You cannot pass.

Stand out.

I am servant of the Secret Fire.

Wielder of the flame of Arnor.

The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Ulung.

Go back to the shadow.

You shall not pass.

Family, you fool.

In a world overflowing with movies, we need a hero.

Someone to separate the bad from the good.

Hi everyone, I'm Em and welcome to verbal diorama, episode 298, the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy.

Maybe you know and maybe you don't.

That is never late Frodo Baggins, nor is she early.

She arrives precisely when she means to welcome to Verbal Diorama.

Whether you're a brand new listener to this podcast, welcome back regular returning listeners.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast.

I am so happy to have you here for the history and Legacy of the Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring this is a bit of a momentous occasion.

This is the first of a three part special trilogy of episodes that's going to be making us web to the 300th episode of this podcast.

But just a huge thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast who supports this podcast and has continued to listen to and support this podcast over the last six years and almost 300 episodes.

It genuinely is incredible really that I have you here, but also thank you so much for your support because it genuinely means so much.

So here we are, the run up to the 300th episode of Verbal Diorama.

This is basically the second of a five part episode on the history and legacy of the Lord of the Rings, focusing on Peter Jackson's trilogy but then sandwiched between two animated versions, Rath Bakshi's the Lord of the Rings from 1978, which was last episode, and 2024's the Lord of the Rings the War of the Rohirrin, which will be episode 301 of this podcast.

Now if you haven't listened to the last episode on the Lord of the rings from 1978, you technically don't need to.

But I would recommend it even if you haven't seen that movie because Tolkien's history as well as his estate's control of the material is important to know for Jackson's movies as well as Saul's ain't linked to the rights as I'm going to come to the estate didn't have anything to do with these adaptations by Peter Jackson, but Saul Zainz is a key figure so this is technically the second of a five part complete story, but the first of three interconnected stories.

And because Peter Jackson filmed these movies back to back, I want to split out the making of them all covered across the three episodes, but also talk about the trilogy as a whole across the three episodes.

And if you're wondering why, I guess it's because one does not simply walk into Mordor.

It takes time, planning a team.

I don't have a team.

I have Evie and Peggy on hand, Therp cuddles and Purrs, and maybe at the end Gandalf will have to summon the eagles for a quick rescue.

Because this is kind of unprecedented what I'm doing for these episodes.

This episode will be focusing on the beginning of Peter Jackson's vision for the series, his dealings with Miramax, the move to New Line Cinema, the various changes that they made to the source material, and specifics on the Fellowship of the Ring, including the casting choices for the entire series.

And I also want to focus in this episode on the incredible costume design for the series as well.

The next episode will be focusing on the Two Towers, the Battle of Helm's Deep, and the introduction of and technology surrounding Gollum, as well as I also want to go into the production and art design choices for the entire series.

The third episode and the 300th episode of this podcast will be focusing on the Return of the King, but also the visual effects by Weta Workshop, the music across all of the movies by Howard Shaw, how the Return of the King became one of the biggest Academy Award winning films of all time, as well as the everlasting legacy of these movies, specifically from fan culture to setting a precedent that Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy then had to follow.

The final episode, episode 301, will be on the recent anime the War of the Rahirim, but also the effect the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit has had on New Zealand's tourism and film industries, plus also the retaining of the rights to the Lord of the Rings and also the future of the franchise as well.

Now, in all honesty, as I said, this is kind of unprecedented how I'm tackling these three movies, because these three movies were not made to be tackled individually.

They are three parts of a complete story and they were filmed back to back.

So a lot of the production stories and the stories behind the scenes actually cover all three movies.

So I don't even know if this is even gonna work in the way I intend it to work.

But just like Peter Jackson, I'm gonna Do it anyway.

He did three movies shot simultaneously out of sequence.

But I'm gonna do three episodes recorded in sequence but containing details from the simultaneous shoot.

So these episodes will tell each story but also one big story suitable for the One Ring.

I do feel a little bit like Sauron's eye is trained on me and this does feel like a bit of a quest in all honesty.

But I am going to reach the end of the quest and hopefully I've not bitten off more second breakfast than I can chew.

Here's the trailer for the Lord of the Rings.

The Fellowship of the Ring.

The start of the number one trilogy.

