Robert Hancock blog 17

Peter Jackson is well known for both the Lord of the Rings Saga and The Hobit saga, one of which I love to watch(the other is the Hobit) but there are some key differences in these two movies that really stood out to me. The Lord of the Rings is a gritty medieval fantasy land that doesn't shy to away from blood, depicting mass slaughter and dismemberment without a second thought. Every desperate struggle left us breathless and silently praying our heroes will make it through the battles and conflicts. The setting was fantastical but the characters where still grounded in reality. They still moved like people would and the fights were intense but realistic. In the Hobit the characters seemed more cartoon like and would straight up defy physics if Jackson wanted them to(That river and barrel scene comes to mind). And I think the reason this changed from these movies was that Jackson seemed to rely more on CGI in the Hobit and it consequently ended up looking quite bad. In the LotR saga, CGI was used sparsely and wasn't so obviously in your face that it could often fade out behind the cast and the amazing practical effects. The Hobit's liberal use of CGI gave the movie a very childish appearance and I often forgot that this was a movie targeted at people 20 and up, the people who would have remembered the originals and maybe even the book. But instead it played out with the movie seemingly meant to appeal to a demographic of 12 and below. I love the LotR movies and was quite disappointed by the Hobit movies and I think it goes to show how some directors can become lazy and leave the beauty of practical effects and acting for cheap computer digitized garbage.