Legendary Hollywood director Peter Jackson shows you the soldiers as you’ve never seen them before. 

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. It will see many events, celebrations and times of reflections for those who gave their lives for ours. 

One exciting broadcast that will be happening is They Shall Not Grow Old, a documentary airing on BBC Two at 9:30 pm on Armistice day, showing exclusive original footage from the Imperial War Museum film archive and audio from the BBC archives. 

However, the biggest excitement about the documentary is that the footage has been remastered to show the soldiers incolour, giving the audience a better understanding of what the soldiers experienced on the battlefield. 

As well as the footage being transformed into colour for the first time, huge Hollywood director and producer Peter Jackson is leading the project. The director both known for and winning Oscars with The Lord of the Rings trilogy has taken on the project due to a personal fascination with the period.

He said: “I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world, so they can regain their humanity once more – rather than be seen only as Charlie Chaplin-type figures in the vintage archive film. By using our computing power to erase the technical limitations of 100-year-old cinema, we can see and hear the Great War as they experienced it.” 

See also:

• On this day in WWI
• Reasons to remember: making a new world at the Imperial War Museum
• How’s the centenary Remembrance Day being marked this year?

Words: Jake Woods | Subbing: Matilde Moro