Sauron shows no signs of stopping even as Isengard crumbles. His eyes are on Minis Tirith, the last beacon of hope for Gondor. While Merry and Pippin are reunited with the Fellowship (though not for too long), Frodo and Sam are now right under Sauron’s eye, behind the gates of Mordor. There’s treachery afoot, battles to win, fathers to impress, and cities to conquer. And a king to return.

Will Middle Earth succumb to evil? Will Sam ever see the Shire again? Will Pippin be a fool until he dies?

Will Frodo destroy the ring?

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from the gripping conclusion of Peter Jackson’s fantasy saga, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Mount Doom Erupts

Inside the volcano things aren’t moving fast enough. The ring isn’t melting. Just as it looks like our King will be defeated, Sauron’s tower falls and the eye implodes. The ground surrounding the heroes disintegrates, taking the orcs and trolls with it.

It’s over. They’ve won.

Or have they?

In the seconds after everyone’s elation, Mount Doom explodes. Everyone looks crestfallen as Sam and Frodo are still up there. This device has been used before with Gandalf and the Balrog, Aragorn and the warg. For a second, this feels different. There is a moment when we truly believe that Sam and Frodo made the ultimate sacrifice.

Recommended for you: 10 Best Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments

9. Merry and Pippin Lead the Charge

Vastly outnumbered, Aragorn and his followers head to the black gate to draw Sauron’s eye while Sam and Frodo make the final leg of their journey into Mount Doom. Aragorn’s “not this day” speech is stirring and emotional. This is it. It’s now or never.

“For Frodo!” Is the battle cry.

And, in an army of a thousand experienced soldiers, it is Merry and Pippin who run first. They’ve come so far from the firework stealing miscreants of the first film. They are warriors as brave as any man or elf.

Middle parts of trilogies are often the worst. They have to do so much bridging and they don’t get the satisfaction of story arc conclusions as they are too busy setting up what comes next instead.

The Two Towers does not fall prey to this. It is as exciting as the first film, while having the luxury of our investment. Everyone cares very deeply about what happens to what remains of the Fellowship. A host of new characters are introduced as the battle for Middle Earth continues, the most significant being the people of Rohan. And an extra woman, Éowyn (Miranda Otto), to boot.

The Two Towers is filled with lengthy battles, death and despair, and yet it still manages to be warm-hearted, full of humour and hopeful.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. The Nazgûl

The Wraiths were scary enough in The Fellowship of the Ring, but in The Two Towers they’ve been promoted. Now referred to as Nazgûl, which feels more sinister, and on the backs of great dragons, these agents of Sauron really are a force to be reckoned with.

The screeching, sniffing presence of them over the Dead Marshes as Sam and Frodo cower is the taster, but as their giant wingspans cast a shadow over the city of Osgiliath they truly are a sight to behold.

Recommended for you: 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments

9. The Uruk-hais March

The Two Towers is a film with many battles, and obviously we are rooting for the good guys, but the final march of the Uruk-hais as they approach Helm’s Deep is nothing short of majestic.

Thousands upon thousands of them marching in time, lit by flickering torches, metal clanging and roaring like lions. They have no morals and no fear. The juxtaposition between them and the rag-tag army Aragorn has managed to gather does an excellent job of building tension.  

Middle Earth is under threat as Sauron, a great malevolent force, is gathering power. The lands of men, elves, wizards, and dwarfs have lived for hundreds of years believing the great evil had been vanquished. Wowzers, were they wrong.

It’s all down to the hobbits – long-living, hairy-footed, ale-swigging, home-comfort-loving people about the size of a human child – to fix it. Turns out Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) has been in procession of a very precious, very dangerous artifact since his exploits in “The Hobbit” 70 years prior.

The task to return the ring is placed in the tiny hands of his nephew, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood). It’s all fine though, because Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has arranged for a band of warriors, a fellowship if you will, to help him on this perilous journey.

The Fellowship of the Ring thrust director Peter Jackson and its cast members into the stratosphere of fame. While some depictions may be considered problematic by today’s standards, and Lord of the Rings certainly isn’t passing any Bechdel test, the classic struggle of good versus evil means it remains popular over twenty years later.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Gardening

The scene has been set, the Hobbits introduced, and Frodo (Elijah Wood) has begrudgingly accepted his mission. While Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is asserting the grave danger the young hobbit will face, he hears a crack outside. An eavesdropper? A spy from the very depths of Mordor? Or perhaps, just a gardener? Gandalf lunges with his staff, and pulls out of the perennials, Samwise Gamgee (Sean Austin).

This is a great introduction to Sam as it shows his cheek, tenacity, and loyalty.

Recommended for you: The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit Movies Ranked

9. The Ringwraiths Attack

Tolkien built a very serious world with realms of peril and intense men conversing. Peter Jackson’s rendering of this world adds a much-needed dose of humour. The Fellowship of the Ring is not afraid to poke fun at itself a little bit.

The Ringwraiths are a terrifying sight (and sound). These are the creatures that all of Middle Earth is afraid of. The wraiths with their metal hands and black cloaks attacking pillows hidden beneath the bedspreads in the Prancing Pony is a scooby-doo-esque flash of comedy.

Frankly, choosing the ten best films ever made is incredibly difficult. When considering such a list there are endless criteria from which one could choose to base their list off: popularity, originality, box office success, how it did at the Oscars. Really, there is no one single way of creating a definitive list of the greatest movies ever made. Even if I were to only take in my own personal opinion, I know that I would change my mind week to week. After all, I haven’t seen every film ever made, I have a lot of catching up to do; who’s to say I wouldn’t swap out something for Interstellar or Stagecoach when I finally get around to ticking those off the list?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, there is the fear of the backlash I may receive by leaving certain films off the list. I don’t have any John Ford on the list, which means that Steven Spielberg will hate me, and I just know the middle class art students are going to come for me due to the lack of Godard, Truffaut or Varda.

