You get an A for effort, Equipoise, BUT posting a complete transript of the remarks of an author who works at a competitor of the Chicago Reader. Hmm . . .
I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.
“gentle fable”???
I admit it; I just can’t see why some of you are complaining.
You guys liked the movie, Roger Ebert also liked the movie so what exactly is the problem?
Ok, so I suppose most of you most prefer the action scenes and the serious characters like Aragorn. Roger Ebert on the other hand, seems to prefer the more whimsical elements of the books such as the poetry, the songs, and characters such as Tom Bombadil.
It seems to me that both sides are represented in the books, and I think it is COMPLETELY unwarranted to direct personal insults at him just because he likes one aspect while you like another!
I dislike this apparently deliberate, and hypocritical, misunderstanding of Tolkien and the critics’ impugning Peter Jackson on that basis. Remember that Ebert’s only one example of the trend cited by the OP.
Film criticism should incorporate a lot more than just “thumbs up/thumbs down”. If that criticism is wrong, and the critic is a dunderhead (even if he ultimately approves of the movie in question), we have a duty to point it out.
To be fair, I changed my mind a little on Ebert after seeing his televised comments. He seemed more positive then than in his written remarks.
“Positive” meaning he didn’t play up his supposed artistic grievances with the director quite so much. I still had a feeling, though, that he simply disliked the movies underlying message of a stark black and white division between good and evil. It looked as if he would still like to defend his own shades of grey and paisley, can’t-we-all-just-get-along philosophy partly inspired by his personal interpretation of Tolkien back in the 60s. So he did the best he could in objecting that what he saw on the screen wasn’t the “real” Tolkien, despite the inherent logical fallacies that even he must be aware of.
Josh, you’re missing the point. Ebert’s main criticism of the movie is that it’s not faithful to the book. He hasn’t read the book. We have, and he is dead wrong. Completely, totally wrong. Most of the things he complains about are directly from the book. It’s violent, it’s intense, it’s dark, it spends at least as much time on Aragorn as it does on Frodo: these are all things that PJ got right.
Competitor? The Sun-Times costs 35 cents, the Reader is free. How is it a competitor?
In any case, I apologise. I had transcribed it for another forum and just threw it in here without thinking. I should have just posted the relevant portion (“gentle fable”).
Pardons.
The book The Two Towers had heaps of dead bodies too great for burning, after the battle at Helm’s Deep, Gimli decapitating orcs, and the archers filling the dike with dead from arrow fire, as the Horsemasters rode down over their enemies.
That’s the “gentle fable” from which this movie was drawn.
People were tortured for decades under the evil arts of Barad Dur, and the centuries long suffering of elves in the first age are meticulously told in poetry, in this same mythos. The fans of Tolkein’s “gentle fable” are quite familiar with characters standing in the midst of battle, crying out in their passion as they slay all the enemy that are within the reach of their weapons. “Day will come again!” And these are the good guys.
Ebert is wearing a fools costume, when he wraps himself in some robe of pseudo pacifistic sadness for the loss of an innocence he made up in his own head. When you dress as a fool, people point at you and laugh. He has no valid complaint. Review the movie, and pan it if you wish, but don’t claim that it was not an accurate reflection to the book, in some aspect where it was entirely accurate, when in fact there are aspects which were not followed as scrupulously as some might wish. The man pretends to put forth a solemn judgment he obviously just made up. Pardon me, if it makes me doubt his integrity.
I happen to think that the movies are good, and the differences are simply matters of choice, in a case where some changes must be made. Jackson made his choices, and a lot of people think it works. I would have made different choices. Ebert would have made up a new book, and based it on that, out of respect for the author.
Tolkein’s gentle fable, my ass. Here’s another digit, Ebert, to go along with your ill informed thumb’s up.
Tris
I’ve done my griping (in the Pit) about reviewers that know nothing about the books, so…
Nah, it’s that goddam’ Zeppelin’s fault.
Yep, “The Two Towers” movie is not just a violent movie, it’s actually “WAR PROPAGANDA”.
