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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 4:55pm
Post #26 of 57
(559 views)
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I only meant that flatulence and rude behaviour are commonplace in theaters these days.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Feb 26 2016, 5:04pm
Post #27 of 57
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...Tolkien's "Deplorable Cultus" existed way before PJ made his first movie.
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I met a Balrog on the stair.
He had some wings that weren't there.
They weren't there again today.
I wish he would just fly away.
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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 5:24pm
Post #28 of 57
(551 views)
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So then PJ emerged as their sort of messiah and led them to the promised land...aka The Hobbit Trilogy.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Feb 26 2016, 5:44pm
Post #29 of 57
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We 'Mericans din't need no dang Kiwi!
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The horrors of the American scene I will pass over, though they have given me great distress and labour. (They arise in an entirely different mental climate and soil, polluted and impoverished to a degree only paralleled by the lunatic destruction of the physical lands which Americans inhabit.)....
-Letter #328
******************************************
I met a Balrog on the stair.
He had some wings that weren't there.
They weren't there again today.
I wish he would just fly away.
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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 6:00pm
Post #30 of 57
(537 views)
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Thanks for posting that amazing quote. It is so true..and so sad.
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Riven Delve
Tol Eressea
Feb 26 2016, 8:20pm
Post #31 of 57
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We don't want the herd getting ahold of Tolkien
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Next thing you know they'll be reading it for themselves and drawing their own independent conclusions! 
“Tollers,” Lewis said to Tolkien, “there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.”
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StingingFly
Lorien
Feb 26 2016, 8:47pm
Post #32 of 57
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I thought this forum was for 'fans of J.R.R. Tolkien', but it appears this is more of a Peter Jackson apologist site. When anyone questions the direction of the films or expresses a critical opinion of the adaptations there is a snarky, sarcastic response complete with mischaracterizations and ad hominem attacks. I would expect better from Tolkien fans.
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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 9:30pm
Post #33 of 57
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It saddens me that there aren't more fans of J.R.R. Tolkien who feel strongly about his work being mistreated as it has been by Peter Jackson in the making of these movies. And by mistreating I mean being treated like it is just another silly "fantasy" story designed to appeal to the widest demographic possible by whatever means necessary. An adaptation does not have to be an exact reproduction of the book, but there is the classy way of going about it and then there's what we got.
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TheOnlyOneAroundWithAnySense
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 10:05pm
Post #34 of 57
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This is one of the movie sections of the boards
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I am a Tolkien fan *and* a Jackson fan, though I honestly appreciate the films more.
Why aren't Tolkien fans Tolkien apologists?
"And you can trust me. Because I don't care enough about you to lie."
- Parks and Recreation
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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 10:10pm
Post #35 of 57
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Because Tolkien doesn't have anything to apologize for...naturally.
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Intergalactic Lawman
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 10:23pm
Post #36 of 57
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Why would they meet to be... ?
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The man wrote fantastic stories!
Peter Lucas turned his Hobbit book into mud.
I mean seriously - Who did he make theses films for?? 
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Smaug the iron
Gondor
Feb 26 2016, 10:32pm
Post #37 of 57
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I mean seriously - Who did he make theses films for?? Tolken fans, Lord of the Rings trilogy fans.
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TheOnlyOneAroundWithAnySense
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 10:36pm
Post #38 of 57
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You don't see the problem here?
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How long should ignorant, snobby, elitist behavior continue until a good measure of snark gets thrown in the mix for good measure? Your assumptions that Tolkien was infallible and Jackson's 'failure' is calcuable fact whose work should be scorned by all, and all who do not fall in line can not possibly be real fans but mere apologists is insulting and breeds the kind of reactionary behavior you've witnessed - rightfully so, I might add.
As long as we're in this vein of dialogue, let me point out Tolkien was no Dickens. Or Poe. Or Hugo. Or Dumas. Often a writer more interested in world-building, language and myth-making - admittedly his thing - than creating compelling human (not literally, relatably) drama and propulsion of plot. We often understand far too much about some ancient culture or structure and not nearly enough about the inner psychology of his characters or the reason so many of their decisions seem so under-cooked. Half of the poetry he penned also has a strange dry quality that can distract rather than enhance. He was a master of Christian themes and morality and a naturally gifted storyteller who, unfortunately, too often gave into wandering away from the purity and strength of the story itself in favor of over-explaining some mountain pass or another. You'd probably claim Jackson has done this with his impulses, and I will forever argue that the story and characters were finally allowed center stage in these six films (there's the mountain pass; we see them; moving on to the matter of import).