In the lands of Middle Earth legend tells of the dark Lord Sauron and the ring that would give him the power to enslave the world lost.

For centuries it has been sought by many and has now found its way into the helm of the most unlikely person imaginable.

Sauron needs only this ring to cover all the lands in darkness.

What must I do?

The Ring must be destroyed.

The Ring must be cast back into the fires of Mount Doom.

There is evil there that does not sleep.

Sauron's forces are already moving.

They will find the Ring and kill the one who carries it.

Come on, Frodo.

I cannot do this alone.

You have my sword.

And you have my bow and my axe.

This task was appointed to you.

And if you do not find a way, no one will.

The enemy has many spies.

Birds, beasts.

Something draws near.

I can feel it.

Get off the road.

Hide.

Almost.

Remember, Frodo.

The Ring is trying to get back to its master.

It wants to be found.

Let us hope that our presence may go unnoticed.

They are coming.

We must turn back.

Wish the ring had never come to me.

Back, you devils.

I wish none of this had happened.

You will find your courage.

If you want him, come and claim him.

You shall not pass.

The future rests in the fate of the One Ring which has been lost for centuries.

Powerful forces are unrelenting in their search for it but fate has placed it in the hands of a young hobbit called Frodo Baggins who inherits the Ring and unwittingly becomes the savior of Middle Earth.

A daunting task lies ahead for Frodo when he becomes the Ring bearer.

To destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom where it was forged.

He's joined by eight companions to aid him in his quest.

They are the Fellowship of the Ring.

Let's run through the cast of this movie and most of the movies going forward but we'll focus primarily on the cast of this movie we have Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee, Sean Bean as Boromir, Billy Boyd as Peregrine Took, Dominic Monaghan as Mary Adot Brandybuck, John Rhys Davis as Gimli, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Liv Tyler as Arwen, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Christopher Lee as Saruman the White, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins and Andy Serkis as Gollum.

The Lord of the the Fellowship of the Ring has a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson was directed by Peter Jackson and was based on the Fellowship of The Ring by J.R.R.

tolkien.

And the story of the Lord of the Rings starts as all good stories should, with Michael J.

Fox.

Sort of, but not really.

But before Peter Jackson was the Peter Jackson of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he was Peter Jackson.

Risky weird horror director, but one of his most underrated movies actually came about in 1996 and I've done an episode on it too.

It is a wonderful movie.

It's episode 103 of this podcast that movie stars Michael J.

Fox and it is the Frighteners.

How does the Frighteners have anything to do with the Lord of the Rings?

Well, apart from a couple of scary scenes, not much.

But it's really a story of what's going on behind the scenes of the Frighteners.

That's important because pretty much everything in the Frighteners is a precursor to what Peter Jackson would do next.

Everything from the balance between practical effects and CGI to the New Zealand based production and the fact that Universal offered Peter Jackson the opportunity to make King Kong led to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Spoiler.

He didn't make King Kong next after all, but he would go on to make King Kong after these movies.

The creation of Weta Digital for Jackson's movie Heavenly Creatures would be pivotal to the story too.

After the Frighteners, Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh wanted to do something high fantasy and original.

Original being the operative word.

But everything they thought of sounded very Tolkien.

And Jackson wondered why Hollywood just didn't want to seem to touch the Lord of the rings since Ralph Bakshi's version in 1978, which, as I mentioned last episode, Jackson saw as a child and it made him curious to read the books and find out more.

Even with Bakshi's ambitious attempt at a rotoscoped Version no one in Hollywood seemed to want to talk about the idea of making it fully live action.

It seemed to be outside of the realm of possibility and also expense.

As CGI technology began developing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were renewed considerations about whether a live action adaptation might finally be feasible.

However, the technology was still deemed insufficient or too expensive for the massive scale required.

Jackson also is seemingly an unlikely choice for this long awaited adaptation.

He was primarily known as a low budget, visceral horror comedy director and he wanted to take on a movie deemed unfilmable, especially in live action.

Question mark Jackson was contracted to Miramax Films at the time, but via the go to Miramax, Jackson's agent tracked down the Tolkien film rights to Saul Zaintz.

And it turned out that Zainz owed Harvey Weinstein a favorite and it was all down to the English patient.

