly successful
movie, made him known all around the world. Because of this worldwide
admiration, he has been honoured in his own country several times. In 2002 he
was appointed Companion of The New Zealand Order of Merit. In 2010, he was
promoted to Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit and in 2012,
he was appointed to the Order of New Zealand, the highest honour in New
Zealand. This made him Sir Peter Jackson.
. I have experienced The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of
Smaug in several formats including in 48FPS in IMAX and the average 3D, and I
am convinced that is does reduce blurring and other impurities.
3
25
3.2. James Cameron
James Cameron, born August 16, 1954, is a Canadian filmmaker, best known for
Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009). These are also the two highest grossing films
ever. With Titanic James Cameron received endless awards, including 11
Academy Awards, it also became the first film ever to gross over 1 billion dollar.
Those records would be tied by The Return of the King seven years later. James
Cameron started working in the film business at a visual effect company. Thus,
he is wanting to push the boundaries of film in terms of technology, just like
Peter Jackson.
When James Cameron got the idea for Avatar, he realised that it was not possible
because technology was not yet enough developed. After The Lord of the Rings
was made he realised that it was possible, technology had evolved enough. He
wanted to produce Avatar with Weta, instead with his own visual effects
company, Digital Domain, which put Titanic to the screen. The reason behind his
decision was that he felt that his company did not evolve enough to produce such
a movie. He managed to do Avatar with Weta4, and even created new technology,
called performance capture.
James Cameron
When you compare Peter Jackson and James Cameron, you will notice the many
similarities between them: they both have a film that won 11 Academy Awards,
they are both very interested in the technology of visual effects, they both want to
push the boundaries. Since Avatar James Cameron is living in New Zealand and
works frequently with Weta and uses Stone Street Studios. When making Avatar
he wanted to make something as good as Peter Jackson´s The Lord of the Rings
and George Lucas´s Star Wars. James Cameron nowadays works closely with
Peter Jackson, together they want to introduce HFR to the world. Peter Jackson
and James Cameron together with Weta want to improve technology of film and
now that Peter Jackson is doing The Hobbit in 48FPS, James Cameron wants to
surpass that with Avatar using 60FPS if possible.
4
See full story in James Cameron’s Avatar.
26
3.3. Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was one of the most ambitious projects in the
history of film. The so far ‘’unfilmable’’ book would be made into a film. After the
Ralph Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings no one ever thought of making it into a
live-action film, simply because of the immense work of putting the wide fantasy
of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imagination to the screen, which would require a whole lot of
modern technology, which was not available at that time. In addition, J.R.R.
Tolkien himself said it was ‘’unfilmable’’.
With this in the back of your mind, how could you even consider making a liveaction film of it? Well no matter how crazy you could call it, someone who did
think about it, Peter Jackson. He had just finished The Frighteners in 1996 and
thought about what he could do next and he thought about things that had not
been filmed yet. Somehow he thought about The Lord of the Rings, the book
which he read when he was 17. His first encounter with The Lord of the Rings
was the Ralph Bashki film from 1978. After this consideration, he went to Bob
and Harvey Weinstein, director of Miramax, to ask whether he could make The
Lord of the Rings, Harvey Weinstein went to negotiate with the man who owned
the rights of The Lord of the Rings. They came to the conclusion that he could
make a film about The Lord of the Rings and one with the story of The Hobbit.
There was just one issue: at that moment Miramax did not own the rights. At
about the same time Universal pictures offered Peter Jackson to make a remake
of King Kong, which was one of his dreams since the 1933 King Kong had
inspired him to make movies. And so he cancelled the project of The Lord of the
Rings. Not so much later King Kong was aborted due to an issue with the rights.
Now Miramax had obtained the rights and offered him $75 million for The Lord
of the Rings to make two movies, with the three books mixed and made up of two
films. After talking to Stephen Sinclair, Peter Jackson with his wife Fran Walsh
and great Tolkien admirer Philippa Boyens, started working on a script, but
when all seemed to go well Stephen Sinclair quit with the consequence that the
budget had to be taken down to less than half of it, $35 million, and with
Miramax already having spent $15 million on it, Harvey Weinstein thought it
was best to make only one movie, with the consequence of changing the entire
script again. They then showed 35 minutes of footage to Mark Ordesky and
Robert Shaye of New Line Cinema. They responded quite negatively to it and
Mark Ordesky questioned why on earth make two or even one film?! It is a
trilogy, you should make three films!5
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Special Extended Edition:
Appendices part 1: From Book to Vision: From Book to Script
5
27
Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philipa Boyens agreed with this even though now
they had to rewrite the script completely, since now that they had the
opportunity to actually maintain the story line of Tolkien of that they could
follow the main lines of the books. New Line Cinema took the risk to give them a
relatively big budget to quite inexperienced film makers, who never won any
important awards and never worked on a Hollywood film, just some New
Zealanders. They were given $281 million for making three films. Given the
green light in 1998, the production started with putting the imagination of
Tolkien to screen and deciding what and what not they would put into the film.
Then came the massive job of making the swords, armours, costumes,
prosthetics, sets and so forth. This process kept going until the last day of the
ending The Return of the King. The people who were making the chainmail out of
plastic rings did not even have a fingerprint anymore after five years of putting
rings together.
Peter Jackson on the set of The Lord
of the Rings with Elijah Wood and
Sean Astin
The filming of the entire trilogy started on 11 October 1999 and ended on 22
December 2000. A lot of the actors had to be in New Zealand for 18 months
filming non-stop. In that time they got extensive training in handling weapons
like bow and arrow and swords, they learnt how to ride horse, they learnt how to
act as the race they played, and for those who played an elf, he or she had to
learn how to speak Elvish. Some actors arrived several months earlier to get
more into the role and learn more, like Orlando Bloom, who played Legolas,
arrived seven months earlier. In contradiction to this, Viggo Mortensen, who
played Aragorn, arrived just one day before shooting, due to changes. When, after
18 months, 271 shooting days, main shooting was over, every next year until
April 2004, after The Return of the King had already won the Oscars, there were
pick-ups (additional shooting after main shooting is done) which lasted six weeks
every year. The Lord of the Rings was the first movie series which was filmed
back to back. After a scene of The Fellowship of the Ring the next day they could
be doing a scene for The Return of the King. Today it still is not very common
although it is done with some films such as Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, and
it was done with The Hobbit trilogy.
28
When after a year of post-production The Fellowship of the Ring was finished on
the day it was released, it received praising reviews and fans were very
enthusiastic about it. After all it was one of the most anticipated movie of all
time. Everywhere were things involving the movie, like banners, especially in
New Zealand, like ‘Frodo comes to life’. Fans from Tolkien anticipated this film
like no other. Everyone who had seen the movie and enjoyed it or even adored it,
could never have imagined that it would get Academy Awards. That it would get
a nomination was possible, but never was a Fantasy film seen as equal to say, a
drama film. The film received 13 nominations and 4 wins. It also almost tied the
record for most nominated film ever, with Titanic leading with 14 nominations.
With The Two Towers following the year after people became more and more
enthusiastic and anticipations were running higher and higher. The reviews were
still very enthusiastic, although it was getting more criticism than The
Fellowship of the Ring. However, the digital effects were praised. Never had they
seen anything like Gollum. The visual effects of The Fellowship of the Ring were
stunning for that time but the visual effects in The Two Towers were more
superior and beyond belief. With 6 nominations and 2 wins, it scored slightly
lower than the first one, however, still given the fact that Fantasy films were
almost never praised by the Academy Awards, it was still high.
People who won an Oscar for The Return
of the King
When The Return of the King, the last of the three, came in December 2003 fans
were very sad about it, it would mean that this was the last film adaptation from
Tolkien’s books, since the rights for The Hobbit were not available and the
Tolkien Estate would never sell the rights for The Silmarillion or something else.
That made them celebrate and anticipate this film even more. New Zealand did a
tremendous amount of effort to create something unforgettable. From four
airplanes of Air New Zealand in Lord of the Rings style to one of the largest red
carpets premieres in Wellington to weather forecasts in Elvish. New Zealand
spent over a million on the world premiere in their Capital, Wellington, to make
it something of one of a kind, even the mayor showed up. With 117,000 people
attending the world premiere in Wellington on the 500 meter red carpet, the city
was overflowing and people looking from balconies and lampposts. It became
clear this was no mere film. When the Academy Awards arrived it got 11
nominations and something happened people did not foresee, a fantasy film got a
29
clean sweep, earning all 11 nominations including best picture. No Fantasy
movie had ever gotten best picture, it was never considered as a real genre until
The Lord of the Rings. Tying the record of 11 Oscars together with Ben-Hur and
Titanic, it was also the only film getting all technical awards possible. Its visual
effects were ground-breaking. After The Lord of the Rings, visual effect became
more and more common on this scale. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh both
earning three Oscars in one evening making Fran Walsh the only female who
ever did. The Return of the King tied almost all records imaginable including
being the second film to gross more than 1 billion after Titanic did previously.
