Okay, so what do you think NOW?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

StW:

What you say about the antihero and the modern audience is an interesting point- but it seems to me that Jackson (& Walsh & Boyens) were rather schizophrenic in this case. After all, they spent a very great deal of effort (and screentime) reworking Aragorn as the reluctant nolo regi sort, I would assume because they reckoned modern filmgoing audience would dislike Tolkien's Man of Destiny. But then this approach to the revised character doesn't really square with the badass- it's as if Eastwood's reluctant gunfighter of Unforgiven suddenly morphed into Harry Callaghan.

This I think (in my personal opinion) to have been mistaken. Tolkien's original surge of popularity hit during the late 60's precisely among the same folks who were protesting American 'imperialism' in Vietnam and the like: yet the hippies didn't seem to mind the Returning King as written. And this was a generation raised on Hemingway and Salinger and Faulkner. As Tolkien was at pains to point out, there's nothing wrong with fairy-tales, even for adults; and that includes fairy-tale heroes like Aragorn. We're not expected to identify with him: that's what the hobbits are there for.

******

Another perplexing moral inversion occurred to me- especially perplexing in that the scene and the very dialogue are reprised from the book, but turned on their heads. In the movie, as the Three Hunters in Fangorn become aware of the mysterious old man,

Aragorn: 'We must act quickly, before he can put a spell on us'

whereuopn the three attempt an ambush (naturally unsuccessful).

Compare this to Tolkien's version:

Then suddenly, unable to contain himself longer, [Gimli] burst out: 'Your bow, Legolas! Bend it! Get ready! It is Saruman. Do not let him speak, or put a spell upon us! Shoot first!'

Legolas took his bow and bent it, slowly and as if some other will resisted him. He held an arrow loosely in his hand but did not fit it to the string. Aragorn stood silent; his face was watchful and intent.

'Why are you waiting? What is the matter with you?' said Gimli in a hissing whisper.

'Legolas is right,' said Aragorn quietly. 'We may not shoot an old man so, at unawares and unchallenged, whatever fear or doubt be on us. Watch and wait!'

If there is one single overriding theme of the Lord of the Rings it is that the end never justifies the means- that the moral course is the only course, no matter what self-interest or even the Greater Good might dictate. Anything else is a form, greater or lesser, of Boromirism. The *whole point* of the Ring is that Might never, ever makes Right.

[Sauron the White]

from WilliamCH

Tolkien's original surge of popularity hit during the late 60's precisely among the same folks who were protesting American 'imperialism' in Vietnam and the like: yet the hippies didn't seem to mind the Returning King as written. And this was a generation raised on Hemingway and Salinger and Faulkner.

You are correct in that statement. However, we are discussing the change of things as they happened in the movies. For that it is important to remember two things: 1) the time the books were written by JRRT and the mores and values that he subsribed to as a man of his time, and 2) the films were released in the 21st century - a good two generations removed from the hippie era you refer to. The vast majority of the movie crowd came of age long after the Sixties were dead and gone.

I really do not want to get into a huge sidebar here, but being 58 years old and having lived through this period, the idea that everyone between ages 16 and 29 was running around for several years with shoulder length hair, beads, fringe jackets and smoking dope is a gross misreprentation of the period. It is no more accurate than saying all young male African-Americans today are rappers or gangsta's.

But that is a topic for some other forum.

[Meriadoc1961]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

StW:

If there is one single overriding theme of the Lord of the Rings it is that the end never justifies the means- that the moral course is the only course, no matter what self-interest or even the Greater Good might dictate. Anything else is a form, greater or lesser, of Boromirism. The *whole point* of the Ring is that Might never, ever makes Right.

This is an excellent point, and one in which I am in full agreement. The book form of Faramir, compared to that of the film version, is another example of Jackson and crew missing one of the, if not THE most important, messages of the book, by changing his character. They should not have changed the character of Faramir at all, and neither was it necessary to change the scene when Gandalf first appears to the Three Hunters.

Merry

[Mister Underhill]

Well, it's good to see that some folks are sticking to their guns, both pro and con, down the long haul. There's nothing like consistency.

Since filmmaker types always like to talk about their journey on a particular film, I'll talk about my journey with the LotR films.

If you check back through the dusty catacombs of the archives and look at posts from a Time Before the Films, you'll find Mister Underhill in there advocating cautious optimism about them, vigorously sparring with the hard-liners who contended that they should never have been made -- without having seen a single frame, just on principle. I still to this day wonder if Inziladun kept his vow to never see them.

