The Hobbit in July 2007?

[Sauron the White]

from William

Do I sound like someone who gives a rat's heinie what movie fanboys think?

Obviously not - but that was never the point. Only that several of the scenes you were so disgusted with are the favorites of a much larger audience. And in this case an audience of Tolkien fans - not rabid fanboys as Kohran pointed out. You have every right to march out of step with the rest of the world. And you can even tell yourself that only you are marching properly. Thats freedom.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

from William



Obviously not - but that was never the point. Only that several of the scenes you were so disgusted with are the favorites of a much larger audience. And in this case an audience of Tolkien fans - not rabid fanboys as Kohran pointed out. You have every right to march out of step with the rest of the world. And you can even tell yourself that only you are marching properly. Thats freedom.

Yes, but ...

We need to get some perspective here. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien is a literary masterpiece which will outlast us all & will live alongside the works of Homer, Virgil, Malory & the Icelandic Sagas. The LotR movies by Peter Jackson were made to bump up studio profits & flog popcorn to teenagers. If it wasn't for the possibility of a Hobbit movie the LotR movies would by now have faded into obscurity.

These movies are pleasant enough entertainment if you want to spend a thought free few hours, but they can't be classed alongside the work of a literary artist like JRR Tolkien. Tolkien's work is for the ages. PJ's movies are for 3 hours with a pizza & a couple of beers.

[Sir Kohran]

The LotR movies by Peter Jackson were made to bump up studio profits & flog popcorn to teenagers.

No, that's Eragon. The LOTR trilogy was ground breaking because it was capable of making profit and being deep, thoughtful and powerful in a way most movies don't bother to be.

but they can't be classed alongside the work of a literary artist like JRR Tolkien.

Of course not. They're not books. They're not supposed to.

PJ's movies are for 3 hours with a pizza & a couple of beers.

Again, more generalisations. If this was all the movies were made for then they could have made Independence Day or Pirates Of The Caribbean or some other mindless flick. The LOTR films are much more than that.

[Sauron the White]

from davem

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien is a literary masterpiece which will outlast us all & will live alongside the works of Homer, Virgil, Malory & the Icelandic Sagas.

Speaking for myself, I want to outlive everything. But lets hope you are correct. That would make me happy.

While you are making predictions as statements of fact would you be good enough to provide some winning lottery numbers for me?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sir Kohran

No, that's Eragon. The LOTR trilogy was ground breaking because it was capable of making profit and being deep, thoughtful and powerful in a way most movies don't bother to be.

Not to me. But perhaps our definitions of what constitutes depth, thoughtfulness & power are different. I found them overall shallow, thoughtless & weak. Any depth thought & power they contained - which was precious little - was lifted straight from the book. What they film-makers added was the nonsense, triviality & action movie idiocy. Whatever is in them that makes them at all bearable came from the books - & most of that was so messed up by the movie makers that if I hadn't already known the books I would have missed it.

[Sauron the White]

Lets be very frank here. There was stuff in the books that thank God did not make it into the films because it could have potentially stunk up the theater. Tom the Hippie Spiritgod leads the list. But the idea of Sam forever pawing and petting Frodo would have produced a good deal more than nervous titters and laughter had they kept that sort of thing in. Being faithful to the book could have been a disaster. If they had kept to the timeline and the hobbits took as long to leave the Shire as they did in the books, the theaters would have half emptied in boredom. Just a few examples.

The oft repeated litany by the True Believers is that "if it was good it came from the book - it it was original it was bad" echoes here yet again. What about the death scene of Boromir? Lines of dialogue were added that were sheer poetry and very touching emotionally to much of the audience. In the book the death scene is sparse and simple - in the film its and emotional touchstone which was one of the highlights of the films.

This is an example of starting with the source material of JRRT and adding to it and tweaking it for film. That is the way it is suppose to work.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Lets be very frank here.

I do agree with this...

So some of us like action movies with overdramatisation and overheroisation that nears ridiculousness. And that's fine.

Some of us like more thoughtful movies that build the characters and express the emotions and the twists of the storyline in a more elaborate and delicate, in more nuanced way.

That wasn't a neutral formulation but let's follow the trend here.


I must say that I myself would have loved to see an original and "deep" interpretation of the books - even if it would have departed from the books a fair deal. To me it's more that they would be good as movies. For Tolkien's LotR I can always refer to the books on my shelf and a straight sentence by sentence rendering surely would be painful to look at. As I said earlier, movies and books are different things.

But I can't say PJ's filmatisation was anything near original or deep or having any other possible high qualities - except looking very beautiful indeed and the musical score was great as well. But just thinking about the directing (both the storyline and directing the actors), the added things (thence PJ's personal ideas) or the style with which he narrated the script (remember he didn't narrate the LotR but a script they had made from the books)... well not so far from Eragon or Kingdom of Heaven... or what say you?

