Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) is a documentary like any other. Covering the British front of WWI, audiences experience the war through the eyes - and ears - of those who experienced it firsthand. To tell the stories of those who lived and fought in WWI, Jackson and his team mined audio files of BBC interviews with war veterans to provide narration; they also colorized and image-stablized what was black and white film at inconsistent frame rates. Even more impressively, they added in period-specific sound effects and hired voice actors to dub some of the lines in the film which could be lipread by experts - a difficult feat no doubt. Ultimately, in making the film, Jackson wanted audiences to experience and connect with WWI in a way they hadn't before. The soldiers didn't experience the war in 2D and in black in white, so why should others?
When it was released, They Shall Not Grow Old became a worldwide sensation and was both a critical and financial success. Dave Trumbore of Collider, for example, loved the film, writing that "They Shall Not Grow Old is, at once, a technical marvel of historical importance, a deeply moving personal story of real-world heroes, and a timeless reminder that the atrocities of war must necessarily be avoided at all costs." Not only that, the film broke box-office records for documentaries, grossing over $20.4 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
