Lord of the Rings

[Zee.]

So i'm about to undergo the task, ahah, task, of reading books 1,2,3, and had a couple of questions

Are they boring? i don't want to read novels that are beautifully written but will bore me to hell and back. I don't mind long descriptions etc, but are the books interesting? engaging? etc,

And how do they compare to the movies?

Thanks :banana:

[JCamilo]

The movies sucks. The book is slow and more descriptive. And how someone will be able to tell you if your experience with a book is boring or not?

[Zee.]

The movies sucks. The book is slow and more descriptive. And how someone will be able to tell you if your experience with a book is boring or not?

It was a question that required a generalized answer. I want people's views on it.

And the movies didn't suck at all. Showcased my country quite beautifully.

[Dark Lady]

Limajean, I enjoyed the novels but then I was brought up reading a lot of fantasy before I branched out. I liked the films, although I didn't think they were as good as the books (but then are films ever as good as the books?).

[Zee.]

I think films just cast the story in a different light.

[papayahed]

I liked both the books and the movie. I don't recall if the books drag out the descriptions or not but I'm a "skipper", if it gets too tedious I just skip to the good stuff.

[JBI]

Very slow, and very boring, but some people like them (I'm not one of them). Generally, I don't see what any of the hype is about, though yes, the scenic views of New Zealand were beautiful in the movie, as for the movie though....

[mayneverhave]

Limajean, I enjoyed the novels but then I was brought up reading a lot of fantasy before I branched out. I liked the films, although I didn't think they were as good as the books (but then are films ever as good as the books?).

I can think of quite a few. Raging Bull, The Godfather, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and despite the recent bashing of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Films are judged on different criteria than books - considering they are essentially a bringing together of three different artistic elements (visual, literary, and audio).


As for the Lord of the Rings. I read the novels (quite some time ago) before the films were even made. The novels were exceedingly boring to me, though I haven't read them in a while, so I wouldn't really recommend them. The only reason I would ever read fantasy would be for entertainment; and LOTR did not keep me entertained.

The films are meh. Not terrible, but not deserving of all that hype.

[andave_ya]

limajean, I'll answer to your pm today or tomorrow. Despite the "meh" factor so many have attributed to it it's really a beautiful book. I think people just see the content as nothing new :(, but I see it as portraying some of the noblest aspects of humanity in a thoughtful and touching way.

[JCamilo]

The films plainly sucked. The acting was ridiculous, the continuity destroyed, the elements of traditional epic that Tolkien tryied to use vanished to became just some juvenile adventure, the geography of Tolkien (in my opinion his most notorious work) shreded. Several character modificated just to satify the ego of the director and not the difference of medium. As a film they are just technically impressing and that is almost like saying "Hey, a good book. They know how to use proper grammar".

And yeah, some of the movie/books Mayneverhave listed are actually only famous because the movie is that good. But it is easy, Apocalypse Now is easily as good as Heart of Darkness, and we are talking about two great works here.

[JBI]

Or Il Gattopardo, which is great in both forms.

But still JCamilo - the peak at New Zealand, a place where most people will never visit (I've been there already, before the movies release, so perhaps it wasn't new for me) is warranting enough almost for the movies - of course, not all that great, but in a sense, they had moments which, though perhaps not perfect, more or less take the essence of Tolkien and break it down into a slightly more entertaining format.

The average reader - probably 30 or so pages an hour - 10 hours to essentially get the essence of a book that would take 3x that is good enough And hey - the transport from Europe to New Zealand was the greatest judgment call of all.

[Zee.]

I think the films were stunning. Friend of my family built the sets for it. He was the head director of set design/construction.
The films showed nz in the most beautiful, honest, light and made me extremely proud to be from there. Places i had been to as a kid, places i had grown up, my home, was displayed for the world to finally see how beautiful it was. I haven't read the books so i can't comment on whether it was true to the novels or not but i think the acting was great, the characters were amazing etc

[jlb4tlb]

I think the films were stunning. Friend of my family built the sets for it. He was the head director of set design/construction.
The films showed nz in the most beautiful, honest, light and made me extremely proud to be from there. Places i had been to as a kid, places i had grown up, my home, was displayed for the world to finally see how beautiful it was. I haven't read the books so i can't comment on whether it was true to the novels or not but i think the acting was great, the characters were amazing etc

I thought the films were very well done, however I think "Return of The King" should not have ended in the fashion that it did.

My first reading of the books were in the early 70s and then I thought they were good. After reading them several times over I changed my mind and now feel that they are great.

Jeff

[JCamilo]

Or Il Gattopardo, which is great in both forms.

But still JCamilo - the peak at New Zealand, a place where most people will never visit (I've been there already, before the movies release, so perhaps it wasn't new for me) is warranting enough almost for the movies - of course, not all that great, but in a sense, they had moments which, though perhaps not perfect, more or less take the essence of Tolkien and break it down into a slightly more entertaining format.

The average reader - probably 30 or so pages an hour - 10 hours to essentially get the essence of a book that would take 3x that is good enough And hey - the transport from Europe to New Zealand was the greatest judgment call of all.

But a movie is not a national geographic documentary. The places, stunning. The setting, amazing. The photography, top notch. But a movie is script, direction and acting also. And the script of LoTR have holes, the direction of Jackson is laughable (the guy is just bad) and the acting... ermm...

Anyways, serious, the aspect of books - either you consider the failure or not - is the attempt to bring something old and kept it old. Tolkien did not tried to write a moderm action best-seller because he did not wanted. The historical background, the language and geography that in the book occupy 89% of the space disappears. They are the attempt of Tolkien to build a reliable mythical background. The movies reduce him to Robert Howard (who said there is a mythical background, but did not in his text worked after it) or worst (and truly) to dungeons and dragons games.

And really, the book is a best-seller. It was commercial, with all awkwardness of Tolkien writting. It was not necessary to simplify it to make it atractive (if, so they should have split it in 6 movies) but they did it. You do not need to describe in movies, but you do not pretend that traveling a continent happens that fast.


ps. Il Gatopardo indeed. Blow up. Clockwork Orange. All quiet in the Western Front. Ran. Jaws. Trainspotting. Gone with the wind. Beauty and the beast (both disney cartoon and Jean Cocteau version). 2001 (Altough the movie and the book are written altogether. In fact, Kubrick places the Shinning in another level. And almost did Lolita well). Satyricon. And not even going to the thousands adaptations of bible, sherlock, franskstein, dracula, etc who are quite good.

[Drkshadow03]

the direction of Jackson is laughable (the guy is just bad) and the acting...


Have you informed the academy awards about Jackson's laughable directing?

[JCamilo]

Yeah, in the same letter than I laughed about Titanic. Do you understand they nominated Silvester Stallone for Rocky ? Writing and acting?

[Drkshadow03]

Yeah, in the same letter than I laughed about Titanic. Do you understand they nominated Silvester Stallone for Rocky ? Writing and acting?

Touche.

Though, I liked Rocky; it's a charming story. I also liked Titanic. I'm not sure it deserves an academy, but it was decent enough.

What exactly do you dislike about Peter Jackson's directing? What about it did you find laughable?

[JCamilo]

Directing is not moving the camera as fast as possible. The guy is always eager to find some action scene, have a close-up and withdraw the camera. He wants to show greatness, but no compromisse with the subtle angles or acting. He is a director of special effects (hence, why Gollum is really remarkable) and not of entire movies. Every take he gives is the simplistic, banal option. He does not have notion of sequence, timing, hence the incapacity to show Tolkien geography and the ability to transform King Kong in that movie with what, two hours and a half??? There is sequencial mistakes in LoTR (Saruman just vanishes, he have the palantir and the palantir shows up with a hobit later)... Just compare him with Spielberg and you will see someone who applies basic techniques (where the angles should be, how the actors should act, instead of special effects) and you will laugh.

Just a note, I do not think Titanic or LoTR deserved or not a Oscar. Not my point. I think the academy gives prizes to what is better to them that year. What is better to them is not exactly the best movie for the world history, but how could be?

[JBI]

Honestly, the biggest complaint I can see with the Lord of the Rings is the absence of a significant female role to counterbalance the violence. The macho sword-swinging butchering of Orcs (an invention I believe attributed to George MacDonald, who invented the concept of a weak, though vastly numbered enemy you can hack to bits without anyone complaining, even though the foot-stomping has been exchanged for Elven steal) doesn't justify 3 hours per movie, or 300 page book - there needs to be a female presence, and, there, quite simply, is not. Arwen doesn't constitute a strong female character, and neither does Eowyn, who merely acts as a trivial sort-of mock dumb-struck distressed maiden. And that weird witch woman Galadriel, who I think is a little too creepy and irrelevant to really work as a major character.

In truth, it is rare that fantasy ever offers a strong, rounded, female role - the clichés don't really give much room for it, and I think it is only within fantasy written by females that such roles actually surface (though, John Crowley seems to be the opposite of every fantasy cliché).

And JCamilo - I by no means consider the movies great cinema, much less Titanic, but certainly the introduction of New Zealand scenery - that is, with the exception of Hercules: Legendary Adventures and Xena: Warrior Princess, constitutes a good thing - the visuals of the movie were stunning, there isn't much of an argument there. As for the rest, well, not my cup of tea, I'll leave cinema alone for now, as I get into enough arguments over books.

[JCamilo]

But JBI, there is no strong female in the books. Tolkien mocked (because they asked him if he was gay because the number of male in LoTR) the idea. The guy added irrelevant female role, cut other parts of the continuity claiming there was not space. How that can be keeping the spirit of the original?

Anyways, I disagree with you about the female role in fantasy, but maybe because you considering the moderm fantasy only? Even so, Alice still rulling a world without males.

But here is question, if Tolkien wrote the books describing New Zeland instead of his lalala land, it would be a great book because introduced New Zeland scenary? Cmom, you know that Conrad, Stevenson or Melville are big guys not for introducing Caribean or pacific isles but for something else, right?

[JBI]

I'm not commenting on the books, merely the movies - of course, James K. Baxter will win, in terms of New Zealand Content in literature, yet we can still feel transported there from our homes by the movie, which gives us nice glimpses at things often hidden by 20 + hours of plane ride.

As for fantasy, I'm considering the popular fiction stuff - Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, who features strong females (a praiseworthy point on his part), but seems to know very little about the sex), Steven Erikson, Robert E Howard, David Eddings, Robert E. Feist, etc.

Of course, traditions that aren't what we could call stereotypically within the "Fantasy Genre", such as Italo Calvino's work often feature interesting female characters (though Calvino tends to make his characters as comic-book-like as possible), but in the generic epic vein, there seems very little female for the most part (perhaps that can explain the readership discrepancy). It takes someone like Tamora Pierce or Caitlin Sweet to really break out of that, and begin approaching the female fantasy protagonist, which, in many works from my understanding, often takes the form of a "female warrior", which serves as an allegory for the female bildungsroman and quest for self-determination and empowerment, interestingly enough, whereas the female protagonists in other works often feature as a counter-empowered females, playing off on a patriarchal obsession with man as hero, and woman as hero-worshiper/sexual-interest.

[bluevictim]

It looks like you have plenty of responses already, but I'll add my two cents:

I really enjoyed The Lord of the Rings. I didn't think it was boring at all; it was quite the page turner for me. I can understand why it has such a huge following. In fact, its fans may be the best indication of whether or not you would enjoy it. If you can see yourself daydreaming about a romance world and getting lost in the story without worrying about whether or not you'd be able to impress people with words like 'bildungsroman', you'd probably enjoy it. If you're looking for something like Ulysses, you're obviously not going to find it in LOTR. HTH

[mortalterror]

Though, I liked Rocky; it's a charming story. I also liked Titanic. I'm not sure it deserves an academy, but it was decent enough.

