User reviews

Jackson's remarkable looking documentary is an amalgam of archive footage (much of it originally staged for the 1916 film 'The Battle of the Somme'), with only a tiny amount of actual battle footage given the early nature of film cameras in those days, plus the more moving sight of several of the soldiers staring and smiling into camera, and thanks to skillful lip-reading, speaking through interpreted voices.

The slowing down to our standard 24fps and adding of voices is beautifully touching. I personally don't know if it was essential to colourise as some of the greys in the originals are still visible, when uncolourised black and white footage is still just as immediate (the irony is that so many war films nowadays are drained of colour anyway.) Nonetheless, it is a vivid impression of life on the Western Front that Jackson helps to create, and remains refreshingly objective to its time, reflecting the general pro-war feelings at the beginning in 1914, and through carefully selected testimonies of the many hundreds of soldiers, unfolds the story of a kind of war that had never been seen before, or hopefully never will be again. Sadly humanity never learns its lesson, as the "war to end all wars" is now better known as World War I - all the more reason for history to remind us.

You watch this film, and in some of its more harrowing scenes you can see all the visual influence that Jackson drew upon for his Lord of the Rings trilogy. He dedicated this film to his grandfather who served in the war, and watching it , on the day after my own great grandfather's birthday (who also served in WWI), it was a thought provoking moment that stayed with me for a few hours after.

This, simply put, is an amazing film that everyone should be required to see. Peter Jackson has miraculously restored World War I film footage and colorized it. That is the least of the accomplishments here. There are over 50 different soldiers from Britan, England, Canada, New Zealand & Australia that were recorded around 1914 who share their stories of what we are seeing unfold on the screen. It starts out with the drafting of men as young as 16 years old, to the climax of the final rush to the German trenches & barbed wire during the final battle of the war. Much credit is given to the empathy that the English troops showed toward their captured German counterparts, as neither party wanted to be involved in this slaughter. Over one million English soldiers lost their lives in this war. The storytellers range in their emotions of being in the war from elated, to workmanlike, and sometimes feeling guilty to have taken a life they felt they didn't need to. This is a top notch transportation back over one hundred years to a time most of us don't even think about, let alone want to learn about. "They Shall Not Grow Old" shows that there is still much left to study and learn from these ghosts. We're lucky Mr. Jackson came along to help preserve the fading heroes of our past.

"Trapped in a Charlie Chaplin World". So says director Peter Jackson in a post-screening discussion with Mark Kermode, describing early black and white documentary footage. Whereas modern film runs at 24 fps, most of the old footage is hand cranked, with speeds as low as 12 fps which leads to its jerky nature. Jackson in this project with the Imperial War Museum took their WW1 footage and put it through a 'pipeline process. This cleaned-up and restored the original footage; used clever computer interpolation to add in the missing 6 to 12 frames per second; and then colourised it.

The results are outstanding. Jackson wisely focuses the film on the specific slice of WW1 action from the trenches. And those anonymous figures become real, live, breathing humans on screen. It is obviously tragic that some (and as commented by Jackson, many in one scene) are not to be breathing humans for much longer.

These effects take a while to kick in. The early scenes in the documentary are in the original black and white, describing the recruitment process, and how many of the recruits were under-age. (To explain the varied comments in the film, they should have been 18, although officially shouldn't have been sent overseas until 19).

It is when the troops arrive in France that we suddenly go from black-and-white to the fully restored and colourised footage, and it is a gasp-inducing moment.

All of the audio commentary is from original BBC recordings of war veterans recounting their actual experiences in the trench. Some sound like heroes; some sound like rogues; all came out changed men. Supporting music of WW1 ditties, including the incredibly rude "Mademoiselle from Armentières" over the end credits, is provided by Plan 9.

But equally impressive is the dubbing of the characters onscreen. Jackson employed forensic lip-readers to determine what the soldiers on-screen were saying, and reproduced the speech using appropriate regional accents for the regiments concerned. Jackson also recounts how the words associated with a "pep-talk" speech to troops by an officer he found on an original slip of paper within the regimental records: outstanding. Added sound effects include real-life shelling by the New Zealand army. It all adds to the overall atmosphere of the film.

