I can certainly relate to the zombie stupor. And you have, what, four? My hat is off to you, sir.

This discussion has me reflecting on what it is about the movies that I like to re-watch that draws me back to them, and I find that, for me, it usually has to do with the writers and the actors connecting for a performance that is just joyful, even if the text and the content of the performance isn't exactly joyful. Take Glengarry Glenross. I don't know if you've seen it, but the whole time Alec Baldwin is on screen, you can feel him feeling his oats, just sinking his teeth into the part of a lifetime, and even though his character is absolutely vile, you feel like cheering when his one lone scene is over. I should add a note of caution to any who would consider that a recommendation -- the film is about the petty intrigues and tribulations of a bunch of real-estate salesmen and they say the eff word about five hundred times. But still. That cast. The writing. And that scene. I could name so many others, but I'll spare you.

With LotR, for me, out of the principal cast, the only one who really connects on that level with any consistency is Ian McKellen, and there aren't enough just pure and simple great scenes to make me want to watch and re-watch it.
The memory is the first thing to... something something.

Glengarry Glenross is a great movie with a wonderful ensemble cast, and I know exactly what you mean about the actors sinking their teeth into a great script. I get the same reaction from movies like The Lion in Winter, where the dialogue between Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn is absolutely electric.

But as far as LotR, you hit the orc right on the helmet, Mr. U. The cinematography, the effects and overall look of the film is dazzling, but the script suffers greatly. There are only brief flashes of good dialogue.

Well said! I myself prefer the movie that runs in my head when I read the books.

Indeed, yes!

It was with reluctance that I saw the movies to begin with, and that was only at the urging of my better half, who at the time hadn't read the books.
I recall being disappointed with the first half of FOTR (disliking the Hobbits' characterizations, esp. the buffoonish Merry and Pippin, thinking Viggo M. was nothing like my mental picture of Aragorn, and continuously rolling my eyes at Arwen riding out to save him and the Hobbits). I believe I slept through the second half, though whether that was due more to boredom or the Samuel Adams lager I'd consumed with dinner, I don't recall.
I tried to be objective, I really did. But throughout all three movies I found myself unable to lose myself in them, or to cease comparing them to the books.

When the DVDs were released, my wife (who was quite impressed by the movies) insisted on buying them. I've since tried to watch them, but have found myself invariably getting up and wandering off. Granted, that's normally what my ADHD-riddled self does when asked to sit still for long periods anyway, but it seems to happen more quickly with these masterpieces of PJ's. I much prefer the books, or the Downs, to anything of Tolkien's the Silver Screen would throw at me.

True, true! Jackson and the others changed the story so dramatically that it wasn't Tolkien's masterpiece, but a mere Hollywood-ized version of it; in other words, completely different from the real thing. Frodo was too weak, Merry and Pippin were blithering idiots, Gimli and Legolas were hideously useless sidekicks, Arwen was the cliched warrior princess, Denethor seemed like a loon right from the start, Faramir turned quasi-corrupt, and ELROND...don't even get me started on how they ruined him. The beautiful, comely image of the real Elrond Half-elven was, for a few months, turned to vapour in my mind.

Hear hear!

I'd not like the movie trilogy to end up on the list of FILMS YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO LIKE BY ORDER, THE INTERNET– we'd all do well to remember that people who have read a book– any book– first are rarely satisfied by the film version, no matter what it's like. That said, I think we can dispose of the old claim that Jackson & Co really went out of their way to be faithful to the source material. They did in some respects (apparently resisting pressure to take out all references to smoking, for example), but overall you can see everything has indeed passed through a pretty strong "Hollywood" filter.

Myself, I'm in the camp of people who enjoyed the films a lot the first time, somewhat the second time, and after that have decided they're okay, but rather lacking in replay value. Why? Well, it's not because I've noticed more minor "errors"– as far as I'm concerned Denethor could eat whole crates of tomatoes; that kind of thing doesn't bother me. Perhaps it does come down to the characterisations and the handling of certain scenes– not because I object to changes in principle, but because I think these are internal flaws– that is, flaws in the movies as movies. You might say it's a tribute to how well they did many things that it wasn't until the second or third viewing that it really started to bug me that I didn't care about any of the characters all that much.

It's only fair to say, though, that people who saw the films first quite often seem to have an exact mirror-image of this reaction, and don't like the characters and pacing and so on in the book.