Though you're right in saying that fex. Boromir's death was pretty well done... like indeed the cutback scene were Boromir and Faramir celebrated Osgiliath won back and then their father came... and there are some others. So yes, there were good moments. But having 10+ hours of film in our hands it would have been more than a disaster if they hadn't manage to make even a single decent scene...

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

We need to get some perspective here.

Yes, a little perspective would be nice....

*The Dark Elf eyes the remainder of davem's post suspiciously*

Originally Posted by davem

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien is a literary masterpiece which will outlast us all & will live alongside the works of Homer, Virgil, Malory & the Icelandic Sagas.

Hmmm....so much for perspective. I think perhaps even Tolkien would consider your statement to be presumptuous, if not a bit flippant. I am not as certain as you are in casting LotR in such august company, particularly since educators, editors and publishers (who, of course, write the textbooks and literary compilations) do not necessarily share your extreme position. One of my favorite texts is 'The Land and Literature of England (A Historical Account)' by Robert M. Adams, a witty and often profound literary commentator. Adams offers a one line mention of Tolkien in the book (in the same sentence as C.S. Lewis, coincidently):

Meanwhile, C.S. Lewis, long a belligerent conversationalist for Christianity, enjoyed fresh accesses of popularity for the witty apologetics of The Screwtape Letters (1942); and J.R.R. Tolkien, slowly meditating an entire new world out of his Anglo-Saxon studies, produced in The Lord of the Rings tetralogy a cosmos exotic in its coloring but deeply Christian in its structure.

It is an excellent summation for the tail-end of a compound sentence, don't you think? Meanwhile, Malory receives several pages of commentary, and I believe that's about it for Tolkien in the literary world...a footnote. When discussing British writers of the first half of the 20th Century, George Orwell and James Joyce get far more critical comment. That's the reality of the literary situation the good professor is up against. I think LotR is categorized by many critics in the same manner as Watership Down, or The Once and Future King, which David Garnett, the formidable publisher, writer and member of the Bloomsbury Group, described as "one the curious classics of English literature". 'Curious' is used as almost a pejorative adjective.

Originally Posted by davem

The LotR movies by Peter Jackson were made to bump up studio profits & flog popcorn to teenagers. If it wasn't for the possibility of a Hobbit movie the LotR movies would by now have faded into obscurity.

These movies are pleasant enough entertainment if you want to spend a thought free few hours, but they can't be classed alongside the work of a literary artist like JRR Tolkien. Tolkien's work is for the ages. PJ's movies are for 3 hours with a pizza & a couple of beers.

Oh come now, you are being a little too hard on the movies, aren't you? First of all, I can't believe I am pressed into defending Peter Jackson (ah, the irony!), but for all the innumerable scripting/plot flaws (which I think everyone can agree are at the heart of vehement opposition), visually the films are astounding, and the cinematography and design work alone merits the critical acclaim the movies received (particularly the work of Alan Lee and John Howe). The films make the Star Wars debacles sophomoric (I would put up the Gollum characterization against Jar-Jar Binks any day). Technically speaking, Jackson trumps Lucas in nearly every aspect of filmmaking (not that it's hard, but critics always seem to use Star Wars as a comparative basis for films of the genre).

Speaking of Gollum, I believe his portrayal was superb, and there are numerous moments throughout the films that literally mirror Middle-earth in splendor and awe (I always crank the DTS 6.1 when the balrog squares off against Gandalf). The Shire and Bag-end are just as I pictured it (and the repartee between Sir Ian Mckellan and Sir Ian Holm is a pleasure).

Is it the best film ever made, or in my top 50? No, not by a long shot, but I could place it at the rear of my top 100 somewhere, and that's saying something (for me anyway). But like so many others I bemoan the fact that if Jackson had not been so heavyhanded with his script changes (as I stated elsewhere, most of which were utterly unnecessary), then the LotR films would be much higher in my esteem. Had Jackson maintained the (somewhat) lore appropriate nature of FotR for the balance of the last two movies, the effect would have been much greater. Such scope and sheer will! It was a monumental and exhausting undertaking for Jackson, I am sure; unfortunately, it seems his ego grew with each successive film.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Hmmm....so much for perspective. I think perhaps even Tolkien would consider your statement to be presumptuous, if not a bit flippant. I am not as certain as you are in casting LotR in such august company, particularly since educators, editors and publishers (who, of course, write the textbooks and literary compilations) do not necessarily share your extreme position. One of my favorite texts is 'The Land and Literature of England (A Historical Account)' by Robert M. Adams, a witty and often profound literary commentator. Adams offers a one line mention of Tolkien in the book (in the same sentence as C.S. Lewis, coincidently):

I'd never heard of Mr Adams before. I can only say that LotR is not a 'tetralogy' & certainly isn't 'Christian in its structure' As Robert Cook points out re Njal's Saga in his introduction to the Penguin edition:

Such a view is based on a false opposition between Pagan & Christian; it overlooks the fact that there are other Pagan virtues than heroism & pride, & that humility & willingness to make peace are among them....(the writer) is not preaching a sermon, nor writing a theological treatise, for he knows that the two systems are in many ways compatible.

