[Everdawn]

Wow im going to have to go out buy that from the newsagent. I dont usually get the Daily Telegraph.<P>Today in the Courier Mail, there is a long review by Des Partridge, (who im my opinion is a stupid reporter, anyway) another reporter who is poorly educated on the Lord Of The rings, there are some cool pictures though, nothing reveling about the movie though.<P><BR>Im not sure whether anyone else gets as annoyed with the journalists as i do when they are ill-informed.<P> <P>and on Saturday there was a Feature article on Peter Jackson again in the Courier Mail<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>King of the Rings<BR>Des Partridge<BR>06dec03<BR>IN THE three books of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the journey of Frodo Baggins to reach Mordor and destroy the ring in the fires of Mount Doom takes 14 months.<P>The journey of New Zealand film director Peter Jackson to Middle Earth and international renown as the genius behind the three films of the book, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and now The Return of the King, has taken many months longer: 84 in fact. <P>As a filmmaker all but unknown outside his native New Zealand, and considered a master of splatter films such as Brain Dead and Bad Taste before gaining some measure of respectability with Heavenly Creatures in 1994, Jackson took himself to Los Angeles in 1998 on a mission as determined as Frodo's. <P>Having made The Frighteners in his home city of Wellington in 1996 with Michael J. Fox as its star, Jackson was looking for a Hollywood studio prepared to back his project of turning Tolkien's cult books into a two-part film. <P>After negotiating for a year to get the rights to the books from another producer, Saul Zaentz (The English Patient), Jackson prepared for his mission by taking with him a 35-minute mini-film he had made for $78,000 to demonstrate his concept, with rough special effects created on a PC he had leased from America when he was making Heavenly Creatures. <P>He was helped by his domestic partner, co-writer and producer Fran Walsh – the couple have two children – and make-up specialist Richard Taylor (who won an Oscar for the first film, and who had been involved in all Jackson's previous films, including the mock documentary Forgotten Silver). <P>The rest is history: after knockbacks by major studios, the eternally cheerful Jackson, who physically resembles one of the hobbits from Tolkien's stories, (albeit an XL one with wild hair seemingly permanently tossed by Wellington's infamous winds) found himself talking to a Tolkien devotee in New Line Cinema's Robert Shaye. <P>New Line were best known then for splatter and horror films such as My Demon Lover and Nightmare on Elm Street made in a similar vein to Jackson's early works, and Shaye wasn't happy about The Lord of the Rings being crammed into two films. <P>Shaye and his partners (the company is a subsidiary of Time Warner) agreed to provide an unheard of $270 million for Jackson to make three separate films back to back during 18 months of intensive and continuous shooting all over New Zealand. <P>Seven years later, with The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers having taken nearly $1.8 billion internationally – putting them at Nos. 7 and 5 on the all-time money-makers list – Jackson was among 100,000 fans who turned out in Wellington for the biggest movie premiere the world has seen since Atlanta cheered the stars of Gone With The Wind in 1939. <P>Meeting international journalists at a hotel in the centre of Wellington, the director renowned for his preference for working in baggy khaki shorts and bare feet (even during scenes in snow on New Zealand's Alps) acknowledged the auspicious occasion by turning out in shoes. <P>"I'm in a prestigious hotel. I can't walk around without shoes and socks," Jackson quips. <P>He says he's pleased to have finished the three films – at last. "I do have a strong sense of accomplishment," he says, "although I'm glad there is no fourth Lord of the Rings film to be thinking about. <P>"For the past three years, I've taken a Christmas holiday and then I've had to start work in the cutting room in January getting the next film ready." <P>At this point, Jackson hadn't seen the entire third film (sent to America for 10,000 duplicate prints to be made for worldwide screenings). He'd only made the final version eight days earlier. <P>At the official premiere, he admitted it had been an overwhelming experience, sharing the screening with cast and crew who had worked so closely together on the biggest project in the 101-year history of feature films. <P>There's a sense of regret from the director that both his parents aren't alive to share the occasion, which has sent Wellington into a frenzy, with locals cheering and applauding Jackson whenever he appears in public. <P> His father died while the huge undertaking was in pre-production, in 1998, and his mother three days before The Fellowship of the Ring premiered in 2001. <P>"It had its first screening at Mum's funeral," Jackson remembers. <P>As a boy in New Zealand's north, Jackson was inspired to make films on his parents' Super 8 camera after he'd seen the 1933 King Kong, a masterpiece of special effects and animation (techniques now developed into a new art form in Jackson's own Ring films). <P>Stop-motion animation was the only form available to the young filmmaker, and when he set about making his own version of King Kong, he needed some help from his mother. <P>"Mum had a fur coat made of possum fur which was hanging in her cupboard. I'd noticed she didn't seem to wear it, so when I wanted to make my model, I asked her if I could cut fur from it. <P>"She agreed," says Jackson, and his filmmaking career was able to develop, inspired by Thunderbirds on television, and veteran animation wizard Ray Harryhausen's work. <P>The director is now preparing to make a multimillion-dollar version of King Kong, due to start shooting in August next year at his Wellington studios, with Australian talent Naomi Watts marked for the role earlier played by Fay Wray and in the 1976 version by Jessica Lange. <P>Jackson, 42, who lives about an hour's drive from Wellington in rural Wairarapa, says in essence he made the Lord of the Rings films for himself, although about 26,000 people were involved in the series. <P>"That's always been my approach. You can't make a film for everyone. You can only make it for yourself. All the decisions about what should be in or out are really just our personal instincts." <P>But Jackson feels that The Return of the King meets the requirements of providing an entertaining and exciting movie, with all the major characters in the centre of the film. <P>He says while there's relief, there's also a sense of sadness about reaching the conclusion of the feature films (with only an extended DVD version of the new film now to be finalised): "I feel the most sadness for the actors. They are the people who have become friends, and who get on so well together. <P>"Now they go their separate ways – although I'm going to try and get some of them into King Kong when we write the script," Jackson says. <P>He says the greatest personal thrill has been making films that have been so widely loved by people. <P>"The whole point of making movies is to make something people will want to see. It's very gratifying when people tell you they've seen The Fellowship of the Ring or The Two Towers 27 times and it has changed their lives." <P>Jackson, known for his encouragement and support of New Zealand's next generation of filmmakers, says he has a secret hope. <P>"In 20 years' time I hope there will be films made by young directors who'll say they saw Lord of the Rings when they were seven years old, and it changed their life. <P>"When I saw King Kong I was inspired, and all the way through my childhood I was inspired by other people's films. They can push you in the direction of a career." <P> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> <P>With this picture of Peter looking devious.