Originally Posted by WCH:
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The ninnies who vote for Oscars, and still less the unwashed hordes of mouthbreathing troglodytes who pack multiplexes, are utterly, completely irrelevant as evidence or ratification of artistic success.
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I was casually watching this thread with some amusement, as it's an argument that has railed since the movies were first released, but I couldn't pass this up without saying something. I believe art (any art) without an audience is no longer art. It is at best, therapy and more often, self-gratification. No one person, whether he is a member of the literati or a mouth-breathing troglodyte or an Oxford professor of philology is more qualified than any other one person to determine what is "good" art or not, except on their own behalf. A work of art with an audience of one person may well be a great work of art for that person, but he can hardly discuss it with himself. Someone else must be familiar with it, even if they don't like it for some reason, in order to begin a discussion. Else it would be a monologue. Almost inevitably, such discussions lead to comparisons of said work of art with other works of art, at which point some kind of objective standard must be applied to keep the discussion from spiraling downward. Box-office (for lack of a better word) is a legitimate objective measure of quality. Shakespeare is still played in theatres, hundreds of years after his death, at least partly because his name sells tickets. While that may or may not make him a "better" playwrite than, say, Aristophanes, it does make him more effective. More people have had access to his work, therefore his work has more potential influence on peoples thinking and feeling.
If the earliest movie discussions are still available (I believe much of that was lost in the transition to V-Bulletin), you will see that I have a relatively low opinion of these movies. Many of PJ's decisions seem to fall in direct opposition to Tolkien's themes and sensibilities. There were some things that he got right, like the overall look of Middle-Earth, and some of the casting, especially Bilbo, Gandalf, Theoden and Denethor. There was much that he got wrong, but I've detailed my opinions of that elsewhere. At any rate, enough ranting. I'm afraid that literati conceits are a hot-button for me.
As for the animal servants in the "Queer Lodgings" chapter of
The Hobbit, I would certainly hope that they would be included in the film, especially if Beorn is going to change to a bear. Shapeshifters have so often been portrayed as evil, or having ulterior motives or untrustworthy that the loyalty of nature and of these animals, depending on how it is handled, would enhance the strangeness of the scene as well as landing Beorn on the side of good without having to change his gruff personality. Keeping the audience guessing as to his relative goodness or evil would enhance the eucatastrophic triumph of his arrival at the Battle of Five Armies.