Think about it. Please.

[Boromir88]

If you buy an award winning orange juice that is #1 in the marketplace but you do not like the taste .... I wonder where the problem really lies?

Certainly not with the individual who has his/her own personal tastes. I don't like wedding soup, and you can give me the opinions of 500 million people who adore wedding soup (among them several of the world's most prestigious taste testers), I still wouldn't like wedding soup...simple as that.

What you are essentially suggesting is a slave like obedience, and worship, of Peter Jackson because he directed 3 movies that millions adored and it won a lot of awards. Might as well start making robots of us all.

[Sauron the White]

from Sauron the White

If you buy an award winning orange juice that is #1 in the marketplace but you do not like the taste .... I wonder where the problem really lies?

the reply from Boromir88

Certainly not with the individual who has his/her own personal tastes. I don't like wedding soup, and you can give me the opinions of 500 million people who adore wedding soup (among them several of the world's most prestigious taste testers), I still wouldn't like wedding soup...simple as that.

Oh really? The problem lies with what then? Certainly not the maker of the juice which pleases an extremely wide audience and is very profitiable for that company. Certainly not with the orange juice experts who praise it and bestow their highest awards upon it.

Of course you have a right to like or not like anything you decide to and need not justify it or explain it. Films, juice and soup included.

But then lets not pretend that everyone else is marching out of step and you are not the exception to the rule.

What you are essentially suggesting is a slave like obedience, and worship, of Peter Jackson because he directed 3 movies that millions adored and it won a lot of awards. Might as well start making robots of us all.

Not al all. Everyone is free to like or not like what they want to.

But again, look at the article that Estelyn quoted from Encyclopedia of Arda on the publics love of the movies and some book critics loathing of it:

From viewers who have never read the original books, the response seems to be almost universally positive. For those of us who know Tolkien's tales well, though, while we can certainly enjoy the movie on its own level too, it's probably true to say that there's a general sense of discomfort at its distance from the original work.

You mention wedding soup. Fine - I understand that. Allow me my comparison - Coca cola soft drink. I hate the stuff. From my first taste as a little kid all the way through my mid life, I have abhored the stuff as swill. But I do accept a few undeniable facts of reality in this world.

Coke is the most popular soft drink on the planet selling more of its product than any other in countries all aroudn the world.
It is so popular that it is the single most recognizable brand name on the planet and its logo alone is valued at several billion dollars.
This soft drink which I find terrible tasting, is loved by hundreds of millions of people who have made the company that makes it a very rich one and its stockholders very happy with their investments.

But I still do not like it.

But I accept that I am the odd duck here. I accept that I am the one marching badly out of step. I accept that my tastes in this matter are different and out of sync with the vast majority of this world.

I do not attempt to rail against the Coca cola company and their product. I do not attempt to convert anyone to my anti-coke tastes. I do not go on any crusade to destroy their good name. I do not put forth my opinions on coke centered message boards and argue with its fans about the product.

I accept reality and acknowledge my that my tastes in this matter are the thing that prevents me from enjoying a product that so very many more people love.

But alas, this is this. This is not something else. This is the movies section of a Middle-earth discussion board. Not orange juice... not wedding soup... not soft drinks. So here is the on topic question that is at the heart of all this.

Is in depth knowledge about the actual writings of JRRT a help or a handicap in appreciating the movies of Peter Jackson? There is something to ponder.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Same old, same old, still going in circles. How many threads do I have to close before this topic is finally dead?

William, Sauron, I am closing this thread temporarily to prevent further hijacking. Take your differences to PM - you are monopolizing this discussion, thereby preventing others from posting. A lot of members prefer to avoid such animosity, and I would like to see others given a chance to post their opinions.

This could be an interesting thread - it started off well enough, but now it's in the same old rut again. I will open it within a day, and I expect the two of you to keep off it until at least ten other people have posted!!

