[OT] Upon watching PJ butcher another's work.

[Assenpfeffer]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Laughing on the outside...

Hollywood conventions are so pervasive that they seem to be regarded as laws of nature, but they aren't. It's just that we've been conditioned over th past 100 years to accept them.

The problem is that the people with the money accept those conventions.

 

[Mulkhoran]

but you can declare drums of industrial acid as luggage.

GOTTA remember that...........................

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Laughing on the outside...

The problem is that the people with the money accept those conventions.

Well, yeah. Nobody's arguing that. The reason they accept them, and reinforce them, is because they want to maximize their profits. By sticking with time-tested conventions, they minimize the risk involved.

Way back in the early days of Hollywood, D.W. Griffith took flack from a studio boss for doing close-ups. "We're paying for the whole actor!" he roared. He thought the public wouldn't accept only seeing half the person's body or just their face after buying a ticket to see their favorite star. But, Griffith's films were successful, so the studios decided to do things the way he did them, and funded projects in which close-ups were done. Thus, a Hollywood convention was set due to the fact that funders will always fund known quantities.

The Hollywood convention of film length was, especially in Hollywood's Golden Age, an hour and a half or less. A few studios took gambles on filmmakers they knew to have made successful films, and allowed longer ones to be made. Now, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Hollywood film under 2 hours. A convention was changed because those who funded films accepted that longer films could make money. But they sure weren't happy with the risk at first.

When the convention of screen ratio was beginning to be changed from 1.33:1 to widescreen in the early 50s, it only came about because the studios were losing money to TV, and had to gamble on new methods that went against the conventions.

The point is, Hollywood conventions can be changed, but it takes a big effort to do so. Right now, the nearly-unbelievable lengths of films released on DVD, such as the 4 DVD FotR, has the potential of changing even more conventions, if they make money. That's the important part - it has to make money to cause a change in convention. Then everybody will jump on the bandwagon.

Hey, sometimes I need to revisit my 5 years of film study

 

[ninthcouncil]

To my mind, a lot of the more aggressive criticism of the movie is based on a lack of understanding of the differing dynamics of storytelling between book and film. The film is a representation of the book, not a reproduction, and with a complex and multi-threaded book like LotR, which rests on a mythic backstory almost impossible to reproduce in watchable form, this is particularly the case. A film which attempted to reproduce everything from the book would be unwatchable dramatically - and would never have been made. This isn't "Hollywoodization" - I'm as fed up with predigested pap that the Dream Factory has been churning out as anyone, and I work for the damn people - it's a fundamental difference in the techniques of the media, as real as the difference between a book and a play. Even if the film had been made outside the Hollywood system, by anyone on Earth, similar questions would have needed to be answered; narrative flows differently in different media.

That's not to say I'm entirely in agreement with every decision made, but I can see why most of them were done.

For instance, the Faramir/Osgiliath question. As Faramir was my favourite character when I read (multiple times) LotR all those years ago, I was a bit worried about this before I went in, having read suggestions that he had "got the shaft", and indeed his representation has changed significantly from the book. But on rereading the relevant chapters it was clear that Jackson and his writers had to make this passage more dynamic - it is incredibly talky. The Osgiliath interpolation, though unnecessary for the original plot, seems to serve a number of purposes:

1. Makes it clear that Gondor is itself buckling under attack, before we get to the main assault on Minas Tirith - which we won't of course see for a year - and showing why Gondor does not aid Rohan.

2. Replaces the lengthy (and sometimes quite sly, just in case we get too hung up on his saintliness) probing of Frodo that Faramir carries out with a dramatic demonstration of the malign power of the ring.

3. Gives the Ringwraiths - otherwise seen only once - a chance to reprise their menace from the first film (though, I do think that having the Fell Beast driven off by a single arrow hit from Faramir was a bit feeble).

4. Increases the dramatic content of the Frodo-Sam journey, which in the book is largely a lot of stumbling around and character interaction, and which if reproduced on film would hang like a millstone round the neck of the action segments. The Shelob episode occurs too late to be useful for this purpose, and has I think sensibly been moved to the beginning of RotK.

The film is rather more visceral (because more visual) than the book, and in this context I don't think it unreasonable for Faramir to be a rather harsher character. Instead of rejecting the Ring for reasons (such as his exposure to and sympathy with Gandalf, and his erudition compared to the more forceful Boromir) which might be rather difficult to convey without massive clunkiness, he reaches his decision based on things that happen on screen - signalling it with words largely taken from the book. "Well, Frodo, now at last we understand each other." As others have noted, it probably also helps to simplify his conflict with Denethor, given that the relevant backstory will not be obvious on screen. I think the guy's back on track.

The whole Faramir/Osgiliath thing is a compromise, and thus not perfect. It may be possible that it could have been done better, but given the exegencies of cutting the book down to a manageable(!) 9 hours, it's bearable. I thought Treebeard's ridiculous ignorance that Saruman's orcs had been denuding southern Fangorn was more questionable, and the dramatic benefits of Aragorn's "fall" seemed pretty limited to me, but that's a minor thing anyway, as it has little character impact.

