[Spoilers] Rings of Power 4: The Battle for Middle-Earth begins

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

6 hours ago, IFR said:

. 

I hate The Wizard of Oz (the movie, not the books). A bit of a non sequitur, but there's joy in letting people know this.

Why ?

[IFR]

5 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Why ?

The same reason people have been ranting about the LOTR movies. Book purist reasons.

On top of that, I don't like that it is a musical (I have the same problem with most Les Miserables adaptations).

I think the acting is bad, the special effects are too campy (and not in a charming way). The saccharine ersatz wholesome tone is irritating.

I will admit, there was a single great joke in the movie - when Scarecrow gets a brain and then misstates the Pythagorean theorem. Funny. Other than that, the movie is an ordeal.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

21 minutes ago, IFR said:

The same reason people have been ranting about the LOTR movies. Book purist reasons.

On top of that, I don't like that it is a musical (I have the same problem with most Les Miserables adaptations).

I think the acting is bad, the special effects are too campy (and not in a charming way). The saccharine ersatz wholesome tone is irritating.

 

Isnt this an issue with all Brothers Grimm adaptations that Disney does as well? That they are much less dark than the source material....I think you can diverge and still be good, same with the Willy Wonka 1972 film. 

[Le Cygne]

On 12/25/2023 at 7:46 AM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

There is an outline of the events of the second age.  All they had to do was flesh that out like “House of the Dragon” is fleshing out the events of Fire and Blood. Instead they go with fanfiction.  Will Gandalf… who shouldn’t arrive for another thousand years… start whipping out magic the gathering cards to cast spells next?

Yes, it could have been much better. There was the outline as well as many references within LOTR (Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragorn, and others talked about the second age).

Given the choice of listening to the master storyteller or flying by the seat of their pants, they chose the latter.

(Also the same for the Hobbit movies, I kept thinking, you had a perfectly fine story! What is this mess? The simplicity of The Hobbit was its charm. Tolkien knew what he was doing.)

Edited January 3 by Le Cygne

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

29 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

Yes, it could have been much better. There was the outline as well as many references within LOTR (Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragorn, and others talked about the second age).

Given the choice of listening to the master storyteller or flying by the seat of their pants, they chose the latter.

(Also the same for the Hobbit movies, I kept thinking, you had a perfectly fine story! What is this mess? The simplicity of The Hobbit was its charm. Tolkien knew what he was doing.)

I really don’t understand why they’re craming thousands of years of story into only a few years?

[polishgenius]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I really don’t understand why they’re craming thousands of years of story into only a few years?

 

 

Because they're stupid. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

23 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

Because they're stupid. 

Here’s the thing.  I don’t think they are “stupid” they must have a business or narrative rationale for the time compression.

[Le Cygne]

33 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I really don’t understand why they’re craming thousands of years of story into only a few years?

It narrows the scope of what should be an epic story. Cramming it in makes it seem small, like a momentary spat. And they didn't just cram it, they changed the very nature of it, so it doesn't make sense even as a momentary spat.

Something that bugs me about LOTR is that he didn't include the Houses of Healing scene with Faramir and Eowyn in the theatrical version. It's the resolution for two main characters! Scrap a couple minutes of endless orc closeups and there's time.

Do the changes, or added stuff, or omitted stuff take away from the beauty of the story the author told? If so, reconsider. Find room for what matters, and don't stray from the original story when it's well-loved for many years.

Edited January 3 by Le Cygne

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

19 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

It narrows the scope of what should be an epic story. Cramming it in makes it seem small, like a momentary spat. And they didn't just cram it, they changed the very nature of it, so it doesn't make sense even as a momentary spat.

Something that bugs me about LOTR is that he didn't include the Houses of Healing scene with Faramir and Eowyn in the theatrical version. It's the resolution for two main characters! Scrap a couple minutes of endless orc closeups and there's time.

Do the changes, or added stuff, or omitted stuff take away from the beauty of the story the author told? If so, reconsider. Find room for what matters, and don't stray from the original story when it's well-loved for many years.

