# PJ finds His Fanfic trilogy "inconsistent



## CirdanLinweilin (Dec 8, 2020)

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...VNuQ31hNG0mNYj3fnAk5tktf30#Echobox=1607340382


L

O

L

XD

CL


----------



## m4r35n357 (Dec 9, 2020)

Marketing . . .


----------



## CirdanLinweilin (Dec 10, 2020)

m4r35n357 said:


> Marketing . . .


What?




CL


----------



## m4r35n357 (Dec 10, 2020)

PJ has something to plug, it says so right in the article.


----------



## CirdanLinweilin (Dec 10, 2020)

m4r35n357 said:


> PJ has something to plug, it says so right in the article.


Just read it, yeah, a "remastered".


CL


----------



## Olorgando (Dec 10, 2020)

I wonder if many people will notice the difference ...


----------



## Squint-eyed Southerner (Dec 11, 2020)

_That's _what he found "inconsistent"?


----------



## 1stvermont (Dec 14, 2020)

m4r35n357 said:


> Marketing . . .



agreed.


----------



## Boffer Balsashield (Dec 17, 2020)

He plays fast and loose with the characters and the plot, then thinks the color scheme is what's wrong with the films?

No thanks, I'll continue watching the Sharkey Purist Edit instead.


----------



## ArnorianRanger (Dec 31, 2020)

Of all things he could have chosen to have been actually inconsistent with the original story...

...he finds the sub-story he created as inconsistent with itself.

I must say I am rather surprised...

Thanks,

ArnorianRanger


----------



## Danielxc (Jan 1, 2021)

lol, half of the Hobbit films are like fan films. The Barrells escape scene, escape from the Trolls are like computer games


----------



## ArnorianRanger (Jan 2, 2021)

Which is why I refuse to watch them. Excessive artistic license in my opinion.

Thanks,

ArnorianRanger


----------



## Olorgando (Jan 2, 2021)

ArnorianRanger said:


> ... Excessive artistic license in my opinion. ...


"Artistic license" very much gave me pause.
Now there's no question that I am *not* an artist in any genre. But what I understand (perhaps misunderstand) as "artistic license", at least one form of it, is to get a fresh, unusual perspective to a story - which can often at first seem controversial to purists. From my limited experience, what comes to mind is transferring a play by Shakespeare (or Goethe, or Cervantes, or Dumas, or Tolstoy, or ...) into a 20th-century setting, or into a different place as well as time. "Apocalypse Now" comes to mind, set in the Vietnam War, but derived from Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel "Heart of Darkness" set in Africa, on the Congo River.

From what I gleaned (again perhaps imperfectly) from the Extended Editions of LoTR, PJ rather seemed to suffer from a wide-spread, well, I'll just call it almost a neurosis among Hollywood filmmakers about "character development". Apparently something of a "must-have", and perhaps a serious contributor to what I have criticized as Hollywood's "cookie cutter" mindset. Everything has to be squashed, however imperfect as the fit may be, into this mold.

Taking these two definitions of mine, I see a cookie cutter as the exact *opposite* of artistic license.

What PJ also did was standing central tenets of JRRT's book on their head. The totally infamous "go home" scene at Cirith Ungol is, short as it is, pretty much on a par with his mutilation of the character of Faramir that he gave much more running time to. Granted, one form of artistic license is taking the perspective of the villain of the original story, as in the 1971 novel "Grendel" by American author John Gardner (which I have not read); antiheroes were quite the rage for a while, and perhaps still are to a degree. Considering PJ's background of films before he directed LoTR, his at least implicit "rooting" for the baddies makes a bit of sense. Going into Monty Python mode, I have occasionally wondered if Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh had to restrain him from letting Sauron win ... 🤪


----------



## ArnorianRanger (Jan 2, 2021)

Olorgando said:


> "Artistic license" very much gave me pause.
> Now there's no question that I am *not* an artist in any genre. But what I understand (perhaps misunderstand) as "artistic license", at least one form of it, is to get a fresh, unusual perspective to a story - which can often at first seem controversial to purists. From my limited experience, what comes to mind is transferring a play by Shakespeare (or Goethe, or Cervantes, or Dumas, or Tolstoy, or ...) into a 20th-century setting, or into a different place as well as time. "Apocalypse Now" comes to mind, set in the Vietnam War, but derived from Joseph Conrad's 1899 novel "Heart of Darkness" set in Africa, on the Congo River.
> 
> From what I gleaned (again perhaps imperfectly) from the Extended Editions of LoTR, PJ rather seemed to suffer from a wide-spread, well, I'll just call it almost a neurosis among Hollywood filmmakers about "character development". Apparently something of a "must-have", and perhaps a serious contributor to what I have criticized as Hollywood's "cookie cutter" mindset. Everything has to be squashed, however imperfect as the fit may be, into this mold.
> ...