Making a top ten greatest films ever made list is a lot of pressure, something that is not lost on me. All I can do is provide the top ten films which, until this point in my life, have had the most profound effect on me. Those films that I have not stopped thinking about since the day I first saw them, that I have introduced to whomever will let me, and that I have watched and rewatched until my heart’s content over the last twenty-six years. Wish me luck.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @MarkJurassic

10. Aftersun (2022)

Aftersun Review

The only film on this entire list that was released during my time writing for The Film Magazine. Thus far, only one of two new releases I have given full marks to (alongside Celine Song’s beautiful Past Lives).

Since I first saw Charlotte Wells’ debut feature film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, I have seen it a further three times in the cinema and have both directly and indirectly introduced many to the film. My passion shines brightly for this one.

With Aftersun, Charlotte Wells introduced herself to the world as an immensely talented director whose delicate portrayal of a father-daughter holiday in Turkey plays out like a gentle hand on your shoulder, leading you carefully through the complex relationship between the pair that eleven-year-old Sophie is yet to understand.

Releasing the same year as the wonderful Everything Everywhere All at Once, another film that handles the relationship between a daughter and a parent, Aftersun handles the relationship in a much more natural manner, making use of the finer details of the film to provoke the issues facing the pair, and equally providing two of the years most natural performances from Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio. 

It is a simple film told in a relatively simple way, but one which is filled with layers of subtext that linger on the mind long after the credits have rolled. Frankly, given more time to cement its legacy, the debut feature of Charlotte Wells could find itself much higher on this list.

Aftersun is not only one of the greatest feature film debuts of all time, but could be one of the greatest films of all time.

9. North by Northwest (1959)

Let’s not kid ourselves, this spot is essentially a revolving door for Hitchcock projects, and though the likes of Psycho and Rear Window have not been chosen this go around they most certainly would be any other time. Right now, I do genuinely believe that North by Northwest is the great director’s most impressive achievement.

Coming years before the first James Bond film Dr. No (1962), North by Northwest is incredibly ahead of its time in regard to not only what would come in the form of the Bond series but how action cinema would evolve as a whole.

Cary Grant’s advertising executive Roger Thornhill is no secret agent, though after being thrust into a story of espionage and mistaken identity he proves that he has all the charm, wit and cunning that one would hope for. Given its immortal recognition as an early formulation of the James Bond-style film, Cary Grant more than lives up as an early iteration of that type of character. And of course, Hitchcock more than lives up to the Bond style with sex references and innuendos galore.

Most importantly, however, Hitchcock takes the action scenes needed to make a film of this magnitude work and crafts sequences that are impressive by today’s standards but simply revolutionary for the cinema of the 1950s, ultimately changing the way action movies would be created forever.

Recommended for you: Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films

The films that have been selected are, I believe, the peak of cinematic mastery. They span nearly the length of cinema’s existence, and are deliberately chosen to reflect a wide range of genres, countries, and times. One major reason for this is to force myself to list films that are not exclusively 1980s horror movies, which I could quite easily do. The second is because that list would be wrong, as although they could be peak horror, some would undoubtedly be worse than films outside the genre.

Therefore, for better or for worse, at the time of writing, listed from oldest to youngest and with no system of ranking, here are my picks for the 10 Best Films of All Time.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @KJudgeMental

10. La Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

It is impossible to understate how important this film was.

From the grandfather of special effects, Georges Méliès, come fifteen minutes of sheer adventure, adapting the Jules Verne novels “From the Earth to the Moon”, and “Around the Sun”, along with H. G. Wells’ “First Men on the Moon”, it is a film which pushed the limits of the medium, bringing thrills beyond the stars to the screen for all to see.

Hand-painted frame by frame to add a splash of colour, employing all of Méliès’ stage magic knowhow, it still has the power to captivate to this day, despite being created only seven years after the Lumiere brothers demonstrated their kinematograph at the 1895 December World Fair. The rocket splatting into the eye of the moon is an image almost everyone in the world has seen, despite rarely knowing where it comes from.

It is fun and joyous and, thanks to restoration work and new scores, able to keep its legacy going over 120 years later. Not a single cast or crew member from this film is alive today, yet A Trip to the Moon lives on.

9. Psycho (1960)

We could argue over Hitchcock’s best film for decades. Indeed, many have done, and we still never will agree. Vertigo famously dethroned Citizen Kane in Sight and Sound magazine as the best film ever in 2011, a title the Welles film had held for many decades. Yet Psycho takes my vote for numerous reasons.

Not only is its story iconic – the shower scene one of the greatest sequences in cinema history – and its production history something of legend, but it is supreme mastery of cinematic craftsmanship.

Every shot is glorious, every moment timed to perfection. Suspense is at an all-time high, mystery around every corner. Yet perhaps what is most startling is its efficiency, Hitchcock’s most underappreciated skill. If a scene required 50 cuts, he’d have it. If it required a simple shot/reverse shot with the most subtle of powerful, timed camera cuts to a tighter or a lower angle (see the dinner between Marion and Norman), he did it. It is an exercise in extreme precision, in efficiency of storytelling, and it cuts deeper than almost any other film.

Recommended for you: The Greatest Film Trailer of All Time? Psycho (1960)

In the 21st century, 23 films have thus far won the glamourous Oscar for Best Picture, each of which have gone on to become synonymous with film history; whether made for $3million or $300million, whether seen by millions of people worldwide or just a small handful in relative terms. This largely American-made and almost exclusively English-speaking collection of films has reflected to us – not only the English-speaking westerners amongst us, but the global film-watching populous that watches the Oscars in numbers that top out at one billion – our great fears, or deepest anxieties, and our most lofty ambitions, and has thus highlighted our collective abilities to empathise with the lives of others on a mass scale.