Special extended DVD
editions with 26 hours
of bonus material
The Lord of the Rings changed the Academy Awards on a wide scale, now they
would consider fantasy and science fiction films actually as a real genre. It also
made the visual effects nomination going from 3 films a year to 5 films a year.
The things that it also brought to life was the Extended Editions of movies,
meaning a longer version than the original theatrical version. Completed with
bonus materials and special editions making, showing the making of and other
thing involving the production.
Peter Jackson said that The Lord of the Rings was a once in a life time experience
and that he would never do anything like this again. He would never have
thought that by the end of 2014 he would have another trilogy in the same world,
The Hobbit.
30
3.4. The Hobbit
The Hobbit was supposed to be adapted before The Lord of the Rings or even just
The Hobbit if it should be a financial failure. However, the rights were not
available at that time. That is why they turned to The Lord of the Rings after
some struggling which I described earlier in The Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit is a terrifically hard project which, at the moment of speaking, is still
in progress. The mentioning of an adaptation started right after The Return of
the King received its Academy Awards by the fans of The Lord of the Rings. When
Peter Jackson was asked, by fans and in interviews, whether he was interested in
The Hobbit, he reacted that there was no interest whatsoever. In 2005 Peter
Jackson launched a law suit to New Line Cinema because Peter Jackson owed
New Line Cinema money, after they were sued by the Tolkien Estate, in
association with the movie production rights of The Lord of the Rings. Peter
Jackson believed that it was the Tolkien Estate which made the wrong
statement. After that in 2006, speculations started that MGM wanted to team up
with Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema to adapt The Hobbit. In 2007 Robert
Shaye, co-founder of New Line Cinema was annoyed about the law suit and said
that he never wanted a New Line Cinema production with Peter Jackson as
director. However, MGM boss Harry Sloan wanted to work with Peter Jackson.
From that time speculations went their own way and a whole lot of directors were
said to direct The Hobbit. MGM and New Line Cinema would together finance
two Hobbit-films with a budget of $150 million each. In December 2007 MGM
and New Line Cinema announced that Peter Jackson would be Executive
Producer. In 2008 New Line Cinema was sued by the Tolkien Estate for breach of
contract and fraud. The Tolkien estate demanded $220 million from The Lord of
the Rings trilogy and wanted to block the filming of The Hobbit. Despite all of
this in the same year Guillermo del Toro was chosen as a director. In 2009 Sam
Raimi (director of Spiderman) claimed that he found Peter Jackson the ideal
candidate to direct. However, Peter Jackson did not want to direct due to the fact
that he did not want to compete with The Lord of the Rings and there were still
issues involving the relationship between Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema.
Eventually it was announced that the two films would be released in December
2011 and 2012.
Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson and Philippa
Boyens
31
Pre-production started in 2008 with Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Fran
Walsh and Philippa Boyens. They started writing and designing. In 2009 Peter
Jackson announced that they were delayed due to the fact that they needed more
time to finish the script. In January 2010 it became clear that there was just too
much work and the first instalment was delayed to December 2012. In 2010,
after announcing delay after delay, Guillermo del Toro quit his job as director.
The Hobbit had not yet received green light and financial problems of MGM
causing problems together with the departure of del Toro, the project was
stopped. A lot of directors were named to replace del Toro, however, Hobbit fans
were upset and wished that Peter Jackson became director. In June 2010 Peter
Jackson went negotiating about whether he should become director or not. In
October 2010 Peter Jackson announced that he would become director. One of the
main issues with the problem whether Peter Jackson should become director or
not, was that Peter Jackson worked on the script and the production. If he did
not become the director, they would have to start all over again, which would
take many months if not years.
Things were finally looking to get settled, however, there was another issue with
the fact that MGM and New Line Cinema wanted to get The Hobbit out of new
Zealand because it was unpractical in both finances as for the actors. As a
reaction to this Richard Taylor (head of Weta Workshop), together with other
people, went protesting against it. Their statement was that the New Zealand
tourism relies on it, losing at least $1.5 billion a year if this was going to happen.
After making several arrangements, The Hobbit could stay in New Zealand.
When this finally was settled, the production could go on at full speed.
Peter Jackson with Martin Freeman
on the set of The Hobbit
After the castings and pre-production was as good as done, filming would start in
February 2011, the filming was already delayed by the fact that they absolutely
wanted Martin Freeman to play Bilbo, who had to film Sherlock Holmes first.
When the filming was about to start, Peter Jackson got a stomach ulcer. He had
to stay in the hospital for several weeks, delaying, again, the production. No one
had wished for this, but it did give them more time to finish things. Finally on
the 21st March 2011 shooting started. It was an 18 month project, the same
amount of days as the shooting of The Lord of the Rings. Just like in The Lord of
32
the Rings the films are shot back to back, one day they could be shooting scenes
for film one and the other day they could be shooting scenes for film two or three.
In May 2013 they held the pick-ups, three months of additional shooting, in case
they missed a particular shot. In July 2012, to much surprise it was announced
that there would be a third film. Because of the extensive material they had they
thought it would be better to make three films instead of lacking the material
when putting it into two films. Opinions were divided over this, some saw it
purely for money others thought it would be great to have another Middle-Earth
movie.
It is clear that the massiveness and the difficulty of this project sets it apart from
others, but the thing that completely distinguishes The Hobbit from other
projects is the fact that The Hobbit is the first film ever to be released in 48FPS
(frames per second). From the first motion film to now 24FPS are used as the
standard for every film, the 24FPS also makes it feel as a film and not as
something real. Overall, people see film as something to escape from the real
world for a while and forget all the problems it takes with it. With this Peter
Jackson is clearly wanting to push the boundaries of film. He uses 48FPS in
combination with 3D, in order to reduce blurring in a 3D film. The blurring
people barely notice because we are so used to it, in our view it just belongs to
film. However, I can speak from my own experience, I have experienced 48FPS
and whenever I see a film in normal 3D, I notice every blurred thing and it
somewhat annoys me. When Peter Jackson showed, together with James
Cameron, who introduced 3D back to the world with Avatar and started the 3Dhype, a 15 minute part from The Hobbit in 48FPS. People were overall negative
about 48FPS, claiming it was too real and looked like some theatre peace, Peter
Jackson took it very lightly and said that is was just too short to get used to in 15
minutes. My experience was that it actually felt normal although it took me some
time to get used to, however, it improved so many things and it made me feel like
I was actually in the film. Back in December 2012, when the first movie was
released, people were complaining about it again, that it was too real, that you
can’t experience it as a film anymore and that The Hobbit does not look real
anymore. Well, speaking for myself, I think those people are just complaining
because they want to complain. Peter Jackson will release the next two Hobbit
movies in 48FPS and hopefully people will not complain about it anymore. They
probably have to get used to it because James Cameron will do three Avatar
movies in 48FPS. James Cameron is even considering 60FPS, the highest
amount the human eye can perceive.
33
3.5. Visual effects
Technique is what made it possible to adapt The Lord of the Rings and The
Hobbit books into a life action movie. Without visual effects6 the adaptation of a
books would not come further than an animated movie. It was technology from
films such as Star Wars that made the studios and Peter Jackson realise that it
was time for a life action film. The story of the Star Wars films is hugely
influenced by Tolkien, it is, as describe in chapter two, a High Fantasy story. If
The Lord of the Rings had never been written, then probably Star Wars would
not have been made and then the technology would not have been that advanced
to make The Lord of the Rings, and thus Avatar would never have been made on
the scale it is nowadays and then The Hobbit would not have used 48FPS and
thus the technology had stayed behind. Overall The Lord of the Rings plays a
huge role in the development of technology. This part of the chapter will be
focusing on the digital effects, the physical effects, the development of technique
and the development of visual effects, including motion capture with reference to
The Lord of the Rings.
Digital effects have been used for a long time in films, especially by George Lucas
(Star Wars), Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park), James Cameron (Titanic). Those
films were made before The Lord of the Rings trilogy and directors used them
before, of course. When The Lord of the Rings came into the picture, it became
clear that digital effects were key to portraying the ‘’unfilmable’’ books. Weta
Digital, together with Weta Workshop, which creates the physical effects, got
that major job of creating the visual effect. This was their first major film, luckily
they were aided by Weta Workshop, which made everything physical involving
Middle-Earth and models of clay, which were digitalized into the computer so
that they had a foundation for their digital effects.
