Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Crashalot
However, what would happen if complaining once wasn`t good enough for them and they decided to repeat the complaint over and over again for the next seven years?
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But if people keep expecting you to like it and refuse to accept your complaint and continue to shove the stuff down your throat then you will complain again ... a simple preference will develop a mild aversion could turn in to loathing. Until recently I remembered quite likeing the films albeit with reservations now I have started to really dislike them... just shows how easily one can be turned in to a fundamentalist....
If you keep prodding the lion (with a stick with an 'orses 'ead 'andle) don't be suprised if it keeps waking up and roaring.
And I don't dislike films ... some of my favourite books have been turned in to fine films (eg The Age of Innocence) and some books have been really brought to life by intelligent television and film adaptations - I have just bought Cranford on the back of the superb tv adaptation and they did a sterling job of injecting drama series of mildly amusing anecdotes on smalltown life into a gloriously cast and enchanting series.
However The Lord of the Rings is not Cranford - a work that I, as a Lit graduate had heard of but not before read. The Lord of the Rings was voted book of the century in the UK before the films came out so I doubt that it being voted the nation's favourite book was due to the films alone - so why are the book people represented as a tiny minority "out of step".
The comparison is so manifestly unjust and disproportionate that it is bound to antagonise people and make their opinions extreme. This is not one person against the rest of the world.
I am pretty certain that more people went through the cinema doors becasue they were fans of Tolkien than becasue they were fans of the oeuvre of Peter Jackson. If people love the films well good luck to them.
I liked most of the costumes, and sets and props which were clearly made by people who loved middle earth, some of the cast I felt interpreted their characters well and there were some memorable moments - but as Rossini said of Wagner there were some terrible quarters of an hour. I know someone who slept for half an hour in the cinema and woke up for weather top. Noone I knew who saw the films without reading the books understood fully what was going on. Personally I found the CGI unconvincing and certainly unscary - my cousin and I laughed hysterically during the Shelob episodes (and she is usually terrified of spiders). I bought the Extended editions to see the cut scenes but I don't think I ever got round to watching them through .....not been motivated to get them back from the person I lent them through. When I have seen bits on TV they seem already a little dated.
They are better certainly than the animated version but I don't see why I have to be grateful to Peter Jackson, why he is the person through whose eyes I have to see Middle Earth? I have been seeing my own vision of Middle Eath in my mind's eye for over twenty years now. Peter Jackson has done ok out of it - I have spent my money on tickets and DVDs and well if it isn't universally liked, I am sure he is crying all the way to the bank.
I would like to have seen Boorman's version, I loved the radio version and really enjoyed London version of the musical. In twenty years no doubt someone else will make another film version ... maybe I will like that better (if I am still alive to see it) maybe not... It always strikes me that when something is really popular and loved and well known directors feel they have to hack around with it to make their mark. As a result what are among the worlds greatest plays and operas (I am thinking Mozart and Shakespeare) suffer some pretty bizarre treatments, which people go to because they love the language and the music and if htat means Tamino is turned into an asylum seeker so be it. Fortuanately Shakespeare and Mozart are greater than the directors and they survive the bad but are enhanced by the good interpretations. Tolkien I think is great enough to survive to and can take more than one interpretation.
People keep banging on about film being different, well fine but you can't have it both ways - if it is separate and different why do book lovers have to pay attention to something that is really peripheral to them?