A 'darker' Hobbit

[Sir Kohran]

The depth, mood & 90% of the backstory were all sacrificed to sfx, gore & puerile jokes about dwarf tossing.

90% of the backstory was not sacrificed. Some of it was, but certainly not 90%. That's just a ridiculous statement.

SFX? How else are you going to show the grand scale of Middle-Earth?

Gore? There wasn't much gore compared to other action movies, and Tolkien himself was quite bloody - at one point Sam walked down a tunnel in Cirith Ungol and we are told of severed and scattered heads and limbs. If that's not gore I don't know what is.

I didn't like the dwarf jokes either but this is a movie and it needs comedy, even if this wasn't the best way to do it.

[Sauron the White]

I am writing this from memory - so I could be in error - but I recall that JRRT himself said he had two choices when it came to film rights sales. The choice he made was quick money up front as opposed to small money attached to his involvement with the film. One could say that JRRT himself realized his sale of the film rights meant changes in any eventual film. He knew that and accepted that. he knew that any definition about being "FAITHFUL" was simply not in the cards given how he sold the rights of his own free will.

For anyone to then use a word like "faithful" to discredit the films as not an adaption of the books is simply not fair given that JRRT himself went into the deal with both eyes opened, his mind sound and his hands outstretched.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

For anyone to then use a word like "faithful" to discredit the films as not an adaption of the books is simply not fair given that JRRT himself went into the deal with both eyes opened, his mind sound and his hands outstretched.

I wasn't using 'faithful' to discredit the films. I was merely pointing out that they weren't faithful to the books.

[Sir Kohran]

And anyway, I think Tolkien would have understood the need for changes. He didn't just sit down one day and right it all out and say that was exactly how it was. He was often making changes and alterations to the story and characters.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sir Kohran

And anyway, I think Tolkien would have understood the need for changes. He didn't just sit down one day and right it all out and say that was exactly how it was. He was often making changes and alterations to the story and characters.

Yes, but he made good changes in the main, & for good reasons.

[Sauron the White]

But to argue that a film - any film - is not "faithful" to the book is simply like arguing that today is not like yesterday. Its obvious and irrelevant. The transfer of the written word on a large number of pages is going to render a different product when it is placed on film - a totally different artistic medium.

I have read LOTR at least six times cover to cover and have reread many passages more times than that. That does not make me an expert or anything close. But in my humble opinion, it was a very good adaption that in many ways was far better than I had ever hoped. Was it perfect. Of course not. But then what is?
Korhan has hit upon something. JRRT himself understand that when he sold the book as a film there would be changes. He understood that as an important part of the process of turning a book into a film. And good reasons for those changes abounded and were explained regardless of how anyone accepted them or rejected them.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

But to argue that a film - any film - is not "faithful" to the book is simply like arguing that today is not like yesterday. Its obvious and irrelevant. The transfer of the written word on a large number of pages is going to render a different product when it is placed on film - a totally different artistic medium.

. . .

Korhan has hit upon something. JRRT himself understand that when he sold the book as a film there would be changes. He understood that as an important part of the process of turning a book into a film. And good reasons for those changes abounded and were explained regardless of how anyone accepted them or rejected them.

Wait a sec and hold on! Let's consider this point generally.

I don't think it is necessarily or automatically irrelevant to consider how well a movie adapts a novel. For every film adaptation I've ever seen of a major novel, part of the discussion has always involved the nature of the adaptation. It is part of understanding how movies differ from novels and what the two different art forms need to engage their particular kind of art. We can learn more about a book if we understand what parts lend themselves well to cinematic reproduction and what parts don't. We can also learn more about films.

Frankly, to me, in seeing how and where PJ's films differ from LotR, we can see that PJ was working with two inspirations, his love of Tolkien and his love of Lucas. Those two inspirations worked to create the films.

Just as it is well to consider what Tolkien's expectations were when he sold the film rights. But that does not limit anyone from examining the question himself. It's all in the nature of discussion and there's no reason to bound our expectations by those Tolkien might have had.

By the way, are we discussing a film that hasn't been made yet? And a book of revisions previously unpublished that some of us haven't read yet? Now there's proof positive of the nature of human conversation.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Korhan has hit upon something. JRRT himself understand that when he sold the book as a film there would be changes. He understood that as an important part of the process of turning a book into a film. And good reasons for those changes abounded and were explained regardless of how anyone accepted them or rejected them.

