Purity and the Critics

[Odo Proudfoot]

It might help if you were to respond to the essence of my post rather than pulling a few lines out of context. In the first paragraphs l make it quite clear what kind of criticism I am referring to.

You are obviously free to post as much as you want about the films. My point is that criticising an artist for taking license with his source material is self-defeating. You would never get any art if an artist isn't allowed to insert his internalisation into his work.

Odo

 

[Thorin]

My view has always been that Jackson is a film director and an artist, and he makes these films the only way an artist can: he makes them so that they satisfy himself. The book makes an impression on him, and that impression is his personal one. He translates this impression to film and presents it to us, the viewers. It is up to us to accept or reject them....Where he has made changes from the book that are not obviously driven by basic film considerations, he has made them because they give him the film he wanted, the film he internalises when he reads the book.

Really? Well I guess we ultimately can't speak for Jackson, but how many fans of the book (of which PJ claims to be one as well) ever in our wildest imaginations thought Arwen would look good in place of Glorfindel and doing and saying the crazy things she did at the Fords? How many?.....*crickets chirping*. Exactly. Why would we then assume that this was Jackson's 'impression' or desire for Arwen? If it is possible, then it is strange considering that the concept was totally abandoned in the next two movies and admitted by cast and crew alike that the image didn't fit. Sounds more like a desire to make use of Liv Tyler and kill two birds with one stone cinematically IMO.

I doubt all these changes were because of Jackson's 'impression' of Tolkien. Cinematic necessity, monetary greed and plain old egotism were at the root of most of the changes and additions. I doubt that even some of Jackson's imagination and interpretation of LoTR like we as fans imagined could have been filmed either. I doubt that what we all saw was simply the product of what PJ always imagined in his mind when he read LoTR.

Yet, on the whole, Jackson strikes me as a man who will in the end make his own films, not just the films the studio wants. He has enough self-confidence to go his own way without doubting that his products will appeal to the mass audience he needs to be financially successful.)

That's too bad. If it were only the studio's choices as to what went in the film and what didn't, PJ could have deflected much of the negativity towards him. As it is (with a few exceptions like the gift giving scene being cut) the decisions were PJ's and he must take responsibility for some of the horrific distortions that made into the theatre. And on the heels of this view comes the erroneous (or at least unproven) view that the movie wouldn't have been successful without some of PJ's changes, distortions, edits and additions, and that had he remained true to the book it would have flopped.

 

[Odo Proudfoot]

That's too bad. If it were only the studio's choices as to what went in the film and what didn't, PJ could have deflected much of the negativity towards him. As it is (with a few exceptions like the gift giving scene being cut) the decisions were PJ's and he must take responsibility for some of the horrific distortions that made into the theatre. And on the heels of this view comes the erroneous (or at least unproven) view that the movie wouldn't have been successful without some of PJ's changes, distortions, edits and additions, and that had he remained true to the book it would have flopped.

On what planet have you lived the last three years? These film are blockbuster successes, all three are in the IMDB top-10, the professional critics rave about them and give them ratings in the 90's! This 'negativity' you mention is constricted to a few message boards of hard-core purists, whilst the rest of the world celebrates the movies. Your 'horrific distortions' are Van Gogh's yellow skies - you are free to dislike them, but sorely mistaken if you think they are a reason to dismiss these films as the successful cinematic achievements they are universally acclaimed to be.

Odo

 

[Greenwood]

Well I guess we ultimately can't speak for Jackson, but how many fans of the book (of which PJ claims to be one as well) ever in our wildest imaginations thought Arwen would look good in place of Glorfindel and doing and saying the crazy things she did at the Fords? How many?.....*crickets chirping*. Exactly.

How many? ........ At least one since Jackson filmed it.

How many thought it worked and did not destroy Tolkien or the story? ........ Let's see $2,500,000,000 + gross and climbing for three films ......*tap, tap, tap*....... Wait! Wait! I am still counting. ...... *tap, tap, tap* ...... Millions of new readers of LOTR and other Tolkien works ....... *tap, tap, tap* ...... What the? ....... ?!?!?! ....... My calculator broke. Sorry, I can't answer that last question.

I guess all those millions of people will just have to be glad that the answer to the first question was at least one.