Well, I didn't like the movies from the first tie I saw them. Except for FOTR - that one was OK. TTT is the worst one, in my opinion. As for the book vs movie thing, its not always that I think that the book is better, just most of the time. For example, I prefer Narnia as a movie.

Well, I was talking about people who really fell in love with the films, not those who were lukewarm or didn't like them at all. And even so it doesn't apply to everyone, maybe not even most people. All the same, I've heard people complain a lot about the ways in which the book differs from the film trilogy. Not so much recently, it's true– but a few years ago this was fairly common. And as I said, the complaints have generally been about the exact same aspects that we are now complaining about, only the other way around.

I also only can stand watching (en toto) FoTR. Fortunately
PJ and friends didn't go totally berserk there. But the
last two films :rolleyes:

One example of out of control "creativity". Andy Serkis says that
PJ discussed (and unfortunately Serkis seems to agree) that it
would be just darling to have Gollum in RoTK to not only
become traitorous to the nice hobbit- but to have planned to do
so all along [can't you just see a typically Hollywood mentality there
of - surprise plot twist] , which, among other things, makes pointless perhaps
the most poignant and sad scene in the novel, where Gollum
almost repents but is turned off by Sam's waking up as he's
watching Frodo.

You know, the more I think about it the more I think I get one of the fundamental "flaws" in the Jackson films, and I wonder how much our judgment of them as films is a little unfair.

When PJ & co. were making the films, did they really design them to last?

What I mean is this: when you experience a story for the first time, you don't know what's going to happen. Not knowing and trying to figure it out becomes half the experience, and a good writer will keep you in the dark long enough that you're genuinely surprised by the outcome, but it makes immediate sense: and more sense on subsequent experiences.

By contrast, when you experience the same story multiple times--especially years later when you've grown a bit older and wiser and thought about the story over time--you can't be kept guessing and you don't particularly want to be. Instead, the story becomes about the anticipation (whether eager or dreaded) of things that you already know, but the characters don't: for example, the plane scene in North by Northwest. It's precisely your knowledge of what's going to happen (and granted, you're a little clued in on it the first time) that makes the timing of that scene so enjoyable.

Well, a lot of the changes that Peter Jackson made to LotR shifted the experience of the plot to the needs of a first-experience audience, because what he was aiming for was a blockbuster. Hence the rejection of scenes that would have great anticipation value, like "Choices of Master Samwise," for the brief suspense you feel when Frodo wakes up and realizes he doesn't have the Ring. Hence the emphasis on heavy action sequences rather than character development, or even logic--Elves at Helm's Deep look really really cool until you think about geography and distance.

Ideally, for a project like this, you put in charge a director and a writing team who can fulfill both needs at the same time. Were Jackson & co. capable of that? I don't know.

But was that even their intention? I don't remember much from the interviews, etc., but I don't remember once a statement that they were building these films to last.

And they really haven't, even among my friends who have never read the books. Lord of the Rings is just one of those movies that you play in the background while doing other stuff. A truly great movie would, no matter how many times you've seen it, arrest your attention, make you sit up and watch, despite your best intentions. Yes, there are still moments where you might look up from your work and say, "Oh! Quiet now, I've got to watch this scene," but when that scene's over you resume your work or your conversation while gratuitous orc-slaughter goes on in the background.

I agree with Tour in Gondolin. On all of his points. Might I just add that not only that irreplaceable (and truly one of the saddest) scene was basically not there, but also Frodo believed Gollum that Sam ate all the lembas. Tripple wreckage (I mean Frodo, Gollum, and kind of Sam - the way he reacted). :rolleyes:
May PJ rot in the deepest pit of Mordor until the end of his days!!!

As Nerwen said many people who read books before watching movies are unsatisfied by the film.

That being said I Love the movies!

The trick? remember they are different things. Many scenes in the book wouldn't translate to film well, (Theoden, coming out of his stupor for example.)

And certain scenes come across stronger in film than the book (Helm's Deep for example)

Just my opinion

Oh, they could, they would, and they should; all it takes is a good actor being allowed to do his job, instead of the director relying on special effects!
Sorry, Morsul, but you've chosen an extremely bad example here. Théoden's transition from depressed old man to vigorous leader is just the kind of showpiece any aspiring character actor would sell his soul for. Imagine what a great actor from the Golden Age, someone like Alec Guinness or Laurence Olivier, could have done with that scene! Heck, I'm sure Bernard Hill could have pulled it off just fine all by himself if PJ had only let him. Movies and theatre have done that kind of thing very successfully for ages without any cheap tricks.
Instead, we get a weak rehash of The Exorcist which only lacks Théoden starting to spew green pea soup.:confused:
And just so you know where I'm standing, things like this wouldn't irk me half so much if the movies hadn't handled lots of other things so very well. They got so close to getting it right, it's all the more of a pity they screwed up so badly when they did.

