Tolkien Expert Unimpressed With Rings Trilogy Films

Mrs. Maggott · Dec 20, 2003

Originally posted by LordOfMoria
I think this comment is kind of...weird. I mean too much special effects? Its not like we can just go out and find a balrog or start breeding orcs or ents. I mean come on, what else could PJ have done?

I think that the point being made was not Jackson's excellent special effects but rather that he became fixated on using them to the detriment of developing many of the characters and even some of the film threads (like the Ents in TTT). Special effects can be seductive, but as was proved in the second group of Star Wars films, they do not take the place of a good story and believable characters (and, of course, good acting by the actual people). Jackson's seeming desire to enlarge and lengthen the battle sequences to the detriment of other plot elements have led some to believe that he was in fact too dependent upon special effects to tell the story.

Mrs. Maggott · Dec 20, 2003

Originally posted by LordOfMoria
Then the movie wouldnt be as dramatic. I mean how could he have done them better? I thought they were excellent!

Yes, they were excellent, but at times they became too much of a good thing and the story became a computer game with movement and more movement and tons of whatevers fighting tons of something else. That sort of thing becomes "old" for those who do not possess a "gameboy" mentality and who find endless cuts and jumps in the film tiresome and dull after about ten minutes of it. The best special effects in the world cannot substitute for a bad plot or for no plot at all other than to bring on as many c.g. generated baddies as possible for the good guys to annihilate. That's not film making, that's computer games and there were times, especially in TTT, that Jackson created a very similar situation.

Gandalf White · Dec 20, 2003

Originally posted by Mrs. Maggott
I think that the point being made was not Jackson's excellent special effects but rather that he became fixated on using them to the detriment of developing many of the characters and even some of the film threads (like the Ents in TTT)....

....Jackson's seeming desire to enlarge and lengthen the battle sequences to the detriment of other plot elements have led some to believe that he was in fact too dependent upon special effects to tell the story.

The "reviewer" clearly states one thing about the special effects, they left nothing to the imagination. Nothing about character or plot. So once again we return to the question; should this have been filmed in a warehouse, or perhaps a large hangar?

I can only agree with this as it concerns TTT. That is the only one of the trilogy where I see a weakness in that aspect. FotR had no large scale, particularly long battle scenes, and RotK is very tastefully edited. I was, in fact, surprised.

And to echo the sentiments of others, it is entirely impossible to re-create M-E without tons of special effects. Now I realize that this is not what you're saying, but I am hard pressed to find anything "overdone."

Madonna Baggins · Dec 21, 2003

I don´t think that this Tolkien expert comes with anything new or interesting. Poorly written? I´m sure he couldn´t have done it better himself. Peter Jackson is a genius in directing, and has put probably more brown ambition into a movieproject than any other director out there.

In fact, most likely, Jackson and his team had a handfull of tolkienexperts by his side giving him advises through the trilogy, so this guy just seems to have a need for attention.

Agreeing with Gandalf, I believe that it´s nearly impossible to create this world without special effects, as it is nearly impossible to spot the effects in terms of reality.

I was shocked during the ROTK because I suddenly realized how many billions they spent on Minas Tirith and bringing the armies...Ooh that was special effects...Now I remember

joxy · Dec 21, 2003

Originally posted by Odo Proudfoot
The Eye....?
The Wizard's fight?
The moth....?
The cave troll in Moria?
The healing of Theoden?
The Warg attack?

Yes, they can all go, or be reduced!

Aldanil · Dec 21, 2003

just so, joxy!

I've been away so long that I'd forgotten how to use the "quoting" mechanism, but you took the words right out of my mouth!

I don't so much mind the moth, and although just a little of the Eye of Sauron goes a long way (indeed by the end of ROTK it's become an enormous flashlight), the Wizards' fight and the Wargs' attack should both have been left on the cutting-room floor, along with most of the cave-troll in Moria and the Watcher in the Water. To which celluloid pile of deletions and edits ought now be added the entire fiery high-dive of Denethor and at least half the rampage of the fifty-foot Mumakil (apparently transplanted from the ice-planet of Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back), and a healthy hard pruning of those flying fell-beasts as well! Restoring a few words of Saruman from the balcony of Orthanc would be welcome, however, and perhaps even a maliciously thrown Palantir would not prove amiss.