 

[jallan]

Odo Proudfoot posted:

It might help if you were to respond to the essence of my post rather than pulling a few lines out of context. In the first paragraphs l make it quite clear what kind of criticism I am referring to.

You began with the unfairness of ad hominem attacks on Jackson’s motives. That’s a reasonable beginning.

It was your following derived generalization of proper behavior which I find silly.

My point is that criticising an artist for taking license with his source material is self-defeating. You would never get any art if an artist isn't allowed to insert his internalisation into his work.

Self-defeating?

One should be free to praise or blame an artist for anything you want to praise or blame that artist for, whether it be on the excellence of adapting source material or on messing up badly in adapting source material.

What an artist is allowed to do is something else altogether. An artist is certainly allowed to mess up badly, if only for certain people. Those people have a right to speak their piece. Those who see something in a work which the majority dismiss also have right to speak.

Why do you want to deny the one and not the other?

Early response to an artist may be seen later as wrong-headed. But that applies both to praise and to blame.

You curiously and tortuously attempt to justify a restriction of any adverse criticism of an artist on the grounds of artistic freedom. Artistic freedom is only a part of freedom of expression for everyone.

Would you censor Tolkien’s cutting comments on Disney and Shakespeare and Browning and Wordworth or on Draton’s Nymphamedia or on A. A. Milne’s play Toad of Toad Hall? Should Tolkien have accepted all of Zimmerman’s innovations on the grounds that Zimmerman must be allowed to insert Zimmerman’s internalisation into his film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings?

To take some common subjects in film, are all film representations of Dracula or Tarzan or Sherlock Holmes or Robin Hood or James Bond or Quasimodo equal? Are not some at least reasonably well done and some very ill done?

Jackson was not censored (other than possibly by those who set the ratings for films and by the budget he had to work with). But you would deny the free speech you give to Jackson to any who would criticize the results.

Greenwood posted:

How many thought it worked and did not destroy Tolkien or the story? ........ Let's see $2,500,000,000 + gross and climbing for three films ......*tap, tap, tap*....... Wait! Wait! I am still counting. ...... *tap, tap, tap* ...... Millions of new readers of LOTR and other Tolkien works ....... *tap, tap, tap* ...... What the? ....... ?!?!?! ....... My calculator broke. Sorry, I can't answer that last question.

Ah! Yes. Money.

Is Danielle Steele one of the greatest authors of the late twentieth century? Most writers don’t think so? Is Britney Spears the greatest singing talent? Most musicians don’t think so.

And it’s not just sour grapes.

Argumentum ad populum doesn’t work with me. Didn’t work with Tolkien either. Doesn’t work with people who care about more than the lowest common denominator.

Of course the films are popular. They were based on one of the most popular books of the twentieth century, had a big budget and in three films had enough room to represent the books without inordinate compression or omissions. They are tremendous spectacle.

Great spectacle.

And they have the great and visionary writing on which the film was based, something Star Wars did not have. But the points that most people here complain about are the same points that most of the Jackson-purist types don’t talk much about. There’s more agreement on the flaws and virtues than would appear on the surface.

Not all Jackson’s innovations were bad. Michael Jackson is not an idiot all the time. For one example, the eye motif in the first film worked excellently as did the general increased sense of urgency.

But the films could have been so much better. All the pointing to gross receipts don’t prove anything to the contrary, even if popular success at the lowest common denominator level is all you want.

How many of those who see the films are raving about what an incredibly great villan growler Lurtz was or proclaim the excellence of the scene where Aragorn is kissed by his horse? How many repeat to each other Gimli’s supposedly humorous lines? How many understand the Osgiliath scene with its blind Nazgûl and Sam lying about how Boromir died?

I don’t understand it.

Whence came that Sauron-nucleosis or whatever it was that felled Arwen? She was perfectly healthy when we last saw her, soon after her jewel exploded for some unexplained reason.

A story that had far more depth and coherence than the Star Wars tales has less when put to screen. That needn’t have been so.

Super-Legolas is low-level fun, like the low-level fun of a purposely exagerated Ninja film. But such things take away from the grim reality that keeps poking through the books.