Creation of massive,
cavalary charge against
an army
Peter Jackson put Weta Digital to the test with his insistence on pushing the
boundaries in terms of digital effects. He wanted the effects to be flawless and
was never satisfied with a hundred per cent. Workers at Weta often slept at the
company to finish a particular scene. This did pay off and especially Gollum, who
is fully motion captured, made them popular around the world, this is more
thoroughly explained in the paragraph Motion Capture. For The Lord of the
Rings, a new program had to be made for the creation of large armies, since it
6
Visual effects are the digital and physical effects that are added into a movie.
34
was impossible to hire a team of 10,000 extras. That is why they created the
program massive, which gives them the ability to create large armies that fight
each other. It did take some time to get the program right, in the beginning they
had a foundation, but sometimes puppets ran away from battle, which in a movie
with an all deciding battle is not the purpose. To get it flawless people were
motion captured and then doubled to get an as real as possible effect. Nowadays
both this technique as well as the Motion Capture technique, which is improved
by themselves and James Cameron, is used on a large scale.
The large improvements in digital effect have not only made film effects look
more realistic than ever, it also made the Academy Awards overflowing with
contestants for the visual effect category, which was a major category by any
means before The Lord of the Rings. With the efforts of Peter Jackson, James
Cameron and Weta, of introduction 48FPS to the world, technology will keep
improving and it will probably become more and more realistic.
3.5.1. Motion Capture
Motion Capture, or, these days, Performance Capture, is a technique used to put
digital characters on screen. The Lord of the Rings animated version from 1978
formed the basis for the use of Motion Capture, the technique that The Lord of
the Rings from Ralph Bakshi used was Rotoscope. With this technique the motion
of the actors was filmed, after this, the motion of the actor was generated into the
animated character, containing the motion of the actor. However, this technique
is not entirely the same as used nowadays, Rotoscope formed the foundation of
what we today call, the Motion Capture technique. Before The Lord of the Rings
trilogy Motion Capture had been used only as ‘digital doubles’, meaning the
replacement of a stuntman for the main characters or putting in an extra
character. Originally Gollum, the fully Motion Captured creature from The Lord
of the Rings, was not meant to be fully Motion Captured. Weta Digital created a
digital character, without any Motion Capture involved. When this sample was
approved, Weta Digital was content and searched for someone to voice the
character. After some auditions their eye fell on Andy Serkis, he had in their
opinion an outstanding voice. However, the thing that struck Peter Jackson eye,
and probably a lot of other people was that Andy Serkis facial expressions were
vital to get the performance that appealed so much to them. With this they
started to solve this problem, because they absolutely had not considered
processing any facial expressing from the actor. To help Elijah Wood (Frodo) and
Sean Astin (Sam) with their acting, Andy Serkis was on set, this would help them
visualise a person instead of a nothing. Andy Serkis, who had to be in a white
suit for several months was extremely upset when he heard that his performance
was just to help Elijah Wood and Sean Astin. During the shooting he went
beyond what he would normally do, to make the performance flawless. He was
just so upset that he insisted that they had to something with it. That’s how they
came to Motion Capture. Andy Serkis had to do all his performances he had
delivered all over again, this time in a studio in a blue suit full of dots and
35
covered with camera’s. Every dot sends information to a specially set camera.
Since Motion Capture had never been used on this scale and it had to be super
detailed, cameras were very sensitive, nothing had to be in the way of the
cameras or it would sent signals to the screen. Things such as water bottles
would cause this problem. After he had delivered the Motion Capture
performance, it had to be digitally generated. Instead of the use of Motion
Capture for the face they used models of clay with as much facial expressions of
Andy Serkis as possible. This had to be done frame by frame. One shot of Gollum
could take 24 hours.
After The Lord of the Rings was praised for its performance that had been
delivered of Gollum, some other movies were using it, such as The Polar Express
(2004), King Kong (2005), Pirates of the Caribbean (2006), Beowulf (2007), Avatar
(2009), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Adventures of Tin Tin (2011) and The
Hobbit (2013). Andy Serkis can be seen as the actor who introduced Motion
Capture to the world, he probably has played the most Motion Capture roles. He
played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, King Kong in King Kong, He played
Caesar in Rise of The Planet of the Apes, Captain Haddock in The Adventures of
Tin Tin and again Gollum in the Hobbit. James Cameron would have loved to
have Andy Serkis to play one of the avatars, however, Peter Jackson already
planned filming for The Adventures of Tin Tin, otherwise he probably would have
been in Avatar as well. Motion Capture has evolved over the years, and today it
is called Performance Capture.
Gollum in The Lord of the Rings Gollum in The Hobbit
Throughout the years more films have started to use it and it became clear that
the facial expressions were not the best. For Davy Jones in Pirates of the
Caribbean, the facial expression was getting better through the use of dots on the
face. After this, together with the collaboration of James Cameron and Weta for
Avatar, they designed a helmet which had the ability to capture the facial
expressions fluently. This made a huge improvement, but it was still not possible
to capture the performance outside a studio with props. This was solved during
Rise of the Planets of the Apes, where Andy Serkis plays the ape and walks
outside alongside real props, like cars, filmed to a green screen. This is probably
the most advanced Performance Capture performance yet. During Avatar it was
designed to make the digital characters as realistic as possible with the use of a
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muscle, a fat and a skin layer, putting this together makes it look scary realistic.
To see the improvement it is nice to compare Gollum from The Lord of the Rings
with Gollum from The Hobbit, which is much more realistic.
Andy Serkis, first motion capture Andy Serkis, latest performance capture suit,
Suit during The Lord of the Rings during The Hobbit
Without The Lord of the Rings Motion Capture would not have taken the form it
has today. If The Lord of the Rings had never used Motion Capture and therefore
Avatar had never been made the way it is right now, the 3D-hype would not have
been there, or at least not in the way it is nowadays, since it was Avatar that set
the 3D-hype.
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3.6. James Cameron´s Avatar
Avatar’s script was made even before Titanic was released. It was supposed to be
the next movie made by James Cameron after Titanic. Sadly for James Cameron,
he realised that Avatar could not possibly be done with the techniques they had,
back in the late 1990’s. So what happened then? The Lord of the Rings movies
were made. It was not just a simple trilogy, it received hundreds of prizes,
including 17 academy awards. Not only that, it won the Academy Award for
visual effects three times in a row. James Cameron had seen the movies and after
he saw what they had achieved, he decided to ask Weta (the team that brought
The Lord of the Rings) whether they were interested in doing the so called movie
Avatar. They doubted first, because there were some other movies scheduled.
And not to forget, Weta had just finished working on The Lord of the Rings and
King Kong. However, they decided to take the risk, they cancelled all the
scheduled movies and put all their energy into Avatar.
Gollum was the first digital character that was fully Motion Captured. Motion
Capture had been used for movies for quite some time. It was used mainly in the
background, digital characters were being captured, and then used as digital
doubles or extra’s, but never as one of the main characters. With Gollum, Weta
blew new life into the Motion Capture technique. Soon other movies were using
this technique, for example The Polar Express and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Pirates of the Caribbean used Motion Capture for the facial expressions of Davy
Jones. With this Weta had been struggling during the production with Gollum,
Weta had to use models of clay. Now that ILM ( Industrial Light and Magic, the
visual effects company of Pirates of the Caribbean) had shown to Weta that they
used Motion Capture for facial expressions, together with James Cameron they
introduced Performance Capture. Performance Capture is based on the Motion
Capture technique, but makes the difference in capturing all the facial
expressions fluently. The actors who are being captured have to wear a sort of
helmet which captures the performance. This performance is directly sent to the
computer, were they can digitally generate it. Motion Capture combined with
Performance Capture allowed them to create the Avatars (the blue creatures). It
had to be captured in a studio with only some black features, and nothing more.
The actors had to take their imagination from the training they had been given.
It could not possibly be filmed in a real environment, because those cameras were
not designed to capture more than just the actors. Using real props would make
cameras blur and disturb the actual footage.
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Zoe Saldana in
performance capture suit,
digital generated as
Neyteri in Avatar
Avatar pushed the boundaries of movies even more, by using 3D. Weta had to use
entirely different programs, 3D was used on a small scale and with different
glasses. It was also a huge step to use Motion Capture in a 3D movie.