From how I understand it is that, in adapting a story to another medium, such as a book to a movie(s), artistic license is the changing of certain aspects of said story so that it is better portrayed on the new medium. While purists will cringe at this, I do think that it is necessary oftentimes; an example of where it was needed but not well used would be in the movie adaption of _The Man From Snowy River_; in trying to be completely true to the book, the directors had to cram a bunch of really great dialogue into a short period of time, ruining its sublimity. Another, on the opposite end of the scale, would be the utter destruction of most of the film editions of _The Chronicles of Narnia_ by excessive liberties with the original plot. I would consider, for all my criticism as fan of Tolkien, Peter Jackson's _The Lord of the Rings_ to be overall pretty well done.

I had not heard of your definition before, but it strikes me almost more as retelling than what I am used to being called as artistic license. However, as I am also not a cinematic artist, I can't definitively say one or the other is correct.

I completely agree with you on the cookie cutter idea. I remember watching in one of the extras for the trilogy that the studio (I haven't seen it in years so I don't remember all the details) wanted to have one of the Hobbits of the Fellowship die, presumably to fit into their preconceived notion of what would make LOTR profitable.

Thanks,

ArnorianRanger


----------



## Olorgando (Jan 3, 2021)

ArnorianRanger said:


> From how I understand it is that, in adapting a story to another medium, such as a book to a movie(s), artistic license is the changing of certain aspects of said story so that it is better portrayed on the new medium. ...


My guess is that artistic license is a term that covers an awful lot of ground, and thus causes an awful lot of disagreement among those who claim it for their works. What one person claims as "artistic license" is viewed by others as a total disfigurement of the original (this *does* sound a bit like the PJ vs. books nerds war ...  )

Adaptation *may* involve artistic license of some sort, but need not. Sometimes simple compression is necessary, which could lead to elimination of whole chunks of the original, for various reasons.

There are two such eliminations that stuck in my memory most that PJ effected that I would not fault him for (there are almost certainly other eliminations).
In "Fellowship", after the four Hobbits escape the Nazgûl across the Brandywine River, we next see them in (at the gates of?) Bree. This eliminates four chapters of the book, and Tom Bombadil. I have no quibble with this. Then in RoTK, we jump from Aragorn's coronation to the four Hobbits returning to the (undamaged) Shire. This also eliminates four chapters near the end of the book. Though this is far more Hollywood cookie cutter, I can live with this.
A special case is chapter two in Book Two in Fellowship, "The Council of Elrond". It is the longest chapter of all, and it is all talk. It is a "Minute of Meeting" (MoM, something all too familiar to me in my pre-retirement life), and of a somewhat unruly meeting. By necessity, everything all the speakers report is in retrospective, and Gandalf has the longest report. At least his confrontation with Saruman, IIRC, is basically inserted in the correct "real-time" place in the film.

What PJ (and his co-scriptwriters Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh) would probably claim as "artistic license" are all the additions to the story that are not based on the books. This is where I become merciless, as I consider their inventions to have about a 99.99% failure rate. They are practically all Hollywood cookie-cutter garbage, and stealing time from things in the book which probably could have, perhaps with some difficulty, be shown (as the Extended Editions occasionally showed) for such bilge is what angered me most about an effort that got quite a few things (perhaps surprisingly many) right.

But Amazon looms on the horizon. Perhaps all too soon, PJ's transgressions (at least in his LoTR trilogy) may appear trivial ... 🤢


----------



## Aramarien (Jan 5, 2021)

Olorgando said:


> There are two such eliminations that stuck in my memory most that PJ effected that I would not fault him for (there are almost certainly other eliminations).
> In "Fellowship", after the four Hobbits escape the Nazgûl across the Brandywine River, we next see them in (at the gates of?) Bree. This eliminates four chapters of the book, and Tom Bombadil.


