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Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc
1) Of course what matters is "the core", i.e. the spirit, whether this is Tolkien or just a bad generic fantasy. However, many fans seem to be pre-decided that this is going to be bad, so bad, already before seeing very much and ignoring the signs that might (potentially) also point to the contrary (e.g. the facts that the authors seem to be honestly trying, that there are "real fans" among them, that they have been reading Tolkien every morning before filming and so on). (Sidenote, before anyone shelves me as a defender, let me restate that I am against all and any adaptations including this one, but I am trying to be objective!)
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I am curious - can anyone imagine a
good TV adaptation of Tolkien? Not a simplified children's version, not an action movie, but legitimate Tolkien?
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Originally Posted by Legate
2) Which is directly connected to the next one, where I would ask everyone (does not necessarily apply to members of this forum of all things, but everyone try to discern about yourselves) to try to examine their own thoughts and feelings about the topic, and tell to themselves TRUTHFULLY what does your negative feeling about the show truly depend on and where does it come from.
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Is there a lot of dissatisfaction, perhaps, because the portrayal of Tolkien's world is
not how you imagined it to be, and that just grates too much? A superficial rub rather than a deeper lack of understanding on the show's part?
Personally, I think they could have made a
great generic fantasy show. Have it in Second Age Numenor, you could put an entire Game of Thrones in there without a problem, have some familiar names mentioned in the background... It it legit Tolkien? Of course not. But it could have been a good show - a Tolkien-themed story, set in Tolkien's universe, but also disconnected from the main stories and able to shine as an independent TV production, free to take the story and visuals wherever they want to make the show good. I had such high hopes for it. But then they make it very clear that they are NOT making it disconnected and independent; in fact, it seems that they are doing everything possible to link it up with existing material, movie and book alike. And some of that is good - I think we will find a lot of neat references in there. And some of the references are probably gonna be incorrect, but that won't be the problem - that would probably be good fun. But then they begin encroaching on things that are sacred, and people get mad. What is sacred? It's different for everyone, and I don't know if it's possible to pinpoint exactly what it is. I think that people generally tolerate discrepancy between the imagined and the portrayed fairly well when it really is something that is a mere detail; like, ok, maybe you'd find the adaptation "ok" instead of "exceptional", but I don't think people often give bad reviews for non-critical details. However, when you are emotionally attached to certain things, that sort of change is a lot harder to accept. And that can be a visual depiction, or a character, or a dialogue, or a culture, or a landscape, or the details of just how exactly something is said or done. If you are sufficiently emotionally attached to the story in one version, you naturally react stronger to changes to that vision, from the way it was in your head and the way you cherished it for so long. So of course people get mad over details of every sort - we are all emotionally attached to Tolkien's world, and some aspects of it are more vivid for some and less vivid for others, and the vision is more rigid for some than for others, but we all get angry when that little sacred part gets stepped on. Or at least that's my theory of why fans get mad about adaptations in general, not specific to Tolkien or fantasy or any other specific genre.
As an objective measure, I propose a test of recognition. Obviously we will all imagine things differently; however, with a faithful enough portrayal, we should be able to recognize familiar people and places without difficulty. If you struggle to recognize a character or place without the name or context provided, just by the visual, it probably means that the visual is not a great representation. This is true for art - when I look through various fan-art, it's amazing how you can usually place each picture within seconds. You'd think that in Tolkien art everyone is dressed sort of the same in some medieval costume, but there is always a gestalt of details that lets you identify the character - even on the black and white pencil drawings, where you can't go by hair colour or colour of clothes. And then there is some art where you just wouldn't be able to tell what that is without there being a deciphering caption or title. So let's put the trailer to the test. Is there sufficient visual detail and acting skill to portray people and places in an easily recognizable manner? As a first step, would you be able to guess that the places and people are from something Tolkienesque? For step two, if you were shown a still photo of these characters and told "this is from somewhere in Tolkien" but not any more details, would you be able to identify the person or place (or race of people, or specific named item, or any other specifier)? (Or, do you think there is a better way to put these questions - if so, let's go for it. Let's run a survey experiment and see where opinions fall. Of course, it's not truly objective, because it depends on a what-if scenario where you already know the answer. But try to think of your first reaction when you saw the images or heard bits of the plot).
