A cornerstone of modern cinema, we take a look back at the trilogy that left its mark on the industry and how it was made.
Films poster
The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy of films released in 2001, 2002 and 2003 that adapts the novels by J.R.R Tolkien. For years, the books were considered by everyone to be unsuitable because of their complexity and the amount of detail and events. Not everyone, because at the end of the 90s, one man took on this crazy challenge: Peter Jackson! When they came out, the films were a huge success, thanks to their gigantic shoot and the digital effects that were new at the time, and they went straight on to become masterpieces, and that's no mean feat with a budget of 93 million dollars! The total takings for the trilogy were almost 3 million euros, so at the time it was the second most profitable film behind Titanic.
Throughout the films, we follow Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring, whose mission is to go to Mordor and destroy it. We travel through the various kingdoms of Middle-earth, discovering their peoples, traditions, history and culture. This quest involves a great journey, with more or less unexpected encounters, allies and enemies, and strategic battles that are mythical and unforgettable! The same goes for so many other scenes that are simply magnificent and impressive, no matter how many times you've seen them !
The beauty of films
A cornerstone of modern cinema, we take a look back at the trilogy that left its mark on the industry and how it was made.
Village of Hobbiton
Peter Jackson, a New Zealander by birth, turned to the locations of his native land for as much realism as possible, thanks to the geography of the island with its mountains, plains and forests. For the film, several fictional locations were built in real life, such as Edoras, the capital of Rohan, which was later dismantled, and Hobbitburg, the Hobbit village, which is still there and can be visited, and which supports the country's tourist industry.
As we said, the shoot was huge, and a few figures make it even more obvious :
- - 20,602 extras in total for the film
- - 1,600 hobbit prosthetic feet for the 1st film
- - 19,000 costumes
- - 48,000 pieces of armour
- - 2,000 weapons and 500 bows
- - 159 prosthetic noses just for Gandalf
- - And finally, over 12 million rings assembled by hand to make the chain mail.
All this with a royal cast and actors who are as involved as possible (Viggo Mortensen [Aragorn], for example, who would never part with his horse or his sword to better embody his character). To recreate all these settings and emblematic places from the books, Peter Jackson called on book illustrators John Howe and Alan Lee, and the result is strikingly realistic. The result is well known: magnificent images, breathtaking landscapes and a total of 17 Oscars for 3 films. (In comparison, Star Wars won 15 Oscars for 7 films and Harry Potter 0 for 8 films).
Peter Jackson