Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey

by Sibley, Brian

  Among the team working on the development of CGI effects was Steve Regelous, who would make an unprecedented, groundbreaking contribution to the film’s stunning action set-pieces.

  We were having early conversations, and as far back as 1997 Steve pitched me this idea that he could write a software program that would enable whole battle sequences to be created almost entirely in the computer and yet which would look very realistic. I remember asking him, ‘How long is it going to take you to write the software?’ And Steve said that it was about a two-year job…‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’d better get started now!’ So that was the beginning of the creation of the computer program now called ‘Massive’ that would eventually allow us to create those epic battle scenes I’d always envisaged between Sauron’s forces and the Last Alliance, or at the assault on Helm’s Deep and the siege of Minas Tirith.

  By the time the writers had completed two draft scripts–running to 147 and 144 pages respectively and now carrying additional screenwriter credits for ‘Faye Crutchley & Kennedy Landenburger’, the aliases of Philippa Boyens and Stephen Sinclair–a change in dynamic was taking place within the group. Stephen had theatrical commitments that; would eventually draw him away from a project with which he was not, perhaps, entirely in sympathy. Philippa Boyens says: ‘I don’t think Stephen had a particular affinity with Tolkien, but it wasn’t just that, he’s a very original person who needs to be working on his own writing and I don’t think he would have endured; it would have driven him insane.’

  ‘Stephen’s interest began to wane,’ says Fran; ‘he had plays and novels he wanted to write and he was getting fed up with being tied to this enormous task and an obligation to a project which was ongoing and nowhere near being made. On the other hand, Philippa’s interest grew because she was becoming more and more invested in the story and how it was being told. At one stage there were four of us, then Stephen dropped out and there were three.’ Later, Stephen and Philippa’s personal relationship came to an end.

  In 2000, by which time The Lord of the Rings scripts had gone through many further transitions, an agreement was made that Stephen Sinclair would be credited as co-writer of the second film in the trilogy. It was an acknowledgement of the fact that, to whatever extent the scripts had changed (and would go on changing up until the release of the final film), he had made a valuable and significant contribution to getting the project underway.

  Stephen had also been responsible for bringing Peter and Fran together with Philippa Boyens. ‘That,’ says Fran, ‘was another piece of serendipity.’ Or, as Peter puts it: ‘It was luck; it was fate, and it was a good thing…’

  As the scriptwriting progressed to new drafts, the writers continually addressed the challenges inherited from Tolkien, many of which resulted from the fact that during the early stages of composing The Lord of the Rings, the author had still not defined the full intricacies of the plot or determined all the connections between the incidents in the narrative and people, places and events within the early history of Middle-earth.

  They were also seeking ways of establishing key characters–such as the hobbits Merry and Pippin–whom Tolkien had introduced into the story without having to worry about any of the issues facing the screen dramatist. So (unlike the book or, indeed, the final film script) the four hobbits set out from Hobbiton together: Gandalf having caught not just Sam but also Merry and Pippin, eavesdropping outside the window of Bag End.

  One of the chief difficulties presented by the text is that Tolkien often recounts crucial events in ‘flashback’; so, for example, it is only when Gandalf addresses the Council of Elrond at Rivendell that Frodo–and the reader–discovers that the reason the wizard had failed to meet the hobbits at Bree was because he had been imprisoned by Saruman at Isengard. The chronological depiction of the confrontation between the wizards imposed different dramatic requirements on a scene that was no longer reportage. It also usefully interrupted the hobbits’ journey across country.

  Although the final edit of the film did not reflect the fact, relocating the Isengard scenes was originally seen as offering a way around the still-thorny issue of eliminating the three chapters (forty pages of incident-packed text) featuring Tom Bombadil.

  The cinematic coverage of the hobbits’ journey to Bree was done in such a way that when you cut back to these four hobbits scurrying through the trees and peering at the Bree gates, we figured that they could have seen Tom, spent a couple of days at his house and had their experience on the Barrow-downs.