20th Century Fox had originally agreed to finance the English Patient with Jeremy Irons and Juliet Binoche, but withdrew that financing when director Anthony Minguela insisted on casting Ralph Fiennes instead.

This left Sainz in a difficult financial position.

Halfway through filming in Italy and North Africa, they ran out of money.

This is when Weinstein and Miramax entered the picture, providing approximately $6 million to complete the English Patient.

In exchange, Miramax acquired the North American distribution rights.

The English Patient went on to become a critical and commercial success, winning nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1997.

The film ultimately grossed over $230 million worldwide against its $27 million budget and Saul Zainz was then indebted to Harvey Weinstein.

So when Jackson went to Weinstein inquiring about the rights to the Lord of the Rings, Weinstein went to Saints and optioned the rights to Tolkien's work, with Jackson pitching one film based on the Hobbit and a two part adaptation of the Lord of the Rings shot back to back, released six months apart, it was an unprecedented level of ambition.

And this was in the mid-90s, years before anything concrete, just preliminary talks.

But Saul Zaynt was impressed with Jackson's passion and like Ralph Bakshi before him, Jackson was all about keeping it true to Tolkien's vision.

While the distribution rights of the Hobbit remained with United Artists, Sainz agreed to license the rights to the Lord of the Rings eventually.

It took a while, basically a year of negotiations between Saints and the Weinsteins.

It took for Jackson to agree to make King Kong with Universal, only for them to then cancel King Kong in 1997.

It was after the sudden cancellation by Universal.

That pushed Jackson and Walsh into beginning the process of sorting out the rights with Weinstein, which then took a further six weeks.

Miramax rejected the idea of three films, but acquiesced to the idea of two when they realized that doing it in one would be unmanageable.

A screening of Bakshi's version at a story conference put this into perspective.

No one wanted to be getting to the Battle of Helm's Deep and then stopping the story again.

Jax's initial idea was for two films.

The first would be called the Fellowship of the Ring, which would cover the novel of that name and the Two Towers.

And then the sequel would be the War of the Ring, which would cover the Return of the King.

The first film would have ended with Saruman's death and the second would start with the Battle at Minas Tirith.

The Weinsteins agreed on two films and a budget of $75 million total, which seems pretty ludicrous for what they were trying to achieve.

But financial issues will be forthcoming at this point.

The Weinsteins are keen to Americanize the cast.

But Harvey Weinstein, being the absolute worst that he is and always will be and was at this point was already blacklisting actresses who refused to sleep with him.

So while Jackson was interested in casting Mira Salvino and Ashley Judd, Weinstein dissuaded him from considering them.

No one knew at the time both Silvino and Judd had been sexually harassed by Weinstein.

And of course it would take decades for that revelation and the myriad of others to come to light.

Writing the scripts and condensing Tolkien's extensive story into two films would be a task.

And in mid-1997, Jackson and Walsh began writing with Stephen Sinclair.

And Sinclair's partner, Philippa Boyens joined them to write two scripts in 14 months of 147 and 144 pages respectively.

At the same time, Weta Digital were working on developing new proprietary software and conceptually designed the films, including buying designs from Rav Bakshi.

Jackson and Miramax agreed to a 110 day filming schedule.

Jackson had already built film facilities in Wellington through his company, Weta Workshop.

This gave them a base of operations with existing technical capabilities for a shoot beginning in April 1999 for a Christmas 2000 and Memorial Day 2001 release.

But the budget was beginning to worry Miramax, who asked for cost cutting rewrites.

They sent producers to New Zealand to oversee the work.

One of them, Marty Katz, reported back that the movies would cost Double that initial $75 million.

Budget, and Miramax just didn't have the funds for that.

So Miramax went to Disney chairman Joe Roth and CEO Michael Eisner to light the beacons and request budgetary aid for the Lord of the Rings.

Eisner himself had recently demanded Disney cut its own costs, and so the parent company declined to help.

Eisner would say it was due to Weinstein refusing to allow him to review the project or meet with Jackson.

Fran Walsh would suggest it was due to a lack of faith in the project, specifically in Peter Jackson's ability to make something that was a bit more family friendly than his previous films.

After unsuccessfully trying to get other studios on board to partner with them, Miramax instead suggested making just one movie and commissioned Jack Leckner to condense the story from two films to one.

