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lburriss
Registered User
Mar 2 2017, 2:55am
Post #1 of 31
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A "True" Movie Version
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As has been noted several times, there is a good deal of “non-canonical” material in both sets of movies. Some of this material did not happen at all in the books and some of the movie material is simply cinematic expansions of the story (the dwarves at Bilbo’s house, “Riddles in the Dark”).
So ignoring all of the admittedly formidable copyright issues, I’m wondering if it would be possible to create a “true” movie version of the books by editing out all of the extraneous material. Doesn’t the Rankin-Bass movie version of The Hobbit follow the storyline of the book pretty closely?
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Mar 2 2017, 3:02am
Post #2 of 31
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So ignoring all of the admittedly formidable copyright issues, I’m wondering if it would be possible to create a “true” movie version of the books by editing out all of the extraneous material.
Fan-edits do exist, but the changes Peter Jackson made ensures that no such edit can fully reflect Tolkien's original text.
Doesn’t the Rankin-Bass movie version of The Hobbit follow the storyline of the book pretty closely?
Yes, in broad strokes. However, the t.v. movie with it's short running time of 70-some minutes required some big cuts. Beorn doesn't appear at all, and the entire subplot concerning the Arkenstone is dropped. The feast in the elven clearing is referenced, but never seen.
Since you want to discuss both trilogies here, this should have been posted in Main.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Mar 2 2017, 3:16am
Post #3 of 31
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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wizzardly
Rohan
Mar 2 2017, 11:36pm
Post #4 of 31
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PJ's Hobbit is an unsalvagable mess...
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So really, no fan edit can save it. Rankin/Bass's version is the truest film version, even with all of its omissions.
"Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time." -Christopher Tolkien
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grammaboodawg
Immortal
Mar 3 2017, 2:44pm
Post #5 of 31
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imho, it would cause a very unstable storyline. Big gaps and inconsistencies caused from just chopping out the extraneous parts. However, if they could glean materials that weren't used and left on the editing floor, the storyline could be fleshed out for a better flow. Like, I remember hearing Dom Monaghan addressing a luncheon where he talks about one of his favourite scenes being when Merry is staggering into and losing his way on the streets of Minas Tirith after Pelennor and is found by Pippin... just like in the book. I would love to see that! I'm hoping for a version of the films someday where all of those scenes are inserted (i.e. Aragorn/Arwen early days).
For me, though, I prefer having my book versions left free from the distraction and (most likely) misses on trying to do a page-by-page or event-by-event film construction. I love having the books essentially unaffected by that attempt. I have the books when I want to lose myself that storytelling; and I have the films when I want to venture into Jackson's (Boyens & Walsh) storytelling.
One thing that amazed me when I first heard the films were being made was how much the actors chosen matched my images I had since first reading the books in 1971. Not to mention the lands/scenes of Middle-earth... thanks to Alan Lee and John Howes' works through the years being used for the films making everything so familiar.
For me, the "extraneous" materials have enhanced the stories! Many of those additions/alterations have become some of my favourite parts!!
Bilbo and Frodo hiding from the Sackville-Baggins during the Party
The stairs of Khazad-dum
Boromir's conflict in Lothlorien and on the River as he engages Aragorn.
The lighting of the beacons from Minas Tirith to Rohan fleshed out (*goosebumps*)
[Gandalf] 'On Shadowfax! We must hasten. Time is short. See! The beacons of Gondor are alight, calling for aid. War is kindled. See, there is the fire on Amon Dîn, and the flame on Eilenach; and there they go speeding west: Nardol, Erelas, Min-Rimmon, Calenhad, and the Halifirien on the borders of Rohan'
Radagast investigating Dol Guldur
Radagast and his rabbits!
Dwarves and Bilbo trying to cross the Enchanted River in Mirkwood (*still giggling*)
The barrel-ride escape down the River
Fleshed-out story of Bard
Dwarves joining Bilbo and battling Smaug together (brilliant!)
