Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Murry
As for movie adaptations of literary works, I have seen just about every James Bond movie ever made, even though I have probably read only one or two of Ian Fleming's novels. In any event, the Bond movies have long since become a formula genre, or type. Everyone knows in advance what sort of thing the films will contain and one either enjoys those sorts of things or one doesn't. Criticism of a Bond movie generally runs to arguments about how faithfully or not a particular film adheres to the expected formula, not to whether or not the film breaks new ground as a film innovation.
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I've seen some of the Bond films, but I've read
all the Fleming novels. Although the books to me are more realistic, in that the gadgetry is not as outrageous, and Bond comes off as a bit more human, they're still just 'thrillers' which don't leave much of a psychic impression after I'm done with them. I wish I could
shoot as well as Bond though!
Tolkien, on the other hand, has over the years made a contribution in a real sense to how I look at the world, and has taught me through characters like Gandalf and Frodo a lot about duty and sacrifice. I think that's a large part of the reason I'm rather protective of his works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Murry
These "Hobbit" movies, in my opinion, seem like a fumbling attempt by Peter Jackson to establish a sort of "Middle Earth" Bond-movie genre: namely, "to the mountain and back with diversionary battles along the way." And instead of the alluring Bond girls with smutty names like ***** Galore and Octopussy, we get a thousand-year-old Elf-chick security guard named Itaril (scratch that, I mean "Tauriel") who can't decide whether to "love" either "a young Elf lord" or a dwarf with something or "nothing" in his trousers. The Bond movies do this sort of thing better.
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I do think that PJ has gone a ways toward cheapening Tolkien and drawing
LOTR and
TH to the level of Hollywood's standard Fantasy formula. If the non-reading public watches the films, do they really see anything special? Does the ephemeral
feel of the story come through? I haven't seen the
Hobbit films, but for with
LOTR the answer was a resounding
no.
And I know I've said this many times, but the movies are just not
necessary. PJ and everyone else could have let them remain as books (and as animated treatments that have some nostalgic value) and I'd have been perfectly content.