I just re-watched Rocky the other day. Love it. But I also watched Titanic a few months back and completely loathed it. Here's the note from my blog:

Titanic(1997)- This film was every bit as bad as I thought it would be. It was more disappointing than The Passion of the Christ, 300, and Revenge of the Sith combined. At least with those other films there was something I could find to admire in the picture. I figured that since James Cameron was so good at action sequences that the film would pick up in the second half. Nope. It was pretty lackluster and unimaginative.

What I really hated though was the dialogue and the characters. The dialogue was cheesie cliché ridden populist bull**** about poor people being superior in every way to rich people who are all snobby, condescending, and egotistical. What makes the poor so good, so authentic? They swear, and drink, and spit a lot. That's what Cameron thinks normal people are like, and it's a more insulting stereotype than anything the snobbish rich people come up with in this film.

Cameron has never had a knack for making unlikable characters enjoyable and interesting. He doesn't want us to like the characters so he makes them crass, superficial monsters, displaying every kind of vice. Why can't they at least be interesting witty monsters so we are entertained while we dislike them?

This film made me want to vomit in my mouth. The Terminator movies at least showed a sense of visual flare. Cameron is a painter and so he composes a frame almost as well as Ridley Scott. Here there is none of that. The cameras don't know what they are supposed to be filming so you have standard three angle coverage and sweeping boom tracking shots all throughout the picture.

I ate this **** sandwhich bite by bite for three solid hours hoping that at least it would be worth it to see Leonardo De Caprio die. That was pretty dull as well. In the end the old woman, Rose, says that Jack only exists in her memories, and I was like, “No. You're thinking of The Road Warrior (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcK8FLGx0fo).”

I only watched Titanic because I was trying to watch the last couple of Best Picture Winners I hadn't seen, and I have to say that it is no Lord of the Rings. Why exactly do you like it?

[billl]

Do you understand they nominated Silvester Stallone for Rocky ? Writing and acting?

Whoa. I don't know how old you are, or when you saw the first Rocky. But when that movie came out here in the US, it was pretty amazing. It was especially amazing that the punch-drunk lead-character was actually the guy who wrote the thing. There was a physical, non-intellectual guy having a cute relationship with a shrinking violet woman. Then hard work in a deteriorating neighborhood triumphs over the New Shiny-Packaged American Big-Mouth Dream. This, after Vietnam, and all of the cynicism of Nixon and the war, and the counter-culture breaking everything up for new, risky horizons in American culture, etc. It was a completely unexpected movie. Rocky was a whole different thing, the first time around. It is kind of sad Stallone just stuck with doing the same thing again and again.

Aw, maybe you're right, maybe Rocky is just the only movie he knew (knows) how to make. But it was quite an achievement for him to pull off his dream. And back then, maybe he did have a chance to move on to other projects that kind of went against the grain. Jeez, the same thing with the Rambo movies. At the time, people took the first one pretty seriously, what with all the Vietnam Vets getting looked down upon and abandoned to addiction or whatever.

I'm just saying this because, although I was pretty young back then, I remember the first Rocky had an Oscar buzz/respect pretty early on, and it wasn't yet the predictable franchise it has become. Really, the last one wasn't so bad, either. Not good enough to defend too much, but...

[Dark Lady]

I can think of quite a few. Raging Bull, The Godfather, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and despite the recent bashing of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Out of these I have only read To Kill a Mockingbird, and don't know if a film version would be better. I've seen The Godfather, which I did not care for (Family Guy reference but also my own opinion) so if the book is worse I'm staying well away.

[prendrelemick]

Back to subject.

Reading the books and watching the film is an absolute pleasure for me. Both are brilliant examples of their own medium. I'm sure you'll love them limajean.

[JCamilo]

I'm not commenting on the books, merely the movies - of course, James K. Baxter will win, in terms of New Zealand Content in literature, yet we can still feel transported there from our homes by the movie, which gives us nice glimpses at things often hidden by 20 + hours of plane ride.

I know, but a poor directed movie in a great scenario, still just a great scenario, not a great book.


As for fantasy, I'm considering the popular fiction stuff - Terry Brooks, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, who features strong females (a praiseworthy point on his part), but seems to know very little about the sex), Steven Erikson, Robert E Howard, David Eddings, Robert E. Feist, etc.

Of course, traditions that aren't what we could call stereotypically within the "Fantasy Genre", such as Italo Calvino's work often feature interesting female characters (though Calvino tends to make his characters as comic-book-like as possible), but in the generic epic vein, there seems very little female for the most part (perhaps that can explain the readership discrepancy). It takes someone like Tamora Pierce or Caitlin Sweet to really break out of that, and begin approaching the female fantasy protagonist, which, in many works from my understanding, often takes the form of a "female warrior", which serves as an allegory for the female bildungsroman and quest for self-determination and empowerment, interestingly enough, whereas the female protagonists in other works often feature as a counter-empowered females, playing off on a patriarchal obsession with man as hero, and woman as hero-worshiper/sexual-interest.

Well, then it is truly, the so called sword ans sorcery fantasy have little female character of interest. Maybe because it is basically a physical genre. The pulp horror fiction also do not have much interesting female characters.
One thing that probally does not help is that the usual steryotipe of Women in Epics (and there is quite a few strong females, even among the greeks, either they liked women or not, we have Hecuba or Medea, and later, Ovid, who was much more sensible guy) is today seems a bit of "hey, no more of patriarchal views!". Also maybe, the entering of women on literature happened lately, when the age of epics were only in Chesterton pocket.

Bill:

Nobody needs to be alive in the specific year of production (or even in the United States, as I never went there) to talk about the quality of a artwork. I did not even gave my opinion about the movie itself, just that a place that considers Stallone acting as noteworth is the same that consider Peter Jackson directing. And for the reasons you obviously named: the voting is under influence of market and momment, the Oscar is not a proofworth analyses about quality. It is not hard, so I picked Rocky. I could say: Kubrick never won a best director oscar but Kevin Kostner, Ron Howard, Mel Gibson, Robert Redford, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Ridley Scott... whoa! They all have.

[Drkshadow03]

@Mortalterror: I thought Titanic had a solid story.

Poor dude wins a ticket on the Titanic, thinking he is lucky to have this once in a lifetime vacation (irony). Formerly rich girl marrying rich fiancee she doesn't love because her once rich family is on the verge of being poor. She decides to kill herself to avoid marrying rich fiancee. Poor dude prevents her suicide and saves her. Poor dude and unhappy rich girl develop a relationship. Rich fiancee uses all his power to try and separate them. Classical love triangle with a twist (turns out Rich fiancee is a jerk and it is extremely questionable whether he actually loves her or just the idea of having her, adding a gender dimension of women as silent property vs. women as moral agents capable of making their own choices in love). Ship goes boom (plot point). We witness how ship going boom plays out in poor dude and rich girl's relationship together. Only a limited numbers of berths to escape (plot point). Poor dude sacrifices himself to save his love. Poor dude decides he was lucky after all to win ticket because he got to meet the love of his life. Rich fiancee tries a last ditch effort to acquire Rose and his lost diamond (which is a bit of a Mcguffin because it has no plot importance in itself other than to spur on the plot and thus why I didn't mention it up to this point). He reveals his true character as a heartless rich jerk and tries to save his own skin. We find out he shoots himself anyway during the depression (more irony). Rose is the only one who lives. She tells the story years later as a framing device.

It's a fairly straight-forward plot, but a solid one. Add on Solid effects. Solid acting; I've always liked DiCaprio and Winslett and Zane. Zane plays the spoiled arrogant rich man well. Winslett makes the transition of her character from former rich person transitioning beyond her class effectively.

So solid story, solid effects, decent enough acting. Plus a "chick-flick" that is tolerable, so you can watch it with a girlfriend. What is there to dislike?

Again not saying it is the best film ever, but I thought it was decent.


@JCamillo: To me it sounds more like you're whining about preferences than absolute immutable aesthetics. Case in point, your complaint about the fast moving camera. If I remember correctly he does this sparingly, but he does it to show the size of massive armies or to zip forward across forbidding landscape to Sauron's fiery eye (usually with sped-up music). I remember it being very effective actually in the film. Michael Bay in Transformers and supposedly Transformers 2 (haven't seen the sequel) now that is moving the camera really fast so you can't see anything. There is a world of difference between the "fast-moving" camera of Jackson in LOTR and the "fast-moving" camera of Bay in Transformers.

It is weird that you dislike the "geography," considering that is exactly what everyone here has been praising him for; the visual landscape in the films is absolutely stunning. I'm not trying to appeal to majority, but I don't exactly understand what you mean by this complaint.

I also thought the acting was pretty good in the films. If you think about the innocent child-like hobbit played by Elijah Wood in the first film to the distrusting fatigued almost broken more matured hobbit Elijah Wood plays in the last film, the transition is believable and the acting top-notch. Ian McKellan makes the perfect Gandalf: silly at times when he bumps his head in the first movie, but also powerful, serious, wise, and inspiring. The only real actor I can complain about at all really is Orlando Bloom. And even he is decent enough in these films; he can do epic, just not anything else.

Looking over ALL your comments in this thread it seems your major complaint is that you feel the films didn't stay true to Tolkien's vision. You keep repeating this claim in almost all your posts. My response is: so what?

Jackson shows exactly what a fantasy movie can be on screen: epic, powerful, and gripping. He revolutionized our expectations of fantasy movies.

Also, as far as Jackson as a director I have two words for you: Dead Alive. I'm sorry but I don't think I can entirely trust anyone's movie tastes that didn't like that film.

[PeterL]

The books are better than the movies, except for a few sections where things start to drag. If you enjoyed the movies, then you may really love the books. The movies did not include some parts of the plot that were very important in the books; in fact, the movies lost a lot from the exclusion of Bombadil.

[JBI]

Yes Drkshadow, but is it really? It seems another reenactment of the rich girl poor guy doomed romance, which has been prevalent since, *gasp* the middle ages, best featured between the doomed romance of Héloïse d’Argenteuil, and Pierre Abélard, though, if I remember correctly, Abélard merely got castrated, not eaten by the fish.

Mortal, of course, is right about the aesthetics of the poor - the bawdy, drunk, sort of crass people, generally, in the mythology of our culture, take on a sort of superior role (they have done so, perhaps, since Oliver Goldsmith in the 18th century, or perhaps before then). The corruption of money, and education is seen as a corruption of the soul, whereas, in reality, in 1912, the lower classes, in terms of crime, corruption, and other such niceties, were no better than their elitist rich counterparts - hysteria, for instance, which was said to infect over 25% of women, was essentially a lower class decease (discovered eventually, to be linked to sexual trauma, usually at a young age, and often by a parent). When you start to really deconstruct the mythology, though the rich, elitist, snobby aristocrats are nothing but snobby, rich, elitist, aristocrats, the poor, in terms of moral authority, are hardly any better, we just justify their actions by saying they are poor. Prohibition, keep in mind, was supported by rich people, for the single purpose that they felt alcohol was cutting into the performance of their workers. If we take that idea, we can say that, amongst the working classes, perhaps the portrait is nothing but a myth.