He suggested cutting Bree in the Battle of Helm's Deep, losing or using Saruman, merging Rohan and Gondor, and making Eowyn, Boromir's sister, shortening Rivendell and Moria, losing the Balrog and the fight in Balin's Tomb in the process, as well as having Ents prevent the Uruk Hai from kidnapping Merry and Pippin.

It was essentially an ultimatum from Harvey Weinstein.

Jackson could either condense all three books into a single two hour film, make two films with a drastically reduced budget, or abandoned the project entirely.

Jackson refused to compromise on what he felt would destroy the integrity of Tolkien's work, in particular the suggestion to combine everything into one film that would have required cutting major storylines and characters.

Miramax then declared that everything Weta had done thus far and also the scripts, belonged to them.

Weinstein gave Jackson about four weeks to find another studio willing to take on the project.

If unsuccessful, Miramax would proceed with their condensed version with another director to be written by Hussein Amini, who was a fan of the work they'd already done up to this point.

Weinstein used his typical bullying tactics to try to get Jackson to agree to his requests, including trying to call Jackson's bluff that Quentin Tarantino was going to direct.

Miramax agreed to put the films in turnaround for that four week period only.

And if Jackson couldn't find another studio willing to make his movies, they would make them, but without the scripts or Weta's work, after being told legally they didn't have ownership of either.

They also demanded that if he did find another studio, that that new studio would have to repay Remax's investment plus agree to give them 5% of the revenue.

Jackson and his manager Kent Cannings, began Frantically pitching to other studios with a 35 minute making of video to use to promote the work they've done so far.

Sony declined disliking the script.

20th Century Fox declined due to Saul Zainz and potentially the issues surrounding the English Patient.

Polygram were interested, but were being bought by Universal at the time.

When Jackson and C approached New Line Cinema, where Jackson's friend Mark Ordesky worked, something unexpected happened.

New Line Cinema were known as the House that Freddie Built.

They were known primarily as a horror franchise studio with A Nightmare on Elm street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre both being successful.

In 1994, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became the highest grossing independent film of all time.

While the company had sustained some losses in the late 90s, CEO Robert Shea knew the company needed a new lucrative franchise, and he'd heard about Miramax acquiring the rights to the Lord of the Rings.

When Mark or Deschi approached him to suggest they get involved, Shea initially refused because of the Weinstein's demands.

But he met with Jackson.

Now Bob Shea intuitively understood that Tolkien's three book structure provided a natural framework for three films rather than two.

Or indeed one.

And this was something Jackson immediately liked.

The Sound of Moonlight insisted on three films rather than two.

Shea also recognized the potential for a major franchise at a time when studios were increasingly focusing on tentpole properties.

Three successful films would generate far more revenue than one or two.

While the upfront investment would be enormous, around $300 million for all three films, shooting them simultaneously created significant production efficiencies compared to making them separately.

By producing three films at once, they could spread marketing costs and build audience momentum across multiple releases rather than betting everything on a single film.

Most importantly to Bob Shea, as a smaller studio operating under the Time Warner umbrella, they needed a breakthrough project to compete with larger studios.

There was nothing bigger or more ambitious than the Lord of the Rings.

It was a risk, but unlike back in the 70s, they had the technology.

Wetter Digital was at the forefront of motion capture and cg, and filming in New Zealand offered remarkable geographical diversity within a relatively small area.

Within short distances, they could access mountains, forests, volcanic regions, rolling hills and plains that closely matched Tolkien's descriptions of Middle Earth.

Not to mention the New Zealand government providing significant tax breaks and financial incentives to attract the massive production.

Jackson, Walsh and Boyen set about writing three new scripts, consulted Tolkien's biography, letters and scholarly books written on his works.

The expansion to three films allowed much more creative freedom.

And while the three films don't correspond exactly to the trilogy's Three volumes.

They represent a three part adaptation which is a more chronological approach to the story.

Frodo's quest becomes the main focus with Aragorn as the main subplot, and he would be transformed from confident king in Waiting in the books to a more reluctant hero in the films.

There were structural changes, character alterations, significant omissions, added elements and tonal shifts.

Notable differences included the timelines being compressed from 17 years in the books to a matter of months in the films.

