Story and Spectacle: Why Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Worked
And Why The Hobbit Films Flopped
Last December Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy turned old enough to buy a pint. Knowing that The Return of the King premiered 21 years ago, and remembering that I saw it in theaters, makes me feel old. But it also has me asking some questions.
Why did these movies work so well? How have they “held up” over time? Why did the Hobbit trilogy flop (comparatively)? And, as I’m usually asking, is there something more we can learn from reflecting on these questions?
The Making Of
I recently watched a wonderful documentary series called Icons Unearthed: Lord of the Rings that told the story of the creation of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films. The total run time is almost four and a half hours, but the extended editions of Jackson’s six films clock in at over twenty-one hours, so it’s a relatively small time commitment by comparison.
The documentary included a lot of the commonly known bits of trivia. (Did you know Viggo broke his toe?!) But it focused much more on the “Hollywood Insider’s” view of the series’ development. One of the things that the documentary repeatedly pointed out, and something easily forgotten this much later, is how revolutionary the trilogy’s use of digital effects was.
Before these films, nobody had ever used computer-generated effects to this scale and quality. The team at Jackson’s Weta Workshop pioneered tools and techniques that filmmakers continue using today.
The cutting-edge nature of their special effects helps explain why the films still feel like newer films, even 21 years later. It’s because, in many ways, they set the standard today’s films are still trying to live up to.
Because they were so cutting-edge the sheer spectacle of what they were creating became another repeated theme in the documentary. People involved in creating and promoting the films repeatedly talked about the sense of, “That was spectacular. How are we going to raise the bar in the next one?” Especially after the release of The Two Towers and the overwhelmingly expansive “Battle of Helm’s Deep.”
Story and Spectacle
This is where I think the magic behind Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films really lies: Jackson took the timeless story of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and translated it to film in a truly spectacular way.
Story and Spectacle.
It doesn’t take much effort to think of films that have one or the other, but not both. In fact, you could chart films on a two-by-two grid according to their proportion of story and spectacle.
The interesting thing to me, as I picture movies along this grid, is that it’s only films on the upper half (High Story) that I would consider truly good movies. That doesn’t mean that movies below the line aren’t worth ever watching. I might enjoy a low-story, high-spectacle film. But they’re kinda like the junk food of moviegoing.
To consider the opposite corner - high-story, low-spectacle - these films are often amazing movies. In my grid, I included Babette’s Feast as an example for this quadrant. The film is well made, and the story is absolutely top-notch, but it isn’t (and never will be) a blockbuster hit. Nothing is thrilling about it, nothing that makes you go “Whoa! How’d they do that!?”
It’s more like tea in a hobbit hole than courtside seats at an NBA game.
I think that what made Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy such a huge and resounding success is that he preserved much of the very best of Tolkien’s story while presenting it in a way that made audiences go, “Whoa!”.
The films had both story and spectacle.1
And I think that’s, at least in part, why The Hobbit films were a relative flop.
If you think about it, The Hobbit should have experienced every success The Lord of the Rings experienced. And more. It was filmed using newer technology (which also introduced new difficulties, particularly for Sir Ian McKellen), at a higher frame rate, with more studio buy-in and fewer hurdles to getting started than the original trilogy.
And, it did check the spectacle box, complete with high-speed chases, giant rotund goblins, a fire-breathing dragon, rivers of molten gold, and five armies all clashing at the foot of a mountain.
But… they messed with the story.
They took a book that was fundamentally a delightful children’s adventure tale and stretched it out (like butter over too much bread) into an epic and action-packed trilogy.
I’m the first person who will defend a film against the accusation that “The Book was Better.” Film adaptations are a different kind of art than the books they’re based on. Books can do things movies can’t and films can do things books can’t. There will inevitably be differences, just as there were between The Lord of the Rings books and Jackson’s adaptations. But The Hobbit films went beyond an adaptation of a beloved book and transposed it into something entirely different.
Ultimately, The Hobbit films are still enjoyable movies (there’s a reason I know the run time for the extended editions of all 6 films 😅). But when I went to see them in theaters I didn’t walk out with the same sense of satisfaction I experienced after The Lord of the Rings. It was good, but it wasn’t as good.
So what?
You may be thinking, “Okay Casey, so what? You’ve been writing about Bible stuff. What does this have to do with theology or faith?”
Well…
I’ve been chewing on this idea of story and spectacle for a while now. While thinking about it I remembered an interview I heard on a podcast a while back.2 The host was a Christian and he was interviewing an atheist guest. The host asked, “What would it take for you to believe that God was real.”
Now, which of us hasn’t, at one point, asked or been asked that same question? The answer is quite often something like, “Well, if I heard an audible voice.” Or, “If I saw a vision like…” Or, “If *such and such specific criteria* occurred.” What was interesting to me was the guest’s response.
He didn’t say any of those things.
He said he wasn’t sure if anything could convince him. He said that if he set forth some criteria — whether a voice from heaven, or a message in sky-writing addressed to him by name, or whatever else — and then it happened, he would most likely write it off as a coincidence or a hallucination.
If whatever miraculous sign did occur, he wouldn’t believe it. Ultimately, I think, because any such sign would be a spectacle divorced from a story.
Interesting? Yes. Noteworthy? Of course. He would likely go home and say, “You won’t believe what happened to me today...” But it wouldn’t be enough to convince him, because spectacle without story may be interesting, but it’s not transformative.
