Just in time for the new 4K release of the original movies, Viggo Mortensen weighs in on Amazon’s upcoming (possibly much sexier) Lord of the Rings show.
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies have just come out on 4K, which is a great excuse to get some of the actors and producers involved to look back on their time in Middle-earth, and think about its future.
For instance, talking to NME, Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn) detailed a scene he shot that made it into neither the theatrical cuts of the movies or the longer extended editions. “There was a scene that we shot as a sort of memory flashback,” Mortensen recalled. “It was from the courtship days when he first met Arwen – and we shot it just before we were taking a break so I was clean-shaven and prettied up. They’d tried to make me look as young as possible. I had different hair and I was dressed like an elf.”
"It was a scene from the book where they’re walking in this flowery meadow. It was a beautiful sequence but obviously it wasn’t needed for the movie. I’ve never seen it but I enjoyed shooting that scene."
Maybe someday there can be an extended extended edition.
The 4K versions of the movies play it fairly safe; this isn’t like George Lucas’ rereleases of the original Star Wars movies where he made changes some fans found controversial, like Greedo shooting first. As Peter Jackson explains in the behind-the-scenes video below, it was mostly about fixing visual stuff that hadn’t aged well:
“Visual effects technology has advanced a lot in 20 years and when they became ultra-crisp and sharp with the 4K process, we realized that some of the shots were not holding up too well,” Jackson explained. “So, we got the opportunity to go back and remove and paint out any imperfections. I should make it clear: we didn’t upgrade or enhance any of the effects shots. They’re exactly the same as you’re used to seeing them, except they do look as if they were done today rather than 20 years ago.”
And by updating the older shots, Jackson brought The Lord of the Rings movies up to date with The Hobbit films, which were shot years later. “They now feel like it’s one big, long film, telling the same story and looking and sounding the same,” he said. “It’s not about making the film different. It’s simply taking a 20-year-old movie and making it feel like it’s a modern film. I’m very pleased with the opportunity to do this. It feels, in many respects, like I finally reached the end of the journey and finished the job at last.”
But if Jackson has reached the end of his journey, the team at Amazon Studios is just beginning theirs. They’re making a wildly expensive Lord of the Rings TV series set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, back when Sauron was forging the Rings of Power. We’ve heard that Amazon’s show may bring in more sex and violence than Lord of the Rings fans are used to. What does Mortensen think of that?
"That they would try to be like Game Of Thrones and have a certain level of arbitrary violence and stuff like that? I dunno. I know it’s J.A. Bayona, who is a Spanish director who’s very talented. They are doing it in New Zealand, so I would imagine they would have the benefit of Peter Jackson’s advice and maybe some of the crew members. I would think that they have every opportunity to do it right. They have a good example to follow."
With any luck, we’ll find out if they followed that example some time next year.
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h/t SyFy Wire