In Tolkien's Letters, (don't have the book handy), Tolkien made comments on a potential movie script that was sent to him which eliminated The Old Forest and Bombadil. Tolkien, himself had no problem with this. My main problem with PJ was character change, as Olorgando has said about Faramir. Don't get me started about the wimpification of Frodo!!! I saw glimpses of the real Frodo only a few times in the movies. That is not artistic license but character assassination.


----------



## Elthir (Jan 5, 2021)

Well, I found his films consistent.

🐾


----------



## Matthew Bailey (Jan 6, 2021)

Elthir said:


> Well, I found his films consistent.
> 
> 🐾


Consistently flawed.

There is not a single scene in the movies that bears more than a 50% resemblance to the same events in the book.

And... Having worked in the Entertainment Industry in my Youth (Film, TV, and Music), no... Adapting a Written Work to Film/Video _*DOES NOT REQUIRE*_ the work to be changed. If that were true, then it would be impossible to film a script, which is a written work, and is just a “Reformatted Novel.”

Film Adaptations of novels tend to have changes made because either the directors think they know better than the author “what works,” or they are forced to fit a rather substantial book into a 1 to 2 hours of screen-time for a Film Adaptation.

Peter Jackson had that problem for _*The Lord of the Rings*_. But he did not have that problem for _*The Hobbit*_, which was the second film in all of history to have been granted more-than-adequate Screen-Time for a Film Adaptation.

_*The Lord of the Rings *_should have been a minimum of 6 to 12 movies (1 to 2 movies per Book, or 3 per Volume — _*The Lord of the Rings*_ is _Six Books_ in _Three Volumes_).

He is certainly _consistent_ in his meddling with the content.



Aramarien said:


> In Tolkien's Letters, (don't have the book handy), Tolkien made comments on a potential movie script that was sent to him which eliminated The Old Forest and Bombadil. Tolkien, himself had no problem with this. My main problem with PJ was character change, as Olorgando has said about Faramir. Don't get me started about the wimpification of Frodo!!! I saw glimpses of the real Frodo only a few times in the movies. That is not artistic license but character assassination.


Exactly.

I am _*very well acquainted *_with letters #200 to #215 in _*The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien*_ where he corresponds with the writer/director of the first attempt to adapt _*The Lord of the Rings*_ to Film.

And, I have worked in Hollywood when I was younger (on both sides of the Camera, in multiple roles in both positions), and I understand the sacrifices that are often forced-upon Directors/Writers for Film Adaptations.

Jackson, though, due to his appalling ignorance of the source materials at the time, and using someone as a “Tolkien Expert” whose works on the subject show an expressed and willful ignorance and bias regarding the sources that slant the works toward some _very _*UN-Tolkienian* directions, made choices in altering _*The Lord of the Rings*_ that destroyed its _*Identity*_ as “_The Middle-earth of J.R.R. Tolkien_.”

It became instead a ”Plagiarized Middle-earth,” where Jackson lifts the names of people, places, and things/events in Tolkien’s Novels, and then re-assembles them back into a shape that is similar to Tolkien’s Middle-earth while _*not being *_that _Middle-earth_.

Jackson produced something rather like _Market Street_ and _Five Points_ in Denver, while trying to claim that they were the _*original *Market Street _in San Francisco and _Five Points_ in Atlanta.

But when it came to _*The Hobbit*_, Jackson had no such excuses. He was granted _*more than enough*_ screen-time to faithfully adapt the novel, and still have ample room to provide the additional materials from _*Unfinished Tales*_, _The Appendices_ of _*The Lord of the Rings*_, or the various bits of _*The History of Middle-earth*_ that link _*The Hobbit*_ to the overall canon of Middle-earth‘s Cosmology and Mythos.

Only one other director in all of Film History has ever been granted what Jackson was granted (and not surprisingly, they f-ed up just as badly as did Jackson).

If Jackson had been granted 6 to 12 films to make _*The Lord of the Rings*_ (1 to 2 Films/Book, or 2/3 Films/Volume — _*The Lord of the Rings*_ is Six Books in Three Volumes), then he would have no excuses for any of the changes he made.

But it doesn’t seem as if that would have made any difference.