The film itself is a masterpiece of technical innovation that will change in the future the way in which we should be able to see this sort of early film footage forever. As a documentary it's near-perfection. But if I have a criticism of the cinema showing I attended it is that the 3D tended to detract rather than add to the film. Perhaps this is just my eyesight, but 3D always tends to make images slightly more blurry. Where (like "Gravity") there are great 3D effects to showcase, it's worth the slight negative to get the massive positive. But here, there was no such benefit: 2D would have been better. For those in the UK (and possibly through other broadcasters worldwide) the film is being shown on BBC2 tonight (11/11/18) at 9:30: I will be watching it again to compare and contrast.

Jackson dedicated the film to his grandfather. And almost all of us Brits will have relatives affected by this "war to end all wars". In my case, my grandfather was shot and severely wounded at Leuze Wood on the Somme, lying in the mud for four days and four nights before being recovered... by the Germans! Fortunately he was well-treated and, although dying young, recovered enough to father my father - else I wouldn't be here today writing this. On this Rememberance Sunday, 100 years on, it is a time for us to truly remember the sacrifice these men and boys gave to what, all in the film agree, was a pretty obstinate and pointless conflict.

It's only October and I have already seen two Oscar winning films. This (for best documentary) and A star is Born for loads of things.

Months ago I bought a ticket for this special live (3D) screening of this BFI film from the London Film Festival featuring a post film interview between Peter Jackson (the most modest man in cinema) and Mark Kermode (the most adulatory)

I thought it would be special.

It was more than that.

It was a landmark.

It was actually a significant night in cinematic history, because what Peter Jackson has achieved here is unparalleled.

We've all seen colourised war footage. It's interesting, but in reality it's a bit pants.

This is the real deal. A step forward in technology driven by heart, emotion, passion, DNA.

In this truly remarkable documentary Jackson brings us footage from the WW1 front line trenches in a way that you can't even begin to imagine.

First he restored hours of black and white footage to remove grain, scratches, burn marks etc.

Then he graded it.

Then he fixed all the film sprockets so they don't jiggle about and blur.

Then, get this, he turned it all from a hotch-potch of 10/11/12/14/16 and 17 Frames per second into it all being 24 FPS.

This is not insignificant.

A 17 FPS film transferred to 24 frames needs to 'find' 7 frames. It needs to create them, to fill in the gaps to make film flow as we expect. How one does that I have no clue. Frankly, neither does Jackson, but he knows people who were up to it and deliver on the challenge.

So, as Jackson puts it, we don't see Charlie Chaplinesque war footage. We see dignified film of soldiers in real time as our eye would compute it. This is important because it makes it so real.

Then he, frame by frame, colourised the whole lot.

Then he put a team of lip readers onto it to work out what the soldiers were saying when they spoke to camera (in 1914-18 there was no film/sound recording).

Then he recorded both battleground sound effects, by enlisting the NZ army, and the words these soldiers were saying, through actors, and lip synched and background-noised the whole thing.

Then he launched it.

The man is a genius.

The result is beyond words incredible.

On many occasions I gasped out loud, not least when he moved from the first reel, which shows unmodified footage of the preparation of enlistees for WWI, into the reality of war.

In a stunning coup de theatre the screen changes shape.

The audiences audibly gasps.

We are in a new reality.

Now, this all makes it sound like this is simply an exercise in technological show-offery.

No. this focuses on soldiers. Poor. Young. Men.

With terrible teeth, but with opinion, with humour, with dignity, with resolute spirit.

And not just young British men.

Perhaps the most affecting part of this film is where German POW's muck in and join the Brits. It's clear that in those days this was duty and honour for one's country, absolutely NOT hatred of the enemy.

This is a truly remarkable film experience.

It's important.

Find a way of seeing it.

It's much more than a cinematic landmark.

It's a historical one, because the legacy Peter Jackson's 14-18-Now and Imperial War Museum commission gives the world is new technology that will allow all sorts of ancient film archives to become living history.

