My list of everything wrong with the movies (Not EE) - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

02-07-2004, 08:27 AM

Not everyone loves every aspect of the films. Everyone is entitled to his opinion. You do understand though that they had restrictions on what they could do? They were required to have a film about 3 hours and one that made sense to the average theatergoer. Actually, it was supposed to be in the 2 hour range but PJ managed to talk them into 3 hours. Any longer than 3 hours sitting in a theater you get diminishing returns. People's butts start to hurt. Also, it reduces severely the amount of showing a film can have. As much as we hate to admit it, this is a business. When a company invests US$300M plus for a film, they expect to be able to make a return on that investment. They took a huge gamble making all three at once and it paid off bigtime.<P>The theatrical cuts were made for a general audience. Everyone, including Tolkien fans, can enjoy them. The thing about Tolkien was that his work has so much depth that a single 3 hour film can only scratch the surface. So, for the first time in history, an extended cut was made not for exploiting an existing but played out property, but to add in more depth for the fans of the original work. The theatrical cuts are the definitive editions and the EE are made especially for the fans. While there are many scenes that some folks might miss in even both versions, it is wrong to complain about scenes missing in the theatrical cut that have been restored for the fans' EE by saying that the EE should be ignored. At three hours, I felt that the TE seemed rushed. It would have even been worse had they tried to shoehorn everything into that three hours. Better to make the best film they could then fit more things and pace better in a version not hampered by show length. For home-viewing, such things as running time are not as critical. You can stop at any point or watch over a period of days, if one desired. <P>So, in conclusion, if you are unhappy about alterations to adapt the book into film then welcome to the club. Even real life events get altered when translated into film. No book has ever made it into film without some compromises in adaptation (with a few arguably unwatchable exceptions-See Gospel of John where they filmed the book from the Bible word for word) However, it is disingenous to dismiss the EE entirely. If you are a person that cares about seeing the gift-giving scene that adds nothing to the plot but is a nice little scene that adds some richness to the story, then the EE was made SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU. Rejoice that someone thought enough of you to do that. Unlike, say, Apocolypse Now Redux which was made solely to wring a few more bucks out of a property that was pretty much played out.<p>[ 9:29 AM February 07, 2004: Message edited by: caligulathegod ]

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02-07-2004, 08:27 AM	#13
caligulathegod Guest Posts: n/a	Not everyone loves every aspect of the films. Everyone is entitled to his opinion. You do understand though that they had restrictions on what they could do? They were required to have a film about 3 hours and one that made sense to the average theatergoer. Actually, it was supposed to be in the 2 hour range but PJ managed to talk them into 3 hours. Any longer than 3 hours sitting in a theater you get diminishing returns. People's butts start to hurt. Also, it reduces severely the amount of showing a film can have. As much as we hate to admit it, this is a business. When a company invests US$300M plus for a film, they expect to be able to make a return on that investment. They took a huge gamble making all three at once and it paid off bigtime.<P>The theatrical cuts were made for a general audience. Everyone, including Tolkien fans, can enjoy them. The thing about Tolkien was that his work has so much depth that a single 3 hour film can only scratch the surface. So, for the first time in history, an extended cut was made not for exploiting an existing but played out property, but to add in more depth for the fans of the original work. The theatrical cuts are the definitive editions and the EE are made especially for the fans. While there are many scenes that some folks might miss in even both versions, it is wrong to complain about scenes missing in the theatrical cut that have been restored for the fans' EE by saying that the EE should be ignored. At three hours, I felt that the TE seemed rushed. It would have even been worse had they tried to shoehorn everything into that three hours. Better to make the best film they could then fit more things and pace better in a version not hampered by show length. For home-viewing, such things as running time are not as critical. You can stop at any point or watch over a period of days, if one desired. <P>So, in conclusion, if you are unhappy about alterations to adapt the book into film then welcome to the club. Even real life events get altered when translated into film. No book has ever made it into film without some compromises in adaptation (with a few arguably unwatchable exceptions-See Gospel of John where they filmed the book from the Bible word for word) However, it is disingenous to dismiss the EE entirely. If you are a person that cares about seeing the gift-giving scene that adds nothing to the plot but is a nice little scene that adds some richness to the story, then the EE was made SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU. Rejoice that someone thought enough of you to do that. Unlike, say, Apocolypse Now Redux which was made solely to wring a few more bucks out of a property that was pretty much played out.<p>[ 9:29 AM February 07, 2004: Message edited by: caligulathegod ]