Dumbing it down

[Aiwendil]

Neithan wrote:

What I meant to say though, was that I don't love the films as films, ie as something seperate from the books. What I love is seeing book scenes put onto the screens.

I think I may feel this way as well. When someone asks me whether I like the LotR movies, I tend to be a bit flummoxed.

Do you like the Lord of the Rings movies?

I'm a huge fan of the books.

But what about the movies?

Many of the changes really bother me.

So you don't like them?

Well, I own all the extended edition DVDs and have watched every special feature and listened to every commentary.

Oh, so they must be like, some of your favorite films.

No, I don't think so . . .

And so on.

The truth is that I have a hard time evaluating the films as films. I can point out the things I like and the things I don't like, and I can tell you why I like or dislike them. But I can't really tell you whether I like the movies or not. The book is simply too important to me for me to evaluate the movies as entities in themselves.

That's not to say that I think my complaints about the changes are unfounded - I think that many of these decisions were mistakes and I don't think that this view is merely the result of an obsession with the book. But somehow I can't really make an overall evaluation of the movies without it being an evaluation of faithfulness (or lack thereof) to the book.