Odo Proudfoot · Dec 21, 2003

You can't leave out the wizard's fight, it has to be shown in one way or another how Saruman has turned bad and manages to hold Gandalf captive. This is material that in the book was told in flash-back, and it is this kind of stuff that simply needs to be shown on the screen if you make cinema.

The cave troll and warg attack serve their purpose. If the journey and the adventures of the heroes are to be understood as truly dangerous one needs to get close up with these dangers from time to time. Such attack and fight scenes can undoubtedly be done in many ways, and I personally find certainly the warg attack very exciting and very well done, and quite fitting in Tolkien's Middle Earth.

This is cinema on a grand scale. It is one way of translating LOTR to the big screen, I'm sure there are other ways but I will need to see those before I am convinced that they will work equally well as PJ's project.

One could perform LOTR on the stage and emphasise the characters more than the action, and it may well work for certain people. But such an approach would be doomed to fail as a mega blockbuster, and it would never attract the kind of money that is required to bring Middle Earth alive in the way PJ has done.

You could say that these effects are the way to secure a large enough audience to make the films viable in the first place. Leave them out and there might never have been a film at all. Which I, and millions with me, would certainly regret.

Odo

joxy · Dec 21, 2003

Originally posted by Madonna Baggins
Peter Jackson is a genius in directing, and has put probably more brown ambition....
....most likely, Jackson and his team had a handful of Tolkien experts by his side giving him advice....
I believe that it´s nearly impossible to create this world without special effects,
I suddenly realized how many billions they spent on Minas Tirith and bringing the armies....

"Brown" ambition?! Those who have observed the inner recesses of PJ's mind may have an idea of the "brown" side of his ambition, and nature.
And now for a set of "of course".
Of course he had all the experts - he never tires of telling us about them. The problem is that they still got things wrong, and especially that any efforts the experts in Tolkien's variety of the English language made, towards conveying their advice to PJ and his family, almost completely failed, when they wanted to invent new dialogue.
Of course it's impossible to do without special effects! Here, the problem is getting the balance right between them and everything else, and again PJ failed in several aspects, especially in TTT.
Of course they spent, well, millions, on MT, as well as HD and the other main locations. As in the case of the other "of courses",
so what? - what's so surprising and impressive about that?!

joxy · Dec 21, 2003

Originally posted by Odo Proudfoot
You can't leave out the wizard's fight....
The cave troll and warg attack serve their purpose.
I personally find certainly the warg attack very exciting and very well done, and quite fitting in Tolkien's Middle Earth.
....emphasise the characters more than the action....such an approach would be doomed to fail as a mega blockbuster, and it would never attract the kind of money....
....You could say that these effects are the way to secure a large enough audience to make the films viable in the first place. Leave them out and there might never have been a film at all.

The wizard's fight. No you can't leave it out, but you don't have to make it so silly, and last so long.
The cave troll is impressive, though as comical as its twin in Harry Potter 1, and so are the wargs, though again with a touch of comedy. I quite like both, as I do the falling staircase, but they're wrong on both counts: they have little to do with the books - they interrupt the flow of the films.
Your speculation about action rather than characters bringing in the bucks is just that - speculation. It's impossible to prove,
or to disprove.
But now we know - the whole purpose of the films is to be a vehicle for special effects; all the talk about telling Tolkien's tale dissolves into nothing. I exaggerate, but then, so do you.

joxy · Dec 21, 2003

Re: just so, joxy!

Originally posted by Aldanil
....the "quoting" mechanism,
but you took the words right out of my mouth!
Restoring a few words of Saruman from the balcony of Orthanc would be welcome, however, and perhaps even a maliciously thrown Palantir would not prove amiss.

Thanks Aldanil; it IS useful, and saves a lot of space and spares the reader!
Glad you agree!
And I agree with you too, including what I deduce from your comments on ROTK.
I gather we now start way back with Deagol and Smeagol, instead of the Saruman confrontation that the previews promised us. That seems to me the weirdest directorial decision ever; has anyone explained or tried to justify it?
Without that scene, it has been almost pointless to have poor C Lee in the other two films at all.

