LotR Ignorance (warning: Rant)

[mojo1701]

Although I must admit that I understand why people can get confused or don't understand parts of it

Although I don't excuse them from not understanding Star Wars. If you'd just read the intro, that's everything you need to know, damn it.

I am still steamed at people who hated FotR and loved T2T because it had more action.

OF COURSE IT HAD MORE ACTION! FotR had to establish the plot and introduce most of the journey!

I'm sorry, but I don't really respond well (to a certain extent. If it's something obvious, then ok) to criticisms that affect things I like (e.g. That Star Wars thing above).

Anybody else experience something like this?

(Not just in LotR)

 

[shilsen]

I'm sorry, but I don't really respond well (to a certain extent. If it's something obvious, then ok) to criticisms that affect things I like (e.g. That Star Wars thing above).

Anybody else experience something like this?

(Not just in LotR)

Nope. I worked out a long time ago that criticism does not affect things I like. If I like something, I do so for my own reasons, so it doesn't matter what other people think of it. And I don't expect them to agree with me. Saves me a lot of aggravation.

 

[KenM]

Well I liked both, and I think when all 3 extended DVD's are out it will be the defintaive live action fantasy movie series.

 

[Ranger REG]

Personally, if you were to compare Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace to The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings, I find the former film a little bit boring in setting up the Prequel Trilogy. The latter film however is a much better First Act.

While I like FOTR, I'm a sucker for big battle, which is why I like TTT slightly more than the first film. The dialogue could use a bit more improvement, as well as trying to piece the three separate stories together in one smooth, flowing pace, but the battle of Helm's Deep is a winner to me.

 

[The Serge]

I actually prefer FotR slightly over TTT, but ever so slightly. It's like the difference between two expertly grilled filet mignons, but one just has a little more seasoning.

As for criticisms regarding the movie, I'll admit a few times getting upset or annoyed at some. The one that did tick me off tried to compare FotR to A New Hope.

The critic drew a variety of parallels, often referring to ANH as doing it first. The comment that really got me riled up was when she compared the seen when Boromir almost falls down the chasm while the Fellowship is fleeing the Balrog in Moria, to Luke almost plummeting to his death while fleeing Stormtroopers in The Death Star. She said that she liked ANH's encounter because there was a sense of fun in (she referred to some comment Luke makes after Leia saves him), while there are no flippant comments in the parallel seen in LotRs. I wanted to reach through cyberspace and slap her a few times. Both movies, while similar (and the similarity is due to LotR's power and the fact that the text precedes ANH by decades), have different atmospheres and goals.

Too many criticisms out there on this and other issues tend to be poorly conceived and very much burdened by uninformed or misinformed opinion. Any moron looking at the two films would note that the parallel scenes reveal that the two films intend and are after different things. I would have rathered she'd said, "I don't like grim, gloomy movies. I liked ANH because the grimmness is taken out through the dialogue. But, I understand what LotRs is trying to accomplish and, if it's a strong sense of foreboding and danger, this scene helps them reach that accomplishment."

But, people are too convinced that their opinion is right rather than a matter of preference. I prefer LotR because I like to see innocence threatened by something terrible and how, while innocence is shattered and terrible knowledge invades us, we still have an opportunity to do something profound. We see Frodo make that journey throughout FotR. TTT doesn't have that same impact, but that doesn't make it any less powerful or profound. It's just doesn't have as much of the kind of seasoning I like.

 

[ssampier]

Most reviewers are lit. majors who couldn't get a better job

It might not be true, but it sure is funny. After all, this is a movie, not literature, where everything has meaning or needs to be "totally perfect". I must admit the comparison between LotR and Star Wars: A New Hope is questionable, at best.

After all, both movies came out in two different times periods and one is based on a literary work and the other one is original. We sure as hell don't compare Phantom Menace to Citizen Kane or Gone with the Wind with XXX (tripleX). It's silly and accomplishes nothing.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Re: Most reviewers are lit. majors who couldn't get a better job

Most reviewers are lit. majors who couldn't get a better job

As a former film critic myself, may I be the first to tell you: bite me.

We sure as hell don't compare Phantom Menace to Citizen Kane or Gone with the Wind with XXX (tripleX).

OK, Kane is definitely better than Phantom Menace, any way you cut it. But while I haven't seen XXX (I had a desperate appointment to have my toenails split with a railroad spike), have you ever actually tried watching Gone with the Wind? Man, people would watch anything in 1939 if you threw a few movie stars in it.

My point, and there is one, is older does not necessarily equal better. Never underestimate the power of nostalgia. Newer doesn't mean better either. Take FotR and SW:ANH. I loved Fellowship. I never liked Tolkien, and that film alone made me want to read it. What Peter Jackson is doing is nothing short of a miracle. But I'd still take Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie any ol' day. Not because it does what Fellowship tried to do, but better (which it's not), but just because it's more enjoyable. A New Hope isn't trying to be important. It's just trying to entertain.

Not sure how OT this all was. Just something I wanted to talk about. Ignore as you see fit. After all, I'm just a lit major who couldn't get a better job.

 

[Merlion]

Just for the record, when Tolkien created Middle Earth etc all he wasnt trying to be importent...he was trying to create speakers for the langauges he created

 

[Mark]

LotR as books or as movies has an epic feel to them (in the traditional, not D&D, sense of the word), IMO. All of the SW movies, though very entertaining, have always felt like a prolonged, satisfying serial to me. While definitely the best damned serial of all time, with a fair nod to the Indiana Jones movies as a close second, the two SW trilogies will never match the masterpiece that is LotR. This is likely due to Tolkein's hand and the reverence he engenders in everyone who works on the movies.

 

[Ranger REG]

Just for the record, when Tolkien created Middle Earth etc all he wasnt trying to be importent...he was trying to create speakers for the langauges he created

Really? I thought he was trying to create an Saxon Mythology for England, because he envied other regions that have their own mythology.