:rolleyes:[sup]–Scintillating commentary, as always. Thank you, NY Times…[/sup]
Ah, yes, the battle at Helm’s Deep. So whimsical! So charming! And all that about the bog filled with the faces of the dead. Remembering that scene warms my heart to this day.
Well, while I don’t agree with Ebert’s criticisms completely, I have read the Two Towers and I do think they have some merit. Yes, the book is violent and intense, but it is also filled with lighter whimsical elements, (ie, songs and such) which the movie ignores almost completely. There was another thread on this board about whether or not Tolkien would have approved of the movies or not, and many people (more knowledgeable on the subject than I) have argued that he would not because of these changes in emphasis.
Anyway, my chief complaint is that instead of just stating their arguments, some people have chosen to slander and direct personal attacks (ie, “fucking baby boomers”, “Ebert is a moron”, accusing him of drug use, etc). It seems to me that these sorts of comments, in addition to being incredibly rude (can you imagine insulting a person like that offline just because they didn’t like a movie as much as you think they should?) add nothing insightful to an argument, and should be left in the pit.
It seems to me that just because a person has achieved some degree of fame, it is not suddenly acceptable to attack this person over something so trivial as to the degree to which they enjoyed a movie. Disagreeing with Ebert is fine by me, but can’t we at least be civil about it?
Ya still don’t get it, joshmaker. It’s not a matter of “the degree to which they enjoyed a movie”. Ebert could have been twirling in the aisle, bouncing up and down with glee over this movie, and it still wouldn’t have made his comments on the book vs. the movie any less a crock of bull****. And as stated in the OP and elsewhere in the thread, Ebert is only the most prominent example of this kind of criticism–criticism which reflects deeper social and philosophical differences that makes my remark about baby boomers relevant, not just a cheap shot.
While I think Ebert is wrong, I can definitely see where he’s coming from. Certainlly Jackson has played up certain elements and moved the focus to the battle scenes. The change of hero from Frodo to Aragorn is pretty noticable, as well.
I don’t see a change in focus. Compare books three and four of LotR (the two books that comprise The Two Towers). Frodo’s a putz wandering around doing nothing, Sam is the only useful character in book four (and his big scenes are put off until Return of the King), while over in book three Aragorn is starting to dominate the action. The biggest complaint one might have regarding that is that Merry and Pippen didn’t get as much screen time, but then again they’re only in three chapters of that and most of two of those were presented with the third, once again, put off until RotK. Books three and five of LotR’s are very much Aragorn’s story and the Appendix when integrated with the storyline makes it more so.
One can make a reasonable complaint that the hobbit-centric portions were put off for later, but that’s not a real deviation from the book since they’re still going to be there it’s just not until RotK.
And FWIW, I’m very hesitant about calling Frodo the “hero” of LotR anyway. Even among the hobbits there’s a much better canidate for the person who did the real work in keeping the quest going.
I agree with joshmaker, and Ebert. Loved the movie, but it is missing the whimsical, gentle side that the book has. To some extent, this is fine with me, I never cared much for the extensive songs that appear in the book.
Most of the arguments against Ebert here are complete strawmen. He never claimed that violence and action did not exist in the book. He just said it’s focus is different, and that’s clearly true, since the movie has much more action proportionally then the book.
If you ask me, the only person who could adapt the book perfectly was Sergio Leone, and he’s dead. Peter Jackson is the next best guy.
Well, there are two reasons for the personal attacks:
- This is the internet, where any discussion is at most 3 messages away from a personal attack. (By the way, I think that anybody who says The Lord of the Rings is “whimsical” has to be a Nazi like Adolf Hitler!!!)
- Ebert’s review strays out of the realm of simple difference-of-opinion and into pure arrogance. He says he’s not a “professional” Tolkien fan, whatever that means, and only mentions seeing the first movie as his “research.” But then goes on to say that it’s not faithful to the book. It doesn’t matter whether the review overall is a positive one; he undermines the movie (implying that it’s been dumbed down and actioned up for modern attention-deficient audiences) with an argument that he simply fails to support. He comes across as faulting the movie for not being true to a book that – for all we know; he never says – he’s never even read.