So many more!!
We have been there and back again.
TIME Google Calendar
6th draft of TH:AUJ Geeky Observations List - November 28, 2013
4th draft of TH:DOS Geeky Observations List - May 15, 2014
5th draft of TH:BotFA Geeky Observations List - January 30, 2015
TORn's Geeky Observations Lists for LotR and The Hobbit
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AshNazg
Gondor
Mar 5 2017, 4:17am
Post #6 of 31
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A Lord of the Rings TV show with a huge budget would certainly work
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Evident by BBC's radio series which tells the story remarkably successfully. If they made a TV series with a similar format it could be incredible.
(This post was edited by AshNazg on Mar 5 2017, 4:17am)
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Mar 5 2017, 9:11am
Post #7 of 31
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Both could be versions of the same legend
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After all, all of these events took place many millennia ago, who really knows how they really unfolded. Tolkien came up with one version, PJ has a slightly different one. People can choose which they prefer.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Mar 5 2017, 1:33pm
Post #8 of 31
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After all, all of these events took place many millennia ago, who really knows how they really unfolded. Tolkien came up with one version, PJ has a slightly different one. People can choose which they prefer.
That's certainly one way of looking at it. Objectively, the story is not legend, but fiction authored by J.R.R. Tolkien, giving his version a big boost of authority over Jackson's. However, both readers and viewers can add their own perspectives to those of both writer and director. Take the talking purse: One can see it as either as something that actually happened in the story or as an embellishment added by Bilbo for effect.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Mar 5 2017, 1:37pm)
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ange1e4e5
Gondor
Mar 10 2017, 3:00am
Post #9 of 31
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And inaccurate characters. Thranduil's not supposed to look like a frog.
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I always follow my job through.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Mar 10 2017, 1:48pm
Post #10 of 31
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It baffles me that anyone can see anything of Tolkien....
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...in the Rankin Bass cartoon, just as it baffles you that anyone sees Tolkien in Peter Jackson's films. For me they are the truer version, even with all of their additions.
Just goes to show, we're all different!
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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Darkstone
Immortal
Mar 10 2017, 4:24pm
Post #11 of 31
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John Huston is my favorite Gandalf (He's pointy!) and I think Richard Boone is a better Smaug. Otherwise Rankin/Bass, like Bakshi, has become more and more unwatchable now that Jackson and Co. has spoiled me.
Interestingly Arthur Rankin said in a New York Times that the visual style of their Hobbit was based on that of early 20th century fantasy illustrator Arthur Rackham, which I kinda sorta see. So even more interestingly we might deduce second-hand what Tolkien himself might have thought about Rankin/Bass’s "The Hobbit":
But this Mr Ackerman brought some really astonishingly good pictures (Rackham rather than Disney)…
-Letter #202
I have not much doubt, however, that you would avoid the Scylla of Blyton and the Charybdis of Rackham – though to go to wreck on the latter would be the less evil fate.
-Letter #235 to illustrator Pauline Baynes
But yeah, the Wood-elves are just awful.
******************************************
“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
"Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! I am Eowyn, daughter of Theodwyn!”
"Er, really? My mother's name was Theodwyn, too!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"Wow! Let's stop fighting and be best friends!"
"Cool!!"
-Zack Snyder's The Return of the King
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ange1e4e5
Gondor
Mar 10 2017, 4:34pm
Post #12 of 31
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Characters whirling out of sight when they get killed, i.e. The Great Goblin. Always makes me feel like I took a trip into the acid dimension of pink elephants.
So between Rankin/Bass and Jackson, which one is Scylla and which is Charybdis?
Orcrist looked too small as well.
I always follow my job through.
(This post was edited by ange1e4e5 on Mar 10 2017, 4:42pm)
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ange1e4e5
Gondor
Mar 10 2017, 4:38pm
Post #13 of 31
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Didn't like Rankin/Bass Return of the King much either.