Considering the fact that Motion Capture was used rarely in movies, let alone be
with 3D. When they finally managed to make 3D work the way they wanted, they
encountered another problem. The use of multiple digital characters in
Performance Capture. The Motion Capture technique was created to capture
something or someone and then let it replace some stunts or to design crowds,
that were not so detailed. But with Avatar they had to have multiple people in
the Performance Capture studio to capture the performance of all those people for
particular scenes. Luckily they found a way and they managed it.
Avatar eventually took six years to produce. It was to become the most successful
movie of all time, winning dozens of award and its visual effects are considered to
be the best ever made. Therefore Weta is these days known as one of the best
visual effects companies in the world. This shows how the work of Tolkien can
trigger a chain reaction.
3.7 Conclusion
Without the work of Tolkien, technology of film would not have been developed as
it is today. The first adaption of The Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi made
Motion Capture possible. If this film had not been made then Motion Capture
would not have been used for The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson, who is
responsible for the use of Motion Capture throughout other movies. Thus it were
The Lord of the Rings books which made this technique possible. Without Tolkien
the world of film would have looked different, he brought us, indirectly, Motion
Capture, brilliant visual effects, 3D and so much more.
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4. The presence of Tolkien in (everyday life of) New Zealand
The presence of Tolkien in New Zealand can be found throughout the country in
different ways, one of that ways is Weta.
Weta Workshop and Weta Digital play a large role when it comes to the ongoing
presence of Tolkien in the daily life of New Zealand. Weta Workshop and Weta
Digital are companies which produce (often) together physical and digital effects
for movies. It started as a small company in a small country, New Zealand. This
changed when the stories of Tolkien came into the picture, when The Lord of the
Rings films in 2000 were made, Weta made its first international appearance.
Weta received several Oscars and with the work that they had delivered they
made an impression on the world. Soon other movies wanted them for their films,
most notably, James Cameron’s Avatar. This made New Zealand as a country
very popular and gain status in the film industry.
4.1.1 Weta Workshop
Weta Workshop is part of the co-owned companies of Peter Jackson, the others
include Weta Digital, Weta Collectibles, Weta Productions and Park Road Post
Productions. Weta was founded in 1987 by Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger. It
was named after the large insect, the Weta. The company produces special effects
and props for films and television. Richard Taylor founded it as a small company
that made costumes and props for films such as Bad Taste (1987), a film directed
by Peter Jackson. Richard Taylor and Peter Jackson are close friends. In Bad
Taste Richard Taylor plays a role alongside Peter Jackson and some other
non-professional actors at that time. The film was mostly for fun but it was well
received at a film festival and thus it became the first official film of both Peter
Jackson and Weta. After this Weta started to do several other films, mainly with
Peter Jackson. The turn in the career of Weta Workshop began in 1998 when the
production for The Lord of the Rings began. Weta Workshop got the task of
making costumes, armours, weapons, props and prosthetics. The task that they
had was not just creating something, no, they had to study Tolkien’s work and
create unique things for each and every race and culture. For this they were
praised and after showing what they could do, they were asked to do the same
trick for a handful of other films, like Narnia by C.S. Lewis, for which they
received an Academy Award. This gave them a status that only few companies
have. For example Richard Taylor won 5 Academy Awards, was honoured in 2004
to an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to design and in film
industry. In 2010 he was promoted to Knight Companion of New Zealand Order
of Merit for services to film. In 2012 he was named New Zealander of the year.
With an owner of this status, Weta Workshop has become very high in rank for
its performances.
40
Weta Workshop has increased its popularity by shipping and selling its designs
over the world, including the Tolkien shop in Leiden. To let visitors experience
some of their designs made for movies, they opened the Weta Cave, a small
museum which allows people to see some of the designs. This could not have been
possible without the stories of Tolkien, because it is a fact that it was The Lord of
the Rings that put all this in motion.
Richard Taylor with some of the props
designed by Weta.
4.1.2 Weta Digital
Weta divided into two separate branches in 1993 for the film Heavenly Creatures
(1994) directed by Peter Jackson. One of the branches, Weta Digital would focus
on the digital effects while they would be supplemented by the physical effects of
Weta Workshop. This is still common today, but they also have separate tasks,
Weta Digital for example creates visual effects for a dozen of movies that are
done separately from Weta Workshop. Weta Digital is probably more famous
around the world than Weta Workshop, Weta Digital is known for pushing the
envelope in terms of visual effects, technology and the company produces flawless
visual effects. Their worldwide fame started with The Lord of the Rings, they had
only done visual effects for 4 films before they started with The Lord of the Rings,
which took them around 6 years.
At the time that Weta Digital was founded, they only had 20 computers and the
same amount of employees. This changed when The Lord of the Rings was made.
First of all The Lord of the Rings has, especially for that time, an enormous
amount of effects. At that time the average film would have around 100-200
digital effects. The Fellowship of the Ring had around 900 effects, The Two
Towers around 1500 and The Return of the King around 2000. Given this, they
had the same computer capacity as NASA. Except for the massive amounts of
effects, they had to create Massive, a program that allows them to have large
battles without 1000 of extra, instead they used Motion Captured digital
characters. They were also the first movie ever that designed a fully Motion
Captured character. People at Weta did receive some help with creating Massive
and some scenes that were beyond their reach, that help came from Industrial
Light and Magic, the company that is responsible for films like Star Wars and
Jurassic Park, which was at that time more evolved and thus they provided Weta
small amounts of work.
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Someone who is extremely important for Weta Digital is Joe Letteri. He
previously worked at ILM but he decided to join Weta Digital. Joe Letteri is now
a senior supervisor and director of Weta Digital. He has won 4 Academy Awards,
two for The Lord of the Rings, one for King Kong and one for Avatar. At the time
of The Lord of the Rings, Weta won three Academy Awards in a row, one for each
film. Weta is a very popular Oscar candidate, last year 4 out of the 5 nominated
films for Best Achievement in Visual Effects were made by Weta. This shows the
quality and the popularity of the company. It is unbelievable how Weta outdoes
itself every year. Weta creates a lot of blockbusters every year, often they are the
adapted Marvel comics, but also the DC comics like Man of Steel. They do not
only produce these kinds of adaptions, but also The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
and of course The Hobbit. This brings them back into the circle where they
started, one that began with Tolkien and is still contained by Tolkien. It is The
Hobbit that is their largest and most innovated movie of the year. For the second
part of The Hobbit they had to design the dragon Smaug, which is fully Motion
Captured again, this was a different challenge, because, a talking dragon is not
like a normal human nor like a human formed creature, Smaug has a large
mouth and to let something like that talk is no easy job. This made them, again,
outdo themselves with the Motion Capture technique.
Performance of
Weta. From
Benedict
Cumberbatch to
Smaug
The immense success and achievements of Avatar made James Cameron decide
that he wants to make another 3 Avatar movies. He wants to do this again with
Weta Digital and also, just like Peter Jackson, he wants to make them in 48FPS.
This will be the second large production in HFR, this trilogy will then follow in
the footsteps of The Hobbit, a chain reaction that is still going on because of
Tolkien. James Cameron wants to film it in Stone Streets Studios, the co-owned
studio of Peter Jackson, which is a perfect opportunity for New Zealand to gain
even more respect in the film business.
Through Tolkien, Weta Workshop, Weta Digital, Peter Jackson and eventually
James Cameron have the ability to create works that are so far unequalled. New
Zealand benefits from those activities and the tourism involving it makes New
Zealand to ‘’adopt’’ it.
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4.2 Tourism and marketing
New Zealand markets itself these days as 100% Pure New Zealand, 100% MiddleEarth. They offer journeys to ‘’Middle-Earth’’ and in Middle-Earth style with Air
New Zealand, Air New Zealand presents itself as The Official Airline of MiddleEarth. New Zealand has made The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit its own and
they try their best to promote it and draw a lot of tourists to the country. They do
a lot on it with marketing and promoting. That is what this subchapter is about:
tourism.
Screenshot of
the front page of
the official site
of New Zealand,
Holidays
New Zealand tourism these days is in a way controlled by The Lord of the Rings
and The Hobbit. It turned out that after the release of The Return of the King,
over 150,000 visitors said that The Lord of the Rings was one of the main reasons
that they visited New Zealand. Mostly because they had seen the landscapes of
New Zealand in The Lord of the Rings and wanted to experience New Zealand by
themselves, about 1% of the visitors came purely for The Lord of the Rings. The
Lord of the Rings gave New Zealand a boost in terms of tourism. When The Lord
of the Rings was still in production, the sets that were built drew a lot of
attention from local and international tourists. Sometimes people were able to
visit a set, like Minas Tirith. Sadly, all of the sets had to be taken down mostly
because those sets were built on private property and those people often did not
want to have them permanently.