It’s not “clearly true” that the focus is different. The book does not have one hero or even one protagonist; Tolkien regularly switches between Frodo and Sam, Aragorn and Gimli, Merry and Pippin and Gandalf, throughout the second half. Even the titles talk about “Fellowships” and “The King”; this isn’t “The Hobbit.”
And my memory of reading the book for the first time many years ago is of an interminable middle part that nearly kept me from finishing the book – I remember The Two Towers as being a jumbled mess of character names, overwrought detailed logistical descriptions of huge battle scenes, and plodding chapters of miserable hobbits wandering through a bleak wasteland. (I enjoyed it more the second time I read it.) I’ll concede that the movie might devote more screen time to the battle for Helm’s Deep than the book does, but the important point is that it’s not at the expense of anything in the book. All of the important scenes from the book – the journey through the bog with the faces of the dead, the Nazgul, Sam & Frodo’s hopelessness, their growing friendship, the power and weight of the Ring over Frodo, Gollum’s split personality, Frodo’s betrayal of Gollum – are all there.
The only reason I’m belaboring the point is because these arguments do a great disservice to the filmmakers. They’ve done an astounding job of interpreting the book, which is more important (and more difficult) than just staying faithful to it. Look at the Harry Potter movies – they’re big-budget, effects-heavy epics that are slavishly faithful to the source material, and they’re perfectly competent but completely soulless.
Jackson et. al. don’t just show scenes from the books, but they “get” why the scenes have weight in the first place. They show the scale of the forces against Helm’s Deep and why the battle seems hopeless, and then show the scale of Smeagol’s “argument” with Gollum and why that’s just as important. They show what it would be like for Sam to see an “Oliphant” for the first time, and show what it would be like for Frodo to be worn down by the weight of the ring. Ebert’s review makes the movie sound like Michael Bay’s Lord of the Rings, when in fact the movie has weight and depth and an amazing use of effects shots to show the emotion and meaning of what’s going on instead of just using them for spectacle. What’s more, the movie has a thematic consistency that is hard to find in the books – all the subplots are tied together with the theme of characters fighting on in the face of hopelessness.
But after seeing the movie finally, my biggest beef with Ebert’s review and the messages on here is that they’ve missed the humor in the movie. It’s identifiable as Peter Jackson’s sense of humor, but at the same time is all from the source material. (Except for the running dwarf-tossing gag, which I’ll excuse.) So it never feels dated and stuffy, and also never feels like it’s being ironic or making fun of the book in an attempt to be hip and edgy. Again, it just seems like a movie made by people who get what’s cool about the book. Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn trade jabs with each other. Merry, Pippin, and Treebeard are all basically comic characters who are forced to defend their homes; they’re not just comic relief. Gollum is at the same time pathetic, menacing, and very funny.
So I guess I never saw The Lord of the Rings as being light-hearted and whimsical, but as “fantastic.” The songs in the book aren’t just interludes, but are songs of battle. And even the gentlest of characters are forced into the fight against evil. The movies, so far, have captured that perfectly.
Pardon if these views have already been presented (I didn’t read all the responses) but I think this mistake about LOTR comes from Tolkien’s language. I mean, you look at how he was writing the books and you see an immense amount of work and research put in from all his linguistic roots and knowledge–this makes the style of the books incredibly epic, but in an almost archaic sense of the word.
I think when people hear “EPIC” now, they don’t think Beowulf, they think Star Wars. That’s the difference–Tolkien wrote LOTR with the beautifully (but sometimes misleadingly) heightened language of the real epics: So this means that you get “And Aragorn cleft in twain the helms of twenty orcs” instead of “And Aragorn chopped twenty orcs’ heads in half and the blood flew everywhere!” Obviously when you translate “cleaving in twain” and “smoting mightily” to the screen, there’s gonna be gore.
So in essence I think PJ is being yet truer to the books by honestly keeping the epic sense of battle and violence the way Tolkien wrote it. It may sound fancy, but when it comes down to it, there’s a lot of blood flying.