posted
Afr's list is pretty close to mine with the additions of the bad CGI Oathbreakers and the very bad idea of Arwen actually starting to leave Middle Earth. Never. And people (Eomer) should have recognized who Aragorn was when they heard his name.
Helm's Deep was too long and we didn't need the Aragorn going over a cliff nonsense.
On balance, though, I agree with Lyrhawn. The look (when PJ didn't get carried away with VFX) and music was spot on.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: To me, Tom Bombadil seemed to be like the Creator. Nothing could threaten him; he could do anything. No chance for drama there.
Kwea, actually Jackson did provide a glimpse of the Scouring of the Shire, in the vision Frodo had when he looked into Galadriel's birdbath (or whatever it was) and saw what would happen if the quest failed.
I agree, and think the movies couldn't have done him justice. The movies are better without him, as sad as that is.
And I loved the vision, although if he had done it right there wouldn't have been a need for it.
I love the movies, but I love the books a lot more. The good thing is I have both. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Just to tweak the noses of some who object to Jackson's changes, I would go so far as to say that in omitting the Scouring of the Shire, and in omitting mention of Tom Bombadil, Jackson CORRECTED two MISTAKES that Tolkien made as a dramatic writer. I know, some will say that is blasphemy. But the many years that Tolkien had Frodo remaining in the Shire before he left, also was clearly a dramatic mistake--so obvious that I have yet to see anyone defend it and say Jackson was wrong to compress the time before Gandalf returned to only a few days or weeks. Tolkien was not perfect. He needed a good editor.
The many years Frodo spent in the Shire before leaving was not a dramatic mistake by Tolkien. Those years are necessary in the story, because the reader *must* get a sense of how mundane this unchanging, static, birth world is in the first couple of chapters. Because very soon, they are going to cross the river and enter an unknown, dynamic world of adventure, and the reader will be able to feel the sense of "extraordinary", because he has already been programmed into what is "ordinary", by, in a sense, living through the banal, routine, commonplace life of our hero before he becomes a hero. It's quite ingenious actually.
Yet Jackson was not wrong to compress the time in his movie. One does not follow from the other. Jackson's correct choice does not make Tolkien's literature mistaken.
The Scouring of the Shire was also necessary, as I mentioned in my previous post, we need to see the hero return and bestow his boons. Those being, among other things, the skills they've acquired in battle and war which allows them to rout their oppressors. Knowledge and interest in the wide world outside. Before the adventure, the Shire was an island unto itself. They knew nothing and cared nothing of the world outside their borders. They didn't even know much about the world *inside* their borders outside of their own lifetimes. After their adventure, they were a land esteemed by the King, with emissaries traveling between them, offices appointed, histories written. And then, more tangibly of course, there was Sam's box of dirt from Galadriel. The heroes returned and not only restored the Shire to its previous state, they improved it.
In the movie, the Shire they returned to was just the same, boring, unchanging Shire that it always was, and the heroes did nothing to change it. They brought nothing back with them except some nice clothes. How boring it would have been for the book to end that way.
(ETA: In a sense, the Shire, before the adventure, is like a baby in the womb. Moreover, it is like a baby in the womb that refuses to be born. The hobbits themselves are "babies" when they set out. During the course of their adventure, they all do their "growing up", and they bring back their "growing up" and they impart that to the Shire itself. They play the part of midwives and they birth the Shire into the world. In the movie, though the hobbits grow up, they do not impart that growing up to their homeland, and the Shire stays in the womb.)
(ETA2: And now that I think about it in those terms (the Shire being a baby pre- and post-birth), it actually makes the long boring years of Frodo's life at the beginning and the Scouring at the end relate to each other. They function as bookends to the story. I'm glad you have encouraged me to think about and talk about this, Ron. I think I'm gaining an even greater appreciation for the story than I already had!)
But again, Jackson was not wrong to omit it from the movie. One does not follow from the other. Jackson's correct choice does not make Tolkien's choice an error.
However, I personally never liked Tom Bombadil, and didn't miss him.
quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: To me, Tom Bombadil seemed to be like the Creator.