Does anyone know why Jackson changed the nature of the “Pelennor Fields” (barren wasteland rather than covered with small farms that feed Minas Tirith) and scrapped the existence of the Ramas Echor (the wall around the Pelennor Fields)?  

Edited January 3 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Ran]

Speaking of The Hobbit, I've heard that there are some fan edits that chop the three films in like half their length, and attempt to be much closer to the book. Wonder if anyone has seen them? One's called the M4 Edit, another is the Tolkien edit, another still is The Battle of the Five Edits... Hmm!

@Ser Scot A Ellison

I feel like the big focus on the siege of Minas Tirith, and really simplifying Faramir's story, made them focus time and VFX budget on that part of things, hence they dropped the Rammas Echor.

Edited January 3 by Ran

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

I feel like the big focus on the siege of Minas Tirith, and really simplifying Faramir's story, made them focus time and VFX budget on that part of things, hence they dropped the Rammas Echor.

And turned a cold but rational decision to reinforce the Rammas with Faramir in command to a suicidal horse charge in broad daylight into the fortified ruins of Osgiliath.

[Slurktan]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

And turned a cold but rational decision to reinforce the Rammas with Faramir in command to a suicidal horse charge in broad daylight into the fortified ruins of Osgiliath.

Well that is incredibly stupid plotting but also understandable from a filmmaking perspective.  To do what you want, they'd have to have a seen setting up what the rammas is, then have a scene of Faramir agreeing to go defend, then a scene of Faramir going but Gandalf asking him not to, then him actually going, then the scene which is in the movie of Gandalf rescuing them coming back.  They compressed into Faramir agreeing to go attack something the audience knows, riding out and charging idiotically, then scene of Gandalf rescuing.

[IFR]

2 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Isnt this an issue with all Brothers Grimm adaptations that Disney does as well? That they are much less dark than the source material....I think you can diverge and still be good, same with the Willy Wonka 1972 film. 

Absolutely. I'm not a purist simply by convention. I applaud change when it's clever and well thought out. I simply feel that the Oz movie fails spectacularly at this. The book is by no means a work of genius, but it's substantially better than the movie.

Changes can work though. I like both Jurassic Park the book and the movie, and they are quite different. Same with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner. The sequel is even better, and that's a wholly original extension to the world. Villeneuve's Dune is a great adaptation of the book (so far), despite the changes (and sometimes because of the changes).

Oppenheimer the movie is structurally very different from the book and that was a case where both forms are perfect for their respective format (though I did dislike the minor changes in the movie from the book, particularly Einstein's role). The Godfather is an excellent adaptation, although mostly in how it abridges content (otherwise a lot of it is verbatim from the book).

There are lots of examples of good adaptations where many changes were made. (Speaking of which, Adaptation is a great adaptation of The Orchid Thief, though it's very different from the book.)

It's all preference, of course, but such is mine.

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Here’s the thing.  I don’t think they are “stupid” they must have a business or narrative rationale for the time compression.

They wanted to imitate GoT (and it's success) while adhering to what executives thinks that the public expects from Lord of the Rings.

[Ser Drewy]

Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw thinks Amazon are making a S2 to 'save face': https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-business/hollywood-2023-year-in-review

Quote

While Apple hasn’t focused on cost cutting, Amazon has been under pressure to do so, and “are being judicious about what they do, in shifting their strategy,” Shaw says. 

That’s because while its Prime Video Thursday Night Football has done well, shows like Reacher, which is very popular – as are Bosch and Jack Ryan – Amazon has also wasted a lot of money.  

Ben Affleck’s $90 million movie Air was a financial flop for Amazon. Its $120 million, 3-year deal with Fleabag actress Phoebe-Waller Bridge to create new smash hits for the studio hasn’t come to fruition. Masters penned down in April how Amazon’s bet on shows like Daisy Jones and the Six and Citadel were hampered by the studio’s “lack of vision” for its streaming service. Citadel cost Amazon about $50 million per episode. “Citadel was just a bonfire of money,” Masters points out. “They reshot. They recut, and they renewed it.” 

And Jeff Bezos’ biggest bet has been with Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, the most expensive TV show costing a hefty $58 million per episode. “Citadel is a global spy show. Lord of the Rings is based on this huge hit, and I think they make second seasons of those shows to save face,” Shaw says. 