As for the romance, it probably would not have happened - the character of Rose makes no sense - if she is too cowardly to enter into the marraige, and would rather kill herself, I highly doubt, given her upbringing, she would have had the nerve to not only engage in a relationship with Leonardo, but also to have sex within that old car on board the ship. The Aristocratic upbringing that seems to rule her ideas would, obviously have some sort of thoughts - too cowardly to face a bad marriage, but not to cowardly to face being thrown out of her family for a rather poor, gambling 3rd rate painter? Yeah right.

There is nothing new in the story - like I said, it's been around, in one form or another, since the middle ages, or perhaps before then. The backdrop of the Titanic is generally what people liked, and I'm of the mind that it wasn't that interesting - I waited 2 and a half hours for the thing to go down, and even then it wasn't the most spectacular bit I've ever seen - and the infamous floating door sequence only heightened my revulsion.

As for the lord of the things - they have interesting moments, though, I'm with Camilo in suggesting that it is an appeal to the dungeons and dragons geeks, in the same way that Transformers 2, supposedly (I have yet to see it), seems to appeal to comic book fans, but perhaps not to regular viewers, and, if one of my friends is correct:


The movie is lame, not so much content. Mayb it's awesome for boys, but definitely not for girls...all Michael Bay's "360 degree turn""firework""sunset setting" techniques kinda boring for girls.


In truth, I think the books are very limiting in scope - and I think most people who pretend to like them haven't read the books (look at, for instance, the books being rated the most popular in Britain, yet, somehow, the sales figures don't add up, and the popularity only spiked after the release of the movies). It's a shame too, in my eyes, as fantasy, as a set of genric conventions, had so much potential, yet was cut down by this constant worshiping of Tolkien, and this scope-limiting reliance on only Tolkien-loving readers, as apposed to a more general, or different demographic of readership. The same thing sort of happened with sci-fi, to the point where it became Geek literature, from my understanding, and sort of lost everything after the 70s. It's only a matter of time before the farmboy to savior of the universe plot graph is ultimately knocked off the tastes of society - already there has been some effort to counterbalance it. I think Guy Gavriel Kay does a good job (I think he, also, happens to write very strong female characters into his books, which really gives a more rounded picture to his texts, and he actually tries to make his plots somewhat worthwhile, and his style somewhat interesting), and certainly toward the younger markets, there has been a lot of interesting work - much of which is crap, I confess, but some can be seen as the making of something interesting. But still, the vast majority rests within Tolkienian conventions, which are more a set back than anything else.

[mikemaster70]

So i'm about to undergo the task, ahah, task, of reading books 1,2,3, and had a couple of questions

Are they boring? i don't want to read novels that are beautifully written but will bore me to hell and back. I don't mind long descriptions etc, but are the books interesting? engaging? etc,

And how do they compare to the movies?

Thanks :banana:

i read a little bit of the first one and thought it was actually quite boring. i read The Hobbit before that and actually thought it was boring as well ( not that the plot was bad, just that sometimes it dragged on).
from what i read from the first one, though, really seemed like it had potential and if you said you dont mind lengthy descriptions i think you should go for it!

[JCamilo]

@JCamillo: To me it sounds more like you're whining about preferences than absolute immutable aesthetics.

Not exactly, it is. When Saruman appears in the second movie and disapears in the third, not a secundary character, but the main villain of the second movie? And the palantir disappears from his control and sundenly appears with another character? I am talking about effective holes in the script.



Case in point, your complaint about the fast moving camera. If I remember correctly he does this sparingly, but he does it to show the size of massive armies or to zip forward across forbidding landscape to Sauron's fiery eye (usually with sped-up music). I remember it being very effective actually in the film. Michael Bay in Transformers and supposedly Transformers 2 (haven't seen the sequel) now that is moving the camera really fast so you can't see anything. There is a world of difference between the "fast-moving" camera of Jackson in LOTR and the "fast-moving" camera of Bay in Transformers.

Just because transformers abuse of it, does not mean LoTR does not. And it is about timing. Jackson is always moving to a batle, he needs action all the time. And this just cut off any dialogue, any other emotion to do a thrailler.


It is weird that you dislike the "geography," considering that is exactly what everyone here has been praising him for; the visual landscape in the films is absolutely stunning. I'm not trying to appeal to majority, but I don't exactly understand what you mean by this complaint.

JBI is talking about the scenario. The places where the movie was recorded, not the actual fictional geography of the story. The book was a way to show off several different places, to present scenarios that in tolkien mind would present an old and historical world. This is not there. Anywhere. The movie is so fast that appears that sauron is living in Elrond backyard.


I also thought the acting was pretty good in the films. If you think about the innocent child-like hobbit played by Elijah Wood in the first film to the distrusting fatigued almost broken more matured hobbit Elijah Wood plays in the last film, the transition is believable and the acting top-notch. Ian McKellan makes the perfect Gandalf: silly at times when he bumps his head in the first movie, but also powerful, serious, wise, and inspiring. The only real actor I can complain about at all really is Orlando Bloom. And even he is decent enough in these films; he can do epic, just not anything else.

McKellan is not acting well. Or he does not in X-men. He is just grabbing money. Except he is so good that he can something as easy as Gandalf without effort. Pretty much like the supporting cast of Harry Potter. Several awesome actors just getting some money.


Looking over ALL your comments in this thread it seems your major complaint is that you feel the films didn't stay true to Tolkien's vision. You keep repeating this claim in almost all your posts. My response is: so what?

The problem is not being unfaithful. Anyone do as they want. Obviously, this shows his inability to create anything. But it is when when this incapacity to adapt is what cause this lack of faith. Since there need to be some action hero (legolas), the dwarf became a joke. He could not deal with a slow and rock-solid unatractive fighter, so, lets we all laugh about the dwarf.


Jackson shows exactly what a fantasy movie can be on screen: epic, powerful, and gripping. He revolutionized our expectations of fantasy movies.

Obviously, it can be more. Lucas did a superior work with Star Wars. But here the problem: epic is not about size. It is about the manifestation in the present of a heroic background, from a long and distant past, yet meaningful. Since Jackson understood epic as something like Ben-Ur charioty race, everything else that Tolkien tryed to use to bring the epic style was dismissed. Obviously, the movie is very poor because of that. Just like Troy with Brad Pitt failed ridiculous to bring Homer. For the same reasons.


Also, as far as Jackson as a director I have two words for you: Dead Alive. I'm sorry but I don't think I can entirely trust anyone's movie tastes that didn't like that film.

Are you joking right? Dead alive may be fun because it is weird, but it is like saying Sam Raimi is a master director because he did Evil Dead.

[Drkshadow03]

@JCamillo: Except Jackson does battles extremely well. So the fact that he emphasizes the battles over dialogue is a fairly lame critique because you're complaining about a feature, which is actually an asset. Not to mention I remember quite a bit of dialogue while watching those films; certainly there are times when it has that overdetermined, "I'm being so epic and melodramatic" quality to it, but there is some solid acting in LOTR that produces inspiring moments as well. To be sure the timing is a little off and long-winded, especially in the last film with its "multiple" endings, but the movie for the most part doesn't bog down and is still enjoyable. Grand scale can certainly work against a film; the Star Wars prequels try the sprawling epic meets "failed" coming-of-age and falls flat because all the other elements needed, good acting, decent dialogue, a coherent plot are missing--replaced by special effects. It tries to be big, but it forgets the other important qualities need in making a convincing epic. But that isn't the case with LOTR, there is a solid core of acting, atmosphere, music, stream-lined plot, moments of good dialogue, stunning visuals, and entertaining battle-scenes with a genuine sense of desperation, which then allows the size and the scope to add that important epic quality like icing on a moderately delicious cake. I'm not saying LOTR is without flaws; in fact, I mentioned I couple of them already in those post if you read between the lines, but its merits outweigh its flaws.

It's perfectly fine not to like LOTR or Peter Jackson's directing. Truth be told, I really don't care if you do since it's not going to change my enjoyment of the movie one bit.



Yes Drkshadow, but is it really? It seems another reenactment of the rich girl poor guy doomed romance, which has been prevalent since, *gasp* the middle ages, best featured between the doomed romance of Héloïse d’Argenteuil, and Pierre Abélard, though, if I remember correctly, Abélard merely got castrated, not eaten by the fish.

Is what really? I'm not sure what you are referencing. I also never said it was an original plot, but I said I thought it used the plot effectively.


As for the romance, it probably would not have happened - the character of Rose makes no sense - if she is too cowardly to enter into the marraige, and would rather kill herself, I highly doubt, given her upbringing, she would have had the nerve to not only engage in a relationship with Leonardo, but also to have sex within that old car on board the ship. The Aristocratic upbringing that seems to rule her ideas would, obviously have some sort of thoughts - too cowardly to face a bad marriage, but not to cowardly to face being thrown out of her family for a rather poor, gambling 3rd rate painter? Yeah right.

Perhaps, but there are plenty of stories in history of rich aristocratic females finding some loving on the side from poor slaves or servants. Wait! You just said that! I don't think it is as unbelievable as you make it sound.

She has a momentary bout of depression over the marriage, seeing her life going nowhere so in a momentary whim she tries to kill herself. He saves her life. She develops a gratitude and a natural interest in him; you know, when you try to kill yourself and someone stops you and you realize that you didn't want to die after all, I imagine it probably produces some strong hormones, which can stir things up in bed (sort of like how studies have shown bungee jumping and other risk-taking activities kicks up libido). Then add on the fact that she learns about a world she never knew precisely because of class separation, which fascinates her and thus makes this dude who saved her in a time of desperation and kicked-up libido more fascinating. Things keep going in that direction until they screw around in a car. Add on the fact that it helps that he represents everything she finds suffocating about her privileged world and tried to kill herself for in the first place, triumphantly symbolized by the removal of all her clothes so he can paint her nude with the skill of a third-rate artist, and I am failing to see which part precisely is the unbelievable part.

Not to mention that you opened your post by mentioning the rich girl poor guy doomed romance is a common trope since the Middle Ages so I fail to see how it makes any sense to then claim the trope that has been used repeatedly for centuries is unbelievable. So which is it then, common trope that we should easily suspend our disbelief because it's been done so many times or unbelievable?



As for the lord of the things - they have interesting moments, though, I'm with Camilo in suggesting that it is an appeal to the dungeons and dragons geeks, in the same way that Transformers 2, supposedly (I have yet to see it), seems to appeal to comic book fans, but perhaps not to regular viewers, and, if one of my friends is correct:

Except LOTR was a success with fantasy geeks AND critics. Transformers 2 for the most part has been panned by the critics and even ripped apart by many of the comic book/cartoon fans that I know. But other than the fact that both the common rabble and the elites liked LOTR, while nobody liked Transformers 2 except really dumb people, yeah it's pretty much the same phenomenon.

By the way, it shows a certain lack of knowledge about that audience to assume the "dungeons and dragons" geeks would automatically like LOTR. If you knew anything about that crowd you would know that a great deal would automatically dislike the movie because it strayed too much from the sanctified story of Tolkien. Half of fandom would like it no matter how bad or good the film was because it is a movie based on their sacred Tolkien, while the other half would dislike it no matter how good or bad the film was because it is a movie based on their sacred Tolkien.

[mortalterror]

So solid story, solid effects, decent enough acting. Plus a "chick-flick" that is tolerable, so you can watch it with a girlfriend. What is there to dislike?

