Kira

LOTR’s special effects are stylized in a very careful, deliberate, and beautiful way.

In a behind-the-scenes video,  the films’ visual effects supervisor explained:

We wanted the look of the film to have this storybook look to it. This is one of the things that Peter Jackson would impress upon the post-grader. He would literally sit there with watercolor (paintings) and say: THIS is what I want it to look like.”

Compare Alan Lee’s watercolor painting (its texture, its limited and unreal color palette, and the careful use of bright highlights in specific places that “frame” the characters/create an interesting composition)–

To the very similar look of the final film:

Because the goal wasn’t to create a perfectly realistic version of Moria. It was to create a version of Moria that looked like a watercolor painting. 

And this “watercolor painting” effect isn’t just epic fantasy moments either. Even many of the non-fantastical backgrounds in Lord of the Rings don’t look “fully realistic.” They look very high-contrast and painterly, with dramatic unreal shafts of light bursting through the clouds:

And again, this is by design:

“We wanted to nudge it sideways from reality. New Zealand is a lovely country but it’s still New Zealand, still a real country….and I wanted to nudge it slightly to Middle Earth, which is an ancient world….a world of myth, and legend.”

And the watercolor storybook-inspired colors and lighting isn’t just in the environments either. It was also used in very basic dialogue scenes, to make you really feel like the entire movie was taking place in a fantasy world:

I’d also add that yes, they pushed the look of the whole film into “unreal” territory, but they also were very selective and deliberate about where they used CG versus practical effects. Or practical everything, really. In every single possible instance that something could be shot using real elements, it is. The costumes and sets and props are nearly all real, the forced perspective shots are real. As often as possible hobbit actors are just on their knees or the other actors are on appleboxes or replaced with larger/smaller actors from behind instead of being digitally shrunken down or up. The sets were largely built by hand or on location, and the only greenscreen factors in once you get to the far distance. They built the frickin chainmail by hand, even. 

Which is the OTHER reason that it holds up. Your eye knowns when you’re looking at a real thing, even if your brain can’t quite articulate why. 

Which is why an image like this:

Or this: 

Or this:

Which are all effects shots! Feel more real than this:

Or this: 

Or this:

(This is honestly the main reason why I had trouble watching MCU films for so many years. It just don’t look real, guys. I can’t think of anything but how you’re shooting this in a studio somewhere.) 

Marvel and LotR are using the same tools, including set extensions, CG, color grading, all of it, but Marvel tends to use CG and greenscreen on almost every element. LotR is real in every possible way that it can be. 

Marvel films are stylized and made to look unreal just like LotR - but they also largely ARE unreal. LotR is mostly real but faked, and there’s a big difference between those things. 

Like this image: 

The boats, the water, the cliffs, the actors are real. And the statues were real too - just small models, probably smaller than a person, shot separately in similar lighting, then comped onto this shot to look thousands of times larger than they actually are. Then the whole image is graded and blended together so that the colors are seamless, the cliff edges are extended so that you can’t see the edges, add a little digital mist in the far background there to really sell it - and boom. Feels real.

Your gut knows when something is real - which is why it holds up when you rewatch it. No matter how advanced CG gets, and it’s pretty damn advanced at this point, it’s still little pixels on a screen. But real chainmail on a real person standing in a real forest with a little CG far in the back? Two actors of roughly the same size looking like they’re two different sizes just because of where they’re sitting? It feels real because it mostly is. 

It’s not just color grading and blending, it’s knowing when and where and how to use things, and then actually taking the time (and the expense) to do it right even when most people won’t be able to tell - or, in a lot of cases, even care.

This is an amazing addition!!!

Yeah the reason LOTR’s visuals have held up so well is the combination of careful stylization AND using practical effects whenever possible.

As a result, the things that look unrealistic, look unrealistic on purpose. It’s wasn’t “the visual effects artists weren’t given enough time to finish the shots” (which was actually the case for Black Panther)  it was “they were deliberately and carefully trying to get that very specific storybook-illustration effect.”

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

For a time, all was well.

And then it wasn’t.

Mother?

Shh.

A neighboring kingdom, jealous of this city’s prosperity and peace, sought to disrupt it. They dragged to its gates hideous war machines, made of magic and steel and human skin. The king, a man of great magical learning and power, demanded the princesses surrender their city to him, and if they did not, he said, he would raze it to the ground.

Mother, I’ve never heard of this story.

Then listen when I tell it to you.

The youngest daughter, when she heard, did up her deep red hair, put on a delicate crown, and clothed herself in a beautiful dress. “I will offer him an alliance,” she told her sisters. “I will give him my hand in marriage for our kingdom’s safety.”