In this case the 100 minutes that are committed to film are actually backed up by a further 100 hours of monochrome footage that Jackson's team has restored (free of charge) for his commissioners.

See when international honours are handed out (I think Bono has a knighthood for example) Peter Jackson needs to be number one on the list for this real and important achievement.

I assume a further Oscar is in the bag.

I needed some time for this to sink in before commenting on it. This was equal parts funny, exciting, moving, harrowing, horrifying, upsetting.

Firstly, it's not a glossy documentary. There are some harrowing scenes in this that will, and should, upset you.

The first 25 minutes are of original black and white, speeded up footage with the original voices of troops telling their story over the top of it.

Then something amazing happens. The screen widens, the footage smoothes out, the colours shines through and in an instant your and seeing everything in so much more detail.

That said this was the first time I've seen footage from The Great War that didn't feel disconnected. It feels real. Seeing the colour on their cheeks and eyes, the dirt, the mud, the blood brings the old footage to life. Occasionally the colourisation takes on a slightly animated feel but never enough to draw you out of the engrossing scenes laid out before you.

Then the frame rate adjustment is amazing. Having computers generate the missing frames to adjust the variable 15-18fps to the regular 24fps is a visual butter knife that smoothes out the jerky footage.

Having the soldiers talk sounds like a mistake but it's done in such a subtle and sensitive way it never feels false. They've been lip synced perfectly and apparently even with the right accent for the infantry units depicted.

This was powerful viewing. Computers and technology being used for something so important, to allow 100+ year old footage to look so modern and yet not feel sanitised is amazing.

This should become compulsory viewing for every one, all schools too.

With footage thats this accessible there's no reason history should be forgotten.

As this historically important anniversary draws to a close, I just want to say that my viewing of this film was that of utter amazement. As a photo colouriser/restorer, I was absolutely astonished at the work PJ's team put into this. The transition from the original film material, then to the stabilised and corrected FPS and then the full colour and sound was one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen on the screen. The colour is natural and really helps emphasise the grittiness of war and brings out hidden details that may have been missed in the B&W source. Usually I prefer film not to be tampered with, but as Jackson says, this is how the men saw it - in living colour. The addition of the voiceovers from the surviving soldiers themselves is a great choice and doesn't distract and flows along nicely with the visuals. Throughout I expressed various emotions of sadness and shock, but surprisingly a few laughs, particularly one shot showing a soldier banging a tune on another soldiers helmet as they march. I do wish I had seen this on the big screen and I imagine what I have said is enhanced 100x more with that type of viewing. A fitting tribute to the men that did and didn't come home and I hope it is recognised and picks up many awards.

I was lucky enough to bag a ticket to the one off showing of Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old, having watched a lot of World War One documentaries and made countless visits to historic sites across France and Belgium I was keen to see what was being marketed as a 'new' perspective on The Great War, it did not disappoint. Jackson chose to create a narrow focus narrative for this 1 hour 30 minute documentary to allow the viewer to delve into the fine details often missed in more sweeping documentaries trying to cover all aspects and areas of the conflict. Jackson chose to look closely at the lives and experiences of British native frontline troops in Belgium. The documentary follows a linear timeline beginning with the breakout of war and the initial volunteering of thousands of young men excited and ready for an adventure for King and Country and ends with the great sense of loss and uncertainty of the future the troops had by the end of the war. The entire documentary is narrated by records of surviving troops recorded in the 60s and 70s, this was an intentional move by Jackson that definitely adds to the ability for the viewer to connect and relate to the survivors. I especially found the stories and anecdotes about the goings on behind the lines during down time and R&R for the troops captivating as it is often over looked in other documentaries solely concentrating on the combat and horrors of war. The pain staking effort and lengths Jackson and his team went to to restore this footage not only with colour but with frame rate, sharpness and especially sound is breath taking. Taking the time to have professional lip readers painstakingly review all the footage so allow us to then know and hear what was being said truly brought the footage to life. My only issue with the film, something that is made note of by Jackson is of course because of the time in history and available cameras there is no actual combat footage available so you do spend a large amount of time just watching still hand drawn cartoons of the battles from the time, something that cannot be avoided but does detract from the immersion the rest of the film creates. I highly recommend this film to everyone, it is important we see the true perspective of what our ancestors went through and never forget these brave men and women.

