Fanboys, shut the hell up about LOTR!

The BBQ Pit
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** Advisory: This rant is NOT addressed to all LOTR or fantasy and SF fans, but to the drooling fanboys who will not shut up about elves at Helm’s Deep, powered armor in Starship Troopers and Greedo shooting first.**

OK, full disclosure: I have loved * Lord of the Rings* since I first discovered the novels when I was 11, own both extended edition DVDs of the first two installments, and am eager to see ROTK (if I can ever get a ticket).

But for the love of Iluvatar, stop badmouthing Peter Jackson! He took an extremely long, 3-volume novel with archaic dialogue, deadly slow pace, and sloppy plotting and made a film trilogy that have become modern classics. Yes, Arwen’s role was expanded, yes, there are elves at Helm’s Deep, and you know what? Those were GOOD CHANGES! What you Comic Book Guy soundalikes need to realize is that what (barely) works on the page does not necessarily translate to the screen, so some modifications are necessary. The Arwen scenes are necessary to give Aragorn an inner life and provide a character conflict that requires resolution that reflects the wider theme of no gain without sacrifice. Having elves at Helm’s Deep touches back on the alliance between men and elves that was broken by Isildur in FOTR. It’s a touching moment that again reinforces the overarching themes of the films.

What really gravels me is that Peter Jackson, the writers, the cast, and the crew gave us luminously beautiful films that are landmarks of the cinema of the fantastic, and all you nerds can do is piss and moan that the films are not slavish copies of the books. You know what ? That’s GOOD! Tolkien tried to copy the feel of the Anglo-Saxon sagas like Beowulf, but the result was clunky, affected, and awkward prose. Jane Austen, he wasn’t. Peter Jackson, Phillipa Boyens, and Fran Walsh (Mrs. Jackson) cleaned up the clumsiness of Tolkien’s words while retaining the ancient, noble feel of the languages of Middle Earth. He could have let New Line just give us the theatrical versions with their substandard extras, but he instead created magnificent DVD box sets with reference-quality video and sound, packed with hours of detailed information on the making of the films.

How about some gratitude to Jackson, not only for directing films that have defeated previous generations of directors, but for cobbling together the DVD extended editions that are touchstones for what DVDs ought to be?

And, please, read something other than comic book and Star Trek novels! Maybe you guys should pick up Beowulf (the Seamus Heaney translation is very readable) or Njal’s Saga, or maybe listen to Wagner’s Ring cycle to get an idea of Tolkien’s influences. Possibly, you might check out the works of Tolkien’s friends, Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis, to get an idea of the intellectual milieu in which Tolkien wrote. Maybe if some of you mewling idiots had some idea of the heroic tradition in medieval European literature, you might have a greater pool of knowledge so that you can write better reviews of LOTR than “Dudes, Aragon roxxors, but 2 much Arwen!”

So, in other words, stop yer bitching and be thankful the films exist at all. (And if any of you talk during ROTK, prepare to get fed to an orc!)

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Worst. Pitting. Ever.:wink:

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Stick it to fan boys!

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You tell 'em.

And if the audience I saw ROTK with is to be judged by, people WILL be quiet during it – there was one quiet point in the movie where you could have heard a pin drop; nobody made a SOUND.

I’m going to try to get through the books again, but I’ve only pulled that off once. The movies KICK ASS. They work as movies. I strongly suspect a lot of the stuff the fanboys are whining about wouldn’t WORK on film – you can’t tell a story the same way on film as you can on paper. Duh.

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gobear, I heart you.

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I was ready to come in here and lambast you for badmouthing LoTR, to find that I mostly agree with you.

Mostly. I think most modifications they made were good and necessary. But I sure as heck would not say that Tolkien’s prose was “clunky, affected, awkward” or clumsy. He was a magnificent writer, but in a significantly different way than we are used to today is all.

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Not on your life.

I’m sorry you don’t like the novel. Millions of us love it so much that we re-read it every few years.

He uses archaic forms of speech because it’s set in a medieval-style world. Seems appropriate. The pace is perfect for his medium. I was 13 when I first read LOTR, and I could barely set the book down. I’ve experienced few such dizzying reads in my life. Again, sorry you had a different experience. Sucks to be you, I guess. And I sure missed the sloppy plotting - every time I’ve read it.

Yes and no. Expanding Arwen’s role is fine; the Elves at Helm’s Deep basically tosses out the 45-minute intro at the beginning of FOTR, if you didn’t notice. You don’t want to be consistent with the book, that’s one thing. You don’t want to be self-consistent, that’s a problem, period.

My gripe is this: if you’re writing from the perspective of not liking LOTR in the first place, wouldn’t it have been better for Peter Jackson to adapt some other fantasy work to the screen?? There are loads of 'em out there. Guys like Piers Anthony and Terry Brooks mass-produce them.

Here’s the deal:

  1. I like the book. There are millions out there who are in my corner, that far.
  2. I don’t know how much of a ‘classic’ a book or play needs to be, before it becomes bad form to do a complete rewrite in bringing it to the screen. But I expect that if a director did the same amount of adding his own material in, if he was bringing a Tennessee Williams or Eugene O’Neill play to the screen, there would be similar howls - only they wouldn’t be from Comic Book Guys, but rather from the sort of people you’d take seriously.