This is using your type of language and though I genuinely believe everything I wrote, I know well enough it can't be repeatedly proven as truth like an experiment in controlled conditions. Snark? Maybe I'll have some, whatever. I have common sense and around here - where books are accurate blueprints for a movie and movies with some boyish humor are worthless - it is *absolutely necessary.*
EDIT: That is not actually utilizing your type of language; I give Tolkien a lot of credit there, plus I consider myself a fan because I enjoy his work and the core stories are always powerful. And still, any minor Dickens (+ a good hundred other authors) wipes the floor with them.
"And you can trust me. Because I don't care enough about you to lie."
- Parks and Recreation
(This post was edited by TheOnlyOneAroundWithAnySense on Feb 26 2016, 10:42pm)
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Smaug the iron
Gondor
Feb 26 2016, 10:38pm
Post #39 of 57
(440 views)
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Because Tolkien doesn't have anything to apologize for...naturally. PJ has nothing to apologize for, he did the films he wonted to make.
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Noria
Gondor
Feb 26 2016, 10:41pm
Post #40 of 57
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A year or so ago I hardly posted on this site because it was dominated by movie haters and I just couldn’t be bothered. At this time the pendulum has swung back a little and there seem to be more movie lovers posting. You can always hope that it swings back again.
Try to understand that I for one genuinely like and enjoy most of what Peter Jackson did with The Hobbit, just as I did his LotR trilogy. There are a few things that I don’t like or believe were wrong choices etc. but they are not enough to diminish my deep overall appreciation of and love for the movies. That doesn’t make me an apologist; I just love most of what I see. I feel exactly the same way about the LotR trilogy except that there are more things about those movies that bother me. I don’t think the books are perfect either.
I wasn’t really very surprised about the way TH films turned out (except for the tone), based on what PJ did with LotR. Just above in this thread I listed a number of things from the LotR trilogy that made me expect something very much like what we got. Comments, anyone? I really don’t see the huge differences in quality between the two trilogies, at least not based on what has been discussed recently.
I can’t say it saddens me that some Tolkien fans cannot appreciate the beauty and art of TH movies because exactly the same thing went on a dozen years ago with the LotR films. It’s good to know that somehow those movies have become perfect since then. For LotR it was mostly book fans who were unhappy and now it’s book and LotR movie fans!
The books have been my favourite pieces of literature for decades and I’ve read all of them many times, though I am no Tolkien scholar. I also love the movies, all six of them, at least partly because there are differences from the books and I enjoy seeing the latter through the eyes of other artists.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Feb 26 2016, 11:08pm
Post #41 of 57
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The site is for Tolkien fans, this forum is about the film....
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But this particular thread began with a peculiarly vicious and unpleasant description of a supposed incident in a viewing of the film. No question of the direction of the films, no reasoned critical opinion. No reason at all, that I can see, except to be offensive.
I'd be curious to know what response you think is appropriate from Tolkien fans or anyone else's fans to something like that......
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood and every spring
there is a different green. . .
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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 26 2016, 11:26pm
Post #42 of 57
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Comparing the merits of one author over another isn't really the point here. That is simply a matter of opinion. I personally prefer Tolkien over Dickens because I relate more to his stories on a personal level, however I wouldn't say one is "better" than the other. Now that being said, I can criticize PJ because he took a story that belongs to someone else and changed it according to his own whims. And it is my opinion as an admirer of the author, that his story was poorly represented in these films.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Feb 26 2016, 11:35pm
Post #43 of 57
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There are a lot of members of TORn who don't like the films....
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...and don't believe they are good representations of the books - and that applies to both trilogies, not just The Hobbit. Others like LotR but not the Hobbit.
And, however hard you may find it to believe, there are some of us here who have loved Tolkien's books for decades who genuinely don't believe that his work has been mistreated.
Count me as one. I was very dubious (very, very dubious) about the films to start with. It was the films themselves that won me over. I have listened to Peter Jackson, read his interviews, watched the documentaries and I think you are quite wrong in saying that he has treated Tolkien's work as 'a silly fantasy story'. What I see is a team of people who have done everything in their power (and then some) to make the very best films that they could, and have genuinely tried to respect and understand Tolkien's work - to the extent of bringing in people who knew that work better than they did - Alan Lee and John Howe, for example, and Tom Shippey, Brian Sibley and others in the EE documentaries. They would have met Christopher Tolkien too, had he been willing. Yes, things could have been done differently and yes, sometimes in all six films they've made choices I wouldn't have made, but I still love the films and I still respect the work that has gone into them.