After the sets had been taken down, people all over the world wanted to visit just
the place of the set, just to experience what is was like in The Lord of the Rings.
But these people had to use their imagination, they could chose for a specially
organised tour that would be leaded by a guide. These tours are aimed at tourists
who want to have the full experience of the locations, The Lord of the Rings does
not only have wonderful sets but also wonderful locations. Those tours often take
about two weeks, and they give you a tour around New Zealand.
43
The thing with this was that these visitors still had to use their imagination.
This, however, changed in 2011, when the sets of The Hobbit were made. Now
that they noticed the huge run on the sets and locations, they found that they
could make a huge profit if they did not take all the sets down. And so they
decided not to tear down Hobbiton (a part of the Shire, the place where hobbits
live) and make it a tourist attraction. To make sure it would hold its ground for
at least a few decades, they made it of stone. At the time of The Lord of the Rings
those sets were made of polystyrene. Today thousands of people around the world
and from New Zealand visit Hobbiton. Hobbiton is not the only thing people are
eager to visit. The Red Carpet Tours provides people to get around ‘’MiddleEarth’’. Everywhere around those places are restaurants to make people
comfortable, furthermore there are organised things such as boot trips around
those places
The permanent set from The
Hobbit; Hobbiton
Tourism is highly important for New Zealand and most of the tourism is
generated by The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Wellington played a vital
part in the promotion of the films, the capital hosted two world premieres, one of
The Return of the King and one of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. For those
premieres they spent over one million US dollar on marketing and promoting.
The red carpets of the films were around 500 meters each, it would take the
actors, the crew and the guests around three hours to walk the entire carpet. The
Return of the King first made it to the Guinness Book of Record with the longest
red carpet, this record was later broken by The Hobbit. Both of the premieres
attended between 100,000 and 117,000 fans. Wellington was overflowing with
people. People were looking from balconies and on top of lampposts. Wellington
was counting down to the premieres in ‘’the Wellington way’’. The entire city was
covered with The Lord of the Rings and last year The Hobbit. Everywhere hung
billboards from the movies. The Embassy Theatre in Wellington, where the
official first screenings are held every year, had a special prop on top of the
theatre. These props were specially designed in collaboration with Weta
Workshop. For The Fellowship of the Ring they had a giant cave troll form the
first film, for The Two Towers they had a huge Gollum, and for The Return of the
44
King they had a huge fellbeast (a fellbeast is a dragon like creature from the
movies that are ridden by the Nazgûl (once men now ghosts)) on it.
The Embassy theatre with fellbeast on
it, for the premiere of The Return of the
King.
More recently for An Unexpected Journey they had a giant Gandalf knocking on
the door at Bag End. For An Unexpected Journey they had a market that sells
things in Middle-Earth style. A day before the start of the premiere of An
Unexpected Journey, The Lord of the Rings: The Extended Edition was played on
a large screen so that people could get into the mood.
Small part of the 500
meter red carpet in
Wellington. Embassy
theatre can be seen in the
left corner.
45
To get visitors that arrive at Wellington Airport in the mood, for those premieres
and now for the second The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, they decided to
make some props again in collaboration with Weta. Some examples:
Gollum catching a fish above a
restaurant at Wellington Airport
Luggage belt at Wellington
Airport
Gandalf riding a giant eagle at
Wellington Airport
Besides the premiere and the marketing involving it, New Zealand designed
stamps and coins for the movies, with images of characters from the movies. This
is some of the national marketing but internationally marketing plays a large
role. From props that are made by Weta that are sold to shops online and the
Tolkien shop in Leiden to shirts to Special Editions of the movies and the books
to games and wallpapers. Besides all of those things, they have a flying
marketing, the planes from Air New Zealand.
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4.3 Air New Zealand
Air New Zealand’s planes of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are a part of
the marketing and the tourism of New Zealand. They promote the movies while
flying and landing on international airports. With this they promote the movies
and themselves around the world.
Air New Zealand is one of the largest airlines in New Zealand. Air New Zealand
is actively involved with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Since 1973 Air
New Zealand has had ‘special liveries’ once in a while. When The Lord of the
Rings was a great success and a boost for the New Zealand tourism, they decided
to make three Lord of the Rings themed airplanes. They called themselves ‘The
Official Airline To Middle-Earth’. The planes, two Boeing 747’s and one Boeing
737, featured several characters from the trilogy. One of the Boeing 747’s
featured Aragorn with Legolas, the other featured Frodo and Sam. The Boeing
737 featured Arwen and Éowyn. On all of the planes, the background featured
landscapes of New Zealand that had been used in the movies. The Frodo-Sam
plane circled at a low altitude right over Wellington, when the world premiere of
The Return of the King was held.
Aragorn and
Legolas plane
The planes of The Lord of the Rings stayed for approximately a year when a new
theme came. The Lord of the Rings planes were very popular and with the
increasing tourism now coming to New Zealand, the planes were publicity. No
one had expected that Middle-Earth would ever come back to New Zealand, but
when The Hobbit came in 2012, it was definite that New Zealand as well as Air
New Zealand could benefit from it. And so Air New Zealand used another plane
for The Hobbit. This time they used a Boeing 777. The Boeing features Gandalf,
Bilbo and the company of Thorin Oakenshield. Besides the plane, they made a
Hobbit themed air safety video. The film features Peter Jackson, Dean O’Gorman
(actor from The Hobbit; Fili) and Royd Tolkien, Tolkien’s grandson. Just like with
the premiere of The Return of the King, the plane flew over the red carpet at the
time of the premiere. They also have Hobbit themes safety, for example instead of
health and safety, ‘’elf and safety’’.
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Hobbit plane
Air New Zealand now calls itself ‘The Airline of Middle-Earth’, making it even
more personal. This year, for the release of the second Hobbit film, The
Desolation of Smaug, Air New Zealand designed another plane. This time they
used Smaug, the dragon of the film. This was the first revelation of Smaug, no
picture had been published yet, let alone the whole Smaug. Since Smaug had
only been created for the film, where it probably will not be seen entirely (at the
moment of speaking the film has not yet been released), thus he had to be pasted
together by Weta Digital for the plane. Air New Zealand also made a clip about
the airport with Hobbit items. In the clip is said, ‘’Middle-Earth is closer than you
think’’, reinforcing tourism to come to New Zealand, because New Zealanders see
New Zealand as Middle-Earth.
Smaug plane
4.4 Conclusion
Without Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Weta would not have been what it is
now, it probably would not have as large a range as it would have today. Because
of Tolkien, New Zealand plays a large role in the film industry and because of
him, tourism is now ruled by The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which is
visible in everyday life of the country.
48
5. The Tolkien fandom
Considering myself a fan, I sometimes use descriptions and opinions from my
own experiences.
5.1 Fans around the world
As I have experienced throughout the years I have been a fan, fans of Tolkien’s
books and the films of Peter Jackson are extremely devoted, complete with
parties, events, complete weeks in Tolkien style and many other things.
I became a fan after seeing The Lord of the Rings films when I was just 6 years
old. Since then I have been fascinated by it and when I became older and
understanding everything a lot better and eventually reading the books, I became
more and more intrigued by it. I have never been so excited about a movie as The
Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings has always played a huge part in my life and when
in 2009 I realised that The Hobbit was finally coming, directed by Peter Jackson
and completed with some cast members from The Lord of the Rings, I could not
be more excited.
IMAX screen, the day of the
premiere.
Throughout those three years I have discussed with people around the world and
followed Peter Jackson with everything he posted on the web. This made me
more and more excited about The Hobbit. When I heard that there would be a
third film I was amazed but very happy about it. My dream was to go to the
premiere of The Hobbit in London. We have asked whether this was possible,
sadly because of the inspection, school could not allow it. Although I was sad
about this, it did allow me to go to the premiere at night in the Amsterdam Pathe
Arena, the first screening of The Hobbit in the Netherlands for public.
Furthermore it was the first screening in IMAX in HFR around the world. The
screening started 12-12-12 00.12. It was an amazing experience, people dressed
as their favourite character was lovely to see. The best of it in my experience was,
besides the screening- of course- was the fact that people were applauding before
and after the film. Before entering the room, which provides place to 600 people,
we lined up in queues because it was that busy. I just could sense the enthusiasm
49
for this film, the most devoted fans were probably the ones who are both fan of
the books and of the films. Even though the crowd was very enthusiastic about it,
the critics were hammering on the fact that The Lord of the Rings was better,
that it was too spread out and that they got every bad point from their experience
in 48FPS. Luckily most of the fans did like it very much. From those fans there
are many who awaited the film on their way, some shared it with others, others
just kept it for themselves or shared it with a small group. Some fans went
beyond what is considered the average fan and made something special, like two
women who make episodes in Tolkien style, called Happy Hobbit.