 

[Thorin]

How many thought it worked and did not destroy Tolkien or the story? ........ Let's see $2,500,000,000 + gross and climbing for three films ......*tap, tap, tap*....... Wait! Wait! I am still counting. ...... *tap, tap, tap* ...... Millions of new readers of LOTR and other Tolkien works ....... *tap, tap, tap* ...... What the? ....... ?!?!?! ....... My calculator broke. Sorry, I can't answer that last question.

I guess all those millions of people will just have to be glad that the answer to the first question was at least one.

Ha, ha. I'm glad your calculator broke!
Do you honestly think that PJ's success hinged on Lurtz, Action Arwen, Idiot Pippin, Gimli the Clown, and Grouchy Elrond? All distortions that were unnecessary? I highly doubt it.

Rather the idea and setting of ME and the visual spectacle along with the parts that WERE Tolkien (the basis of the story) are what drew people in and made die hard fans come back again. As jallan said, do you get together and talk about how hot Arwen looked challenging the Nazgul or what a 'rocking' character Lurtz was?

The parts that grabbed one the most and held them captivated were the times when PJ DID stay true to Tolkien and made his words and characters come alive (Sean Bean's Boromir comes to mind at the Emyn Muil). If I could count the times that people whined about Legolas taking down a Mumakil, MY calculator would break. How many people whined about Minas Morgul, the trip up to Mount Doom, the setting of Lorien or Moria? Not many because it is the non-Tolkien stuff that everyone gripes about (including film defenders when they reluctantly criticize the films.....Hmm. I wonder why that is?

 

[aragil]

Wasn't this thread a little more interesting (at least unique!) when we were discussing the various different motives underlying purity?

I'd love to once again discuss where PJ went wrong and how, but I'd feel bad doing that here because it would be a hijacking of Snaga's thread. I think this thread is relatively unique- let's leave it for its intended purpose. I'm sure positive and interesting comments can be made both for and against Snaga's thesis by everyone here. In the mean time, comments about how PJ did the movies (right or wrong) would probably be more appropriately placed in the dozens of threads dedicated to that subject.

 

[Greenwood]

But the points that most people here complain about are the same points that most of the Jackson-purist types don’t talk much about.

What is a "Jackson-purist"?

Not all Jackson’s innovations were bad. Michael Jackson is not an idiot all the time.

Never been much of a Michael Jackson fan myself, though I guess Thriller was OK. I guess you got that one wrong jallan didn't you? Forget to check you facts? My tendency would be to think that you just made a slip while typing, but I know from your previous posts that you are a stickler for getting your facts straight.


jallan and Thorin,

Thorin asked if any fans of the books "in their wildest dreams" ever thought of replacing Glorfindel with Arwen at the Fords of Bruinen. (I must confess it certainly never occurred to me.) He implied that not one had. I merely pointed out that at least one had. And evidently quite a few have had no problem with Arwen at the Fords. (And I will confess that I couldn't resist ribbing Thorin about Arwen. I can't believe he is still going on about that after two years! BTW, Thorin, I cringed when Frodo sent Sam away in ROTK. I carefully explained to a friend at the movie that it didn't and couldn't happen in the book. I am afraid they still think Tolkien is a great writer.)

I notice you both conveniently ignore the point about the millions of new Tolkien readers that have been created by the films. Many of whom never would have tried Tolkien without the films. But then again, that seems to be one of the things that drives some purists crazy. Thorin has already said he would rather the sales of the book had stayed the same then the increase they have had as a result of the movies. It is that sort of reaction to the movies that Snaga was pointing out when he started this thread.

Ah! Yes. Money.

Is Danielle Steele one of the greatest authors of the late twentieth century? Most writers don’t think so? Is Britney Spears the greatest singing talent? Most musicians don’t think so.

And it’s not just sour grapes.

Argumentum ad populum doesn’t work with me. Didn’t work with Tolkien either.

But Tolkien did sell the movie rights to the books. He knew what movies were and he knew they weren't the same as books. In my opinion these three films are closer to the story and spirit of the books on which they are based than any author has a resonable expectation of ever seeing.

And the books are still there. Being read by millions who never would have read them otherwise.

 

[joxy]

I notice you both conveniently ignore the point about the millions of new Tolkien readers that have been created by the films. Many of whom never would have tried Tolkien without the films. But then again, that seems to be one of the things that drives some purists crazy.
And the books are still there. Being read by millions who never would have read them otherwise.

