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mae govannen
Dor-Lomin
Nov 15 2016, 5:05am
Post #26 of 89
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(I love that Warrior Ent Wife; where from?...)
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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Silmaril
Nargothrond
Nov 15 2016, 8:31am
Post #27 of 89
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PJ: I am happy to be doing the trilogy first, since it is much more complex and interesting than THE HOBBIT. THE HOBBIT has a very simple story with very little character development. It would actually be harder to adapt into a satisfying movie than THE LORD OF THE RINGS (and that has not been easy!).
https://www.herr-der-ringe-film.de/...filme/news_19946.php
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Silmaril
Nargothrond
Nov 15 2016, 8:47am
Post #28 of 89
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Talking creatures (3 Trolls, Smaug) make it hard for me to see TH as LOTR prequel. Inevitably it becomes something like Narnia or The Neverending Story. I enjoy the book but it felt strange to SEE this scenes, especially the 3 Trolls, in combination with more LOTR related stuff like the White Council. It's the mix, Children's movie and LOTR prequel in one.
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dormouse
Gondolin
Nov 15 2016, 9:53am
Post #29 of 89
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Nothing about this is simple, wizzardly....
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As I think you well know.
People who love Tolkien's books and have done so for years are not unanimous in their reaction to the films any more than they are to the books. We're all different and none of us can presume to adopt Christopher Tolkien's view or to speak for him. He has a unique relationship to his father's work.
So while I respect his view, and yours, and anyone else's here, I don't share it.
I can't agree that the LotR films are simply 'an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25.' Hang it all, wizzardly, I've been reading Tolkien's books for over 50 years and I'm not the only older person here who loves the films - do the maths!!! Action is one aspect of the films (and the books, for that matter) but I see more - so much more to them. Film is a very different medium from print. It's condensed, vivid, and can't help sharing the culture of the time it was made. But within those constraints, the aesthetic of the films is astounding, I think, and does evoke in its own way the beauty and seriousness of the work. (And I do mean all six films)
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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Noria
Hithlum
Nov 15 2016, 2:05pm
Post #30 of 89
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IIRC, PJ said he intended to start his Hobbit movies off in a lighter mood in order to reflect the whimsy of the book and then gradually darken the ambiance until it more closely matched his FotR. IMO he succeeded. The book does it by making an abrupt turn into a much darker tone in Erebor as the BOFA looms. Both work for me.
LotR, book and movies, is filled with creatures and beings that do not exist in our world. It is full of non-human sentient beings like the Ents, the Uruk-hai and other orcs, trolls of various types and even the Nazgul. There is a giant spider, the watcher in the water and wargs. We meet wizards, elves and dwarves, all of which can do things human beings cannot. The only difference is that some of these kinds of beings and creatures are used for humour as well as jeopardy in TH movies.
AUJ begins in a whimsical fashion with the unexpected party, Radagast, the trolls and the Goblin King. The latter two are meant to be funny as well as dangerous but the main baddie is just an orc, though a super-sized one.
DOS is somewhat darker: Beorn and his animals are more real than their book counterparts, the spiders only speak in spider amongst themselves, the Necromancer is revealed to be Sauron and so on. I don’t have any more trouble believing in a talking dragon than I do any other dragon because Smaug is much more than an animal; he is sentient, psychologically complex and more sophisticated than most of the other characters. This dragon is an astounding cinematic achievement and I find him completely convincing.
TBOTFA is where we approach the tone of LotR. There is always humour, just as there was always humour even in the much more somber LotR movies. But some of the more fantastic elements of the books, like the talking raven and thrush have been excised. By this point the book is otherwise pretty grim and so is the movie in which we are given the horror of war, much tragedy and a bittersweet ending.
Narnia is fine in its fashion but TH movies seemed nothing like Narnia to me.
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Noria
Hithlum
Nov 15 2016, 2:22pm
Post #31 of 89
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I agree with every word.
I too read the books a half century ago and I too love both them and the movies, all six of them.
CT is entirled to his opinion but it does not influence mine in the least.
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banaili
Nevrast
Nov 15 2016, 2:44pm
Post #32 of 89
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It's already been said, but...
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Honestly, I loved the Hobbit films, and I don't say that as a major PJ fangirl. I think they were extremely well-done, and we should call ourselves lucky that we had a second opportunity such as that to return to Middle Earth. It's why I can't understand people who complained about there being three films. Heck, make it 18 films, like Saturday Night Live once joked! I would totally watch the dwarves putting together an Ikea dresser!  But to be able to revisit that world, and to have had the privilege of doing so three more times? It really was a gift, and I like that PJ expanded on the world we already knew. I will admit that Legolas' presence bothered me a bit, but only because his character seemed drastically different from the Legolas we meet at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings. That, and he felt a bit forced in the film, in my opinion. But it wasn't enough to ruin the overall experience, and honestly, I liked the addition of Tauriel by the end. She was a cool character.