The women from Happy Hobbit are huge Tolkien fans and they call themselves
Fili and Kili after the two dwarf brothers from The Hobbit. They make short
episodes, each time with a different subject, where they show how to make or do
something the right way. They always start their episodes with: ‘’Welcome to our
corner of the Shire where we will show you how to bring Middle-Earth into your
daily life to keep you a happy hobbit.’’ In their episodes, they often mention facts
about Tolkien and they mention a lot about the books and the movies. You can
truly see that they are very devoted fans. Once in a while, in their episodes they
have a special guest, they once got a message from Richard Taylor and they had
the grand grandson of Tolkien in their episodes. Last year when the first trailer
of The Desolation of Smaug was released, they made an episode about their
reaction to it, this reaction was quite hilarious, and so thought Peter Jackson too.
They reacted especially enthusiastic about the return of Legolas. Thus Peter
Jackson decided to show this to Orlando Bloom (Legolas), along with his fellow elf
actors Evangeline Lilly and Lee Pace. He then posted this reaction and then they
posted again their reaction. Through this they became popular on the internet
and they became familiar with the actors. Last December, the world premiere of
The Desolation of Smaug was held in Los Angeles. They were invited to come and
interview the actors. They did and in their reactions you could see they loved it,
they probably have made a lot of fans jealous but they do represent the true fan.
’’Fili and Kili’’ of Happy Hobbit
Another example of a huge fan is Rene van Rossenberg, who made his hobby his
work. He now runs the Tolkien shop. While visiting his shop, we chatted for a
while and he told some stories about himself and some visitors. He told us that
when he was still living at home, the house became stacked up so badly that his
50
sister decided to put him out of the house. He had so much stuff that he just had
to place it somewhere. So he did and he bought a shop, it was sort of a storage at
first, but after some adaptions, it became a shop. He was very proud to open it.
He also told us that he did not really like Peter Jackson’s movies, he said that he
rather reads a book than that he would watch a movie, although he found them
rather good, he would still not watch them because he does not really like movies.
But he also told us that he is dependent on them. At first, there were only books
and two animated movies, the marketing was scarce. Then came The Lord of the
Rings Trilogy and from then marketing took a leap. He profited from this a lot.
He now gets a lot of stuff directly from Weta, also special editions. He said that
people from all over the world visited his shop and he is very proud of this. When
I asked whether he was going to see The Hobbit in cinema, he said that he would
but that he did not anticipate them very much, he was somewhat negative about
it but he was positive about it that it would bring another audience with it and
that he could make money out of it. He is probably one of the biggest Tolkien fans
on earth and he can make a living only because of Tolkien.
There are so many fans around the world that it becomes impossible to mention
them all, but there are fans who have made non-profit movies, who celebrate
Tolkien in one way or another. I name some of them but first of all I would like to
tell some of my stories of being a fan.
5.1.1 My story
It would be silly not to mention myself as a fan, like I wrote before, I have been a
fan ever since I was 6 years old, and I love Tolkien and everything involving it
dearly. Throughout the years I have collected a lot of it, this I will show a bit
later through some pictures. Throughout the years I have developed a deep
admiration for Tolkien’s stories and the making of The Lord of the Rings. I have
mentioned the series quite a few times when I had to do something for school, I
see them as my favourite movies of all time and on the web I like to talk to people
who have the same passion. Before the first Hobbit movie; An Unexpected
Journey came into cinema, I read the books of The Lord of the Rings and The
Hobbit and I became a huge fan, started to collect more thing, mostly because
there came more marketing. I have even received several items from a colleague
of my father whose wife originates from New Zealand. When they went on a
vacation in New Zealand, they were specially going to Mata Mata (Hobbiton) to
buy something for me. Eventually they bought three post cards from Hobbiton, a
calendar of The Hobbit with art of Alan Lee, the Art Director of The Lord of the
Rings and The Hobbit, a map New Zealand as Middle-Earth, a cup from Hobbiton
and a puppet of Bilbo Baggins. I was very proud to receive this.
I have attended several events involving Tolkien. I have been, as I said, to the
first official screening of An Unexpected Journey, I have also visited ‘’The Hobbit
night’’ this December, where they first showed An Unexpected Journey and then
around midnight they show the midnight premiere of The Desolation of Smaug.
51
The event started around 9pm December 10th and ended around 4am December
11th. Besides these events I have been to a concert with the music of The Lord of
the Rings and to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King live in De Doelen
in Rotterdam, here the film was played on a large screen and the orchestra
provided the film with live music.
For the subject CKV we once had to do something cultural and we decided to
bake cakes and we had to decorate it with our own creativity and I could not
really find something until I thought about The Hobbit and thus I decided to
make a Hobbit cake.
the cake
On a day we were around Brussels and it happened to be that the world premiere
of The Adventures of Tin Tin was about to premiere on that day. The film is
directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson and made by Weta. So I
had all reasons to go there and attend the world premiere and so I did. We
mainly came for Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis (Gollum), Andy Serkis plays
captain Haddock through Performance Capture, so we were there crowded in the
cold waiting for Peter and Andy. Sadly it turned out that they were not there at
all. We have seen Steven Spielberg though, but we had not thought about it that
they were both busy filming The Hobbit, it did unleash that, from that point on I
have loved red carpet premieres. I have attended the European premiere of The
Dark Knight Rises in 2012 in London at Leicester Square. Now that I had
experienced twice how much fun it was to be at the red carpet premiere, it was
my dream to experience it around The Hobbit but like I said before school could
not allow it, but I hope that I still be able to go somehow when the last Hobbit
film There and Back Again will be released.
As you can see, Tolkien plays large role in my life and I cannot imagine a life
without. On the next page I have some photos of my collection with captions.
52
Photos of my collection:
A part of my wall, Lord
of the Rings wallpaper
and a calendar of The
Hobbit.
Another part of my
wall, wallpaper of the
Hobbit and a map, New
Zealand as MiddleEarth.
part of my collection, 3 boxes, left, the special extended edition of The Lord of the
Rings, in the middle, same version, only in Blu-ray. Right, the books of The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, behind a game of The Hobbit. Under, the
limited editions of
The Lord of the
Rings, carts and cup
from New Zealand,
and a replica of an
Academy Award from
madam Tussaud, on
the white paper it
says, winner of 17
Academy Awards.
53
another part of my collection, on top, from left to right. An own made book with
my collected things (like
tickets from The Hobbit),
a film book from the
Fellowship of the Ring, a
book from The Return of
the King in concert, and
a location guide book.
Under, two times the
magazine Empire, the
Blu-ray version of The
Hobbit: An Unexpected
Journey and the extended
edition of The Hobbit: An
Unexpected Journey.
Another part of my
collection, from left to
right, popcorn box, own
made game, Bilbo, the
hobbit as a puppet, book
of J.R.R. Tolkien in 3
minuten, in front puppets
for The Lord of the Rings.
A duvet from The Hobbit.
54
5.2 Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Christopher Lee
Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Christopher Lee are all four
very devoted fans. Without these fans, there would not have been the films of The
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the films are their interpretation of the books.
Philippa Boyens is one of the most devoted fan together with Christopher Lee
and they know the books of Tolkien by heart. Without Philippa Boyens’s and
Fran Walsh’s effort in making a script of the so diverse books, there would not
have been any of these movies. Without the acceptance of Peter Jackson for these
projects, there would have been no involving of Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.
It probably would have been hard to find any of those devoted fans who are
willing to take that job. Of course Peter Jackson did his share in the
screenwriting, but what keeps him so popular with Tolkien’s fans is that Peter
Jackson is very devoted to his own fans, keeping them posted with production
blogs and fan events. In production blogs he shows mostly behind the scenes
footage and some of the actors thoughts. During the development of The Hobbit
he has done several fan events, in which often fans are able to question him
things, through videos or social media. He is, often, to those who are attending,
very generous, giving them brand new footage of the his unreleased film. This he,
in most cases, shares with most of the online viewers, although sometimes he has
to keep this shown footage limited from larger audiences, preventing that it will
spread on the web in no time. At some of the screenings of The Lord of the Rings
the extended edition, which is held once in a while around the world, he gives a
special message fully devoted to the fans of him or Tolkien.