In this edition of Ranked, we here at The Film Magazine have looked back at every winner of the Best Picture Oscar from The Academy’s 23 21st century Oscar ceremonies to judge each in terms of quality first and foremost, but also longevity, relevance, popular consensus, critical appraisal and contextual importance, to see which of the films released 1999-2021 is the best and, first, which is the worst…

Follow @thefilmagazine on Twitter.

All films are listed in the year they were awarded (eg, CODA is listed as “2022”).

23. The King’s Speech – 2011

The other nominees: 127 Hours; Black Swan; The Fighter; Inception; The Kids Are All Right; The Social Network; Toy Story 3; True Grit; Winter’s Bone

It’s not easy being the ruler of so much as one third of all humanity…

The King’s Speech is like a fashion show of rotating period tropes that request you chuckle along at the absurdity of old fashioned sexism and outdated customs, nod as you recognise the name-dropping of Queen Elizabeth or the recreation of the old Wembley Stadium or the reading of the most obvious line of Shakespeare (“to be or not to be”). It’s a bland and uninspired mess that made it to the Best Picture finish line because it was backed by the awards season manipulators of the 90s and 00s, the Weinstein Company (yes, that Weinstein company).

Tom Hooper knows how to cast actors good enough to carry his acting-focused movies, but beyond period appropriate sets and costumes his films are as bland and unimaginative in all cinematic terms as can possibly be imagined, The King’s Speech being a never-ending barrage of British heritage references presented as if a stage show. Through the eyes of contemporary audiences, finding sympathy for an all-powerful ruler who has to tackle a speech impediment is nigh on impossible and would be laughable were it not for the film’s earnest approach. The sheer ignorance of this film’s final act being one framed as a triumph and celebration of perseverance is nothing short of insulting, the fact that King George VI sends an entire nation (and consequently the world) into World War II being framed as insignificant in comparison to the achievement of overcoming a stammer to speak on the radio.

Few films have felt so hopelessly out of touch and as evidently aimed at a privileged group of unknowing and uncaring people as this one, its Best Picture win speaking to the absurdity of the formulaic and frankly terrible “Oscar-worthy” formula of the day.

Recommended for you [Affiliate link]: Tom Hooper Tees, Cups & More | RedBubble

22. Crash – 2006

The other nominees: Brokeback Mountain; Capote; Good Night, and Good Luck; Munich

By reputation Crash is the worst Best Picture winner of all time, and it’s easy to see why…

Directed by Paul Haggis and starring an ensemble cast led by Don Cheadle (who also acted as producer), Crash suffers from the same issue as The King’s Speech in that it is aimed at a very select group of privileged people, the sort of liberal white folk that make up The Academy and, specifically to Crash, live in Los Angeles.

Set in California’s largest city – and the home of Hollywood let’s not forget – Crash cycles through everyday issues such as racism, violence, prejudice, police brutality, relationship drama, sexism, stereotyping, and so on, its ensemble cast adding gravitas to what are shallow and barely developed stories that interweave throughout its runtime. Crash is the archetypal Oscars “issues” movie in that it appears to be saying a lot without it actually saying much at all; it highlights issues whilst reinforcing the status quo.

To its credit, Crash moves at a quite rapid pace, and by modern standards it can be considered refreshing to see so many flawed characters (some would say that not a single character in this film is likeable), but a Film of the Year it is not, and a stain on the Oscars it remains.

21. Green Book – 2019

2019 Oscars Best Picture Nominees Ranked

The other nominees: Black Panther; BlackKklansman; Bohemian Rhapsody; The Favourite; Roma; A Star Is Born; Vice

Green Book is by no means a bad film from a technical perspective. It is photographed beautifully, with every shot being sublimely lit, graded and focused; the performances are each fantastic too, with Best Supporting Actor winner Mahershala Ali transformed and Viggo Mortensen trustily strong in the lead role; the period appropriate costuming, sets and music all functioning to create an immersive experience that highlights the best of the acting and photography. The issue is the message, and perhaps even more importantly the timing.

As Jacob Davis said in his article “Green Book’s Win Says More About the Academy Than Society“, “Society changes at a rapid pace in the social media age, yet The Academy is experiencing some kind of cultural lag”. As was the case with Crash and The King’s Speech, Green Book was precisely the kind of “message movie” that only the very select group of privileged white Academy members could associate with; issues of race and unity as told through the eyes of the white man.

In Green Book, racism is quite literally a thing that happened in the past, and as each racist stereotype is used to cause a small character quibble or is regurgitated for laughs with no thought as regards the possible wider impact that doing so may have on its audience or the volatile cultural conversation of the time, and the narrative focuses more and more on the lessons of its white lead, it becomes apparent that this Best Picture winner is an ignorant take on racism that seems to make the prehistoric suggestion that so long as a black man is able to provide outstanding service (in this case through music) he can be on the level of a lowly white criminal.

Fifty or more years earlier, Green Book may have been heralded as forward-thinking and interesting, but in a year of race-fuelled violence and cinema that directly tackled the issues of racism and promoted the values and inclusion of black people (BlackKklansman and Black Panther each being Best Picture nominees from black directors), Peter Farrelly and his almost all-white team of filmmakers centring a “based on true events” story about a noteworthy black artist on the white man who escorted him through the south seemed… out of touch.

