Hobbit Trailer looks crap

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

But I shall enjoy Tauriel. After all, she hasn't edited one word of the book.

There's the key! If PJ had simply written his own Tolkien-like "homage" screenplay and made up his own characters, there'd be no issues.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Michael Murry

Personally, I will wait for the Rotten Tomatoes film reviews and discussion on this forum before I will even consider watching another three-hour-third of a two-hour movie. As the old saying goes: "You can always tell the pioneers. They're the ones with the arrows sticking out of their backs." Not me. Not this time.

*Sigh!* Your old saying is no more true than most old sayings.

Rotten Tomatoes gives very high ratings to the three Lord of the Rings films:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_...p_of_the_ring/ 92% to 93% (audience 92%)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_...he_two_towers/ 96% to 100% (audience 92%)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_...n_of_the_king/ 94% to 96% (audience 84%)

So your seeing The Lord of the Rings films indicates you were not a non-pioneer, but just another dull norm, save that apparently you did not like those three films. But now you will then take Rotten Tomatoes as your guide in deciding whether to see The Hobbit, which admittedly got a much lower rating.

My own favourite film is currently Whisper of the Heart:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/whisper-of-the-heart/ 90% (audience 88%)

But tastes do differ. And I am not prepared to substitute Rotten Tomatoes or any website for my personal taste, nor to insist that my own taste is invariably better. I usually more-or-less agree with Rotten Tomatoes, but only more-or-less. It is interesting to sometimes look up film titles there and compare my ratings with that of the critics and the general audience, and sometimes to be amazed at the difference of the three.

I agree in this case, in respect to your own taste, you may be wise not to see The Hobbit films. However, remember that J. R. R. Tolkien had very idiosyncratic tastes.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

There's the key! If PJ had simply written his own Tolkien-like "homage" screenplay and made up his own characters, there'd be no issues.

Hardly so! I feel that had PJ had done so, there would be those screaming that PJ is an idiot who does not understand Tolkien and those screeing at everything that PJ put on the screen.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Hardly so! I feel that had PJ had done so, there would be those screaming that PJ is an idiot who does not understand Tolkien and those screeing at everything that PJ put on the screen.

And is there reason to not do that now?

I was mainly being facetious there, but I do indeed wish that PJ and co. had chosen some other books for their treatment.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

And is there reason to not do that now?

My point is that it is being done now.

There are the cute and seemingly brainless screeers at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151697149436171 and in this thread a wet blanket who tries to look like some sort of rebel by substituting consensus at Rotten Tomatoes for his own taste.

To quote from another fantasy writer: “Dullness will conquer dullness: and it will not matter.”

There is always reason, it seems to me, to avoid being either a brainless screeer or an inveterate wet blanket.

[Morthoron]

A wet blanket or brainless scree
Are not the sort of folk for me.
But they are certainly better
than an inveterate blanket wetter.

[jallanite]

Here is an essay on films based on previous works, in this case mostly on comic books and TV shows. Rilstone’s conclusion seem to me to be very relevant to Tolkien films. He actually starts talking about his feelings about a new actor playing Doctor Who in place of Matt Smith but then goes somewhere else.

Go to http://www.andrewrilstone.com/search...max-results=10 .

Then search on Hello, I Must Be Going .

Faith that the film is going to be a magnificent version of the previous work, exactly as we imagine it.

Revulsion when news comes out about what the film-makers are going to actually do with their source, or on seeing the completed film.

Retrenchment to the opinion that no-one who knows anything ever expected a purist film and all that matters is whether the film is good on its own terms.

Rilstone does not mention that many fans do not jump to the Retrenchment stage, but remain revolted. That may be because the film is so bad that most cannot now support it, even though they would like to.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Rilstone does not mention that many fans do not jump to the Retrenchment stage, but remain revolted. That may be because the film is so bad that most cannot now support it, even though they would like to.

I wonder if that's something which becomes truer as we get older. I was barely a teenager when the films of The Lord of the Rings were coming out, and the revival of Doctor Who only followed that by a few years. At the time, I enjoyed both. Now, I despise both - I'm not sure whether I detest modern Doctor Who more than the films of The Lord of the Rings; they're both, in my opinion, cynical and fatuous exploitations of classic pieces of genre culture (the original series of Star Trek is a more recent victim of the same disease). I am, however, willing to admit that once upon a time I did have positive feelings about these things.

To be fair, I do actually like Matt Smith's first series of Doctor Who, although the rest was a let down, Eccleston was forgettable and Tennant awful. Like the films of The Lord of the Rings, I don't understand why modern Doctor Who is popular, or at least I can't enjoy the things that their supporters do enjoy about them. Simultaneously I can at least attest that the films of The Lord of the Rings are not purely contemptible - the plot certainly could have been much less faithful (although that is surely the definition of damning with faint praise) and a few of the performances are quite admirable, doing the best they can with the butchered dialogue and simplistic direction they are given.

The "judge the film on its own terms" thing just doesn't make sense to me, incidentally. It's an adaptation - surely its 'terms' include a conversation with the source material, and whether or not the changes were necessary or successful. It is my personal conviction that a reasonably faithful adaptation of the book, omitting where necessary but not changing much, similarly to the 1981 radio series, would be a far, far better work as a film than anything produced thus far. Suggestions that the changes are necessary 'for modern audiences' and so on are only predicated, in my opinion, on the commonplace delusion that 'cinema' and 'Hollywood' are identical concepts.