But you misunderstand my argument. I'm not arguing there shouldn't have been changes. I'm arguing they were bad films & the changes were bad changes.

[Sauron the White]

I do feel that this is the type of discussion which flourished a few years ago, ran its course and proved to be a rather dry riverbed. It really makes no difference how any of us feel about things like a "faithful adaption" or if the changes were good or for bad. Why?

In the end it is rather simple. The book is one thing. The films are quite another. Yes, the 3 films are based on the book. Yes, the films are an adaption of the book. But these discussion always come down to exactly the same thing over and over again. That being - somebodys opinion if they liked it or not. I really do not think so high and mighty of my own opinion as to place it in exalted place to hold dominion over all others. One can stand on the shores where the ocean meets the land and plant their two legs firmly in the sand and attempt to hold back the incoming waves...... but with what success? You can not hold back the tides.

In the end the film is judged as to the quality it possesses as a film. Consider the following that does not depend on my individual opinion or the individual opinion of anyone else no matter how learned, well read or knowledgable.

A film is often judged on its financial success. The three LOTR films all broke into the All Time Worldwide Box Office Top Ten. TTT reached number four and ROTK is still at number two. In fact, ROTK became only the second film in history to reachthe $1 billion dollar gross figure (US dollars). Including other rights, the three films took in over $4 billion dollars. From an initial investment of about $400 million, that is success in spades.

But there are many films which are of low quality but take in money and are profitable. Some people prefer to judge a film by the educated collective opinion of the community of critics that are paid to judge the cinematic quality of such things. All three films were very well reviewed with ROTK being one of the best reviewed films ever. Several internet sites will report on this if you want to look at them. Again, wild success by this measurement.

But some say that the opinion of film critics, even that of several hundred trained film critics does not mean much. What about the opinion of the film industry itself? The various 3 films won many awards of excellence from various countries and branches of the film industry. This was climaxed by the Academy Awards given the film including the eleven won by ROTK including Best Film of the Year.

The combination of all three of these categories - box office returns from the masses, collective praise from the professional critics, and industry awards has never occured before in history in three films made by the same filmmaker.

Again, I do not exalt my lone opinion upon the altar of the world to think that I know more than it does. But it seems that these type of discussions - or better yet, this ongoing six year plus discussion, always come down to somebody thinking that they are blessed to be some sort of TRUE BELIEVER who has been blessed with a special knowledge that elevates their opinion in both quality and substance over that of the rest of the world.

In the end it always comes down to "yes, but you do not know about it as much as I do". And in the end, what you think you know did not make a damn bit of difference in the film. It was irrelevant.

This is why I say that anyones opinion about the "faithfulness" of the films to the books is irrelevant. It does not matter. Attempting to throw a loaded term like "faithfulness" into the discussion merely is a distraction or attempting to set up a strawman which only serves your opinion. I can measure financial success by box office returns. I can measure critical success by the collective opinions of the community of professional critics. I can measure success by the level of awards given out withing the film community. All three say something by themselves. Together they are the tide of world opinion on these films.

Now plant your feet firmly on the shore and scream about "faithfullness" into the oncoming tide.

[Nogrod]

I think that one of the problems resides in this bussiness of drawing lines of faithfulness between movies and books in the first place. Cinema is a different media from literature.

Not to talk of rendering an epos like LotR into a different media. You're never going to accomplish that and thence dicussing about faithfulness isn't exactly to the point?

But that does not mean that the value-meters you Sauron brought forwards are any good either. There are reasons (a lot of them) to say PJ's movies were beautiful to look at but shallow. But these reasons need not tie themselves to the "faithfulness" aspect. They were shallow as cinema.

The box-office ratings? Quite a many people went to see "The Independence Day" as well... Remember, most people go to see a movie once so they have not known what crap it was but the marketing hype was loud enough to lure them into the theaters. I'd believe more any "after-movie polls" than just pure attendance numbers. And anyhow quality and quantity are different things after all?