In The Lord of the Rings and in the first Hobbit film, Christopher Lee has a role
as the wizard Saruman. Christopher Lee is a huge Tolkien fan. He reads The
Lord of the Rings every year and met Tolkien in real life, making him the only
one involving the films who ever met him. His wish was all his life to play
Gandalf, sadly due to his high age, he could not play Gandalf. This was because
his age (80 at the time of The Lord of the Rings and 90 at the time of The Hobbit!)
would limit the performance of Gandalf, thus Ian McKellen was chosen. In his
spare time he has sung some songs from The Lord of the Rings (it would be
surprisingly for the non-readers how many songs there are in those books) and
although this all sounds very nice, he was quite upset with Peter Jackson, when
in 2003 he saw The Return of the King and realised that he was cut out of the
theatrical version. He demanded that he had to be in the extended version and
luckily he was.
It is that without fans and without people who admire the world Tolkien created,
there would not have been any of these films. And it is without them the fandom
of Tolkien would not have the capacity it has today.
55
5.3 Tolkien Week and Hobbit Day
In the week of 21 September, the day that The Hobbit was published, every year
fans around the world celebrate this day in full glory. This week started in 1978,
after Tolkien’s death. Fans all over the world celebrate this day, from simple fans
to Peter Jackson. Last year Peter Jackson used this week to release a trailer of
The Desolation of Smaug, a new production blog and a fan event. On 22
September, the fictional characters Frodo and Bilbo celebrate their birthday. This
day is called Hobbit-day on this day there are cakes made and there are all sorts
of events held concerning Tolkien. In the Tolkien week there are rewriting
contests of The Hobbit or other books, which have to be in Hobbit style. It is the
intention that a fragment from the books is chosen and then write it in your own
style. It is a week that is much anticipated each year by fans, it gives fans a
united feeling and every year other events are organised which makes it very
amusing and with the upcoming Hobbit films, it gives Peter Jackson a chance to
share some information with it. Along with the other events, it provides fans an
opportunity to go honour Tolkien on special ways, like a year ago a crater on
Mercury was called the Tolkien-crater.
56
5.4 TheOneRing.net
Around the world there are millions of fan sites, some a relatively small others
are fairly large. It goes beyond anyone’s reach to check all of those fan sites, but
there is one site, that in my eyes stands out from other fan sites,
TheOneRing.net. The fan site even earned a spot on the end credits of the special
extended Blu-Ray version.
The One Ring is one of the largest fan sites of Tolkien in the world. The site
provides news and information about the books of Tolkien, the films of Peter
Jackson, actors from the films and from fans around the world. Their opening
line is: forged by fans and for fans of J.R.R. Tolkien. The people behind the site
have organised two parties at the Academy Awards. One for The Return of the
King and one for An Unexpected Journey. At those parties they had the stars
from the films and even Peter Jackson. Their purpose is to celebrate the films
and to share this with other fans and cast and crew members. Often the cast and
crew is willing to come because it is such a satisfying sight to witness, the most
enthusiastic fans from all around the world all united because of their admiration
for Tolkien. The party for The Return of the King was called ‘’The One Party’’ and
the one for The Hobbit was called ‘’The One Expected Party’’.
On the site there are many fans who write articles about it, just for pleasure and
to share their thoughts with others. Often fans of Tolkien around the world share
designed or created things that are inspired by Tolkien. Some examples of it:
The first is a trailer that is designed as a hobbit hole, the other is a cat house, a
hobbit hole. This are just two of the many inspired things, Tolkien’s influence can
be seen in all sorts of art styles, music, bands that have a name dedicated to
Tolkien, it can be found in fan made movies and all sort of games and even in the
names of animal breeders.
57
At the moment there is an art exhibition in California, organised by
TheOneRing.net. This exhibition is the 7th one, it is called ‘’Out of the Shire’’. It
shows pieces of art that are inspired from the world that Tolkien created.
The One Ring is a very large and very devoted fan site, organising things for fans
around the world. The site often provides interviews with cast and crew but also
with the average fan. Every year, they organise a special viewing of the extended
edition of The Lord of the Rings, where everybody who wants can watch along
with them and share their thoughts. They frequently have a show which is cast
live, Barliman’s chat, where there talk with average fans but also sometimes
with the actors. They are very kind to fans who want to join or want to share
their written or their created items reflecting Tolkien books and Peter Jackson’s
films.
58
6. Criticism
6.1 Tolkien’s books
It is inevitable that highly successful writers and their books are subject to
sometimes very critical reviews, and even though Tolkien has had a major
influence in the entertainment industry and has one of the most devoted fan
bases, he also has a group of haters and received quite some criticism throughout
his life. This criticism was mostly based on The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit
was seen as just a mere children’s book, which would probably be popular for a
while, but after a while it would be forgotten. When The Lord of the Rings turned
out to be a major success, not only among young adults but among adults as well,
it was inevitable that it would be greeted with substantial criticism. When
Edmund Wilson, a critic, reviewed The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the
Ring in 1956, he was as negative as someone could be, his title alone was: ‘’Oo,
Those awful orcs’’7, he called it ‘’juvenile thrash’’ and he compared Tolkien to
other writers in which he states all the bad qualities, in his eyes, with all the
good qualities of the other writer. Edmund Wilson was not the only one who did
this, over the years, critics have criticized all sort of assets of the books, which in
their eyes made the books awful, like the length and the writing style. Some
critics of well-known newspapers even said that it was horrible that Tolkien’s
books were one of the most influential of the 20th century.
There are also critics who blame Tolkien for things which are not immediately
related to the story itself. Marxist critics blamed Tolkien of social conservatism,
others believed that Tolkien used the Soviet Communism as parodies for someone
like the Dark Lord Sauron. It is said8 that The Lord of the Rings is a ‘’political
fantasy’’ and there have been accuses of the use of fascism and neofascism.9
6.2 Peter Jackson’s movies
Not only Tolkien has received criticism, Peter Jackson has also received a fair
amount of criticism. Not only from fans of the books, but also from the Tolkien
Estate10. When Jackson started The Lord of the Rings, he made several
arrangements with the Tolkien estate, about rights. When The Lord of the Rings
turned out to be a huge success, they were surpassing the rules when they,
besides the legal actions, made video games and casinos which were using names
of the characters, without permission. When the Tolkien Estate found out that
those games were on the market, they sued Middle-Earth enterprises11, Warner
Brothers and New Line Cinema. As a result New Line Cinema said that they
7
http://jrrvf.com/sda/critiques/The_Nation.html
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html
9
There have been several accuses of this in a large amount of writings.
10
The legal body which manages the property of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, including the copyright in his
works.
11
Current owner of the rights for the adapted The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
8
59
never wanted to engage in any project with Peter Jackson as director anymore12.
This brought the adaptation of The Hobbit in a tricky position back in 2005.
When Guillermo del Toro was named as director of the two movie adaptation, the
project was going relatively smooth, however, when del Toro quit, mainly because
of extended delays, but also due to several other reasons, it was decided that
Peter Jackson would be the director. This to the delight of a lot of fans, but it
caused problems, once again, with the Tolkien Estate. In November 2012, just
before the premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, they were sued once
again, this time because they were making gambling and other games based on
the characters of the books, with which they were said to be overstepping their
merchandise rights. The Tolkien Estate claimed $800 million for this. In March
2013, Warner Brothers countersued them, they said that 16 years earlier, they
gave the rights for games. Today, it still is not completely settled.
Besides the issues with the rights, fans and critics do not appreciate The Hobbit
as much as they appreciated The Lord of the Rings. There has been, or actually
is, since The Hobbit is still in production, a lot of criticism of The Hobbit and
Peter Jackson and his crew. Fans are still not convinced that the new
technologies which Jackson is using, like 48 FPS, is an improvement. Fans and
especially critics claim that it is too ‘’real’’ and thus it does not feel like you are
being drawn into the movie, which they believe does happen with 24 FPS.
Fans and critics are also complaining that the story of The Hobbit is too thin to
be adapted into three movies, whereby they blame Peter Jackson for inventing
extra things and extra characters. For example, there were mixed reactions when
they invented Tauriel, a female elf, so that in the movie there were not only male
characters with an important role. Other comments concerned the adding of
Legolas, a main character in The Lord of the Rings, who logically should be in
The Hobbit, but because Tolkien had not yet invented him, is not. Some people
still see the third film as a completely unnecessary one, since they could have
easily adapted the book in one or two films. They believe it was made just for
money. Peter Jackson thought is that it would work as a bridge between The
Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Another thing which they were accused of is that PETA (People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals) claimed that 27 animals died an unnecessary death, on a
farm, which was connected to the production. PETA said that the death of the
animals could have been avoided, since the film makers use a lot of digital
animals, and no real animals should have been used. The death of these animals,
though, has never been proven, the American Humane Society has said that no
animals have been hurt during the actual filming.
