The director needed visual inspiration beyond the work written by JRR Tolkien
Renowned writer JRR Tolkien imagined a series of characters and fantastic worlds that he gave great personality to, without thinking that one day someone would decide to bring them to the big screen. Halflings, elves, dwarves, orcs… Tolkien’s work includes all the kinds of figures that are indispensable when it came to telling his story, especially that of Middle Earth. To adapt this to the cinema, Peter Jackson had to look at films that had already been made. We always forget, but the director had an unknown fantasy film in mind. Sean Connery to be able to create The Lord of the Rings.
This is none other than Darby O’Gill and the Goblin Kinga film developed by Disney that was released in 1959. Its story focuses on Darby O’Gill (Albert Sharpe), an old Irish man who amuses himself by telling stories about leprechauns in the pub every nightThe funny thing is that they seem to be true, so true that he and little King Brian (Jimmy O’Dea), ruler of the goblins, are friendly adversaries who are constantly deceiving each other. These stories take up all of Darby’s time, and he ends up losing his job and is forced to retire early.fearing for her daughter Katie’s (Janet Munro) reputation.
His successor, the funny and cultured Michael McBride (Connery), seems a perfect suitor for Katie and Darby enlists the help of the wily king to get them together. But The leader of the goblins does not plan to help Darby unless a fight takes place among her daughter’s potential lovers, giving rise to a fantastical and adventurous fairy tale, complete with a festival of drunken goblins and dark figures.
Disney
‘Darby O’Gill and the Goblin King’
What does all this have to do with The Lord of the RingsWhen Jackson decided to adapt Tolkien’s novel to the big screen, Disney was already one step ahead. The team at Darby O’Gill and the Goblin King I had already studied the many possibilities for making one actor appear much smaller next to another. That is, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse had already studied how to make Hobbits like Frodo (Elijah Wood) y Sam (Sean Astin) lived up to expectations in the film.
This is how elves appeared in the cinema
Before filming the movie in 1958, Disney had to consider all the alternatives to make the film look more realistic.. It was then that director Robert Stevenson, with the help of specialists Eustace Lycett and Ub Iwerks, They decided to combine a series of production methods and illusions to achieve the best results.They used forced perspectives through sets, positioned the protagonists at different distances from the camera and meticulously respected the eye lines of the actors, a trick widely used in the history of cinema.
Pause ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’ at 1 hour and 35 minutes and you’ll know why Peter Jackson had to mobilize 25,000 people
Not only that, in Iwerks’ official biography, John Kenworthy described a scene in which 649 precisely placed spotlights were used, causing a power outage in the city where the film was shot. Other tricks such as detailed paintings, puppet effects and the use of the Schüfftan process – which consists of placing a mirror at 45º between the camera and the set to be able to play with the size of the actors – made it possible to It will be ranked as one of the 70 most influential visual effects films of all time in 2017..
Warner Bros
‘The Lord of the Rings’
Thanks to all these studies and discoveries, Jackson was able to create a franchise that has grossed over two billion dollars at the worldwide box office.. Two trilogies later and a television series later, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, we can thank Darby O’Gill and the Goblin King his great contribution to the adaptation of Tolkien’s work.
