[Boromir88]

Originally posted by SpM: in the case of a film that is unlikely ever to be made other than as an action-heavy blockbuster, this will involve significant changes to conform with that approach and gain mass appeal.

That's what the teens like to see, and as davem said in a previous post...

I still wish his target audience had been literate adults rather than illiterate teens.

I enjoyed the battle scenes in the movies, I think PJ goes to show the length of these battles very well. Tolkien writes very little on the actual battles, but Helm's Deep lasts the night, Minas Tirith and Pelennor are both one day long. Eventhough, Tolkien doesn't into pages and pages of "battle scenes" it has to be shown the screen differently. You have to show the true length of the battles, not meaning making it unbelievably long, but making viewers see the fact that this is a BIG battles.

I'm reminded by the movie of Troy, with the quote..."This is going to be the biggest battle the world has ever seen..." Very similar case to Minas Tirith and Pelennor. These are the biggest battles of the third age. As a director you have to show that, you can't just make a small 20 minute fight sequence, and then put up a corny subtitle "one day later."

Aiwendil:

most of my favorite films are from the '50s, '60s, and '70s.

Same here, I love Hitchcock movies...North by Northwest, Vertigo, Strangers on a Train, not to mention all the great movies Scorsese and DeNiro did together. I do get irked when people call LOTR "the greatest movie ever," but have never seen some of the classic, groundbreaking movies of the time, also better directed. These movies were much different. Take North by Northwest, and many other Hitchcock (as well as earlier directors' films)...Now adays, it's like the director takes the audiences intellegence so low, he/she has to show someone getting stabbed and blood seeping out of everywhere (sorry for the picture). Hitchcock didn't show the physical murders, but people still understood, and it actually made the movie a lot better. You would hear a gunshot, or maybe a body fall, or maybe just the impression on someone's face...

1. Even granting Hollywood-ization, a tighter, more focused, more faithful adaptation could have been made.

Number one I agree, but would it have brought in the crowds? I still think so, the hype for the movie was so big, people would still go see it. It may not have been quite as popular once people saw the movie, but the point is these movies were hyped, many Tolkienists like ourselves wanted to see Tolkien's work adapted on screen, so I say it still wouldh ave brought in the crowds.

2. An even greater trilogy of films could have been made by a director who refused to adopt certain aspects of the modern style.

This goes back to my Metareferences and Intertextuality, the belief that everything that's written now adays, or produced is never COMPLETELY original. The idea that everything that has been created is a rip off of someone else's work. This isn't to say that "Tolkien stole ideas from so and so..." or "Jackson..daddadada..." It's just, when creating a movie (or book), we are influenced by previous things that we've read or seen. The author, or people making the movie, will intentionally (or unconsciously) rewrite what has already been done, just give it some different characters, or maybe instead of destroying a ring, some future author writes a story about destroying a superpowerful microchip.

Number 2, you might be right, if you put the right guy on the job I wouldn't doubt it, but hey if it aint broke why fix it? There are times when I look at PJ as a director and say, wow that is great stuff, and he has shown that he can be a GREAT (yes I said it) director. Then times when he just has to show meaningless gore and death to make the teens go "yay!"