I don't know. Cameron reminds me a lot of Stephen King. He builds a story around a really cool idea that everyone wants to see, and then he just peoples it with these terrible characters spewing horrible dialogue. That's been true most of his career. You have to remember that Terminator was co-written by his wife Gale Anne Hurd. Terminator 2 for all it's better budget and special effects is still a movie about a little boy teaching a robot about love. "I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do." His later work Titanic and the first episodes of Dark Angel just totally put me off of Cameron.

If you want a disaster movie on a boat with some depth to it, try The Poseidon Adventure. The Gene Hackman character is magnificent. He plays this preacher who's had a crisis of faith and has to lead a small band of followers through one perilous situation after another. You have people breaking down, others acting heroicly, several love stories, teenagers who just met, an old married couple. People sacrifice themselves for the good of the rest. There's just more range to the characters there.

If you want forbidden love, then Titanic is no Romeo and Juliet. If you like some racy heavy petting, the drawing sequence and the car scene don't have anything on say The English Patient. I just don't think that Titanic shows us anything we haven't seen somewhere else. I walk away from movies like 8 1/2(my favorite), 2001 A Space Odyssey, Stalker, or 7 Samurai and I know I've seen something truly original that will shape the rest of my viewing experiences forever.

Going back to the original topic: LOTR. I have to say that I think the battle sequences are exceptional, just as Drkshadow says. I don't think that Peter Jackson exploits the fast tracking camera. A lot of action movies have "shaky cam vision" where you can't tell what is going on. In Jackson's movies you can at least tell what is going on.

P.S. I don't want to come off as a hater. You know what was an incredible chick flick I loved? Gone With the Wind. That movie had everything, and it's also a pretty good example of how to make an epic style film.

[Drkshadow03]

If you want a disaster movie on a boat with some depth to it, try The Poseidon Adventure. The Gene Hackman character is magnificent. He plays this preacher who's had a crisis of faith and has to lead a small band of followers through one perilous situation after another. You have people breaking down, others acting heroicly, several love stories, teenagers who just met, an old married couple. People sacrifice themselves for the good of the rest. There's just more range to the characters there.

If you want forbidden love, then Titanic is no Romeo and Juliet. If you like some racy heavy petting, the drawing sequence and the car scene don't have anything on say The English Patient. I just don't think that Titanic shows us anything we haven't seen somewhere else. I walk away from movies like 8 1/2(my favorite), 2001 A Space Odyssey, Stalker, or 7 Samurai and I know I've seen something truly original that will shape the rest of my viewing experiences forever.




Titanic isn't original, but it is pretty good. There is a difference between originality and quality.

The original Poseidon Adventure, not that stupid remake, was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I literally used to watch it every other week when I was little.

[JBI]

I don't know. Cameron reminds me a lot of Stephen King. He builds a story around a really cool idea that everyone wants to see, and then he just peoples it with these terrible characters spewing horrible dialogue. That's been true most of his career. You have to remember that Terminator was co-written by his wife Gale Anne Hurd. Terminator 2 for all it's better budget and special effects is still a movie about a little boy teaching a robot about love. "I know now why you cry, but it is something I can never do." His later work Titanic and the first episodes of Dark Angel just totally put me off of Cameron.

If you want a disaster movie on a boat with some depth to it, try The Poseidon Adventure. The Gene Hackman character is magnificent. He plays this preacher who's had a crisis of faith and has to lead a small band of followers through one perilous situation after another. You have people breaking down, others acting heroicly, several love stories, teenagers who just met, an old married couple. People sacrifice themselves for the good of the rest. There's just more range to the characters there.

If you want forbidden love, then Titanic is no Romeo and Juliet. If you like some racy heavy petting, the drawing sequence and the car scene don't have anything on say The English Patient. I just don't think that Titanic shows us anything we haven't seen somewhere else. I walk away from movies like 8 1/2(my favorite), 2001 A Space Odyssey, Stalker, or 7 Samurai and I know I've seen something truly original that will shape the rest of my viewing experiences forever.

Going back to the original topic: LOTR. I have to say that I think the battle sequences are exceptional, just as Drkshadow says. I don't think that Peter Jackson exploits the fast tracking camera. A lot of action movies have "shaky cam vision" where you can't tell what is going on. In Jackson's movies you can at least tell what is going on.

P.S. I don't want to come off as a hater. You know what was an incredible chick flick I loved? Gone With the Wind. That movie had everything, and it's also a pretty good example of how to make an epic style film.

Lets be honest though - how many people do you know who actually like Fellini films, much less get them. Otto e Mezzo is essentially one metaphor on top of another - even from the opening sequence. The coherency is all imagined, whereas a standard, predictable plot are is the fashion. Generally, Italian cinema is revered here, and ignored by everyone except movie fans, and Italians. Occasionally you run into a person who has seen Cinema Paradiso, or maybe if you are lucky Roma Citta Operta and that is a feat - but someone who actually knows anything is hard to find in all major "artistic" films.

Take Kurosawa - generally he is best known by film students, and Japanophiles. I've seen one person outright dismiss the film with the excuse "I'ts in back and white." Titanic is the opposite - it is really the beginning of the emphasis being put purely on the visual, as apposed to the content.The story is nothing new - it is the setting which gains all the attention, and kicks off the super-big-budget film industry of CGI rubbish - the emphasis away from what is going on with the characters, to what is going on with the setting, and the result: sequel syndrome.

The top grossing films for the longest time have been CGI action movies, most on their third installments or whatever. The Lord of the Rings helped significantly, but it seems Titanic is the real father. Perhaps that will bubble over - who knows, but for the moment, with Transformers 2, and Harry Potter 6 being the most focused films of the summer, and the Dark Knight being the highest grosser last year, I see a real problem.


As Camilo put it - the movies of the Lord of the Rings are always wanting to move to action sequences after action sequences - the psychology of the characters,and the characters themselves are rather flat. In terms of the text, Tolkien himself makes battles last about a paragraph, whereas Jackson makes them last an hour. Whereas Tolkien talks about trees and hills for several pages, and Jackson merely waves the camera over them.


But lets all face it - Chinese action films are far more interesting than Western ones - Crouching Tiger > Lord of the Rings any day.

[JCamilo]

@JCamillo: Except Jackson does battles extremely well.

His CGI operators or watever do battles extremely well. Even so, it is most impact scenes. Do you want someone doing battles very well and still able to show the individuals in the battle (not the superheroes feats of Dungeon and Dragons elf Legolas), Spielberg. And this does not exactly saves Private Ryan. Or Zhag Yomou. He is able to be epic wihtout losing poetry and aesthetic, slow so you can appreciate the elements of the scene and see the actual character acting. In LoTR nothing of that happens. The word VideoGames just came up to my mind.



So the fact that he emphasizes the battles over dialogue is a fairly lame critique because you're complaining about a feature, which is actually an asset.

Wait, saying that a movie have crap dialogue is a lame critic? Do you have seen a movie script? It is very similar to reading a Shakespeare play. Shakespeare sustains the plays with dialogue, not with great battles. A bad script destroys a movie. A great battle scene - c'mom, lets be honest, Hollywood technicians can pull stunning battle scenes all the time, it is their ABC - is good for the thrailler. You do not show a stunning battle and give up developing the characters, this is not a lame critic or even a matter of subjective aesthetics.
And frankly, LoTR is not about battles. As JBI pointed Tolkien barelly shows them. Nothing homeric about it. The movies have 2 real battles, in more than 10 hours and he focused in just two elements? Woah, talk about wasting my time. And they, as amazing as they are, do not save the movies. It is like saying that Gollum, amazing, saves the movie. He does not, but he was amazing. But he next time he tries to use the same idea, with King Kong, he transform a short movie in some short of epic and have an awful king kong, and the classic King Kong still better, because it is simpler, direct and not full of unecessary elements.


Not to mention I remember quite a bit of dialogue while watching those films; certainly there are times when it has that overdetermined, "I'm being so epic and melodramatic" quality to it, but there is some solid acting in LOTR that produces inspiring moments as well.

Really? Like the romantic dialogue with Aragorn and Arwen? Or the gay Sam and Frodo dialogues? Overall they are mocked. Wait, there is Elrond. The guy put a half-breed to scream about his daugther possibility of having half-breed kids! The jokes between Gimli and Legolas? Those momments? O'cmom, he found the dialogue in the book, everytime he changed it he made it worst. And Tolkien is very bad with dialogue, so the feat of the writer of the script of the movie is imense.


o be sure the timing is a little off and long-winded, especially in the last film with its "multiple" endings, but the movie for the most part doesn't bog down and is still enjoyable.

While I know that time is a problem, Jackson can not say a single word about it when he added more than 40 minutes of love story that does not exist in the original (because it is simple unecessary) and still awkward in the movie.



Grand scale can certainly work against a film; the Star Wars prequels try the sprawling epic meets "failed" coming-of-age and falls flat because all the other elements needed, good acting, decent dialogue, a coherent plot are missing--replaced by special effects.

To be honest, it is writing videogames scripts like the prequels or LoTR that destroy those elements. The first Star Wars managed the same universal scale quite well. Cecil B.Mille had no trouble to deal with that with Moses. Quite a good number of japanese production (not only live action movies) deal with that.



It tries to be big, but it forgets the other important qualities need in making a convincing epic. But that isn't the case with LOTR, there is a solid core of acting, atmosphere, music, stream-lined plot, moments of good dialogue, stunning visuals, and entertaining battle-scenes with a genuine sense of desperation, which then allows the size and the scope to add that important epic quality like icing on a moderately delicious cake.


LoTR does not have all those elements. The script is filled with holes. The dialogue is cliche. The acting is not good. The elements of character psychology lost to action. Most of the characters are one dimensional (Aragorn, Faramir, the women) to extremes. The Stunning visual, which is indeed stunning, makes the movie look like a paiting, but what ties those paiting - which they copied of the traditional LoTR artwork - is febble.


I'm not saying LOTR is without flaws; in fact, I mentioned I couple of them already in those post if you read between the lines, but its merits outweigh its flaws.

A movie that have continuity sequences flaws as major as LoTR triology have more flaws than merit.



Except LOTR was a success with fantasy geeks AND critics. Transformers 2 for the most part has been panned by the critics and even ripped apart by many of the comic book/cartoon fans that I know. But other than the fact that both the common rabble and the elites liked LOTR, while nobody liked Transformers 2 except really dumb people, yeah it's pretty much the same phenomenon.

tbh, Lotr geeks loved when the movie was similar to the book. But other than tha dislike it. Of course comparing with Transformers is unfair. The movie is a pain, any movie with Megan Fox will have the same merits, and in some she shows more skin.


By the way, it shows a certain lack of knowledge about that audience to assume the "dungeons and dragons" geeks would automatically like LOTR. If you knew anything about that crowd you would know that a great deal would automatically dislike the movie because it strayed too much from the sanctified story of Tolkien.

The first movie was close enough to do the trap. I am a dungeon and dragon geek and I remember the first reaction was "Hey, remember that game", "hey, he is rolling a d20", "wow, a critical", etc. But simple as put, Dungeons and Dragons (Peter Jackson is a Dungeons and Dragon geek) is not similar to Tolkien. They are very similar to the movies however. Simplistic, an adventure, momments where you do not care (because while playing Dungeons and Dragons you do not work you dialogue, you do not spent years traveling, etc) and obvious characters.
The generation today that plays Dungeons and Dragon is not the same of the 70ths, most of them have not read Tolkien and have no idea about the books. Just pick any Dungeon and Dragon novel and you saw see the narrative style is totally different. LoTR fan geeks had their own roleplaying system, which was never that popular.