You may not turn the Downs into your private playground - you are welcome to start a forum of your own where you can make the rules and post about your topics as much as you want! [end rant]

[Boromir88]

Oh really? The problem lies with what then?~Sauron the White

You just answered my point.

A producer's job is to create a product that consumer's will like, will purchase, they're ultimate goal is to make a profit. If the producer has the #1 selling orange juice (or in this case makes 3 extremely successful movies), the producer has done his/her job.

But if a certain consumer does not like the orange juice, whatever their reasons be, then wouldn't the consumer have the right to say "Hey, I don't like this?" Is the producer going to care? Most likely not, if the producer is making a profit. Is the consumer going to care that he/she doesn't like the #1 selling orange juice? Most likely not, I would hope the consumer would get the orange juice they like.

Who is at fault? No one. The producers did their job. And if the consumers don't like it (even if it be one person) they're free to keep it to themselves, or share that displeasure with others...hence one purpose of a forum.

But if a certain consumer does not like the orange juice, whatever their reasons be, then wouldn't the consumer have the right to say "Hey, I don't like this?"

Indeed they do have a right to say that.

However, what would happen if complaining once wasn`t good enough for them and they decided to repeat the complaint over and over again for the next seven years?

I`m guessing that they would end up in a padded cell.

[Boromir88]

However, what would happen if complaining once wasn`t good enough for them and they decided to repeat the complaint over and over again for the next seven years?~Sir Crashalot

touchee...

But a little more seriously (or getting back to orange juice that is), if consumers for 7 years praise how great the best-selling orange juice is, than I would expect to see people complaining about it for 7 years. And if people gripe for 7 years, I expect to see others praising it for the same amount of time.

As one of my professor's liked to say "Opinions are like a circle, I call it 'The circle of opinions.' Someone says their opinion, anyone opposed to that opinion, should make their own opinion known. Based upon how well the 2nd person argues their opinion, the first person will change, adjust, or restate his/her opinion...and the circle continues. Do you now all see why I call it 'The circle of opinions'?"

I love your name by the way.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Sir Crashalot

However, what would happen if complaining once wasn`t good enough for them and they decided to repeat the complaint over and over again for the next seven years?

But if people keep expecting you to like it and refuse to accept your complaint and continue to shove the stuff down your throat then you will complain again ... a simple preference will develop a mild aversion could turn in to loathing. Until recently I remembered quite likeing the films albeit with reservations now I have started to really dislike them... just shows how easily one can be turned in to a fundamentalist.... If you keep prodding the lion (with a stick with an 'orses 'ead 'andle) don't be suprised if it keeps waking up and roaring.

And I don't dislike films ... some of my favourite books have been turned in to fine films (eg The Age of Innocence) and some books have been really brought to life by intelligent television and film adaptations - I have just bought Cranford on the back of the superb tv adaptation and they did a sterling job of injecting drama series of mildly amusing anecdotes on smalltown life into a gloriously cast and enchanting series.

However The Lord of the Rings is not Cranford - a work that I, as a Lit graduate had heard of but not before read. The Lord of the Rings was voted book of the century in the UK before the films came out so I doubt that it being voted the nation's favourite book was due to the films alone - so why are the book people represented as a tiny minority "out of step".

The comparison is so manifestly unjust and disproportionate that it is bound to antagonise people and make their opinions extreme. This is not one person against the rest of the world.

I am pretty certain that more people went through the cinema doors becasue they were fans of Tolkien than becasue they were fans of the oeuvre of Peter Jackson. If people love the films well good luck to them.

I liked most of the costumes, and sets and props which were clearly made by people who loved middle earth, some of the cast I felt interpreted their characters well and there were some memorable moments - but as Rossini said of Wagner there were some terrible quarters of an hour. I know someone who slept for half an hour in the cinema and woke up for weather top. Noone I knew who saw the films without reading the books understood fully what was going on. Personally I found the CGI unconvincing and certainly unscary - my cousin and I laughed hysterically during the Shelob episodes (and she is usually terrified of spiders). I bought the Extended editions to see the cut scenes but I don't think I ever got round to watching them through .....not been motivated to get them back from the person I lent them through. When I have seen bits on TV they seem already a little dated.

