Reanimating the Master Narrative: How They Shall Not Grow Old Curates the Perception of Common Truth through CGI Animation

In 2014, the British Imperial War Museum (IWM) contracted New Zealand-based filmmaker, Peter Jackson, to use their audio and video archives to create a media-based memorial to the men who served in World War 1. The documentary film, They Shall Not Grow Old (TSNGO), released in 2018, was the product of this collaboration. Jackson took on the project to better understand his own grandfather’s experience as a soldier at the Battle of the Somme. Weta Digital Studios, founded by Jackson, converted the standard WWI newsreel footage into a product that aligned to a modern audience’s perceptual sense of truth. Weta Digital redrew and colored each frame, a process that is strikingly similar to CGI animation. Curiously, Jackson, a filmmaker whose career has hinged on his ability to collaborate with CGI animators, does not describe his new historical film treatment as animation. This article first argues that TSNGO is following in the footsteps of previous CGI animated films, in particular those that have re-edited historical footage, but more importantly asks: why would Jackson prefer to keep the word ‘animation’ out of the discussion about his new historical documentary? The answer to this question leads us to a critical discussion about how animation has become both the preserver and ‘re-imaginer’ of existing historical archives.