Anything You Can Imagine - Ian Nathan

⭐9.5/10

This book is subtitled "Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-Earth." It's all about the making of the LOTR films, but also a sort of biography about Jackson. I just read a similar book about Lucas and Star Wars, but this one goes into a lot more detail on just the years 1997-2003, which takes up probably 80% of this book. 

I absolutely loved it. I watched all the dvd special features more than once as a kid, so I know the behind-the-scenes very well. Still, I feel like having a writer craft a narrative from all of this helps put it all in perspective. There were also plenty of stories I had never heard, and it just adds to the mythos of all of this. 

I guess one main takeaway was just how revolutionary all of this was. We take it for granted, but CGI simply wasn't this good back when these movies were being made. We never had a character like Gollum, and honestly have not had much that's as impressive as him since. And Weta was basically inventing all of this as they went along. This was a small studio in a faraway land, and they changed how movies are made forever. In the book, they often call this the biggest Indie movie ever made. Pretty sweet. 

I love stories like this. Humble beginnings and finding great success. It's wild how this even got approved, basically the creators tricking New Line into thinking they had to make this giant offer before someone else got them (nobody else wanted them). We basically had never seen 3 movies be shot concurrently, and see it rarely today. I dunno, I guess this book just proves how unlikely this all was, and how unlikely we are to get this again in the future. Seems like a once in a lifetime feat. 

I feel like I'm always thinking that I'm lucky that my favorite books got this magical adaptation, but of course I'd likely have never read the books if these movies weren't so great. Reading this book really took me back to my first time experiencing these movies, watching with my parents, getting kicked out when it got too scary, and then trying to sneak in to get glimpses of the Nazgul or the orcs in Moria. These movies were the entry point into this universe that has kinda been all consuming for me, so it was cool to relive all of that. 

A few other highlights off the top of my brain: 

I loved that they hired in Alan Lee. Seems like a move a studio wouldn't make now, but the way we see Middle-earth is so dependent on that one man.

I loved how much Viggo became Aragorn. Him being in these movies almost didn't happen, and yet he became the leader of the pack. 

This movie did a ton of deep dives into almost all of the main cast. What a cool group of humans. I loved the bits about Christopher Lee or Sir Ian. 

Lots of cool stuff about the inner workings of Hollywood and film production. Kinda funny how hard it was to cast. LOTR is delayed because Gandalf is doing X-Men, which is delayed because Wolverine is still doing something else, which is delayed because someone else is delayed. Lots of dominoes. 

Anyways, this is a huge review, but I loved this book and think it's pretty essential reading for big time fans. The Audiobook reader makes a lot of mouth noise, but he has a fantastic voice and does some great impressions. Peter Jackson also seems like a genuinely good person who works like a madman but wants to make good movies. Well hey, it seemed to work for him here.