Half of fandom would like it no matter how bad or good the film was because it is a movie based on their sacred Tolkien, while the other half would dislike it no matter how good or bad the film was because it is a movie based on their sacred Tolkien.

That is like saying half of the fandom about Troy is because it is different from Sacred Homer. A movie that sustain itself by stunning visual is just a nice paiting that moves.

[JBI]

There was no Homer in the movie Troy though - lets be honest, the whole story was altered to look more like one of those epic movies modeled on the same rubbish as The Lord of the Rings.

No Gods, no accuracy in the story, no real characters, no real historical details, no actual focusing on what Homer described, and no apparent consistency - and, most of all, perhaps the most scandalous - a victimization of the Trojans - playing off of not Homer, who villainized the Trojans very clearly, making them guilty of Hubris and disrespect for the Gods (notably Hera), but on a rather mixed misreading of interpretation of Virgil, who glorifies the Trojans, as a way of paving a place for his Aeneas - the actual Trojan Victim bit has nothing to do with the actual Greek story though.

Likewise, they were, I guess, to ashamed to show homosexuality in Hollywood, so they decided Patroclus was better off being Achilles' cousin instead of lover (and they even added a nice romance bit in there, which made no actual sense). That movie is clearly bad, lord of the Rings at least, as you said, had some nice visuals.

I don't think the epic, as it is currently envisioned in English-language cinema has much of a chance to work. The movie Red Cliff, for instance, I would call a success, both visually and on other levels - the acting was good, the characters, all historical and culturally significant people (meaning they have been absorbed into the cultural consciousness of the target audience) and most well acted - there is a room for female roles, which take the stage predominantly throughout the second half of the movie, often shutting out the male roles, and there is some moral, and non-violent scenes that fill the movie with something other than one continuous battle.

That film, in essence, works much better, whereas the Lord of the Rings, based on rather shaky cultural material, with no real significance doesn't really hold much ground.


Of course, I wouldn't call either film fantastic cinema, but it is always interesting to compare.

[JCamilo]

Today, the form of language used on Hollywood, there is no chance for epic or even most fantasy, since the realism would compromisse all the poetry need for both. Like you said, the skeptical vision in Troy destroys the story and the strength of the myth. It is not just them, what chances have we to see a good King Artur adaptation (John Boorman Excalibur was good enough but it was in 1980) ? But it is obviously possible, the oriental cinema can cope with epical scope or fantasy much better. Hero is amazing. Even Hollywood could do it, George Lucas, not exactly a genius, managed to place the elemets in the right place in Star Wars and still use the special effects without them ruining the stories (While the acting of Stars is just average, with the exception of Harison Ford being Harison Ford and Alec Guiness just give a tip of his real capacity) the steryotipes of characters are well defined enough to allow the actors to do their job. And until then, Lucas would not ruin the storyline with freakish useless combat scenes or some of the most ridiculous dialogue lines ever. So, it is possible.

I agree that Troy is much worst than LoTR. But that does not save LoTR much, after all, technically Troy is just fine. There is no mistakes, the fighting scene well organized and so, what? It is not even that I am arguing favorable to a faithful interpretation, however if a guys try to adapt an orginal material it, we should point the failures of adaptation. For example, Elrond character who turned to be in the movie in a freaking bigot. It was not a matter of visual changes necessary, it was just the incapacity to deal with the character and the new uncessary romantic drama. It is a failure, because he did not wanted to avoid Tolkien, he just was unable to to do so. In the end, LoTR fails as adaptation of Tolkien and fails as doing something new.
As Troy, I do not even think the problem is Patrocolus. It is possible to be able to capture the Iliad if Achilles -Patrocolus ties are just a strong freindship. It is a possible reading. Also, there is some positive elements among the trojans (after all, they are almost like greeks, same gods, ideas, etc) and negative among greeks. I would have no problem uplighting Heitor, because he is a venerable character... And Iliad is even easier to adapt, after all there is a considerable amount of battles... but the poetry that was necessary to make the myth be present in the story is out, so it is an empty shell. In a sense, it was easier with LoTR because the myth that Tolkien tries to make real in LoTR is not a great or real myth, but even so, it is abandoned in LoTR. Both movies are only epic in the scale and not in the sense that made poetry real, with an old past significance being transported to a real and actual universe. At least in the realm of intentions, Tolkien created LoTR not to be an alternative world, but alternative mythology, and this is different and this does not exist in the movies or the main elements there.

[Bluebeard]

Honestly, the biggest complaint I can see with the Lord of the Rings is the absence of a significant female role to counterbalance the violence.

Do you apply this criterion to writers like McCarthy, or just fantasy? If the latter, do you think, then, that popular fiction has a greater political or social responsibility than literary fiction? I think that's worth being scanned.

Also, I don't see how the role of the female being to "counterbalance violence" is at all socially responsible, considering it just reinforces incredibly anachronistic concepts on gender roles (man is aggressive, woman is passive).

[JBI]

Do you apply this criterion to writers like McCarthy, or just fantasy? If the latter, do you think, then, that popular fiction has a greater political or social responsibility than literary fiction? I think that's worth being scanned.

Also, I don't see how the role of the female being to "counterbalance violence" is at all socially responsible, considering it just reinforces incredibly anachronistic concepts on gender roles (man is aggressive, woman is passive).

The violence is a particularly male preoccupation, and, historically, in these sorts of battles women would not have participated - but I'm talking about the grand scheme of the epic - McCarthy is dealing with an historical occurrence (I assume you are talking about Blood Meridian), whereas Tolkien is forging an alternative world, where, essentially, women are absent, and this highly realized fictional sort of "honorable societal structure" that is highly romanticized, it seems somewhat alarming that women are not really a part of the scheme. McCarthy is a whole other genre - his characters are not heros on a quest, but anti-heroic, and quite savage.

I'm not advocating Tolkien should have thrown in some damsels in distress - I merely am hinting that he should have made room for rounded, female characters, with splotlighted personalities and relavance - the dominance of these "heroic male" warrior types is not counterbalanced by a sort of female heroism or identity - females, within Tolkien's historiography of middle earth, are, ultimately absent. And, I'm not big a McCarthy nut as other people on these boards, so I won't go into that great detail defending him, but that is a completely different genre - Tolkien seeks to glorify his middle-earth heroes, whereas McCarthy does not - that is why, in Tolkien, the absence of women other than as a "girl to return home to" (similar perhaps to the early Prairie literature Male-horse female-house construct) or as an impossible romance seems strikingly boring, and limiting. Where are the women in all this - what is going on with them - perhaps if less effort was put into the history of the male lines of kings, and boring drinking songs, and more was put into some actual coverage of the human factor within his story, we would know.

[mortalterror]

Lets be honest though - how many people do you know who actually like Fellini films, much less get them.
Honestly, I can't get my best friends to watch them with me, even though he's arguably the greatest director of all time. I can't get them to watch Kubrick, Scorsese, or Bergman either.


Otto e Mezzo is essentially one metaphor on top of another - even from the opening sequence. The coherency is all imagined, whereas a standard, predictable plot are is the fashion.
It's pretty coherent if you've watched all of his other films, read his biography, books about his films, and taken a class on him. The opening sequence is taken from a dream he had. The man kept a dream diary and dipped into it for his films like Juliet of the Spirits. The part where he's flying with his arms outstretched is an homage to the famous opening of his earlier film La Dolce Vita.

Most of the fantasy scenes have a catalyst in the characters "real life", and the "director" is trying to imagine how he could turn them into a film. It's very much like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/6821/thurber.html).


Generally, Italian cinema is revered here, and ignored by everyone except movie fans, and Italians. Occasionally you run into a person who has seen Cinema Paradiso, or maybe if you are lucky Roma Citta Operta and that is a feat - but someone who actually knows anything is hard to find in all major "artistic" films.
I like both of those, but I think The Bicycle Thief or Umberto D. are better.


Take Kurosawa - generally he is best known by film students, and Japanophiles. I've seen one person outright dismiss the film with the excuse "I'ts in back and white." Titanic is the opposite - it is really the beginning of the emphasis being put purely on the visual, as apposed to the content.The story is nothing new - it is the setting which gains all the attention, and kicks off the super-big-budget film industry of CGI rubbish - the emphasis away from what is going on with the characters, to what is going on with the setting, and the result: sequel syndrome.

The top grossing films for the longest time have been CGI action movies, most on their third installments or whatever. The Lord of the Rings helped significantly, but it seems Titanic is the real father. Perhaps that will bubble over - who knows, but for the moment, with Transformers 2, and Harry Potter 6 being the most focused films of the summer, and the Dark Knight being the highest grosser last year, I see a real problem.
I know it seems as though the public has no taste, but the raw numbers can be misleading. Consider this list of the best all time domestic movie grosses (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm). It's pretty dismal. But if you look at this list which adjusts for ticket price inflation (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm), there are a lot more good films on it. Then you have to consider that films today reach more theaters, more markets, and are better advertised which accounts for a lot of their superior grossing power. If you break the grosse down to it's average per theater, it really levels the playing field. A film like Titanic will be in 30 times as many theaters as a small film like Idiocracy. It will be in theaters longer; so you can break the numbers down over time. Then there's the rental and DVD sales to consider. But lets not get into that. What those big numbers for Titanic show isn't the percentage of people who liked the movie, just the number that saw it. I think most people would agree that Casablanca was better.


But lets all face it - Chinese action films are far more interesting than Western ones - Crouching Tiger > Lord of the Rings any day.
I like Crouching Tiger, but think Lord of the Rings has the edge here. Chinese action films are quite good, and while your statement might have been true once, I don't think it applies anymore. Hollywood has brain drained Hong Kong. John Woo, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat, Bruce Lee, and others have all come to America and their style has been co-opted. It's what makes films like The Matrix possible. However, I was enraged when Scorsese decided to remake Infernal Affairs as The Departed. That film came out in 2002, was the best action film since Lethal Weapon, and didn't need a remake.

[JBI]

Today, the form of language used on Hollywood, there is no chance for epic or even most fantasy, since the realism would compromisse all the poetry need for both. Like you said, the skeptical vision in Troy destroys the story and the strength of the myth. It is not just them, what chances have we to see a good King Artur adaptation (John Boorman Excalibur was good enough but it was in 1980) ? But it is obviously possible, the oriental cinema can cope with epical scope or fantasy much better. Hero is amazing. Even Hollywood could do it, George Lucas, not exactly a genius, managed to place the elemets in the right place in Star Wars and still use the special effects without them ruining the stories (While the acting of Stars is just average, with the exception of Harison Ford being Harison Ford and Alec Guiness just give a tip of his real capacity) the steryotipes of characters are well defined enough to allow the actors to do their job. And until then, Lucas would not ruin the storyline with freakish useless combat scenes or some of the most ridiculous dialogue lines ever. So, it is possible.

