Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy Thread

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

QFT

It seems that people forget this point so much.

The case that springs to mind for me is V for Vendetta.

Yes, the movie has no where near the shade, subtelty and nuance of the Graphic Novel, but the Graphic Novel is still there, untouched. I saw so many people screaming about how the movie ruined the GN.

No, it didn't.

Agreed, and I don't think anyone in this thread said the movie ruined the books, or even the movies were bad. But when you make an adaptation the film will inevitably be compared to the book.

As for Peter Jackson being an amazing film maker. I'm still waiting for his first amazing film not based on Tolkien's work.

[Werthead]

Yes, the movie has no where near the shade, subtelty and nuance of the Graphic Novel, but the Graphic Novel is still there, untouched. I saw so many people screaming about how the movie ruined the GN.

No, it didn't.

It did for me. I'd always wanted to read the graphic novel and the film was so appalling it really made me less keen to read the GN (and yes I know that's daft reasoning). However, having had the GN recommended to me so many times since then has reawoken my interest in reading it. Think it's going to be a 'borrow' rather than 'buy' job though.

On the subject of things that were great in Lord of the Rings I put forward for discussion: GOLLUM.

The first CGI character that worked, and that worked because a proper, totally awesome actor came in and made it work and his performance inspired the CGI team to do incredible work on it.

What was amusing was that Jackson didn't give in to Barrie Osborne's suggestion that they do all of Gollum's shots as on-set motion capture, which would have meant they wouldn't have had to have shot all of Gollum's stuff twice. Jackson finally relented for the final scene using Gollum in pick-ups on RotK, when he jumps on Frodo just as they finish climbing Mount Doom, and it worked brilliantly. I like to think of Jackson facepalming at that moment, realising how much time and money they could have saved if they'd just done as Osborne suggested in the first place.

Barrie Osborne is also due some award for canny thinking when he turned down the job producing The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions to instead work on Lord of the Rings. Smart move there.

[Guest]

On the subject of things that were great in Lord of the Rings I put forward for discussion: GOLLUM.

The first CGI character that worked, and that worked because a proper, totally awesome actor came in and made it work and his performance inspired the CGI team to do incredible work on it.

Yes - We could just as easily turn this into a discussion of the things that were done very well in the trilogy like Gollum and the Lighting of the Beacons.

[Bazzlebane]

Someone already mentioned the ring in the snow, with Boromir picking it up. That's another indelibly shot image so perfect that it is burned into the brain. Jackson, at his best, is a very visceral director, and he can imbue images with intense, physical reactions -- that snow is so blinding, so cold, that you can feel it in your seat, and you can feel the ring and its power. I doubt very much that many directors could have done that shot so well, so perfectly, if they even think of it at all.

[Werthead]

Yes - We could just as easily turn this into a discussion of the things that were done very well in the trilogy like Gollum and the Lighting of the Beacons.

Oh yeah, and the music. The score for all three films is awesome. Shore reuses some themes a bit too much and the Hobbit music is a bit cutesy, but apart from that the music in all the films is really, really powerful and works well. Best bit is either the lighting of the beacons or Gandalf's fight with the balrog whilst plummeting through Moria.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I liked the lighting of the beacons too. Except for the absurdity of the little huts on the tops of these incredibly steep and difficult to reach mountiantops. How the hell did they keep the beaconkeeper's feed and warm enough to light the damn things living on those peaks?

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

I watched the trilogy at the cinema when they came out and enjoyed them enough, but when I tried to rewatch the first one last year I just couldn't do it. It was just horrible, horrible, horrible. The music was especially atrocious; it was like they had covered the entire movie a kilometer-thick layer high-fructose corn syrup.

[Bazzlebane]

Now, now, don't spoil the moment.

ETA: In response to Scot.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Bazzlebane,

While cool, the question of how they kept the beaconkeepers feed and warm did disrupt the imagry of that moment in the film for me. The books made so much more sense. In the books the beacons were on high hills near the mountians, not on the mountians.

[Paddy]

Bazzlebane,

While cool, the question of how they kept the beaconkeepers feed and warm did disrupt the imagry of that moment in the film for me. The books made so much more sense. In the books the beacons were on high hills near the mountians, not on the mountians.

Nitpickers!

[Maltaran]

I liked the lighting of the beacons too. Except for the absurdity of the little huts on the tops of these incredibly steep and difficult to reach mountiantops. How the hell did they keep the beaconkeeper's feed and warm enough to light the damn things living on those peaks?

Who cares?

[Greywolf2375]

How the hell did they keep the beaconkeeper's feed and warm enough to light the damn things living on those peaks?

Loincloths of Cold Resistance +3. Same as worn by Santa. After that image, beacon lighting doesn't seem so bad, huh?

[BLU-RAY]

I based the genetically predisposed thing on a quote that Raidne gave in another thread on this. Basically, someone in the books says that Faramir has more of the Numenorean blood in him than Boromir, so he's more noble and less susceptible to the Ring's corruption.

I don't like this concept much at all.

I disagree with that quite a bit. If you read the quote, it's Gandalf telling Pippin about Denethor: "by some chance, the blood of Numenor runs almost true in his veins, as it does in his son Faramir, yet it did not in Boromir, whom he loved best." (I might have gotten some words off, but that's the sentiment.)

