Almost no critic' s "Best films of the last decade" lists have any of the LOTR trilogy movies - Why?

Cafe Society
21

I wonder how many of the folk who expressed appreciation for TTT had not read the books and had not seen TFotR.

I didn’t see the 2d or 3d film in the theater and don’t remember how much of a review of past events they began with. But the director’s cut I watched yesterday started with some old guy in a dress falling into a chasm with some firey monster (and why did it have wings?;)), then cut to 2 little guys walking around in some barren land, and then cut to a group of ugly guys running along carrying 2 other little guys.

And then when I got up to speed, it seemed to just end in the middle of a whole bunch of story lines…

That’s basically what I was saying. I think the cards are heavily stacked against most sequels or middle films in trilogies to be considered great on their own.

22

No, I understand what you’re saying. TTT is my least favorite of the three. I just don’t think that not reading the book beforehand really made *that *much difference to most people in general, since it was such a well-reviewed & popular film.

23

But there are many lists where it isn’t.

For example AFI (American Film Institute’s) 100 Greatest List doesn’t have any LOTR films.

The AFI first 10 of the 100 movies “selected by AFI’s blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community” looks like this:

[ol]
[li]CITIZEN KANE (1941)[/li][li]CASABLANCA (1942)[/li][li]GODFATHER, THE (1972)[/li][li]GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)[/li][li]LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)[/li][li]WIZARD OF OZ, THE (1939)[/li][li]GRADUATE, THE (1967)[/li][li]ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)[/li][li]SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993)[/li][li]SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952)[/li][/ol]

But as I’ve said earlier, notice that key AFI’s key phrase: “selected by AFI’s blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community” — when today’s teenagers get older and they themselves become part of the “1,500 leaders of American movie community”, the LOTR will magically start appearing on AFI’s list. It may eventually happen; it just takes 30 years.

24

That is a list of all-time best movies, not best of the decade–the most recent movie on there is Fargo, from 1996, so they don’t think ANY movie from the past decade makes the cut–yet.

Both *Star Wars *and *Raiders of the Lost Ark *are on that list, so it is not limited to pretentious art-house crap, btw.

25

Nice try. I notice that you left out the part of the quote where I admitted it was pure speculation on my part based only on personal observations. This means that I have had personal conversations with a few people about this and was then purely speculating that this could conceivably be one reason why the general public “polls” show higher respect for the LOTR movies than the critics, and/or doesn’t necessarily prove any general “Top Ten” love for the flicks, that’s all.

26

Excactly. Is it because AFI current members today haven’t seen the obviousness of LOTR’s magnificence? Or is it more likely that the membership of AFI hasn’t evolved to include it?

27

Ah yes, the old “I didn’t like it, so therefore those who do claim to like it are either a) idiots or b) lying just to sound cool / knowledgable / fill in the blank.”

Smart people can sincerely love stuff you hate.

The plural of anecdote yadda yadda (but that goes for the LOTR-haters too), but I never read any of the books and I freakin’ adored the trilogy. And I’m not a huge fantasy fan, either. TTT and ROTK were my favorites of the trio, too, though it’s a close call. Of course, they would probably be gibberish to anyone who hadn’t seen FOTR, but I can’t imagine there were that many viewers who joined the trilogy at movie #2.

Why should they be taken on their own? They’re a trilogy and as a body of work, they’ll probably be taken as a gestalt. An exciting, gorgeously filmed, sweeping, touching gestalt.

28

It was, however, considered one of the best films of the year; the original ad campaign for the film strongly stressed how much the critics were raving about it (tagline for one poster: “It’s Terrific!”).

But no reviewer is going to call any film one of the best ever made when it first comes out. That always takes time; reviewers can only say what was good or bad about the film as they see it.

29

So this is two people who took my post wrong, so let me clarify. I was simply giving a purely speculative response to the idea that because imdb and other general public polls had the movie rated higher, therefore the thinking that non-LOTR book readers wouldn’t like it must be wrong. I was trying to point out the general polls can be driven by other factors. I tried to be too cutesy with the post and so my intent was lost. Sorry.

