Lord of the Rings. Revisted recently?

[Dandred]

That had already been done by a fuck load of stupid sword n sorcery sub-tolkien derivatives. Jackson wanted to bring something closer to the book to our screens.

When I read the books I didn't read so many and such long fight scenes.

(that was a horrible sentence)

 

[Azrael]

Jackson should have taken more liberties with the original material and turned it into something more cinematic, IMO.

Agreed. Fellowship of the Ring is by far the best film, in following a simple and effective quest formula. Even that film is flawed. The Balrog and the black riders make excellent cinema; the cutesy hobbits (and variable acting used to portray them) do not.

I'm sure the problem lies in the source. I've tried and failed several times to wade through Tolkein's turgid prose, and finally decided to do something worthwhile with my time, but I've flicked to the various pivotal moments (thanks to this being one of the only novels with an index!) and the flaws in the films are right there on the page.

Mr Jackson played down the hobbits in favour of the action-adventure elements. He should have gone further, minimized the half-pint heroes entirely, and spared us wood on screen. The Ents weren't bad though.

 

[Azrael]

A general comment on adaptations: what's the point in having an animated copy of the source? Just read the book. Adaptations get interesting when they use a source to inspire something unique to a different medium. (Apocalypse Now, to give an obvious example.)

 

[Santino]

A general comment on adaptations: what's the point in having an animated copy of the source? Just read the book. Adaptations get interesting when they use a source to inspire something unique to a different medium. (Apocalypse Now, to give an obvious example.)

That's not always the case. For example, The Godfather, apart from having a couple of subplots removed, is extremely faithful to the book. Coppola often shot scenes using pages of the book rather than the script.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I thought there was too much CGI, it went on way too long, and a lot of the dialogue just sounded kind of stupid - Jackson should have taken more liberties with the original material and turned it into something more cinematic, IMO.

Bollocks. He pulled off a monumental feat - he stripped the book of much of its 'flimbledere son of wobbadang' type stuff, made it about as cinematic as it's humanly possible for anything to ever be.

 

[Azrael]

That's not always the case. For example, The Godfather, apart from having a couple of subplots removed, is extremely faithful to the book. Coppola often shot scenes using pages of the book rather than the script.

I'll have to read the book to comment on that one. Perhaps it's the exception that proves the rule. Perhaps I'm wrong, and have missed out on the best exacting adaptations.

In Mr Jackson's defence, he excised all those [expletive deleted] songs from the Lord of the Rings novel. Although Lord of the Rings: the Musical would have been an experience. One worth suppressing, but an experience all the same.

How about the Radio 4 dramatisation? Spooky stuff, or so my eight-year-old self thought.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Yeah, it was the R4 version which originally made me enjoy the story as a kid, when I found the book a bit heavy