Split Personality?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Some very good points were raised - and I like the part about "magic" since that seems the prime motivation for excercising ones willing suspension of disbelief.

I've been thinking about this as well, and even considered a new thread. Is it truly "willing?" I can never remember ever sitting, either in the theater or at home with a book, saying to myself, "Oh, this Balrog thing is going to take some belief suspension." alatar assumes the lotus position..."Hmmm. Hmmm. Balrogs exist. Balrogs exist..."

Whether Jackson or Tolkien, I think that when they're at their best, you don't even have to try to suspend belief. That, to me, is why LotR is so good, and why PJ really scored with Gollum.

I will give it up on the running and Gimli --- for the time being bowing to discretion.

Note that Sisyphus would quit if he could.

[littlemanpoet]

I also understand your point on "double standard"; I just disagree, for one simple reason: Middle Earth is Tolkien's creation. Jackson was given permission to borrow it. So the standard lies with Tolkien, and Jackson had a responsibility to be true to the standard.

Subsequent posts on "the magic" and "willing suspension of disbelief" bring to mind what may be objective distinctions between the book and movie, something to which I need give more thought: with "magic", are we talking perhaps about those old "mythic unities" that are all over the book but not in the movie? And with willing suspension of disbelief, Tolkien posited a higher level, which he called "secondary belief". I think these two concepts may bear upon this larger discussion.

By the way, I have no problem with this thread detouring onto bigger topics, so long as the original is considered to have been more or less resolved, and these new detours arise naturally from discussion of the initial topic.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

Is it truly "willing?" I can never remember ever sitting, either in the theater or at home with a book, saying to myself, "Oh, this Balrog thing is going to take some belief suspension." alatar assumes the lotus position..."Hmmm. Hmmm. Balrogs exist. Balrogs exist..."

Whether Jackson or Tolkien, I think that when they're at their best, you don't even have to try to suspend belief. That, to me, is why LotR is so good, and why PJ really scored with Gollum.

A good belt of sub-creation beats suspenders any day, hey?