Lawrence of Middle-earth - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Sauron the White · 02-28-2008, 04:27 PM

Skip - maybe its my fault for not being as specific in print as I should have been.
Allow me to go at this from a different tact.

We can disagree about if we liked the films or not. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on that and nobody is right or wrong. Having said that, I notice that one thing that has been said is that the movies are not good because they are not accurate. More than one person has said, in different ways, that the films were not good because they simply were not faithful to the books and they can never get past that.

I am using the example of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA as a film. My post comes complete with a long list of serious areas where major things were changed causing it to be rather unfaithful and innacurate both to reality and to the book Lawrence himself wrote. In other words, it was not at all faithful to its source material.

However, the film LofA is heralded by many as one of the greatest films of all time and is truly a great film. This, despite its lack of accuracy or faithfulness to the source material. When you judge a film, accuracy to the source material means precious little as to if it is a good or quality film or not. LAWRENCE proves this.

In this thread I hope to hear from others on this idea. Not if they liked the films or not. Not if they think the films are great or terrible. But the narrow idea of accuracy to source material and its importance or lack of importance to a films worth.

02-28-2008, 04:27 PM	#5
Sauron the White Ghost Prince of Cardolan Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 903	Skip - maybe its my fault for not being as specific in print as I should have been. Allow me to go at this from a different tact. We can disagree about if we liked the films or not. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on that and nobody is right or wrong. Having said that, I notice that one thing that has been said is that the movies are not good because they are not accurate. More than one person has said, in different ways, that the films were not good because they simply were not faithful to the books and they can never get past that. I am using the example of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA as a film. My post comes complete with a long list of serious areas where major things were changed causing it to be rather unfaithful and innacurate both to reality and to the book Lawrence himself wrote. In other words, it was not at all faithful to its source material. However, the film LofA is heralded by many as one of the greatest films of all time and is truly a great film. This, despite its lack of accuracy or faithfulness to the source material. When you judge a film, accuracy to the source material means precious little as to if it is a good or quality film or not. LAWRENCE proves this. In this thread I hope to hear from others on this idea. Not if they liked the films or not. Not if they think the films are great or terrible. But the narrow idea of accuracy to source material and its importance or lack of importance to a films worth.