Okay, so what do you think NOW?

[Formendacil]

As this is unrelated to the previous post, I'm going to commit the (hopefully venial) sin of double-posting. After writing the former, narrowly interested reply to G55 and sassyfriend, and having a full day of "nothing" *coughs* before my fall semester commences on Thursday, I read back through the entire thread, and thought it was about time I replied. The truly amusing thing about this read was the fact that the early parts of this retrospective, from when it started in 2007, read to me almost exactly like debates from right when the movies were new. Apparently more than not-quite-four years needed to elapse after the theatrical release of RotK before fandom was ready to talk about them more dispassionately. In any case, the posts from 2010 onward read almost like a different thread...

For myself, I was a Tolkien fan before the movies came out. I first read The Hobbit at age 11 and the LotR followed almost immediately, with The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales right behind. I admit that these latter were a real slog for an 11-year-old, but by the time the movie-FotR was about to be released, I was not-quite-15, and had read all the HoME that I could find in the local library and had started the process of collecting them for myself.

Bearing this in mind, and remembering that I was 14-almost-15, it's not to be surprised that I *had* to see the movies when they came out. I don't think there was a bigger Tolkien nut in Small Town, Alberta at that point, and if there was, I would have been sulky about it. I distinctly remember the utter fear that the movie adaptation would *RUIN* my favourite obsession, and being completely torn between wanting it to be an utter, validating success, and wanting no one to go see it and ruin the exclusive hold to "expert" that I held over a wonderful world.

Of course, no one could be allowed to see it before I did, so I was there in line for the very first local showing, two hours in the cold of a Canadian December (mercifully clement for that land), and another hour waiting in the theatre, getting hyper on over-priced drinks and candy.

Almost ten years later, it's kind of funny to look back at how obsessively afraid I was that the movies would be utterly terrible--or worse, terrible AND popular. I'm still a Tolkien nut; still probably the biggest Tolkien nut in the circles I usually frequent (and these circles include more Tolkien nuts than they used to)... and I almost never think of the movies. At the time I was afraid they would change my mental pictures forever, afraid they would ruin my enjoyment forever... things have come a long way.

Of course, the past decade has also been the transition from being fourteen to being twenty-four, and it's eminently possible that I've grown up, and that that has made all the difference--and, to be sure, much of the mellowness I feel towards Jackson's movies has a lot to do with the fact that I am no longer a teenager (not to disparage teens, but it was true about ME, perhaps...).

At the same time, however, the passage of ten years has allowed the hype of the movies to have crested and ebbed. Quite apart from destroying fandom, the tidal wave of the movies dragged in all sorts of interesting flotsam and jetsam in terms of new fans, and in no way "destroyed" Middle-earth. There has not been, as I almost feared, a "novelisation of the movie" to supplant Tolkien's masterpiece.

Perhaps, after a decade, what I think now is that the movies were ultimately forgettable. I could (and do) go on a long tangent about the pros and cons of different parts of the movies, but the point at the very end would be the same: at the end of it all, I feel a lot more charitable to the movies than I feared before them (and, after the euphoria of just watching them, tended to feel bitterly for sometime thereafter), but they've lost their grip on me. The movies were a monumental explosion of light, but it was ultimately just a gigantic flash in the pan.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

The truly amusing thing about this read was the fact that the early parts of this retrospective, from when it started in 2007, read to me almost exactly like debates from right when the movies were new.

I remember the first debates with real nostalgia. That was a lot of fun.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I distinctly remember the utter fear that the movie adaptation would *RUIN* my favourite obsession, and being completely torn between wanting it to be an utter, validating success, and wanting no one to go see it and ruin the exclusive hold to "expert" that I held over a wonderful world.

And there, in a nutshell, are what it was claimed anyone against the movies must have based their feelings on. For me, at least, it wasn't quite like that.

I looked at the movies with a jaundiced eye from the start. That stemmed from a basic conviction that movies, as a whole, are an inferior form of entertainment compared to books. I wasn't enthused at all. I didn't think seeing someone else's vision of the books brought to "reality" was necessary. I knew nothing anyone could produce, no matter how expensively done, could surpass, or even augment, the scenes in my mind. So my thought was : "Why bother"?

Second, while I didn't fear the story would be "ruined", I was convinced fundamental things would be changed, and again, I had no interest in seeing that done.

Thirdly, I despised the inevitable commercialization that would follow the movies. McDonald's collectibles, action figures, and all that.

But, people said, the movies would have an upside, in that some who hadn't read the books would be induced to do so after seeing the movies. I was rather sceptical, even though I'm sure that has indeed been the case for a few. And another part of me railed that that would even be necessary. Such great books, and people won't pay any attention to them unless there's a Hollywood blockbuster associated? I thought that was a bloody shame, and I still do.

I've heard the arguments; books and movies are different, can't hold them to the same standards, one can enjoy both, ad infinitum. Personally, I'll take a book over a movie any time.

All that said, I did see the movies, sort of. My girlfriend, who later became my wife, wanted to see FOTR, so we did. I ended up sleeping through about a third of it, though a few pints of the local 1420 I'd had with dinner might have had something to do with that. I do remember seeing Arwen show up in place of Glorfindel, rolling my eyes at the exchanges between her and Aragorn, and the ludicrous alteration to the scene at the Ford of Bruinen. After that, it's sort of a blur.

We did see the other two movies as well. At this late date, however, I don't remember much about those excursions. I recall the bits in Two Towers with Arwen rescuing Aragorn who had fallen from his horse (), and the (Lórien!) elves showing up at Helm's Deep, and those are good enough examples of what I thought from the start the movies would be up to.

We now have all three on DVD, but I've never watched them all the way through. I start thinking "There has to be something better I can be doing", and I wander off.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Almost ten years later, it's kind of funny to look back at how obsessively afraid I was that the movies would be utterly terrible--or worse, terrible AND popular. I'm still a Tolkien nut; still probably the biggest Tolkien nut in the circles I usually frequent (and these circles include more Tolkien nuts than they used to)... and I almost never think of the movies. At the time I was afraid they would change my mental pictures forever, afraid they would ruin my enjoyment forever... things have come a long way.

I was never "afraid" of the movies; I just thought them unnecessary.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Perhaps, after a decade, what I think now is that the movies were ultimately forgettable. I could (and do) go on a long tangent about the pros and cons of different parts of the movies, but the point at the very end would be the same: at the end of it all, I feel a lot more charitable to the movies than I feared before them (and, after the euphoria of just watching them, tended to feel bitterly for sometime thereafter), but they've lost their grip on me. The movies were a monumental explosion of light, but it was ultimately just a gigantic flash in the pan.

"Forgettable", indeed. Yet, they certainly have their enduring fans, and in that PJ at least has been wildly successful. All I can do is quote Jean Brodie: "For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like."