Having as I do a bit more than a layman's knowledge about the filmmaking process -- especially when it comes to adaptations -- I even expected and agreed that there ultimately would be significant alterations made in the transition from novel to film. I was one of the first ones out there carrying the banner of "Judge the films as films!"

So, the movies came out. Fans laughed. Fans cried. Fans made music videos and devised krazy kaptions.

I had a few nits to pick with FotR, but overall I thought it was a pretty fair adaptation. Sure, it tilted towards action-blockbuster, but was that really a surprise? Anyway, I like action as much as the next guy, and there is good action in Tolkien after all. When Sam bashed an orc with a saucepan in the Chamber of Mazarbul, I laughed; when Gandalf fell I cried. The EE DVD came out, and I thought it was even better.

I was less forgiving with TTT. Interestingly, by the time it premiered, I'd had more time with the FotR DVD, and its flaws had started to show. More on that in a moment. Gollum exceeded all expectations, and I enjoyed the spectacle of Helm's Deep (excepting certain unlikely Elvish combat maneuvers of course), but -- well, no need to rehash old arguments. In my view, there were flaws. Deep ones. TTT EE -- meh... better, but not in a way that fundamentally changed its flawed nature.

By the time RotK rolled around, I think I had reached the stage of Acceptance. I enjoyed the spectacle, and with wayward plot elements inevitably drawing back towards certain surefire sequences and emotional moments, it could only go uphill after the nadir of TTT... and jeez this post is getting long. Downs-withdrawal these past moths, I guess.

So I'll move this along. CUT TO: Now!

I am, if anything, more sympathetic than ever to the chaos that affects any movie production, let alone one of the size, scope, and ambition of LotR. There are literally thousands of possible reasons for why a decision might be made to change X, Y, or Z. Given that, the movies are, if nothing else, an amazing achievement of logistics and intrepidity, and I am inclined to be more forgiving now, in some ways, about some things, than I was when the films were released.

But.

The thing that bugs me most about PJ and LotR is that when it comes to a choice between logic and a gag, he'll go with the gag every time.

For this reason, it's my opinion that his films are designed in such a way that they become less satisfying with repeated viewings, rather than more. I might get a shock or a thrill or a laugh out of a fundamentally illogical gag the first time I see it, or it might help to smooth me past a questionable plot point, but when I watch it again and again, the gag only jars me. It makes me think of a line from a Raymond Chandler story: "From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away."

I think I'd probably have a more favorable view of the movies if I'd only watched them once, from that "distance" of a first viewing.

Nowadays, I sometimes flip them in to watch particular scenes, the ones where the spectacle is totally kewl, and the ones where they got the moment completely right. For all the controversy over whether Gandalf slipped or let go, I thought they really nailed his fall in Moria and its immediate aftermath. But there are parts -- long stretches in TTT, especially -- that I find completely unwatchable.

[mark12_30]

Underhill, Bethberry Nice to see you around.

As of summer 2007: My chief delight in the movies is that my sons can watch them and gain some (partial) understanding of Where Mom Comes From. They're too young yet for the books, so for me the movies are a godsend. Someday they'll be ready for the books, and then a whole new depth of nobility, virtue, and even holiness will open up to them; I'm looking forward to that.

But in the meantime, I'm glad they've got the movies-- even with flambuoyant Legolas, oscillating half-aged Frodo, belching Gimli, and some tomatoes thrown in. Maturity will come with time. They'll love the books when they are ready for them. Their english is almost good enough now that I could start reading them The Hobbit for a bedtime story. Hmmmmmm. They love the cartoon. There's another place where there's far more meat in the books than in the movie, or in this case the cartoon. But that doesn't make the cartoon a flop.

Meanwhile my nephew has instantiated himself as a hobbit-burglar in some vast online game, and has reread The Hobbit to refresh his skills. And all my nephews play Middle-Earth Risk together. Proud Auntie.

[Meriadoc1961]

Mister Underhill,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. Something within its contents made me think of something my wife and I do occasionally, and that is we will find ourselves quoting lines from the movie, such as Pippin's incredulous, "But what about second breakfast?" in FotR. Although that is not a line lifted directly from the book, it is a line that I as a lover of the books am completely satisfied with in the movie for it does not change the character but actually reinforces Tolkien's view, which in this case is that hobbits love to eat, and they eat as many meals a day as they can.