The other sisters wept, understanding the sacrifice that their youngest was making, and held her close until dawn. They saw her off at the castle gates, and watched until she disappeared into the still city.

When the youngest daughter reached the enemy’s camp, she stood tall, and did not show her fear. She spoke kindly to the weary soldiers, curtsied before the cruel sorcerer-king as custom demanded. She was brave, oh, my darling, she was so brave.

And the king spat at her fine words, and spoke the words that drew all the light from out of her, until she went mad with despair. As the sun set on the day, and on the youngest sister, who lay despondent in the middle of the camp, a soldier came upon her, and killed her in a fit of mercy.

But you said that she was brave.

Yes. She was.

When the other sisters heard, the middle sister donned silver armor, borrowed from the guards in the castle, and took up a crossbow. “I go to kill the king,” she said. “I go to avenge our youngest.”

And the eldest held her close, and wept, until she let her go and watched her disappear from sight into the streets.

When the middle sister arrived at the camp, she moved quietly, looking through the tents with eyes and a heart made cold with fury and grief. She reached the king’s tent- asleep, inside was the enemy, and she raised her crossbow to finish the job. And she would have, darling, she would have, had she not seen, hanging from the post of the kings fine bed, her sister’s delicate crown.

The king awoke when she sobbed at the sight of it, and spoke words that caused her to wither and decay where she stood, crumbling to rotted remains inside a suit of armor.

Mother, I don’t like this story.

You must hear it.

The eldest sister heard the news and she did not weep. She drew her courage about her, and set off into the forest to find her and her sister’s mother, who was a powerful witch.

Her mother answered the door and bade her come inside, offering her condolences about her sister’s fates. Once the door had closed, her mother hesitated, then spoke.

“I left you in that castle long ago, and I will give you your answers, and then I will give you your vengeance against the king.”

And so the daughter listened.

Mother, I don’t want to hear this.

Listen, daughter.

Long ago, there had been a queen with great magickal abilities, but she was never able to find a love, so she used those powers to create three daughters.

One, she formed from a bottle of light captured at the sun’s violent surrender to night. It woke last, a child with beautiful red hair, and so it was the youngest.

One, she shaped from a gentle pink anemone, the last in her castle’s courtyard to survive winter’s onslaught. It woke second, a child with curved pink lips, and so it was the middle.

One, she carved from a piece of sapphire the size of her fist, and as she did, she cut her finger with the blade, so it was made with blood, as well. It woke immediately, with bright blue eyes, so it was the eldest.

The sun took her first child home, she told the sapphire-girl. Her body turned to light, and then to nothing, what it always was. The body of her second daughter rotted in the encampment like a flower decayed beyond its lifespan. “All the king can do is turn you back to what you were before,” she told her daughter. “He will turn you back to stone if you are unprotected.”

She gave her daughter a vial full of black liquid. “This will turn your heart forever to sapphire. The king will be unable to change you- but you will never feel again. No blade shall pierce your skin, but no joy or grief will stir within you. You will never be warm, or cold. I offer you not immortality, but a half-life of invincibility.”

The daughter regarded the vial, and uncorked it. She brought it to her lips, but before she drank, she asked her mother, “Why did you leave us?”

And then she swallowed, so she would not care about the response, and she left her mother in her home before she found the answer.

But why did their mother leave them?

Because she knew, daughter, even then, that her eldest child was capable of committing this act, and she was afraid.

The eldest daughter marched to the encampment, and to the kings tent. She was attacked, but nothing drew blood, and so she went forward. The king, upon seeing her, spoke the words that would have crumbled her to so many sapphire shards, but nothing happened.

She pulled out the king’s heart through his armor, and she felt no relief at having killed him.

She felt nothing.

The end.

Mother?

Mother, that can’t be how the story ends.

Mother, that is not how the story ends.

Do you want another ending?

Yes.

Very well, then.

The people saw what their queen had done, and began to fear her. The queen, unable to feel love or even affection, went back to her mother to find a way to make a child that her people would adore, because, without emotion, she saw that that was what they needed.

The child was made of ice over a pond, and her hair was the orange-white color of the fish, still alive in the cold.

And the queen raised her daughter to love the kingdom, to rule well, and to one day overthrow her mother.

Is that better?

No, mother, it’s- it’s not.

I am sorry.

Why did you tell it to me?

Because you deserved to know, daughter.