Odo Proudfoot · Dec 21, 2003

Re: Re: just so, joxy!

Originally posted by joxy

Without that scene, it has been almost pointless to have poor C Lee in the other two films at all.

Joxy, it may be wise to hold your comments until you have seen the movie. I personally found the Semagol scene OK, but I probably would not have missed it if they had reserved it for the EE, or not shot it at all. But then, I have read the books many times over and I am quite familiar with Gollum's history, so I don't need the scene to complete his character. I'm sure that many others who do not know the books have benefitted from the scene.

It could have been included one of the earlier films, perhaps best in TTT once we have seen a few scenes with Gollum. But this scene was a later idea and by that time I suspect TTT had already been finalised. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

With regards to Saruman, his scene has been cut in the TE but will undoubtedly be in the EE. What we get instead is this:

**** SPOILERS AHEAD ****

Gandald & Co. arrive at Isengard and meet Merry and Pippin. They ride all together to the base of Orthanc and meet Treebeard, who exlains that they have Saruman holed up in the tower. They talk a bit more, and after Pippin picks up the palantir they move off. Gandalf confirms to the others that Saruman's power is broken.

It doesn't really damage the film all that much. If you know the story you can tell where the cuts are, and more or less predict what the EE will show. The TE moves swiftly on to the next big events and I don't think many in the audience would spend a lot of time wondering about Saruman anymore. The idea that this cut is so bad that he should have been left out altogether is utter nonsense and just shows that you will use any excuse to bash these movies, even before you have seen them yourself. Poor practice imo.

Odo

Sephiroth · Dec 21, 2003

Re: Re: Re: just so, joxy!

Originally posted by Odo Proudfoot

Gandald & Co. arrive at Isengard and meet Merry and Pippin. They ride all together to the base of Orthanc and meet Treebeard, who exlains that they have Saruman holed up in the tower. They talk a bit more, and after Pippin picks up the palantir they move off. Gandalf confirms to the others that Saruman's power is broken.

It doesn't really damage the film all that much. If you know the story you can tell where the cuts are, and more or less predict what the EE will show. The TE moves swiftly on to the next big events and I don't think many in the audience would spend a lot of time wondering about Saruman anymore. The idea that this cut is so bad that he should have been left out altogether is utter nonsense and just shows that you will use any excuse to bash these movies, even before you have seen them yourself. Poor practice imo.

Odo

The great white Wizard with whom PJ actually went as far as battling against Gandalf and winning is now suddenly powerless ???

I would have loved to have been in your theater-viewing of ROTK because where i was sitting the booing actually lasted until Pippin stole the Palantir from Gandalf

The sad thing is that they could have easily cut out some shots of the overly huge battle to include this scene

Odo Proudfoot · Dec 21, 2003

Booing in the theatre? Must have been a theatre full of purists then... glad I wasn't there, but instead with a crowd of people who enjoyed what they saw.

Odo

Mrs. Maggott · Dec 21, 2003

Not everyone who is not a "purist" is willing to accept some of Jackson's more egregious shennigans! I would not be surprised if many of those who went to the film in hopes of seeing Saruman get his "comeuppance" might well be disposed to voice their displeasure at Jackson's failure to adequately resolve that plot thread - and rightly so! I would also not be surprised if quite a number of more mature viewers found that the Director's interminable battle scenes began to pall after awhile. I know that I certainly did in TTT!

However, in such a large film with so much going on, it sometimes takes a number of viewings before the plot holes and character shortcomings become apparent. Before that, one is simply overwhelmed by the immensity of it all.

Sephiroth · Dec 21, 2003

Originally posted by Odo Proudfoot
Booing in the theatre? Must have been a theatre full of purists then...

now why do you say that ?

if you make 2 movies where:

the main villain beats the main good guy(from a certain point of view)
all characters speak of fear & awe of this villain
He is shown & aluded to be way more powerfull than your average character.

