Sure, they gave it a good review. But few put it on their list of “10 Best”.
Almost no critic' s "Best films of the last decade" lists have any of the LOTR trilogy movies - Why?
I’m just going to say it like this:
I’ve been to few other films, before or since, during which the audience actually CHEERED at any point.
That has to be worth something.
Anyway, the whole original post has pretty much been invalidated at this point, since it’s clear that a number of critics DID in fact put LOTR in their top 10 in some fashion. If some didn’t, so what? I doubt you’ll find many films that made EVERYONE’S top ten. And I bet that if you do find one, I probably hated it, so…
Watched TRotK (director’s cut) last night. As I said, I appreciate the phenomenal achievement that making these films represents. But as a HUGE fan of the books, it really surprises me how much these visually gorgeous films underwhelm me. I think the non-Tolkein fan might be at a considerable advantage re: the films, as they don’t have to complain about how their favorite bits are represented, or what was added or deleted. (I guess my main objections were to the expanded Arwen, and playing Gimli - one of my fave characters - for comic relief.)
I stand by my previous opinion that no one of the 3 films were “great” on their own. But if they are to be considered as a trilogy, then definitely, they belong on the short list of the decade’s best.
That also happened in The Empire Strikes Back, when R2D2 finally gets the hyperdrive fixed just in time to leap to lightspeed. I also saw cheering in a Dirty Harry movie, when he gets his big gun out of storage. 
There’s another factor that may or may not play into people’s reactions to these films: the immense anticipation. Ralph Bakshi aside (please), the books remained among the most beloved works of art that had not yet been turned into mainstream movies. For most of my life they were THE great unfilmed, and supposedly unfilmable, project-that-never-was.
When I heard about the start of Jackson’s project, a wild spike of adrenaline went through me. I struggled to suppress it and to lower my expectations, or at least keep them in line.
When I finally saw the first pre-release trailer in a theater, it was a surprise – I hadn’t realized they were so close to release. My immediate emotional reaction wasn’t wonder, wanting to see the movie, or even impatience – it was a wave of enormous, almost bittersweet relief and even nostalgia. I felt as if the end of a long campaign was at last in sight – a little like I imagine the survivors of a long, grueling war feel when they see the white flag rise from the opposing lines. My God, is it really happening?
That powerful sense of AT LAST getting to see the great, unfilmable movie, not to mention the cornerstone of modern fantasy, probably colored the opinions of everyone in my generation, and maybe a few generations on either side of me, for good or ill. This was a project like no other. Avatar may be a great movie – it could even be a better movie – but nobody grew up waiting 50 years to see Avatar.
As an aside: I’ve never understood why The Wizard of Oz is so highly rated. Why?
First, that has already been debunked.
But your original comment was this:
[quote-DrDeth}Many are pretentious snobs. They pretend they hate any popular film.[/quote]
That’s not what you’re saying now. I want you to back up the original statement: that critics who hate any popular film. Which critics do you mean? Name some names.
As for LOTR, they were definitely good films, but I wouldn’t have put any of them on my top ten list, either. But I don’t hate them, nor do I hate popular films just because they’re popular. Neither do critics.
So, either put up or shut up: which critics did you mean in your statement that critics are pretentious snobs and pretend to hate any popular film? Name some names. Otherwise, you’re just blowing smoke.
It has? What % have put in on their list of 10 best for the decade? The debunking was that a few critics put in on their list.
Next- that’s my opinion. How does one “prove” a critic is a pretentious snob- other than by the mere fact they are a critic?
:dubious: “It stinks!”
There’s “That’s my opinion” and then there’s “I’m talking out of my ass.” Essentially, you’re claiming that they don’t really dislike them for the reasons that they state, but just automatically have a kneejerk reaction against popular films just to be automatically contrary.
So if you have some evidence to support this “opinion” (groundless out-the-butt speculation) beyond “Because I thinks it”, then let’s hear it.
You are looking at an old list.
If you look at the 100 Years, 100 Movies 10th Anniversary Edition, you will find FotR at number 50.
DrDeth, even if you claim that the statement that film critics are pretentious snobs is just an opinion and that you can’t defend it, presumably you arrived at this opinion by reading some particular critics. Name them. Presumably you arrived at this opinion by reading their reviews of particular movies. Name the movies. Or are you claiming that you don’t remember the particular critics or the particular movies that they were reviewing, but you know that sometime somewhere you read a review of some movie by some critic that you thought was pretentious? Can you understand that when you admit that your opinions are based on such tenuous facts as this that we’re not very impressed by your opinions?
As I was standing in line to see Fellowship of the Ring the day it opened, if you had asked me to name everything I knew about The Lord of the Rings I would have been able to name a few characters, Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, but only because of cultural osmosis. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you who or what they were. I’d heard the term “Hobbit” but had no idea what one was. I’m sure I could have said that it was written by a guy named “Tolkien” though I probably wouldn’t have spelled the name correctly. The plot? I had no idea. Some guys have to go somewhere to get a ring for some reason or another?
