The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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December 22 : 2009

LOTR as the gold standard

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has written a brief account of the critical reaction to Avatar. He’s surprised to find that there’s a backlash among some of the fanboys that one might expect to love the film, while critics for major news outlets are raving about it. Kind of a reversal of what one might expect. Douthat thinks the professional critics are deliberately brushing aside what he (and many others) perceive as problems with the plot and dialogue, enthusing about the film largely on the basis of its spectacular visuals. He points out that the best effects-heavy films have tights stories and good dialogue–and holds the LOTR trilogy up as one of those that new blockbusters should be measured against.

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

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    Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
    hardcover 978-0-520-24774-1
    421 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 12 color illustrations; 36 b/w illustrations; 1 map; 1 table

    “Once in a lifetime.”
    The phrase comes up over and over from the people who worked on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. The film’s 17 Oscars, record-setting earnings, huge fan base, and hundreds of ancillary products attest to its importance and to the fact that Rings is far more than a film. Its makers seized a crucial moment in Hollywood—the special effects digital revolution plus the rise of “infotainment” and the Internet—to satisfy the trilogy’s fans while fostering a huge new international audience. The resulting franchise of franchises has earned billions of dollars to date with no end in sight.

    Kristin Thompson interviewed 76 people to examine the movie’s scripting and design and the new technologies deployed to produce the films, video games, and DVDs. She demonstrates the impact Rings had on the companies that made it, on the fantasy genre, on New Zealand, and on independent cinema. In fast-paced, compulsively readable prose, she affirms Jackson’s Rings as one the most important films ever made.

    The Frodo Franchise

    cover of Penguin Books’ (NZ) edition of The Frodo Franchise, published September 2007. The tiny subtitle reads: “How ‘The Lord of the Rings’ became a Hollywood blockbuster and put New Zealand on the map.”