I first read Lord of the Rings over fifty years ago. I will still be reading it for as long as I can see to read - and when I can't I'll listen to the audio book. And I'll still be watching the films for as long as I can operate a remote conrtol, and enjoying the new dimensions they bring, and the gilmpses of things I wouldn't have thought of. The films inform my imagination. You may deplore them, to me they're a gift, and something very special.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood and every spring
there is a different green. . .
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LSF
Gondor
Feb 27 2016, 12:02am
Post #44 of 57
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are you against anyone taking something they didn't create and doing things with it? For example, are you against anyone doing anything (comics, movies, shows, video games...) with Batman since the original creators/writers stopped working on it? Or Star Trek since Gene Roddenberry stopped working on it?
(This post was edited by LSF on Feb 27 2016, 12:05am)
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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 27 2016, 12:39am
Post #45 of 57
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But if you are going to do something with somebody else's work and there exists a large fanbase of said work, then you must accept there's going to be haters as well as lovers. Especially if you decide to depart from the original and make lots of changes. When all's said and done, I'm sure PJ doesn't really care what any of us thinks anyway. He made a lot of money. That is afterall why the the Hobbit and the LotR movies were made in the first place.
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LSF
Gondor
Feb 27 2016, 12:46am
Post #46 of 57
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I'm sure he knew and accepted when he started LOTR that some more Tolkien purist people weren't going to like it. That is a fact of any creative endeavor, adaptational or completely original.
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StingingFly
Lorien
Feb 27 2016, 1:46am
Post #47 of 57
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That was a beautiful and compelling reply. My love of Tolkien spans several decades and runs deep as well. I can appreciate your love of the films as I was similarly affected by LOTR, in particular FOTR. That is what made The Hobbit trilogy all the more disappointing.
What made Jackson great in LOTR was his downfall in TH. As a director he added humor and action to bring these stories to life. In LOTR we have the lighthearted antics of Pippin, in contrast with the distraction of Alfrid. In terms of action we have the addition of the 'wizard's duel' to FOTR, which was an improvement to the book as it displayed the depths of Saruman's betrayal and corruption. In TH we have additional action scenes, such as the stone giants, that don't really advance the story.
I am glad to hear that you treasure all of the films and sincerely wish you many happy years of watching, listening and reading Tolkien's works, in whatever form you most enjoy.
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TheOnlyOneAroundWithAnySense
Rohan
Feb 27 2016, 2:00am
Post #48 of 57
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It was hysterical; pure comedy.
I pray all who may skim through the conversation here will have the eyes to see the exemplary exhibition of stubborn nonsense and contradiction it represents.
"And you can trust me. Because I don't care enough about you to lie."
- Parks and Recreation
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wizzardly
Rohan
Feb 27 2016, 2:09am
Post #49 of 57
(349 views)
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Stubbornness I can see...but please explain the contradiction in that post.
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TheOnlyOneAroundWithAnySense
Rohan
Feb 27 2016, 2:21am
Post #50 of 57
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I'll answer that with another question
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You realize P.J. IS an author, right?
He is the author of "The Hobbit" films. Being based on another work is what's truly irrelevant here; the work HE did is HIS, not Tolkien's (who sold the rights allowing this alternative view possible). Tolkien himself borrowed heavily from "Beowulf" and various established mythologies, but since he did his adaptation from more than one source, this is ignored.
You say comparing authors isn't the point but no, it absolutely is. Like it or loathe it, Peter Jackson's movies are not a transplant of the novel but a reinterpretation - and has to be, if it's going to be worth anything of artistic value divorced from the source. Your posts elevate Tolkien above the ability to be criticized and put Jackson solely in these crosshairs instead and that is presupposing one artist is inherently more legitimate than another, but comparing authors (read: ARTISTS) is not the point.
Stubborn. Nonsensical. Contradiction.
I doubt even this post will be adequately understood with how ingrained the fallacies seem to have become.
"And you can trust me. Because I don't care enough about you to lie."
- Parks and Recreation
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