I had the privilege of being among a group of people who were granted access to Christopher Tolkien in 2013 to 2015, as a part of a project by a Professor and Grad Student at UCLA, where I was at the time.

Something that Christopher Tolkien said regarding the PJ Films struck me, as I had suspected the same thing: He felt the Elves carrying _Crooked_/_Bent Swords_ was “Blasphemous.” One of the major elements of the Catholic Theology to which the Tolkien’s subscribed is called _Physiognomy_. It is basically the philosophy, originating in Pagan Theology, and carried into early Christian, and thus Catholic Theology, that the “Physical Appearance” of a “thing” (person, place, thing) is a reflection of the _Nature_, _Soul_, or _Identity _of the “thing.”

And thus that Tolkien uses the Sword as a major component of displaying the _Nature of the beings in Middle-earth_. This is true of Medieval Fiction as well, with the accounts of Chivalric Romances using the _Cruciform Sword_ as a means of displaying the _Spiritual Character_ and _Faith_ of the bearer of the sword (And as a _Sign of the Cross/Crucifixion_, and everything that is connected to that).

That Tolkien mentions only one Elf in all of Middle-earth (possibly two, as aside from Eglamoth, Ëol was at one time depicted as carrying a “Bent/Crooked Sword”) is a statement to the effect that this is an exception to the rule (in Eglamoth‘s case, and as an application of the rule in the case of Eol).

But Christopher Tolkien, aside from the statement that this was a “Blasphemous representation of the Elves,” said that his hopes that a faithful adaptation could be produced were dashed at that moment, where he said it was painfully clear that Jackson had no inkling of what Middle-earth was about; that so few people understood how vital, how crucial, such a seemingly minor point (which is in fact a major point) is to Middle-earth was an indication of just how few were those who really understand the work, and what is most important within it.

Leaving out Fatty Bolger, The Old Forest, and Tom Bombadil are rather easy omissions to make without corrupting the overall canon or story.

Wholesale alteration of Characters, Events, and Canon though... These are things Jackson is guilty of without any redemption.

MB



Olorgando said:


> My guess is that artistic license is a term that covers an awful lot of ground, and thus causes an awful lot of disagreement among those who claim it for their works. What one person claims as "artistic license" is viewed by others as a total disfigurement of the original (this *does* sound a bit like the PJ vs. books nerds war ...  )
> 
> Adaptation *may* involve artistic license of some sort, but need not. Sometimes simple compression is necessary, which could lead to elimination of whole chunks of the original, for various reasons.



The issue of “Changes to adapt a Written Work to Film” is one where people repeat things that are not true because Hollywood has been using it as an excuse or justification for butchering the works of Authors since the beginning of the Film Industry Itself.

Having worked in Hollywood in the 1980s, and again briefly in the 00s (Film, TV, and the Music Industry, on both sides of the camera or microphone) I learned _*very early*_ that there is nothing stopping the 100% faithful adaptation of a Novel to Film.

After all, were it impossible to adapt a written work to film without changing the former, then it would be impossible to make any film, because a Script is a Written Work, and a Script is just a Novel that has a different Format than _Prose_.

That learning was formalized when I went back to school in the late-00s (UCLA) to complete a Degree I began in the 1980s, but never finished. But I wound-up attaching a Film Minor to the two Primary Degrees, after I became friends with a Film Student who was introduced to me by a director of the first film in which I appeared on screen (as an extra, and as a “Armorer Extra” — That’s an “Extra” who has firearms training to use a firearm on a Film-Set).

I audited his classes as well as attending the classes I was enrolled in, one of which was on “Screenwriting.” The very first day of class the instructor taught us:

• Changing a Written Work to film it is _*not a necessity*_. It is done either because of the Director‘s Ego (which accounts for about 90% of such alterations), or because the Studio/Producers refuse to provide adequate screen time (The “rule-of-thumb” for Hollywood to Convert a Novel to a Script to Screen is: 1 Page of Novel == 1 Page of Script == 1 Minute of Screen-Time) 
• Directors _*do not need*_ to change things to make the work “more appealing” to audiences. The Audience who is not familiar with an original source won’t be able to tell the difference, and the audience that *is *familiar with the original source will be put-off by the changes.