I don't think they ignore it, and I don't think anyone is driven crazy by it.
Of course, the books are still there, unchanged, and the films have sent new readers to them. The books have had a constant steady flow of new readers for fifty years; that flow has been temporarily increased: great. You say that many never would have tried the books without the films; I say an awful of them would have done so, sooner or later. The films have hastened the flow: great, but hardly surprising, and no great credit to the films for doing so.

 

[Greenwood]

I don't think anyone is driven crazy by it.
I say an awful of them would have done so, sooner or later.

I think we must agree to disagree on those points.

 

[joxy]

Many of whom never would have tried Tolkien without the films. But then again, that seems to be one of the things that drives some purists crazy.

I say many of them would have tried later, or sooner, without the films. I estimate that on the basis of statistics, but I cannot know it for certain, so it must, as you say, be a matter for mutual disagreement.
However, the claim of "purists driven crazy", is something open to confirmation or otherwise. I have seen no evidence for it. Provide some, and then I will reconsider the matter of agreement and disagreement!

 

[Snaga]

No, I'm a native Yorkshireman, and did a college degree course in English!
As always, the US and UK are divided by a common language.
Here a "sell-out" is something excellent: the success of a product for which there has been more demand than supply, something that has "sold out (of stock)".
"Hack" colloquially refers to the process of obtaining access illegally to a computer system.
You mean the second quotation is a US colloquialism, better left unexplained?

The phrases Greenwood used are in regular usage in British English and it is amazing to me that if you have a degree in English you have never come across them.

Wasn't this thread a little more interesting (at least unique!) when we were discussing the various different motives underlying purity?

I'd love to once again discuss where PJ went wrong and how, but I'd feel bad doing that here because it would be a hijacking of Snaga's thread. I think this thread is relatively unique- let's leave it for its intended purpose. I'm sure positive and interesting comments can be made both for and against Snaga's thesis by everyone here. In the mean time, comments about how PJ did the movies (right or wrong) would probably be more appropriately placed in the dozens of threads dedicated to that subject.

I'd agree with you. But it appears this is not to be. It is acknowledged amongst anthropologists and sociologists that it is harder to study the characteristics of a group to which one belongs. This is clearly in evidence here.

Accordingly, the thread appears to become nothing more than a receptacle for gathering further evidence that substantiates my observations: the rejection of modernity, the dogmatic belief in a single "correct" interpretation of the text, a belief that this must be defended against threats that "distort" or "tarnish" its purity, and the sense that this conflict takes on a moral character.

In the mean time, when the discussion becomes so infantile that describing something as 'self-defeating' is condemned as an attempt at censorship, then I think I will leave you to it.

 

[joxy]

The phrases Greenwood used are in regular usage in British English.

The expressions "sell-out" and "hack" have the meaning to me, my friends, and my colleagues, that I explained in a previous posting. The usages which Greenwood explained are not familiar here.

 

[Snaga]

Not familiar to you perhaps. But as I live only about an hours drive from Yorkshire and I am familiar with both these terms, and from explicitly British contexts, to say that these terms are American is not correct. Obviously, the uses of these terms you give are familiar as well, but the context would make it which meaning was being used.

 

[joxy]

....to say that these terms are American is not correct. Obviously, the uses of these terms you give are familiar as well, but the context would make it which meaning was being used.

I didn't say they were American, or suggest any other source. However, Greenwood quoted the definitions from Webster.
The NewOED does not give the "sell-out" usage which was quoted, as a numbered definition, but adds it as a subsidiary. It does not give the "hack" usage which was quoted, at all, but defines a "hack journalist" as one who does boring unoriginal work.
The usages with which I am familiar are included as numbered definitions.
It was obvious from the context that different, and presumably newer, usages were being applied, and I suppose a more careful reading would have made those usages quite easy to take a guess at!

 

[jallan]

On what planet have you lived the last three years? These film are blockbuster successes, all three are in the IMDB top-10, the professional critics rave about them and give them ratings in the 90's!

Yes, they are blockbluster successes.

But I’ve seldom let my aesthetics be driven entirely by what’s currently trendy in the mass media. That’s a poor reason in itself to praise anything.

