The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - 'An attrocious movie which is a despicable insult to a wonderful book'

**The Saucepan Man** · 02-18-2003, 08:33 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Maybe for those who don't know, or understand, the book its ok, but for those who do understand it, what they've done is so wrong, so twisted, its unforgivable. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Ah, that old chestnut again. Look, I'm with Squatter on this. We can have differing views about the films, but let's be careful about how we express them. I have had just about enough of being told that, because I enjoy the films, I cannot truly understand the books, despite having first read them over 25 years ago and having been a firm fan of them since then. It is just this sort of a comment which irks those of us who enjoy the films and provokes the kind of uncivil exchange that we should all try to avoid. What? Are we supposed to fell guilty, or perhaps inferior, for liking the films?No. To reiterate a point that I have made on a number of different threads covering broadly the same topic: You can enjoy both the books and the films. Enjoyment of them is not mutually exclusive. Indeed, you can enjoy the films and still love and appreciate (yes, and understand) the books.Of course the films are different from the books. I agree that they have flaws in them. They are not all time great films. But they are, to my mind, very well done, and just about as good a representation as I can imagine without any compromise on the quality of the visualisation. And in my view, Erulasto is quite right: it is the wonderful visulaisation that is the great strength of these films.And I do have to back Erulasto up on one other point. The language used to describe both these films and those involved in their production is at times rather immoderate and unnecessarily so. And the attitudes and motives ascribed to them are often to my mind pretty unfair. Davem, how do you know that the scriptwriters thought that they could write it better than Tolkien? I strongly suspect that they thought no such thing. I am sure that they believed that they could render it better for filmthan the original. But that is a different thing entirely. As I understand it, all 3 scritpwriters are long-time fans of JRRT's works. They are, in that sense, of like mind with us. So, let's show them a little respect. Personally, I remain grateful to them for bringing the vision of Tolkien's world so accurately alive for me (except those darned Hyena-Teddybear-Lemming hybrids, of course )[ February 18, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

02-18-2003, 08:33 AM	#82
The Saucepan Man Corpus Cacophonous Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: A green and pleasant land Posts: 8,390	<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Maybe for those who don't know, or understand, the book its ok, but for those who do understand it, what they've done is so wrong, so twisted, its unforgivable. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Ah, that old chestnut again. Look, I'm with Squatter on this. We can have differing views about the films, but let's be careful about how we express them. I have had just about enough of being told that, because I enjoy the films, I cannot truly understand the books, despite having first read them over 25 years ago and having been a firm fan of them since then. It is just this sort of a comment which irks those of us who enjoy the films and provokes the kind of uncivil exchange that we should all try to avoid. What? Are we supposed to fell guilty, or perhaps inferior, for liking the films?<P>No. To reiterate a point that I have made on a number of different threads covering broadly the same topic: <B>You can enjoy both the books and the films</B>. Enjoyment of them is not mutually exclusive. Indeed, you can enjoy the films <B>and still</B> love and appreciate (yes, and understand) the books.<P>Of course the films are different from the books. I agree that they have flaws in them. They are not all time great films. But they are, to my mind, very well done, and just about as good a representation as I can imagine without any compromise on the quality of the visualisation. And in my view, Erulasto is quite right: it is the wonderful visulaisation that is the great strength of these films.<P>And I do have to back Erulasto up on one other point. The language used to describe both these films and those involved in their production is at times rather immoderate and unnecessarily so. And the attitudes and motives ascribed to them are often to my mind pretty unfair. Davem, how do you know that the scriptwriters thought that they could write it better than Tolkien? I strongly suspect that they thought no such thing. I am sure that they believed that they could render it better <B>for film</B>than the original. But that is a different thing entirely. As I understand it, all 3 scritpwriters are long-time fans of JRRT's works. They are, in that sense, of like mind with us. So, let's show them a little respect. Personally, I remain grateful to them for bringing the vision of Tolkien's world so accurately alive for me (except those darned Hyena-Teddybear-Lemming hybrids, of course )<p>[ February 18, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ] __________________ Do you mind? I'm busy doing the fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind!