: The production pioneered "bigatures"—massive, highly detailed miniature sets—and used groundbreaking motion-capture technology to begin bringing the character Gollum to life. All The Right Movies
The casting of Fellowship is often described as flawless, but that undersells it. It feels preordained. Ian McKellen’s Gandalf is the axis upon which the film turns—a bundle of cosmic impatience wrapped in a tweed cloak, capable of terrifying fury (his confrontation with Bilbo) and devastating tenderness (his words to Frodo in the Mines). Elijah Wood’s Frodo is not the sturdy, middle-aged hobbit of the book; he is a younger, more fragile vessel for an impossible burden, his large blue eyes registering a grief far beyond his years. the lord of the rings the fellowship of the ring -2001-
Jackson’s team at Weta Workshop blended groundbreaking CGI (like the Balrog) with "bigatures"—massive, highly detailed physical models of locations like Rivendell and Lothlórien . This gave the film a grounded, "lived-in" texture that modern CGI-heavy films often lack. Ian McKellen’s Gandalf is the axis upon which