Earlier this year, Amazon hired Courtney Valenti, a veteran in the industry, to head its film, streaming and MGM slate. “It'll be interesting to see what she does, because she is a seasoned executive with a lot of relationships, and I'm sure she will be more disciplined, and that will be helpful in that part of the business,” Masters notes.

 

[Ran]

27 minutes ago, IFR said:

The sequel is even better

Boo, hiss.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Slurktan said:

Well that is incredibly stupid plotting but also understandable from a filmmaking perspective.  To do what you want, they'd have to have a seen setting up what the rammas is, then have a scene of Faramir agreeing to go defend, then a scene of Faramir going but Gandalf asking him not to, then him actually going, then the scene which is in the movie of Gandalf rescuing them coming back.  They compressed into Faramir agreeing to go attack something the audience knows, riding out and charging idiotically, then scene of Gandalf rescuing.

It was stupid.  Grrrrr…

And it further changed Denethor from a coldly rational leader who was suspicious of Gandalf into the carpet chewing moron we got in ROtK.

The flim was nearly four hours.  They couldn’t film Gandalf and Pippin riding through the Rammas?  Everything at the Rammas takes place off stage in the book.  You could still focus the action on the seige of Minas Tirith with very little change.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

57 minutes ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

They wanted to imitate GoT (and it's success) while adhering to what executives thinks that the public expects from Lord of the Rings.

Which means… make the show look like Jackson’s films.

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I really don’t understand why they’re craming thousands of years of story into only a few years?

The idea I always had was having two distinct time periods. Seasons 1-2 are set in the forging of the Rings/War of Sauron and Elves period. You're still condensing hugely but it's like 150 years into a few, not 1800 years. Then Seasons 3-5 are Ar-Pharazon, capture of Sauron, Isildur and Elendil, Great Armament, Downfall, founding of Gondor and Arnor, Last Alliance.

Maybe in the first bloc you could have Gil-galad sending an emissary to Numenor for aid and getting into a whole thing there and somehow Sauron ends up in that storyline, goes back to create Mount Doom, raises the army, invades Middle-earth etc. It would have been cheese, but maybe it would have worked in that context.

I don't see a major problem with having a structure like that, and just not have Gandalf in it. If he's not Ian McKellen, I doubt most people will GAF.

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Speaking of The Hobbit, I've heard that there are some fan edits that chop the three films in like half their length, and attempt to be much closer to the book. Wonder if anyone has seen them? One's called the M4 Edit, another is the Tolkien edit, another still is The Battle of the Five Edits... Hmm!

The problem I've seen with all of them is that there's no way to avoid the "Smaug covered in gold as he escapes from Erebor" discrepancy, given the dwarf-Smaug fight is one of the things most people want to see exorcised. Some take different approaches with it (a much, much briefer fight where the gold is still released, or just saying screw it and having Smaug bust out of Erebor and don't explain it).

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Does anyone know why Jackson changed the nature of the “Pelennor Fields” (barren wasteland rather than covered with small farms that feed Minas Tirith) and scrapped the existence of the Ramas Echor (the wall around the Pelennor Fields)?  

I've heard various theories over the years. One of them is that Massive (the huge AI-driven army CG programme) had real problems getting the CG actors to interact properly with walls and buildings, so removing the Rammas and the farms simplifies rendering at the Battle of the Pelennor. The other is simply making it easier to "read" the battlefield.

Not quite as silly as removing Stirling Bridge from the Battle of Stirling Bridge in Braveheart, though. 

[polishgenius]

19 hours ago, IFR said:

If people struggle to list even a few fantasy movies that are better than the LOTR trilogy, I suppose that is a commentary of fantasy movies in general

 

 

I mean not necessarily coz the LotR movies are awesome so only a few being better just means there are a few awesome awesome ones. 

In any case, nearly everything by Hayao Miyazaki can go on the list.

Also Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Probably other wuxia to add to that list but sadly I don't know that genre nearly as well as I'd like. 

 

(it probably is fair to say that scifi has gotten more prestige attention than fantasy down the years, though, especially in Hollywood)