This 'negativity' you mention is constricted to a few message boards of hard-core purists, whilst the rest of the world celebrates the movies.

Not true. Look around you.

I’ve talked to people casually who’ve seen the films and weren’t especially impressed or who disliked parts of them, people who were in no way rabid Tolkien fans. Some were far from celebrating them. Some very very impressed. Some didn’t care much one way or another. They were just blockbuster films with lots of cool special effects. They just turned off their minds and enjoyed, going into normal mindless movie mode. I’e been there too.

No do less-than-completely-laudatory views of the films only occur only Tolkien sites. Here’s a thread at olkien Expert Unimpressed With Rings Trilogy Films discussing Verlyn Flieger’s opinions (as reported second-hand unfortunately). There’s a paper by Janet Brennan Croft at The Mines of Moria analyzing some of the failures of the films.

Andrew Rilstone, in my opinion one of the best popular culture essayists on the web, has reviews on each of the three films:

1. The Fellowship of the Ring where he is generally very pleased.
2. The Two Towers expressing shock and disappointment along with puzzlement about what Jackson thinks he’s doing.
3. Return of the King (1) and Return of the King (2) which mostly express resignation at the resultant mess.

I’ve not been collecting or noting other articles and comments critical of the films, though I’ve seen others that I could track down. Probably you have seen some also.

And even those liked the films as a whole often find themselves annoyed or let down by parts of them, often the same parts which others finds weak.

No-one quite picks on all the same points, but many of the same things do come up again and again (and they tend to be the same points that Jackson-purists don’t much like to talk about).

Your 'horrific distortions' are Van Gogh's yellow skies - you are free to dislike them, but sorely mistaken if you think they are a reason to dismiss these films as the successful cinematic achievements they are universally acclaimed to be.

Universally is an awfully comprehensive word.

It’s quite reasonable that those who have more knowledge in some area will be more critical about a film that covers that area. Those familar with Roman history were less likely to appreciate the Hollywood idiocies of Gladiator. Those who know something about the American revolution had far less stomach for the jingoist and propagandist film The Patriot. Those who can see how much more cimenatic some of Tolkien’s writing was than what we saw in Jackson’s adaptation are going to say so.

Olympic Orc may become a standard term for something that looks dramatic but makes no sense whatsoeer.

Despite your denial, I remain quite free both to dislike and to dismiss anything I wish to, whether it is currently popular or not currently popular. I am also quite free both to like and accept works that most others don’t appreciate or don’t know about at all.

I am more ready accept guidance from others when I am unfamiliar with the kind of material than when reading translations of aboriginal poetry or listening to East Indian music. There my knowledge of conventions and context are difficient and I know I am not so capable of discrimating good from bad (at least as perceived by those familiar in those areas). So, when those whose views I generally respect indicate something is very good and that they get a lot out of it, I feel I owe it to myself to try.

But as to the Jackson Tolkien films, I do have a fair knowledge of fantasy, fantasy films and of schlock films. I am reasonably confident that I can recognize schlock when I see it (and sometimes very much like it as schlock when in the mood).

Horrific distortions, despite your claims to the contrary, are reason enough to dislike any adaptation. If you claim they are no more horrific than Van Gogh’s yellow skies, demonstrate it. I think one could demonstrate to most people that Van Gogh’s skies are quite effective if they actually didn’t see it for themselves.

But Van Gogh’s yellow skies are not very original or unusual. Check the Mona Lisa for one earlier example of yellow sky. There are many others.

Nor can I recall anyone seriously complaining about Jackson’s unrealistic use of sepia tint in the Imladris scene or blue tint in the Lothlórien scene or the unrealistic amount of light in the Moria scenes. That’s recognized as purposeful stylization. (The blue tint in Lothlórien is to me a bit too reminiscent of cheap blue filters for night scenes in low budget films. But that’s a very minor and not very important quibble.)

Citing Van Gogh’s effective use of yellow skies doesn’t indicate one way or the other whether, to give one example, the exorcism scene in The Two Towers is an artistic triumph or dumbed-down Hollywood schlock. It does not indicate one way or the other whether Nathan Tate’s notorious watered-down, happy-ending adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear was better or worse than the original, or just different. (Most criticize it as far, far worse. But it was a commercial hit for 150 years while the original version was almost unknown. I guess people then universally thought it was better. See Tate’s King Lear, [url=http://perspicacity.goose24.org/20023151918.shtml]Reinventing King Lear and King Lear Reviv’d by Nathan Tate).