Spectacle without story may be interesting, but it’s not transformative.
Faith in Jesus can’t be based on spectacle alone.
Our Storied Faith
Christianity is a storied faith. Nearly half of our scriptures are narratives. This bears repeating: Story makes up more of the Christian Scriptures than any other type of literature. (43% according to the folks at The Bible Project!)3 The storied nature of the Christian faith is so pronounced that it can be, and has been, compared to a 5-act play.4
It’s not hard to think of key stories from the Bible that are deeply formative, for the rest of the Bible and for Christians today:
The Fall
The Flood
The Exodus
The Life of Jesus
The Acts of the Early Church
Some of these have even been turned into blockbuster movies — films of story and spectacle — in their own right.5
These stories have spectacle as well, don’t get me wrong. There’s the birth of the cosmos, a talking snake, a cataclysmic flood, political intrigue, plagues, miracles, crucifixion, and resurrection. But these spectacular elements find their meaning in the story in which they take place.
To divorce the spectacle from the story is to miss the point.
Living the Story
Reflecting on Scripture
This is why reflection on scripture is a key practice for every denomination of Christianity. Whether we call it a quiet time, devotions, meditation, or Lectio Divina, one of the core spiritual practices of the Christian life is reflecting on and internalizing scripture.
This internalization isn’t just a matter of knowing information about the Bible. It’s about drinking so deeply of the story of God that we can live out that story in our own lives. N.T. Wright offers the following illustration of what this can look like:
Suppose there exists a Shakespeare play whose fifth act had been lost. The first four acts provide, let us suppose, such a wealth of characterization, such a crescendo of excitement within the plot, that it is generally agreed that the play ought to be staged. Nevertheless, it is felt inappropriate actually to write a fifth act once and for all: it would freeze the play into one form, and commit Shakespeare as it were to being prospectively responsible for work not in fact his own. Better, it might be felt, to give the key parts to highly trained, sensitive and experienced Shakespearian actors, who would immerse themselves in the first four acts, and in the language and culture of Shakespeare and his time, and who would then be told to work out a fifth act for themselves.6
Just as the hypothetical actors need to immerse themselves in the story of the first four acts to improvise the fifth act faithfully, the Christian is called to immerse himself or herself in the story of the Bible. Not only do we need to understand the “story so far” but we need to do all we can to understand the Author of the story and the world into which the original story was written.
Once we do, we do not simply re-enact the stories of scripture. (We want to learn from David’s sin, not repeat it.) Instead, like the actors from Wright’s illustration, we “improvise” in cooperation with the Holy Spirit to faithfully carry the story forward in our own lives.
We internalize the story of Scripture and then live it out as faithfully as we can. When we do, it inevitably leads to another storied element of the Christian faith…
Testimony
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power / and the kingdom of our God, / and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, / who accuses them before our God day and night, / has been hurled down.
They triumphed over him / by the blood of the Lamb / and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much / as to shrink from death.Revelation 12:10-11
Testimony is such a central part of the Christian tradition. In the stream of Christianity I grew up in “Testimony” is generally used as shorthand for “conversion story.” Because of that, it’s not uncommon to hear parents say, “I want my kids to have really boring testimonies.” (Meaning, by proxy, that they hope their kids don’t face dramatically difficult circumstances, addictions, or abuses. And, of course, all parents want that for their children.) But your testimony is so much more than your conversion story.
Our conversion stories are powerful, but our Testimony is the whole story of God’s work in our lives. We have testimonies of conversion, but we can also have testimonies of healing, encounter, guidance, blessing, calling, and obedience. In short, our testimony consists of any time when walking with God — living faithfully within the story of God — made a difference in our story.
Your testimony consists of any time walking with God made a difference in your story.
Sometimes a testimony can be spectacular. The miracle healing. The dramatic reversal of fortunes. The powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit.
But it doesn’t have to be.
It can be the encouragement received from your Bible Study. The chance encounter on the subway. The timely anonymous gift when you weren’t sure how to make ends meet. The invitation to an AA meeting. The opportunity to participate in the quirky office book group.
Each of these, and more, can be a part of your testimony.
I hope my children don’t have a boring testimony. Yes, I hope they’re spared from the worst life has to offer. But I hope that they learn to walk with God such that their lives are filled with stories, spectacular and otherwise, of how God has moved in and through them. I hope they so internalize the Story of God in the Bible that the story of God in their lives can’t help but result in fascinating stories of hope, healing, and redemption.
I hope that my testimony includes raising children with such interesting testimonies.
And I hope this article contributes to making your testimony a little more interesting as well.
What are your thoughts on Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Films? The Hobbit films? My theory of story and spectacle? Let me know in the comments!
This clearly isn’t a totalizing explanation of a film’s success or failure. If that were the case we’d see far fewer flops coming out of Hollywood. Like most things, the story behind any given project’s success or failure is complicated, but simple models like this can help us understand at least part of the story.
I think it might have been The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, but I’m not 100% certain, and couldn’t point to a particular episode. BTW, I highly recommend this podcast, but you’ve got to start at the beginning.
I’m particularly fond of the Dreamworks films Prince of Egypt and Joseph: King of Dreams. And who can forget the classic epic, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie?