MovieChat Forums > Peter Jackson Discussion > Extraordinary human being

Extraordinary human being

posted 2 years ago by Drooch (5333)
7 replies | jump to latest

The guy makes splatter movies and indie flicks, then decides to make Lord Of The Rings and busts out the greatest epic trilogy ever, with special effects and a scale that utterly blows the mind. Shot after shot in Return Of The King has my jaw on the floor - how does he composite real actors onto gigantic CGI olyphants like that?

Then, when you’d think the guy needs a decade long break to rest and enjoy his well-deserved Oscar, he instead immediately decides to make King Kong and once again revolutionises cinema with sequences so ambitious I have no idea how he achieved them. Kong battling three T-Rexes who are trying to eat Jane, as they all tumble down a vast vine-filled ravine. Pulling off something that complex immediately after LOTR is unheard of.

Then he makes another gigantic trilogy with The Hobbit films! I haven’t seen them but I gather they’re no less ambitious than his other epics.

The man is a genius. I haven’t heard from him for a while so maybe he’s finally taking that long deserved break. I hope he’s got something new planned…

[–] DirkOff (297) 9 months ago

[deleted]

[–] maul (1533) 9 months ago

Absolutely, it's pretty shameful what he's become. He also has this weird obsession with grainless soulless digital images, and loves to destroy past works by slathering them in Digital Noise Reduction.

Prime example is his Beatles documentary - the people look like artificial wax figures (https://i.ibb.co/x6WbM6w/3-F7-AD013-BC0-A-4538-B0-A3-D49291-E36-C4-D.jpg). A proper restoration of the original 16mm would have been great, but alas Peter Jackson has serious brain rot. Same goes for plenty of shots in the LOTR 4k release... totally butchered.

His early works are excellent, and Heavenly Creatures is one of my favorite movies. He's totally gone off the deep end since LOTR though.

*Why did you delete your comment...

[–] DirkOff (297) 9 months ago

Shit 😂 sorry I didn’t think anyone would respond so quickly. I remembered that ww1 film he did recently ‘Thall shall not grow Old” and I got my respect back for him and felt bad about my post. I agree with what you say!
😆

[–] maul (1533) 9 months ago

They Shall Not Grow Old is pretty decent from a documentary standpoint, but it's unfortunately where he got his first taste for the digital destruction that I mentioned in my other post.

It made more sense in that context because he was specifically trying to make these ancient videos look more "life like", but it still resulted in a totally artificial look with all sorts of nasty digital artifacts. But I could forgive it in that specific context. It's when he started applying that crap to LOTR and classic unseen Beatles footage that it became a serious problem.

But anyway, he'll always remain a legend for LOTR and his other early stuff, but he absolutely got infected with the same disease that Lucas did. Success blunts talent way too easily in some instances.

[–] Otter (24464) 9 months ago

I think after disasters of "The Hobbit" and "Mortal Engines", he decided that he was done with Hollywood and big splashy movies, and dealing with the assholes at the studios. He took a couple of years away from filmmaking, after "Mortal Engines" in 2018, his next project was the "Get Back" documentary about the Beatles, which was so absorbing that if you look at the board you'll see dozens of posts from me.

Because "Get Back" was an exercise in editing hundreds of hours of old footage, my guess is that PJ is trying to reboot his career, and that "Get Back" was an attempt to rediscover the art of filmmaking, and work on the art of film editing for a while. So maybe he'll decide to retire and sit back on his huge pile of LOTR money, or maybe he'll do smaller projects. I wish him well, whatever he decides to do.

[–] DirkOff (297) 9 months ago

Don’t forget his WETA company in NZ.
https://www.wetafx.co.nz/

[–] [deleted] 9 months ago

"how does he composite real actors onto gigantic CGI olyphants like that?"

He doesn't. He hires other people to do these things. As a director/producer he oversees others doing these tasks and is the driving force behind decisions on what happens during the filming and editing of a movie, but that isn't the same as actually compositing the digital elements himself.

And, no, I'm not detracting from his ability as a film-maker, just pointing out that he isn't the only one making a film when he does make them.