On your arguments as a whole, I will quote from Snaga’s attempt to complain about what he sees as the excesses of those he calls purists:

Nonetheless, because of the sense of escape and satisfaction, the consciousness of the criticism of the novel provokes anger and defensiveness on the part of devotees. Who are these critics? How dare they make these criticisms?

It seems to me this attitude is seen as much or more among Jackson-purists and as your arguments indicate.

Instead the inquisitorial obsessing over the movies has lasted years. Not only this, within the sect of Tolkien purists, the more strident the attacks, the more uncompromising the criticisms, the more extreme the displays of hostility the greater the status gained thereby.

This is certainly as true of the sect of Jackson-purists, though I don’t think it generally true at all, But there were those already praising Jackson’s vision even before they saw it, accepting every piece of media hype and then explaining ad nauseum that Jackson had to increase Saurman’s role because it was cinematically unacceptable not to have one single main villain in all three films.

Too much obvious personal hostility, unlike what Snaga claims, isn’t productive for anyone wishing to make a case and isn’t generally awarded.

Odo, don’t keep tyring to demonstrate that free artistic expression depends on no-one ever criticising or that that Van Gog’s yellow skies prove that Jackson or some other artist or Nathan Tate or even Van Gogt or Shakespeare or Tolkien is beyond criticism.

 

[joxy]

....there were those explaining ad nauseum that Jackson had to increase Saurman’s role because it was cinematically unacceptable not to have one single main villain in all three films.

An explanation that crashed rather painfully four weeks before ROTK was released, when that single main villain was relegated,
to a vague promise of a bigger appearance on a disc in nine months time.

Olympic Orc may become a standard term for something that looks dramatic but makes no sense whatsoever.

The OO has never made any sense to me either, but it's so prominent that I've been thinking it must be based on something
from the books. Checking today, I find it's a total invention, and so is most of the battle!
Tolkien took only eight pages to describe the whole thing, but there are some wonderful things in it that would have made great cinema. It's a real loss that PJ chose not to use them, but to substitute his own, much inferior ideas of what went on.

Looking again at the OO scene, I note that the explosives are in spheres of the kind that are usually detonated by contact,
the sort of thing that is used against ships, so the guy needn't have lit his torch in the rain! Someone else has pointed out that there were plenty of people as well as Legolas who could have shot him down, and that this just happened to be the one time when Legolas turned out not to be such a good quick-fire archer as usual. So, the position rests: the scene is nonsense,
and now, I find, a complete waste of valuable time. As someone else again has said, though, that's cinema!

BTW: The guy who thought Shakespeare wasn't cheerful enough was called Nahum.

 

[jallan]

What is a "Jackson-purist"?



Never been much of a Michael Jackson fan myself, though I guess Thriller was OK. I guess you got that one wrong jallan didn't you? Forget to check you facts? My tendency would be to think that you just made a slip while typing, but I know from your previous posts that you are a stickler for getting your facts straight.

Touché.

I notice you both conveniently ignore the point about the millions of new Tolkien readers that have been created by the films. Many of whom never would have tried Tolkien without the films. But then again, that seems to be one of the things that drives some purists crazy.

The subject of new Tolkien readers never came up. It was not ignored. If it is considered that new Tolkien readers are a good thing, then possibly better films would have inspired even more new Tolkien readers.

That something bad has good side effects dosn’t justify it’s being bad.

There are people who have read Tolkien and enjoyed Tolkien after seeing one of the television Hobbit or television Return of the King or the Bakshi or after pouring through trash fantasy books claiming to be in the Tolkien tradition and so forth. That doesn’t make those works any better (or worse).

I think few are driven crazy by this. But there is often a common feeling that is is better to approach any famous or great literary works first through the works themselves, if possible, rather than through a derivative adaptation, at least for books where the screen adaptations have not been so free as to almost be a different work.

This gets harder and harder to implement. Old films are so easily available and understandable (at least in part) to children at an earlier age than are many of the books on which they are based. And, to be blunt, almost all films based closely on books are dumbed down versions of the books on which they are based.

