There are three kinds of changes. Some are necessary compromises when moving from book to film. For example, if you tried to film LOTR word for word, it’d by 37 hours long so some cuts, bridges and plot changes are inevitable.
The second kind of change, though, is done for cynical demographic reasons. “Elves rock! They’re cool and sexy – chicks love 'em. We need more elves!” There are an unfortunate number of these in the first two films, including Arwen’s expanded role, but not an unforgivable number.
The third kind is where some creative hacks make gratutitous plot changes simply because they’re convinced that they could do it better than that old fart Tolkien. This kind of stuff is nothing more than glorified fanfic by people who are paid to know better. I haven’t seek ROTK yet, and probably won’t be able to for some time, so I don’t know how severely Jackson’s work is infected with this.
It’s these last two categories, especially the third, that annoy me, not just in Tolkien, but in general. FTR, I think this was just as unforgivable in the film adaptation of “The Grinch” as it would be if Jackson felt compelled to give LOTR a happy ending.
Oh, and gobear I won’t even touch your accusations regarding Tolkien’s “sloppy plotting,” but this,
Tolkien’s prose flows just fine, thank you (with a couple of exceptions) but Jackson’s efforts to mimic that prose are some of the most wince-inducing moments in the first two films.
No Jane Austen? Hell, Tolkien was no Stephen King!
:eek:!
As for the liberties needed to be taken with the PLAYS, not novels, RTF mentions as they move from the stage to the screen, they can be more subtle than what is needed to film a novel but changes are STILL needed because GOOD film is not just a filmed play. Hell’s bells, the Lumieres and Porter figured that out A HUNDRED YEARS AGO! A novel brought to the screen is a far more difficult proposition because they are not just dissimilar artforms, they are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT artforms.
Great rant, but, don’t be ‘dissin’ my man “The Sultan Of Swat”, you Jasoomian, you. Or I’ll be going upside your cranium with my londsword so fast even Ras Thavas couldn’t put you together again.
Yeah, the fact that he’s there for no better reason than comic relief is annoying. Wouldn’t have been much worse than if he had been played by Gary Coleman (“Whatchu talkin’ 'bout, Aragorn?”) or Fred Willard (“Hey, wha’ happened?”).
I also disliked this bit:
In the book, Frodo gets the ring. He babysits it for 17 years, then is visited by Gandalf. After an entire summer of hemming and hawing, he and Sam and Fatty (remember him?) leave. On their long trek, they meet Tom Bombadil, get lost in the Old Forest, get trapped in the barrow downs, deal with Farmer Maggot, and finally, 12765 adventures later, arrive at the very far away Bree. After reading all that, I needed a nap and a foot rub.
In the movie, Frodo gets the ring, and arrives in Bree 10 minutes later. He couldn’t have arrived sooner if he’d called a cab. The general hugeness of the journey was completely lost.
I have a ton of complaints like this, but the fact remains – The movies are an herculean feat, and I would challenge any director to do better.
Actually, by and large, he is. And in my opinion, justly so.
Much of the carping is, in addition, a form of praise - as in, “I am so angry about [some minor scene], I had to see the movie another five times to ensure that I honed my knowledge of all of its minutae exactly right - so I would know exactly what I was angry about!”.
If the movies were truly bad, no-one would be carping about minutae - they just wouldn’t be watching. I bet not many people even know that there was an animated version of ROTK, which was truly dreadful (memorable line: orcs singing “where there’s a whip, there’s a way!” ).
Big hugs o’ love coming at ya, gobear.
I just re-read the books, and I think it is a blessing that he left of Tom Bombadil. Gah - that is one annoying character.
And I always have to skim over the poems and songs, or my eyes blur. Sorry, but i’m really glad there’re not in the movie. I love hearing the Elvish language, but those endless poems are hard to take and slow things down.
Peter Jackson has done a magnificent thing. Just on the merits of the first film, Mr. singular bought me the Hobbit and the trilogy for Christmas last year, and ended up reading them himself before I could get to them. This is a man who wouldn’t even read them as a teenager even though it meant he’d probably get laid, so you know he had a serious Middle Earth aversion (mostly from hippie girls that insist they have elves in their backyards).
Well, one of the reasons folks take the effort to bitch about the movies is because they’re such a good treatment. It’s a form of flattery. For example, I’d never waste my time explaining what I didn’t like about the animated LOTR, because it’s mostly obvious and it would take to much effort to seriously consider the artistic quality. (To be honest, I did enjoy it in a cheesy way).
While I thought they LOTR were great, and I’m looking forward to the next one, there are some thinks I just don’t like about 'em. The music, for one. I’m disappointed that, after the incredible and detailed visual treatment, they put a lame-ass soundtrack that might as well have been from “Last of the Mohicans” ('tho it had a bit more Enya). It would never bother me if I weren’t so impressed with the rest of the movie.
Tonight at 9PM, on the WB network - Lord of the Rings, the series. Rosie Cotton has a crush on Frodo, which gets Samwise so upset he uses the Ring to disappear and mope. Grishnak wonders if he’s getting fat. Frodo: Ashton Kucher
The books were long, boring hunks of description of random objects and plot that didn’ t matter. And the fucking singing, Christ, every other page was someone bellowing about something. I slogged through all three of em, but don’t plan to do so again. [Homer]BOR-ING![/Homer]
The movies are exciting, fun to watch, and breathtaking and tell the story JRRT buried under all that crap. The movies can’t compete with the books, they lower 16" guns and blow the books out of the water.
