Peter Jackson's movies

Lord of the Rings, Braindead, and Heavenly Creatures. Not that I didn't enjoy King Kong, it was just a little excessive. The Lovely Bones was the only Jackson movie I've seen that I didn't really like.
 
The Frighteners is definitly a good one in my opinion. Very classy and 90s. [cool] Heavenly Creatures was really good also (though I've only seen it once). As far as achievement is concerned, no doubt LotR is his prize. Yes, King Kong is in a sense "his life's work" as he has said so himself, but in the end his tour de force will always be LotR.
 
That piece of 'poop' wasn't even a third as good as the 1976 remake with Jeff Bridges, and that wasn't even a fifth as good as the 1933 original classic.

PJ's version might as well have had the girl and the ape making love.

It had to be one of the worst movies ever made.

let's face it: PJ was a nobody before TLOR and he's proven it quite consistently since then....

It was like the guy hit the lottery when they let him direct TLOR.
 
The same could be said of hundreds of directors who make one fabulously successful movie and then make less successful movies. LOTR is a tough one to live up to, anyway. Even Steven Spielberg's made duds. He's made ET, Schindler's List and Jaws but there's also Hook and that forgettable remake of War of the Worlds on his CV.

PJ's work pre-LOTR, particularly Heavenly Creatures and Forgotten Silver, is amazing stuff in its imagination and creativity and story-telling skills, particularly when you consider he made most of his films before LOTR came along on a real shoestring budget. Since then he's only directed two movies, and I think it's unfair to label him a "nobody" because neither was 100 per cent successful. Personally I enjoyed both, although on a three stars out of five sort of level rather than five out of five. But he also produced District 9, which was brilliant.
 
I'm dead serious...

Let's face it: He mangled the essence of TLOR too:

Sauron the Lighthouse
Shadowfax kicking Denethor into the pyre
Denethor the madman (not to mention running the 100 meter dash on fire before doing his impersonation of a roman candle)
"Go home" from Frodo to Sam
Aragorn NOT wanting to be king
Elrond the Grouch
Gandalf the Grey resurected as Gandalf the Grumpy ("Get up" to Pippin) & Gandalf the Stupid ( "I've sent Frodo to his death" ;"Sauron will suspect a trap")
The scrubbing bubbles leading the victory at Pelannor Fields
Legolas being a combination of Feanor, Fingolfin & Finrod x 10
"Let's hunt some orc" [sly]
 
My favourite's are:

1. The Lovely Bones - I love this movie more than it's probably healthy, it's brilliant and brave and I consider it to be if not his best movie then his best adaptation.
2.The Lord of the Rings - well, it's kind obvious I love LOTR ;) I consider FOTR to be the best out of the three.
3. Forgotten Silver - maybe because it reminds me of Zelig which I also love, plus underneath the funny mocumentary there is darker story of an artist who sacrifices a lot for his art. Besides I adore the ending tune of this movie.
4. Bad Tase - it's the exploding sheep that got me and the whole low budget nature and plot that somehow makes sense even though it shouldn't.
5. Meet The Feebles - it's wonderfully weird and funny and yet somehow I find the ending scene to be terribly sad. Plus there's the Sodomy song that's very catchy.
A bit less liked:
Heavenly Creatures - the murder scene with the Humming Chorus is absolutely chilling and the Orson Welles chase scene makes me laugh, great performances and lots of visual symbolism.
Frighteners - Jeffrey Combs totally owns this movie, I thought the beginning is great but the movie has a lot of problems with storytelling.
King Kong - great adventure movie, loved Andy Serkis as Kong and the relationship with Ann, as with Frighteners needed a bit tighter storytelling. I also love the score, OK Howard Shore is awesome but JNH did an outstanding job on the music considering how little time he had.
Braindead - a few great laughs but in general my least favourite PJ movie.
 
Last edited:
I wasn't as happy with the second two LOTR movies, because I thought PJ made too many egregious changes designed to heighten tension and provide minor characters with story arcs. "Fellowship" is also my favorite section of the book itself, and I thought he got almost all the characters and all the places right.

"Forgotten Silver" would be next. I sent away for it when I found out he was directing LOTR, because I knew nothing about him. I loved it and the abandoned set in the jungle convinced me he could handle the visuals.

"Heavenly Creatures" is third, for the great performances he got from the then-unknown Kate Winslet and the other actors, and the imaginary world of the girls.

After that, the other two LOTR films. Then "The Lovely Bones" - I think he didn't quite capture the book (oddly, he minimized the really horrific part so much it lost almost all its power), but again, good performances. I do think he's a director who can pull good performances out of actors.

I haven't seen his horror movies because I don't like the genre. I did see "King Kong" but thought it overdone.
 
LOTR is his masterpiece and here there's no doubt
then I saw:
- the frighteners VOTE 6,5
- king kong VOTE 7,5
- the lovely bones VOTE 9
obviously imho [tongue]
 
I really enjoyed Heavenly Creatures. I studied it at high school so I've seen it a billion times and I think it is done really well - I think the use of special effects to illustrate the fantasy world of Parker and Hume is tasteful and effective.

I haven't seen all of his films, but it seems to me that he's not so keen on making up stories himself, but in retelling the stories of other people from his own perspective or vision. King Kong, LotR, Heavenly Creatures, & The Lovely Bones are all retellings of fictional or true stories.

Does anyone know whether he's made any comments on this? Is it because the only stories he wants to write himself are gory splatter movies?
 
Back
Top