Certain chapters and characters were omitted, like the Scouring of the Shire and Tom Bombadil.

Certain elements like the elves fighting at Helm's Deep were added and elements that Tolkien kept ambiguous were defined.

The Tolkien estate would be contacted by Jackson, Walsh and Boyans.

However, the estate chose to distance themselves from Jackson's adaptations.

They had no creative control over Jackson's films and disagreed with many of his creative choices, particularly the emphasis on battle sequences and the alterations to character motivations and personalities.

Christopher Tolkien in particular was concerned with preserving his father's literary legacy.

He viewed the books as serious works with deep philosophical and linguistic foundations rather than action adventure stories.

In a 2012 interview with Le Monde, he famously stated that the films eviscerated the books and turned them into action movies for young people.

In addition, he was uncomfortable with the merchandising and commercial aspects that accompanied the films and objected to the transformation of his father's work into commercial entertainment projects.

Nevertheless, Jackson was passionate about making films that were not only faithful to Tolkien's works, but that took advantage of everything available in the late 90s and early 2000s.

I'm going to go into the visual effects in more detail in the episode on the Return of the King, but we're talking cutting edge CGI and motion capture scale miniatures, forced perspective as well as production design, creating multiple size sets.

This was truly an epic production of nothing that had ever been accomplished before and likely never will again to this scope and scale.

Jackson began storyboarding the trilogy with Christian Rivers in August 1997, effectively creating a rough black and white 2D version of the film.

Jackson showed excerpts of these animated storyboards to allow potential cast a view of the film's style.

And casting started in earnest in 1999 and it was a global surge, prioritizing acting ability over star power.

Jackson wanted actors who could blend together rather than standout stars who might overshadow the story, with a strong focus on New Zealand and British actors for the roles.

Now, of course, in a movie about the Lord of the Rings, casting Frodo would be Key the original idea was that all the hobbits would be played by Brits, based on Tolkien's version of the Shire as based on middle England.

Over 150 young British actors were auditioned, including Dominic Monaghan who would go on to play merry Scottish actor, Billy Boyd, who would be Pippin and Orlando Bloom who would be cast as Legolas.

But none of them were Frodo.

Once American Elijah Wood sent in an audition tape of himself dressed as Frodo reading lines from the novel.

The British Hobbit rule was dropped.

Wood was the first to be announced to have joined the cast as Frodo.

In a Press release on 10 July 1999, Jackson would say that Frodo was a critical role and the actor needed to have a great depth of range.

Quote While we looked at many good actors, it was clear from the moment that we met Elijah that we had found Frodo Baggins.

He has an enormous natural ability to draw an audience into a story and the dramatic depth to hold them there.

Jed Gyllenhaal famously unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Frodo.

Several well known actors were considered or approached for key roles.

With Russell Crowe approach to play Aragorn, he declined.

Daniel Day Lewis reportedly turned down the role multiple times and Nicolas Cage was considered but chose not to pursue it.

Stuart Townsend was initially cast as Aragorn, but was deemed too young and replaced in three days by Viggo Mortensen.

Mortensen read the book on the plane over and received a crash course lesson in fencing from Bob Anderson and began filming the scenes on Weathertop straight away.

And just in case I forget to mention, next episode, the dude broke two toes kicking a helmet for the Two towers.

He's not acting, he's really in genuine pain.

He also lost a tooth taking a sword to the face.

Viggo Mortensen is still hot by the way.

Just in case you were wondering.

Sean Connery was offered the role of Gandalf but turned it down, reportedly because he didn't understand the script.

He also turned down potentially a $450 million payday from the cut of the profits he would have received.

Christopher Plummer was approached for Gandalf but declined.

Patrick Stewart was considered, but while filming the first X men movie in 1999, his friend and co star Ian McKellen was instead cast as Gandalf.

McKellen couldn't join the shoot at the beginning due to his commitments for X Men, so he joined in January 2000 and worked mostly with the Hobbit scale doubles Including Kieran Shaw, who doubled for Frodo.

Shah, who is 4 foot 2, would say that Peter Jackson's movies were, quote, the best job I ever did in my life.

And this is a guy who's worked on multiple Star wars movies.

Krull, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Titanic, Aliens, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Doctor who.

Shah has held the Guinness World Record as the shortest professional stuntman since 2003.

