Solicitr
Mithlond
Apr 29 2019, 6:49pm
Views: 16371
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the LR was good in part. Certain things PJ - helped in great part by Fran Walsh, a talented and nuanced screenwriter - rendered very well. Other things he did badly, and some of them were throw-heavy-objects-at-the-screen horrible.
But TH had no redeeming features. Walsh had no part in it, nor was there anyone to restrain PJ's adolescent tastes and tendency toward self-indulgence. As much as anything, the LR at least had the solid armature of Tolkien's actual writing to support it - where PBJ just made stuff up it was almost without exception dreadful - and TH was about 2/3 stuff PBJ made up.
It also meant a much larger screenwriting influence/presence for Philippa Boyens, whose Hack Screenwriting 101 approach never met a cliche she not only didn't like, but didn't prefer to actual Tolkien. "But you can't do that" is her tagline throughout her video interviews- meaning that she thinks she (in other words the hackneyed Rules of mass-market cinema) can tell Tolkien's story better than he could. Well, she can't. It's like (to repeat an analogy), Frank Frazetta "improving" the Sistine Chapel.
(This post was edited by Solicitr on Apr 29 2019, 6:53pm)
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