I agree that Troy is much worst than LoTR. But that does not save LoTR much, after all, technically Troy is just fine. There is no mistakes, the fighting scene well organized and so, what? It is not even that I am arguing favorable to a faithful interpretation, however if a guys try to adapt an orginal material it, we should point the failures of adaptation. For example, Elrond character who turned to be in the movie in a freaking bigot. It was not a matter of visual changes necessary, it was just the incapacity to deal with the character and the new uncessary romantic drama. It is a failure, because he did not wanted to avoid Tolkien, he just was unable to to do so. In the end, LoTR fails as adaptation of Tolkien and fails as doing something new.
As Troy, I do not even think the problem is Patrocolus. It is possible to be able to capture the Iliad if Achilles -Patrocolus ties are just a strong freindship. It is a possible reading. Also, there is some positive elements among the trojans (after all, they are almost like greeks, same gods, ideas, etc) and negative among greeks. I would have no problem uplighting Heitor, because he is a venerable character... And Iliad is even easier to adapt, after all there is a considerable amount of battles... but the poetry that was necessary to make the myth be present in the story is out, so it is an empty shell. In a sense, it was easier with LoTR because the myth that Tolkien tries to make real in LoTR is not a great or real myth, but even so, it is abandoned in LoTR. Both movies are only epic in the scale and not in the sense that made poetry real, with an old past significance being transported to a real and actual universe. At least in the realm of intentions, Tolkien created LoTR not to be an alternative world, but alternative mythology, and this is different and this does not exist in the movies or the main elements there.

Perhaps, but the adaptation of Homer is quite different than Tolkien - Tolkien is specific on what everything looks like, whereas the Blind Homer, instead, relies on epic similes to convey the power of the visual, - the cataloging is there, but the power is within metaphor and simile.

The concept of Tolkien, as a text though, is not one really suited for literature, much less for cinema. Take the beginning - though the stupid history of Middle Earth is longer, the text starts at a clear beginning, as does the movies. Homer drops you right into the action, and fills in what came before, or assumes you know what came before then, and thereby focuses on the real aspects of the story - the characters. People who haven't read Homer, and there are many, but pretend to often talk about how there is the Trojan horse in the Iliad, and whatnot, and of Helen of Troy - but what is the text really about? A feud that arose between Achilles and Agammemnon over Arete, that nearly cost the Greeks the war, until, by chance Patroclus was slain, and Achilles re-enters the fighting, ready to reclaim his place in history as the greatest warrior on the battle-field.

The famous part - the horse - isn't even in the text - people knew about it, why bother actually writing about it? People knew what caused the war, why bother actually going over the story?

The rings is a whole other beast - the backstory is essentially established in the beginning - the creation of the Rings, and the rise of Mordor, until the fall of Isildur (pardon any wrong spellings, I generally spell as I phonetically remember things, and it has been a few years). Then, it starts at the beginning of a journey, with all the long winded idiocy that made Joseph Campbell famous. Instead of the metaphors, there are vast, quantitative descriptions - instead of psychology of characters, we get backdrop and history, which, unless one likes trivia of an unknown world, is essentially useless. There is a great deal of walking, quite a few annoying characters, and too defined a concept of good and bad - good is the nice white men, and aryan looking elf-people, and bad are the Black People, the orcish-monster type black things, and that weird Giant Eye thing, which is the most anti-villainous villain I have ever encountered, and essentially does nothing. The story doesn't revolve around characters, as much as it does to spin around a tale of a silly little ring, that needs to be destroyed before it can be used to rule the world (something which is never clarified, though in the movie, we see Sauron take down about 20 people before he gets cut down with one quick swing to the finger - perhaps imposing, but perhaps not as mighty as it was pretended). We get a whole series of wisecracks from that annoying oaf Gandalf, who seems to know everything, yet be completely freaking useless (and, magically enough, is reincarnated to save the day, which is ridiculous and so deus ex machina it is pathetic) and finally, the Eagles, perhaps a reference to the American army in both World Wars, flying in to save the day, and win it for the Good guys, as the Ring is destroyed, and the kingdom is once again free. Not much of an interesting story there - the mythology is quite lacking if you ask me.

The whole Trojan cycle is far more interesting - Zeus says the world is too populated, better have a war - Zeus wants to marry Thetis, but is warned if he does, that he will be overthrown by their son, so instead marries her off to a hero, thereby avoiding his fate - at the wedding, Paris, who has been prophesied to destroy Troy, judges Aphrodite, rather than Athena, despite having the love of Oenone, and a child - an thereby sets into motion the selfishly driven events that will lead to the holy war on Troy, the burning of the city, the death of thousands, the birth and destruction of heroes, and the long journeys home, where the cycle can continue, and the distribution of power change - the cycle makes more sense - there are heroes on both sides, there is color - there is no silly quest, or weak set of characters (who seem conveniently at the same location in the beginning, and quite toss to be sure) the ending continuous, and merely a cycle within a long mythological, culturally bound story. There really is no competition, as the Greek cycles evolved naturally out of a culture, whereas the Lord of the Rings seem to be the work of a quirky, quite boring imagination, fueled with intentional misreadings of other traditions.

[mayneverhave]

Honestly, I can't get my best friends to watch them with me, even though he's arguably the greatest director of all time. I can't get them to watch Kubrick, Scorsese, or Bergman either.

I empathize. My friends can only mildly enjoy Kubrick, but could not make it through 2001. Scorsese is more accessible than Kubrick or Bergman, and as for Fellini, I've had zero success getting them to watch 8 1/2 even though I praised it as one of the best I've ever seen.

[JBI]

Mortal - I have seen all the films you have mentioned - don't get me wrong - I watch Fellini all the time, and would probably agree with you that he is the best director of all time (though I have a personal soft spot for Woody Allen). But most people don't get the metaphorical nature of Otto e Mezzo, or even La Dolce Vita - the actual sequence of events is non-linear, and in fragments, and most people are used to clear arches in their movies - the movie is not the most family friendly, and takes, probably more knowledge about narrative than anything else, to really understand - that's what makes it great, but, ultimately, that's what makes it "unpopular". Take for instance the beginning, where Guido is blown up as a Balloon, for first time viewers, who are used to romantic comedies and action films - how many are really going to get that? That's something people never run into in movies - an idea which is metaphorical, rather than literal.

As for Umberto D. Generally that movie was considered to be unwatchable, as no person could possibly desire to sit through it as entertainment, but its merit, in terms of styllistics is clearly there.

But all the movies you mentioned a) are classical, and b) are generally unpopular. The list of highest grossers - though there are some good movies - generally, if my reading is accurate, has no non-American films, despite lists of best movies of all time being loaded with them. I can't, for instance, see Il Desserto Rosso as ever being a popular movie, despite the brilliance of the film, because, quite frankly, people won't find them entertaining - it takes a certain interest. Like I said, most people even today dismiss all movies that aren't a) American, and b) in Color, and c) simple. There is, for instance, a reason why it seems only niche theatres actually show foreign cinema - the movie theare is more of a cultural wasteland than anything else, and for good reason - they are out there to make money, not to cater to people who are interested in art-forms and cinema as a form, rather than entertainment.

Of course, certain movies, though not trying, seem to be both great (on an unintellectual level) and entertaining, such as my personal favorite, Mrs. Doubtfire. Certain movies, and styles take more effort to understand, but ultimately, none actually very few seem to appeal to the public. The most popular books sold are clearly romance novels - the same is with movies - cheap romances.

As for getting people to watch and appreciate movies - I know people who aren't even able to understand Annie Hall, or Manhattan (the latter of which they dismiss because it was shot in black and white) I've had, for instance, people dismiss even action movies like The Killer, even though they are so accessible - simply because they are foreign.

[Bluebeard]

The most popular books sold are clearly romance novels - the same is with movies - cheap romances.

As far as movies go, the "summer action flick" or similarly styled type movies far surpass cheap romance in terms of sales.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm

[JCamilo]

Perhaps, but the adaptation of Homer is quite different than Tolkien - Tolkien is specific on what everything looks like, whereas the Blind Homer, instead, relies on epic similes to convey the power of the visual, - the cataloging is there, but the power is within metaphor and simile.

No disagreement, i a long term, Tolkien is an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation... but adaptation is not changing the essential but the necessary for the medium. Both movies fail.


The concept of Tolkien, as a text though, is not one really suited for literature, much less for cinema.

Well, Tolkien wrote the book. It is literature. I do not see how it is not suited for literature. Obviously, the form of tolkien does not belong to cinema, but the themes does.



Take the beginning - though the stupid history of Middle Earth is longer, the text starts at a clear beginning, as does the movies. Homer drops you right into the action, and fills in what came before, or assumes you know what came before then, and thereby focuses on the real aspects of the story - the characters. People who haven't read Homer, and there are many, but pretend to often talk about how there is the Trojan horse in the Iliad, and whatnot, and of Helen of Troy - but what is the text really about? A feud that arose between Achilles and Agammemnon over Arete, that nearly cost the Greeks the war, until, by chance Patroclus was slain, and Achilles re-enters the fighting, ready to reclaim his place in history as the greatest warrior on the battle-field.

As media res is quite commum with movies. Take Hero. And we do not know enough of chinese story to understand it. Tolkien book is more a direct in the sense of chronology, but it is not the reason behind the movie. Of course the familiarity wiht themes help, but that is not used with Tolkien. The reaction with the first movie was "It is over, but where is the end"...


The famous part - the horse - isn't even in the text - people knew about it, why bother actually writing about it? People knew what caused the war, why bother actually going over the story?

We would have to argue the matter of authorship of Homer, anyways, the theme was not the end or the whole war, the horse is just not part of it. Frankly, I suppose - because any could correct me, the horse is not really a main event of any of the classical texts - because they reckonize it as a metaphor and all the circustances of what happened in the Iliad are more relevant than the horse.
But to be truthful, Tolkien does not spell out all the history of his world, just suggest it and places the elements. We have no idea about Galadriel, Elrond, etc. Samuran betrayal was in the middle of book, even if happening in the middle of the book, etc... But that is irrelevant...


The rings is a whole other beast - the backstory is essentially established in the beginning - the creation of the Rings, and the rise of Mordor, until the fall of Isildur (pardon any wrong spellings, I generally spell as I phonetically remember things, and it has been a few years). Then, it starts at the beginning of a journey, with all the long winded idiocy that made Joseph Campbell famous. Instead of the metaphors, there are vast, quantitative descriptions - instead of psychology of characters, we get backdrop and history, which, unless one likes trivia of an unknown world, is essentially useless. There is a great deal of walking, quite a few annoying characters, and too defined a concept of good and bad - good is the nice white men, and aryan looking elf-people, and bad are the Black People, the orcish-monster type black things, and that weird Giant Eye thing, which is the most anti-villainous villain I have ever encountered, and essentially does nothing. The story doesn't revolve around characters, as much as it does to spin around a tale of a silly little ring, that needs to be destroyed before it can be used to rule the world (something which is never clarified, though in the movie, we see Sauron take down about 20 people before he gets cut down with one quick swing to the finger - perhaps imposing, but perhaps not as mighty as it was pretended). We get a whole series of wisecracks from that annoying oaf Gandalf, who seems to know everything, yet be completely freaking useless (and, magically enough, is reincarnated to save the day, which is ridiculous and so deus ex machina it is pathetic) and finally, the Eagles, perhaps a reference to the American army in both World Wars, flying in to save the day, and win it for the Good guys, as the Ring is destroyed, and the kingdom is once again free. Not much of an interesting story there - the mythology is quite lacking if you ask me.

