Greatest sin of Peter Jackson

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Not to mention an amazing Saruman.

Although I thought every Christmas had arrived at once with the casting of Christopher Lee as Saruman - he just owns the role. Shame he was done such a disservice in the final film. Wholly disrespectful to a great actor. And all this even though my mental image of Saruman is very different - a bit like Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon but with hair...

Originally Posted by Alatar

And therein lies the problem. It's like a modern day version of Frodo's experience with the One Ring as he crawled across the Gorgoroth. The Whip song burns itself into your mind, and you can never ever again be free of its call.

There is, however, a rather good metal version of it that can be heard in the film Ringers. Somehow singing about whips makes sense if set to pounding rock music

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Although I thought every Christmas had arrived at once with the casting of Christopher Lee as Saruman - he just owns the role. Shame he was done such a disservice in the final film. Wholly disrespectful to a great actor. And all this even though my mental image of Saruman is very different - a bit like Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon but with hair...

The BBC Saruman slaps down Eomer....http://www.istad.org/bbc/saruman.mp3

Frodo slaps down Gollum http://www.istad.org/bbc/gollum.mp3

And a very good piece on the series http://www.squidoo.com/audiolotr/

[Quempel]

Green Army of the dead.
Tying ring to Arwen.
Making Arwen a weak girly elf.
Elrond being a snob.
Comic Relief Gimli (boo) (really boo)
Surfing Legolas a.k.a. Teenage boy Legolas.
Farting Hobbits.

[obloquy]

Wait a second, can we back up? "Howsumever"?

well I'll add my 2 gold here as someone who has read the four books (yes I'm counting the Hobbit in here folks) for over 30+ years now I loved the movies, the expanded versions he released are even better IMHO, my only regrett is that he PJ didn't film the Battle for the Shire which he even stated was the least favorite part of books, i've seen the RB film, hell saw it in the theater and own a dvd of it....overall I'm very pleased with the movies and yes hopefully I'll still be around in 35 years to watch them.

[davem]

Originally Posted by obloquy

Wait a second, can we back up? "Howsumever"?

Eng. coloq., innit?

[Macalaure]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

We can't however ignore the effect the movies have had on at least some readers, presumably of the younger sort.

I'm not sure whether this effect is so serious. I mean, let's be honest, even before the movies, there have been people who read the books but didn't like them or didn't even make it through, haven't there?

The difference is that now there is a second "entry" to Middle-earth. Before, if one wanted the LotR, one had to read - and had no choice. It didn't matter whether one found Tolkien's style to be boring or slow or whatever. If one liked the story by itself, one needed to read it. Now there's a second approach: easier and more suitable for today's mass culture (keep in mind, this would have been the case, too, if the movies were more faithful to the original). Now one can enjoy the story without having to bother with reading it. Now one can not like the books but still enjoy its story.

Though this is surely sad to lose many readers, I think the question is: are these people really a loss to the LotR readership? I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I don't really think so. Without the movies, they probably simply wouldn't be here at all to contribute their opinions on Tolkien (and Jackson). I would claim that their loss is quite compensated by the gain of people who wouldn't have picked up the books without the movies, and the people whose interest in them has been re-sparked because of them.

[Sir Kohran]

Originally Posted by Macalaure

I'm not sure whether this effect is so serious. I mean, let's be honest, even before the movies, there have been people who read the books but didn't like them or didn't even make it through, haven't there?

The difference is that now there is a second "entry" to Middle-earth. Before, if one wanted the LotR, one had to read - and had no choice. It didn't matter whether one found Tolkien's style to be boring or slow or whatever. If one liked the story by itself, one needed to read it. Now there's a second approach: easier and more suitable for today's mass culture (keep in mind, this would have been the case, too, if the movies were more faithful to the original). Now one can enjoy the story without having to bother with reading it. Now one can not like the books but still enjoy its story.

Though this is surely sad to lose many readers, I think the question is: are these people really a loss to the LotR readership? I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I don't really think so. Without the movies, they probably simply wouldn't be here at all to contribute their opinions on Tolkien (and Jackson). I would claim that their loss is quite compensated by the gain of people who wouldn't have picked up the books without the movies, and the people whose interest in them has been re-sparked because of them.

I agree. I now consider Tolkien to be one of the finest writers of all time and his books some of the best ever published, and what led me to this? Peter Jackson's movies. I remember reading the books madly throughout 2002 after seeing FOTR the previous December. Peter Jackson's work was not perfect but it introduced me to Tolkien's, which is pretty much perfect. So I have him to thank for that.


BTW, the 'Where's There's A Whip There's A Way' is quite possibly the worst movie scene of all time. I'm sure to suffer from musical depression for months now.

Also, it's full of errors. Firstly, Sam claims they've slept until 'daylight'. Daylight in Mordor? Also, when the orc captain sees Frodo and Sam...their helmets have only got nose-guards and their faces are fully visible, so surely the captain would have recognised them right away? Finally, it gets even worse when Sam openly says, right in front of the captain, "We're in luck. He thinks we're orcs". What terrible scene directing.

[obloquy]

Originally Posted by davem

Eng. coloq., innit?

Fo shizz., my nig.

[Knight of Gondor]

Originally Posted by Quempel

Green Army of the dead.
Tying ring to Arwen.
Making Arwen a weak girly elf.
Elrond being a snob.
Comic Relief Gimli (boo) (really boo)
Surfing Legolas a.k.a. Teenage boy Legolas.
Farting Hobbits.

Green army of the dead was okay...why not?

Dittos on Arwen. Elrond was harsh, could have shown more of his father-figure treatments of Aragorn. But since they made Aragorn hesitant to claim the throne, perhaps Elrond was being hard on him to get him to buck up.

I don't know WHAT you're talking about with the hobbits?

Another mistake was in weakening Faramir's character.

Do we have a comprehensive list of these yet?

[ArathorofBarahir]

I agree that it is sad that more people have seen the movies than have read the books and that many of those people think the movies are better than the books. For me both the books and the movies are fantastic in their own right and while the movies have their drawbacks I still don't feel the need to bash them. Yeah, they're not perfect...but they're still great.