I do really like the movies, and my only real complaint is the way so many of the major characters had their, well, character changed and for no really good reason at all.

[Lalwendë]

TT was on Channel 4 on Sunday and I had it on while doing other stuff - maybe that in itself says something, that the films are 'background noise' now rather than things to sit down in front of and seriously watch? But I digress...

It was with TT that I started to get the 'ump with Mr Jackson. It was here that he really altered the story - and I don't mean by leaving out this or that character or scene, but he altered it so much that it became 'his' not 'Tolkien's'. This in itself I would not feel quite so annoyed about but he was so inconsistent in his storytelling! I found myself tutting and asking myself what else I expected of someone who was known for making Zombie films.

An example? When Frodo holds up the Ring to one of the Nazgul at Osgiliath. It's not in the story of course, but what really did it for me was that had he done this, it would have made the rest of the story, even as presented/re-interpreted by Jackson, inconsistent. I don't like that to this day, I can't reconcile it, despite many discussions, including some here. I keep thinking that if they did something like this with an episode of Doctor Who the discussion boards would be going ape about rubbish writing, and I'd be right - many people who saw the films but had not read the books brought this exact problem up with me and I failed entirely to explain it. Because it is was inexplicable.

I am still annoyed about things like that now. The only way I can deal with it is by looking away or skipping scenes - it's like when a TV show has a scene of an operation on it...

[alatar]

Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy was on TV again this past weekend. Strangely, I found that, for once, I *couldn't* watch it. Not sure why.

It's like I was actively trying to avoid it, almost as if to continue watching would be painful in some way. A reminder of how much time has past since it was released? The differences between the books and the movies?

Thoughts?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

I still to this day wonder if Inziladun kept his vow to never see them.

Well, he's back, so maybe he can tell us.

[Thinlómien]

I watched the extended editions all in a row on Saturday and I was left feeling quite empty...

I was bored ("oh, it's this scene, I'll go make some tea for us" or "how many minutes will this battle scene still last?").

And kind of sad someone like PJ made the films. It almost made me cry how he and his team have no eye for nuances at all, everything has to be big and blasting, either good or evil, and every single thing has to be explained to the viewer as if to a stupid kid. On the other hand it made me realise that however much Tolkien has been accused of writing black and white fantasy he has an amazing amount of nuances in his work (unlike some others!)

And then, I have to say I admired the film makers' eye for dramatic scenes. You can't really be cynical in the end of the Two Towers when the Rohirrim ride out in one last desperate attempt and Gandalf and Éomer appear.

But then again, Tolkien did that before them and even more impressively. When I last read LotR in July I cried my eyes out at the Pelennor fields.


PS. This thread is about the same topic: A Sad Experience. I quite agree what I said there 1,5 years ago.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I was bored ("oh, it's this scene, I'll go make some tea for us" or "how many minutes will this battle scene still last?").

This is what usually happens when I watch them. All of those films get considerably shorter than they were to begin with because I only watch the bits that I really like and those that are more faithful to Tolkien than others. I completely skip over the big battle scenes because they just aren't as exciting as they used to be. Peter Jackson effectively turned some very deep books into action films. Thanks PJ.

[Snowdog]

Though I liked the films when they were released, and had fun at line parties and Trilogy Tuesday, subsequent watching burned me out on them. I went to see Fellowship about 8 times, and Two Towers 5 times, but Return of the King twice. Likewise, I watched the extended DVDs only a few times, with me usually falling asleep during them. They now collect dust on the DVD shelf.

Sadly, the movies burned me out on reading the books for a long time. I did read the books once in 2004 to clear my head of PJ's imagery and re-establish my own that I created in my head from the time I first read Lord of the Rings in 1975. Fortunately, most of my visions remained unscathed, and were even enhanced in the case of Boromir and maybe Gollum. I struggled a bit to clear my head of Cate as Galadriel, but did thanks to a good friend of mine who dressed herself as Galadriel and sent me a photo. I read it again this year and all was back to the way it should be.

I have to say that the movies were what they were, and are what they are, and I really have no desire to watch them again, like so many other movies. If I'm going to watch an old movie, it will be Cross of Iron or Kelly's Heroes or Holy Grail or Casablanca.... not the Lord of the Rings. About the most I watch of them anymore is when they are on broadcast TV and I tune in for a bit while some other show is running a commercial.