Hooray for Hollywood- Kayla Beebout

            As many of you probably realize, the Lord of the Rings series is definitely my favorite.  There is a film adaptation of this series, as well as of Tolkien’s book The Hobbit, which were both directed by Peter Jackson.  Although the films are similar in several respects, there are also some very important differences, which highlight the different styles of the stories.  One thing I find particularly interesting is that although the story of The Hobbit comes first chronologically, Lord of the Rings was made ten years earlier.  This was because Lord of the Rings was more popular among the audience Jackson was targeting and was easier to adapt into adult movies (The Hobbit was originally a children’s story).  This choice leads to a distinct difference in the technology used in the films.  In Lord of The Rings, Jackson uses more “real” characters, instead of CGI.  At the time, it was easier to put prosthetics on a group of stuntmen to make them look like Orcs than to animate a large group of characters.  However, Jackson admitted that he did not like using real Orcs, as he wanted to make their proportions less like a human’s.  So when making The Hobbit, Jackson took the opportunity to use improved CGI technology and animated many of the villainous characters.  These animations were able to perform actions actors could not and looked more grotesquely proportioned, as Jackson wanted. 

Technology and stylistic choices influenced other differences as well.  In Lord of the Rings, most of the scenes were filmed on location or on studio sets, which lengthened the process of filming, which was dictated by weather.  In The Hobbit, however, more of these scenes were done on green screen sets, which allowed for control over weather, lighting, scenery, and scale of scenes.  The lighting is also rather different, which reflects the tone of the stories. In The Hobbit, the darkness of Sauron has not yet fully returned to the world, so many of the scenes are lit brightly and use vibrant colors.  However, when using some of the same sets in Lord of the Rings, the lights are often dimmer, which was not a technology issue but a stylistic choice.  Jackson wanted to use, overall, darker lights and duller colors to show the evil that was threatening the world. 

Any epic film is bound to have a memorable music score.  Since some locations and characters appear in both, some of the same musical themes are used.  Howard Shore was the composer for both trilogies, and he kept the same types of music and instruments he used in Lord of the Rings and used them in The Hobbit.  Many of the older themes, however, he changed slightly, altering the tone or tempo to create the effect he needed.  This continuity was interesting for viewers who loved Lord of the Rings, but the songs were still original and new.

Peter Jackson’s view of Middle-Earth is easy to see throughout both adaptations, but it is clear that they are not the same films.  Jackson does nothing by mistake, so the differences and similarities were designed to evoke certain responses from people who watch both trilogies.  I believe that Jackson’s trilogy adaptations did an amazing job of bringing Tolkien’s stories to life in a way that highlighted both their continuity and their differences in tones.