Thread: Dumbing it down
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Old 02-09-2005, 04:17 PM   #63
Beleg Cuthalion
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davem
Yes, I'm requoting what I quoted yesterday, because I think it sums up where the moviemakers went wrong. Its not only Tolkien's invented world that is strange & unique, but in many ways its also his characters. These beings, Aragorn, Faramir, Denethor, Frodo, are not 'just like us'. They are not characters we are meant to 'identify' with. What the writers have done is take a 'legendary' figure like Aragorn, a being with supra-human wisdom, strength of character & a high destiny, & traduce him into an angst-ridden 'new man'. All the characters in the movie have to a greater or lesser degree lost their uniqueness, & have become 'cliches'. I'm not impressed by the movie characters because I've seen them in a thousand & one other movies. These characters wander through every episode of a million soap operas across the globe every day, with their surgically enhanced 'beauty', constantly changing back story & their meaningless platitudes.

All the depth, the strangeness, the 'queerness', of Middle earth has been sacrificed & replaced 'hollywood standard' 'characters'. Yes, there are moments when something of the real Middle earth & its denizens shines through, when the light of another world briefly illumines us from the screen, but not nearly as often or as brightly as it should.
Mae lammen, (Well spoken) davem. That’s exactly it, in their attempt to make the characters into something that people can identify with, they lose the real meaning. These characters are like Beowulf, and so many other heroes, they are powerful, they are more then human, more then the norm, they are people that lead, that men will follow because they are more then just someone that Joe-shmo can relate to they are not stereotypes. They are based on an old ideal that the great will lead and men will follow them because of that. But not just because they just powerful but because they are good they have wisdom and the many other things that men will look for. Aragorn is not weak, he is not just a man, he is a King and the men will follow their king. It was stated that in the paths of the dead that the men only stayed because of their love for Aragorn, and his will alone that held them fast to follow him through.

This sadly, never quite comes through in the movie.
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Last edited by Beleg Cuthalion; 02-09-2005 at 04:27 PM.
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