Collective praise by the critics? I'm not sure about the U.S. if every critic is fed by the big movie-corporations but at least in Europe I think most of the critics had a long list of reservations and some even scorned the whole project. So at least here it was not a "collective praise"...

The industry awards? Well what else could they have done after the popular phenomena the movies made? What would have been the Oscar-committee's credibility rate after the third box-office hit? If they'd given the Oscars for a good film they'd at least picked the first one but for some reason they didn't... But to be serious... that was an after-award as ever there was one! They couldn't just not notice them at that point.

But coming back to my basic idea. As film and literature are two different medias both should try to excel in those areas their media makes them excel.

PJ probably tried his hardest (at least in some part) but just couldn't make it.

So a brave interpretation would have been in place, original view with an excellence in telling the story via a film-media, and hopefully lots of money behind to make it look good as well... PJ's was a compromise with some highly potential visual & musical artistic aspirations blended with box-office requirements (the storyline, the cast...) - and possibly PJ's shortcomings as a director...

Sorry to say this. I loved the films for what they looked like and I love the music as well... but as movies... no I can't love them as movies.

EDIT: Looking backwards into the thread this clearly is steering far away from the actual topic... I'll promise to try and stay better in the topic the next time.

[Morthoron]

Looking strictly at Jackson's LotR films from an objective manner, if one compares it to a truly great film adaptation (David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia or Zinneman's A Man for all Seasons, for instance) one finds that Jackson removed much of the subtlety and nuance from Tolkien's original plot, opting for fireworks over substance (and this could be, as Bêthberry inferred, Jackson's 'Lucasization' of Middle-earth). Much of the acting is wooden and trivial, and this is due in part to Jackson's insistence on taking artistic license decidedly too far. The dialogue that works the best is indeed taken directly from Tolkien's original storyline, and those sequences which are universally panned are invariably of Jackson's devising.

Do not get me wrong, I own all three extended versions of the DVD's, and I believe Jackson's trilogy is cinematographically superb. The spirit of Middle-earth does indeed reside in the wonderful ambience of the film's versions of the Shire, Minas Tirith, Moria and Edoras, but there is an infuriating undercurrent that runs throughout the films of Jackson's heavy-handed scripting that is bitter to the palate, and for the most part totally unnecessary. I am not speaking of time compression and omissions (like the deletion of Tom Bombadil or the wholesale elimination of the 'Scouring of the Shire'), I understand fully the need for brevity and compactness in film making; however, I do take issue with the many oddities Jackson threw in that neither added to the dimensions of the movies nor improved upon the original plot.

Sorry for adding to a digression, but as I have yet to read the 'Darker Hobbit', I can't rightly comment on it in context. I only know that as it was originally published (as a children's story), I cherish it immensely and so does my young daughter. I am not certain that the changes mentioned are altogether good or necessary, given the endearing impression of the orignal reading.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Regardless of the Masses (whose collective judgment makes McDonald's a great restaurant) and the judgment of the AMPAS and film critics (all movie people), look at the consensus of those who know Tolkien best- Tolkien scholars. Their verdict is *unanimous*- YECCCHH!

(Not to mention JRRT's own children. Christopher's disdain for the fluicks is well-known, and Priscilla told a story about having re-typed the early chapters of Lord of the Rings for her father, and being terrified to the point of nightmares by the Black Riders. Someone asked if she had seen the movies. With her very English (almost headmistressy) tact, she said that she would 'rather not go into that'. The questioner just wondered if she had still found the Black Rider's frightening in the film. 'Oh, good God no!' she exclaimed, adding something about 'spectacle and sensation'.)

The biggest problem with PJ's work is that it's *shallow*- but of course the non-reader or casual reader isn't aware of the depths PJ never plumbed. Where at least in theory something on a par with Lawrence of Arabia might have been possible in other hands, what PJ gave us was Indiana Jones and the Ring of Doom. Again: Yeccchh!


NB: PJ's "love of Tolkien????" Get a clue! PJ set out to make a sword 'n' sorcery flick and only then learned that Zaentz was willing to deal- and PJ hadn't read the book since he was a teenager.

And it shows.


Oh, sure, he talked a good game in interviews- most of the time. Well, guess what? Smeagol lied. PJ has also said this: "Tolkien's tale was long and boring....I think I did better."