Item: Anything You Can Imagine
Rating: 4.00
Author: lindsey

by Ian Nathan

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’.

As a massive fan of The Lord of the Rings, both the books and the movies, I was excited to finally get my hands on a copy of this book. Although I knew I didn't know everything about the films and books, I thought I was pretty knowledgable about it and wasn't sure how much I could possibly learn from Anything You Can Imagine. The answer? So much!

Anything You Can Imagine is an incredibly well-researched book. The author is clearly a fan and was allowed into the inner sanctum during filming to see how things worked first-hand, something most fans of the movies would have given their left arms to experience.

The book starts from the very beginning, leaving almost no stone unturned during the journey of the making of these films. He delves into Peter Jackson's humble filmmaking beginnings and works up to Peter and Fran Walsh's decision to attempt turning The Lord of the Rings into a movie.

Things got a little slow during the first few chapters, which talked about all of the Hollywood politics that swirled around the rights before Peter was allowed to tackle the ambitious project, but it picked up as soon as he returned to New Zealand and we were allowed to jump into the actual making of the movies.

The interviews with the cast were interesting and even though I've watched the DVD extras on the Extended Editions of the movies and thought I'd read pretty much every interview available, there were things I didn't know, and I was ecstatic to learn even more about these films.

Things slowed down just a bit again after The Return of the King's triumph at the Oscars when the book again turned to Hollywood politics about trying to get The Hobbit films made, but it was nice to see a little behind-the-scenes of those movies, as well.

Getting to see behind the scenes of the making of my all-time favorite movies was definitely a treat and I have a greater appreciation of them than I did before, which I didn't even think was possible. If you're a fan of the movies and want to know more about how they were made, this is a book you definitely don't want to miss!

Anything You Can Imagine

by Ian Nathan

Reviewed by lindsey on Jan 7, 2020

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