Posted on 07/30/2012 10:29:08 PM PDT by Altariel
LOL! Yeah, if anybody could make it interesting, it would be him. Odd ... the LOTR movies didn’t do much for me, but King Kong, which is NOT typical of the kind of movie I like, really grabbed me on a bunch of levels. The scenes of the ship nearly foundering on the rocks, as I am of a seafaring family and have been on boats around surging shores a fair amount, was just so frighteningly real ... dang, now I’m getting a hankering to watch it again!!! Oh well ... it’ll be a change from my recent Bullitt binge — for some reason I’ve watched it about three times over the past two months and could easily watch it again tomorrow except that I’d probably get tossed out of the house and have to sleep in the shed!
I think that it is in very capable hands. I simply believe that he will have to get several other sources beyond the novels narrative to flesh out what looks like another eight to ten hour trilogy.
He still needs to do the last book of ROTK.
I agree. I was not happy with the Jacksonized LOTR. I understand leaving out some material, unless one is going to do the Russian “War and Peace” marathon, with every scene and every line. However, leaving out the author’s material and substituting the director’s original composition is unacceptable.
I didn’t get ten seconds into the “Hobbit” trailer before I started spitting, “That’s not in the text! He didn’t say that! His beard is the wrong color!” Our homeschool group has a “Hobbit Reading Club” going this summer and fall, but we may not be able to attend the movie when it comes out, because we have several young boys who are even worse cranks about the text than I am ;-). Maybe we can take duct tape to keep us all quiet ...
I thought the most egregious change in the story was the rather silly misuse of the Dead. Really, green glowing invincible warriors? Why didn’t Aragorn just march on Mordor with them and get it over with?
Also the great misuse of Faramir’s character. In the book he was one of the most admirable characters. Not to mention the way the hobbits somehow crossed the Great River twice without noticing it.
I look forward to seeing his work again in this trilogy.
I disliked some of the structural changes to the LotR movies back when they first came out. Recently I’ve been learning how to design stories that people want to read or watch and I’ve realized that some of the changes were necessary to put the movies into something closer to the three-act structure that we subconsciously expect. Cutting out Bombadil, for instance, was vital to making sure the moment of fateful decision appeared at the proper time. Structuring the Two Towers to end after the Battle of Helm’s Deep allowed for a proper Act Three complete with low point and final victory.
That doesn’t mean he should be allowed to get the color of beards wrong, of course! But if you (that’s the general you, not you personally Tax-Chick) want to see a version that more closely follows the story yet is truly... awful as a story, the Ralph Bakshi animated version is instructional.
Hobbit is NOT enough of a story to support a trilogy.
Another example of Hollyweird greed.
Then they could have had a fourth movie about the return home and the cleansing of the Shire.
They finally figured out that with a franchise like this, another movie is ‘like printing money’.
Don't know as how three “the Hobbit” movies are going to work - but I was definitely for there being FOUR ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies.
I agree with leaving things out and moving events from one “book” to another in order to make an effect film. I even agree with depicting events on screen that were described in conversation in a book. In a book, words are words, whether they’re “live action” or a conversation, while on screen, fighting (for example) is not at all same as talking about fighting.
However, making up new material - action that didn’t happen in the book, stupid modern jokes, significant changes in characters - is inexcusable, in my opinion. It’s the imposition of the filmmaker’s ego over the author, just because he can, and I believe it is dishonorable.
I saw the old, animated “Hobbit” movie when I was a child. It may have inspired me to pick up the book, but it was so long ago that I don’t remember.
Some of those really bug me too. The little things like stupid jokes more than the big things like character changes, honestly. I adore LotR; it’s been a favorite since childhood. But there’s very little character development. It’s essentially a milieu story. That sort of works in a book but it really doesn’t work in a movie. Movies need to be character or event driven. So in order to make the movie work, they inserted character changes.
I don’t like a lot of those changes. Aragorn’s particularly bug me. But it did give Aragorn growth as a character. He had goals and fears. Original book-version Aragorn... didn’t.
Some of it’s hubris, the filmmaker thinking he can tell a story better than the author. Some of it is translation difficulties. And we as viewers have to decide how much altering of the source material we can take. There will always be some. I know exactly how Smaug looks and sounds and the movie version will be wrong, guaranteed, but I expect to enjoy the movie anyway.
Somebody who has spent 60 years working towards a goal just may have done all his "growing" already. Portraying this guy at his time of life as essentially an insecure twenty-something was insulting to the audience's intelligence.
If they had to have "character growth" it could have been handled via flashback. Five minutes of flashback showing Aragorns's life would have given plenty of room for character development.
Thanks ExGeeEye for the ping. With three movies, there should be a chance for a Moot at one of them. Or maybe not. Only time will tell.
I was with friends— the sort of friends I would stick with through times of great trouble or disaster.
Sticking with them through a movie I wasn’t enjoying was, by contrast, a piece of cake.
I agree with Sherman Logan: a character can be fully developed - in the sense that the audience (or reader) knows what he is like, his values, his probable responses to a situation - without needing “to develop” or change significantly in the course of a work of narrative art.
Look at some of your great movie characters: General Patton, John Wayne as (fill in character ;-), Major Whittlesey in “The Lost Battalion.” They are fully realized characters in their context, which is a combat-based context just as LOTR is. They don’t need growth because they have grown already.
A character doesn’t need to “grow up” to grow. A character needs to experience change during the story. He starts with a goal; takes steps toward that goal; suffers setbacks; deals with those setbacks. If he doesn’t, he’s not a character, just a prop. You can do all those things with a fully developed, mature character.
I think the way Jackson changed Aragorn’s character did disservice to Tolkien by making Aragorn come across like a whiny loser. But I think what he was trying to do - show the audience what Aragorn was trying to accomplish - was the right idea. I just wish he’d understood Tolkien a little better and trusted the audience more.
So I totally sympathize! {^)
In summer 2014 my wife and I will turn 50. I've been casting about for something special to do that would involve taking a week off and going somewhere with lodging and a pool or something. I've been leaning toward an indoor waterpark resort here in Michigan, but considering similar places the greater midwest. Coordinating that with movie showtimes-- in this case, Hobbit 3-- should be a piece of cake.
Just a thought...
F'rinstance...or Cedar Point or Six Flags Great Americe, in OH and IL respectively...
Oh, and if we do this, I'd want to make the Hobbit-Moot part of it a surprise for MrsEx.
It would certainly be a great time!! Some of us have been discussing this on FB already, even when there were only going to be TWO Hobbit movies! It would be fun seeing you folks I haven’t yet had the pleasure of ‘meeting’.
*snort*
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