Why I’m salivating for the extended edition of The Hobbit on DVD [guest post by KatharineD]

[For those who have not yet read it, here’s a previous post by KatharineD, a regular commentator on “me + richard armitage.” Many, many thanks, KatharineD, for offering this post right now! — Serv]

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When the details were released several days ago for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition DVD coming out later this year, it sent me back to the box set of The Lord Of The Rings EE- not to watch the movies themselves, but to rewatch the bonus material, something I hadn’t done in a while. If you have the set, I encourage another look-see; if you’ve never seen it, it’s an absolute treat — a rare, in-depth look inside the world of film-making. It’s like the production blogs we’ve been getting for The Hobbit,  to the power of ten. As soon as I read ‘9 hours of extras’ for TH:AUJ, I thought oh yes, here we go again! For those of you who’ve never seen these documentary features, let me give you a taste!

When the box set was first released in 2004, I bought it for my two sons for Christmas. We were familiar with the extended cuts of the movies, which we’d seen at the cinema, but had no idea what the bonus discs would offer up. I remember feeling none too energetic on Boxing Day, so one of my sons and I decided to investigate the unknown discs. We didn’t even have a DVD player at the time, so we both tried to get comfortable in front of the computer screen.

Well, the experience was absolutely riveting — this was the complete story of starting out with Tolkien’s trilogy, writing the script, and working through pre-production to the actual filming process and far beyond. The extras did not constitute a cursory glance or a token effort to add the obligatory extra to the home movie release — this was a step-by-step look behind the curtain, told in exquisite detail by the most creative craftsmen and movie makers we could ever hope to meet. I’m talking hours of material here — this wasn’t Middle Earth the movie itself, but rather Peter Jackson’s own special magic world; it was like touring Willy Wonka’s factory and seeing how the sweets were made. I should perhaps add that I’m no Tolkien nerd, nor was I a LOTR aficionado at that point, having seen the movies but nothing more than that, so when I say I was completely enthralled, I speak as a layman who had no prior expectations whatsoever.

Immediately apparent were the passion and enthusiasm of everyone involved — a sense of having been handed a sacred task, for which nothing less than total commitment would do. Weta Workshop really came into its own on this project, taking an integrated approach to set design, costume, weapons, armor and prosthetics. Led by Richard Taylor, the design team created a complete vision for the worlds of elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs, wizards and men. The level of detail for each object, be it sword, breastplate, chair or button, was exquisite, and certainly far more than the naked eye would pick up on film.
Jackson began the project by telling everyone involved that he wanted them to think of the tales of Middle Earth as being a kind of prehistory, not fantasy at all. That world had to feel ‘real’ and I think that directive was exemplified by the work the Art Department did to create Hobbiton, starting one year ahead of filming to prepare not only the structures, but also the natural environment.

What came across strongly from the people at WETA was a kind of crazy ‘can do’ attitude to problem solving — no suggestion was too absurd, no creation too ‘out there’. They were starting from scratch, with the help of Alan Lee and John Howe, the renowned Tolkien illustrators, working to achieve a level of world-building not contemplated before. WETA Workshop and WETA Digital are home to some seriously geeky artisans and technicians who at the time of LOTR were at the forefront of developing CGI battle scenes, motion capture filming, and highly detailed model building. It’s easy to forget that Gollum came to life in an unexpected way through the pioneering work done by Andy Serkis over ten years ago. What we see on screen in The Hobbit really is the culmination of a great deal of innovation and design work that was continually improved during the LOTR years.

It was great to hear a young Christian Rivers (recently featured on Jackson’s Facebook page as splinter unit director on the final day of The Hobbit) talking about collaborating on the storyboard process, and Daniel Falconer (the author of the Chronicles books) enthusing over being given the task of designing beautifully detailed elven armor.
The actors, too, had a sense of creating something new and wonderful, but were quite unburdened, at the start at least, by the sorts of pressures Richard Armitage and others working on The Hobbit undoubtedly felt in trying to honor the incredibly successful forerunner. Words from Viggo Mortensen in describing his approach to his character inevitably draw comparisons with remarks made by Richard — the need to stay in character (to the extent of carrying his sword around with him off set), and stuntmen told stories of his commitment to acquiring and executing high level sword fighting skills. His charismatic personality won over everyone in spite of his late call up to the role of Aragorn and he became the unofficial leader of The Fellowship. Jed Brophy, our much-loved Nori (I swear the only part of Jed that’s aged in over a decade is his hair color), featured quite strongly as one of the main horsemen on set, as well as playing other assorted roles.

By the time I came to the extras for The Return Of The King, I was familiar with all the main players- people like Andrew Lesnie, the Director of Photography and Dan Hennah, the head of the Art Department, both of whom, albeit significantly greyer this time around, still play major roles in Jackson’s film making.
The acclaim of the first two movies in the trilogy raised a great deal of expectation around ROTK, which everyone from Jackson down felt keenly. Just watching all the various departments’ staff talk about the incredible pressure they felt to deliver the highest quality film under serious time constraints was compelling — they often expressed the overwhelming nature of the work load, and yet the need not to let down their esteemed director. Jackson clearly inspires great loyalty amongst his troops, which RA has mentioned as influencing his portrayal of Thorin. The movie was completed just ahead of the deadline and world premiere in Wellington.

A section of footage is devoted to the Academy Awards the following year, and I dare anyone who sees it not to cheer along with all the winners as one after another collected Oscars for their roles in creating the movie — people like Howard Shore for the memorable soundtrack; Peter King for makeup; Francis Walsh, Jackson and Phillipa Boyens for the screenplay; the sound mixers; and the visual effects team. The culmination of the night was of course best director for Jackson and the major award of Best Picture. I felt as though I had toiled along with them all (after roughly seventeen hours of behind-the-scenes footage!) and gloried in all their success.

The most touching moments of all for me were the farewells to all the actors at the end of pickups. If you want to know what to expect at the end of The Hobbit: There And Back Again DVD in a couple of years, take a look at these video excerpts. I get teary every time I see this footage, even though I know exactly what to expect — it is just so incredibly moving, and I’m sure it’s exactly what Armitage and all the dwarf actors felt just recently. I found particularly poignant the speeches made by Christopher Lee and John Rhys Davies, both of whom have worked extensively in the movie industry. Both stressed that the level of love and devotion shown by all involved was unheard of in Hollywood, and they marveled that New Zealand was showing the rest of the world what could be achieved when committed people collaborated so wholeheartedly on a project.

Viggo Mortensen’s Last Day As Aragorn

Elijah Wood’s Final Day

This DVD set was, and still is, the gold standard in what we could possibly want from a home movie release — beautiful packaging, well thought out menu design, and high quality special features, including various commentaries (and even Easter eggs for those clever enough to locate them!). Diehard fans from back in the day will countenance nothing less from The Hobbit. The list of special features for An Unexpected Journey looks to be every bit as detailed and interesting,  with special note of ‘The Company of Thorin’, ‘Durin’s Folk’, and ‘The Songs Of The Hobbit’  — all extremely pertinent to fans of one Richard Armitage!

See the complete list of extras here.
I don’t know about everyone else, but I held off buying the theatrical version of The Hobbit on DVD, because THIS was exactly what I was waiting for!

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[See coverage of the edition at Heirs of Durin and TORn as well. –Serv]

~ by Servetus on August 5, 2013.