It's inevitable that a few people with very strong attachments to the original text will find Jackson's "meddling" unacceptable. Perhaps they won't go to see the third one, as is their right. Given the witless trash that has so often been foisted on us as "fantasy" film-making in the past, I think that's a shame.

 

[KenM]

I accept the changes that were done, film is a totally different meduim then books. My friend Jim said it best " To be TOTALLY faithful, each book would be divided into 3 movies" 3 movies for fellowship, 3 movies for the two towers, and 3 for RoTK.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Hey, I understand what Jackson had to do. I've done some film work, shorts, and I know what it's like to have to change and cut characters. It can be maddening. So I don't envy him the task. I think he did a good job, in general. A lot of it wasn't how I'd do it, but no studio's backing me...

 

[Olorin]

(snip) and the dramatic benefits of Aragorn's "fall" seemed pretty limited to me, but that's a minor thing anyway, as it has little character impact.

My main issue with the Aragorn scenes is if they have little character impact and don't serve the plot, why are they there? They take screen time away from other things that could have been shown.

It's inevitable that a few people with very strong attachments to the original text will find Jackson's "meddling" unacceptable. Perhaps they won't go to see the third one, as is their right. Given the witless trash that has so often been foisted on us as "fantasy" film-making in the past, I think that's a shame.

I fully expected and wanted "meddling" to be done. A literal intrepretation of LOTR would be unwatchable. I simply feel the meddling done in TTT was not as well done as it could have been.

 

[Lady Mer]

You should see my wife. She's foaming at the mouth for his blood, and has promised suffering quite remarkable, even for Hell, if he drops the ball on that one simple little thing I just mentioned.

Of course, she's a she, and she read the books as a kid, so the reasons should be pretty obvious.............

Nice to know I'm not the only one. (It doesn't help that Merry was always my favorite hobbiet.) I firmly believe that if they do that scene right, then Return of the King will be my favorite of the movies.

Of course, if they do mess it up, I'll need a plane ticket too...

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

I have to agree with my friend Colonel Hardisson. I read somewhere or another that noone wanted to do the film at all, and Peter Jackson was *just* able to persuade New Line Cinema to produce and fund the project, which at $310 MILLION DOLLARS, if I recall, the most expensive film project of its kind EVER attempted. It is a huge amount of money, and it has been said that if this project didn't pay off for New Line, then they would have gone bankrupt as a company. The fact that FOTR brought in $860 million dollars worlwide is *after the fact*. At the time, of course, it was an impossibly huge gamble for New Line Cinema.

What's the point? No forty-hour totally faithful Lord of the Rings project would ever be done, because this one, as it is, was just barely done on a shoestring and a prayer.

What has been accomplished? A huge, excellent spectacle of a movie that faithfully tells the Lord of the Rings story, and has done so in such magnificent and beautiful ways as to make film and box-office history. It has also caused a huge increase in reading, as millions of people are right now, either re-reading Tolkien's books, or reading them for the first time, solely because of these movies. That by itself is a fantastic, honourable, and noble accomplishment indeed. In addition, Peter Jackson's fine films have now accomplished something that really has never been done before--fantasy movies, at least the Tolkien version of it--have been beautifully and wonderfully done, and done with such skill and glory as to actually reshape the very ideas and standards on what is thought worthwhile to do or not. Jackson has and will no doubt continue, to have a profound, if subtle effect on the way and style in which fantasy movies are made.

And finally, Jackson has succeeded in bringing so much of Middle Earth to a vibrant, glorious life for all to enjoy. These films are a beautiful, majestic accomplishment, and Peter Jackson has shown himself to pour his passion and his committment for the last four years into making the best Lord of the Rings movie that is ever to be made. Noone else would have given it one tenth the love and committment that Jackson and his team have done. The rest of the movie making world would have made some shallow, foul farce of a movie on the same level as the goddamned "dungeons & dragons" movie, supposedly made by someone who was "totally committed" to making a great film portraying Dungeons & Dragons. Indeed, that is what we would have seen, had someone else been persuaded to try the project.

I'm so glad that Peter Jackson has made such a fantastic and excellent set of movies. OOH-RAH!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[GreyOne]

Well, as soon as Celebrim raises the $310 + million dollars to create HIS"definitive" Tolkien translation of the series, we'll be able to see a great movie. Until then, we'll have to just deal with this truly horrible, horrible movie.

Frankly dude, I think your criticisms are weak. Nothing says pedantic more than criticising somebody's ADAPTATION of a book because its not the same as the book. And let's face it, Tolkien lacked one crucial thing all writers need: AN EDITOR

Most of the changes, to me, make perfect sense. And the pictures that I saw on screen brought Middle-Earth alive. The whole Faramir bitchfest is a strawman. Faramir became a more well-rounded character, as far as I'm concerned, BECAUSE of his indecision and similarity to his brother. In the end, he made the right decision. Doesn't that show his quality?

The criticisms of the quality of the film making alone make me question everything you and other nitpickers have said.

Why can't people just leave their baggage at the door and enjoy something at face value?


SHARK's comments get my vote!