[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Bungo Baggins

I was looking a t a film-related website and noticed some intriguing films on the way (King Kong, Narnia, etc.) but didn't notice any fantasy films in the style of LOTR.

An astute observation, Bungo, and one that deserves some consideration. You are quite right. Despite the success of the LotR films, there does not seem to be much in the way of films in the same style in the pipeline. I don't really consider the Harry Potter films or the forthcoming Lemony Snicket film - or even the Narnia film, despite the Tolkien/Lewis connection - to be in the same category. They are fantasy, yes, but they are not in the (to use a crude phrase) "Swords and Sorcery" mould. As has been said, they were bound to be made into films, being successful children's books in their own right. And what LotR and Harry Potter do seem to have done is promoted a keeness amongst studios to make successful children's books into films. I know LotR is not really a children's book, but many first read it in their childhood/teenage years and it is, no doubt, viewed as such by the studios. The Lemony Snicket and forthcoming Narnia and His Dark Materials films provide sound evidence of this.

Originally Posted by Mattius

To answer a question from earlier- yes the Chronicles of Narnia were made in to a television programme some years ago by the BBC. They were, in my opinion at least, as devoid of character, entertainement and fun as the books were.

Hi there Mattius. Good to see you back. It was indeed a television series - my kids have it on video and love it. But I have never read the books since they have never appealed to me, so I can't really comment further.

Originally Posted by Encaitare

I rather fear for what is going to be done to these excellent books in the movie -- for one thing, I don't like the idea of Jim Carrey as Count Olaf: too comedic.

Well, it has had good reviews and, from the previews, it certainly "looks" good. I am not a Jim Carrey fan, but have promised to take my daughter to see it after Christmas, as she was rather taken by the preview they showed when we went to see The Incredibles. (Alas, I only get to see children's films at the cinema these days - although Pixar certainly know how to make children's films with a great appeal for adults).

Originally Posted by Mattius

The excellent His Dark Materials is next in line for a big Hollywood production but I am seriously concerned about what it will end up like.

You and me both Mattius. As you say, the "anti-religious" sentiment has already been cut, under pressure from a vocal Christian fundamentalist lobby. And now I hear that Tom Stoppard has resigned as script-writer (a very serious loss), and I believe that the director has just walked out too. It really doesn't bode well. Still, I'm off to see the stage-play tomorrow, which I am led to believe is rather good.

But, to get back to the topic at hand, I am surprised that LotR has not engendered a flurry of "swords and sorcery" films. We had a good few in the 1980s (Willow, Legend, Hawk the Slayer, The Beastmaster, Labrynth, The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarion, Red Sonya, Dungeons and Dragons, that one where Sean Connery voiced the Dragon and so on). None of these achieved the success of the LotR films and they were pretty poor on the whole. Although there are notable exceptions (the excellent Legend in particular), none come near to the quality of the LotR films (and that's not only because of advancements in special effects technology). Perhaps studios were put off the fantasy genre by this and haven't quite got over it. Certainly, LotR has more in common with Gladiator and Troy than many of these films, so perhaps studios are only prepared to go for fantasy films if they have that epic feel. After all, it is a genre which many still associate with geeky kids playing Dungeons and Dragons (although, in my view, there's nothing wrong with that - it perfectly describes my childhood ).

Finally:

Originally Posted by Encaitare

I've got a question of my own for those who read LotR before seeing the movies. I felt disappointed with some of the depictions of the characters in the HP movies -- I thought, "Hey, that's not how he looks!" and wondered what possessed the moviemakers to make them look the way they did, when clearly they should have called me to find out how to do it right. Is this how anyone felt with the LotR movies?

I read the book long before the films came out, but it is difficult for me now to remember how I imagined the characters and places when I first read the book, as I have seen much LotR-based art since and this has influenced my own impressions. The films certainly captured my vision of Middle-earth, but this is possibly because my vision has been influenced over the years by the artwork of Alan Lee and John Howe (and by other artists influenced by them), and they were central to the design of the films. But suffice it to say that I was most certainly not disappointed by the "look" of the films. Some of the characters (Theoden, for example) were different from how I imagined them previously, but many of these have now been happily assimilated into my own vision. When I read the book now, it is a mixture of film and pre-existing images, and I am comfortable with that.