You just dislike it :D
Anyways, the story of the ring is only told in middle/end of the of the first book, isnt? Even because Tolkien invented it after writing the begining. Most characters are steryotypes (the wise old guy, the honorable heroe, etc) , usually that Campbell place indeed, etc. Pretty basic stuff, also basic metaphors (the broken sword, the snake tongue, the palantir, the ring - the big eye is not a big eye in the book), etc. I would say it is well done, have seen better, but not a waste, but you will probally die disliking it :D


The whole Trojan cycle is far more interesting - Zeus says the world is too populated, better have a war - Zeus wants to marry Thetis, but is warned if he does, that he will be overthrown by their son, so instead marries her off to a hero, thereby avoiding his fate - at the wedding, Paris, who has been prophesied to destroy Troy, judges Aphrodite, rather than Athena, despite having the love of Oenone, and a child - an thereby sets into motion the selfishly driven events that will lead to the holy war on Troy, the burning of the city, the death of thousands, the birth and destruction of heroes, and the long journeys home, where the cycle can continue, and the distribution of power change - the cycle makes more sense - there are heroes on both sides, there is color - there is no silly quest, or weak set of characters (who seem conveniently at the same location in the beginning, and quite toss to be sure) the ending continuous, and merely a cycle within a long mythological, culturally bound story. There really is no competition, as the Greek cycles evolved naturally out of a culture, whereas the Lord of the Rings seem to be the work of a quirky, quite boring imagination, fueled with intentional misreadings of other traditions.

ok, but almost nothing to it exist on Homer (just like the real hisory of LoTR is within Simiarllion, and misreading are good)... it is more interesting. It is Homer, Iliad and Odissey, arguing they are better than anything is only complicated if we think about Virgil, Dante, Ovid, Milton... But if you judge everything compared to the trojan circle, everything will suck badly.

[Drkshadow03]

His CGI operators or watever do battles extremely well. Even so, it is most impact scenes. Do you want someone doing battles very well and still able to show the individuals in the battle (not the superheroes feats of Dungeon and Dragons elf Legolas), Spielberg. And this does not exactly saves Private Ryan. Or Zhag Yomou. He is able to be epic wihtout losing poetry and aesthetic, slow so you can appreciate the elements of the scene and see the actual character acting. In LoTR nothing of that happens. The word VideoGames just came up to my mind.

You apparently are not understanding what I mean by Jackson handles battles really well. For instance, take the end battle in the first film where the fellowship gets separated. Besides, well choreographed, thus having nothing to do with CGI, the battle inspires a general desperation, a general feeling that the heroes might actually lose, which attests all the more to Jackson's ability to do battles since having read the books and knowing already there would be two more films we know that won't happen. But it FEELS like it might happen. That's what I mean when I say Jackson does battles extremely well. Any moron can throw together a CGI army and then fall asleep at the helm, but the attention to detail, the actual emotions the battles stir in the viewer, the fun character banter (especially between Gimli and Legolas in the second film), and even the intricate angles and details he includes and captures with his camera work makes for entertaining and powerful cinema. And well done battles.

I can think of tons of movies that have pretty CGI battle scenes, but lack any real sense of desperation, any sense of a real goal.

As far as LOTR battles not functioning in the same was as say the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, well, duh . . .

Saving Private Ryan's opening sequence serves to show the futility of war and the fragility of human life in a war zone where person after person gets brutally mowed down in a screaming cacophony of blood and pain. It's hardcore realism, baby. LOTR is fantasy. It practically idealizes and glorifies its battles. Where there are points in the SPR that shows that even the German enemies who will kill most of our heroes are human too, the enemies in LOTR are growling Orcs without the faintest hint of humanity. This says nothing about the quality of either film rather it simply denotes that each film has different aesthetic goals. The stories offer different implicit promises from each other and thus different inner workings of their own story logic, therefore making this a ridiculous comparison.


Wait, saying that a movie have crap dialogue is a lame critic? Do you have seen a movie script? It is very similar to reading a Shakespeare play. Shakespeare sustains the plays with dialogue, not with great battles. A bad script destroys a movie. A great battle scene - c'mom, lets be honest, Hollywood technicians can pull stunning battle scenes all the time, it is their ABC - is good for the thrailler. You do not show a stunning battle and give up developing the characters, this is not a lame critic or even a matter of subjective aesthetics.

You're committing a bit of a Strawman, though I admit that I could've worded myself a bit more clearly. When read in context, I am saying his depiction of battles is an asset, and his focus of battle over dialogue makes the films better, which doesn't necessarily mean I am suggesting the dialogue which is present in the film = crappy, hence you're misreading what I actually said and attacking something I never actually said.



And frankly, LoTR is not about battles. As JBI pointed Tolkien barelly shows them. Nothing homeric about it. The movies have 2 real battles, in more than 10 hours and he focused in just two elements? Woah, talk about wasting my time. And they, as amazing as they are, do not save the movies.

You've again rehashed the argument that the movies deviate from Tolkien's vision. They do. No one is disagreeing with that. The question is whether that is a bad thing. As much as I love fantasy I don't particularly love Tolkien.

Jackson reinterprets Tolkien into a more traditional plot. Tolkien's story is essentially a milieu story. It's about the setting and the deeper mythology and all the hidden places with their secret histories with a more traditional plot (protecting and destroying the ring) thrust into the background to bring an ordering principle to the equation and fully exploit heroic mythology. A milieu story would not translate well into cinema.

Jackson basically reverses the equation; he makes the plot of destroying the ring and fighting against the evil hordes conspiring to recapture it the forefront of the films, with the setting and deeper history pushed to the back, but still there at select times.

A great deal of time is spent in Tolkien describing trees and grains of sand and rocks and such. Cinema is capable of showing in two seconds what might take a normal writer two or three paragraphs (and Tolkien forty pages!); this basically applies for all book to film conversions, not just Tolkien, by the way. Jackson basically converts the story into a more concrete plot and changes Tolkien accordingly to take advantage of the differences in the medium.




Except in this case Jackson converted a long book into a long movie, made the plot of the film simpler, more direct, and less convoluted, but otherwise, yeah completely the same thing! And of course his success or failure with King Kong has anything to do with his success with LOTR, how? Moving on . . .


[QUOTE]Really? Like the romantic dialogue with Aragorn and Arwen? Or the gay Sam and Frodo dialogues? Overall they are mocked. Wait, there is Elrond. The guy put a half-breed to scream about his daugther possibility of having half-breed kids! The jokes between Gimli and Legolas? Those momments? O'cmom, he found the dialogue in the book, everytime he changed it he made it worst. And Tolkien is very bad with dialogue, so the feat of the writer of the script of the movie is imense.

The dialogue between Aragorn and Arwen was typical overdetermined melodramatic Epic Fantasy dialogue, but it wasn't terrible in comparison to say the "love" dialogue in Star Wars Episode II where you could tell even the actors were rolling their eyes and thinking, "Am I really saying that?" and whose only purpose was to have a love dialogue that did little else for the plot or characterizations. The Aragorn/Arwen dialogue has additional motivation in that it is used to talk about Aragorn's reluctance to assume the kingship and adds a romantic interest to the characters that explores the races of the world, thus adding further dimensions and motivations to the character from the original books and world-building.

Besides calling the Frodo and Sam dialogues gay, which is homophobic--even though they were kind of gay--it again only demonstrates that a deeper subtext exist, which of course implies a deeper dimension to their characters if such a subtext is present (there is a homosexual tension between them). Sam is sort of "eh" in the first two films acting-wise, not bad, but not anything special. However, he shows a better range of emotion and character and inner conflict, and thus good acting, in the third film.

I'm not claiming this is Shakespeare or anything, but yes I do think it does fit the overdetermined nature of the genre, its overall effect does fit the nature of the film and doesn't detract from it, and I didn't seen anything that I considered absolutely abysmal.



While I know that time is a problem, Jackson can not say a single word about it when he added more than 40 minutes of love story that does not exist in the original (because it is simple unecessary) and still awkward in the movie.

It didn't bother me much. This was basically his attempt to fit in another major reoccurring female role into the film to fix some the problems that JBI complained about with Tolkien. To a degree this is pandering to a modern post-Feminist Movement audience, but I ultimately see no major problem with it, and as I already noted it performs other functions as well which fit into other changes that Jackson makes to the Aragorn character.




LoTR does not have all those elements. The script is filled with holes. The dialogue is cliche. The acting is not good. The elements of character psychology lost to action. Most of the characters are one dimensional (Aragorn, Faramir, the women) to extremes. The Stunning visual, which is indeed stunning, makes the movie look like a paiting, but what ties those paiting - which they copied of the traditional LoTR artwork - is febble.

Since I addressed some of the other points, I'll address only acting here. Ian McKellan is extremely impressive as Gandalf. Elijah Wood as Frodo was convincing in his transformation from innocent hobbit youth to burdened and distrustful ring-bearer. Ian Holmes as Bilbo was charming and amusing, capturing exactly the mentality I always pictured of Hobbits. The guy who plays Borimir does a great acting job. Everyone is serviceable, except Liv Tyler and Hugo Weaving who borders on bad and Cate Blanchett who is a bit bland.

Your memory must be failing you. Most of the characters in the books are one-dimensional. If anything Jackson breathes fresh life into them and gives them all deeper dimensions from the source material; each one has a character arc and shows clear character development from the first film to the last film. Again, not Shakespeare or Citizen Kane, but it's not meant to be.

[JCamilo]

You apparently are not understanding what I mean by Jackson handles battles really well. For instance, take the end battle in the first film where the fellowship gets separated. Besides, well choreographed, thus having nothing to do with CGI, the battle inspires a general desperation, a general feeling that the heroes might actually lose, which attests all the more to Jackson's ability to do battles since having read the books and knowing already there would be two more films we know that won't happen.

Are you calling batle the orc squad ambush where a single hero (Boromir) dies? Hobbits are actually kidnapped, the heroes actually lose that skimish, it is not necessary to create anything, no impression, anything. I think it was clear that 10 against 20 meetings in the stories are not "batles" we are talking about...



But it FEELS like it might happen. That's what I mean when I say Jackson does battles extremely well.

Because it happens. They are defeated. It does not give anyone the impression it was all over, but that batle was a drawback.


Any moron can throw together a CGI army and then fall asleep at the helm, but the attention to detail, the actual emotions the battles stir in the viewer, the fun character banter (especially between Gimli and Legolas in the second film),

Fun? It was moronic. Had no place there, even tolkien managed to write better batle jests for the dwarf. Legolas was one of the worst things in the movies, he is just out of himself, the superelf that is not even funny.


and even the intricate angles and details he includes and captures with his camera work makes for entertaining and powerful cinema. And well done battles.

What intricated angles?


I can think of tons of movies that have pretty CGI battle scenes, but lack any real sense of desperation, any sense of a real goal.

Yeah, me too. Return of the King among those.


As far as LOTR battles not functioning in the same was as say the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, well, duh . .

Saving Private Ryan's opening sequence serves to show the futility of war and the fragility of human life in a war zone where person after person gets brutally mowed down in a screaming cacophony of blood and pain. It's hardcore realism, baby. LOTR is fantasy. It practically idealizes and glorifies its battles.

Maybe, but actually LoTR goes against batles. The major battle of the story - the final is irrelevant. People die for nothing except the ambiont of one man. Tolkien in fact created it after his experiences in the war, you know. He was a die hard pacisfist and one of the themes of the LoTR is the imbecility of powerful man leading people to war. That is why the one big battle is Frodo battle against himself in the end, a little chubby fellow. Sauron could have wiped the army lead by Gandalf, Aragon and if Frodo threw the ring in the vulcano. Likewise, the could have win, if the ring remained would mean nothing: one the major themes of Lord of rings is exactly the anti-war message, pacifism and significance of a little human life and how war can made it insignifcance. Of course, the gloryficantion of battle is a movie only feature, an incapacity of adaptation by Jackson, the limitation of videogaming narratives.