I see Morsul's point, but that was indeed a bad example. Some scenes are done very well in the movie - like the one in Sammath Naur, where Frodo says "the Ring is mine", or like Gandalf's and Balrog's fight. However, the ratio of good scenes to VERY bad ones is about 1:25, in my opinion. I understand that its hard to film exactly what the book says, and I wouldn't complain if there were subtle changes to the story. However, when some of the wisest characters are made dunces, brave people made foolish and pathetic, and...well, I could go on for hours critisizing the movies. It just isn't right. If PJ decided to make his own story of LOTR, he should call it "PJ's version of LOTR". Otherwise, many people who haven't read the books call JRRT an idiot for PJ's overcreativeness.
In almost every other scene there is some fault. For example, since when does Legolas enjoy being drunk in the book? In the movie, he has a drinking game (or something of the sort) with Gimli. What utter nonesense!!!
Sorry, Morsul, but I just can't read the books and then just switch a few (sarcasm intended) roles around to be able to enjoy the movies. It is either one version or the other. Either Faramir is noble, or he's a jerk. Elrond is either wise, or off his rocker. It just can't be both.

An example of a book translated generally successfully to
the screen is the Day of the Jackal (director: Fred Zinnemann
starring Edward Fox- not the yet again weak remake). On
details the book generally is better but both work well-with
the movie using cinematography and music to good effect.

PJ did adequately in FotR, but, rather like a runaway horse
pulling away the reins from a rider, direction later
seems to have lost control and let the movie aspects just
take over.

I wouldn't be quite that severe with PJ; it doesn't take more than a handful of pickles to spoil a chocolate cake...

As I've stated many times, adding to your nausea...um, that I could have accepted PJ's version, warts and all, if only he had made Gandalf - when the wizard was powned by the Witch King - grin.

That said, I find it interesting to be on the 'other side' in regards to "The Walking Dead." Here, the graphic novel preceded the AMC TV series. I've not read the comic but have watched the first season.

Online, the fans of the graphic novel are posting angrily regarding the 'changes' made to the source material. I've enjoyed the show so far, and so have no idea why they are complaining.

Also, in this example, the author is available, and he's explained that he has wanted to stay faithful to the book fans while also expanding/modifying the material for the new media. Originally the author wanted to pack as much as possible into the limited space; with the TV series he feels freer to drag out the plot lines longer.

Interesting.

Yes, but while adding the pickles to the dough, PJ accidentally poured in half a bucket of brine... :) :p

Nerwen,

I think I make too many sweeping statements, forgive me. I have a tendency to do that. Perhaps it is safest to say I was both happy and disappointed with the films. I was happy because the costumes were great and the music just fit perfectly with ME. Not to mention the fact that it got many more people to read the book. However, I still feel that the movies were not faithful to the main effect of Lord of the Rings. It is simply an opinion, though I daresay many agree.

I agree heartily.

If I recall correctly, he doesn't get drunk in the game :p And Wood-elves do seem to enjoy their wine, now, don't they? ;)

Legolas says that he feels some weird tingling on the tips of his fingers. I think we can safely assign that to the category "drunk" - especially since the only time such a reaction is mentioned is after he'd gone through a dozen pots of beer together with Gimli (who falls off his chair:rolleyes:).

As for the wine, it's not the same category than beer. 'Beer' is usually associated with taverns. 'Wine' - with palaces, nobility. If in the movie Legolas got drunk drinking wine, I wouldn't mind that much.:p

Haha. True that. But beer is lighter than wine, and he had a lot, so I'm not surprised about the 'tingling' in his fingers :p But yes, I wish PJ had put in a scene where we get to see elves drinking their wine.

Oh God, he had better not cut out the scene with Galion and the guard in The Hobbit! That was my favourite in the whole book!

I'm rereading the LotR and I just rewatched extended editions of the films.

I'm not sure that I can watch them ever again though. Some things were done so incredibly well, certains sets, costumes, score, some of the casting choices, etc. but other things now irritate me beyond all tolerance!

