In reading various LOTR threads etc. online I see there’s still a lot of disappointed bellyaching from a number of hardcore LOTR fans about how awful or lame they thought Peter Jackson’s films were re his interpretation of the LOTR trilogy.
I ask these critics, let’s pretend you are in change and have the same resources available to Jackson, what would *you *have done that would have made them better films?
I apologise in advance for responding to this thread as a non-critic.
I am about to say something that might get my head bitten off by hardcore LOTR fans…
Jackson took an extremely dull, tedious and long-winded story and made it entertaining, fantastic, and moving
I would change nothing.
I know several people who are in the “I don’t like the films” camp. Their response is not that the films should have been made differently, but that they should not have been made at all. They argue that the books are best left to the realm of the imagination.
I loved the films but the answer to this one is obvious: they would have done everything exactly as it was in the books.
This was my criticism of the two Discworld TV films. They didn’t live up to my imagination at all. So I can understand it being a valid argument for those who love the books. But for me it doesn’t apply in this case. PJ ‘imagined’ it better than I possibly could have in my head. The way I imagined it uses a few of the words from my spoiler box above.
I know people who are massive fans of the books (read them like twenty times) and loved the films.
Loved the movies, but I didn’t see why Faramir had to be such a dick.
Arwen in gossamer.
A lot of little things that seemed like B-movie cheesiness. Two instances where special effects were unnecessarily used: Galadriel’s monologue about what would be the results of her taking the Ring; and Bilbo’s trying to snatch it from Frodo. In both cases, Jackson should have trusted the world-famous actors he was using instead of trying to force it with visual effects.
Could Ian Holm have made people shit their pants?
Edit: I believe it was discussed in the making-of DVDs whether to use effects in that scene, and it was decided the effect wasn’t the same with just Ian Holm doing it without effects. It took you by surprise.
I definitely agree with this.
I don’t think Jackson needed to invent that whole “Aragorn is dead! Whoops, I guess he isn’t!” tangent in the second movie. Total waste of screen time.
I think the movie made Denethor a little too crazy. He should have been without hope because Boromir had died and he looked into the palantir and thought all was lost, but the movie was just too over the top here. Especially the human torch scene (although it did make a cool visual effects shot).
The Paths of the Dead and the ghost army was a little too deus ex machina for me - I think you can show that the Army of the Dead saved the day but drag it out a little more. In the movie they basically just quickly flew across the field and the battle was over in about 20 seconds. Making the ghosts still invincible but still having to physically fight the orcs more would still have been dramatic but not as anticlimactic.
Just off the top of my head:
-Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn. His whiny, nasal voice alone made my eyes ache. Who instead? No clue.
-Sean Bean as Boromir. This is a personal thing, I admit, but I cannot abide Sean Bean, never could abide him, thought he sucked mightily in Sharpe’s Rifles and its series.
-Too much of that bloody troll in the Mines of Moria. It was dreadful SFX, I think Ray Harryhausen could have done better and he would not have insisted on wasting 4 hours of the movie on it. Oh, it wasn’t 4 hours? It only felt like 4 hours? Who could tell?
-The Wizard’s duel. I know they had to show some kind of combat, and I guess a chess game wouldn’t do, but again, it went on too long. Yawn.
-The geezer that played Theoden. Horrible. The whole “exorcism of Theoden” stank.
-Denethor doing the dive, en flambe. Almost everything about Denethor. Stank.
-Faramir? Don’t get me started on Faramir.
-I can’t say how I feel about the horses coming down the slope at Helm’s Deep. As a former rider, I could say plenty. Stupid, that’s about it.
-far, far, far, far, far, too much SFX. far, far, far, far, far, too many cheap cliches. Is there ONE PJ didn’t use? I doubt it.
I know, I know. You want to know what I would have done differently. I would have shortened all the battle scenes, first off. I would have stopped making Gimli the Goof, the mandatory stupid sidekick. I would have had Eowyn say what she said in the book instead of sounding like Helen Reddy.
Lord, lord. I have to stop. I’m in the middle of making dinner and stuff is going to burn.
This is complicated for me. I don’t hate the movies but they drive me a bit crazy and some decisions Jackson made I do hate.
They could not make the movie I would want to watch. It would have to be a combined HBO/BBC massive miniseries. It would have to have the much of the near perfect visualizations of Middle Earth itself that Jackson did capture but wargs would need to look like wargs not hyenas. Trolls would need to be better done and while lines and some scenes could be dropped they could not be added.