In Letters of Tolkien, #181 states: "There is no 'embodiment' of the Creator anywhere in this story or mythology."
#211 states: "The One does not physically inhabit any part of Ea."
#19 states: Tom Bombadil is "the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside..."
#144 states: "And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)."
#144 also states: "Tom Bombadil is not an important person - to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a 'comment'. I mean, I do not really write like that: he is just an invention (who first appeared in the Oxford Magazine about 1933), and he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyze the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function. I might put it this way. The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long lost any object save mere power, and so on; but both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were taken 'a vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless. It is a natural pacifist view, which always arises in the mind when there is a war. But the view of Rivendell seems to be that it is an excellent thing to have represented, but that there are in fact things with which it cannot cope; and upon which its existence nonetheless depends. Ultimately only the victory of the West will allow Bombadil to continue, or even to survive. Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron.
He has no connexion in my mind with the Entwives. What had happened to them is not resolved in this book. He is in a way the answer to them in the sense that he is almost the opposite, being say, Botany and Zoology (as sciences) and Poetry as opposed to Cattle-breeding and Agriculture and practicality."
#153 states: "He is then an 'allegory,' or an exemplar, a particular embodying of pure (real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the enquiring mind, a spirit coeval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with 'doing' anything with the knowledge: Zoology and Botany not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture."
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posted
Advice for robots, in addition to the things you cited about Legolas, don't forget the fantastic way he slung himself with one hand up onto horseback. I also wonder how the arrows in his quiver kept being replenished. But all of this stuff--especially Legolas riding a shield down the stairs, shooting arrows as he went bumpty-bump--was just a bit of campy humor.
As for things Jackson did extremely well in the movie, there was the masterfully done soliloquy where Gollum/Smeagol is arguing with himself. Aided by switching camera angles back and forth, the sense of multiple personality disorder resolving itself (at least temporarily) was eerie yet hauntingly effective.
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Lyrhawn, I think it is Howard Shore who should get credit for the wonderful music, since he wrote and conducted it--leading the orchestra while viewing clips from the movie where the music was to be played. And he wrote so many themes, that all meshed together! It takes about 12 hours to view the whole trilogy (on extended release DVD), yet there were so many musical ideas, some of them--including whole songs--are not heard until the credits scroll.
[ February 21, 2009, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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posted
Ron, I have to agree with your comments about the dialogue between Gollum-Smeagol. That was one of the most powerful things in the whole movie trilogy, and made my least favourite film (TT) compulsive viewing. Everytime I watch that scene I am literally on the edge of my seat it is so involving. Overall, despite a couple of minor quibbles, PJ and Andy Serkis got Gollum perfect.
Posts: 867 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I do think PJ lacked subtlety. He makes action pictures, horror films, that sort of thing. That's why he overdid so many things in the movies. The Balrog, though, was so freaking great it makes up for all the rest. I loved the Balrog!
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posted
I especially missed all the cool hobbit stuff like the way they act casual in dire circumstances, or "sit on the edge of ruin and talk", eg, "Hello, Pippen, did you come on this little expedition too? I wonder what about bed and breakfast and all that?" when they'd been kidnapped by the orcs and beat unconscious, dragged, tossed on the ground, etc. That was something so cool about hobbits, their total bravery and essential toughness. The movies didn't show any of that.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I LOVE Howard Shore's music in those films, and I own all 3 in addition to all of the movies. I am a fan of both.
I think that Jackson did a PERFECT job of allowing us a glimpse of the inner workings of Gollum/Smeagol, and THAT is what raised the movies from very good to great, despite their flaws.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I'm only missing the third extended edition soundtrack. There are TONS of little goodies on the extended editions, in fact, the soundtracks have more music that even the extended edition movies in some cases. I downloaded a couple of the songs from the third extended soundtrack like the Houses of Healing number, and a couple others that weren't in the original soundtrack, but I ran out of money.
Well, technically I guess I could have spent less money buying the LOTR collectible reproduction swords from the movie...but they're so pretty! I can't wait until I can actually display them somewhere.
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