Fortunately, there are other options such as:

http://www.fanedit.org/wp/?s=Lord+of+the+Rings

The problem I'm having in reading the books again is that somehow, some of the film actors have overwritten my imagination! I can't remember how I imagined Legolas. Now I see friggin' Orlando Bloom! AAAARGH! So I've been going through my collection of Howe, Nasmith, Lee, Sweet, etc. artwork frantically trying to find some resemblances to my lost visions. :confused:

It goes after a while, don't fret :p By the way, welcome to the Downs!

I've had some real pangs of nostalgia over the last week or so what with the start of Hobbit production and the first web video by Peter Jackson being posted online.

To think that's its been a decade since the Fellowship was released and the person I have become during that time...folk can forget the "growing pains" of growing up with the Harry Potter cast; as a 23 year old I can appreciate that the LoTR is far more epic! Though I should imagine me dedicating time to LoTR sites like the Downs has ingrained Tolkien in me more so, but then that is for said reason, LoTR is more epic than Potter was ever going to be.

My enduring memory of the journey from news of LoTR production to its release and then the release of the final film is as a 13 year old sat at home listening to a "sneak preview" cd of the soundtrack including the "Concerning Hobbits" track released some months before the Fellowship hit cinemas and having it on repeat trying to imagine how they'd recreate Hobbiton and wishing ever so hard that I could just watch the film there and then! Well we all must know how impatient a 13 year old can be!

I hope I have a similar memory over the next few years with the build up to the Hobbit's release.

Professor J.R.R.Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is an epic. And it is never easy to film an epic. Peter Jackson did a great job in re-creating the Middle Earth, especially Hobbiton and Minas Tirith. He gave us movies, which never fails to entertain.

However, the lack of proper characterization of his characters riled me up a good deal. Legolas was a tag-along, when he was supposed to be brave and a great support; Frodo's behavior was akin a scared youth, not of a fairly confident, middle-aged Hobbit; Aragorn was okay, but the reluctant-hero part needed some time getting used to. PJ totally butchered the characters of Denethor and Theoden King. These changes made no sense to me. And Faramir - I could probably fill a book with my rants about this. Faramir and Legolas are my favorite characters (from the book). And instead of the kind, gentle soul that I was expecting, I found a competitive and rude person.

I have read a lot of point of views about PJ's reasoning for changing the plots and the characterization of the characters. But, none could or did satisfy me. I agree that a movie is quite different from a book and some changes have to be made. What may sound good while reading a book need not look good while watching a movie. But, there should be a limit in regards to those changes. For example, I didn't understand what leverage did a rude Faramir or a jealous Theoden supply to the plot.

Moreover, I also believe that the old forest should have found a place in the movie. According to me, that journey contributed a lot towards the development of the Hobbit's characters. Another thing that I found very irritating was the clownish outlook of Merry and Pippin. Especially Merry, and he is such a great character in the book.

All being said; even though I enjoyed the movies, they failed to vibrate that cord in my heart which dances every time I see that Lord of the Rings book on my bookshelf and the chocked excitement that rises in me whenever I open it and start reading the prologue.

So, even though great movies they may be, Lord of Rings for me will always be those beautiful words penned by Tolkien which has influenced my life so much.

Good post, Mnemo.

I loved the films when they came out (see my old posts for proof) but the thrill has diminished greatly. I would not be very interested in seeing them again.

But one thing about them that will last is the score. I can see me playing this for many, many years to come.

I think the movies are still by far better than the books

You have read the books, right?

I doubt anything I could say would change your mind, but it's incomprehensible to me how anyone could prefer slick production values and pretty CGI graphics to the amazing verbiage and profound inner meanings found in the original works of Tolkien.

To each his/her own, Inziladun.

Oh, I'm not saying (s)he's wrong for the opinion; just that I don't get it.

I'm guessing that, considering that you have read the books, you read them only after seeing the movies numerous times. If that's true, I can understand you - just like I am mad every time the movies differ from the books, you are probably mad about how the books differ from the movies.

But the books are still better. :p

You are right about me seeing the movies first but no i'm not mad just kinda let down by some of the stuff in the books for example Boromir....

Well, that's interesting... As a "book fan", I don't see how this could work...Boromir certainly adds dimention to the books not ony plot-wise but also character-wise... I'm really curious about your point of view.