Where there are points in the SPR that shows that even the German enemies who will kill most of our heroes are human too, the enemies in LOTR are growling Orcs without the faintest hint of humanity. This says nothing about the quality of either film rather it simply denotes that each film has different aesthetic goals. The stories offer different implicit promises from each other and thus different inner workings of their own story logic, therefore making this a dumb comparison.

Trying to deny the superior capacity of Spielberg to show up a massive battle and still showing the human characters claiming aesthetical goals (Or appealing to fantasy/realism, while both Jackson and Spielberg are realistic directors) is such poor claim that I have nothing to say.




You're committing a bit of a Strawman, though I admit that I could've worded myself a bit more clearly. When read in context, I am saying his depiction of battles is an asset, and his focus of battle over dialogue makes the films better, which doesn't necessarily mean I am suggesting the dialogue which is present in the film = crappy, hence you're misreading what I actually said and attacking something I never actually said. [QUOTE]

No I read you quite well. Any script that does not present a dialogue but battle scenes is poorer. Richness of character is present on language or dialogue, not on scenarios. Blue Lagoon with Broke Shields had a great scenario, but really...
When Jackson focus on batles is because he is unable to direct characters. It is his limitation. It is not an option. It also shows incapacity to adapt the original material, something not oriented to battle.


[QUOTE]You've again rehashed the argument that the movies deviate from Tolkien's vision. They do. No one is disagreeing with that. The question is whether that is a bad thing. As much as I love fantasy I don't particularly love Tolkien.

No, I did not. You argued it is an asset to focus on battle. I said the movie had really two big batles. Other 7 hours of the movies are "secundary". Any director who focus his movie in something that takes 1/7 of the movie is needing to work his script.


Jackson reinterprets Tolkien into a more traditional plot. Tolkien's story is essentially a milieu story. It's about the setting and the deeper mythology and all the hidden places with their secret histories with a more traditional plot (protecting and destroying the ring) thrust into the background to bring an ordering principle to the equation and fully exploit heroic mythology. A milieu story would not translate well into cinema.

No the plot are the same. Ancient artificat is found with the good side. The only way to destroy it is taking it to the den of the evil side. The artificact corrupts and evil side wants to get it. They do a journey for it, facing his enemies and his arms. You are confusing Plot and Themes and really: Jackson did not tried to avoid Tolkien, he avoided when he was unable too, not creating solutions to present the same elements thus creating little frankstein like the elfs, who are ridiculous and read as some superpowerful perfect race.




Jackson basically reverses the equation; he makes the plot of destroying the ring and fighting against the evil hordes conspiring to recapture it the forefront of the films, with the setting and deeper history pushed to the back, but still there at select times.

Tolkien does not tell a deeper story, nothing different from what is the movie. In fact, Jackson even gives an early background, unlike tolkien. It is how it is presented that destroyes the notion that is an epic, that exists a background, exist more significance than a Dungeons and Dragon map .



A great deal of time is spent in Tolkien describing trees and grains of sand and rocks and such. Cinema is capable of showing in two seconds what might take a normal writer two or three paragraphs (and Tolkien forty pages!); [quote]

Cinema also have the capacity to show it for minutes. But it is not about showing details of scenario, it is the dimension of scenario. David Lean actually could do Lawrence and give the impression of existence of a real desert. Not something Jackson did.


[QUOTE]this basically applies for all book to film conversions, not just Tolkien, by the way. Jackson basically converts the story into a more concrete plot and changes Tolkien accordingly to take advantage of the differences in the medium.

heh, really? I mean how presenting the love story is because the difference of medium? How eliminating the hobbit return to their vilages is difference of medium? How legolas acting like superman is about difference of medium? Really, this lame excuse is just lame. It is a bad adaptation, not a bad book.




Except in this case Jackson converted a long book into a long movie, made the plot of the film simpler, more direct, and less convoluted, but otherwise, yeah completely the same thing! And of course his success or failure with King Kong has anything to do with his success with LOTR, how? Moving on . . .

Err, I was just pointing how bad director Jackson is. King Kong is not even a difference of medium, is just bad directing.





The dialogue between Aragorn and Arwen was typical overdetermined melodramatic Epic Fantasy dialogue, but it wasn't terrible in comparison to say the "love" dialogue in Star Wars Episode II where you could tell even the actors were rolling their eyes and thinking, "Am I really saying that?" and whose only purpose was to have a love dialogue that did little else for the plot or characterizations. The Aragorn/Arwen dialogue has additional motivation in that it is used to talk about Aragorn's reluctance to assume the kingship and adds a romantic interest to the characters that explores the races of the world, thus adding further dimensions and motivations to the character from the original books and world-building.

Who write those epic fantasy dialogues that you read? J.K.Rowling? I mean, if they are bad, this only make Jackson dialogues bad also. Wait, why would Aragorn have any relutance ? How come this add any futher dimension to him? I mean, I love a girl, he father hate me but since day One I am helping them out? In fact his father trusts me like hell and I was the leader of the warriors since we started walking. I accepted a suicide mission and I need a love dialogue about relutance (and at that point, I was not even thinking about being a king at all).
The dialogue, as everyone know, was that people needed a girl. Uncessary, very uncessary, awful, altougth we should give Jackson a pat on the back for this one.


Besides calling the Frodo and Sam dialogues gay, which is homophobic--even though they were kind of gay--it again only demonstrates that a deeper subtext exist, which of course implies a deeper dimension to their characters if such a subtext is present (there is a homosexual tension between them). Sam is sort of "eh" in the first two films acting-wise, not bad, but not anything special. However, he shows a better range of emotion and character and inner conflict, and thus good acting, in the third film.

It was gay not because a deeper subtext. What ridiculous idea. It was because it was bad written. The characters are so plain that the real feelings of friendish they had was not real and when those lines happens, they are subject for the world mockery. With all attacks Tolkien suffered, that was never one that Tolkien had to take, you only needed a single movie to create this flaw (just like accusing Tolkien of racism).



I'm not claiming this is Shakespeare or anything, but yes I do think it does fit the overdetermined nature of the genre, its overall effect does fit the nature of the film and doesn't detract from it, and I didn't seen anything that I considered absolutely abysmal.

heh, he transformed the already limited dialogue of Tolkien in racism and "Homophobic" as you say because he could even not produce the sittuation, the acting for it. This is abysmal.




It didn't bother me much. This was basically his attempt to fit in another major reoccurring female role into the film to fix some the problems that JBI complained about with Tolkien. To a degree this is pandering to a modern post-Feminist Movement audience, but I ultimately see no major problem with it, and as I already noted it performs other functions as well which fit into other changes that Jackson makes to the Aragorn character.

Obviously, the notion that was uncessary, as any element uncessary in a narrative should be avoided, is the problem. It does not help to the plot. Also, it damages (because of this) the personality of one character. Finally he can not complain about lack of time if he was adding elements for a movie that we all agreee, needed more time.



Since I addressed some of the other points, I'll address only acting here. Ian McKellan is extremely impressive as Gandalf. Elijah Wood as Frodo was convincing in his transformation from innocent hobbit youth to burdened and distrustful ring-bearer. Ian Holmes as Bilbo was charming and amusing, capturing exactly the mentality I always pictured of Hobbits. The guy who plays Borimir does a great acting job. Everyone is serviceable, except Liv Tyler and Hugo Weaving who borders on bad and Cate Blanchett who is a bit bland.

As I said McKellan is impressing because the rest is poor. Want to see him acting for real? Get off Gandalf or Magneto and see him doing Shakespeare or Gods and Monsters. Alec Guiness is impressive in Star Wars? Oh sure, but as he said, go and watch me in Kwai..


Your memory must be failing you. Most of the characters in the books are one-dimensional. If anything Jackson breathes fresh life into them and gives them all deeper dimensions from the source material; each one has a character arc and shows clear character development from the first film to the last film. Again, not Shakespeare or Citizen Kane, but it's not meant to be.

My memory is faling me because I said in the movies they are one dimensional to extremes? Hah, that is good. In the books they are simple, archetypicals, and there is not more plain the Glimi, the comic relief, Legolas the super-elf.
Try something else, soon you will be saying how Jackson invented fantasy genre.

[The Comedian]

I enjoyed both, limajean. The books do have a lot of description, which for some people is boring. But I, personally, love descriptive sections. Heck, I read loads of environmental writing/travel writing which is nearly all description.

So, if you are going to the books to read about sword fights, magic displays, and other flourishes of adventure, well, you'll find some of those. But you'll also get pages and pages of text on what an elf looks like, what forests look like, how this elven kingdom looks different than that one, etc. . .

[Drkshadow03]

I enjoyed both, limajean. The books do have a lot of description, which for some people is boring. But I, personally, love descriptive sections. Heck, I read loads of environmental writing/travel writing which is nearly all description.


Ha! That's a really good comparison: fantastical travel writing.

[a_little_wisp]

"It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron, tree and grass, house and fire; bread and wine."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy-Stories (essay)

Oh, Limajean, they are so worth the read. Not only have I read them, but I've also taken a class on Tolkien (in which we read the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) - and there were a few people who had never even considered reading the books (thought of them as being too 'nerdy' perhaps) and at certain parts that we read aloud, EVERYONE in the class ended up teary-eyed and respectively silent. Tolkien is a fantastic storyteller. When I first read them I was NOT very impressed by the characters in his book, but it's the story itself that is really the main character - if that makes any sense. His incredibly detailed creation of Middle-Earth, from the history of the races to their languages, from the whispers of a past it holds that we cannot grasp (until we read the Silmarillion) to the familiar yet fantastical landscapes you read of on the journey brings the whole world to life, making the story that much more vibrant. And you know, Frodo isn't your typical hero - you've seen the movies. He makes it to the top with the help of Sam and nearly ruins the whole schpeel. I did feel connection with some of the characters - certainly not the trio of Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas that got such limelight in the movie - but more the hobbits, the ents, and, actually, Eowyn (who gets a lot of grief from some readers).

"'What do you fear, lady?'" he asked.
"'A cage,'" she said. "'To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.'"
- Eowyn/ J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Limajean, I think that some people grow very accustomed to books these days that get straight to the point without taking time to look at the details which oftentimes make a portrait that much more powerful to the viewer. To me, the imagery that Tolkien uses (and it is not overbearing), is just right for the world he created, and to me, was probably one of the best things about the books.

I hope you read and enjoy, dove.

EDIT: My brother says:

"It is poignant for fantasy, like wine after drinking grape juice all your life. But once tried and consumed, it becomes much sweeter as the little flavors begin to identify on your tongue, soon becoming your favorite thing to drink- and there isn't enough of it to go around."

[Joreads]

Wisp you and your brother have almost talked me into reading them

[Mathor]

So i'm about to undergo the task, ahah, task, of reading books 1,2,3, and had a couple of questions

Are they boring? i don't want to read novels that are beautifully written but will bore me to hell and back. I don't mind long descriptions etc, but are the books interesting? engaging? etc,

And how do they compare to the movies?

Thanks :banana:

The first book is like a fairytale, kind of Christmas-like. It is fun, it is entertaining. The second book will bore you beyond belief. The third book will blow your soul into pieces it is so amazing .

[Stepen]

The book is wonderful, as well as the movie. Peter Jackson is by far the best director out there.