They are better certainly than the animated version but I don't see why I have to be grateful to Peter Jackson, why he is the person through whose eyes I have to see Middle Earth? I have been seeing my own vision of Middle Eath in my mind's eye for over twenty years now. Peter Jackson has done ok out of it - I have spent my money on tickets and DVDs and well if it isn't universally liked, I am sure he is crying all the way to the bank.

I would like to have seen Boorman's version, I loved the radio version and really enjoyed London version of the musical. In twenty years no doubt someone else will make another film version ... maybe I will like that better (if I am still alive to see it) maybe not... It always strikes me that when something is really popular and loved and well known directors feel they have to hack around with it to make their mark. As a result what are among the worlds greatest plays and operas (I am thinking Mozart and Shakespeare) suffer some pretty bizarre treatments, which people go to because they love the language and the music and if htat means Tamino is turned into an asylum seeker so be it. Fortuanately Shakespeare and Mozart are greater than the directors and they survive the bad but are enhanced by the good interpretations. Tolkien I think is great enough to survive to and can take more than one interpretation.

People keep banging on about film being different, well fine but you can't have it both ways - if it is separate and different why do book lovers have to pay attention to something that is really peripheral to them?

[davem]

My position (oft stated) is that I find the films fairly average entertainment & actually struggle to get worked up about them at all. That said I do find some parts of them quite silly, & other parts nonsensical. I'm happy - if I get a moment between the feeds & changes - to point up how Tolkien handled the story, incidents & characters far better than Jackson et al did.

What does irritate me is the lack of respect for Tolkien himself & for Christopher which some people display - if its pointed out that Tolkien strongly disapproved of adaptations of his work, or that Christopher (having seen the films) dislikes them, this is dismissed with the flip comment that 'Well, Tolkien sold the movie rights, so ... tough!' I would venture to suggest that if Tolkien had lived long enough to see the movies & expressed approval of them, or if Christopher had publicly stated he liked them then those very people who are dismissing their opinions would have latched onto them & prefaced every positive comment about the movies with the statement 'Tolkien himself/Christopher loved these movies, which proves how accurate/authentic they are...' - the feelings of Tolkien & Christopher would not have been so summarily dismissed if they suited their arguments.

I've pointed up elsewhere Humphrey Carpenter's comments re an adaptation of The Hobbit he was putting together for a school play & how, while Tolkien thought the whole tidea of adapting his work was 'silly' & 'nonsensical' , he was still polite enough to see Carpenter, suggest a few tunes for the play & go along to see it. Apparently (& I think this is mentioned in his biography of Tolkien) Tolkien liked the bits of the play that stuck to his story, & disliked the changes Carpenter had made. Probably he would have felt the same about the film. And one can understand that - if an author spends 14 years writing a book, & most of his life creating a mythology of which that book is a major part, he will understandably feel miffed if someone else has the temerity to think they can 'improve' on it. And a writer may sell the film rights to his work believing that anyone choosing to make a film of it will actually want to put his story on the screen, rather than turn it into something else entirely. I know that Ursula Le Guin was furious with the makers of the Earthsea mini-series, feeling that the makers had messed it up big time & turned it into something a million miles away from her creation.

This argument 'Films are different from books' is wheeled out everytime the movies are criticised for any reason at all - as if the fact that the two media are different somehow excludes the films from all criticism. My criticisms of the films have been mainly of them as films - Denethors 3 mile run through the upper levels of Minas Tirith while on fire (& even from shots in the film - long shots of the city, the distance Gandalf & Pippin walk from the Citadel to the precipice - this is clearly impossible. It may not be clear that it is a full 3 miles, but its fairly clear that its way too far for anyone in that state to run) , or Boromir beeing hurled right across the chamber of Mazarbul into a rock wall & ending up only mildly stunned, the Rohirrim charging down a 60 degree scree slope for example, the cringeworthy mis-use of the English language by the scriptwriters, or the misunderstanding of the social rules which bound the kind of society Tolkien created.

