Who has the right idea?
 

Now that the majority of the Barrowdowns (or somthing like that) has seen TTT and are posting their opinions I seem to come across quite a few disapointments. This disapoints me since I thought the movie was spectacuallar and though there were changes for better or for worse I belive in making lemonade when life gives you lemons. <P>As I try to make excuses in my head of why the changes were acceptiable I keep thinking "Well, at least it's not Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings." <P>Then I start to think. "Is PJ's version better?" What do you think? Are Ralph's character's more like Tolkien's? Is his format for his movies better set up?<P>Should we be thankfull for what we have? Or should we claim that the lemonade PJ made out of lemons is too sour?<P>

Who's Ralph Bakshi?<P>~~~~~~~~<P>T Minus 20 minutes....

He made the animated Lord of the Rings in the 70s that only went halfway through the story. Sorry for not mentioning that. I ignorantly figured everyone knew that.

I think that what I'm getting at is after enjoying the movie so much there seems to be disapointment choking the air around the Barrowdowns and making me very depressed.<P>I can't help but notice that behind the praises to Gollum and a few other characters there is a layer of dismay towards PJ that wasn't there after the Fellowship.<P>Therefore, what I'm asking is looking at other remakes of Tolkien...<P>WAS IT WORTH IT? Would it have been better if PJ never made these movies? Shouldn't we be greatfull for the work he has put into his billion dollor fanfiction?<P>

I believe it was WELL WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought the animated version was horrible, it just wasn't real. <BR>PJ has really brought Middle Earth and all the charaters to life, and the movies are to die for!!!!!!! How anyone can say that it wasn't worth it, is just beyond my comprehension.

Even ignoring the fact that Ralph's movie was about Middle-Earth, the bottom line remains. It was a truly awful film in every sense.<P>Technology has advanced so Jackson has the obvious advantage, plus the finacial backing. They are awesome movies, I can't express how much I love them.<P>So I won't try.

The movies are awsome. I loved The Two Towers, even though there was so much changed. If you really think on the major changes, most of them can be justified.<P> Namarie

Well, I saw the Bakshi animated thing when it came out, and even the cartoon-thing aside, it was a disappointment. At the time, the rights were sold down the path of animation, because prior to Star Wars, the financial and technical vision didn't exist in film-making to do it in any other way, except as a very silly thing, such as the ideas presented to JRRT in the 1950s/1960s. The rights having ended up with Rankin:Bass and so forth explains why these Films took so long to happen.<P>Nevertheless, the Bakshi film has its good points. He had some fine ideas, and as much as his budget allowed, the animation is really exceptional for that time.<P>Still, Mr. Jackson's work is quite different, and putting aside the type of money that now exists for this sort of thing, he has really done a great job of producing something that can justify the price tag for general (nonspecialist) audiences, and that is very entertaining for a book lover, but also artsy and creative, and in most ways quite true to the spirit of the Books, given that we all have different emphases in such regards.<P>For Mr. Jackson, as he comments in the Special Extended DVD, he saw the Bakshi movie before reading the books. And though he concedes only the Proudfoot thing at Bilbo's Party has a testament to Bakshi, in fact, his Bree scenes and some others definitely mirror the animated version, which I think is no problem legally, since they should also own the rights to that work now, too.<P>What I think it points to, however, is that love them or have concerns about them, the Films owe something to the animated movie, and Mr. Jackson is first and foremost a fan of making films, not of JRRT's "The Lord of Rings" per se, as he has claimed.<p>[ December 22, 2002: Message edited by: Man-of-the-Wold ]

I thought it was well worth it. I didn't like some of the changes PJ made, but that still doesn't make it bad. For the few things I didn't like about his TTT, there were lots of other things I loved about it. <P>And I HATED Bakshi's version of LOTR. :P I couldn't stand it, lol. PJ would have to REALLY mess things up for his version to be that bad.