Boorman script full summary here

[Nerwen]

LP, I was talking about the Deliverance article, i.e. it was a fairly OT comment.

Anyway, the posters on that thread are pretty funny– honestly, the way people manage to convince themselves Boorman's adaptation is a lost masterpiece, rather than the disaster it would have been had it actually reached the screen.... Still, part of me does regret it was never filmed– it could have been one of those *legendary* bad movies, like, oh, I don't know, Zardoz...

[TheLostPilgrim]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

LP, I was talking about the Deliverance article, i.e. it was a fairly OT comment.

Anyway, the posters on that thread are pretty funny– honestly, the way people manage to convince themselves Boorman's adaptation is a lost masterpiece, rather than the disaster it would have been had it actually reached the screen.... Still, part of me does regret it was never filmed– it could have been one of those *legendary* bad movies, like, oh, I don't know, Zardoz...

I think the film would've made a classic, very very odd but classic Fantasy film. Would it have been a good LOTR adaptation? Absolutely not! But it may have been a great fantasy film in it's own right. As a LOTR adaptation it's a disaster, but as a fantasy film it probably would've worked, IMHO.

It has a lot of the same things which made Excalibur (which I feel is one of the best fantasy films ever made) work, while using the wider world of the LOTR, and amped up to 11 because it was the '70s. Would indeed have been really interesting to see. Makes me wish either it came out or that Boorman used a lot of his original ideas and created his own original fantasy film.

Then again I'm one of those odd people who feels, for example, that stop motion special effects (ala Harryhausen) have a certain odd charm that CGI lacks.

[Nerwen]

Hmmn... I mentioned Zardoz for a reason, LP. You could also say this has a lot of the things that made that opus, um... not work. Boorman really was a very hit-or-miss type...

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

I think the film would've made a classic, very very odd but classic Fantasy film. Would it have been a good LOTR adaptation? Absolutely not! But it may have been a great fantasy film in it's own right. As a LOTR adaptation it's a disaster, but as a fantasy film it probably would've worked, IMHO.

If it wouldn't have been a good LOTR adaptation, it's better off as a dead idea. If people want to make fantasy films, let them. But all too often what you have in adaptations is film directors and movie moguls basically "adapting" the existing story so freely it could have just as well been unrelated to the supposed source. Then again, unless you give it the name of a well-known and loved book, it isn't as likely to be successful.

LOTR is utterly unfilmable to me, in that the feel of the book simply cannot be replicated in another medium by anyone, no matter how many Bentleys in their garage or Oscars on their mantelpiece.

[Pervinca Took]

In no medium at all, Inziladun? How about radio?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Pervinca Took

In no medium at all, Inziladun? How about radio?

That'd be better, as long as it's something to require the use of imagination. I still prefer the books though. Why tamper with it, if it isn't broken?

[Pervinca Took]

For me, the reason is in what Tolkien called the "bloom" of a book, that you only get on a first reading. I got it on my second reading, too. But I can't enjoy the book again in quite the way a new reader does (although I enjoy it in other ways). A really good dramatisation can make me feel that sense of wonder again. The BBC radio dramatisation did that, and it's also extremely faithful to the book. So it doesn't try to mend what isn't broken.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Pervinca Took

For me, the reason is in what Tolkien called the "bloom" of a book, that you only get on a first reading. I got it on my second reading, too. But I can't enjoy the book again in quite the way a new reader does (although I enjoy it in other ways). A really good dramatisation can make me feel that sense of wonder again. The BBC radio dramatisation did that, and it's also extremely faithful to the book. So it doesn't try to mend what isn't broken.

Fair enough. I don't feel the need personally for any other media versions of the books, but to each his own. Radio drama at least doesn't tend to play to perceived mass market desires that result in drastic changes to the basic story.