Doing the test for myself, and thinking back to my first about this, I find that if I didn't already see Galadriel and Elrond in the article prior to the trailer, with explanations of who they are, I would not recognize them easily. Elrond - not at all, Galadriel - maybe after a lot of thinking through who this could possibly be, in a world with not that many named female characters. It's not just about their physical appearance, but because so far we haven't seen them do what we most often imagine them doing, in places where we most often imagine them being. (Like, for instance, there's a good chance that at some point in her life Galadriel happened to be near an icy waterfall, but by virtue of statistical probability you're more likely to imagine her in a forest or an Elvish palace). So, if this is to be treated as a sort of fan-fiction, they've only shown the "fiction" part of it - but with just enough canon to enable everyone to scream "no! this is wrong!". And based on the few scenes that we have, is it then not natural to have incredulity, if they don't match our imaginations to such a large extent? I am curious who thinks they would recognize Galadriel in the raft scenes without being told this is her. Galadriel with armour - I think I might have come to that deduction after some playing detective. But Galadriel on the raft? And if the show's image of the character (their combined visual appearance, actions, and acting) are so bizarrely different from your mental image, even despite a few correct details (e.g. blonde hair), is it any wonder that people complain?
Similar story for the Silvan Elf (does he have a name yet?): that is not how I would imagine a Silvan Elf, and I don't think I would be able to place him in that category without being told to expect him - not that there is any specific detail that is wrong or lacking, but the gestalt, from the haircut to the clothes to, well, unspecified gestalt. But then again, all that we've seen him do so far is do ridiculous looking stunts - we haven't heard him speak, we haven't seen him even walk normally, we just know he catches arrows in mid-flight. So while it's possible that he might actually be a decently made character, of what I've seen so far there is more evidence against than there is for.
I won't go through all the characters (lol, Meeple), but honestly, going by the people alone, there's not much to go with without any context. Gil-Galad? Wouldn't know him (are we even sure it's him?). So I don't think it's wrong of people to offer more criticism than support, because 1) we have concrete evidence for criticism, and while there is a possibility of good dialogue and acting and maybe even plot, at this point in time that is all faith and wishful thinking; and 2) experience teaches that putting too much faith in movie adaptations results in disappointment.
That is different for some of the inanimate items though. The Two Trees dagger is very suggestive. Several other details in the armour and weapons are perhaps not placeable immediately, but suggest that they may become placeable with a little bit more development (e.g. we might see them associated with certain characters or groups). I think that has potential.
As for places, for myself it was a mix. It only took me a few seconds to place Numenor, which to me says that it's probably a good depiction. And you can argue that the architecture is off or that Meneltarma is not sufficiently steep, but it's recognizable. The Dwarves-in-cave scenes are presumably Moria, but this is due to a paucity of such locations more than recognition by details. The rest are not easily identified (the Golden Wood is apparently Lindon, which I found confusing), and I suppose they are too generic to say much. They do look nice though, and there is a good breadth of geography which is fitting.
So, on the whole, the only thing I can conclude from my own experience is that they just chose the worst possible way to make the trailer. Perhaps the idea was that they'll flash a few characters to allow people to identify some people and places, and leave the rest up to guesswork, hoping that would heat the hype. Except that in selecting the scenes that they did, they managed to include a lot of the wrong stuff, and have neglected to put in any right stuff. The audience of book-supporters is probably less interested in arrow catching and explosions and the "fiction" part of the fan-fiction, and those scenes just tend to trample the sacred without offering much in return. As a rule of thumb, don't judge a book by its cover, and don't judge a movie by its trailer - but if that's all you have to judge by, how can you not.
But more than that, I am curious what the answers would be if we actually did do a sort of informal survey, on how many book-readers could recognize these characters without being told who they are. How much does the show measure up to our imaginations? It is absolutely going to differ, but I still maintain that on average a good depiction will still be recognized by most. And if, on the contrary, most people would not associate this depiction with the character, I would question the gestalt of the portrayal - how the character looks, speaks, dresses, acts - and, in some way, I suppose that is synonymous with the "core" or "spirit" of the character and the work.
Anyone else wanna do the recognizability test?
(Thank you Legate for giving me something to chew on, and for a new line of thinking)