Into the Wilderland, and a better Understanding

Finished the “The Appendices Part 9: Into the Wilderland” from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition, and it did a couple of things for me:

• Appreciate the films more: I have my disagreements with how the film took certain characters and events, but watching the care that went into the production made me respect that vision more than I had before
• Separate the film from the book: this is tied to the first point; the more I see the film as its own thing, the more I can look at its merits rather than opportunities I felt were missed based on what I consider important from the original book
• Pacing of a sprint: seeing how late the decision came to make it three films and how the last action sequence came together on the fly helped me understand why things ended the way they did
• Different job, same problems: production management, logistical nightmares, time crunches that make you shudder, etc. Now matter what your profession, these things happen and they certainly did on The Desolation of Smaug
• More clapping: while we all have the same problems I did like how much clapping there was when something came together. I think every job could use more celebration when things go right!
• My cup o’tea: Mr. Peter Jackson earned awesome points from me for the following: 1.) always having a mug of tea in hand (I liked the homey feel), 2.) giving the actors the occasional hard time since they have it so good, and 3.) staying up with the sounds guys through whatever-in-the-morning so the film could be completed on (relative) time, then owning up to the fact that he wasn’t proud of making the sound department go through that
• Virtually amazing: the way the final action sequence came together at the last-minute with the director walking through the virtual environment, holding the camera and being able to look anywhere in said environment while having the team manipulate how fast he was talking in the environment? Amazing

Still have “The Appendices Part 10: The Journey To Erebor” yet, and I’m looking forward to it.

Post tenebras lux