The means of instruction of the latter was via two short videos produced for the class, which were based upon a Short-Story that 1/2 of the class had been provided prior to the first day of class, with the instruction that they would be tested on the materials in the Short-Story on the first day of class (actually the entire class was given five Short-Stories to read, but the “five Short-Stories” given to each Student were different, with there actually being 12 Short-Stories in Total, which were divided among the students so that different portions of the class would be the only ones familiar with a specific Short-Story that would be involved in a given lesson).

We were told not to discuss the contents of the materials with others in the class until we were told by the Professor, or our TA that it was OK to discuss the stories.

But the _Experiment_ on the first day of class showed that the videos we were shown based upon the Short-Story ½ the class had read resulted in the video that had _*major alterations/changes*_ made to it had a vastly lower “approval rating” than did the video that was adapted that remained faithful to the Short-Story. As the Professor said: Those who were not familiar with the Original Source knew no better, and they showed no real difference in their opinions of the two different videos, while those familiar with the Short-Story _vastly preferred _the video that was more faithful to the source.

The overall point being:

Altering a Novel to adapt to the screen produces challenges in exposition, but that do not require altering the people, places, or things/events in the Novel. And the changes required by a Studio or Producer not allowing adequate Screen-Time also do not require substantial changes to the people, places, and/or things/events in the Novel, usually with omissions being preferable, with some added exposition to allow for events or things in the omitted parts to be accounted for.

And that the population has become so accepting of the excused, and rationalizations of Hollywood over the last 100 Years of Film Production that they now defend those rationalizations and excuses, rather than demanding that directors produce more faithful works in adaptations.

Denis Villeneuve has commented upon this with his adaptation of _*Dune*_, saying that he made some concessions to “Diversity” in representing Characters in the Novel, but that otherwise he has attempted to remain faithful to the Canon.

There is also a newer, younger generation of Directors and Industry Content Producers, who have become less willing to defend such changes made to written works without the express consent of the Author(s) (Such as the recent adaptation of _*The Expanse*_, where the authors have contributed some to the alterations for an adaptation to Video/Film). It is very likely that as the tools to make High-Quality Movies/Film/Video continue to become less-expensive, more-powerful, and more accessible that we will see people producing adaptations that are vastly more faithful to the sources.

MB

MB


----------



## Olorgando (Jan 6, 2021)

Matthew Bailey said:


> ...
> And that the population has become so accepting of the excused, and rationalizations of Hollywood over the last 100 Years of Film Production that they now defend those rationalizations and excuses, rather than demanding that directors produce more faithful works in adaptations.
> ...


Matthew, what is your opinion on my repeated accusation that Hollywood is plagued by a "cookie-cutter" mentality, squashing almost everything in sight into perhaps a handful of "standardized" formats, usually with the lame excuse that "the public wants this"?

The trend towards what I see as "blockbusterism" seems to have aggravated this trend, as far as I can tell. Their need for so many viewers from all over the US and the "rest" of the world has them scraping the bottom of the barrel for, a wild guess, the last 5% - which gets them smack into troll territory (in Middle-earth terms).


----------



## Sir Eowyn (Jan 6, 2021)

I defend Jackson's overall vision, though some flaws are no doubt glaring... there is no defence for Faramir or the "go home" scene. As some of you know, I find Fellowship of the Ring (the film) to be about 99.1 percent pure, like the Heisenberg meth of cinema.

But yes, Olorgando, "blockbusterism" is indeed a pernicious trend, and I can't deny that Return of the King in particular helped largely pave the way for it. Though perhaps I'm a bit more forgiving of some of the clunkiness with the characters, if it's got an overall Visionary heft to it.

p.s. just read the article. This speaks to something I've always felt, but didn't mind... fans of the entire movie trilogy (Lord of the Rings), would always say, "Well, you know, it's ONE movie, not three." But the three not only LOOK different, but feel very different, have very different editing and imaginative atmospheres. To me this REGRESSED as it went alone, not advanced. You see, Fellowship has still one foot in the '90s epic, films like Braveheart which, say what you want about accuracy and blah-blah, at least look REAL. 

By the time we get to Return of the King, it doesn't look very rule. You can see the computer's muscles, rippling and flexing. So I have no idea what this new grade will look like, but if it damages the integrity of Fellowship in its organic grittiness, I ain't onboard.