Everyone over the age of 13 should be made to watch this.

This is simple exceptional work at every level from Peter Jackson and his team.

It showed the pure fragility of life, and how the soldiers dealt with it, mainly with humour and machine gun boiled tea.

It's haunting yet funny, disturbing yet uplifting. It's war. And this is the closest I ever want to come to it.

A century later, Peter Jackson produced an informative and fascinating documentary about the First World War, seen by the English, in the trenches of the Bay of Somme, with dusted and colored archive images.

Almost everyone expected a brief and victorious war, which, as it was said at the time, would be "over at Christmas". The continuation was very different and became a trench war. Hygiene was deplorable until it became laughable but the atmosphere within the troops was fraternal despite the constantly oppressive atmosphere.

And we also learn that the English infantrymen regularly had a mission to capture a Fritz. Knowing that from a military strategy point of view, this is a complete nonsense, a war prisoner being systematically an useless and cumbersome dead weight, it is perhaps a pity that this documentary does not give to the audience an explicit explanation. And the only rational explanation is probably this one: to force the English infantrymen to attack the Germans, the prisoner of war being the proof of the effectiveness of their attack ...

100 years on from the Great War we cannot pretend to know what life was like serving in the trenches. This incredible film brings us as close to experiencing it as we are ever going to get.

It is harrowing, it is poignant, it is funny. Above all else this film is heartbreaking. No punch is pulled, no attempt is made to hide the brutality of war or the hardship of the common soldier.

Quite simply this amazing documentary should be made compulsory viewing in all schools and for every soapbox, warmongering politician that would send our youth into hell.

I was very surprised when I watched "They Shall Not Grow Old" as I think my hopes were set way too high. Instead of seeing amazingly restored archival footage, the whole thing looked much like colorized WWI documentaries I'd seen on television already. Now I am not saying the film was bad....but it wasn't the amazingly restored masterpiece I heard it had been. Yes, Peter Jackson and his team did a ton of work on the film and it is impressive...but not as impressive as I'd hoped.

As for the film itself, it consists of no narration--just snippets from hundreds of different soldiers' accounts of the war. Then, it was all strung together with many, many, many short snippets. I personally would have probably enjoyed less snippets and more lengthy accounts of the war as the style film made it seem a bit choppy and disconnected.

Overall, not a bad film at all but one that didn't leave me as blown away as I expected from a BAFTA-nominated documentary. Good...not great.

By the way, while sitting and watching all this became a bit numbing, this would be a great film to show at a history museum--perhaps to play as you walked around the museum or perhaps cut into snippets that play as you walk about the place.

It bascially a collection of random quotes from a lot of nameless British soldiers who after the war tell what life in the trenches was like. There are some cute and scary stories about rats, the shelling and so forth, but why are they there in the first place?

You need to read up on The Great War before watching this, to appreciate it, because nothing about the war is explained, like who was fighting who , why and where. Not even the reason for digging the trenches is explained.

We see a lot of colorized images with dead people but are not told when, what and where. Was it at the battle of Ypres? Somme?

And the much appraised "technincal achievement"? Well, a lot of clips are basically reuse and taken from the magnificent documentary "Apocalypse: World War I" (can be found on You Tube).

This movie clearly lacks a narrator or some kind of structure. Disapointed.

Utterly haunting movie of life on the western front in WW1. Peter Jackson has thrown some serious computer firepower to bring these soldiers back to life.You will have never seen anything quite like this before.Breathtaking in many parts!

Besides it being a incredible feat of cinema that many reviewers have already pointed out.

The message of this Documentary needs to be solidified in every person under 30s brain and every politician. I went to see this luckily at a small theater. Me and my friend both in our 20's were by far the youngest in the small crowd.

Its a very heavy message of responsibly to ones country that is necessary under certain circumstances, yet it should be a responsibly that's to be a avoided at all costs if possible. That we should do whatever we can to not forget the atrocities of war and to live in a way that doesnt foster a scenario of resentment towards our fellow man that could cause this to happen again. Especially since modern warfare now includes nuclear arms, this scale of conflict ever again would devastate the entire planet.

