The Frodo Franchise by Kristin Thompson
 
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April 21 : 2009

Beyond Gollum

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal posted an interesting story about recent breakthroughs in the computer generation of convincing human characters. The occasion is rather belated coverage of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which pioneered virtual makeup to age and de-age Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. (Well, so did the third X-Men, but not nearly as impressively.)

There’s a brief interactive time-line from Young Sherlock Holmes to the present, displaying still images from some key movies. Oddly enough, neither Jar Jar Binks nor Gollum is mentioned. Odd, because those two characters provided what is widely considered the breakthrough in digitally depicting the distinctive translucent look of human skin. Maybe it’s because neither is actually “human,” though they are “human-like”–plus Dr. Manhattan, from The Watchmen, gets discussed.

If you want to check out the story, do so soon, since I’m told that the WSJ only leaves stories online for a week.

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    The Frodo Franchise
    by Kristin Thompson

    US flagbuy at best price

    Canadian flagbuy at best price

    UK flagbuy at best price

    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.”