Recommended for you: Green Book’s Verdant Views on Race Allow Inherent Contradiction

20. CODA – 2022

2022 Oscars Best Picture Nominees Ranked

The other nominees: Belfast; Don’t Look Up; Drive My Car; Dune; King Richard; Licorice Pizza; Nightmare Alley; The Power of the Dog; West Side Story

2022 Oscars Best Picture winner CODA wasn’t even close to being the film of the year. A glorified coming-of-age film complete with all the trappings of run-of-the-mill teen dramas, CODA was heavy on exposition and narrative/character conveniences but light on technical prowess. Its selection as the Best Picture of 2021 seemed like the choice of an academy looking to create an important moment, the crowning of its full-hearing crew proving to highlight how shallow that choice may have been.

Telling of a child of deaf adults (a CODA) played impressively by Emilia Jones, Sian Heder’s film no doubt had potential as a moderately discussed teen film that led with empathy and taught positive ethics, but a run at the Oscars seemed laughable upon its release on Apple TV+ in the summer of 2021 and its eventual win only seemed to come into view in the few weeks ahead of the final votes being cast.

The 2022 Oscars Best Picture race was a dirty one, and that’s important to recognise in relation to CODA’s victory. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza was heavily criticised for an apparently racially insensitive joke, seemingly putting the latest film from that particular Academy favourite out of contention, while Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story held similar potential for controversy having cast alleged abuser Ansel Elgort in the lead role. The Academy will no doubt be relieved to have kept King Richard from this award given the controversies surrounding Lead Actor winner Will Smith on the night, while early awards season favourite The Power of the Dog was seemingly met with the ire of more conservative Academy members, A Star is Born actor Sam Elliott among its most vocal critics at the start of 2022. Apple saw their opportunity to take advantage of a fractured race and put their financial clout and heavy sway with a number of academy members (courtesy of their investments across multiple studios regarding technology, share ownership and so on) to good use, ensuring that it was an Apple film that became the first ever direct-to-streaming Best Picture winner.

In the years to come it may be the case that CODA is looked back upon as an important Best Picture winner that opened doors for deaf talent to cross into the world’s most accessible visual realm, and it may even be considered warmly amongst the less inspired and more offensive choices in Oscars history, but a classic of the silver screen it is not nor shall ever be. CODA was a victor courtesy of circumstances and power plays, a Best Picture that doesn’t even come close to mirroring the quality of what is to come on this list.

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The post 21st Century Best Picture Oscar Winners Ranked first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]> https://www.thefilmagazine.com/21st-century-best-picture-oscar-winners-ranked/feed/ 0 26181 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/green-knight-uk-release-date-news/ https://www.thefilmagazine.com/green-knight-uk-release-date-news/#respond Sat, 04 Sep 2021 11:54:58 +0000 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/?p=29098 David Lowery medieval epic 'The Green Knight', from A24 and starring Dev Patel, has finally been given a UK release date. Find out when, and all you need to know, in this news story from George Taylor.

The post The Green Knight Finally Gets UK Release Date first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]> Fans who are hotly anticipating David Lowery’s delayed medieval epic, The Green Knight, can now breathe a collective sigh of relief as the upcoming film starring Dev Patel will release simultaneously in cinemas and on Amazon Prime Video on 24th September 2021.

The A24 film (The Witch, Minari), which was delayed in an announcement back in July just weeks from its proposed 6th August release date due to growing concerns regarding the pandemic, will be distributed by both Amazon and their ‘Lord of the Rings’ TV series partners Entertainment Film. According to Variety, Amazon and A24 have been in discussions for most of the past month, with A24 being keen to ensure a theatrical release in the United Kingdom.

In The Green Knight, Dev Patel (The Personal History of David Copperfield) stars as Gawain, the reckless nephew of King Arthur, who embarks on an epic quest to find the mythical Green Knight in order to prove his worth. Helmed by David Lowery, the acclaimed director of the philosophical A Ghost Story and the more commercially friendly Pete’s Dragon, The Green Knight is expected to mix large scope with an introspective plot.

This release strategy seems beneficial for all parties, with producers and distributors each getting their own benefits from the theatrical/streaming co-release strategy and audiences being afforded the choice to watch The Green Knight on the big screen or from home.

In North America, The Green Knight out-performed expectations in its opening weekend, earning $6.8million against a projected $4million, debuting at number 2 in the box office charts behind Disney family blockbuster Jungle Cruise. As of writing, The Green Knight sits at a worldwide gross of $17.3million from a production budget thought to be around $15million.

The post The Green Knight Finally Gets UK Release Date first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]> https://www.thefilmagazine.com/green-knight-uk-release-date-news/feed/ 0 29098 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/cgi-vs-animatronics/ https://www.thefilmagazine.com/cgi-vs-animatronics/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:49:39 +0000 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/?p=22056 In 2020, the debate surrounding the use of CGI versus the use of Animatronics is more divisive than ever. o which is better? Louis B Scheuer explores.

The post CGI Vs Animatronics first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]>  

CGI is often best when it goes unnoticed. Like the seams on a dress, it can hold films together whilst being completely invisible. Whether it’s touching up a mansion, filling out a crowd, or altering eye colours, computer graphics allow filmmakers to defer all those nasty fiddly bits to post-production. It’s often cheaper, and always less stressful than getting everything right on the day; in theory, it allows a director to focus more on that which they really want to get right the first time around. And even if those things don’t go to plan, CGI may still step in to save the day. There remains, however, a school of thought unflinchingly loyal to animatronics. These lifelike robots were used extensively in cinema before the rise of digital effects, and maintain a passionate following today. Many of Hollywood’s most memorable monsters were created using complex and expensive contraptions, and some of them continue to captivate audiences.

