little by little, one travels far.

‘I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the Elves. ‘They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”

- Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien

This is how I think of Jackson’s movies. Yes, there are serious flaws - Gandalf’s de-powering, Gimli as comic relief, and Faramir, namely - but come on.

Remember when the guys making their chain mail invented a new method for quickly producing large amounts of it by hand? Remember Miranda Otto walking down the street, practicing sword positions? The guys who forged all of the swords - for leads and for extras? The men and women riders who volunteered to be riders of Rohan? The costume designers who designed the inside of Theoden’s armor (which no one would ever see) so beautifully that Bernard Hill said he felt like a king? The friendships between the cast, and their size doubles, and the stuntmen?

“The film’s art director and Kaynemaile’s founder Kayne Horsham worked with his team to construct each garment from plastic plumbing tubes, coating them in pure silver. Once filming wrapped, Horsham dedicated himself to creating a change to the liquid state assembly process to mass produce the polycarbonate chainmail for architectural applications — products that were light, but strong enough to protect the interior or exterior of a building. Now an industry-leading manufacturer, Kaynemaile produces mesh for everything from small interior screens to large scale exterior façades. Their mesh is easy to install and can be custom created for specialized applications.”

https://architizer.com/blog/practice/materials/kaynemaile-mesh-facade-systems/

every scene you see in the 11+ hours of glory that is the LOTR masterpiece is most like ridiculously elaborate or expensive–from model towers to the all-new motion capture technology used for gollum to the costumes and sets to the aerial on location shots of mother-fracking new zealand and the big impressive battle scenes and horse charges.

but then the story and the screenplay too–there is just SO much lore that is there in the background lurking if you want to look for it, yet it still remains simplified for the average viewer. Crazy impressive feat.

And the acting is heartfelt and real and makes you love the characters.

“Peggy Carter’s fighting style has none of the artistry of characters like Melinda May or Black Widow. She basically slams heavy objects into men until they fall over, which is very satisfying to watch.”