Be it coincidence or homage or the outright hope that they don’t get caught aping someone else’s movie, filmmakers have been replicating the work of those who have gone before them for some time now. Every now and then we like to stop and point out one of those instances.
We’ve already seen where Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson has talked about how Bakshi’s animated adaptation of the first half of The Lord Of The Rings inspired him to seek out Tolkien’s work, ultimately leading to him making his own landmark films. And how, in recognition of that, he slipped in an homage to the the animated version be replicating a specific shot during Bilbo’s Birthday Party scene near the beginning of Fellowship Of The Ring.
But there is another moment that Jackson seems to be riffing on as well. It comes a short while later in the film as Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin are on the road out of the Shire when they almost encounter one of the nine Black Riders of the evil Sauron.
The incident happens in Chapter Three of Fellowship Of The Ring. The four hobbits have left Hobbiton to ultimately meet up with Gandalf the wizard at the town of Bree. But Frodo, upon hearing an unseen horse and rider approaching, urged his companions to get off the road and hide. In the book, Tolkien has his hobbits hide off in the nearby tall grass as the approaching horseman reveals itself to be one of Sauron’s chief lieutenants on their mission to find the powerful One Ring. However, in both Bakshi’s animated version and Jackson’s live action film the quartet actually take refuge on the side of the road, hidden under some exposed tree roots. Such a specific deviation by both filmmakers does not seem a coincidence.
Take a look and decide for yourself.
