Age change in Théoden

[Sauron the White]

Why do you continue to harp on the same point when you ignore a polite request to provide an objective and authoritative source to lay that foundation?

The success of a film is generally judged by one thing over all others: how profitable was the film.

This may come as a shock to some here, but the motion picture industry is a business. The purpose of business is profit. Making a movie is not painting a picture in your part time in your basement and then displaying it at the local townhall hoping it matches someones sofa. It is a business. Pure and simple above all else.

The fact is that the three LOTR films wildly exceeded anyones hopes for profit and turned into three of the most successful films of all time in revenue production. In addition to the $3 billion they took in at the box office, they produced another $1billion in ancillary income for a total of $4 billion US dollars. This on a total investment of $290 mil to make and $140 mil to market the films. That is ratio of nearly 10 to 1 in return for dollars invested.

That is the scale that the rest of the world uses to judge a commercial motion picture. You can like it or hate it. But that is the scale.

However, the film industry also keeps track of film success in two other ways. The first is critical reviews. All three LOTR films were among the most positive reviewed by professional film critics for the years they were released. Rottentomatoes.com can provide you with the exact numbers.

In addition to that, the film industry as a busines and professional association has a series of awards to bestow on films that they feel are particularly succesful by artistic standards respected within the industry. The Academy Awards are one example and the best known. LOTR won 17 of those including the highest award for ROTK as Best Film of the Year.

But you know all this.
But you refuse to accept all this.

Instead, you cling to a fiction you created in your own mind about faithfulness of adaption. Slavish page by page duplication from book to screen.

Again, yet again, for the umpteenth time, I ask you not for your opinion on this standard, but please show me where some other objective authority on film says that faithfulness of a books adaption into film is the way we measure a films success

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Isn't that a bit like saying the best beers are those which sell the most? I don't think many here are denying the film's success. The quality is the issue. That is not measured by profit.

But, as usual, it's veered off topic.

[Sauron the White]

Eomer
what we are talking about here is what standard is used to measure success and quality.

In the film business, there plenty of books which support the three I have listed. There are plenty of authoritave websties which provide measurements for these. They are referred to in discussion by film professionals. I have justified my standards and have shown that they are the standards accepted by the film profession, film critics and those on the business end of film.

It is interesting to note that these three measurements do not usually go together. Plenty of films make a profit, but few score so highly in all three areas. Quality is something professional critics look for. They found it in spades in all three LOTR films. Just check rottentomatoes.com for proof of that. I support my reasoning with fact. Not just my opinion. Quality is also measured by the community of professionals who make films in annual industry awards. They lavished many awards on the LOTR films including many of their highest. That is not my opinion. It is fact.
This is not just one measurement of success and quality. It is three. And three that often do not go together.

Davem and William Cloud Hicklin claim that the standard that counts is none of these. Instead they would have you accept the idea that a fim should be judged by how faithful it was adapted from page to screen. How slavish was every word and every scene followed.

I have repeatedly asked them to provide an objective and authoritative source who knows film who can support that idea. That is what is happening here.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

With all due respect to those critics, they've seen a lot of bad films! The Lord of the Rings is way more awesome than most other existing movies, so of course they are going to get excellent critical reviews from those in the profession. For me, the quality is not very high all the time.

I guess I'm in the middle of this argument, which is funny because I usually love to take sides.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Where can you cite an objective and authoritative source on film who will tell us that the standard to judge a films quality or success is its slavish adherence to the book from which it is adapted?

Nowhere. The phrase 'slavish adherence' exists only in your own equivocating postings: words you shove into our mouths to create a strawman, which you then compound by an inversion of the Fallacy of Appeal to Authority.

Anything may be judged on whether it satisfies the excellence particular to its class. The excellence particular to adaptation is how well it adapts its object from one environment to another. This requires no authoritative citation because it's blindingly obvious to anyone who is possessed of rudimentary English and basic logic. I suppose I could cite the dictionary, but I'll assume you already know what the word means.

Now, let's stop this Osgiliation and get back to the issue you have been squirming so desperately to change the subject away from- your assertion that since movies are not books, any and all changes from one to the other are justifiable. Are you claiming that a film adaptation has no relation back to its original source? I challenged you to explain precisely what it is about the nature of cinema which mandates changing Theoden's age. You still haven't responded. You have no justification? So this postulate of yours really is empty handwaving, a transparent attempt to whitewash PJ's incompetence?

Come on, we're still waiting.

[Sauron the White]

If you have one ounce of credibility beyond your own personal beliefs, you can provide some objective and authoritative support for the imposition of this standard of adaption.

You cannot do it.

You are attempting to rewrite the rules of common sense.

You want to judge the characteristics and success of one thing by the characteristics and success of a different thing. That is not only unfair but is intellectually dishonest.

I think you and davem have had it your way here for so long that you really do not know what is happening. I probably am a nuisance as others have claimed. Those who bring up disturbing facts and refuse to accept the dogmatic irrational beliefs of a small sub group are always a nuisance.