You CANNOT abandon him in the manner that TTT did, by doing all those things(especcially the wizardfight) you are creating your own Darth Vader. You cannot expect average moviegoers to accept him being locked in his tower as "the end", that's just bad storytelling.

The fact that he had to cut this out a month before the theaterrelease speaks volumes about how poorly planned this all was.

Therefore, this has absolutely nothing to do with being a purist or not. Most of the people in the theater hadn't a clue where Frodo & Gandalf went in the end so that should tell you something.

Odo Proudfoot · Dec 21, 2003

Well, it didn't bother me all that much and there was no booing in my theatre.

Odo

Gandalf White · Dec 21, 2003

I was very pleasantly surprised by how the Saruman thread was handled. After all the nay-saying I expected nothing at all dealing with him.

*SPOILERS*

But I was pleased to hear Gandalf talking to Treebeard telling him that Saruman will stay under his guard. Not the huge plot hole I'd been hearing about for seeming ages. He was adequately holed up in TTT.

*END SPOILERS*

LOL, booing in the theater? Were you the only one in there?

My theatre enjoyed it, except for a few who thought it overlong. Everyone clapped at the end.

And overlong battle? I begin to think we viewed different movies....

Ol'gaffer · Dec 22, 2003

Originally posted by Mrs. Maggott
Not everyone who is not a "purist" is willing to accept some of Jackson's more egregious shennigans! I would not be surprised if many of those who went to the film in hopes of seeing Saruman get his "comeuppance" might well be disposed to voice their displeasure at Jackson's failure to adequately resolve that plot thread - and rightly so! I would also not be surprised if quite a number of more mature viewers found that the Director's interminable battle scenes began to pall after awhile. I know that I certainly did in TTT!

Oh please...

Every single person that I've talked to who hasn't read the book have said that they didn't even realise that Saruman was missing, that's how much they cared about him.

And quite frankly, the whole chris lee issue has been taken too far, his quote was wrong in the newspapers and articles, he did not say that he wouldn't come to the premiers and he did not say that he was shocked and appaled. He didn't even start the campaign of getting saruman back, but his fans started it.

And booing in the theatre? that's got to be the dumbest and rudest thing that I've heard an audience ever do. Those kind of people should be banned from movie theatres for life.

Mrs. Maggott · Dec 22, 2003

Originally posted by Ol'gaffer
Oh please...

Every single person that I've talked to who hasn't read the book have said that they didn't even realise that Saruman was missing, that's how much they cared about him.

And quite frankly, the whole chris lee issue has been taken too far, his quote was wrong in the newspapers and articles, he did not say that he wouldn't come to the premiers and he did not say that he was shocked and appaled. He didn't even start the campaign of getting saruman back, but his fans started it.

And booing in the theatre? that's got to be the dumbest and rudest thing that I've heard an audience ever do. Those kind of people should be banned from movie theatres for life.

Perhaps "everyone you talked to" might be the same type of people who thought that everything in the films that wasn't an 'action scene' was "boring" as one FAD noted not too long ago. Or, perhaps they just didn't remember who was what from the last two films as long as there was plenty of flying and swooping and "orcses shrieking". I for one don't think a line or two of dialogue is sufficient to "dispose" of the film's only major "on screen" villain. But then, I'm sure that Jackon was able to fill up the unused time with still more c.g. mayhem.

Sephiroth · Dec 22, 2003

Originally posted by Ol'gaffer

And booing in the theatre? that's got to be the dumbest and rudest thing that I've heard an audience ever do. Those kind of people should be banned from movie theatres for life.

lol, you should've been there when Matrix Revolutions was playing

Tolkien Expert Unimpressed With Rings Trilogy Films

Home is where the cat is

Home is where the cat is

Gone Missing

New Member

Well-Known Member

mad about mallorn

Back into the fray!

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Back into the fray!

New Member

Back into the fray!

Home is where the cat is

New Member

Back into the fray!

Gone Missing

The Dawson

Home is where the cat is

New Member

Share this page

Similar threads

Today's events

Similar threads

Search Wiki

Share this page

Most viewed threads of 2026