Viggo Mortensen criticizes ‘Lord of the Rings’ films Jackson discovered CGI ‘he never looked back’

NY Daily News ^

[Perdogg]

So much for that fellowship of the ring.

Viggo Mortensen took a shot at Peter Jackson's dependence on visual effects in the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy films, which are widely considered to have launched the actor's career to a higher level.

In a frank interview with London's The Telegraph, the 55-year-old star of the upcoming "Two Faces of January" gave a thumbs-down to every J.R.R. Tolkien adaptation his former director has made since the first installment, 2001's "The Fellowship of the Ring."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

the endless reliance on ever-perposterous CGI has destroyed the creative story-telling process.

IMHO anyone who has written computer programs has had the experience of starting out with a small technical calculation and, by the time they got through making the input convenient and the output presentable, they find that the technical calculation was trivial to program and the prettiness factor took all the programming effort.

It is no different in writing a posting here on FR. It is easy to get involved in trying to make the spelling and formatting perfect - because you know that everyone else knows that, what with word processing and HTML, you could - and spend as much time on prettiness as you did articulating your thoughts clearly.

IMHO, emphasis on “production qualities” at the expense of content is an anti conservative bias.

[Altariel]

You don’t need to cast 1000,000. You can use camera tricks and other illusions to make a smaller crowd look larger than it really is.

[Vanders9]

Yes I concur with all your statements, although with the Hobbit its sort of understandable, because there really isnt that much plot and characters to go with. The book is quite short.

[sphinx]

Yes, the book is short. PJ should have been satisfied with one movie, or two at the very most. The bloat is entirely due to PJ running away with over the top comic book stuff, all of which does violence to the book.

One movie could have been excellent. PJ had the vision and technical chops to bring Tolkein's world to life. But he's thrown it away with self-indulgent junk.

[Vanders9]

I think youre both kind of right. CGI and super special effects are fine, and very clever, but only if they are used properly. The best special effects are the ones that are so subtle you dont really notice them. Instead, as has been noted, too many times they are used to substitute for plot, storyline, character and so on. It never works. Good special effects can augment and enhance. They can make a mediocre film into a good one, and a good one into a great one, and a great one into a classic, but they can never make a bad film into a good one.

[Vanders9]

I think he made a good Strider but a poor Aragorn :)

[Terry L Smith]

Remember, the hobbits were rather short-statured/big and bare-footed, eschewing all “footwear”, as Tolkien wrote them.

So, if you were not already prepared for that, by reading the books first, then you have used your particular wardrobe paradigm, to filter your enjoyment of the films.

[dfwgator]

Kim Kardashian is not a Hobbit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWPsGV3HpZQ

[Terry L Smith]

dfwgator wrote:
“Kim Kardashian is not a Hobbit”

I only know that name, as bantered about on early morning radio shows.

Is she some kind of tv person, or something?
If she appears on any of the programming being offered by nbc/abc/cbs/fox-simpson/cw/tnt/usa then I don’t watch.

[TheOldLady]

It was about the Bakshi cartoon, not the live-action films. In the cartoon, it looked as if there were
worms crawling around on the Hobbits’ legs. It was distracting for me, and I thought it was sloppy
work by the animation team since the frame-to-frame continuity was broken.

Sorry for the confusion.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all the LOTR books and so far, the films. The CG does not bother me.
I’m used to it from the Transformer and other “BIG” action movie franchises we rent or buy.

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

Useless Trivia: Viggo has a 30-something son with Exene Cervenka, lead singer of the 1970s and 1980s L.A.-based punk band X.

[LibertarianLiz]

I would also like to add, from the first Hobbit film:

When Balin is explaining to Bilbo why Thorin hates Orcs the way he does; he tells him that Azog the Defiler had sworn to "end the line of Durin".

Now, lets see: Thorin is wandering from place to place, looking for his long-lost father, his whereabouts not easily known. Gandalf plucks him from obscurity, puts him out in the open with 13 of his kin, including his two heirs, thus, in essence, putting a bullseye on his back.

He takes him to a back entrance to the kingdom of his sworn enemy; and, then disappears as he is wont to do.

Thorin, his heirs and kin and now on their own on a "quest" that Gandalf promised he would help them with; but, as is his wont, he disappears.

At the end, Thorin has completely lost his mind, he and the only other heirs to the Throne of Durin (Kili and Fili) die with him and the line of Durin is ended. Great work, Gandalf. It has made me wonder if he was working for Azog all along. (Okay, I'm kidding about the last part; but, Azog has gotten his wish.)