It's got wizards and it's got small hairy footed hobbits in it. But that, for Peter was not the over-riding important thing about the story. The important thing was that this was a story which seemed to have within it, a sense of reality. Ian said to me again and again, there is in the book a sense that you are reading something which isn't fantasy, but which is history, and that is what Peter wanted to put on film. And I really think he's done it.
One of the little exercises I do to avoid living my tiredness and enormity of the job sortof overwelm me, is I stop every now and again and say, well is there anything else in the world I would rather be doing right now than making Lord of the Rings into a film. And, and obviously the answer is no. This is exactly what, I'm doing what I, you know, would love to do.
JRR Tolkien is very aware that he created a world that existed within his books, but he also said that it was a world that could be enhanced by the people, with paint, with music, with drama, and that is I think what Peter Jackson has done. Tolkien created a myth, a modern myth, and what has happened is that by turning this into a film, a film-maker has given it a new dimension, has taken that myth one stage further, which is how myths are born, how they are carried through generation after generation, so in a way I see Peter Jackson as part of a mythic process which was begone by Tolkien when he first wrote the first line of that book.