  There’s nothing in the movie that says that those things didn’t happen. We didn’t eradicate Tom Bombadil from the mythology; it was simply that, in the movie, we chose to show selected aspects of the journey–anything could have happened while we were away with Gandalf in Orthanc.

  Some of the approaches in the script either remained unrealised or subsequently abandoned (such as a Warg attack on the hobbits at Weathertop before the ambush by the nine Ringwraiths) or were replaced with a better solution–often involving a return to the original text.

  In the early versions, for the sake of compression, Lothlórien was eliminated and the events described there were moved to Rivendell, with Galadriel attending the Council of Elrond, revealing her mirror to Frodo in the gardens at the Last Homely House and giving her gifts when the Fellowship eventually set forth on their quest.

  Denethor also attended and was given a highly vocal presence at the Council, accompanied by a Boromir who is the strong, silent type, barely speaking prior to the forming of the Fellowship and, when he does, curiously referring to himself in the first person as ‘Old Boromir’.

  Other changes now known as part of the film trilogy scenario were put in place quite early on and survived various script changes. One such example is the substitution of Arwen for Glorfindel as the means of rescuing Frodo from the pursuing Ringwraiths and getting the Ring-bearer to Rivendell.

  Our reasons for giving Glorfindel’s actions to Arwen were twofold: firstly, we needed to establish the crucial relationship between Aragorn and Arwen–which Tolkien’s text is singularly unhelpful in doing–and, secondly, we were faced with a problem which is peculiar to cinematic convention.

  If a new character suddenly rides dramatically into a scene, grabs the hero and then gallops off with the enemy in pursuit, the signal given to the audience is, ‘This person is someone important to the development of the story, someone who is going to be a major character from now on.’ Since that was not the case with Glorfindel (who disappears from the narrative following the Council of Elrond), it seemed an obvious solution to have Arwen arrive in his place.

  The Watcher in the Water, omitted from the original treatment, was restored and, like the Cave-troll, given far more to do than in the book; the Elves were now present at the Battle of Helm’s Deep along with Arwen who, against Aragorn’s better judgement, insists in fighting in the combat–an invention that would survive until after filming had begun.

  There were many attempts, not all of them successful, at establishing the intensity and importance of the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen: the second film was originally going to open with the couple bathing naked in the ‘crystal clear rock pools’ of the Glittering Caves, where they happen to be discovered by Legolas and Gimli who are taking a sight-seeing boat trip through the caves!

  Also, in the early versions of the scripts, it is Arwen–rather than Éowyn–who rides out of Dunharrow disguised as a man and later defeats the Witch-king after he has mortally wounded Théoden on the Pelennor Fields when she herself comes close to death. Whilst such a reallocation of material undoubtedly enhanced Arwen’s character arc, it only did so by weakening that of Éowyn and it would be some time before the writers were able to solve that dilemma and find a way of adequately representing both women within the screenplay.

  These scripts also attempted to strengthen Frodo’s role in the story beyond that of being the burdened Ring-bearer. One such sequence, placed dramatically towards the end of t
he first film, is a good example of the many approaches that were considered but later rejected.

  For the purposes of this sequence, the Seeing Seat was relocated from Amon Hen to one of the hills in the Emyn Muil. Climbing up to the seat, Frodo witnesses various things including the confrontation at Isengard between Gandalf the White and Saruman, who is despatched not by Gríma Wormtongue but an emissary of the Dark Lord:

  A GREAT WINGED BEAST rises behind SARUMAN! This LIZARD-LIKE CREATURE, the NAZGÛL, has a 30-FOOT WINGSPAN…perched on the back of the NAZGÛL, in a black saddle, is a RINGWRAITH!

  A TERRIFYING SHRIEK!…The RINGWRAITH wields a HUGE MACE and SWEEPS SARUMAN off the TOP OF ORTHANC!

  SARUMAN’S FLAILING BODY PLUMMETS 500 FEET…IMPALING ON a piece of JAGGED STEEL MACHINERY!