This part intrigues me because I have suspected that if you didn’t read the books, you would be completely lost in the movie. It didn’t seem well cut to me from a storytelling standpoint, so I appreciate your perspective here.

This I agree with which is why I think only the third won Best Picture. The first two didn’t stand well enough on their own because they weren’t supposed to – they weren’t “stories” in and of themselves. The third movie won for all three in essence, because it completed the one long movie/story.

(btw, I agree with “gorgeously filmed” and “sweeping”, just not so much with “exciting” and “touching” :slight_smile: )

30

Which of those 10 movies would you call “pretentious art-house crap,” Reno Nevada? I’d say some are overrated, but art house they are most certainly not…

31

Pas de probleme, and thanks! The argument I was seeing in your post (erroneously, apparently) is an all-too-common one that really gets on my wick, so I’m glad I was wrong about your point.

I was a little unclear on certain points (as you can tell from the 500-post thread about my experiences as an LOTR virgin watching the films for the first time) but I think mostly it was from poor hearing on my part. It wasn’t enough to keep me from really really enjoying the hell out of the first film, so much so that I hurried onward to the second and third.

In fairness to Dinsdale’s point about understanding TTT after not having seen FOTR in a while, my experiences were with DVDs, which I rented fairly quickly (within a couple of weeks of one another). Whether I’d have understood or remembered what was going on in TTT if I’d actually had to wait a couple of years, I dunno. I think I would have, but I can’t honestly say for sure. Still, apparently enough people were still enamored of TTT that they went back for ROTK.

Not exciting? Really? Wow. I admit I’m not a big action-movie-goer, but the Battle of Helm’s Deep (TTT) and the, oh crap I can’t remember what the official name of the battle was in ROTK but the one with the Oliphants, were two of the most exciting action sequences I’ve ever seen.

And Sam, Pippin, Eowyn, Boromir, Faramir and especially Frodo’s arcs were highly moving to me. Gosh, how could one not be touched by Pippin’s song as Faramir et al. went into doomed battle? Actually, one of the most moving moments was pretty early on in FOTR, when Frodo volunteered to be Ring-Bearer and Gandalf silently reacted with a combo of affection, fear, resignation, and sorrow. (Damn that moment still gets to me, even just in memory: that one shot of McKellan’s expressive eyes told me almost everything I needed to know about Frodo’s upcoming journey.)

But I’m a softie, so there ya go. :slight_smile:

32

No worries – clearly I fired off the post without thinking thru the wording enough. Happens!!!

<skipped part of your post here>

I’ll admit that some of the battle scenes were well done, but in general the tone of the movie came off as forced rather than touching or even particularly exciting. A lot of it I felt was overacted and so I was like “I know I’m supposed to be moved by this scene because the look on so-and-so’s face is the one the acting teachers show you means anguish, but instead I just want to see more giant rocks smashing the towers…”

JMO, of course. I give the movies a A+ for effort, which alone puts them above average for Hollywood. But overall, they do nothing for me and if we’re talking about “all-time greats”, that has to include re-watch-ability, which these don’t have for me, as much as I love the cinematography.

My point was that when the awe of the filming and epic-ness of it wears off over time, it’s possible that the movie itself won’t hold up to “Best” lists and I was just offering that speculation as a possible bridge between the general public polls and the critics polls.

33

To add a data point, two very prominent critics, A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips of At the Movies, snubbed the LOTR trilogy in both of their Best of the Decade lists. Interestingly, when they discuss films that didn’t quite make the top ten, they talk about Pan’s Labyrinth, Cache, Capote and Borat, but don’t even mention LOTR.

I think the reason why LOTR isn’t making all the top ten lists is obvious: critics aren’t doing their jobs if they tell you what your favorite films are. Why should they lie and pretend to have been more enthused about these films than they really are? And I’d be disapponted if a critic had the same shitty taste in films as I do - I expect a critic to try to educate me a little on under-served films and different types of films than I’d normally watch. Why else read a top ten list?

