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DGHCaretaker
Nargothrond
Sat, 8:11pm
Post #26 of 28
(42 views)
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Do you want an historically accurate story or a compelling one? Sometimes we have to choose.
[Soapbox]
I know you've heard this before from me...
Since we're spending a whole lot of money anyway, make it an anthology of mini-series using a different cast for each time period with ageless characters (i.e., elves) spanning all the series. No such choice necessary. Same show - no compression, more story, less artificial adaptation.
(This post was edited by DGHCaretaker on Sat, 8:12pm)
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Chen G.
Mithlond
Sat, 10:45pm
Post #27 of 28
(29 views)
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That doesn't sound very fullfilling
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I think there's another option, and it's one that hadn't dawned on me until I saw the show: the second age material is, by its nature, backstory: it was never meant to be turned into story and is, in many ways, unfilmable.
By "unfilmable" I don't mean in terms of the required special effects. I mean in terms of the nature of the material. I mean, I see Charlie Vickers' performance of Sauron and it's...y'know, good, but it's not Sauron.
Because Sauron - not Thu, not Gurthaur, but Sauron as envisioned from the writing of The Lord of the Rings forward - really derives his effect from remaining undepicted to the reader, and to the viewer of Jackson's films (or Bakshi's for that matter). It's one of those things where nothing is more powerful than the imagination.
Likewise, the actual making of the Rings: it works in a montage, but in extenso it becomes prosaic, overly-reliant on magic and inherently demystifying. The less is said for "We'll show you how Mordor became Mordor" or the backstory concocted for Mithril the better. Depicting Valinor - ostensibly Elf-heaven - onscreen was always going to be flawed, even if it weren't just a rather-bouldery place where Elf-girls are bullied for taking up origami.
In a more subtle way, going to Rhun and, I presume going forward, Harad is self-defeating. We can GLIMPSE those places, sure, but to set entire storylines there...those places derive their mystique and exoticism from being the "land beyond." Well, the minute you spend an extended amount of time there, it's no longer "beyond."
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DGHCaretaker
Nargothrond
12:29am
Post #28 of 28
(23 views)
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...Sauron ... [in] the writing of The Lord of the Rings forward - really derives his effect from remaining undepicted to the reader, and to the viewer of Jackson's films...
First, I enjoyed the books and films, and the films made the right choice to abandon the battle with a planned physical Sauron at the end of Return of the King film. But remember, he was physically depicted in the Prologue of Fellowship of the Rings film. That was an awesome scene, and still the right choice in the way that they did it.
But generally, I typically rail against books and films where writers do not have the courage or imagination for anything beyond the vague; no courage to depict the supernatural in concrete, grounded terms and image. It can and has been done well. Both styles were employed in LOTR. The balrog was made entirely real too. Or writers use lesser entities instead of the big boss. For example, The Exorcist invokes a third-rate demon instead of Satan himself. I was disappointed. Tolkien himself does the same thing with Sauron and Shelob instead of Melkor and Ungoliant, but he built a vast backstory to support it, so he is thoroughly excused from my complaints about this. Depiction is powerful if the writer is brave and talented.
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