Gollum and Treebeard the next Jar Jar? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Kalessin · 11-30-2002, 04:31 PM

Since the Fellowship of the Ring movie was, regardless of loyalty to the book, a genuinely epic piece crafted with skill and executed with cinematic vision, and maintained at least an attempt at Tolkien's essence of myth, while the Phantom Menace was an absolute clunker, poorly crafted and executed with smug complacency, and with such questionable and crass moral sensibility, I hope that comparisons continue to be inappropriate It doesn't say much that the dubious and at worst racist characterisation of Jar Jar Binks in Phantom Menace has been replaced by his Hattie McDaniel role in (the almost equally feeble) Attack of the Clones. Special effects do not make a good film, and nothing can save a film from bad writing and bad characters. If Treebeard, who in Tolkien's book represents the deep, literally-rooted personification of nature - patient, stoic, gentle, slow yet unstoppable when roused, and so on ... or Gollum, who is pathetic (in its most precise sense), a being whose humanity and soul have been eaten away by corrupting evil, and who is left as a scheming yet disingenuous child of madness ... if either of these characters is deemed as somehow expendable in TTT for the purposes of some apparent Hollywood rule that "you gotta have some laughs", or become one-dimensional Disney archetypes, I will be VERY disappointed. I'd say there was no evidence of that being likely from the first movie, but ... we all know that anything's possible Peace KalessinPS If you want to hear a wonderful review of Attack of the Clones by UK movie critic Mark Kermode, go to <A HREF="http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/mayo/kermode_1705.shtml" TARGET=_blank>BBC Five Live Films</A> and listen to his rant on Realplayer, it is classic, and he mentions Lord of the Rings [ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]

11-30-2002, 04:31 PM	#14
Kalessin Wight Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Earthsea, or London Posts: 175	Since the Fellowship of the Ring movie was, regardless of loyalty to the book, a genuinely epic piece crafted with skill and executed with cinematic vision, and maintained at least an attempt at Tolkien's essence of myth, while the Phantom Menace was an absolute clunker, poorly crafted and executed with smug complacency, and with such questionable and crass moral sensibility, I hope that comparisons continue to be inappropriate <P>It doesn't say much that the dubious and at worst racist characterisation of Jar Jar Binks in Phantom Menace has been replaced by his Hattie McDaniel role in (the almost equally feeble) Attack of the Clones. Special effects do not make a good film, and nothing can save a film from bad writing and bad characters. <P>If Treebeard, who in Tolkien's book represents the deep, literally-<B>rooted</B> personification of nature - patient, stoic, gentle, slow yet unstoppable when roused, and so on ... or Gollum, who is pathetic (in its most precise sense), a being whose humanity and soul have been eaten away by corrupting evil, and who is left as a scheming yet disingenuous child of madness ... if either of these characters is deemed as somehow expendable in TTT for the purposes of some apparent Hollywood rule that "you gotta have some laughs", or become one-dimensional Disney archetypes, I will be <B>VERY</B> disappointed. I'd say there was no evidence of that being likely from the first movie, but ... we all know that anything's possible <P>Peace <P>Kalessin<P>PS If you want to hear a wonderful review of Attack of the Clones by UK movie critic Mark Kermode, go to <A HREF="http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/mayo/kermode_1705.shtml" TARGET=_blank>BBC Five Live Films</A> and listen to his rant on Realplayer, it is classic, and he mentions Lord of the Rings <p>[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]