Dumbing it down - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Lalaith · 02-08-2005, 04:32 AM

You know, in the same way as we now watch film adaptations from the 1960s and 1970s that were intended to be set in historical times, such as Tom Jones, and laugh at the anachronistic hairstyles and make-up, I wonder whether generations to come will watch movie adaptations such as LotR from our era and laugh at the psychobabble that has been inserted, as redolent of our obsessions with "emotional journeys" and "personal development" - the way that all characters, in order to be deemed interesting, have to explain constantly exactly how they are feeling, and how they feel slightly differently about something now, to the way they felt half an hour ago.

If y'all will allow me to veer slightly off-topic to illustrate this point: My OTHER favourite book of all time, I Capture the Castle, was also recently adapted for the cinema. And, would you believe it, the buggers did the same thing there. The original, despite being written as a first person narrative, was an intelligent story with plenty of room for the reader to draw his own conclusions and speculations as to motivation, past and present. The film's writer and director decided that they would create, and spell out, their own emotional hinterland for all the characters, and the story became a lot less interesting as a result.

This is the kind of dumbing down I dislike, even more than silly lines of script such as 'lets hunt some orc.' Lord of the Rings is heroic epic, for crying out loud. Why do we need Frodo, Aragorn or Theoden to be constantly blithering on about some inner angst they are having to conquer? Ben-Hur, Spartacus and all the old epic movie heroes didn't turn their audiences into therapists, they just got on with it.

02-08-2005, 04:32 AM	#25
Lalaith Blithe Spirit Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2,779	You know, in the same way as we now watch film adaptations from the 1960s and 1970s that were intended to be set in historical times, such as Tom Jones, and laugh at the anachronistic hairstyles and make-up, I wonder whether generations to come will watch movie adaptations such as LotR from our era and laugh at the psychobabble that has been inserted, as redolent of our obsessions with "emotional journeys" and "personal development" - the way that all characters, in order to be deemed interesting, have to explain constantly exactly how they are feeling, and how they feel slightly differently about something now, to the way they felt half an hour ago. If y'all will allow me to veer slightly off-topic to illustrate this point: My OTHER favourite book of all time, I Capture the Castle, was also recently adapted for the cinema. And, would you believe it, the buggers did the same thing there. The original, despite being written as a first person narrative, was an intelligent story with plenty of room for the reader to draw his own conclusions and speculations as to motivation, past and present. The film's writer and director decided that they would create, and spell out, their own emotional hinterland for all the characters, and the story became a lot less interesting as a result. This is the kind of dumbing down I dislike, even more than silly lines of script such as 'lets hunt some orc.' Lord of the Rings is heroic epic, for crying out loud. Why do we need Frodo, Aragorn or Theoden to be constantly blithering on about some inner angst they are having to conquer? Ben-Hur, Spartacus and all the old epic movie heroes didn't turn their audiences into therapists, they just got on with it.