I think that statement could be applied to Tolkien's Legendarium. For Mr Adams to misunderstand Tolkien's work so profoundly & dismiss it so curtly doesn't inspire me with any faith in his other opinions.

It is an excellent summation for the tail-end of a compound sentence, don't you think? Meanwhile, Malory receives several pages of commentary, and I believe that's about it for Tolkien in the literary world...a footnote. When discussing British writers of the first half of the 20th Century, George Orwell and James Joyce get far more critical comment. That's the reality of the literary situation the good professor is up against. I think LotR is categorized by many critics in the same manner as Watership Down, or The Once and Future King, which David Garnett, the formidable publisher, writer and member of the Bloomsbury Group, described as "one the curious classics of English literature". 'Curious' is used as almost a pejorative adjective.

I know that the 'literary world' doesn't care for Tolkien. The literati are so far up their own fundamentals that the resemble an ouroboros. I honestly don't care what David Garnett thinks of Watership Down. Why are you telling me about these psople? Who are they? Are they still alive, or do I have to dig them up to throw stones at them?

[Brinniel]

Originally Posted by davem

They are clearly all wrong if they found the LotR movies anything more than standard Hollywood fare. Overblown, dumbed down & tiresome.

Overblown- yes, I agree. With the technology we have, everything in film is overblown these days. But honestly, I think if the scenes of LotR weren't overblown, the film would be boring to most audience members, including myself (I admit it...I love the overblown stuff ).

Dumbed-down- well, I don't think the entire movies are...but I agree that certain scenes are dumbed-down. But let's face it: most people are idiots, and most have not read the books. The film is targeted towards not only book fans, but everyone else who enjoys watching movies (including those who have not read the books). *gasp* And therefore, some scenes must be dumbed-down in order to make sense for these ignorant audience members. It sucks, but it's true.

Tiresome- now this I don't really understand. Do you mean tiresome in the Hollywood sense? But I don't really see how LotR could have not been Hollywoodish...with the big budget and all, if that's what you mean. Because honestly, a low-budget independent LotR would've been terrible without the great casting and effects.

Originally Posted by davem

The LotR movies by Peter Jackson were made to bump up studio profits & flog popcorn to teenagers. If it wasn't for the possibility of a Hobbit movie the LotR movies would by now have faded into obscurity.

Now this here, I have to disagree with. First of all, New Line may have taken on LotR for the profit, but that wasn't PJ's primary reason. Yes, ultimately he does want to make money; he's a director...that's his job. But PJ was an LotR fan from childhood and no director could've spent the amount of time that he did without some heart.

Secondly, I believe LotR will remain a legacy for decades to come...perhaps in a similar way Star Wars has. I hear the film discussed by others quite frequently, and a lot of the people I overhear or talk about it with aren't hardcore fans and aren't completely aware that The Hobbit is even expected to come out. I'm a film major, and already in one of my classes, I recall my professor using LotR as an example when he taught a brief lesson on screenwriting. And that wasn't the only class where the films were discussed. LotR revolutionized the visual effects world...particularly with Gollum. Really, the trilogy has made quite an impact on the film industry...in many ways. So, I don't think they'll be forgotten anytime soon.

Personally, (and right now I feel like I'm the only one) I love the films. I mean, I won't say every second is perfect...there were certain scenes I was quite upset about, but I thought as a whole PJ did a beautiful job. I have seen some terrible book-to-film adaptations, but this is not one of them. In fact, the incredible use of detail in the film and amazing post-production is what helped me decide my career path. How they created the sound and visual effects, plus the editing is just...wow. Of course, perhaps I think this way because I try not to spend to much time comparing the book and film and would rather appreciate a film by its quality alone (and I admit, it's not always easy to do when you've read the book first).

When it comes to The Hobbit, part of me would like to see a new director who could create a much lighter atmosphere to the story, but ultimately, I think I would choose PJ over that. Because with PJ, at least he has dedication and we will somewhat know what we're getting. Plus, with him, much of the cast and crew needed will most likely return...and it is those other people we need the most in order for this film to work. While some of you may not like the LotR films, just remember: it could be a lot worse. There are more directors out there who could potentially completely botch The Hobbit rather than create a masterpiece, and I'd rather not let them get their grimy hands on it.

