Think about it. Please.

[Boromir88]

The best learning occurs when you bring people who have different opinions, personalities, morals...etc together and get them discussing about a topic.

"Group work" is something that is used in a lot of classrooms (at least in the States, I don't want to speak for others). The groups that create the best products are not the ones that all agree and say what a great idea this is. They might all get along and play nicely but they most likely won't have the best finished product, because of the lack of diverse opinions. Where if you put a group together where the people are almost completely opposite (as far as opinions, morals...etc) they might not be best buddies, but they will have a finished product that tells the full story, not just one side of it.

I don't know why either, and maybe it's just a human thing, why we obsess with getting a clear, correct answer. It would probably make me live longer if everyone would just agree with me ( ), but not everything needs one "correct" answer, one "correct" definition. The great thing about interpretting literature, movies, or even history, is it's all about personal taste. Some are going to like it, some are not. Tolkien had his fair share of critics, I disagree with them, but there have been several who I think make good supportive arguments for feeling the way they do (I might get hung for saying this but The Silmarillion is giant bore to me). Personally, I enjoyed all the movies (and yes I mean that), but I will be blunt, I don't care if 500 million people and film critics thought these were the best things since sliced bread. If I don't like something with the movies, I'll say it.

In this forum, we have people from around the entire world, and I'm sure I can find one thing I disagree on with every member. Raynor, Mith, Matthew, davem, Lal, Nogrod, Thinlo, Sauce...the list goes on of fellow members I've had little disagreements with. However, just because we all disagree, does not mean we can't play nicely.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

In searching for other information, I came across three articles in The Encyclopedia of Arda. They compare the movies to the book, doing so not because they disapprove of the movies, but to help those who saw them without being familiar with Tolkien's books.

Here's a passage that fits into this discussion:

From viewers who have never read the original books, the response seems to be almost universally positive. For those of us who know Tolkien's tales well, though, while we can certainly enjoy the movie on its own level too, it's probably true to say that there's a general sense of discomfort at its distance from the original work. It's beyond the aims of this article to try to judge the rights and wrongs of such changes, but they've generated such a response that it would be remiss not to comment on them, however briefly.

At one extreme of this argument is the view that sees the movie of The Two Towers purely as a work by Peter Jackson and his colleagues. This view was succinctly expressed by the commentator Mark Lawson in his column for The Guardian newspaper. Writing of negative responses to The Fellowship of the Ring, he expressed the view that 'This hostility to interpretation is anti-cinematic. The point of movies is to rip up the words and reassemble them as pictures which may - which should - differ in key details.' It has to be said that - at least in a general sense - he is absolutely right about this. One recent popular example of this is the adaptation of Ted Hughes' wonderful fable The Iron Man, which was turned into an animated feature film, The Iron Giant, in 1999. That film jettisoned almost every character and situation from the original book, deleted its entire second half, relocated the action in time and in space: in fact, it fundamentally modified the original in almost every way, and yet the result was a charming and engaging tale in its own right (to the extent that visitors to the Internet Movie Database consider it the 198th best movie ever made, at least at the time of writing). So, there clearly isn't anything intrinsically 'wrong' about making radical changes like this.

But this freedom of interpretation must surely be valid only up to a point. If we were to see a film version of Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending, say, it's hard to imagine the critics accepting that 'reassembly' in a positive light. When Thomas Bowdler attempted to revise and adapt Shakespeare's works to his contemporary (early nineteenth century) audience, his reward was to be immortalised by the scornful word 'bowdlerise'. So, there is a line beyond which an adapter strays at their peril, at least for some exceptional works.

Of course it would be preposterous to compare Tolkien to Shakespeare (or Peter Jackson to Thomas Bowdler!), but it can be argued that his work has a particular exceptional quality of its own. Tolkien is unique in that his stories take place in a fully realised universe, and one that (to a great extent) pre-existed the stories themselves. The Lord of the Rings is an historical novel, and the trivial fact that its history is a fictional one is really beside the point. Its consistent adherence to its own underlying reality is a key (perhaps the key) strength of the book. Even the tiniest of changes within the story can potentially have profound effects on the fabric of its universe, and it's that universe, as much as the stories he set in it, that is Tolkien's true legacy. Perhaps that consideration can help define what's a reasonable change to the original story - the extent to which it enhances or diminishes the broader tapestry into which the story is woven.

For those who would like to read the comparisons, here are the links: A Movie-goer's Guide: FotR, TTT, RotK

[davem]

We had a discussion a while back on a decision the makers of the Middle Earth on-line game had made, to allow 'interracial' marriage & gay relationships in their Middle-earth, & whether there was line which shouldn't be crossed as regards what should & should not be allowed - or rather what could be allowed in to any manifestation of Tolkien's world, if it was to remain in any way faithful to the original.

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=13903

Can an adaptor of a secondary world into another form/media do just anything they want, or should they stay within the limits set by the creator? If Jackson had introduced aeroplanes or guns into 'his' Middle-earth, would that have been acceptable 'because books & movies are different things', or should there have been a line drawn somewhere to keep the movies 'in the spirit' of Tolkien? And if you believe that there should have been such a line (wherever you'd have drawn it) aren't you inviting a comparison between the book & film & admitting that the book in some way determines what the film can & cannot depict?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

.... and many of those same people had some sort of axe to grind, some sort of personal antagonism towards the film(s)

There you're being unfair. I had no axe to grind about the movies: I anticipated them eagerly, and nobody wanted them to succeed artistically more than I. I was even prepared to discount the rumors that leaked from the set like Wizard-fu and the Round Spiked Wheelie Dealie. I really, really looked forward to them: and I was let down. I realize you are one of those who want to detach film adaptations from the originals, to stand completely on their own (although there are elements where the films fail by themselves without external reference); but for me they always were and are a derivative extension of the books, and cannot be (in my mind) separated from them any more than a finger from a hand.

