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Problem with Jackson isn't that he changed things.
For example I don't mind that he didn't have Frodo wait several months before leaving the Shire. In fact Jackson had his Frodo do the exact thing the Tolkien's Frodo said he shouldn't do, "Just run off and disappear like Bilbo." But that didn't bother me, I got that, it would kill a movie to have Frodo sitting around waiting.
So my problem with Jackson changing those scenes I mentioned earlier (Boromir's death/redemption and Éowyn's victory over the Witch-King) wasn't that Jackson changed them. It was he ruined any emotional impact those scenes had.
So change isn't the problem. You want Legolas to do a stupid arm breaking maneuver when hoping on a horse, go for it. You want him to slide down on a shield or the truck of an oliphant, whatever. Heck, I'll even look past the fact that elves were at Helm's Deep (Haldir lives, I don't give a damn what Jackson says!). Have Arwen take the place of Glorfindel, whatever I understand about character overload to audiences. And given that there isn't exactly a lot of female characters doing any action scenes, I'm cool with it.
No, change isn't the problem. Crappy change that kills the mood of a scene is the problem.
Down with the uppity orcs!!
Down with the attended-by-batmen Shire squireocracy!
Goblins of all lands, unite!
Vive le Galt!
Tom Bombadil is #1!
Boromirs death, no emotional impact? Get out. :P
One of the great things that came from Aragorn's characterisation by Jackson was that scene on the river anduin where Boromir (hands down my favourite character in the series) and Aragorn. "I would not take the ring within a hundred leagues of your city." it's a looong way from the Aragorn we see in the books, but I think it's an awesome scene.
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Outside of nitpicks, the only real issue I have with the Lord of the Rings movies is that they sort of glorify the big badass battles. That's to be expected, given the nature of movies and the general stuff that audiences prefer to see. However, I think it sort of misses part of the point of Tokien's work, where the battles were more horrible than glorious. I think it would have been better to give more focus to the hobbits to help emphasize that (Pippin not leading the army at the gates of Mordor is, if I recall correctly, a departure from the books and something I would have preferred to have left in). At the same time, doing things that way would have probably left the movies less popular and wouldn't have led to a sweep of the Oscars.
Bottom line: in my opinion, Jackson is a very good director who did a good job with the series, but there are places where he missed major themes of Tolkien's work. In other words, he's very good but not perfect.
As to a Hobbit trilogy, my preference would be to see a tighter story rather than one bloated up with the goings-on that don't concern the main plot. The Hobbit is a smaller, more light-hearted story that I don't think needs the same super epic feel Jackson gave to The Lord of the Rings. Does this mean a trilogy will automatically suck and that it is clearly going to fail? Not at all. But it does make me more inclined to wait until I hear some reviews of the movies before seeing them, whereas with a single film (or even only two movies), I would be more likely to see them with no questions asked.
The Hobbit is packed with scenes that scream to be expanded and extended upon. So many things that is narrated in a sentence or two could become full scenes in their own. This book is a gold mine of untold material. The coming of Smaug upon the lonely mountain; the flight of Thorin's father and grandfather. Gandalf's foray into Dol Guldur and the White Council's attack on the Necromancer...
On the other hand, I have not been impressed with Peter Jackson's 'filler material' in his LotR movies and dislike his treatment of many characters; all of which makes me cautious about PJ expanding upon The Hobbit beyond the described events.
The Hobbit is a smaller, more light-hearted story that I don't think needs the same super epic feel Jackson gave to The Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit was written with less words than LotR, and its story arc doesn't fork in three branches (frodo/sam, merry/pippin, aragorn/legolas gimly), but I wouldn't say that The Hobbit is than much of a smaller story (especially if your leave out The Scrounging of the Shire out of LotR). The hobbit describes the events that will change the Wilderlands for 60 years (ultimately leading to the war of the ring).
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Bottom line: in my opinion, Jackson is a very good director who did a good job with the series, but there are places where he missed major themes of Tolkien's work.
If Jackson wanted to hit more themes from the books, there would have been alot more shoots of them just walking and stopping to hear about the history of some tree that has nothing to do with the main plot.
When me and a friend first saw Fellowship, during a couple of the wide shots of them walking, my friend turned to me and said "cut through another 50 pages of the book." That's why I could not get through the books, too much extra stuff.
Curiously enough, when I was speaking with a friend about the Three Movie "the hobbit". He said, " I guess there is going to be lots of long cam shots of them walking."
He is one of those folk that has watched the director's cut of LoTR several times.
I am certain The Hobbit I-III will be a pretty seven or so hours though.
Greg
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Everyone has an opinion. But without the LotR you wouldn't have Orcs. And many of the foundation aspects that lead Gary Gygax and company to create Dungeons & Dragons. I am not saying it would not have still happened; but it would have been vastly different. And I dare say not nearly as popular.