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We barely talk about the King (Aragorn) and apparently a quarter of the movie goes by after Frodo claims the One Ring where he and Sam are just standing around until Gollum shows up again. Witch-King sounded a little ridiculous too.
I always follow my job through.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Mar 10 2017, 4:49pm
Post #14 of 31
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Trouble is, I don't see Rackham in Rankin Bass either. Or, at best, only a ghastly parody of Rackham that does him no more justice than it does Tolkien. The magic is missing. So, at least from where I'm standing, the qualified approval Tolkien gave Rackham doesn't tell me anything of how he might have felt about Rankin Bass.
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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ange1e4e5
Gondor
Mar 11 2017, 10:04pm
Post #15 of 31
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So what criteria is required for a good book-to-film adaptation?
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I always follow my job through.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Mar 13 2017, 1:19pm
Post #16 of 31
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Above all else the film must be true to itself. //
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******************************************
“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
"Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! I am Eowyn, daughter of Theodwyn!”
"Er, really? My mother's name was Theodwyn, too!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"Wow! Let's stop fighting and be best friends!"
"Cool!!"
-Zack Snyder's The Return of the King
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enanito
Rohan
Mar 13 2017, 1:51pm
Post #17 of 31
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Tolkien himself made this impossible
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With Tolkien's writings the way they are, I just simply feel it's an intractable situation. This is beyond considerations of what each of us feels is an appropriate or faithful adaptation. Tolkien's layering of his mythology, plus the continual re-writing and re-working and adding and adding and adding, make it so that there's not a "One Interpretation to Rule Them All".
Take the Hobbit. Are we to portray it as originally written? Whimsical, child-like, sparse on the details? Comical dwarves and a silly wizard? Without any consideration of how it fits into the larger world?
Or is a true portrayal of The Hobbit obliged to pay reference to the Darker world that we understand surrounded it, even if this is not evidenced in the written words of the book itself? If we show places like the Shire or Rivendell, must we only portray them as written, or add in the factual details given in LOTR? The spoken words could remain the same, the events as well, but a good director can successfully color the viewer's interpretation via music, lighting, facial expressions, scenery, etc.
If Tolkien was a one-and-done type of guy, spitting out a book then moving on to something new, we'd have a different landscape to work with. But this is one of the many aspects of Tolkien that makes him so incredibly worth studying.
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ange1e4e5
Gondor
Mar 14 2017, 3:11pm
Post #18 of 31
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I always follow my job through.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Mar 14 2017, 3:25pm
Post #19 of 31
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I don't want to speak for Darkstone, but there are things that work well in literature that do not work well on film. Filmmakers must play to the strengths of their medium. They wouldn't necessarily need to change the story, but they do need to emphasize those elements that work better on film and leave other elements as background that only informs the story and may not even be seen or heard by the audience.
I will add that, in my opinion, Peter Jackson went much further than that, introducing elements that were not needed nor (arguably) desirable in his adaptations, especially in the Hobbit films.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Mar 14 2017, 3:29pm)
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Darkstone
Immortal
Mar 14 2017, 6:04pm
Post #20 of 31
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It must possess a unified mise-en-scène.
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For example, though doubtless more faithful to the book, Bakshi's LOTR is uneven and fragmented, a "best-of-Tolkien" series of vignettes that are not part of a sustained narrative. (I won't mention the extremely jarring juxtaposition of traditional animation with crude rotoscoping.) As a result it cannot be faithful to itself as a film.
On the other hand, while Jackson also takes individual scenes from the book, he integrates them into a cinematic narrative supported by unifying themes and leit-motifs. (i.e., "made-up stuff".) Thus his LOTR is faithful to itself as a film.
I recommend John Irving's book My Movie Business where he details his initial confidence in maintaining fidelity, his growing frustration with the impossible challenges, and his eventual acceptance of the necessity of changes in adapting his novel The Cedar House Rules for the screen.