Thorin has already said he would rather the sales of the book had stayed the same then the increase they have had as a result of the movies. It is that sort of reaction to the movies that Snaga was pointing out when he started this thread.

Then talk to Thorin about his reaction. Don’t blame all who might seem to be purists or accept the name.

But Tolkien did sell the movie rights to the books. He knew what movies were and he knew they weren't the same as books. In my opinion these three films are closer to the story and spirit of the books on which they are based than any author has a resonable expectation of ever seeing.

I disagree. I cannot understand and others cannot understand some of the silly changes that were made.

And authors have again and again be enraged at the way their work is butchered in adaptations. P. J. Travers was furious with what Disney did to her Mary Poppins. Stravinsky loathed what he he considered Disney’s insane arrangement of The Rites of Spring in Fantasia (and in his case he had no choice since legal holes in copyright law meant Disney would either use it with his permission and pay him something or use it anyway without his permission.

But that rights to a work have been sold does not mean anyone is compelled to like the results.[/quote] And the books are still there. Being read by millions who never would have read them otherwise.[/quote]And Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame undoubtedly led many to turn to that book. That doesn’t justify the film

Looking again at the OO scene, I note that the explosives are in spheres of the kind that are usually detonated by contact,
the sort of thing that is used against ships, so the guy needn't have lit his torch in the rain! Someone else has pointed out that there were plenty of people as well as Legolas who could have shot him down, and that this just happened to be the one time when Legolas turned out not to be such a good quick-fire archer as usual.

One might suggest that possibly the besieged were running short of arrows and had been commanded not to fire save under direct orders.

That would explain why Legolas, the super-Elf, was the one called on to shoot the Orc and the only one who shot.

But in real life if it hard to imagine anyone stupid enough to sneak up on that culvert at night with an enormous torch. Some bits of charcoal smouldering in a small pot with a lid or something else similar would provded a quck way of lighting a fuse and not attracted attention. One might have even purposely created some kind of diversion outside the walls close by to attract attention away from the Orc with bomb. Jackson’s just pulled the old idiot plotting trick, where what you see only makes sense because the people in the plot are idiots and he wanted something that looked dramatic.

 

[Mrs. Maggott]

I do not doubt that much of what Jackson did was done for the sake of the appearance of drama. The problem was that too much of that sort of thing begins to wear after a while. Then you have to have even more dramatic images or people will become bored. Ten thousand orcs at Helm's Deep? Why you must have ten times that number and more at the Pelannor or that battle will appear to be of lesser importance than the first - and so forth.

As one continues to "up the ante" visually, soon everything is so much that it all becomes too much. It is as if the music is always so loud that it's painful! The quiet moments become fewer and fewer and after the audience has gotten used to almost ceaseless movement and drama, the quiet moments - at which times great truths concerning the meaning of the story are often put forth - are soon viewed by most of the audience as something to endure until the next big fight!

All I know is by the time I finished the EE of TTT, I felt as if I had run in a marathon. God knows what I'll feel like after ROTK much less thee EE of that film.

 

[Greenwood]

But I’ve seldom let my aesthetics be driven entirely by what’s currently trendy in the mass media. That’s a poor reason in itself to praise anything

Fair enough. And if purists simply said "I don't like these films" and gave their reasons that would also be fine and pretty irrefutable (assuming things cited from the movies were not demonstrably false). However, many purists go further and say that the films are bad as films and that Jackson is a bad director. That kind of assertion is open to challenge by the fact that the films have been so widely praised by professional film critics and film makers. When Jackson becomes the first director to ever be nominated as "best director" three years running by the Directors Guild, it is fair to point that out in refutation to the charge that he is a bad director. When a film has the kind of huge success that these films have had, both critically and commercially, it is fair to point that out in refutation to the charge that they are bad films.

None of this is to say that any individual must like these films. I can understand purists not liking them. There are many changes from the book and I personally would not have made many of the choices that Jackson made; some even bother me quite a bit. However, I can still recognize that they are a tremendous cinematic achievement. The stridency with which purists attack the films and make ad hominem attacks on Jackson (charges of "blasphemy" and references to Jackson's personal apperance and charges of dishonesty) indicate something beyond a dispassionate appraisal of three films and that is what Snaga was trying to examine in this thread.