Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Filmmaker Uncut Movie Reaction!

What a joy, thank you for enjoying that with me.

NuzeroN

There are some really great appendices from the extended edition that go into great detail as to how the filming was accomplished. They pulled out all the stops. Forced perspective, green screen, miniature body doubles... yeah.

Singing Wordwright

Yo im checking these out again and man just amazing... the content man seriously appreciate it and im glad to be apart of your journey. I don't know if you will see this but i think it would be amazing if you did some reactions to the behind the scenes here on patreon, maybe even for youtube as well but id love to chill and hear your thoughts on all of it because the differences today in film making compared to then, like im sure you could bridge those gaps with your words and experiences and i think it would be a good time, so if you got time its just a thought but i would be amazing and im sure it would be well received by many of us. Watching the behind the scenes is almost their own movies in a sense, well for these fims in particular. Anyways thanks man.

Michael

Aw dang. My fault for clicking before checking out the youtube version first. But yeah, if you ever do a rewatch, the extended editions are the only way to go. I hear folks say that the pacing is nicer in the theatrical editions - but I'm there for the whole story - not just the pieces which they felt were commercially viable. I'll check out your YouTube reaction if it exists - but I can't stomach the trilogy in it's entirety with holes they felt worthy enough to film and edit missing.

Jessi

There were two different sized versions of Bag End. They had Ian McKellen doing his parts of the scenes in the Hobbit-sized one, and Ian Holm doing his part of the scenes in the human-sized one. The Gandalf you see standing there when you can see Holm's face is often a man wearing a rig that looks like a massive human. Basically just a frame for oversized version of Gandalf's costume. Then they have a midget (as 'dwarf' has a different meaning in LotR discussions, lol) actor for when they need someone physically there standing in for Holm around McKellen. Then it's just a bunch of forced perspective and so on to make the two cuts mesh. Wherever they needed the two of them to be in the same room, they were just standing much further away than they seemed and were staring off into space. The kitchen table is actually wildly complicated. It was this whole rig so that as they shifted the camera, the parts of the table would move with the camera to make the table look like it was one continuous piece when really the two halves of it were standing a good distance apart -- one for Holm and one for McKellen. There's more to it than that, even, but that's a taste of the ingenuity. On a separate, sort of kill-joy note, they aren't actually smoking weed (as in marijuana). Tolkien was a prolific pipe smoker, as were many of his colleagues at Oxford and many people in general at the time. "Weed" was a slang term which referred to tobacco before about the middle of the 20th Century. Tolkien and his son Christopher confirmed on several occasions that the "weed" they're referring to is a breed of tobacco. Peter Jackson had a somewhat more marijuana-minded idea in his head when he wrote the word into the script, apparently. I guess both iterations have a bit of validity depending on how you view the relationship between book and film canon, but even in the film they eventually show leaves of Old Toby (the premier "weed" from the Shire) and it's clearly dried tobacco. Not a bud to be seen. That said, it is funny to think of Gandalf and the whole group just being baked the entire time.

TheToweringOtakunt

I really enjoyed your reaction! You may already be aware, but there are a good 12 hours of behind the scenes "Appendices" to the DVDs/certain digital editions of the movies. You can find them on YouTube if you need to. They delve super deep into Jackson's producing and directing choices, as well as showing how the art department and set department and costume department and so on did things. (For example, they literally had two guys whose entire job 8 hours a day for four years was to sit at a table and make chainmail.) Actually it would be really interesting if you did reaction videos to those, like if you treated them like a tv show or limited series with 10 or 12 episodes. Even if you just posted on Patreon and not YouTube. They answer the question of how they did the scenes with characters who are different sizes. It was a combination of (1) forced perspective where the two actors were on screen at the same time but different lengths away from the camera and with different sized props (e.g., Bilbo pouring Gandalf tea at the kitchen table), (2) scale doubles (e.g., wide shots of the fellowship such as paddling the canoes down the river), and (3) green screens where Gimli and the four hobbits would be in one shot (the five actors' proportions were naturally almost perfect for the difference between dwarves and hobbits) and Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas and Boromir would be in another shot and they'd edit them together (e.g., when the fellowship is first formed in Rivendell and they're all standing together). There are also a lot of scenes showing sets that you would think are entirely digital, but actually they were primarily scale models on a level of detail Jackson could stick a handheld camera in, with some digital details or characters filled in. Based on your comments to this film and a lot of other films I've seen you react to, I think you'd really enjoy watching all of that BTS footage. The extended editions definitely give you more character and world building, so for fans of LOTR they are essential and should never have been cut from a story perspective, but they don't directly contribute to the plot so they were cut to meet the proscribed run times. I think that Jackson would have left all of the extended scenes in if he hadn't had overlords giving him time limits, so I definitely recommend going back and rewatching when you have a chance. You won't even think anything is missing in terms of music, because Howard Shore came back for each extended edition and added to the score to make it all seamless.

Chapter Eight

They actually planned a trilogy from the start. They filmed all three films consecutively for over a year around New Zealand to make this masterpiece, a commitment for sure by all departments from acting to directing to makeup. Definitely check out as much behind the scenes as you can about how they made them cause it’s just as entertaining to see how they made the films as much as the films themselves. Best trilogy ever!

There have been great movies and trilogies, but personally this one made me fall in love with cinema. I had the DvD special edition with all the behind the scenes, you should check it out it must be on YouTube. I think you'll really appreciate the balls it took to make these films back then!

Sofia & Chill

Wow I really appreciate you taking the time for this. This was a great start to the day for me <3 and I hope the videos can continue to help in anyway they can!

James Adams

LOVED your reaction. Can't wait for Two Towers and Return of the King.

Ivan Vas

Yo James I just wanna make a bit of a random appreciation post here and just say thank you for what you're doing. You have no idea how much your videos have helped me while I've been going through a rough period in my life with depression and more. Because of you I've also gotten a big passion for cinematography which you have just helped a lot with and I've learned a lot from you. Thank you James!

Emil Larsson

Just joined the Patreon specifically to hear your entire reaction to LOTR, easily my favorite trilogy of all time.

Joshua Davidson

so excited for this series ! these movies and maybe even more so the behind the scenes were what inspired me to be a filmmaker - would honestly watch you watch the BTS footage as well, its a masterpiece in it's own right