In other words, I was just on the verge of being totally ignorant. Ignorant about LOTR, and ignorant about the movie(s). I had not read any articles/reviews about the movie(s). I had not seen any clips or previews. I knew it was happening, and I knew that a 20 minute clip had gotten a good reception at Cannes many months earlier, and I knew that there were 2 other movies to come. That’s about it. I would’ve drawn a complete blank on the terms Gollum, Mordor, Galadriel, Arwen, Aragorn, orcs, Sauron, Saruman, Pippen, Merry, Legolas, Shire, Rivendell, Gimli, everything.
I was a blank slate.
Why was I there? I was a Peter Jackson fan. I would have been there for any movie he did. The fact that it was LOTR didn’t factor into it. I thought it was a shame that this thing took him out of the market for so many years but I wasn’t interested in reading about what he was doing. I just wanted him to hurry up and get it all over with so he could go back to making movies like Heavenly Creatures.
Two minutes into the movie I was hooked, HARD. By the end of the movie I was dancing on air, tingling with the excitement of just having seen a brilliant classic, and would have immediately gotten back into line to see it again if the next showings weren’t sold out. It immediately entered my all time favorite list and has stayed there with no regrets.
I saw it again within a week (I ended up seeing it something like 24 times during its theatrical run) and loved it even more. I didn’t understand half of what was going on that first time but it didn’t matter. Instead of being put off I scoured the internet looking for every single thread I could find, immediately stopped reading the ones at LOTR/Tolkien newsgroups/fan sites, and came to appreciate LOTR fans who were patient and clear about explaining things. This place and Home Theater Forum were the best I found with threads clarifying interesting information without old-timers being too assholish to us newbies.
No thanks to LOTR fans who loved the books but hated the movies (which almost put me off the books before I swore off fan sites), within a month I had read all 4 books (starting with The Hobbit). I read them again 3 months later.
Needless to say, a prior reading of the books was not necessary for my enjoyment. After reading the books my enjoyment deepened, but that first time was magical for me without knowing a thing going in.
Because watching some hairy footed midgets walk for 9 hours isn’t that compelling. Gollum stole the entire series, which I don’t think was supposed to happen.
Thanks for the perspective – kinda proves my point, though. As I suspected, the movie was difficult for you to understand on its own. I appreciate that you took the time to scour the internet to get up to speed, and I appreciate that the movie is well done enough to capture your interest/enjoyment and make you want to figure it out. If nothing else, I’m glad the movies were made if only to have inspired another generation to read the books.
But doesn’t it say something that the movie by itself was incomprehensible to you without outside research? I can’t think of another movie that requires such outside knowledge to make sense of it. This was my suspicion, that if you hadn’t read the books, the movie would be difficult to understand on its own, that’s all.
I think the films’ box office numbers give the lie to that idea. Surely only a tiny percentage of the hordes had actually read the books. Yet they were clearly “getting” the movies. (Myself included, as I had not read the books beforehand, and still haven’t.)
I saw TTT first, without seeing FotR, having never read the books, knowing nothing about them, and having a general dislike for fantasy. Friends took me. I had no trouble “getting” the movie or figuring out the backstory. I enjoyed it immensely, despite having been plopped down literally in the middle. Of course, many more things made sense once I actually saw all three parts. I’m sort of astonished people had trouble following it.
Again, you keep saying this, and the evidence just doesn’t prove it. If it was as incomprehensible as you claim, it would not have taken in the kind of money it did, nor won all sorts of critical and popular acclaim. I knew nothing about the plot of LOTR before seeing the film, except for the little I remembered from the animated “Hobbit” that I had seen when a kid. And yet the films were not confusing at all. I’m a little perplexed at how you can even say that most people would have trouble following it. Honestly it’s a bit weird how you’re trying so hard to retroactively prove that people didn’t *really *like the films.
Wow – way to misinterpret!!
I said that IT SEEMED TO ME that it would be hard to understand if you hadn’t read the books. People I have talked to have bourne out this theaory. One guy here said “no, I got it fine” and so I replied “thanks for the persepective – I thought it might be harder.” Then someone else took that quote and basically laid out how he enjoyed the movie, but didn’t get it at all and needed plenty of outside research. So then I reitereated my point that that’s what I thought might happen. I was asking HIM if it says something about the movie TO HIM if he couldn’t understand it without outside research.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever claimed other people didn’t actually like it. That’s you putting words in my posts. It seems to me that you’re the one being overly sensitive about any criticism or differing opinion of the flick(s). Enjoyment is one thing, but 'best ever" in moviemaking is something else. The point of the thread is why isn’t it on more Top Ten lists, and I have speculated that maybe while the film is enjoyable from an epic standpoint (cinematography, scope, battle scenes, etc), maybe (just maybe) it doesn’t have the lasting power of other movies is because the storytelling is either a) disjointed and/or b)dependant on understanding the books.
I get that tons of people enjoyed them and they made lots of money. There are parts that I enjoy as well. Nowhere have I said that that’s not true. I am merely trying to potenially answer the OP query, and one possible angle was that the movies, while enjoyable, weren’t fully understandable without knowledge of the books. At least one person here responded in a way that, to me, bears out that supposition, so what’s the big deal?