Cheers,
Mazra
I'll give you the Orcs..but the Orignal D&D owed more to REH and ERB than it ever did to JRRT
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I'll give you the Orcs..but the Orignal D&D owed more to REH and ERB than it ever did to JRRT
Everyone has an opinion. But without the LotR you wouldn't have Orcs. And many of the foundation aspects that lead Gary Gygax and company to create Dungeons & Dragons. I am not saying it would not have still happened; but it would have been vastly different. And I dare say not nearly as popular.
Cheers,
Mazra
JRRT gave the structure of both Dwarven and Elven societies. The gathering of different individuals Wizard, Ranger, Fighter, Human, Dwarf, Elf and Halfling to pursue a quest. No! D&D owes a lot to JRRT. Not that ERB and REH didn't contribute. Many things contributed from Moorcock, to Lieber, to Lovecraft, to the tales of King Authur, to mythologies from every corner of the world. But IMHO JRRT contributed the most. YMMV.
Cheers,
Mazra
Don't forget Jack Vance!
Also, I think J.R.R Tolkein contributed A LOT to D&D. If it were a percentage...fifty percent, at least.
Just because I prefer the writing of Howard ,Burroughs, Lieber, and most especially Vance, does not mean I do not appreciate very much his concepts that help give foundation to our hobby.
Greg
PS: But Jack Vance has always been my favorite :P
More Peter Jackson/Tolkien stuff = good.
That's my opinion. YMMV as usual.
Boromirs death, no emotional impact? Get out. :P
You're right, it did have an emotional impact.
The douchebag is dead, yeah!And the really cool kick ass guy kicked some more ass really coolly, yeah!
This movie is going to be too serious, well at least Jackson doesn't have the rights to any other Tolkien's story, he should go back to filming horrors
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Pretty good read: In defense of a Hobbit trilogy
From the article:
"According to the appendices, the whole point of Gandalf taking an interest in Thorin’s quest was his worry that, with Smaug ensconced in the Lonely Mountain, the north was vulnerable to attack, and thus if the Shadow grew again out of Mirkwood, the forces of good would be outflanked from Mordor and the North. In light of this, The Hobbit breaks naturally into three distinct parts, each with its own narrative structure, story and character arcs, each of which can constitute a film without sacrificing anything, and without ‘stretching’ the narrative."
I'll give you the Orcs..but the Orignal D&D owed more to REH and ERB than it ever did to JRRT
Everyone has an opinion. But without the LotR you wouldn't have Orcs. And many of the foundation aspects that lead Gary Gygax and company to create Dungeons & Dragons. I am not saying it would not have still happened; but it would have been vastly different. And I dare say not nearly as popular.
Cheers,
Mazra
JRRT gave the structure of both Dwarven and Elven societies. The gathering of different individuals Wizard, Ranger, Fighter, Human, Dwarf, Elf and Halfling to pursue a quest. No! D&D owes a lot to JRRT. Not that ERB and REH didn't contribute. Many things contributed from Moorcock, to Lieber, to Lovecraft, to the tales of King Authur, to mythologies from every corner of the world. But IMHO JRRT contributed the most. YMMV.
Cheers,
Mazra
While JRRT is undeniably a watershed in the modern fantasy genre, and did give lots of iconic things to D&D, it honestly hasn't aged terribly well compared with some other classic fantasy like Vance, Moorecock and Howard.
I would say that the feel of most D&D today, especially Golarion for example owes much more to other authors, especially Vance and Howard with some Lovecraft thrown in for good measure. It is more of a high-flying heroic world with moral ambiguity than the dark-ages of middle earth where you defeat the bad guys because they are made of Evil.
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While JRRT is undeniably a watershed in the modern fantasy genre, and did give lots of iconic things to D&D, it honestly hasn't aged terribly well compared with some other classic fantasy like Vance, Moorecock and Howard.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
I'll start with the fact that Vance and Moorcock are from a younger generation.
Then I'll move on to how I'll take Tolkien's benign feudalism (look how fat those hobbits are!) over Conan burning down Kushite villages because they dared capture a white girl any day of the week.
And then I'll point out the literally hundreds of people I know who don't read fantasy, or, more to the point, don't read, who've read and loved Tolkien. And this was true before the movies came out, too.
I'll then mention that I dig Moorcock, Vance and Howard and I don't think they're any better than Tolkien. I don't think they're necessarily worse than J.R., but I don't they're any better.
And, finally, I'd say that, in my experience, people who don't like Tolkien are usually geeks with no taste who prefer reading R.A. Salvatore Star Wars novelizations.
Present company excluded, of course.
And, finally, I'd say that, in my experience, people who don't like Tolkien are usually geeks with no taste who prefer reading R.A. Salvatore Star Wars novelizations.
Salvatore killed Chewie.
I rest my case.
This cul-de -sac in the fan ghetto again?
Flipping through RPG rulebooks and adventures looking for references to authors you like is fun. Trying to assign percentages based on such influence is just pointless; arguing that D&D owes more to any one author just because you enjoy their writing style is all the more pointless.