Damned if I know why this isn’t the case here. I can see the need to abbreviate, and to be ruthless in cutting out subplots, because it is a long novel. It’s the adds that drive me up the wall. The monster in Moria (before the Balrog). Aragorn getting lost midway in the second movie. Sam’s putrid motivational speech in the ruins of Osgiliath. Good stuff is being cut to add in stuff that adds nothing of consequence.

Nah, what it is is unbelievable, simultaneously in the context of Tolkien’s world and in the context of Jackson’s, for two entirely different reasons. In Tolkien’s, because the Last Alliance was the last because of the dimunition of Elf-kind in Middle Earth. In Jackson’s, because the High Snooty Elves - Elrond, Galadriel, etc. - were the sort to only lay burdens on others, without lifting a finger to help out themselves.

Gotta run, I’ll finish Pitting you later. Thanks for starting the thread.

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…but am I allowed to bitch at how Aragorn sounds like the only character who actually speaks Elvish? Everyone else sounds like they’re reading it off cue cards phoenetically, but it seems to flow fluently from Aragorn’s tongue. And he’s the only one for whom it’s not a first language.

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Well fucking said that man.

The elves were great at Helms Deep. More Liv is always a good thing. The movies are great. The books are great. It’s all fucking great. Some people will never be happy. If your not happy with the way PJ has done well then read the book again. He hasn’t changed them.

I realise that there are major changes from the book but imagine what could have been done to it. The Lord of the Rings: A Chris Columbus production :eek:

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I for one could sit and listen to Aragorn speak Elvish/Elvin/whatever all day long. swoon.

Of course I could sit and listen to him read the phone book and be just as content.

Pssst…nobody tell Sauron though. :wink:

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::: applauds Gobear :::

Please see my post in the “Would you have put Elves at Helm’s Deep for $150 million?” thread over in Café Society, wich argues your points in pretty nearly the same language.

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Uh, the watcher in the water? The cave troll? Those were in the book.

But the troll battle was far too long, IMO. I got the feeling that Jackson was just showing off.

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I totally agree with you. I love the books but they’re longwinded and hard to follow. The movies are excellent. The parts that needed to be followed exactly were done perfectly.
My only gripe is that Jackson didn’t do The Hobbit too.

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I agree with gobear and also yojimbo on this one, it seems some people are not happy until they are moaning about something and pointing out the errors and minor plot changes, I sort of get the impression it becomes a competition amongst ‘fanboys’ (as you call them, never heard it before!) to show off how intimatley they know the book. It annoys me more because this film is done absolutley superbley - I don’t think you realise how lucky we are, it could (and in most other directors hands would) have been utter shit.

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Oh, the irony! :smiley:

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You have to realize that the fanboys are running out of stuff to talk about with LOTR. The books have been out fifty years. There aren’t many new theories. And every one already has a web page supporting it or destroying it.

Luckily, the movies provide new and fresh material to endlessly debate. Anything Jackson had done would have gotten this treatment. It didn’t matter how well he did it. So let them have their fun. They need something.

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I think he is.

One complaint I have is that the whole Bill Ferny plot was missing, and I hear tell that the whole Sharkey plot will be missing as well.

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TDN: I’d be so happy if he is. It’s my favorite book.
I don’t think anyone actually wants my opinion though since I actually missed Tom Bombadil.

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Good thing that I never said that. Apparently you missed the second paragraph. “OK, full disclosure: I have loved Lord of the Rings since I first discovered the novels when I was 11, own both extended edition DVDs of the first two installments, and am eager to see ROTK (if I can ever get a ticket).”

So you can shut yer noise about me not liking the books, which, isnce you keep repeating that canard, seem to invaldiate your post. I love the books, repeat, I love the books, but I also have an ear for good English prose, and Tolkien was not a great stylist.

Well, golly, I guess I had better return my undergrad in medieval history, then, hadn’t I? His poetry is execrably bad, and his prose is clumsy, dry, and faux-archaic, on a level with Edgar Rice Burrough’s high-flown “Barsoomian.” It’s still entertaining, but like Burroughs and Lovecraft, it’s the tale, not the language, that enthralls.

I’ll post some excerpts to explain what I mean after I get home.

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I am eternally grateful to PJ for sharing his vision of LOTR with us. It’s a classic, I’m seeing ROTK in a few hours, I own the DVDs of the first two (theater and EE) and will happily watch them over and over. I give PJ a 9.98 of 10 for his accomplishment.

I am not a Tolkien purist. I consider myself an amateur (and inferior) student of his works. This includes my having read HOMES 3 times, along with associated bios, & commentaries by others.

I am ok with the movies not following the book slavishly, and I am ok with the idea that my interpretation of certain scenes in LOTR is not universal; that others can get other interpretations of them, and even create new scenes to try to re-inforce said interpretation. I can and have even enjoyed exploring those other interpretations, and have re-examined and changed some of my own beliefs about the significance of certain episodes and passages as a result.

In short, PJ’s work has enhanced my enjoyment of JRRT’s work tremendously by shaking up my point of view, and opening me to new ideas. I have nothing but gratitude and high esteem for him!

[sub]elves out of helms deep[/sub]

That is all.