{"id":1479,"date":"2019-01-25T13:46:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T13:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/?p=1479"},"modified":"2019-02-01T21:04:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T21:04:22","slug":"1-25-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/1-25-19\/","title":{"rendered":"1.25.19 War of the Rings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“By\n1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.” – J.R.R. Tolkien,\nsurvivor of the Battle of the Somme<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Jackson\nreally wanted to make a reboot of King Kong. In 1998, he was a 37-year-old New\nZealand filmmaker who had directed only five movies, one of which introduced\nthe world to a young actress named Kate Winslet, and another which featured a\nfairly-well-known Michael J. Fox and some fairly innovative special effects.\nJackson flew to Hollywood and tried to sell his Kong treatment…and…nobody\nbought it. But the folks at a small company called New Line asked him, almost\nas a parting shot, “What else you got?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson said,\n“How about Lord of the Rings?” “NO WAY,” New Line replied,\n“it’s unfilmable, it’s too expensive.” “I could shoot it cheaply\nin New Zealand,” said Jackson. “But all the props, swords, armor,\nhorses, extras!” said New Line. “Oh, we’ve got all that,” said\nJackson, “we film lots of low-budget TV hero shows like Xena and\nHercules.” “But what about the sets and scenery?” New Line\nasked. Jackson replied, “Have you ever SEEN the Southern Alps?” And\nthen New Line said, “Nobody could pull off the special effects necessary.\nIt cannot be done.” To which Jackson simply smiled and said,\n“Weta.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weta Digital\nwas founded in 1993 by Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in\nWellington. In order to tackle the Lord of the Rings, this nascent effects studio\ntransformed itself into an industry powerhouse. During production Weta invented\nseveral breakthrough visual tricks and digital technologies. They were so\nunique that they were patented, and so effective that the Weta team won three\nconsecutive special effects Oscars for the three Rings films. The studio has\nsince gone on to win additional Oscars for King Kong, Avatar, and the Jungle\nBook. Today, it is one of the most advanced effects companies in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given all this\ntechnology, what’s a Kiwi director to do next? Well, it turns out that Peter\nJackson is a bit of a history buff. In 2015, he opened a World War 1 museum in\nNew Zealand, with the hope of bringing the musty memories of a by-gone age to\nlife. This caught the attention of the folks from the Imperial War Museum in\nLondon. They were looking to do something special to mark the centennial of the\nend of the war in 2018, and they approached Jackson and asked if he might want\nto contribute a short film…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jackson said\nyes. And the Weta team got to work. The museum provided over 100 hours of\nhistorical footage – damaged and blurry scraps of nitrate film shot on jerky,\nhand-cranked cameras – including actual footage of the Battle of the Somme. It\nwas all carefully cleaned and reviewed and sorted and digitized, and thrown\ninto a computer. Frame-rates were smoothed. Details were sharpened. Missing and\ndamaged frames were rebuilt. And in order to colorize it, the production team\nidentified the dates and locations of the source material, and visited those\nsites on the relevant dates to ensure the correct natural palettes were used.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Weta had\none last trick up their sleeve. Jackson brought in forensic lip readers to\nwatch the silent footage carefully, and deduce what the soldiers were saying.\nAnd then military historians helped identify who these soldiers might have been\nby details of their uniforms. After which, actors from the correct regions in\nEngland, with the correct regional dialects, were hired to give actual voice to\nthe past.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result is\nastonishing. When the movie premiered in December, the soldiers were laughing,\nsinging, and talking, but the critics were at a loss for words. Based on its\nsuccess, there was a small re-run in select theaters in January. And just\nyesterday, it was announced that the movie will expand to 500 theaters\nnationwide next Friday, February 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a\nfull-length documentary by Peter Jackson. It’s an homage to a lost generation\nthat has been miraculously recovered. It’s called, “They Shall Not Grow\nOld.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do yourself a\nfavor. Watch the trailer. Check the show times. Get a ticket. Sit on down. And\nlet history roll over you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, and one\nother thing. As these men march past, keep in mind that any one of them just\nmight have been J.R.R. Tolkien’s close friend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, survivor of the Battle of the Somme Peter Jackson really wanted to make a reboot of King Kong. In 1998, he was a 37-year-old New Zealand filmmaker who had directed only five movies, one of which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1719,758,940,1368],"class_list":["post-1479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-j-r-r-tolkien","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-peter-jackson","tag-world-war-1"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/They-Shall-Not-Grow-Old.jpg?fit=1000%2C563&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}