  The Nazgûl beast then swoops down towards Gandalf, knocking him off Shadowfax’s back and causing his staff to be lost in the flood waters around Orthanc. In a bid to save Gandalf, Frodo puts on the Ring, entering the Twilight World, revealing himself to Sauron and causing the Ringwraith to abandon its attack on Gandalf and to race away toward the East…

  The subsequent attack on Frodo at the Seeing Seat is a fantastical action set-piece in which Sam uses Galadriel’s Elven rope to lasso one of the talons of the Nazgûl steed and hitch it to the ruined masonry. The beast and its rider flounder around, reducing the ancient structure to rubble, and are about to kill Sam, whose backpack is caught between the fallen stones making it impossible for him to move. Drawing his sword, the Ringwraith advances on the helpless Sam when Frodo, still wearing the Ring, leaps in front of the Ringwraith and raises his hand:

  The RINGWRAITH halts…LUST for the RING overwhelming him. His DEAD EYES SHINE…His shrivelled, pallid LIPS TWITCH.

  The RINGWRAITH extends a HAGGARD HAND towards FRODO’S FINGER. FRODO’S HAND moves CLOSER…as if by the PULL of the RING…

  The RINGWRAITH’S FINGERS CLOSE AROUND THE RING!

  SUDDENLY! FRODO rams the BLADE of STING into the RINGWRAITH’S HEART! THE RINGWRAITH SHRIEKS in PAIN!

  The TWILIGHT WORLD turns to FLAME as the WRATH of the LIDLESS EYE ENGULFS FRODO’S VISION.

  An accretion which did make the final film was the moment on the Cirith Ungol stairs when, as an antidote to the remoteness that begins to settle on Frodo as he draws nearer to Mordor, the scriptwriters injected a new sense of emotional conflict by having Frodo succumb to Gollum’s mischief-making, reject Sam and send him home.

  Several of Tolkien’s many coincidences (or, as he viewed them, twists and turns of fate) were given a ‘rational’ explanation; thus, Faramir doesn’t simply stumble across Frodo and Sam in the woods of Ithilien but, instead, is sent there by Denethor as a result of Faramir learning the true nature of the Fellowship’s quest from the loquacious Pippin:

  PIPPIN

  Gandalf would kill me if I said anything. Look, it’s not that I don’t trust you…it’s just that…it’s big stuff: Middle-earth, the Dark Lord, the whole works!

  And I promised Gandalf that I wouldn’t let anything slip: if there’s one thing I’m good at its keeping secrets…

  The mood-leavening gags with Merry and Pippin and Legolas and Gimli are by now a feature of the script, including one that didn’t make it into the final film. On their arrival at the Moria Gate, Gimli is excited by the impressive landscape and the youthful memories that it stirs:

  GIMLI

  Will you look at this! I haven’t been here since I was a toddler!

  LEGOLAS

  And you’re not a toddler now?

  ARAGORN restrains GIMLI as he makes an ANGRY LUNGE at LEGOLAS!

  Also established beyond doubt are those sequences of sheer visual bravado intended to lift the story into the arena of the spectacular and fantastical:

  NIGHTMARISH MONTAGE: The DEAD TREES of ISENGARD are fed into ROARING FURNACES…MOLTEN METAL pours into CASTS…LARGE SQUIRMING MAGGOT hangs from a CAVERN CEILING…RED-HOT metal BEATEN by sweating URUK-HAI BLACKSMITHS…the MAGGOT SPLITS and a SLIME-COVERED FIGURE lands on the floor in a heap…HAMMER strikes METAL…YELLOW EYES flick open, as the newly-hatched URUK-HAI SCREAMS…WIDE ON MAGGOT CHAMBER CEILING with hundreds of SQUIRMING MAGGOTS…RED-HOT SWORD BLADE sizzles in water…

  The scripts now ended, as had the book, with Sam’s return to Hobbiton and the line, ‘Well, I’m back!’

