Sad or Elated now the Movies are at an End?

[Snowdog]

Having been quite a rabid fan looking forward to Fellowship coming out in 2001, I have with each movie reduced expectations. That said, the pinnacle for me was in December 2003 when I watched for the 1st time the extended editions of FotR & TT, and the first showing of RotK all in one go. After that, my interest waned.

As the years passed, I steadily lost interest with each attempt at watching the EE DVDs until I had for the most part forgotten about them. Book reading had regained its prominence with me as far as Middle Earth went.

Then these Hobbit films came along. They were but for a couple brilliant moments, udder rubbish. I think I only paid to see one of them once, whereas I went to see Fellowship several times when it came out. The sheer obviating that PJ did with the Hobbit is absolutely sickening. They did make the earlier three movies look better, but that was about it. I am quite elated that it is done.

[Inziladun]

I still haven't seen any of the TH films, but my feeling regarding them being done is without doubt positive.

From what I can tell, the LOTR movies were at least passable as adaptations in some isolated moments, despite my overall disdain for them. I do credit them also with introducing to Tolkien a new generation who might otherwise have had no encounter with the man's works in any form, and some of them were moved to get the books.

With The Hobbit though, PJ seems to have gone into CGI/slapstick/pleasethemasseswhocaresaboutthebookfans overdrive. Whatever restraint he had in the first trilogy is long gone, perhaps motivated by his previous successes with shield-surfer Legolas, a Merry and Pippin who made me think of another famous duo, and a beefed up part for a "modern" Arwen, who can motivate her man to walk the Paths of the Dead, and still save his bedraggled rear when he's lost and hurt in the wilds of Rohan.

Like I said, I'm not overly fond of PJ's LOTR project, but what I've read here and other places just makes TH look like everything that stuck on my craw from LOTR got blown up like the Deeping Wall, and thrown in my face like a slap from Sméagol's nice fishess.

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

With The Hobbit though, PJ seems to have gone into CGI/slapstick/pleasethemasseswhocaresaboutthebookfans overdrive. Whatever restraint he had in the first trilogy is long gone

Yes, I agree. This was shown to us in the way PJ showed himself in Bree with his carrot. In LotR, he was subdued and benign, whereas in TH, he looks at the camera and takes an angry, 'up yours book fans' bite and walks off. The outside possibility that the movies may bomb was not a concern in the making of TH, whereas it was in the making of LotR.

[Faramir Jones]

I'm neither sad nor elated. I'm relieved that the mess of The Hobbit films is over, and am hoping that in the future, perhaps when I'm still around, others will make a better job of things.

At least I'm spared the bad fanfiction of Tauriel, and the 'romance' between her and Kili. I have to single out these three bits that made (and still make) me cringe:

One:

Kili: Aren't you going to search me? I could have anything down my trousers.

Tauriel: Or nothing.

Two:

Kili: Tauriel...

Tauriel: Lie still.

Kili: You cannot be her. She is far away. She... she is far, far away from me. She walks in starlight in another world. It was just a dream. Do you think she could have loved me?

Three:

Tauriel: [weeps for Kili] If this is love, I don't want it. Take it away, please! Why does it hurt so much?

Thranduil: [sadly] Because it was real.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

I'm neither sad nor elated. I'm relieved that the mess of The Hobbit films is over, and am hoping that in the future, perhaps when I'm still around, others will make a better job of things.

At least I'm spared the bad fanfiction of Tauriel, and the 'romance' between her and Kili. I have to single out these three bits that made (and still make) me cringe:

One:

Kili: Aren't you going to search me? I could have anything down my trousers.

Tauriel: Or nothing.

Two:

Kili: Tauriel...

Tauriel: Lie still.

Kili: You cannot be her. She is far away. She... she is far, far away from me. She walks in starlight in another world. It was just a dream. Do you think she could have loved me?

Three:

Tauriel: [weeps for Kili] If this is love, I don't want it. Take it away, please! Why does it hurt so much?

Thranduil: [sadly] Because it was real.

The delicate, sensitive flower that I am, I found the intrusion of fan-fiction Mary-Sue Tauriel to be appalling enough, but the whole ill-advised dwarf-elf love story was just so over-the-top (capped as it was by Thrandy's "Because it was real" line - perhaps one of the top ten worst lines in cinema history!) that I had to laugh. It was just so ridiculous!

And the cappers kept on coming, because then Thrandy told Legolas to go look for the Dunedain, Aragorn, who at that time was, what, 10 or 11 years-old? Yes, Elrond needs a babysitter when he goes out on Saturday night.

[Michael Murry]

In reply to Faramir Jones and Morthoron: I covered these ridiculous "love story" plot points in comment number 95 on page three of the "Battle of the 5+ Armies" thread, I called the posting "Unrequited Elf/Dward Libido" and included in it my final poem of the Elf Chick Security Guard cycle of verse polemics which I hope someday to publish as a single collection. An idea this bad -- and this badly bungled -- ought not to pass unheralded, since it can always serve as a cautionary tale for those interested in not screwing up film adapations of literary works.

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...7&postcount=95

[mhagain]

Likewise relieved.

I watched all three movies with grim fascination as they gradually got worse and worse, continually astonished at how on earth PJ was going to top each moment of slapstick in the next one, then groaning at how he actually did.

CJRT was right: the story was gutted, eviscerated, what came out at the end was something that bore a superficial resemblance to the books in that a group of Dwarves and a Hobbit went on a quest and some of the same stuff happened, but mostly seemed designed to set up special moves and set-pieces in tie-in computer games.

PJ's biggest failing was to not trust his source material and not trust his viewers. A good movie (or even extend it to two) could have been made out of the book, and could have remained relatively faithful, but still raked in the $$$$. If I wanted to watch Avengers on speed I'd go watch Avengers on speed, but not everything has to be that.

I had bad feelings when the development team first discussed the character of Tauriel and said that they weren't going to do anything that wasn't true to Tolkien. Of course that's exactly what they then went and did.

I have no idea how this happened. I said Avengers on speed above, but maybe the Star Wars Holiday Special on crack is another appropriate comparison. Take a much-loved work, camp it up in a totally inappropriate way that shows lack of understanding, even disrespect, for the original, then foist it on an unsuspecting public. At least George Lucas showed some decency.

Maybe it was the lack of trust I mentioned, maybe it was the rumoured executive meddling, maybe it was just totally misunderstanding the source material, or maybe it was plain old-fashioned hubris on the part of PJ & co. Maybe it was all four.

Either way, thank the Valar it's almost over. All that remains is to see how badly they mess things up even more in the EE, then we can hopefully shut the door on these movies and wait for them to be resoundingly trounced in the inevitable 5/10 year retrospectives.