Even a hardened animatronics acolyte wouldn’t suggest that CGI be replaced with robots in every circumstance though; for this particular epic battle between these two adversaries must be judged on equal footing. Fortunately, there is one area in which both techniques may excel, or fail catastrophically. It’s what you really watch out for in a movie, really scrutinise, because you know it isn’t real. It’s blood and guts and horrible monsters, of course.

Much-beloved New Zealander Peter Jackson is an ideal first case study. For many, he is the industry’s biggest CGI casualty; in contrast to recent years, his early splatstick efforts employ models, puppets, stop-motion and animatronics to achieve their memorable comic-book gore. The stop-motion and puppetry are often unconvincing despite the charm, but the animatronics, such as the zombies from Braindead (1992), hold up exceptionally well. During one bloodbath a man has the skin of his face torn off – a well-timed cut replaces the actor with a convincing model, his face-muscles revealed as it writhes with pain. The shadows are on point, because the shadows are real. The blood glistens as it should, because the blood is real – real stage blood, that is.

This excellent animatronic legacy makes Jackson’s descent into digital effects yet sadder; he’s even been compared to George Lucas for his overenthusiastic lauding of CGI. Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, said that “whatever was subtle, in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third”, ruminating that “Peter became like Ridley Scott – this one-man industry now, with all these people depending on him”. It’s as if the two men saw two different movies, and Jackson now wishes that LOTR had utilised more CGI, not less.

Most who did love LOTR still had issues with Jackson’s The Hobbit adaptation, and not only for its strange elf-elf-dwarf love triangle. Many of its CGI creatures lacked presence, failing to ignite the fear that a good monster should. Similar criticism is leveled at the aforementioned Ridley Scott, whose use of CGI gets increasingly grandiose as the quality of his plots dwindle. Meanwhile, George Lucas is lampooned for his remasters of the original Star Wars films in which digital creatures trundle about in the background, sticking out like a sore thumb.

The Hobbit (2012)

These criticisms have been widespread, and often much less polite than Mortensen’s. In the face of such disapproval, it’s interesting that so many masters have abandoned practical effects for their digital counterpart. What has led to this ongoing misuse of effects? And, does it really tell us that animatronics are king, or is there something else going on?

It’s worth mentioning that Jackson, Scott, and Lucas are fairly veteran examples. After so many decades in the business, these men may be a little sick of playing with models; they’re fiddly and expensive, require multiple experts, and add a lot of stress to photography when compared with CGI, which is largely deferred to post-production and whose mistakes can be relatively easily corrected. A world-weary director may have trouble mustering up the passion required for models when they already did it the first time around. That said, one hopes things haven’t gotten so dire in Hollywood that there are no artistic reasons behind the abandoning of practical effects.

Alien (1979) features one of animatronics’ greatest successes. The Giger-designed xenomorph, models for which included a robotic head with over 900 moving parts, looks fresh and realistic even by today’s standards. It’s shiny, bathed in shadows, and the acid glistens from its jowls. But Alien is not without its pitfalls, one example being the baby xenomorph during the infamous chest-bursting scene. It scuttles away as if pulled along by a string, and without the complexity of its fully-grown counterpart the model looks mechanical and comical. The film’s effects are generally a triumph, but there remains the odd moment where better technology could have saved the day.

Recommended for you: Designing Nightmares – H.R. Giger and ‘Alien’

With this in mind, a strength of Scott’s – despite the mixed reception of his recent efforts – is his continued use of animatronics alongside computer-generated effects. Alien Covenant (2017) employs another impressive xenomorph head, but liberally uses CGI to fill in the cracks. The result is effective in parts, but disappoints in a similar way to the original: in Covenant, the baby xenomorph (or whatever its bizarre Covenant equivalent is called) has not been saved by digital effects. Rather than quickly glimpsing a dubious model, Covenant allows us full view of the creature, now computer-generated, from multiple angles. Squirming and ricocheting about like something out of The Mask (1994), the absurd critter jeopardises the viewer’s immersion. It’s doubtful that Scott would have dared such drawn-out shots of the monster had he not had CGI at his fingertips; could CGI’s greatest crime be how it oversteps its remit in this regard? Does it affect the plot and pacing of a film because directors incorrectly assume that it can do anything?

Mortensen had insights on this subject as well, saying of Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones (2009):

“I was sure he would do another intimately scaled film like Heavenly Creatures, maybe with this project about New Zealanders in the First World War he wanted to make. But then he did King Kong. And then he did The Lovely Bones – and I thought that would be his smaller movie. But the problem is, he did it on a $90 million budget. That should have been a $15 million movie.”

This comparison of the humble Heavenly Creatures to the elaborate Lovely Bones is transferable to the Alien franchise. The original Alien was an intimate horror-thriller with a single monster, often seen in low-light. The very occasional dated effect is forgiven by the fact that it is, undoubtedly, a masterpiece of cinema. Scott’s recent Alien movies are huge, yet pack a fraction of the original’s punch. The same could be said of The Hobbit with its vast amount of unnecessary CGI sequences, most of which do not appear in the book. It begs the question whether, rather than facilitating directors to produce plots on a grander scale, CGI has encouraged it, often with dire results.

Probably the best example of this CGI-led silliness is The Thing. Like Alien, John Carpenter’s original 1982 horror featured a small cast being tormented by one monster in a confined location, in this case an arctic research station. The villain has no form of its own, but ‘absorbs’ into other living creatures and mimics them. Viewers are kept on the edges of their seats, wondering which character is going to burst into a mass of spindly legs and pulsating tentacles.