******************************************
“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
"Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! I am Eowyn, daughter of Theodwyn!”
"Er, really? My mother's name was Theodwyn, too!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"Wow! Let's stop fighting and be best friends!"
"Cool!!"
-Zack Snyder's The Return of the King
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Darkstone
Immortal
Mar 14 2017, 6:18pm
Post #21 of 31
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A book tells the story, a film shows the story. A book internalizes, a film externalizes. A book is silence, a film is sound. A book is words, a film is images. A book focuses, a film disperses.
A film that tries to be a book will fail as badly as a book that tries to be a film.
******************************************
“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
"Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! I am Eowyn, daughter of Theodwyn!”
"Er, really? My mother's name was Theodwyn, too!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"Wow! Let's stop fighting and be best friends!"
"Cool!!"
-Zack Snyder's The Return of the King
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ange1e4e5
Gondor
Mar 14 2017, 11:25pm
Post #22 of 31
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I actually think The Last of the Mohicans is quite good with just music and very few words during its climax.
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I always follow my job through.
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Elthir
Grey Havens
Mar 15 2017, 2:19pm
Post #23 of 31
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- - - - - - - - - -
Darkstone wrote: "I recommend John Irving's book My Movie Business where he details his initial confidence in maintaining fidelity, his growing frustration with the impossible challenges, and his eventual acceptance of the _necessity of changes_ in adapting his novel The Cedar House Rules for the screen."
- - - - - - - - - -
Okay, and so, what were the "necessary changes" that Peter Jackson made, or was forced to accept? Answering that, we'll see just how subjective it all gets.
A great example is Boyen's opinion about how to solve her "problem" with the Stairs of Cirith Ungol section -- which for myself, I find questionable regarding the existence of a cinematic problem here in the first place -- and in any event [and once again], I also found the so called solution poorly handled.
In short, to my mind, she rather poorly "fixed" a cinematic problem that didn't exist in the first place! Tolkien expert David Bratman writes:
____________________
"There is insufficient rigor in film criticism in distinguishing between changes that are actually necessary because of the differences in the media, changes that are not necessary but are made to fit the director's or screenwriter's preferences (usually dignified as "expressing a vision"), and changes that are made purely out of guesswork or superstition about what will sell to movie audiences. The screenwriter William Goldman's first Law of Filmaking is "Nobody knows anything."
David Bratman, Tolkien On Film
____________________
... including [as Bratman notes] "... nobody knows if your idea of what is dramatically necessary really is"
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Mar 15 2017, 7:37pm
Post #24 of 31
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I know you weren't addressing me, however: One such perceived problem was the chronologically slow pace of the story. The most famous manifestation of this is the seventeen years between Bilbo's farewell party and Frodo's departure from the Shire. Personally, I don't see it as a problem and would have approached the sequence differently from how Peter Jackson handled it. I might have still shown Merry and Pippin (and Sam!) at Bilbo's birthday party; however, they would have been played there by different, younger actors so that the characters are still seen to be young boys (in Merry and Pippin's cases) or adolescents (Sam).
Jackson has a somewhat better argument for killing Saruman early and eliminating the Scouring of the Shire (only including it in Frodo's vision). Viewers have already complained about the multiple endings of RotK and including the Scouring of the Shire would have probably added another twenty minutes or more to the running time of the third movie. I still miss the sequence because it illustrates just how much the four hobbits have grown and changed.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Mar 15 2017, 7:38pm)
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Elthir
Grey Havens
Mar 15 2017, 9:28pm
Post #25 of 31
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Yes the Scouring should have been included in my opinion, and the argument I almost always see with this (not from you of course, but over the years, here and there) seems usually based on the rest of Jackson's films.
In other words, 'my" Scouring isn't simply added to Jackson's already [in my opinion] overlong block-blustery [tm], but comes at the end of three very different [imagined] films, planned very differently from the start...
... and leaving plenty of time for a good scouring 
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