Also, as another person said...Smaug was done SO WELL. I mean, I still get shivers watching that opening scene of the final film. SO WELL DONE, and while I was once the person who would say that 3D isn't worth it, there is NO other way to enjoy that last film other than in 3D. What a cinematic treasure! 
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Nov 15 2016, 4:18pm
Post #33 of 89
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Talking creatures (3 Trolls, Smaug) make it hard for me to see TH as LOTR prequel. Inevitably it becomes something like Narnia or The Neverending Story. I enjoy the book but it felt strange to SEE this scenes, especially the 3 Trolls, in combination with more LOTR related stuff like the White Council. It's the mix, Children's movie and LOTR prequel in one.
I'm not sure why the talking Trolls should be any stranger than talking Orcs. William, Tom and Bert were clearly very different from the Cave-troll in Moria. And we did hear the talking spiders even if they were possibly 'translated'. I guess it's lucky for you that we didn't hear the talking Eagles, ravens and purse.
"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 Nov 15 2016, 4:19pm)
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Ringtir
Ossiriand
Nov 15 2016, 5:42pm
Post #34 of 89
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"Hello sir, how do you want your Hobbit movie?"
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That's the way movies should come to us. Some kind of editing options or preskip scenes program, so each one will choose how to enjoy their own movie.
Crazy idea? Probably, but i have the proof of making my own edition, and then enjoy really great scenes from TH trilogy, for example, taking all the chase in the furnaces makes (for my own) a better heroic moment when Thorin appears with the giant golden dwarf statue, in fact is one of my favourites scenes from the whole trilogy.
Skipping those not likeable tastes is what makes Starbucks a huge success, if we skip all those cringeable scenes, we will find a true masterpiece (or at least a closer one).
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dormouse
Gondolin
Nov 15 2016, 8:11pm
Post #35 of 89
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Well no, I don't think so.....
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It sounds tempting, of course, the chance to order everything each according to our own preferences and ideas. To select what we want and don't want before we've even seen it....
What you're missing is the chance to engage with someone else's vision and find ways to enjoy it and, in doing so, perhaps even to enlarge and enrich your own. And that, for me, is the whole point of literature, or films, or any other art form.
I say learn to appreciate what you call 'cringeable scenes' - or at least be alive to the possibility that you might appreciate just some of them if you listen to them rather than trying to drown them out. You won't like everything, but at least you'll broaden your range - gain more enjoyment from things. I hated garlic until I actually ate some.
As for a world in which everyone had the option to watch only the bits they wanted - just imagine what that would really be like. Each viewer shut in his or her own little space - and coming out at the end of the film saying "I really liked the scene where..." and the next person says "I didn't see that - I cut out all those scenes." So no sharing, no discussion. Awful. Just awful! And the absolute certainty that no one will ever create a masterpiece again, because no work would ever be seen whole as the artist intended.
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
Mithlond
Nov 15 2016, 10:27pm
Post #36 of 89
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Besides, Movies are not video games, where you already have that basic interaction to make progress in the story, which gives that opportunity for different choices that change story and characters and such. I don't think movies, especially mainstream ones, will ever have that level of interaction. They are not supposed to. Then you have to think of the practicality of doing something like this. How could they show these movies in theaters? How much extra time and money and resources would be spent on something that only a small percentage of the audience would have interest in doing? As an avid gamer, the dialogue/option trees for choice-based games like Mass Effect are immense. For this to be any good, the filmmaker would have to consider all the options of the effects of removing this scene or adding this scene, and then would have to make those options so the individual person could still make a cohesive movie.
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DainPig
Mithlond
Nov 15 2016, 10:32pm
Post #37 of 89
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why would a Man of Steel Dvd contain a documantary about NZ and Middle-earth?
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Nov 15 2016, 10:54pm
Post #38 of 89
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Interactive movies such as I’m Your Man (1992) and Mr. Payback (1995) were pretty much dismal failures. They were a huge waste of the film-maker’s time. (For example, Mr. Payback had over two hours worth of total footage, but due to the number of scenes that could be chosen and seen per showing, actual viewing time was only about 20 minutes.) Plus as Roger Ebert noted in his review, a movie acts upon the audience and absorbs the audience in its story, but with interactive films the audience is constantly called on to act upon the film, and thus is constantly taken out of the story.
