[The Saucepan Man]

Davem<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Saucepan man, well, yeah, if you read Flieger's books you will see the point I'm making, expressed far better than I myself can make it. Why is that patronising? And even if I expressed the point in a patronising way, that doesn't invalidate the point itself, does it? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I am sorry. I misunderstood you. I thought you were suggesting that we only have to read these books to "see the light". I don't need to read the books. I understand the points that you are making. I simply disagree. <P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> The writers haven't understood the real point of the book. They've put the surface onto the screen & left out what really matters. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Let me make this absolutely clear. I am not saying that the films remotely approach the books as works of art. The books are literary masterpieces. The films are just very good films. But I think that it is unfair on the writers to say that they haven't understood the point of the book. Of course, they may well have different interpretations of parts of it to you and I. And they clearly (in my view) needed to change the emphasis of some of it for the big screen. But that is different to not understanding it. Yes, the films are shallower than the books. That was inevitable (unless they had made 6 commercially unviable 5 hour films). But I think that they have captured the essential spirit (and certainly to my mind the vision) behind the books.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Why all the emphasis on violence, brutality & ugliness at the expense of the beauty, nobility & overwhelming sense of loss of the original?<BR>Without the Warg attack we could have seen Frodo & Sam sharing a meal with Faramir at Henneth Annun. Without the Elves at Helms Deep episode, there would have been time to show Merry & Pippin with Treebeard at Wellinghall being told about the loss of the Entwives. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>To me, both films do include moments of great beauty and nobility as well as moments of brutality and ugliness. The Shire, Rivendell, Lothlorien, Rohan and Edoras, Henneth Annun and the Forbidden Pool are all portrayed beautifully. The locations generally are stunning. And as for nobility, well, as I have said above the portrayal of Boromir, and particularly his death, was for me the embodiment of nobility. Indeed, I see nobility by the truckload in all of the "good" characters in the films (yes, even Faramir ).<P>I too miss Frodo and Sam's discussion with Faramir and more of Merry and Pippin with the Ents. But replacing the additional battle scenes with these would have made the film a less commercially attractive proposition. I'm sorry, but in a film like this, action scenes sell.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> They've taken something 'high & beautiful' & churned out something both morbid & silly. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Of course they are not perfect, but I, along with millions of other film-goers (many many fans of Tolkien's works included), do not see these films as remotely "morbid and silly".<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Look, its like someone looking at the peaks of the Himalayas, being overwhelmed by their beauty, & deciding they want to make that beauty accessible, so they chop the top 20 feet off the mountains & put them on the ground, so people can see them easily. But you lose the majesty & the sense of awe which made them special, and just end up with a lot of big pointy boulders. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Davem, that is a wonderful analogy and illustrates the point that you are putting across very well. And, in a sense, I do agree with you. As I have said, there is a huge gulf between the books and the films. But that does not make the films any less meritorious on their own terms, ie as films. The top 20 foot of Mount Everest would, I think, compare very favourably to the top 20 foot of Ben Nevis! <P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Finally, if the writers didn't think they could do better than Tolkien, why would they change things, because they thought they could make them worse? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Surely you are not saying that the whole book could be filmed without changing a thing? Changes (and significant ones) were inevitable in order to turn it into a commercially successful film.