It feels odd to say, but it's a credit to a titan of cinema like Peter Jackson to reflect that, as one watches, it's very easy to forget that he was involved in this at all. His approach to this documentary was to provide an immersive experience for the viewer, to let survivors' words ring loud and clear and let the footage speak for itself, and this intent was achieved perfectly. Hearing only voices, and declining the standard format of interviewees sitting in front of the camera, keeps us locked into what we see and hear. The incredible, flawless restoration of video from the 1910s, and its colorization, is so pristine that one easily forgets that that these are very real images, from a very real war, and not fabrications of film production. Such a sense is very emphatically bolstered by the addition of sound effects and voice work, amplifying the verisimilitude of the spellbinding experience until one is completely swept up in the feature. 'They shall not grow old' may be "only" a documentary, but it accomplishes a level of deep absorption and investment for the audience that far, far exceeds what the vast majority of conventional motion pictures can claim. This is simply outstanding.

It's a profound understatement to say that this was an ambitious project, though clearly Jackson had a measure of personal motivation to propel him. The breadth of the movie is impressive, even as several years of conflict are condensed into 100 minutes. Drawing together still photos, illustrations, untreated black and white footage, exquisitely restored and colorized footage, and the indicated survivors' tales and added sound, we're provided a glimpse of "the war to end all wars" from its very beginning to its very end. The initial excitement at a fresh new lark, the exuberance of literal children to sign up for military service, the rigors and repetition of training - through to the excruciating, filthy, bloody, deadly, reeking hell of battle and bombardment, the skepticism shared with supposed enemies of what it's all for, and the far less revelatory return home. Stills, footage, and recollectoins of soldiers just going about life in the trenches, otherwise on the frontlines, or on brief leave are mind-blowing in their juxtaposition with unfiltered and real imagery, and detailed descriptions, of blood, gore, death, destruction, and explosions far more terribly breath-taking than what the best special effects of Hollywood can dream up. And all the while we're met with the odd duality of struggling to meaningfully comprehend that all this was real, while also losing sight of the fact that this is a cinematic presentation helmed by the same man who gave us both 'The lord of the rings' and 'Meet the Feebles.'

Jackson has done much in his career for which he is to be rightly celebrated, and still it's quite possible that this is his greatest success to date. The most stirring fiction has a power that is easily matched, with far less labor, by the stark exhibition of one of the most awful events in (relatively) recent history, and the full scope of the human experience that was part and parcel of it. The effort here to augment the archived materials with audio to enrich the production could have easily come off as gauche and inauthentic, and there are perhaps other instances in film and TV where this has been the case - yet Jackson and his collaborators were so painstaking in the endeavor that the result is unfailingly, inescapably compelling. Such is the excellence of this picture that I don't think it's unreasonable to think even those who normally have difficulty abiding documentaries would find this far easier to get on board with. After all, that was rather the goal in the first place, to dispense with the customs of the genre, and the subsequent impact that 'They shall not grow old' has is momentous. To be frank, this is pretty much a must-see for one and all. Whatever one's walk of life: the very personal stories told here, the remembrance of so horrible a moment in history, and the implied warning of repeating it are essential, demanding viewership. However one needs to go about watching this, do it.

This movie made me think about my life in an entirely different context. It made me realise how incredibly fortunate I am to be able to switch the heating on when it gets a bit cold, or climb into bed after a long day at work. Boys, pretending to be old enough so they could fight for our freedom? It makes me cringe at the way we live our lives today. Truly brave men and we should be forever thankful. A great tribute by Peter Jackson.

The narrative of the film being told exclusively through oral history of soldiers of WWI taken during the 60's and 70's ensures that it had a relevance to today's audience. The masterpiece of the film is the transformation of 13-17 frames per second of 1914-18 film to 24 frames per second for today. This, along with the cleaning and digitisation, of the film suddenly brings the film alive. When colour is added you are virtually there 'at the front'! This can be seen to be the downside of the whole process. In the bringing to life of the old films have we made it Hollywoodesque? This is a slight criticism of a film that enables you to see the vast waste of life that the war was. It does need to be told as it is so pivotal, socially and politically, to the rest of the twentieth century.