I love movies, and I have (I think) pretty good standards of judgment. Again, PJ disappointed me: for all his admitted logistical brilliance in putting it together, as a writer and director he proved to be hamhanded, unsubtle, excessive, and self-indulgent. A second-rate Spielberg.

Consider for a moment how, say, Kurosawa would have done it! Or John Ford. Or even Coppola Or or or.


(BTW, GWTW was an improvement on the book because, face it, Mitchell's novel was a potboiler. If written today it would have Fabio on the cover).

[Sauron the White]

from the link privided by Estelyn

This view was succinctly expressed by the commentator Mark Lawson in his column for The Guardian newspaper. Writing of negative responses to The Fellowship of the Ring, he expressed the view that 'This hostility to interpretation is anti-cinematic. The point of movies is to rip up the words and reassemble them as pictures which may - which should - differ in key details.' It has to be said that - at least in a general sense - he is absolutely right about this.

I agree with the statement from Mr. Lawson. That should surprise nobody here. Many here will attempt to take the air out of such a charge claiming that they love movies and are not anti-cinematic but at the same time they then take the approach often expressed here - and most lately by WCHicklin as follows

I realize you are one of those who want to detach film adaptations from the originals, to stand completely on their own (although there are elements where the films fail by themselves without external reference); but for me they always were and are a derivative extension of the books, and cannot be (in my mind) separated from them any more than a finger from a hand.

I am afraid that this is like being a little bit pregnant or partly dead. It either is or it is not. Either you can separate the two and treat them differently or you cannot. To attempt to apply the rules, characteristics, and qualities of a book to the cinema - something that is clearly not a book - is indeed anti-cinematic because it denies the essence of what that medium is. I am not saying this is a prejudice or bias or something evil, merely a state of mind that dominates the persons opinions.

Consider for a moment how, say, Kurosawa would have done it! Or John Ford. Or even Coppola Or or or.

Regarding Kurosawa - I have seen maybe eight or ten films of his and am not an expert so I cannot specualte upon this. As for John Ford, I think I have seen nearly all of his talkies, some of his silents, and have read at least four books on his career. Perhaps you know more about John Ford and film than I do but I have absolutely no idea under the stars how he would have handled LOTR. None at all. Do you? And what would you base it on.

Same with Coppola.

And what about William Wyler? D.W. Griffith? Fritz Lang? Frank Capra? Victor Fleming? David Lean? Charles Chaplin? George Cukor? Sidney Lumet? Mike Nichols? Walter Hill? Clint Eastwood?

You might as well print the directory to the Directors Guild and start speculating.

Such a statement might provoke a far different interesting discussion but is meaningless as far as shedding any light on the discussion at hand.

The most important line in the article from the Encyclopedia of Arda is the following

From viewers who have never read the original books, the response seems to be almost universally positive.

If JRRT sold 40 to 45 million books before the films came out, that represents one of ten who bought tickets to the films. Thats a ratio of nine out of ten who probably saw the films cold without reading the books. "Almost universally positive" for 9 out of 10 viewers is about as good as it is ever gets.

[Child of the 7th Age]

If JRRT sold 40 to 45 million books before the films came out, that represents one of ten who bought tickets to the films. Thats a ratio of nine out of ten who probably saw the films cold without reading the books. "Almost universally positive" for 9 out of 10 viewers is about as good as it is ever gets.

Interesting statistics, but another question concerning numbers intrigues me even more. Of those 9 viewers who were not previously familiar with the books, how many then went on to purchase and read Lord of the Rings and/or others of Tolkien's works? How many of those filmgoers just read the work, perhaps not even finishing it, and tossed it to the side? How many, in contrast, gave the book a serious read and then went on to study other works by Tolkien, perhaps joining Mythopoeia, soberly posting on message boards like these, even deciding to go back to the "sources" that inspired Tolkien, in effect becoming what even Davem and Mister Hickli would call a "serious" reader of the books.

I really don't care how much money the movies made. Sometimes I get tired of hearing all the pros and cons of books versus films and the hot air it engenders, especially since I am somewhere in the middle of that divide. But I would love to understand the impact the films had (and will have) in terms of leading people back to the books. Whether we like the films or detest them, how do we judge that influence in terms of the future? Could tomorrow's Flieger or Shippey or even the next medievalist who comes out with an amazing idea be someone who first got hooked on Tolkien because they sat in a theater and watched PJ's films? Perhaps such questions are totally irrelevant in judging the ultimate impact of the movies. But as someone who's been a Tolkien "bookie" for over forty years, and has seen a lot of ups and downs in the group of people who read the books, I think what has happened these past few years needs to be taken into account when judging exactly what PJ's "legacy" might be in terms of the Tolkien community.

[Sauron the White]

7th Age ..... You bring up an excellent point about the films bringing in new readers. Based on the sales figures for the four year period when the films were hot, it look like the number of copies of LOTR that were sold were four to five fold over the previous four years when there were no films around. That is indeed a whole slew of new readers.

I have a six year old grandson who watches these films with me whenever he comes over for weekends. He loves them and now asks more questions about them and the characters than can just be answered in the films. He is learning how to read and his main goal in that is to read the LOTR. He has already told me "Papa, the books are always better". Where he got that I have no idea. So maybe he will be in the next wave of JRRT academics twenty or thirty years from now.