The Public Opinion Soapbox

Torgo · Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject: Lord of the Rings movies

Tragic twisting of a classic literature beloved by millions, or visual masterpiece updated for a new generation of potential fans?

Discuss!
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"The Master would not approve..."

cookieclaygirl · Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 2136 Location: shippensburg

liv tyler bugged me in that movie. i routed all my bio breaks around her scenes.

overall good. i'd like to see the hobbit made (fruition! lovely)....however books are better (aren't they always)

however, eye candy aragorn made me happy. *drool*

probably eventually a classic, imo....however not to the 'ben hur' or 'citizen kane' lvl....

.45chel · Joined: 26 Oct 2007 Posts: 3043 Location: Chambersburg

I have all the animated movies...I like the Hobbit the best, but the soundtracks all pretty muche svcked.
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Nevermind.

cookieclaygirl · Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 2136 Location: shippensburg

i used to have those too!

(now HE has them... grr.....)

Torgo · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:31 pm Post subject:

*comforts cookie

Anyway, I guess it goes without saying I consider the movies a base distillation of books. I started reading them when I was 10, and probably have gone through the trilogy (and related backstory mythology) a dozen times or more.

Took a college English course on them (plus C.S. Lewis) and consider them my favorite piece of fiction.

And I know filmmakers face constraints boiling down even the most shallow of adaptations. But it's not the omissions I mind, so much as the ego-driven "improvements" inserted by Jackson and his co-writing wife that really get me going.

I suppose if someone totally unfamiliar with the mythos decides to read the books after seeing the movie, that's a positive thing. But really, how often does that happen? "Sheesh, I just sat through 8 hours of video, I think I got the gist of it." No, you didn't.

And just through informal polling of my friends, I can relate that many more called it a day after seeing the movies than actually sat down with the books and formed their own imaginative rendering of Middle Earth. And even for those who do read them after seeing the movie, for how many will the Shire - all the locations, really - forever look to them the way Jackson depicted it?

Ultimately, they're good movies. But they do the legacy a huge disservice.
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"The Master would not approve..."

cookieclaygirl · Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 2136 Location: shippensburg

Torgo · Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:42 pm Post subject:

I'm shamed to admit it, but I haven't read that book in 25 years or more. I can't even remember the story.

*double-take

Hey cookie, we're dueling posts here... Why ain't ya in game yet? LOL

*fidgets

I'm heading there myself in about 10 minutes...
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"The Master would not approve..."

Doctor Kird Ape · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:14 am Post subject:

I am an odd ball. I will watch a movie and then read the book. Its like a DVD extra plus. (Not to be confused with Milk plus)

Torgo you really hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that the images from movies would alter your perception when reading the books. Its true when I read the books I could only see what was conjured in the movies.

I really did enjoy that trilogy, but scheanigans should be called about the incomplete films that screened as opposed to the less incomplete special edition DVDs.
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The Anti-Life Equation= Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self-worth / Mockery / Condemnation / Misunderstanding x Guiltx Shame x Failure x Judgment; N=Y Where Y=Hope and N=Folly, Love = Lies, Life = Death, Self = Dark Side

Torgo · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 1:01 pm Post subject:

The mega-huge DVDs were an improvement.

But additional narrative detail does nothing to address bigger flaws involving the insertion of a certain minor character into places she never should be in a half-arsed attempt to bring a bit of Hollywood romance to a classical romance beloved mostly by geeks who DO NOT get off on Hollywood romance.

The movies are already too damn long. Just tell the story. Edit, but don't make stuff up in an ego-driven attempt to improve the original, and perhaps still the most amazing, fantasy epic on the planet.

You're not qualified, PJ.
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"The Master would not approve..."

cookieclaygirl · Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Posts: 2136 Location: shippensburg

i'm a reader then a watcher. it's usually much better in my head. great imagination. hehe...my strider was better tho the movie's version wasn't bad either....lol....

Doctor Kird Ape · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject:

I am just glad that they got rid of Pete Townshend as Aragorn...or was that another Townshend?
_________________
The Anti-Life Equation= Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self-worth / Mockery / Condemnation / Misunderstanding x Guiltx Shame x Failure x Judgment; N=Y Where Y=Hope and N=Folly, Love = Lies, Life = Death, Self = Dark Side

Torgo · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 6:38 pm Post subject:

Now, see, if they'd cast old Pete as Saruman, that fight atop the tower would have taken on an entirely new dimension. He'd have gone after that fop Gandalf with a broken bottle.

In fact, just imagining all Saruman's lines in a drunken Cockney accent makes the enterprise almost palatable.

The should have stocked the cast with rock stars and made it into a very strange revision of "Tommy." I mean, imagine Daltry as a hobbit! Priceless!
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"The Master would not approve..."

Doctor Kird Ape · Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 8:29 pm Post subject:

New topic soon: Casting LOTR...ROCK STYLE!
_________________
The Anti-Life Equation= Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self-worth / Mockery / Condemnation / Misunderstanding x Guiltx Shame x Failure x Judgment; N=Y Where Y=Hope and N=Folly, Love = Lies, Life = Death, Self = Dark Side