Best to stick with “Choose Your Own Adventure” books or text-based computer games.
******************************************
Fimbrethil, Warrior Entwife
(This post was edited by Darkstone on Nov 15 2016, 10:59pm)
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Nov 15 2016, 10:58pm
Post #39 of 89
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Not to mention a huge honking eyeball that hangs around in bars.
******************************************
Fimbrethil, Warrior Entwife
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Silmaril
Nargothrond
Nov 16 2016, 7:17am
Post #40 of 89
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"Skipping those not likeable tastes"
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I don't like to skip scenes in a movie. I watch it as a whole or not at all.
With LOTR PJ met my taste (no, he blew me away), with TH not.
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mae govannen
Dor-Lomin
Nov 16 2016, 9:52am
Post #41 of 89
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Those flaws I didn't mind, but
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the whole scope of the book was for me not enough, and the Dwarves were terrible jerks to my eyes, two main complaints that PJ's version eliminated altogether, to the pointt hat I find we almost agree actually, you and me, about the final outcome, when you say "it would have been enough for Jackson to bring the story more in line with the tone struck in the The Lord of the Rings, the Appendices and "The Quest of Erebor" and including the additional plot-points brought up in LotR."
Only about "the seams starting to show" do we slightly disagree!...
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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malickfan
Mithlond
Nov 16 2016, 11:30am
Post #42 of 89
(1363 views)
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...The LOTR films made me a Tolkien fan, The Hobbit films turned me into a purist...
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mae govannen
Dor-Lomin
Nov 16 2016, 12:02pm
Post #43 of 89
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CT's judgement, especially after he has been the one who after his father's death decided on his own to leave out of the 'Silmarillion' to be published posthumously this so important and wonderful 'Athrabeth Finrod a Andreth' written in later years, that his father wanted specifically to be included as the very first Appendix to the whole book, to drastically alter its overall too fatalistic tone...
And CT also was the one who again a few years ago, when given the possibility to choose from the Silmarillion what part to publish as a separate book, chose 'The Children of Hurin', which is perhaps the most terrible story in the whole lot he had selected to put in when finalizing his father's drafts, the most inexorably tragic of all those mostly tragic stories JRRT wanted precisely to put in a new light by adding to the whole thing the Athrabeth.
CT seems to have entirely failed to perceive the hopefulness and total trust in Eru's loving divine Plan, and even the sense of humour, that makes the entire work of his father so wonderfully different than the previous big epics of the past. Both JRRT and that son of his were specialists of all those epics, but only JRRT himself was able to transcend them and improve on them in the way I described and would say makes all the difference.
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
(This post was edited by mae govannen on Nov 16 2016, 12:04pm)
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mae govannen
Dor-Lomin
Nov 16 2016, 12:12pm
Post #44 of 89
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I have so much gratitude for every point you have expressed here, dormouse!
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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mae govannen
Dor-Lomin
Nov 16 2016, 12:18pm
Post #45 of 89
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Well said, and well put too... //
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'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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mae govannen
Dor-Lomin
Nov 16 2016, 12:25pm
Post #46 of 89
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which complement perfectly the answer I myself wrote at the same time below, but to the other objectionable part of wizzardly's post.
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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Ringtir
Ossiriand
Nov 16 2016, 4:40pm
Post #48 of 89
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But my idea starts from the originals...
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You see the movie in the cinema with the vision from directors, studio, editors... Then you bought the dvd, and you have the option, will i still watch the whole movie? Maybe i want to skip all the Dol Guldur plot, and by just using the remote i will skip an entire chapter that contains other plots ....
Anyway, is huge amount of work to give the opportunity to the viewer to skip scenes while not interrupting the natural flow. I don't know if that could been done. But there are so many fan edits out there that i think some would be happy to use this option.
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glor
Nargothrond
Nov 17 2016, 2:40am
Post #49 of 89
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Perhaps I may suggest an answer having watched half of a Man of Steel via satellite TV.
Man of Steel is not a very good film (that's the polite version) and sticking a Middle-earth documentary on the DVD might help shift a few more copies
No mascara can survive BOTFA
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mae govannen
Dor-Lomin
Nov 17 2016, 9:07am
Post #50 of 89
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for LOTR you had no expectations, but then by the time the Hobbit Trilogy came along, you had on the contrary very specific expectations of your own, which then weren't what the films gave you, and you got very disappointed and critical of them, unable to see the validity and beauty they too had?... I could understand that... 
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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