On the opposite of that, Paul Randall, who's seven foot tall, doubled for Gandalf opposite Elijah Wood.

A massive fan of the novel for decades, Christopher Lee had dreamed of playing Gandalf.

But by the time Jackson was casting for his movies, Lee was in his mid-70s and deemed himself too old.

Instead, Jackson cast him as Saruman as it was a less physically demanding role.

Lee was the only member of the cast or crew who ever met Tolkien in person.

While fan expectation was always going to be high for an adaptation of such a literary epic, the casting choice of Liv Tyler proved initially to be controversial.

One of only two major female characters in the movies, until we get Aelwyn, Tyler's Arwen was beefed up considerably from the book version, bringing her out of Rivendell and helping Frodo escape the Black Riders.

Tyler also learned how to speak Elvish for the role, something that impressed Jackson immensely.

Sean Astin, new casting director Victoria Burrows, and his father, John Astin, had worked previously with Peter Jackson on the Frighteners.

But when his agent contacted Astin about the role of Samwise Gamgee, he admitted that despite graduating from UCLA with a double degree in history and American Literature and Culture with honours, Astin had to go to a bookshop to look up Tolkien.

As well as learning about the plot, Astin was tasked with nailing a British accent.

In a short space of time before the audition, which he agreed to do, his wife found a dialect coach to help him, and the dialect coach believed that Astin was getting the part.

Like much of the cast and crew, Astin's wife and daughter were able to live with him in New Zealand while he filmed for the approximately 14 months or 438 days of continuous filming, with his daughter Alexandra, even cameoing in the Return of the King as Eleanor Gamgee, Sam's young daughter.

This was one of the longest continuous shoots in film history at that time.

All three films were shot simultaneously rather than sequentially, which was a revolutionary approach for such a massive project.

As the actors traveled to Wellington, their new home for the next couple of years, Jackson wanted his cast to bond before Filming began on 11th October 1999.

The principal actors trained for six weeks in Sword fighting with Bob Anderson, who once taught Errol Fling archery, riding and boating as well as in Tolkiense.

Is that a thing?

It is now, basically, so they could pronounce his verses correctly and this fellowship became a real fellowship.

When not filming, they learned to surf together.

They took trips to Thailand and Australia.

They went skiing, snowboarding, whitewater rafting and bungee jumping.

They played football on set with Sean Bean and Dominic Monaghan ribbing each other as their favorite teams clashed.

At the end of filming, the entire fellowship, save for John Rhys Davis got matching tattoos of the elvish symbol for nine.

In total, up to seven units filmed simultaneously in different locations across New Zealand with helicopters used to traverse the often difficult terrain.

While Jackson oversaw the whole production unit, directors included Alan Bollinger, John Mahaffey, Jeff Murphy, Fran Walsh, Barry Osborne and Rick Porras were monitored by Jackson with live satellite feeds.

Filming took place across more than 150 locations including the Tongariro National Park, Kapiti Coast, Upper Hut, Kaitoki Regional Park, Queenstown, Fernside, Fiordland national park and Southern Lakes.

And the production employed over 2,400 crew members at its peak, with nearly 50,000 props created.

The first scene filmed was the wooded road sequence in the Fellowship of the Ring where the hobbits hide beneath a tree from a mounted Ringwraith, which pays homage to the same scene in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version.

Six day weeks of 14 to 15 hour days were commonplace.

21 cameras and 4.5 million feet of film were used.

There were 350 different sets, some as large as city blocks.

30 kilometers of road were built for the film and a total of 330 vehicles were used, including that one that had to be digitally removed from the film for the DVD release.

In this movie specifically, we meet the inhabitants of Hobbiton of the Shire.

Based on the Warwickshire countryside Tolkien grew up in and around.

It's not classed as Warwickshire anymore.

It's now classed as West Midlands.

I say this as a Warwickshire girlie.

The creation of Hobbiton for the Lord of the Rings was an extraordinary feat of production design that began years before filming did.

The team discovered the Alexander family sheet farm near Mata Mata in New Zealand in 1998.

Peter Jackson chose it because the rolling hills and lake perfectly matched Tolkien's descriptions of the Shire.

Construction began in March 1999, nearly nine months before filming started.