There is a special place in my heart for the BBC radio adaptation - because it captures the spirit of the books for me in a way that the films never could. Perhaps that's because it relies on words - & most of them are Tolkien's own. After listening to the series, hearing Stephen Oliver's heartbreaking music play over the reading of the final credits, I know I've been in the Middle-earth I know & love for the last thirteen hours. When the movies ended I didn't feel that at all. And to me that's the whole point. That's why the movies - however technically good they are, however much the writers & production team may have loved the books, however good the actors were - don't work for me. Something is just not there. And, sorry, but all the stats on how much money they made, how much the critics liked them or how many awards they got, is irrelevant. For me they are fake, because the heart is missing. Its there in the books, its there in the Radio adaptation. Its absent from the movies. They aren't orange juice for me, they're Sunny Delight ...

[alatar]

I think that the original example of the mother observing her child's 'out-of-stepness' and thinking that it were s/he that was correct and the others incorrect could be useful as an explanation.

• The odd marcher - This person may or may not see his or her self as marching in step. Maybe s/he thinks that s/he marches in step, meaning that s/he is delusional and not accurately perceiving reality correctly. On the other hand, maybe the marcher knows the truth. In this case, is the 'out-of-stepness' deliberate or not? Maybe it is beyond the skill of the marcher to stay in step. Or maybe the marcher actively chooses to go against the band, either thinking that s/he is right or just to stick it to them.

• The mother - This person may or may not be delusional as well. Realizing that her child is not like the others, mom may be happy as (1) the child is at least marching, (2) sticking it to the band. Note that a priori, we assume that the mother is biased if we were to ask her to judge her child's performance. Is she a band director? Does she know the actual band director's goal? Does she know what the correct 'step' is?

• The other marchers - The other band members may or may not realize that the odd marcher is out of step. If they do, then what do they think? Do they figure that this is the best that the person can do, that they (individually) are all wrong or that the person is sticking it to them? Do any change their marching to be in unison with the lone marcher? We know that statistically that a few or some of the band members are, of course, delusional.

• The band director - Speaking of judging the child's performance, the band director may be somewhat more objective (s/he's probably delusional too, but for me today, everyone is...). Is this person's goal to show a band that marches in unison? If so, then s/he has failed. Is it his/her goal just to get everyone marching to the best of his or her ability? In this case then the band director is successful. The band director should know which is the correct 'step' (assuming this is the goal), and so could indicate which set is in error. That all said, I assume that the director would prefer that all marched in unison, and so the lone marcher would be in error.

• The random person on the street - This person, unless s/he is related to or is in league with the out of step marcher, the mom and/or the band director, may judge the whole scene otherwise. Assuming that bands typically march in unison to one beat (note that I was never in any band, and so make this assumption reservedly), this observer more likely would conclude that the lone marcher was out of step, that the mother (cheering on the child) was delusional and the band director was at best lax or at worse a complete failure. On the other hand, this person may not notice (enjoying the music and not caring about the band's stepping), may not care, or know that in the real world you always have some error.

What am I trying to say? Not exactly sure, with the exception that some of you are most likely delusional (and I might be as well), and that your judgment, your conclusions regarding who is and who is not out of step, may be due to your perspective and the information that you have within your head.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Interesting thoughts, alatar! I have one more that fits into your first point - I recall (only vaguely, alas) a poem which mentions that if you are out of step, perhaps it is because you hear a different drummer...

[Lalaith]

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. - Henry David Thoreau

Is that the one, Esty?