Thread: The Desolation
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Old 12-15-2013, 10:34 PM   #60
Brinniel
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zigur
One thing I'm not seeing a lot of people mention here (and elsewhere) is Bilbo. Is he as badly sidelined as all that? The lack of focus on him at points in the first film was troubling enough.
Bilbo was great. Martin Freeman does a wonderful job portraying him just as the first film. Sure, there could've been more of him, but at the same time, I didn't feel like he was missing from the story.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boro
AUJ was done well with Thorin, Balin and Kili. There were smaller interesting moments where we got glimpses into Dori, Dwalin, and Bofur and I was expecting DoS to just keep going with some of the other dwarves (there is the moment where Gloin won't give his money and when Legolas sees a picture of Gloin's wife and Gimli), but it just doesn't happen.

Thorin's development takes several steps back. Dori, Dwalin and Bofur stagnates. In nearly 6 hours of film Bombur and Nori have had no dialogue and all Bifur can do is inaudibly grunt because PJ wanted to have a funny pun with "Bifurcate." I'd say only Balin, Kili and one bit with Fili ("My place is with my brother") are done well amongst the dwarves.
I would've like to see more characterization of the dwarves too, though I do realize with 13 of them, being able to feature them all is no easy task. As spawn mentioned, Tolkien didn't give them much personality in the books, so I'm grateful that they at least made an effort to create individual personalities for the films. I found that by watching the special features on the dvds for the first film, I got a much better sense of who each character was (there's a whole hour featurette dedicated to the dwarf characters).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuru
However, that is not what we are seeing Jackson do here in his hexilogy. He has repeatedly tinkered with characters, changing the nature of who the character is, altered storylines and events in ways that can charitably be called strange, and added storylines and set-pieces straight out of his own mind to the point that it overwhelms the original story.

I've seen enough good adaptations to know that Jackson did not have to do it this way and be successful.
That's your opinion, which is perfectly fine. I'm not happy with all the changes either and think the film would've been better without some of them. But obviously PJ thought otherwise. What I'm saying is I think every change in the film was made because he believed it would draw a bigger audience, not necessarily because it would improve the original story. And of course we're free to agree or disagree with those decisions.

Writing for the screen is difficult enough; adapting a beloved story to the screen is an even bigger challenge. I woke up this morning with a random thought in my head: If you were to write the script, how would you do it? What would be cut, what would stay, what would have to change to make the story flow visually, and can you do all that while keeping it under three hours? There are many roles in the making of the films I would've loved to take on, but writing is certainly not one of them. While PJ's films are a far cry from perfect, they really could've been a lot worse.

Instead focusing on the negative, I appreciate what they do include from the books and Tolkien's world, which is still quite a bit. And I'm not just talking about the writing, but also the little details...in the weapons, the makeup and costumes, the sets. If you ever watch a behind-the-scenes featurette, you'll see there's so much effort made into bringing Tolkien's universe to life. Many people like to just look at the bigger picture, but I love the details. To me, that's what sets PJ's films apart. That, and the fact that everyone involved in these films has so much passion; it's not just another job to them.
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