The New Zealand army helped build an access road to the remote location.

The production planted flowers, vegetables and hedges, imported mature apple and plum trees and wired artificial leaves to them when shooting in winter.

37 individual hobbit holes of 60%, 75% and 100% scale sizes were built along with the large party tree and mill.

Designer Alan Lee and production designer Grant Major ensured structures looked as if they'd been there for centuries by using natural local materials, incorporating existing landscape features, creating weathered, aged appearances and having gardeners establish real gardens that were actively growing.

Vegetables in the gardens were edible and harvested for use by the catering team during filming.

The original Hobbiton for the Lord of the Rings was largely temporary, though made of polystyrene and plywood facades.

After filming of the Lord of the Rings, it was mostly dismantled, leaving only basic structures.

It was reconstructed permanently for the Hobbit trilogy years later with permanent materials, and this version remains today as a major tourist attraction with 44 permanent hobbit holes.

I have been to Hobbiton and it is as magical as you would expect it to be.

The costume designed for the Lord of the Rings trilogy was led by designer Angela Dixon, who won an Academy Award for her work, and it was an enormous undertaking.

Dixon and 40 seamstresses worked on over 19,000 costumes for the films.

Due to the large shooting schedule, 10 versions of each costume were made per character, with 30 more of the stunt scale and other doubles all in all, meaning that each design had 40 versions.

Jackson had a requirement of realism, so the costumers went to great lengths to make costumes looked lived in, wearing away color, stuffing pockets and dirtying them.

Each race had their own cultural identity in Middle Earth, and this was also expressed with clothing and armor.

The Hobbit clothes were inspired by English, rural and Victorian country styles, with earthy natural fabrics, warm colors and simple practical designs reflecting their lifestyle.

Even Hobbit class was shown in the clothing.

Frodo being wealthier than Sam meant Frodo had slightly finer fabrics.

The Elves had art Nouveau and art Deco influences with flowing, elegant fabrics in silvers, pale blues and sage greens.

Details were hand embroidered with nature inspired patterns.

The Rohirrim had Nordic and Anglo Saxon influences, with horse motifs integrated throughout in rich greens, golds and earthy tones.

Gondor had Byzantine and Medieval European influences.

Black, silver and white colour palette, with the white tree of Gondor as a recurring motif.

The Orcs and Uruk Hai clothing was made to look asymmetrical, as if it was made by actual Orcs with industrial crude leather and metalwork.

The clothing also incorporated bone, teeth and scavenged materials, suggesting they scavenged their kills.

Over 2000 suits of armor were created, again with each culture having distinct armor styles requiring different techniques.

Urethane plastic was used for armor pieces, along with leather reinforced with resin and lightweight aluminium.

Weta Workshop developed slush molding techniques to produce armor pieces efficiently.

Hero pieces, which were the close up armor, were crafted with more detail than background pieces.

Each piece was artificially aged to look worn and authentic by paint washes, sandblasting and chemical weathering.

The attention to detail in the costuming helped create a believable lived in world where each culture had a distinct visual identity while functioning practically for the actors during extensive action sequences and long shooting days.

And there really is no easy way to segue into it.

But this is the point where I'm going to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode, which is basically a part of the podcast where I try and link Keanu Reeves to pretty much every movie that I feature for no reason other than he is Keanu Reeves and he is the best of men and unfortunately he has nothing to do with the Lord of the Rings at all.

However, the easiest way to link him to this movie is to say that Keanu starred in the Matrix with Hugo Weaving.

Hugo Weaving played Agent Smith in that movie and he plays Elrond in the Fellowship of the Ring.

I don't know what I'm gonna do with the other two movies.

I guess we will wait and see what I manage to get out of the bag for those two.

But as I mentioned earlier, I want to talk about the music and the incredible score, specifically in the episode on the Return of the King and that's something very different.

I usually do talk about individual aspects of the movie, but because this is across the series, I want to focus on it in one episode.

Obviously this movie did have a song by Enya called Let It Be, which would end up becoming award nominated.

But considering the incredible task to actually get the Lord of the Rings made, the next task was going to be how do we get people who don't necessarily know Tolkien's work to come and see this movie and the two movies that are going to follow.