Anime Proportion

Curvy

Very Long Leggy

Alien Face

Very Skinny

Very Tol

Wild Hair

Anyway, she follows it up with, “My husband and I just recently won our custody battle with our foster daughter and she means the world to us. She’s a beautiful African American girl and her hair looks a lot like yours. But I’m afraid because I don’t know what to do with her hair. It’s a lot different from mines and our other children and we are at a total lost. I’ve tried looking up the YouTube videos and my husband went to the braiding shops so they can teach him how to properly braid her hair, but he’s still pretty new and it will be a while before he gets used to it. Do you have any tips you can give me? If you don’t have the time, it’s okay, really! I just needed a little advice because I want her to look beautiful.”

Y’all. swear I almost started crying on aisle 6. So for the last 30 minutes, I spent my time talking to her and what products to use and how to properly detangle and comb her hair with the proper tools and what not to do with natural hair. And I showed her a bunch of easier to follow natural hair tutorials on YouTube and saved them for her. (I also had to create a YouTube account for her so she could save it for later.) but omfg, she was so sweet, and I could tell that she listened to every single thing I had to say and she took little notes on her little notepad.

And what really filled my heart was the fact that her husband actually taking classes from African braiding shops. And she showed me a picture of him wearing a little sweater vest and loafers in a little shop surrounded by beautiful black women showing him how to braid black hair and even the lady he’s braiding on is guiding his hands. And omfg. Bless these old white people and their black daughter who I know have new loving parents because they are willing to step out of their comfort zone just to make her feel and look beautiful.

Ok but imagine how the aliens would react to the idea of the “mom friend”. Like the crew is losing their mind over the fact their human is reckless, doing so many dangerous things that would have killed any other race but of course it’s fine because it’s a human and those things are so hard to kill anyway.

The only planet that is a danger to a human is the one it came from.

So when the human-Kat comes into the control room with that adorable hopeful face a lot of the crew members are instantly on guard. The last time Human-Kat had that expression they almost lost Xe'rex to the waves of that one planet that Human-Kat just had to “Surf”.

“Can my friend Lola come meet us for the 34-OJ mission? She’s right in our pathway to that new planet? Please?” Huamn-Kat says and though they want nothing more then to say no, the crew of 626- Launch can’t say anything else other then yes.  They know how humans react when left alone for too long. Humans claim that their greatest criminals are placed in “solitary confinement” as punishment which goes very far to show how much bonds affect their life spans.

Human-Kat needs human interaction to stay alive and sane (or as sane as humans can be)

So the crew  agrees to have Friend-Lola on the voyage, slightly terrified of having two humans. But when the new human arrives it is not what they expected.

“Kat, have you finished your paperwork? Come on man, you know it’s due in like a day. Get on it.”

“Whoa dude, I love you ok. But no. You are not going to go surfing down there. It’s for your own good.”

“Girl you got the promotion?! Yes! Ok Ok! We need to celebrate with girls night in!”

“Hey I have some tissues in my bag somewhere hold on. There ya go.”

“Look at this game I picked up on RE-vr’. It’s just like Cards against Humanity but space!”

“Go. To. Sleep. Kat.”

“Remember that pact we made in high school? The one where I would stop you from doing something that will get you arrested or killed? Yeah well I’m calling it into action and saying that you do not lick anything on a unknown planet!“ 

This Human…holds common sense? That is possible for that race?!

After Friend-Lola leaves they ask Human-Kat about this and she merely laughs while swiping through photographs she had taken with the other human.

“Well Lola is the mom friend.”

And the crew of 626-Luanch are so confused because they have already seen photos of Human-Kat’s birth givers and they look nothing alike not to mention Human-Kat already has a Mom. Do humans have more then one “Mom”?

“Oh you know a mom friend is the one friend in a group that keeps everyone else from dying.” Human-Kat jokes.

But the crew is amazed. They have learn the reason humanity haven’t killed itself off. They send a message to every out post in the area.

An important note for Mom Friend humans is that they must be provided with designated human crew to care for. Even with said provision, some will expand their interest to monitoring and nurturing all sapients on board. Such monitoring may include anything from restructuring the mess to provide optimal nutrition with occasional “treats” to engineering a way to ease molting with the application of a warm, nubby cloth and soft cooing. Some Mom Friends can be stopped from this; there is a ritual surrounding the phrase “I was just trying to help” that is still being investigated for potential use after it is properly translated and understood.

Care should be taken to ensure that Mom Friend sub-class “Mama Bear” is kept away from weapons storage if there is any interest in survivors after a ship is boarded. 

Gloin is the sexiest dwarf by dwarf standards.

Kili is the sexiest dwarf by elf standards.

Thorin is the sexiest dwarf by human standards