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Anything You Can Imagine

Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth

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Anything You Can Imagine

By: Ian Nathan, Andy Serkis - introduction
Narrated by: Tristram Wymark
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The definitive history of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth saga, Anything You Can Imagine takes us on a cinematic journey across all six films, featuring brand-new interviews with Peter, his cast & crew. From the early days of daring to dream it could be done, through the highs and lows of making the films, to fan adoration and, finally, Oscar glory.

Lights
A nine-year-old boy in New Zealand’s Pukerua Bay stays up late and is spellbound by a sixty-year-old vision of a giant ape on an island full of dinosaurs. This is true magic. And the boy knows that he wants to be a magician.

Camera
Fast-forward twenty years and the boy has begun to cast a spell over the film-going audience, conjuring gore-splattered romps with bravura skill that will lead to Academy recognition with an Oscar nomination for Heavenly Creatures. The boy from Pukerua Bay with monsters reflected in his eyes has arrived, and Hollywood comes calling. What would he like to do next? ‘How about a fantasy film, something like The Lord of the Rings…?’

Action
The greatest work of fantasy in modern literature, and the biggest, with rights ownership so complex it will baffle a wizard. Vast. Complex. Unfilmable. One does not simply walk into Mordor – unless you are Peter Jackson.

Anything You Can Imagine tells the full, dramatic story of how Jackson and his trusty fellowship of Kiwi filmmakers dared take on a quest every bit as daunting as Frodo’s, and transformed JRR Tolkien’s epic tale of adventure into cinematic magic, and then did it again with The Hobbit. Enriched with brand-new interviews with Jackson, his fellow filmmakers and many of the films’ stars, Ian Nathan’s mesmerising narrative whisks us to Middle-earth, to gaze over the shoulder of the director as he creates the impossible, the unforgettable, and proves that film-making really is ‘anything you can imagine’.

Direction & Production Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV History & Criticism Celebrity Entertainment Magic Magic Users Fiction Thought-Provoking Fantasy
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Critic reviews

‘This book truly is the definitive history of the Lord of the Rings films. Nearly every single element of the productions is coverd here, from writing, to shooting, to Oscar-night jitters. Nathan’s prose does exactly what you want from a book like this: it makes you feel as if you’re really there.’
SlashFilm

‘In breezy and often cheeky prose, Nathan tells a grand story worthy of the annals of great filmmaking… there is much to learn, to chuckle over and to admire as Jackson and his band of indefatigable Kiwis face down the naysayers.’
Daily Mail

All stars
Most relevant
As a huge lover of the lord of the rings ESPECIALLY the documentaries provided in the extended edition DVDs, this book brought me more knowledge about the making of LOTR, the cast and crew and the difficulties they faced that were only hinted at in the documentaries. I have always had a huge respect for Peter Jackson and his team’s work and during the book’s progression I found myself ping-ponging between thinking of them as ordinary people doing extraordinary things and thinking of them as godly. What they did with middle earth is amazing.

TL;DR I really enjoyed this book.

The extended extended documentaries

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Jackson introduced me to the world of middle
Earth with the fellowship of the ring, before the Two Towers came out I had absorbed the rest of the trilogy, the hobbit and was making decent headway into the Silmarilion.

This “behind the scenes” look at the journey of the ring and it’s trials and tribulations, garnered even more respect I had for PJ.

I thoroughly recommend this to anyone who enjoys understanding how a story came to be or even just a Tolkienite so you can understand the amount of love and respect that the director and his team put into the films.

An excellent book!

My respect grows ever on and on

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Brilliant peak into the making of LOTR. It sets up all the pieces, from directors,producers, studio heads right down to stunt people. Then lovingly traces each of these people's origin story right up to the point where they start to work on the films. Even though I loved the extended edition documentaries, I didn't think that they were a little bit sanitized and a little overproduced. This account is the perfect balance to that, the trials and tribulations about how this story made it to the big screen is laid out in full.

Apart from all this it's just a fascinating look into the inner workings of the business of movie making.

Two thumbs way up!

Behind the curtain

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...although I could've done without the chapters on 'The Hobbit' films. What initially comes off as dry anecdotes on the politics of the early wrangling for rights comes alive when the making of the films begins proper. I loved the narrators impersonations and found the information included exhaustive and never not important to the epic telling of this epic journey.

Exhaustive but never exhausting...

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an amazing audio, I look forward to this voice actor doing more. absolutely riveting more words to reach the mini

an absolutely remarkable narration

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