Even Lord of the Rings Biggest Star Had a Problem With the Sequels
Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is among the most famous movies of the last decades.
It made nearly $3 billions at the box office and won 17 Academy Awards. Furthermore, it had a massive impact on pop culture, far in excess of even that considerable level of success.
But that does not mean it was or is immune to criticism. And some of that criticism comes from quite unexpected sources.
For example, Viggo Mortensen, who achieved worldwide fame for his role of Aragorn in these movies, was unhappy with some aspects of the second and the third movies of the trilogy.
In particular, he did not like increased use of CGI. As he said in an interview with The Telegraph:
"In the first movie, yes, there's Rivendell, and Mordor, but there's sort of an organic quality to it, actors acting with each other, and real landscapes; it's grittier."
According to Mortensen, for the first movie, Peter Jackson was still in the process of learning the CGI technology, so he didn't rely on it as much, but then he started using it whenever possible.
As the result, Mortensen said: "Whatever was subtle ... in the first movie, gradually got lost in the second and third."
One had to wonder what Mortensen could have said about the "Hobbit" trilogy.
In any case, later Mortensen had to clarify that his opinion on CGI did not mean that he hated the trilogy.
As he told The Independent: "
It still had the spirit of Tolkien, they had that nailed down all the way – it's just my preference in the way I read him and I feel like the first one was more representative. I didn't say [Peter] had ruined anything, it doesn't mean I'm criticising [him]; it's just an opinion."
Still, he did not retract his opinion about CGI:
"I personally like the extended version of the first movie because it was less computer generated, had more scenes one-on-one."
Viggo Mortensen was not the only famous man to voice criticisms of The Lord of the Rings movies.
Some well-known directors, like Peter Weir and Steven Soderbergh, criticized certain aspects of its cinematography or impact on the industry, and even Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the premier expert on his father's works voiced his dislike of it.