----------



## Matthew Bailey (Jan 6, 2021)

Olorgando said:


> Matthew, what is your opinion on my repeated accusation that Hollywood is plagued by a "cookie-cutter" mentality, squashing almost everything in sight into perhaps a handful of "standardized" formats, usually with the lame excuse that "the public wants this"?
> 
> The trend towards what I see as "blockbusterism" seems to have aggravated this trend, as far as I can tell. Their need for so many viewers from all over the US and the "rest" of the world has them scraping the bottom of the barrel for, a wild guess, the last 5% - which gets them smack into troll territory (in Middle-earth terms).



Populism is especially prominent these days, not just in Politics, but the drive in the Entertainment industry toward _Blockbusters_ or _Reality TV _is an example of that manifestation as well. Feeding “What the public wants” (or what “Hollywood _*thinks*_ the public wants”).

The trends I mentioned in another post of the tools for making High-Quality Film/Video products becoming so powerful and affordable, with the convergence of the proliferation of Streaming Services producing content that is of vastly higher quality than the major studios, yet a fraction of the cost, is producing a _*lot*_ of hand-wringing, and soul-searching in Hollywood.

And it has exposed some schisms between the _Producer-Class_ and the _Production-Class _(the Writers, Directors, Set/Costume/Prop Makers, Talent, VFX Engineers, etc.), where the former have tended to be opinionated MBA’s with more money than sense, and the latter had been held hostage by the former... 

That “Producer-Class” are the primary _Guilty-Parties_ in the Populist Trends in Hollywood, and they are now becoming a bit anxious with the ability of small shops to produce content that was previously only possible by the wealthier studios who could afford the very expensive production tools to produce such content.

That is leading a trend that began in the 1980s/90s with Cable Networks beginning to produce their own content, and Artists often being given full-control over their product.

While that was the _Exception_ in the 80s/90s, it is now the _Rule_.

And eventually we are going to see a small shop begin to turn-out Middle-earth Inspired Content that adheres to Tolkien’s vision that is going to be impossible for the studios to ignore.

Things like _*The Mandalorian*_, or _*The Expanse*_, or _*Stranger Things*_, or the _*many*_ new _*Star Trek *_properties now in production, along with the Fan Productions that intentionally replicate the late-1960s aesthetic of the _*Original Series*_ are all examples of this. The latter even being of higher quality than could have been produced by even the largest studio with the biggest budget in the late-1960s.

One of the major hurdles faced will be getting someone to produce Middle-earth Fan Content that _*is not connected*_ to Peter Jackson’s films.

But the first to do so successfully will likely establish a new motif for Middle-earth content that adheres more closely to Tolkien’s aesthetic and descriptions (which are admittedly ambiguous and difficult to work-out given his incredibly obscure vocabulary and literary/communication devices that the vast majority of Middle-earth fans miss, as they are more focused on “story tidbits” than they are upon the Foundation on which those stories are built).

Tolkien himself (as well as his son Christopher) addresses that specific point in _*The History of Middle-earth*_ at multiple points in the series. But most explicitly in the _Preface_ to _*Volume X: Morgoth’s Ring*_.

Once the obscure Theology, vocabulary associated with it, and the rest of the Metaphysical Foundations of Middle-earth are finally “_seen_” by a reader... Then there are *many, many, many things* that suddenly cease to be any sort of mystery, or for which answers appear instantaneously out of what previously seemed to be opaque, invisible, or impenetrable references.

Middle-earth is the exact opposite of the _Populist Entertainment_ that provides explosions, and gripping narratives that produce acrobatic scenes that while being a visual feast, offer little else.

Tolkien was the exact opposite of a Populist. He was both a Classist, and an Elitist (being himself a member of the Elitist of the Elite Academics, and a Reactionary Catholic who ascribed to a form of 19th Century Catholicism that is alien to even most Catholics alive today), and his work, while accessible to the population, is written in a manner that conceals the Elitist nature of the work as a whole. Both as an intentional act on Tolkien’s part, and as an accidental outcome of his personal beliefs.

But that isn’t meant to be a “put-down” of the majority of the population... Merely that Tolkien‘s work is an example of something that transcends the typical Classist and Elitist products of his time, and many of those that exist now... It is an example of an Elitist Product that is accessible to the population as a whole (i.e. “Populist”).