34

None of those reasons are correct. It’s because that is the list that was created in 1998 for the AFI 100 Years 100 Movies CBS special. The updated list, released in 2007 **does **include “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” at #50. So, yes, LOTR is on the AFI all time best movies list. They also have it as their #2 fantasy film of all time.

35

I thought the list I linked was 2005.

Anyways, if fans are looking for LOTR to crack the AFI top-10 (not just top 100), just wait 30 years for today’s 12-year olds to dominate media discourse. It just takes time.

36

I still don’t get what you’re saying here. Are you saying that because todays 12-year olds think these movies are awesome, that when they become adults and are in charge of the lists, they will add these movies, remembering how much they dug them when they were 12? If that were the case, then the entire list would always be dominated by movies that appealed to 12 year olds, only 30 years hence, which is certainly not the case.

Or are you just saying that it takes time for movies to reach a stature of “Top ten ever” in anyone’s eyes?

37

I don’t think they will equate them with being 12 at all. That’s the magic of it. They just think the movie is wonderful period; it would be beyond human to admit the magic of the movie has something to do with being an impressionable teenager.

Well, don’t you find it strange that the top100 list is not equally distributed across all years or at least all decades? It is heavily skewed towards older movies. And the pont is that it’s skewed that way today – tomorrow’s, and next year’s, and next century’s list will look different with more new movies and less old ones.

38

Just came in here to mention that I’m an outlier: The Twin Towers is my favorite one of the trilogy.

Now, I hadn’t read the books beforehand (did later on), but I did see Fellowship before TTT. Honestly, I was underwhelmed by Fellowship, largely because its ending is so abrupt and flat in isolation. When you don’t know what’s coming next, it didn’t really leave me wanting more.

That said, after I saw TTT, I appreciated Fellowship FAR more than I first did, and now I actually quite like both. Fellowship still meanders, but TTT is more meaningful-- and I still feel that TTT is the most efficient and propulsive of the trilogy. Shit actually happens throughout the whole film.

Plus Helm’s Deep is the best action sequence in the trilogy :slight_smile:

Return of the King, alas, struck me as a mess then, and even more so today. Not only the multiple endings dig-- although that dig is entirely justifiable, the film never knew when to stop. No, it’s just too loud, too flashy, full of “stuff”. The characters stop being interesting and overstay their welcome, IMO. I still feel that ROTK’s Oscar win was a prize for the accomplishments of the trilogy as a whole, but I don’t think anyone would have argued it was a “Best Picture” quality film had the previous two installments not set it up so well.

BUT… Jackson deserved an Oscar for the accomplishment of the trilogy, I agree there.

As for hindsight… effects movies rarely age well (I can’t imagine Avatar will hold up in a year, let alone a decade, once other movies approach and surpass its technical achievements), so we’re left with the core elements of the movie: plot, characters, writing. In hindsight, the LOTR movies don’t appear as strong to me today as they did then.

39

Hmmmm … I do agree that older movies are favored, but not because those are movies that the list-makers liked when they were 12. I think older movies are favored because in order to make the list, the adults value movies that have stood the test of time and are also considered great movies now. Look at the current Top Ten – only WIzard of Oz and Singin in the Rain would appeal to 12 year olds. The others were likely not even seen by most until adulthood. But these movies make the Top Ten because they have stood the test of time and have held up favorably to movies that were made after.

Maybe we’re not saying things too differently – I just don’t see how 12 year olds liking a movie now will have any bearing on it making a list 30 years from now. If it did, then I’d expect the Top 100 to always be filled with 12-year-old friendly movies and it is anything but, for the most part. I think plenty of adults think the LOTR movies are wonderful now, too, but are adult enough to realize that they have to let time pass to see if the movies hold up to scrutiny and comparison and re-watch-ability over the long term. Otherwise, the Top 100 would be greatly skewed towards newer movies and turnover much more frequently.

40

I also think Two Towers is the best, but only the extended edition.