Best Lotr/hobbit movies

[IxnaY AintsaY]

Out of the ones I've seen, from one to eight, from best to worst for me:

The first two are the only ones I get a hankering to re-watch from time to time.

1. PJ Return of the King - The only visual adaptation I really like, warts and all.
2. PJ Fellowship of the Ring - Middling good.


The next three still show evidence of some love in their making, though they're all deeply flawed.

3. PJ Two Towers
4. Rankin-Bass Return of the King - It's possible I'd flip this and Bakshi. It's been a long time since I've watched the whole thing.
5. Bakshi Lord of the Rings - See above. Interesting visually, and a few things--like its vision of orcs--have stuck with me for decades.

After that, things get ugly fast, shattering my numerical scale...

8. An Unexpected Journey - Very bad, but a few good moments.
13. Battle of Five Armies - Worse, and fewer.
22. Desolation of Smaug - Just horrendous. And painful. And yet dull!

[Morthoron]

Prioritizing Jackson's Middle-earth films is rather like listing in order of preference Dante's Seven Circles of Hell. They are all bad in their own special way, but they do get worse the further one descends.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Prioritizing Jackson's Middle-earth films is rather like listing in order of preference Dante's Seven Circles of Hell. They are all bad in their own special way, but they do get worse the further one descends.

*cough* Nine, not seven.

Hmmmn... I remember you used to be reasonably positive towards the original trilogy. What changed?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

*cough* Nine, not seven.

Hmmmn... I remember you used to be reasonably positive towards the original trilogy. What changed?

I don't know why I typed seven. I guess that puts me in the Malebolge, which I skipped. But in retrospect, Jackson would have edited out the last two circles and added in a 10th of his own making and as an appendix grafted on pieces of the Purgatorio.

Also in retrospect, I have come to the conclusion that the only good thing about the films was the original story. Jackson was handed perhaps the greatest fantasy novel (novels if one includes The Hobbit) to work from. He had what amounted to a budget the size of the GDP of any number of small countries, the cinematic backdrop of New Zealand and some of the finest actors available (Ian Holm, Ian Mckellen, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett - they could recite a phone book and I would listen). But what did we get?

Taking the six films in one package, we got unnecessary addenda that became more and more pronounced the further we went into the story, and by the last two films of The Hobbit, the original story was actually no longer reminiscent of the book it was purportedly based on. By then the original story was merely a prop - an occasional marker on a strange road to remind us where we were going.

But the descent didn't just occur halfway through AUJ and spiral out of control from there. It just became so apparent that it became unwatchable at that juncture. We got superfluity and nonsense that oftentimes took the place of actual story plot that was inexplicably left out, we got characters that were out of character, - and I'm referring to LotR and not just The Hobbit.

Jackson's penchant for meddling and devising his own plot-points basically destroyed The Two Towers for me, and many of the changes in RotK were only redeemed by the fact that Jackson could not ultimately change the fundamental structure of the story in a way so as to wreck what Tolkien wrote, because the original lines and plot were that good. To paraphrase Rossini in regards to Wagner: Jackson had brilliant moments but awful quarter hours. When he adhered to the original story, the scenes were brilliant and the dialogue left one teary-eyed (even when a different character mouthed the line).

But in those quarter hours, we had to balance between heart-wrenching heroism (Eowyn defeating the WitchKing and saying goodbye to Theoden) to banal absurdity (Legolas Heffalump surfing and Scrubbing Bubbles cleansing Minas Tirith). If you really study the films, this type of balancing act between original beauty and improvised banality occurs so often that I can no longer justify watching them. And there is no nuance or subtlety in the way Jackson shat out unjustifiable plotlines in every quarter hour sequence (and I won't belabor the readers to point them out again).

By the time The Hobbit was released Jackson, with his bushel of Oscars (but no creditable films since LotR, not surprisingly), no longer had the restraints that made LotR palatable at most, brilliant in spots, but head-scratching overall. There was no one left to tell Jackson, "Hey, you know making Arwen a warrior-princess and having her fight alongside Aragorn at Helm's Deep is asinine."