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16% Tolkien
12% Vance
18% Moorcock
15.2% Anderson
11.8% Lovecraft
13% Howard
14% deCamp/Pratt
If you're actually claiming that Tolkien had twice the influence of Burroughs, it's going to make for one bruised goblin!
Edit: REMOVING BURROUGHS FROM THE LIST DOESN'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM!
I also missed Lieber. But I ran out of numbers.
This cul-de-sac in the fan ghetto again?
cul-de-sac --> bag end --> baggins --> Bilbo --> The Hobbit
nice one Hitdice!
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Not the full article, but even the fact that some of it is there is a pretty impressive testament to the internet.
And, oh, it's not a Socialist Hobbit Party, it's a Hobbit Socialist Party. My bad.
See, I knew that there was more to Ursula!
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Boromirs death, no emotional impact? Get out. :PYou're right, it did have an emotional impact.
The douchebag is dead, yeah!
And the really cool kick ass guy kicked some more ass really coolly, yeah!
See, we're all different people with different perspectives.
I saw it as Boromir having redeemed himself already in the audeince's eyes and his companions' eyes.Aragorn giving him a good death and their talk allowed Boromir himself to also see that he had been somwhat redeemed.
It was different buty did not detract.
I saw it as Boromir having redeemed himself already in the audeince's eyes and his companions' eyes.
+1
There are, of course, many interesting ways that the movie could have characterized Boromir, some of them more true to the book than the movie actually was, but I was fascinated by the movie-Boromir's final words.
"I would have followed you, my brother; my captain; my king."
You know, Boromir could have taken an attitude like "I'm the heir to the throne! I don't want some upstart taking away what's mine!"
Clearly, Boromir was not lured by greed for personal power. It seems to me that when the ring influenced him, it was by a more indirect means. The ring's voice in his head must have been saying something like "The ring could mean protecting Gondor and its people, Boromir! Think about it!" I thought Boromir a far more sympathetic character in the movie than in the book.
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While JRRT is undeniably a watershed in the modern fantasy genre, and did give lots of iconic things to D&D, it honestly hasn't aged terribly well compared with some other classic fantasy like Vance, Moorecock and Howard.
Sadly, I believe you may be correct. The noble pursuit of Good defeating Evil has faded. Even what is Good and what is Evil is blurred by almost everyone these days. My point from the beginning, is that D&D would be a different game without JRRT. You would have no Orcs. The societies of Dwarves and Elves may have been constructed differently if at all. Even what makes up an adventuring party may have been vastly different.
I used to enjoy an old TV Series called "Sliders." It constantly experimented with what the world would be like with or without some element from our past. If Hitler had won. If gunpowder was never invented, etc.. So the idea was what would D&D be like without JRRT. For some of you, you might think it would be better. For me, it would be far worse. So much so, that I doubt I would have ever started to play the game.
Cheers,
Mazra
Ahh Red Sonja..the film where Ahnald gets to be Conan without actually being called Conan.
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I just read Peter Jackson's actual announcement about the third movie. If I am interpreting it correctly, I think The Hobbit will still be two movies with extras that were implied in Lord of the Rings as happening during that time.
The third movie will be a bridge between the TH and TLOTR. It will be about things that happened in that 60 year span. Things like Balin going to Moria, Sauron reinhabiting Mordor, the death of Arwen's mother. It may even include Elrond's sons hunt for her killer.
Lets wait and see.
There are some speculations that the second movie would pick-up from Bilbo's contest with Gollum and the third movie culminate with the slaying of Smaug and the battle of the five armies.
This speculation comes from the fact that several domain names were registered based on two chapters of The Hobbit, namely Riddles in the Dark and The Desolation of Smaug (potential titles?)
'findel
I just want another moment like in Two Towers when the elves show up out of no where and everyone is like "WTF this is the best thing ever!!" except for the audience...that was hilarious. :)
EDIT:...and more sweet moria-type action obviously.
One of the great things that came from Aragorn's characterisation by Jackson was that scene on the river anduin where Boromir (hands down my favourite character in the series) and Aragorn. "I would not take the ring within a hundred leagues of your city." it's a looong way from the Aragorn we see in the books, but I think it's an awesome scene.
Saw this part of the movie yesterday.
I understand that this is an allegory, but I always found this comment weird considering that the Cracks of Doom are about 30 leagues away from his city.
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I could complain so much, but really I just want good movies. Be it Tolkien's or any other. I am so damned tired of crappy Hollywood movies. Scenes mentioned above with Legolas gives me pause for concern about bloating the new movies. However there really is so much supportive back-story a fourth movie could be made if but the rights were allowed. I reserve the right to complain until after the movies hit. Until then I remain hopeful for good enjoyable movies.
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The guys at bleedingcool.com are trying to identify the angry-looking guy in the top of this new Hobbit poster.
Based on what appears to be a bear claw hanging from his shoulder, my guess is it's Beorn during part of his transformation. Otherwise, it could just be the Goblin King. Anyone else?
Bill (William) Huggins the Troll