The website for the Fellowship of the Ring and the Lord of the Rings in general debuted two years before the Fellowship of the Ring was released and it contained regular production diaries and behind the scenes content to keep fans engaged and became a hub for exclusive content.

The production new authenticity to the books would please the fandom, but getting everyday cinemagoers involved was something completely different the first featurette trailer was released in April 2000 and was downloaded over 1.7 million times in its first 24 hours, breaking Star Wars Episode 1, the Phantom Menace's record.

And this feature at trailer is cited as drawing in the general audiences because it tended to focus on the emotional journey of the characters and so you didn't need to be a Tolkien fan or a Tolkien scholar to enjoy this movie and not to mention this movie involving a love story and some battle sequences which would in turn create entry points for viewers unfamiliar with the books.

The world premiere of the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring occurred at Leicester Square in London on 10 December 2001.

It was released wide on 19 December 2001, which was a Wednesday, meaning that its first official week of release in the US had it at number three because it had technically only been out for two days at that point.

Of course, it went to number one in its second week and stayed there for four weeks, only dropping to fourth in its sixth week behind Black Hawk Down, Snow Dogs and A Beautiful Mind.

The Fellowship of the Ring remained in the US top 10 for eight weeks on a production budget of $93 million.

The Fellowship of the Ring grossed $313.4 million domestically in the US and $555 million internationally for a total worldwide gross of $868.4 million, making it the second highest grossing film of 2001 and the fifth highest grossing film of all time at the time of its release.

So they really didn't need to worry about non fans of Tolkien enjoying this movie.

Nor did they need to worry about critics either because the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of currently still holds an approval rating of 92% of rotten tomatoes, with a consensus reading full of eye popping special effects and featuring a pitch perfect cast.

The Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of The Ring brings J.R.R.

tolkien's classic to vivid life.

The Fellowship of The Ring received 13 Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting actor for Ian McKellen, best adapted screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Original Song for Enya's May It Be Best Sound and Best Visual Effects, winning in four categories Best Cinematography, Best Makeup, Best Original Score and Best Visual Effects.

It also earned 13 nominations at the 55th BAFTA Awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor in a Leading role for Ian McKellen, best screenplay adapted Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Film Music, Best Makeup and Hair, Best Production Design, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects, leading to wins in the categories for Best Film, Best Director, Best Makeup and Hair, Best Visual Effects, and also taking the Orange Film of the Year award.

Howard Shaw's score also won a Grammy and May Be by Enya received a Grammy nomination of a total of 800 award nominations.

The Fellowship of the Ring won 475 awards.

Like all of the Lord of the Rings movies, there is an extended version with 30 minutes of new material, 19 minutes of the Lord of the Rings fan club credits for those who contributed financially in exchange for a credit, four commentaries and three hours of bonus material.

The theatrical version is 178 minutes, the extended version is 228 minutes on the VHS or DVD, or 238 minutes if you have the extended Blu Ray.

In 2007, the American film Institute named it one of the hundred greatest American films in history, being both the most recent film and the only film released in the 21st century to make it into the list.

In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

And as this is the first part of a three part story, I'm going to stop it here with the hope that you will return next time.

Because as of the end of this movie, the Fellowship is broken, Boronier is dead, Frodo and Sam are venturing off alone to Mordor with Merry and Pippin captured.

But not all hope is lost.

Next week the story continues with the Tin Towers and even more History and Legacy of the Lord of the Rings.

Thank you for listening to this episode.

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What it is you saw, for it is also in my mind.

It is what will come to pass if you should fail.

The Fellowship is breaking.

It has already begun.

He will try to take the the Ring.

You know of whom I speak.

One by one, it will destroy them all.

If you ask it of me, I will give you the One Ring.

You offer it to me freely.

I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this.

In place of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen.

Not dark but beautiful and terrible.

Afterborn.

Treacherous as the sea.

Stronger than the foundation of fear.

Oh, shall love me and despair.

I pass the test.

I will diminish and go into the west and remain Galadriel.

I cannot do this alone.

You are a ring bearer, Frodo.

To bear a Ring of power is to be alone.

This is Nen, the Ring of Adamant, and and I am its keeper.

This task was appointed to you.

And if you do not find a way, no one will.

Then I know what I must do.

It's just I'm afraid to do it.

It.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Bye.

It.