A film adaptation will never be as good as its book...there will always be cuts and changes, as much as any fan will hate it. But as I said, a film should be judged as a film regardless of where the script came from. If you try too hard to compare its quality to the book, of course you'll hate the movie. If you can't separate the two versions from each other and appreciate them individually, then it's probably best not to see the film at all. Hey...at least it'll save you money....

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

I'd never heard of Mr Adams before. I can only say that LotR is not a 'tetralogy' & certainly isn't 'Christian in its structure' As Robert Cook points out re Njal's Saga in his introduction to the Penguin edition: I think that statement could be applied to Tolkien's Legendarium. For Mr Adams to misunderstand Tolkien's work so profoundly & dismiss it so curtly doesn't inspire me with any faith in his other opinions.

You are missing the point. This is a college level textbook. Adams wasn't being dismissive per se, rather, in a general summation of English literature from Beowulf to the present a small blurb is all that Tolkien warrants. Unfortunate perhaps, but generally academics would not share in your placing LotR with The Iliad, Beowulf or the Völuspá.

Originally Posted by davem

I know that the 'literary world' doesn't care for Tolkien. The literati are so far up their own fundamentals that the resemble an ouroboros. I honestly don't care what David Garnett thinks of Watership Down. Why are you telling me about these psople? Who are they? Are they still alive, or do I have to dig them up to throw stones at them?

Please, do try to pay attention. You needn't dig anyone up to stone them back into their graves. I was referring to Garnett's review of The Once and Future King as a 'curious classic' because that is the manner in which most critics view books in the fantasy genre. I know you don't care really what they think, and I wasn't agreeing with them; you merely stated "We need to get some perspective here", and I offered some perspective.

[Nimrodel_9]

Oh my goodness someone let the children out.

Perhaps we shall create a new thread? I find this off-topic arguement very amusing.

I'm not taking sides. I love the movies. I thought PJ did a beautiful job. Yes, there are parts that he went a little overboard, but the films are beautiful nonetheless. As for the books, they are also works of art, but there are parts in them as well that make you fall asleep. Any book or movie is like this. Anyone who disagrees can write a book or direct a movie that is exciting the whole time.... you will be the only one who thinks so, but that's ok.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

You are missing the point. This is a college level textbook. Adams wasn't being dismissive per se, rather, in a general summation of English literature from Beowulf to the present a small blurb is all that Tolkien warrants. Unfortunate perhaps, but generally academics would not share in your placing LotR with The Iliad, Beowulf or the Völuspá.

Yes, but I could list a bunch of academics like Tom Shippey, Michael Drout, Verlyn Flieger & Jane Chance (who is a also a professor but whose books on Tolkien aren't actually very good) who would hold the opposite opinion & consider Tolkien to be a major literary figure, & all of whom are contributors to the journal Tolkien Studies. So I wouldn't give too much credit to someone like Adams. There are Tolkien courses at a number of universities on both sides of the atlantic, so I don't think you can hold up Adams as 'typical'. In fact, as time goes by I suspect that he will be part of an incresingly tiny minority of critics who fail to understand or appreciate Tolkien's work.

Please, do try to pay attention. You needn't dig anyone up to stone them back into their graves. I was referring to Garnett's review of The Once and Future King as a 'curious classic' because that is the manner in which most critics view books in the fantasy genre. I know you don't care really what they think, and I wasn't agreeing with them; you merely stated "We need to get some perspective here", and I offered some perspective.

But I really think a great deal could be gained by throwing stones at them, & if I'm prepared to spend some of my precious spare time doing so I can't see why that's a problem.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But PJ was an LotR fan from childhood

That is simply untrue. PR flack bullhockety. Garden manure spread around to quell readers' suspicions. PJ read the book one time, on a train ride at 17.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

In fact, as time goes by I suspect that he will be part of an incresingly tiny minority of critics who fail to understand or appreciate Tolkien's work.

While the cynic in me doubts the reach of reason in academia or the literary world in general, I do applaud your enthusiasm.

Originally Posted by davem

But I really think a great deal could be gained by throwing stones at them, & if I'm prepared to spend some of my precious spare time doing so I can't see why that's a problem.

Well, Garnett is dead, so stoning him will not be much of a challenge; however, Adams, although in his 70's might prove a little bit more of a difficult target...just give him a bit of a running start.

Oh, and you'd might like to read Adams critique of the Silmarillion and Tolkien's works in general in a 1997 review in the New York Review of Books (Adams was a contributor to the Review from 1962 to 1995). I am sure it will lead you to start amassing a goodly amount of throwing stones for your new hobby...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/8321