The Thing (1982)

The Thing’s animatronics are themselves a talking point. Despite the waxing and waning of their realism, the creations are so grotesque, and the real-life models have such presence, that the special effects become more than just a way to represent a monster; they are a novelty of the film, a reason to go see it. It’s hard to forget the scene of one man’s severed head crawling on spider legs from under a table; the insect-like movement of the electronics, the glistening surface of the model, are so animatronic, but a suspension of disbelief, helped along by some fantastic performances, makes The Thing (1982) damn scary.

It’s a different story with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr’s 2011 prequel of the same name. In the first five minutes a vehicle falls deep into the ice amidst a whirling mass of CGI. The events depicted are already too spectacular to be scary, and although that may be a criticism of the writing, it’s apparent that a smaller effects budget could have encouraged a more subdued and appropriate opening.

The thing itself is discovered frozen into a block of ice, but the tension of it slowly thawing out is dashed when the creature suddenly bursts from its icy prison and disappears into the ceiling. It is very digital. Creating such gravity-defying effects with animatronics would have been so difficult that a director may have resigned themselves to cleverer angles, dimmer lighting, or just a less corny entrance from the antagonist. We see more of the creature later, but nothing as memorable as its predecessor. It’s a shame that The Thing (2011) is so saturated with digital effects in plain sight, and even more tragic that they replace a number of animatronics designed by the crew which presumably weren’t working well.

The Thing (2011)

Interestingly, younger directors with big enough budgets are still embracing animatronics. J.J. Abrams, who began making movies in the late 90s, uses a mixture of practical and digital effects throughout Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and it shows. He wished to “go backwards to go forwards”, opting for real droid models over CGI effects to emulate the feel of the original films. Whatever one thinks of his Star Wars effort, he had the passion and money needed to surpass the Star Wars prequels in terms of realism, and in fact many other science-fiction films besides. It’s in stark contrast to Lucas’ remasters, which suggest an abundance of money but a scarcity of passion.

Recommended for you: Star Wars Live-Action Movies Ranked

Whilst emphasising CGI’s widespread uses throughout cinema, it’s certainly tempting to side with animatronics when it comes to monsters and gore. Before concluding, however, it’s worth cleaning up some of the insults thrown at CGI, and some of the praise showered upon animatronics.

It’s true that digital effects from as recent as last week can look dated, but this is not a new phenomenon. Since the dawn of cinema thousands of B-movies have been lost to the annals of time, many with laughably diabolical effects. To suggest that all 70s sci-fi had the finesse of Alien, or all 80s horrors the impact of The Thing, would be absurd. Masterpieces aside, movie monsters have always had a hard time of convincing their audiences.

It must also be considered how much nostalgia plays a part: CGI hasn’t had as much time to build up the goodwill that animatronics has enjoyed. And despite that, Playstation 1 graphics already give millenials that fuzzy warm feeling of a bygone age. Perhaps many digital effects look poor merely because they’re new, and so we assume that they should be better. It’s hard to tell which of today’s effects will stand up in decades to come, or at least be lent a modicum of charm through their ageing.

CGI is also now invaluable for ‘fixing’ footage of animatronics, or even replacing them entirely when things go wrong. Us viewers don’t know what The Thing (2011) looked like before its models were abandoned, but it may be safe to assume that they were every bit as immersion-breaking as the effects eventually settled upon. Although animatronics have a legacy of memorable gems, cinema is more ambitious now than ever, and perhaps CGI’s encouragement of bigger projects should be welcomed. As stated, many of our favourite digital effects are unnoticeable. Dare we guess what some of our recent animatronics may have looked like without digital intervention?

CGI is largely the way forward. Computer graphics are still in their infancy, and already have some great films under their belt. Animatronics deserve their cult following, but they’re largely an old and innocent tradition being viewed through a rose-tinted lens. Neither form of effect should be abandoned, but in our world of digital media CGI is probably going to be the default choice for most filmmakers, with animatronics being used where the director possesses enough expertise, passion, money, and time.

Computer technology is going in directions that we cannot possibly imagine. It can be remastered if the original effort is poor, and is far from soulless when done well. It has had its fair share of embarrassing moments, and it’s evident that many directors think it’s much better than it is. This overuse can, ultimately, ruin some potentially incredible scenes, and some potentially incredible films. But let’s not blame poor directorial choices on CGI alone: if animatronics are outside of your budget, or simply just not your thing, digital effects are your friend. And, if you are aware of the limits of digital effects, and are an able director who will not get carried away with a relatively primitive technology, then CGI is the way. As incredible as models can be, they must, in most cases, step aside for the winner. But whatever technique a filmmaker prefers, one important lesson shines through: do not let special effects run the show.

Written by Louis B Scheuer

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The post CGI Vs Animatronics first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]> https://www.thefilmagazine.com/cgi-vs-animatronics/feed/ 1 22056 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-and-the-hobbit-movies-ranked/ https://www.thefilmagazine.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-and-the-hobbit-movies-ranked/#comments Wed, 29 May 2019 13:37:38 +0000 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/?p=14054 Each of Peter Jackson's 6 J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations, from both the 'Lord of the Rings' and 'The Hobbit' movie trilogies, ranked from worst to best by Esther Doyle.

The post The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Movies Ranked first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]> For close to 20 years, the Lord of the Rings film series has been an important part of many a fantasy film enthusiast’s life, the recent release of the appropriately titled J. R. R. Tolkien biopic Tolkien and the in-development mega-bucks series at Amazon owing to our ongoing thirst for all things Middle Earth. But which film is the best of the now 6-movie-long series and which is the worst? In this edition of Ranked, we’ll be mixing subjective opinion with the facts and figures of this close to $6billion franchise to judge each entry from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy side by side, ranking each of them from worst to best.

Have an opinion? Make sure to leave a comment!