No, this lack of restraint is evident in that he literally rewrote The Hobbit in his own image and likeness: juvenile jokes, bad dialogue, explodey things, wacky chase scenes, endless CGI fight sequences and grotesque monsters from his days making cheap horror films (even importing sand worms from Arrakis). Tauriel became the Arwen he wasn't allowed to have in Lord of the Rings. Bilbo's central role is minimized so that GQ handsome dwarves with perfect hair can make sexual jokes with Elves. A bow isn't good enough for Bard (the...ummm...bowman), he needs a giant arbalest and an arrow the size of a cruise ship anchor.

The movies appear on cable regularly, but I can't watch them, not even for a minute.

[Kuruharan]

At least the notion that The Hobbit trilogy is awful has percolated out a bit into the larger culture.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

They were showing The Two Towers on telly today, and I made a somewhat feeble attempt at watching it.

I used to think that the movies were good entertainment, and a nice homage to the books... and that would be it. As an adaptation, I have always found them infuriating and weird.

What struck me today, is that these movies haven't aged as well as I would have thought. A great deal of their appeal back then, was the amount of attention that had gone into detail and the breath taking landscapes... yet this time around it did not seem overly impressive.

I guess I have just grown accustomed to picturesque cinematic experiences.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Also in retrospect, I have come to the conclusion that the only good thing about the films was the original story. Jackson was handed perhaps the greatest fantasy novel (novels if one includes The Hobbit) to work from. He had what amounted to a budget the size of the GDP of any number of small countries, the cinematic backdrop of New Zealand and some of the finest actors available (Ian Holm, Ian Mckellen, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchett - they could recite a phone book and I would listen). But what did we get?

Taking the six films in one package, we got unnecessary addenda that became more and more pronounced the further we went into the story, and by the last two films of The Hobbit, the original story was actually no longer reminiscent of the book it was purportedly based on. By then the original story was merely a prop - an occasional marker on a strange road to remind us where we were going.

But the descent didn't just occur halfway through AUJ and spiral out of control from there. It just became so apparent that it became unwatchable at that juncture. We got superfluity and nonsense that oftentimes took the place of actual story plot that was inexplicably left out, we got characters that were out of character, - and I'm referring to LotR and not just The Hobbit.

I think you're really overstating it to say the original story is the *only* good thing about the LotR films- there's some pretty good filmmaking in there. Though certainly the invented plotlines are mostly pointless clutter, especially in TTT.

As for "The Hobbit".... no, I'd say it's reminiscent of the book.

No, this lack of restraint is evident in that he literally rewrote The Hobbit in his own image and likeness: juvenile jokes, bad dialogue, explodey things, wacky chase scenes, endless CGI fight sequences and grotesque monsters from his days making cheap horror films (even importing sand worms from Arrakis). Tauriel became the Arwen he wasn't allowed to have in Lord of the Rings. Bilbo's central role is minimized so that GQ handsome dwarves with perfect hair can make sexual jokes with Elves. A bow isn't good enough for Bard (the...ummm...bowman), he needs a giant arbalest and an arrow the size of a cruise ship anchor.

Ah, but wouldn't you have liked to be a fly on the wall during their brainstorming sessions?

Also Tauriel is certainly in the spirit of Tolkien fandom.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

At least the notion that The Hobbit trilogy is awful has percolated out a bit into the larger culture.

If you mean "larger nerd culture", I fear this is merely the snowballing effect of something coming to be seen as "cool thing to bash". I mean, rather than it being the case of each and every nerd independently casting a thoughtful, critical eye over the movies and finding them appreciably lacking in crucial cinematic and narrative qualities.

Could be that the behaviour of some of the fanboys early on didn't help, either.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Ah, but wouldn't you have liked to be a fly on the wall during their brainstorming sessions?

No. I'm surrounded by rampant idiocy and egomania on a daily basis. I don't need exposure to more.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

If you mean "larger nerd culture", I fear this is merely the snowballing effect of something coming to be seen as "cool thing to bash". I mean, rather than it being the case of each and every nerd independently casting a thoughtful, critical eye over the movies and finding them appreciably lacking in crucial cinematic and narrative qualities.

There might be something to that. However, the nerds had the opportunity to see the films for themselves and I've never known nerds to be shy with their opinions on whatever topic. I think there is just a hostile consensus against the films.