But hopefully the future will see that become a different thing than it has been for the past 300 years. 

MB


----------



## Sir Eowyn (Jan 6, 2021)

Well, the problem with excessive streaming is it reinforces the fact that three or four mega-conglomerates own almost all of the entertainment put out there. The idea of content as something manufactured, owned and distributed independently (or more independently) is now under threat.


----------



## Elthir (Jan 7, 2021)

Matthew Bailey said:


> Consistently flawed.




I was thinking of consistently ham-and-cheesy, but flawed can be the bread in this sandwich.

🐖 und 🧀


----------



## Sir Eowyn (Jan 7, 2021)

I can count less than two-odd minutes of cheese in the three-hour Fellowship, but there you go.


----------



## Elthir (Jan 7, 2021)

I can count many examples.

You might not agree with some of them Sir E, but if so, I agree to disagree


----------



## CirdanLinweilin (Jan 8, 2021)

Matthew Bailey said:


> and a Reactionary Catholic who ascribed to a form of 19th Century Catholicism that is alien to even most Catholics alive today)


Catholic here, Darn straight.


CL


----------



## Sir Eowyn (Jan 8, 2021)

Elthir said:


> I can count many examples.
> 
> You might not agree with some of them Sir E, but if so, I agree to disagree



Ah yes, I know my stance that Fellowship of the Ring (the film) is a masterpiece is not the most popular here, but I had to put in a word for it. I do feel its merits get largely forgotten in the rage over some of the later sins. I do sincerely feel if it were the only Middle-earth film made, if they somehow didn't make any more, then the scorn for its producers would be muted hugely.


----------



## Olorgando (Jan 8, 2021)

Sir Eowyn said:


> Ah yes, I know my stance that Fellowship of the Ring (the film) is a masterpiece is not the most popular here, but I had to put in a word for it. I do feel its merits get largely forgotten in the rage over some of the later sins. I do sincerely feel if it were the only Middle-earth film made, if they somehow didn't make any more, then the scorn for its producers would be muted hugely.


Relativity theory strikes again (admittedly, even Einstein himself once offered an "explanation" for popular consumption that probably left all serious physicists of the time with incredulous looks, all pretty much uniformly expressing the sentiment "Al, you *can't* be serious!!!").

In the retrospect of by now pretty exactly 18 years since I saw "Fellowship" in the cinema (the third-to-last time I was, to date, in a cinema), I agree that PJ did the least violence to this part of his take on Middle-earth than to any other.

That said.

It is also the only film I (we - my wife accompanied me to both viewings) have seen twice within at most three days.
After the first viewing, I realized that I was almost entirely unable to describe the plot of the film. I just had a huge list of red flags in my mind screaming at PJ "you got it wrong *again*, idiot!!!". Totally wrong expectations, without a doubt. After that, my expectations for the remaining two LoTR films plummeted precipitously (and never mind TH). Even in the Academy Awards bunch, at least some have said that "Fellowship" was the film that should have gotten "Best Picture" rather than "Return". Bu the AA seems to have its own issues about playing catch-up. Again and again, it seems to have been a case of giving the award to a second(?)-best film by some producers / directors, because they had needed to belatedly give recognition to a producer / director whose best film they had earlier ... Catch-22 with a vengeance, and that's probably a cover-up explanation for sheer incompetence.


----------



## Sir Eowyn (Jan 8, 2021)

I think the weakest scene is the Council of Elrond... felt a bit perfunctory, and it had some haze of golden lighting that didn't much agree with me. And the way the others sit around like window dressing, not even paying attention as the heroes debate it... etc.

But in everything else, for me, I see no violence. I know... 

And back to this new edition, well, let's just say I'll be interested to see it. If it homogenizes the individual films as much as it threatens, then mm, not really so good.


----------



## Olorgando (Jan 9, 2021)

Sir Eowyn said:


> I think the weakest scene is the Council of Elrond... felt a bit perfunctory, and it had some haze of golden lighting that didn't much agree with me. And the way the others sit around like window dressing, not even paying attention as the heroes debate it... etc.
> 
> But in everything else, for me, I see no violence. I know...