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6. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Gross USA: $255,119,788
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $956,019,788
1 Academy Award Nomination
1 BAFTA Award Nomination

The best part of this film was the battle with Smaug.

The previous film had concluded on quite the dramatic moment with the dragon about to wreak destruction on the defenceless Lake-town, and The Battle of the Five Armies brilliantly jumps straight back into the action. There’s fire, there’s destruction, people are dying and the audience is gripped with anxiety for Bard and his sickeningly sweet children.

Bard defeats Smaug, his children survive, and the rest of the villagers who avoided peril all go and meet on the nearby shore. It’s all down hill from there…

We are given a few dramatic moments that we are supposed to care about, but there aren’t strong enough foundations built for us to be particularly moved. Tauriel barely knew Kili, how can she claim to have loved him? Why did the Elves suddenly decide to help the Dwarves for no apparent reason? It is generally a film with poor storytelling and a dependence on expensive CGI to make up for it.

Other than the opening battle, the most popular moments were those that referenced the predeceasing trilogy, such as Galadriel’s encounter with Sauron and Thranduil telling Legolas to seek out Aragorn.

Legolas running up falling boulders was pretty sick too!

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5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Gross USA: $258,366,855
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $960,366,855
3 Academy Award Nominations
2 BAFTA Award Nominations

For anyone who had read the book at a younger age, it was so exciting to see so many scenes taken directly from the book in this film – the Spiders were just as scary as when we’d read about them years ago and Beorn was just as mysterious and intimidating. This made the film so much more enjoyable for nostalgic reasons, especially comparing it to The Battle of the Five Armies which contains a lot of made up moments that didn’t take place in the book.

The accomplishment in animating Smaug blew away many who’d approached the CG-heavy prequels with a critical eye. Special effects progress so fast that it’s easy to forget how making Smaug talk was a major feat, especially since the dragon was what people were anticipating most about this film. In this respect, The Desolation of Smaug absolutely delivered! The mouth movements of the dragon matched up with what he was saying so perfectly without looking silly, which we all know is far more impressive than a CGI tiger.

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4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Gross USA: $303,003,568
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $1,021,103,568
3 Academy Award Nominations
3 BAFTA Award Nominations

There were a lot of immediate reactions to this film which criticised it for being a little messy and full of unrelated content. Although many criticised The Battle of the Five Armies for similar reasons, An Unexpected Journey had a different purpose to the last film in the trilogy. After an almost ten year gap since The Lord Of The Rings ended, An Unexpected Journey is our first dip back into Middle Earth; it has to set the scene and starts the story.

The Hobbit Trilogy may have been about one film too long, but this is an opinion only forged in retrospect. In this first instalment, it was exciting to see things like the rock giants fighting in the mountains and Radagast with his woodland pals being intimidated by the Spiders. It felt like a promise for all the goodness that was yet to come, it’s just a shame that the promise was not fulfilled.

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The post The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Movies Ranked first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]> https://www.thefilmagazine.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-and-the-hobbit-movies-ranked/feed/ 1 14054 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/how-to-make-a-good-book-to-movie-adaptation/ https://www.thefilmagazine.com/how-to-make-a-good-book-to-movie-adaptation/#respond Wed, 11 Jul 2018 15:06:09 +0000 https://www.thefilmagazine.com/?p=10262 Beth Sawdon offers advice on how to make a good book-to-film adaptation, taking lessons from the good and often downright ugly adaptations of the past in this special feature.

The post How To Make A Good Book-to-Movie Adaptation first appeared on The Film Magazine.]]> This article was provided to The Film Magazine for exclusive use by Beth Sawdon of flipendofilms.

Some of the greatest films of all time started their lives as scripts, ideas on a mind-map, a bullet point in a coffee-stained notebook. But, some films were born in novels. Novels written on train journeys bit by bit, or even slaved at for weeks at a typewriter. These books and stories we hold dear have been adapted for our visual pleasure onto the big screen, though it remains common knowledge that some adaptations are more successful than others.

Why is that? Surely a book-to-film adaptation simply involves reading the source material and recreating what’s on paper?

Ha! If it were that easy, the 1991 adaptation of Stephen King’s IT wouldn’t have been the utter sham that it was.

There is much more to our favourite adaptations than meets the eye, so I have taken it upon myself to compile a list of factors to consider when creating a book-to-film adaptation that we can collectively acknowledge as being good, or at least as good as a literary adaptation can be in the relatively short medium of film.

1. Honour the Source Material

The original work is the main source of information when recreating an already successful novel into a film. It is essential that the narrative of an adaptation follows the original work as closely as possible, yet isn’t drawn out too much. With this in mind, it is important to consider the best route of recreation – is it possible to work it into one film, or will it be a series?

The Lord of the Rings series was split into three films, just like the books, and to great critical and commercial success. The following story of The Hobbit was also split into three films despite being inspired by a singular novel, and was done so to a more mixed reception. Some may consider this a money-making tactic, but the length and depth of Tolkien’s novel arguably required a detailed trilogy.

Regardless of the number of films needed to re-imagine a novel, the key events must be included for the film to ring true to the book. The plot must flow as smoothly as that in the book does in order for the adaptation to be a success. Descriptions of settings, characters and events must also be correctly interpreted and brought to life to appeal to both the book and film audiences – this is particularly important with fantasy novels, where readers have spent time imagining the worlds and characters described to them on paper. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone perfectly recreated the scene in which the first years arrive at Hogwarts, for example. Prior to the 2001 film’s release, fans had been making their own minds up for four years on how Hogwarts would look, and how it would feel to see it in real life. The movie didn’t disappoint, birthing a memorable and powerful moment for fans if not cinema as a whole.

