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.... and many of those same people had some sort of axe to grind, some sort of personal antagonism towards the film(s)
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There you're being unfair. I had no axe to grind about the movies: I anticipated them eagerly, and nobody wanted them to succeed artistically more than I. I was even prepared to discount the rumors that leaked from the set like Wizard-fu and the Round Spiked Wheelie Dealie. I really, really looked forward to them: and I was let down. I realize you are one of those who want to detach film adaptations from the originals, to stand completely on their own (although there are elements where the films fail by themselves without external reference); but for me they always were and are a derivative extension of the books, and cannot be (in my mind) separated from them any more than a finger from a hand.
I love movies, and I have (I think) pretty good standards of judgment. Again, PJ disappointed me: for all his admitted logistical brilliance in putting it together, as a writer and director he proved to be hamhanded, unsubtle, excessive, and self-indulgent. A second-rate Spielberg.
Consider for a moment how, say, Kurosawa would have done it! Or John Ford. Or even Coppola Or or or.
(BTW, GWTW was an improvement on the book because, face it, Mitchell's novel was a potboiler. If written today it would have Fabio on the cover).