If you do not like my characterization of slavish adherence, then remove those words. Allow me to do it for you. Now we have

Again, yet again, for the umpteenth time, I ask you not for your opinion on this standard, but please show me where some other objective authority on film says that faithfulness of a books adaption into film is the way we measure a films success

You do not like the standard accepted by the film industry of box office revenues.
You do not like the standard accepted by the film industry of reviews of professional critics.
You do not like the standard accepted by the film industry of professional peer awards.

All these are established and accepted in the film business.

If you want to substitute something that is completely different, something that attempts to completely rewrite the rules of defining success, the obligation is upon you to support that with objective and authoritative opinion other than your own.

I am not giving you my opinion of what constitutes success and quality. I am citing the standard and widely accepted measurements of what is taken for gospel within the film industry. I am defining my arguments by what is accepted for the industry.

The onus is now upon you and your like to come up with an objective and authoritative sources to support this ridiculous substitution.

Of course, you have already said the most important thing here. You cannot.

By your own words:

Anything may be judged on whether it satisfies the excellence particular to its class

.

You do not judge a cinderblock by the characteristics and measurements that would apply to an orange. You do not judge a symphony by the characteristics and measurements that would apply to a building design. You do not judge a film by the characteristics and measurements that would apply to a book.

And if you are then going to tell me that you are not judging a book or a film but an adaption, that has already been done by professionals who know film and know writing. They are called the Screenwriters division of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. They nominated two of the three LOTR films for Best Adapted Screenplay. ROTK won and was given the award.

These are both professional writers and people in the film industry. And you are........ who exactly that you are substituting your opinion for theirs?

[davem]

Personally, I don't have a problem with changes per se. I have a problem with changes for the worse, & changes that are nonsensical. The splitting up of Frodo & Sam was idiotic as well as unnecessary & came nowhere near the power of the Cirith Ungol episode in the book. And let's not forget the stupidity of the charge of the Rohirrim on Pelennor Fields in the movie (anyone who doesn't think it was stupid should do a little research into what happens when cavalry charge into pike). If you compare the movie to the episode in the book, where the Rohirrim come out of nowhere & smash into the enemy's flank, catching them unawares - with no chance to prepare for the assault - you will see how smart Tolkien the old soldier was & how dumb Boyens et al were.

Is one not allowed to dislike these movies? Is one not allowed to prefer the books? Can one not disagree with critics? Or not be so in awe of the almighty dollar that one couldn't care less how much money they made?

They're the movie equivalent of celery - lots of people think its delicious, its good for you & makes a lot of money for farmers & all that & etc, etc, etc. I, on the other hand, know that celery is the work of Satan, & no-one in their right mind would chose to touch the vile stuff with a barge-pole, let alone eat it. And sorry - even if every single human being on the planet swore that it was the closest thing to divine ambrosia, & kept the world economy from collapse - I would still want to napalm every single piece of it.

Or to put it another way, I do not care what a bunch of critics say about the movies. I don't care how much money they made; they are still typical dumbed down Hollywood nonsense.

[Sauron the White]

from davem

Is one not allowed to dislike these movies?

Yes.

Is one not allowed to prefer the books?

Yes.

Can one not disagree with critics?

Yes.

All I ask is you judge the film by the characteristics and standards that are applicable to film as a medium. Do not compare it to other things and pronounce judgment as to if it is better or worse. Because it is not other things. It is what it is with its own qualities, characteristics, and elements all unto itself.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

All I ask is you judge the film by the characteristics and standards that are applicable to film as a medium. Do not compare it to other things and pronounce judgment as to if it is better or worse. Because it is not other things. It is what it is with its own qualities, characteristics, and elements all unto itself.

That's exactly what I do. I judge 'X' in the movie as bad (Galadriel's 'Smallest person' nonsense, the Rohirrim charging straight in to pike, or down a 60 degree scree slope, etc, etc) or good (er...um..) as a movie. I'd say exactly the same things about the movie even if it was an original work. That 'smallest person' line is cringeworthy, horses can't charge down a slope like that without ending up in a nasty bloody heap at the bottom, & cavalry don't charge pike 'cos its suicide.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

This thread is going in the same circles that a number of others have already taken - it seems that some posters have an axe to grind and will argue the exact same points on every thread. Therefore I am closing it until someone PMs me that they have something new and vital to say on the original topic of the thread.

People - and I mean the main combatants here - take your repetitive posts to PM. I am getting very tired of reading the same stuff all over again. If the same two to four people don't tire of writing and reading the same arguments, then you may consider starting a private forum where you can argue to your heart's content.

I will nip any future repetitions of the same arguments in the bud - for the sake of the rest of our members, who would like to join in discussions that are carried on without rancour. If you cannot learn from repeated admonitions by administrators and moderators and continue to hijack threads for your own arguments, you may have to learn by the (temporary, hopefully) loss of posting privileges.