2. Work With the Author (If Possible)

Once the original work has been read, it is vital to think about and work with the author. After all, they created the story and should therefore at least be a part of it’s adaptation. In fact, many authors may have already considered a film adaptation following the success of the book!

When it comes to casting, direction, design and other varying aspects of film production, the author being at the heart of it all can be a huge asset; assisting in the transformation of their ideas and offering tidbits of inspiration or knowledge that may otherwise be missing.

After becoming engrossed in The Shining, Stanley Kubrick approached Stephen King with his mind already full of visualisations for his impressive novel. Before landing on Jack Nicholson to play the lead role, King disapproved of Kubrick’s other choices of Robert De Niro, Robin Williams and Harrison Ford. Without Stephen King’s input, we could have had funnyman Robin Williams shouting “here’s Johnny!” through a crack in a door; an image I’m sure you won’t soon forget!

Although the film was a great success, King still wasn’t satisfied with Kubrick’s choice however, as in the novel, Jack Torrance slowly becomes more and more paranoid, detached and unhinged; whereas King believed that Nicholson’s portrayal was borderline psychotic from the start. Although it is important to please and entertain an audience with a film adaptation, it is vital to listen to the author when making their dream a reality, for even in the case of a great adaptation like The Shining, there remains a missing link and the feeling of unlocked potential that could have brought about something altogether greater.

Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980)

3. Consider the Future

If the film adaptation is going to be based on a series of books, it is important to consider the changes that may need to happen with later films. Do the books gradually get darker as the story unfolds? Do characters or settings change? Will the audience change? If so, the crew and/or cast may need changing or updating too. Take the Harry Potter series for example; seven books were reimagined into eight films by four different directors, each of whom brought their own individual talents and stylistic trademarks into the expanding Harry Potter universe. Chris Columbus directed the first two films, followed by Alfonso Cuarón who showed audiences how much darker the story was about to become via his work in the third movie. Mike Newell directed number four, and David Yates covered the final four films in the franchise, including the darkest of all eight films. Various cast members also needed to be changed or added as time went on and personal circumstances arose, yet the story still flows through all eight films to a level of success rivalled by very few film series whether they be adaptations or originals. Perhaps most importantly, the series’ shift from children’s movie director Chris Columbus – known for Home Alone 1 & 2 – to the director of Children of Men in Cuarón and then David Yates, a filmmaker known for his work on the adult-themed political thriller ‘State of Play’, worked towards accommodating an audience that was growing older, shifting tone from children’s movies to a series of films for young adults.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011)

4. Listen to the Fans

One of the main things to consider when creating a book-to-film adaptation is the existing fan base. After all, these are people who may know the source material inside out and have a huge passion for it, so they’re at least going to be the movie’s core audience.

Online forums and blogs are flooded daily with fans expressing their wishes for future film adaptations and content they’d love to see on the big screen. Many film crews now will have people involved in the production who are already die hard fans. A recent example of this is director J.J. Abrams’ involvement in the new Star Wars films, whose love and passion for the original trilogy has fuelled his ideas for the new stories. In 2015, Jim Miller from Lionsgate was quoted as saying, “loyalty to the source material is the most important thing” and “to diverge from what made them popular would be a huge mistake”.

It’s not quite a book-to-film adaptation in the traditional sense, but Deadpool is a great example of a film that needed a push from this original material die hard fanbase for it to get the green light from production companies. After years of being in development, Fox finally approved the production of Deadpool after fans began raving about some well-timed leaked footage of director Tim Miller and Ryan Reynolds. After Deadpool’s appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), which was derided by many fans, both Miller and Reynolds wanted to give the character justice and create a better portrayal of the character which was closer to the 1990’s comic books. Deadpool has now become one of Marvel’s most successful film franchises and has raked in more than double the money of X-Men Origins for studio 20th Century Fox.

5. Only Make It If You Know What You’re Getting Into

One of the biggest mistakes that can be made when creating a film adaptation is simply trying too hard. A successful adaptation requires dedicated time, effort and passion; not considering the whole material and just wanting to make a film out of it will likely lead to failure.

During the development and production of A Series of Unfortunate Events, some crew members left the team and the director was replaced, bringing in a new person at the helm who was not familiar with the classic series of books. Apparently he quickly read the first three novels, despite the series containing thirteen books, and was excited to get started; yet the final film contained little of what was written in the novels, and events from all three were mixed up and didn’t make much sense to those who had given their time to the books. The author Daniel Handler, who goes by the alter-ego Lemony Snicket, had written eight drafts of the script for the original director, but was replaced by screenwriter Robert Gordon and decided not to take credit for the screenwriting of the film. Although Handler approved of the changes to his screenplay, he was disappointed that his work was not used after he’d spent so much time on it. A Series of Unfortunate Events is a fine film, yet it doesn’t ring true with the original novels.

The film is not an adaptation, it’s more “loosely based on Handler’s stories”. In 2017 however, a Netflix series of the same name was released, and was developed by the film’s original director Barry Sonnenfeld and author Daniel Handler. The series currently spans over two seasons and eighteen episodes which covers books one to nine, and with a third series in the pipeline to cover the last four books, this adaptation is looking much more dedicated than the film. It is already clear that so much more time, effort and love has gone into this adaptation, and my previous statement on how important it is to include the author in production is so relevant to this work.

Neil Patrick Harris (left) and Jim Carrey (right) in various A Series of Unfortunate Events adaptations.

Being able to see a world on the big screen that you believed to only exist in your mind is so wondrous, and brings not only the author’s imagination to life, but your own. Here are just a few of my favourite book-to-film adaptations, what are yours?

The Shining (1980)
Submarine (2010)
IT (2017)
The Lovely Bones (2009)
Trainspotting (1996)
Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961)

Written by Beth Sawdon

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