Split Personality? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 09-19-2007, 09:02 AM

I also understand your point on "double standard"; I just disagree, for one simple reason: Middle Earth is Tolkien's creation. Jackson was given permission to borrow it. So the standard lies with Tolkien, and Jackson had a responsibility to be true to the standard.

Subsequent posts on "the magic" and "willing suspension of disbelief" bring to mind what may be objective distinctions between the book and movie, something to which I need give more thought: with "magic", are we talking perhaps about those old "mythic unities" that are all over the book but not in the movie? And with willing suspension of disbelief, Tolkien posited a higher level, which he called "secondary belief". I think these two concepts may bear upon this larger discussion.

By the way, I have no problem with this thread detouring onto bigger topics, so long as the original is considered to have been more or less resolved, and these new detours arise naturally from discussion of the initial topic.

09-19-2007, 09:02 AM	#11
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	I also understand your point on "double standard"; I just disagree, for one simple reason: Middle Earth is Tolkien's creation. Jackson was given permission to borrow it. So the standard lies with Tolkien, and Jackson had a responsibility to be true to the standard. Subsequent posts on "the magic" and "willing suspension of disbelief" bring to mind what may be objective distinctions between the book and movie, something to which I need give more thought: with "magic", are we talking perhaps about those old "mythic unities" that are all over the book but not in the movie? And with willing suspension of disbelief, Tolkien posited a higher level, which he called "secondary belief". I think these two concepts may bear upon this larger discussion. By the way, I have no problem with this thread detouring onto bigger topics, so long as the original is considered to have been more or less resolved, and these new detours arise naturally from discussion of the initial topic.