  In an attempt to better appreciate how the script would work as film, a ‘storyboard’ was made from the script. An aid to film-making that was initiated at the Disney animation studios in the 1920s, the storyboard presents a visualisation of the screenplay as a series of sketches, with a note of accompanying dialogue and sound effects that can be pinned up onto boards so as to be ‘read’ like a comic strip.

  Christian Rivers (subsequently visual effects art director for Weta Digital) worked directly with Peter in drawing up a detailed storyboard for the film that showed, not just the proposed scenes and characters, but also indicated specific camera moves and angles. Once this had been completed, Peter made an ‘animatic’, which can best be described as a ‘filmed storyboard combined with a radio play’.

  An audio version of the script was recorded by a group of New Zealand actors with Frodo being played by Craig Parker (subsequently Haldir in the films) and Peter Vere-Jones from Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead as Gandalf. Temporary music and effects were added to create a ‘working soundtrack’, and whilst the accompanying visuals were merely static pictures, the combination gave a strong indication of how the story would eventually play on screen.

  It’s really a sketch of the movie and, as such, is very useful, because it points up any flaws in the story. In fact, it’s brutal, because instead of cutting to somebody’s face, you cut to a drawing of somebody’s face, so you don’t have the benefit of seeing the emotion in the eyes. As a result of watching the animatic, we re-wrote the script, partly to fix a few things in the plot, but also because we felt that it was almost totally lacking in real heart and emotion.

  On the face of it, the project seemed to be progressing: the script was being tightened and sharpened with characters’ motivation and interrelationships being refined and strengthened; Weta were making significant strides on several fronts with Alan Lee and John Howe creating a series of evocative conceptual paintings and drawings of key settings and characters as well as their armour and weaponry; the model-makers were sculpting an impressive array of maquettes depicting the warriors and creatures of Middle-earth and an impressive scale miniature of Helm’s Deep; while the digital program-writers and animators were getting to grips with new and still-developing technologies.

  It was a blessing having so much design-work in hand before the script was finalised, but it was also a curse, because without a finalised script you simply can’t a budget a film. Until you know precisely how many scenes there are going to be, you aren’t in a position to calculate how many months it will to take to film, how long you’ll need to contract the actors for, what transportation costs are likely to be, or answers to a hundred other questions…

  Lack of answers to those questions–combined with a monthly, rising figure representing the on-going expenditure being made on research and development–began to stir up concerns among the Miramax teams in New York and Los Angeles, amongst whom there were various jostlings for control over the Tolkien project.

  Peter now found himself dealing with different executives from those who had been responsible for the film’s development at the outset. Where his original Miramax point-of-contact had been someone with whom Peter had a good rapport, he increasingly had to deal with individuals who seemed to lack empathy with his vision for the movie. Of his relationship with one particular executive, by this time a key player in the future fate of The Lord of the Rings, Peter says,

  We were chalk and cheese and it was a situation of conflict from day one of his involvement. Obviously, there are two sides to every story and as I increasingly felt that he was winding me up, I started to enjoy winding him up a
nd wrote emails which were full of my frustration and rather rude…It was just one of those human situations: I eventually lost all respect for him and, at that stage, couldn’t really hold back or disguise my frustration.

  In the early months of 1998, storm clouds were beginning to loom on the horizon…

  A lot of the tensions which led to my being at loggerheads with the guy from Dimension were not really to do with a creative impasse, because they seemed to be reasonably happy with the scripts that we were writing; the problem was really all about money.

  They were indeed about money, although the scripts were a factor in that it increasingly began to look as if what was being written was unlikely to be filmed for Miramax’s capped budget of $75million. When the deal had been agreed, the sum, which was greater than that of any film made by Miramax, let alone Peter Jackson, must have seemed what Peter describes as a ‘do-able thing’. As the ramifications of the complex scripts hit home, it began to look increasingly less ‘do-able’, but Peter really expected, at that point, to find Miramax granting him some flexibility–especially as it became clear that the predicated delivery cost was woefully unrealistic.