CoE is kind of Tom Bombadil territory. I for one am totally stumped on how to transfer the longest chapter in the book (32 pages to the runner-up's 28, and almost twice the average length of a chapter, about 17 pages; the shortest chapters are 8), practically entirely talk, with a huge amount of flashbacks, to the screen. Tom Shippey, who considers this chapter to be perhaps the finest writing JRRT ever did in any story, comments that Elrond, as meeting chairman, does seem to exert less firm a grip on proceedings than would be necessary for an orderly and efficient meeting. But having it degenerate into a shouting match is just more PJ garbage.

As it's been perhaps 15 years since I viewed any of my DVDs, details have faded. But one scene stood out for me as such glaring idiocy that I *do* remember the main points. I actually dropped the relevant (EE edition) DVD into my new tower PC's player to check up on the scene. On disk two, it's chapter 5, or chapter 32 overall "The Pass Of Caradhras". The Fellowship are already trudging through snow, in total contradiction of JRRT's description, before they reach the spot where the blizzard drives them back. Frodo takes a spill, and *loses the Ring and the chain it's attached to* (which bears zero resemblance to the chain JRRT described in the book), leading to a "tense moment" when Boromir picks it up, Aragorn speaks to him in a concerned tone, and Boromir ultimately hands the Ring and it's chain back to Frodo with the comment "I care not." Telegraphing insincerity with a two-by-four "subtlety" that silent filmmaker would have shied away from in its blatancy. This scene is marked as being one of those expanded from the cinematic version, so I'm not sure it's in the latter. If yes, it certainly would have been one of the scenes where I silently snarled "BSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBSBS!!!!!!!!!!"


----------



## Sir Eowyn (Jan 9, 2021)

Well, I'm not about to defend the bulk of the Council scene, but I don't think that the shouting match is that bad... it's to illustrate that the Ring poisons all fellow-feeling, and if Frodo doesn't step up and take the quest upon himself, it'll tear the West apart, just in claiming it.

For the Boromir scene, well, all I can say is, Tolkien's treatment of Boromir is a LOT less subtle than what they did in the movie. He's largely a foil to Faramir, and Professor T. might as well have tattooed PRIDE on Boromir's forehead, and HUMILITY on Faramir's. In the hands of Sean Bean he's a human being; in the book, not really. One of the biggest flaws in the novel. But hey.


----------



## Aramarien (Jan 10, 2021)

Matthew Bailey,​I really enjoyed reading your posts. I completely agree that there is no need to almost completely rewrite the original material to do a decent adaptation of a written work to film. 
One of the best adaptations of a written work to film is "The Shawshank Redemption". The major difference is that the written work was written in First Person Narrative and a lot of flash back was used. The film was shown in a more linear form. The decision to do so was logical in a story telling sense from one medium to another. The storyline and characters were true to the original ( with some minor changes)

I remember I was actually upset when the first Harry Potter film came out. It was almost painstakingly true to the book. I remember thinking "why couldn't they have done that to LOTR, a far more superior work of* ART *than Harry Potter ( no offence to Harry Potter, I love the books)

I truly realize that a work of literature is a different medium to that of film. One can utilize that difference to an advantage. One of the few times that PJ did a good job with this was combining the end of the chapters "The Urak-Hai" with the beginning of the chapter of "Treebeard" The Three Hunters finally come to the edge of Fangorn Forest. Aragorn / Strider finds clues while looking through the rubble and ashes of the battle betweeen the Orcs and the Riders of Rohan. 
Aragorn picks up a belt and narrates what happened and the film uses montage scenes cutting back and forth between what is described in the two chapters. First showing Aragorn describing the object with the actual scene with Merry and Pippin. It was admirably done and I applauded it. This is a difference between the storytelling of the two mediums.

I've said this in many posts. One of the main reasons that people may love a book, movie or even a Sit Com TV series is the characters and story line. PJ not only messed with the story line, but changed characters. Not just changed, but ASSASSINATED. The change of Faramir, the wimpification of Frodo (my biggest objection, the change in Aragorn, making Gimli the butt of jokes and the comic relief. 

I just watched the first season of "The Madalorian" after much pressure of my son. I realized why the series has become so popular. It has HEART. LOTR the book has great Heart, and although the movies also has it to some degree, it is not the same somehow, It is more of a feeling that is missing that overrrides all the character and storyline changes.


----------

