Sam Raimi vs. Peter Jackson

[mrrockey]

Has anyone else realized the amount of parallels these two filmmakers share?

Here's some examples:

- both started out making low-budget horror films in the 1980s(The Evil Dead, Bad Taste, Braindead)

- both directed a blockbuster trilogy starting in the early 2000s(Spider-Man and The Lord of the Rings)

- both made fantasy prequels around the early 2010s(The Hobbit and Oz the Great and Powerful)

- both made critically-acclaimed dramas in the 1990s(Heavenly Creatures, A Simple Plan)

- both never had professional training prior to directing but made shorts at early ages

Who do you think is the better filmmaker and why?

Discuss...

[Edd Grayson]

I like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.

However, I'm not the biggest fan of Raimi's Spider-Man or Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. I don't hate them, I think they're good movies, just not to my taste.

[Silver Nemesis]

Raimi for me. I've never been much of a fan of Jackson. I love Tolkien's Middle-earth books, but the adaptations have always left me cold. And since you could literally read The Hobbit in less time than it takes to watch the bloated film trilogy, I'd recommend for everyone to skip the movies and go straight to the source material. I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings films when they first came out, but now I find them quite difficult to sit through. I guess I just prefer Tolkien's novels over their adaptations.

I think Raimi's delivered a higher and more consistent level of quality throughout his career. The Rotten Tomatoes scores for his films substantiate this:

Evil Dead (1981) – 98%
Evil Dead II (1987) – 98%
Darkman (1990) – 82%
Army of Darkness (1992) – 70%
A Simple Plan (1998) – 90%
Spider-Man (2002) – 89%
Spider-Man 2 (2004) 94% (the first Marvel film to win an Oscar)
Drag Me to Hell (2009) – 92%

Raimi's films usually display an impressive level of technical inventiveness, humour and atmosphere. I'd sooner watch his weaker films, like Spider-Man 3 (2007) or Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), than most of Jackson's filmography. But that's just me.