12
Read whole story in chapter 3, The Hobbit.
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7. Conclusion
The influence of Tolkien goes beyond anything imaginable. Tolkien, the
somewhat shy and withdrawn person that he was, has written something that
appealed to people all around the world of practically every age. Tolkien never
intended to make his books so popular around the world, after all, it started with
the bedtime stories of The Hobbit. Somehow, whether it is the message, the depth
or just the story itself, the books and films have left an impression on different
kinds of people, old and young. The stories he has written barely age and there is
so much to know about his work and the whole story behind them, that they are
passed from generation to generation. This and other assets of those stories make
fans very devoted to his created world.
Tolkien’s influence in Fantasy books can be found in practically every book,
whether it is done consciously or not. Through this it can be found in a lot of film
adaptations. But what made even a bigger impact on the film industry is
something Tolkien could probably never have imagined. That someone would
make a motion picture trilogy out of his books; let alone two of them: The Lord of
the Rings and The Hobbit. These movies present future generations to his stories.
Peter Jackson is hoping that he will inspire young boys and girls to make movies
when they mature, just like King Kong (1933) inspired him to make movies.
Tolkien has probably more influence than any of us will ever realise. His
influence echoes from books to movies, from music to games, from New Zealand
to Europe. I briefly mentioned his influence on music and games, but I have not
thoroughly described it because it would deviate too much from the main point.
Although it is a fact that it is because of the The Hobbit-based game Dungeons
and Dragons, the concept of the modern video game was found. The same concept
can be found in almost every game, from Mario games to games like The Legend
of Zelda, a game that breathes the influence of Tolkien. From the world to the
creatures, all of it could be taken right from Tolkien’s books. In terms of music,
there are dozens of bands who have a name from the books of Tolkien, like
something in Elvish, or a just a name from a character. There are also a lot of
people who sing the songs from the books, for an example Christopher Lee.
Tolkien’s influence has left an ongoing effect, stories will always be influenced or
inspired by his works. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit will live on and the
stories will never be forgotten when they keep inspiring people. I think I can
safely say that the world, at least in terms of entertainment, would be very
different from the world as it is today, had Tolkien not written his books and had
Peter Jackson not made his films.
I hope that it has become clear how much of an influence Tolkien had and still
has in many ways. I hope that from now on you will have some admiration for
Tolkien in a way, and I hope that when you hear his name you will remember
something of my paper and not only see him as the writer of The Lord of the
Rings, but also as the man with an unforgettable influence. It was a pleasure to
61
write this piece of work and I will end with an Elvish verse/song which I think is
very nice and somehow it feels like it could represent Tolkien in a way that his
influence will echo unto the ending of the world through all that he has
influenced at this moment.
Et eärello, endorenna utúlien,
Sinome maruvan, ar hildinyar,
Tenn’’ ambar-metta
Out of the great sea, to Middle-Earth I am come,
In this place I will abide, and my heirs,
Unto the ending of the world.
With this I will end and say goodbye or more in Tolkien-style namely Elvish:
namárië
Grey havens; here elves leave Middle-Earth never to return.
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Epilogue
I have absolutely enjoyed working on my paper, I have learned new things about
Tolkien, things I never knew about him and things which I probably would never
have known if I had never written this paper. Learning new things was
wonderful but also putting it on paper was something which it really enjoyed. I
was actually quite sad when I had nothing to write about anymore, I would like
to do more research and write more about it, just for this exercise it would
become too much. My dream would be to see the moviemakers in real life and go
to New Zealand. Whether this will be ever realised I do not know. I hope you
have enjoyed reading this paper.
63
Sources:
In general I used:









Tolkien, J.R.R. (1954). The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
3rd, reset edition. London: HarperCollinsPublishers
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1954). The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. 3rd, reset
edition. London: HarperCollinsPublishers
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1955). The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. 3rd,
reset edition. London: HarperCollinsPublishers.
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1937). The Hobbit. 5th, reset edition. London:
HarperCollinsPublishers.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Directed by Peter
Jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Directed by Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Directed by Peter Jackson
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Directed by Peter Jackson
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Directed by Peter Jackson
For Chapter 1 in particular I used:





Gary Raymond (2012). J.R.R. Tolkien in 3 minuten. 1st, Kerkdriel:Librero
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Special Extended
Edition: Appendices part 1: From book to vision: ‘’ J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator
of Middle-Earth’’
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Special Extended Edition;
Appendices part 3 The Journey Continues: ‘’J.R.R. Tolkien: Origin of
Middle-earth’’
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Special Extended Edition;
Appendices part 3- War of the Ring: "J.R.R. Tolkien: The Legacy of Middleearth"
J.R.R. TOLKIEN '1892-1973' - A Study Of The Maker Of Middle-earth
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
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Edition: Appendices part 1: From book to vision: ‘’ J.R.R. Tolkien: Creator
of Middle-Earth’’
Harry Potter: bonus features
Rowling, J.K. (1997). Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone.
Rowling, J.K. (1998). Harry Potter and The Chambers of Secret
Rowling, J.K. (1999). Harry Potter and The Prisoners of Azkaban
Rowling, J.K. (2000). Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire
Rowling, J.K. (2003). Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix
Rowling, J.K. (2005). Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince
Rowling, J.K. (2007). Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows
64
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http://entertainment.time.com/2011/04/18/grrm-interview-part-2-fantasyand-history/
http://greenbooks.theonering.net/guest/files/050102.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_(film_series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter
https://www.cslewis.com/uk/about-cs-lewis
http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/tolkien-and-rowling-a-case-for-textonly/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_of_Thrones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire
http://tolkienwinkel.nl/
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Edition: Appendices part 1: From Book to Vision: From Book to Script
Edition: Appendices part 2 From Vision to Reality: Filming ‘’The
Fellowship of the Ring’’
Edition: Appendices part 2 From Vision to Reality: Visual Effects
Edition: Appendices part 2 From Vision to Reality: Post Production
Edition: Behind The Scenes.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Special Extended Edition: The
Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues: From Book To Script.
Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues: Designing And Building
Middle-earth
Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues: Weta Workshop
Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues: The Taming of Sméagol
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Special Extended Edition: Behind
The Scenes.
Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth Begins: Cameras in
Middle-earth.
Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth Begins: Big-atures
Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth Begins: Weta Digital
65
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Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth Begins: The Battle for
Helm’s Deep is over.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Special Extended Edition:
Appendices part 5: The War of The Ring: Designing Middle-earth.
Appendices part 5: The War of The Ring: Big-atures
Appendices part 5: The War of The Ring: Weta Workshop
Appendices part 6: The Passing of an Age: Cameras in Middle-earth
Appendices part 6: The Passing of an Age: Weta Digital
Appendices part 6: The Passing of an Age: The End of All Things
Appendices part 6: The Passing of an Age: The Passing of an Age
Behind The Scenes.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Extended Edition: Appendices Part 7:
A Long Expected Journey: The Chronicles of The Hobbit- Part 1
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Extended Edition: Appendices Part 8:
Return to Middle-earth
James Cameron’s Avatar, bonus material: documentary
The Adventures of Tin Tin: Secret of the Unicorn, bonus features
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man´s Chest, bonus material Davy Jones
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End: bonus features
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: bonus features
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(film_series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_(film_series)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cameron
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Main_Page
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http://www.wetafx.co.nz/
http://www.wetanz.com/weta-workshop-services/
http://www.theonering.net/
Appendices Part 3: The Journey Continues: Weta Workshop
66
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Appendices Part 4: The Battle for Middle-earth Begins: Weta Digital
Appendices part 5: The War of The Ring: Weta Workshop
Appendices part 6: The Passing of an Age: Weta Digital
Appendices part 6: The Passing of an Age: The Passing of an Age
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: production Diary 10
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Briefing (Air New Zealand)
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http://www.theonering.net/
http://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/hobbit-day/
http://www.americantolkiensociety.org/hobbit_day_and_tolkien_week.htm
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/07/15/75646-getting-to-know-thehappy-hobbits/
https://www.facebook.com/TORnHappyHobbit
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http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html
http://jrrvf.com/sda/critiques/The_Nation.html
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/J.R.R._Tolkien
67
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72

J.R.R. Tolkien: Influence on modern culture

Transcription

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