I think Jackson was a genius and he made three amazing movies. He got a lot from the actors; some of them are not even very good actors. However he casted the worst two in the film for Elrond and Arwen. Liv Tyler was well suited to the very small part Arwen plays in the book but Jackson foolishly expanded her role and thus deleted Glorfindel from the tale. The surfboarding scene at Helm’s Deep was simply shameful of course though I know why he did it. Aragorn falling over the cliff was a major WTF moment. Denethor and Faramir were both made cartoonish.
etc, etc., etc.
Then there were scenes like the beacon fires being lit that put tears in my eyes and caught my breath. Rowing down the Anduin and coming to the Argonathwhich was right out of my own mind’s eye.
So the movies were both incredible and disturbing to me.
Stop reading my mind!
Also… he removed the childish tone of Tolkiens novels (especially FOTR) and got rid of the interminably dull Tom Bombadil segment.
Big thing for me? They totally fucked up Gimli’s character. Outside of Sam, I liked Gimli best–especially the bit in Lothlorian where he asks Galadrial for a lock of her hair and makes a comment that now that he’s seen her, diamonds won’t shine as brightly*. He’s NOT a buffoon.
I wasn’t thrilled with his Legolas either.
That said, the first movie was near-perfect for me-if the second and third hadn’t become CGIfests, they would have been much improved.
*Yeah, I’ve made a beautiful passage into a cheesy pick-up line. I can’t remember the actual wording.
You should try using that and report back to us.
If there’s a Mrs. Fenris, I’m sure she’d give you a hall pass for doing research…
Again, I didn’t hate the movies, but I would have filmed the Scouring. It does make it into less of an epic series, but that’s exactly the point, to show both that there are small struggles with petty evil in addition to sweeping battles between mighty forces and that the struggle ever goes on.
I would have bought more LOTR stuff if they would have filmed it, so I guess that counts. If I hadn’t read the books the question of what happened to Saruman would have been unsatisfying to me.
There is a minor point also in that the Shire is shown basically unchanged from the time the Hobbits left, which is okay I guess since it is Jackson’s work and thus a slightly different universe, but I also think the Scouring would have been way cool, and a much more satisfying ending for the minor hobbits.
Ah yes, I was annoyed by the elimination of the Scouring, but even more so at not making it possible as elision. Sam didn’t get his box of soil, so the Scouring couldn’t have happened, and Saruman’s end as a withered, powerless schemer compared to Frodo’s increased stature was a powerful theme in the book. Gimli shouldn’t have been as comedic. The path of the dead should have been shorter and had fewer skulls. I would have preferred Denethor being clearly tied to the Palantir rather than just nutters. And Aragorn over the cliff sucked.
That being said, I don’t hate the movies, I quite like them. However, I cringe at those points.
The fact that Arwen didn’t simply appear out of nowhere (as in the books) was an improvement, for instance.
I have to agree that Denethor the Human Torch was rather silly. I mean, nobody could even survive long enough to run all that way while on fire.
In the book, Denethor threw himself defiantly into the flames as an act of pure spite; he’d rather be a barbecue entree than submit to the rule of Aragorn. And when he did, he grasped the palantir, so that anyone who looked into it afterward only saw “two aged hands withering in flame.” Now that would have worth seeing.
Unless he had a great strength of will.
The casting… the less said about it the better. IMO it was a big mistake to cast so many well known actors. It is simply impossible not to see Elrond as Agent Smith with big ears, for example.
And of course, they all compete in a grand game of Who Can Chew The Most Scenery. RRrrrun, you foooools ! A swooooord day, a rrrred day ! It’s quite puzzling that BRIAN BLESSED wasn’t involved in it at all, come to think about it. He’d have been the perfect Jackson Theoden 
You can say that again. And again. He’s a badass for Og’s sake, not comic relief.
Same here (then again, I’m elfophobic in the first place :)). Still, surfing on a shield ? Jumping on the back of a troll to triple-shoot ? Puh-lease :rolleyes:. In my mind’s eye, he’s supposed to be elvishly perfect, cool and collected under fire, all samurai-like. Dodge a blade by moving a hair breadth to the left, that kind of thing. On the other hand, there are some details that were absolutely awesome, like the fact that his feet don’t sink in Carhadras’ snow while everyone else is slogging through hip-deep. That was a nice touch.
I also second the omission of the Scouring as a major flaw. Without it, the end becomes “There, Ring thrown, all evil magically vanishes !”, which is even more deus ex machinish than the original, quite a feat.
I’m ambivalent about the CGI. Yes, the Army of the Dead was incredibly bad (and reminded me of Scooby Doo), but Gollum was damn near perfect.