To be sure, the French solder was brave, they faced the onslaught right into their country. The American WWI soldier was competent and the US played an important part in supplying the Allies and then in delivering the message that the Central Powers could not continue. The average German and central powers soldier had no choice in the matter. So, yes, this was a complex war like all wars. But there simply is no doubt that key factor in saving Europe in this war was the British solder. He was well trained, well equipped, stoically handled the challenges, and fought and won an extremely important war. Nowadays our kids are taught this war had no right and wrong side. That simply is not true. No matter how imperfect some aspects of the motives or poltical systems of the allies were, the choice was between enlightened forward looking democracies such as Britain and France, and eventually the US, and an utterly retrograde Germany. for Germany to have won and controlled Europe would have been a setback of huge proportions. In "They Shall Not Grow Old," Peter Jackson really brings the WWI Tommy to life with a nod to the professional British veteran solder at the beginning of the war that was worth ten German soldiers, to the entire generation of young, including very young solders that were the second echelon into the war but did the bulk of the fighting. The colorization and dubbing create a reality and presences that is in sharp contrast from the heretofore abstract and distant black and white soundless film clips that have until now have filtered and made that war less visceral, and less human Frankly not since Ken Burns "Civil War" has there been such innovation in war documentary

In terms of this documentary's tone, it is immediately set by scores of testimonies of British veterans, telling the viewer soldiering was just a job that needed doing; one they were proud of having done.

It then goes on to describe the early war atmosphere, in which young men were encouraged, indeed expected, to do their part and join the war effort, to the extent that teenage boys were told to lie about their age in order to do so.

These testimonies were carefully chosen. No voice of criticism is heard; no questions of morality are asked. No context is given as to why these men are even killing each other.

It is somewhat toned down once the documentary reaches trench warfare, but the prevailing sentiment is this: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

From the reviews and comments - many of which perpetuate the lie that the millions whose lives were taken sacrificed themselves for freedom - one must conclude that remembering has become meaningless.

My grandfather was a bugler and gassed at Passchendaele. I have only seen black and white photos of him and he died long after the Great War, but before I was born.

Like most British people of my age I have a certain image of WW1 influenced by Wilfred Owen and Blackadder. Peter Jackson has done a truly remarkable thing and transported me back in time. I found myself laughing, feeling sadness and above all a huge sense of identification with the ordinary lads and men who made up the British forces in this terrible war.

To see green grass, red poppies and ordinary men speaking like I do, but from 100 years ago, was as moving as anything I can ever remember watching in a film. The understated, conversational acknowledgement of the overall sense of anticlimax at the end of the war was as revelatory as it was honest. It spoke more eloquently about the pompousity of politicians and true feelings of the common man than a thousand poems or polemics ever could.

The voices I heard and the images of those men will stay with me. Well done Peter Jackson for creating an instant classic.

The film contains no drama, no storytelling, no dramatic arch. The film uses archival footage and narrative from soldiers who were in conflict. This limited the filmmaker's scope. While I have no doubt Peter Jackson did a marvelous job given the limitations in which he had to work, the limitations severely limited what the movie could be. First, only scenes which were captured by contemporary cameramen could be used. (There were some drawings Incorporated into the story telling.) Second, only narratives provided by soldiers were used. Because the movie shots were primarily used for propaganda purposes, most include smiling faces, laughing and joking soldiers. Because the narratives are those of survivors recorded decades after the war, most of the dialogue is distant from the action and mediated/moderated by many years. The viewer feels at arms length from the movie. Instructive and appreciated are the technical feats required to enliven the source material. That makes the film more "watchable", but does not make for a movie I would recommend.

The 5-part French series, Apocalypse WWI, is far superior in content, colorizing, and overall production.

Peter Jackson's big name seemingly created lots of publicity for TSNGO, but it was overrated and overhyped--at least if you've seen Apocalypse WWI.