Well, it's hard to say, because sassyfriend doesn't elaborate, but since he (she?) came to the fandom from the Movies, it would make sense that she (he?) was disappointed with Boromir's characterization in the Books as compared with how he was portrayed in the Movies. I think we've probably got to have threads on this forum somewhere already that argue about how faithfully Sean Bean's Boromir imitates Tolkien, and which is superior or preferred--and I'm CERTAIN there are a variety of opinions on the matter, though I get the feeling the consensus generally was that Tolkien's Boromir did not, on first glance, seem as noble as Bean/Jackson's.

Assuming I read this consensus right, it makes sense that someone starting with the Movies would find Tolkien's Boromir less... erm... "satisfying" is the wrong word... "noble," maybe?

That said, I echo G55 in saying I'd like to hear more of what sassyfriend is getting at.

As this is unrelated to the previous post, I'm going to commit the (hopefully venial) sin of double-posting. After writing the former, narrowly interested reply to G55 and sassyfriend, and having a full day of "nothing" *coughs* before my fall semester commences on Thursday, I read back through the entire thread, and thought it was about time I replied. The truly amusing thing about this read was the fact that the early parts of this retrospective, from when it started in 2007, read to me almost exactly like debates from right when the movies were new. Apparently more than not-quite-four years needed to elapse after the theatrical release of RotK before fandom was ready to talk about them more dispassionately. In any case, the posts from 2010 onward read almost like a different thread...

For myself, I was a Tolkien fan before the movies came out. I first read The Hobbit at age 11 and the LotR followed almost immediately, with The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales right behind. I admit that these latter were a real slog for an 11-year-old, but by the time the movie-FotR was about to be released, I was not-quite-15, and had read all the HoME that I could find in the local library and had started the process of collecting them for myself.

Bearing this in mind, and remembering that I was 14-almost-15, it's not to be surprised that I *had* to see the movies when they came out. I don't think there was a bigger Tolkien nut in Small Town, Alberta at that point, and if there was, I would have been sulky about it. I distinctly remember the utter fear that the movie adaptation would *RUIN* my favourite obsession, and being completely torn between wanting it to be an utter, validating success, and wanting no one to go see it and ruin the exclusive hold to "expert" that I held over a wonderful world.

Of course, no one could be allowed to see it before I did, so I was there in line for the very first local showing, two hours in the cold of a Canadian December (mercifully clement for that land), and another hour waiting in the theatre, getting hyper on over-priced drinks and candy.

Almost ten years later, it's kind of funny to look back at how obsessively afraid I was that the movies would be utterly terrible--or worse, terrible AND popular. I'm still a Tolkien nut; still probably the biggest Tolkien nut in the circles I usually frequent (and these circles include more Tolkien nuts than they used to)... and I almost never think of the movies. At the time I was afraid they would change my mental pictures forever, afraid they would ruin my enjoyment forever... things have come a long way.

Of course, the past decade has also been the transition from being fourteen to being twenty-four, and it's eminently possible that I've grown up, and that that has made all the difference--and, to be sure, much of the mellowness I feel towards Jackson's movies has a lot to do with the fact that I am no longer a teenager (not to disparage teens, but it was true about ME, perhaps...).

At the same time, however, the passage of ten years has allowed the hype of the movies to have crested and ebbed. Quite apart from destroying fandom, the tidal wave of the movies dragged in all sorts of interesting flotsam and jetsam in terms of new fans, and in no way "destroyed" Middle-earth. There has not been, as I almost feared, a "novelisation of the movie" to supplant Tolkien's masterpiece.

Perhaps, after a decade, what I think now is that the movies were ultimately forgettable. I could (and do) go on a long tangent about the pros and cons of different parts of the movies, but the point at the very end would be the same: at the end of it all, I feel a lot more charitable to the movies than I feared before them (and, after the euphoria of just watching them, tended to feel bitterly for sometime thereafter), but they've lost their grip on me. The movies were a monumental explosion of light, but it was ultimately just a gigantic flash in the pan.

How about 'human?' Book Boromir seemed cold, distant, just a character that provided some drama while the Nazgul regrouped.

Movie Boromir was a conflicted man; honourable, faithful, but torn between his duty to his father/country and his oath to his new companions. Sean Bean showed the struggle that the Ring caused, the torment, the despair. I liked in the extended version where he opens up to Aragorn, trying to find the strength that Aragorn has in resisting the Ring as well as relief from the burden that Denethor has placed on him.

I love that part too. And that is exactly what i was trying to say, alatar. To me he just seems more loveable. In the book he just seems very unkind to everyone. Its strange he cried for Gandalf in the book but in the movie i don't find it strange at all.