Faramir is an extremely noble character in the books.

Boromir has more pride than Faramir, and the breakdown in his resistance to the ring is primarily based upon his pride, and also his prolonged exposure to it, as mentioned earlier.

But Denethor? Who has the blood of Numenor as strongly as Faramir? Total jackass. More sinister, certainly, than he was portrayed in the films, but he was capricious, he loved one son more than the other, he was corrupted by Sauron; and he had, if anything, more pride than Boromir. Hell, he was considerably more corrupted by the Ring than Faramir, and he never even saw the Ringbearer! So the blood of Numenor doesn't guarantee nobility or resistance to the Ring. Hell, the Nine were Black Numenoreans. The Numenorean blood is responsible for his ability to see into the minds and hearts of others (a very vague thing, really).

[Demonblade]

It's the other stuff that irks me, mostly the treatment of Gimli as comic relief. That, to me, is just unforgivable and totally unnecessary. It's purely a move to appeal to a broader (and dumber) audience.

Yeah because introducing humour in a film based on a book with no humour at all is such a bad thing, right? I fail to see where Gimli was treated as an oaf like many of you appear to believe. Much of the 'comic relief' of Gimli had to do with ruffling the feathers of an incredibly proud dwarf, which he was in the books, was he not? I hear the dwarf-tossing scene in FOTR often mentioned, but does anybody mention the wizard-tossing that just happened? Or the hobbit-tossing before that? There were two of those, OMFG! Such disparaging of the noble characters of Merry and Pippin, tossing them like that!

Are you all able to still separate the pages of your LOTR books? All the wanking over them must have the pages practically glued together. Honestly, Tolkien is great and the movies are great. They do not have to be the same for both to be great. Such a waste for so many of you to have the movies ruined by Tolkien Fanboyism. Such a waste.

Completely agree.

[BLU-RAY]

Yeah because introducing humour in a film based on a book with no humour at all is such a bad thing, right? I fail to see where Gimli was treated as an oaf like many of you appear to believe. Much of the 'comic relief' of Gimli had to do with ruffling the feathers of an incredibly proud dwarf, which he was in the books, was he not? I hear the dwarf-tossing scene in FOTR often mentioned, but does anybody mention the wizard-tossing that just happened? Or the hobbit-tossing before that? There were two of those, OMFG! Such disparaging of the noble characters of Merry and Pippin, tossing them like that!

Uhhh... I think the objection is that nobody is so overproud as to refuse being tossed in that situation; Gimli acts as though, even though those other characters were tossed, he's a Dwarf, and so that can't happen. It's ridiculous, the actual character would not have acted like that. I don't think that the complaint is that he was tossed, it's that he would object to it in light of the situation. Kind of a ham-handed attempt at comedy.

That said, I didn't mind it too much.

[Demonblade]

Uhhh... I think the objection is that nobody is so overproud as to refuse being tossed in that situation; Gimli acts as though, even though those other characters were tossed, he's a Dwarf, and so that can't happen. It's ridiculous, the actual character would not have acted like that. I don't think that the complaint is that he was tossed, it's that he would object to it in light of the situation. Kind of a ham-handed attempt at comedy.

That said, I didn't mind it too much.

So you're saying that the book's Gimli wouldn't have minded being tossed? I don't recall anything even remotely suggesting that in the books.

[Werthead]

So you're saying that the book's Gimli wouldn't have minded being tossed? I don't recall anything even remotely suggesting that in the books.

At the risk of going lowest-common-denominator in humour here, I'm pretty sure there is a sig lurking in this.

[naz]

As others have said, the people in this thread - myself included - who find criticisms with the films are not all Peter Jackson haters. I mean, there are degrees of criticism and I imagine most here would be able to understand that most of us did indeed enjoy the movies, only didn't think they were the most amazing films in history or anything. I'm pretty much a Tolkien fanboy, but I like to think I didn't let that get in the way of my enjoyment of the films. Like I said, there were many changes that I completely accepted and understood the rationale for. But there were other changes whose rationale I just wasn't convinced about.

In other words, I don't simply hate it because it's different from the book - that's true fanboyism. I just think those specific changes could've been done a little smarter and with more subtlety, without having to significantly alter the personality or motivations of a major character (read: Gimli, Faramir). If there was more effort put into the writing, I think these issues could've been solved.

[Ran]

Scabbard,

I pointed it out because a few people on this board (I will not name names... do basically contend that the movies ruin the books.

Wert,

It did for me.

Not it didn't. It ruined your interest in reading the book, but the book itself is unharmed by the fact that you haven't read it.

Subtly different things.

[Fenny]

The books themselves aren't harmed by the films, but I think their literary reputation may have been. Unfairly? Yes. Largely because of prejudice and small-mindedness? Yes. Nevertheless, it is true that in the modern world, critics and pseudo-intellectuals widely believe that a book cannot be popular with the public, while at the same time being good. The hoard of new fans that came with the film have caused the reputation of LotR to drop again, after it seemed to be recovering once the eager hippy students had stopped chasing Tolkien round Oxford. When first published, LotR was praised by Auden. What literary figure of similar stature would praise them now?