Well, yes, but only in one  sense.  No, regarding another.

This is something that hollywood and the left in creative spaces have been very bad about for a long time and it's *turns on absolutist mode* objectively wrong for them to do it.

"It" being the false advertising that they do. "Bringing your favorite book to the big screen" or "based on (authors) works" - and they specifically do this as an advert that "we are taking what you really like and putting it into a different format, please come see it!"

Higher ups can look at it and believe (rightly or wrongly depending on the end product) that it's a safer financial bet because the product has a prebuilt set of consumers. Creatives have a slightly easier (I suspect?) job in that they don't have to come up with a whole new original tranche of content to use. Making this attractive to hollywood/etc.

This whole thing falls into the objectively wrong area when you use that sort of advertising but you *do not do what you're saying you're doing.*

I can already hear a reply I've heard from others "but you can't convert everything from a book to a movie or the visual  format!"  ... Ok, yes, you can't. Agreed - but that's not what I'm talking about. Movies and even tv series of books are expected to be the readers-digest condensed version.

The problem comes when you start contradicting the source material and / or treating it with disrespect. Or worse, when creatives on these efforts give in to the compulsion to "leave my mark on the work" and actively changing things in obvious ways ... it's like a cat peeing on the couch to mark it as theirs. It reeks, you'll never really get rid of the stink, and people liked the couch for what it was already, but you stank the thing up. Only the people that are either unable to smell things or who didn't like the way the couch was will like it.

When you start subverting core themes of your source, or start subverting/deconstructing the players in that source, or toss out the CORE plotline, or worse, straight up ignore them and change them to meet your own desires - AND you advertise the work as being "we're bringing this thing you like to this other format! If you liked that you'll like this, come spend money and time on it!" ...

That's objectively wrong.

-------------------------

Yes, anyone with a braincell that's active and who has been paying attention knows that you cannot ever expect hollywood or any group of creatives with power to not take a dump on whatever source is used in a project like this. "This movie is based on" is just a byline for "vaguely similar, plz ignorant people, cover our production costs."

But everyone has to learn this the hard way for themselves. Some of us never seem to learn.

Than, rarely - every so often - someone gets it right. These extreme outliers are used by dishonest people as a cudgel in these discussions. "But they changed something int his, and you all liked it? Why can't you accept this change" ... etc. As if people can't tell the difference between what kind of changes happen and why they do.

LOTR done right on the screen would have been done visually as jackson did it, with some changes. No abuse of the ghost army, characters left intact, no need to shove arwen in and degrade her as an action hero when she was actually the goal that aragorn was sacrificing and working towards. No uber-cool wizard fight nonsense (people say that you have to cut stuff to get books to visual format, but creatives have a bad habit of ADDING stuff like that), and they should have gone for 4 movies, not three, because the whole plotline revolved around how the hobbits that went out came back home changed, and used that experience to better themselves and their community, and how they were marked in some bad ways by their experience that would never go away.

You being an author should know these things.

Accurate.

You'll enjoy this I think:



That came from an older source.

Yea I tend to skip the gollum and spider stuff.  Never been a better cinematic masterpiece.

Anyone who can't appreciate the genius of Tolkien I feel sorry for.  Decades of toil, every sentence perfect.

Like Dune, this is the stuff of sleep. I can't imagine anything less appealing than sitting in front of a screen watching these things.

Get the books.  You will not be able to put them down.

When I have a spare 87 hours, I'll get right on that

Epic movies.  My kids have watched them twice through, over the last few years. They like them.


I am convinced that people who don't like them, or say they are too long, are type of people who Hollywood makes Fast and the Furious type movies for.

That's just not true though. The moment the Ents see what Sauruman is doing they decide on their own.

Faramir didn't fail either, he took them to Osgiliath, that's true but he frees them of his own volition. He did not even try to take the ring like Boromir.

I read some of these critiques and I have to wonder if we even saw the same movies. Are you talking about when she...rode her horse away from the Nazgul? A bit of a stretch to call her an action hero for riding a horse.

Nobody in my local Tolkien Society chapter is as bent out of shape about the Peter Jackson films as GD.

The movies are great. I grew up watching them in theaters as a kid and they are the reason I fell in love with reading and fantasy as a kid. The movies for all of their greatness and shortcomings will always have a special place in my life.

The movies led me to the books which cemented Tolkien as the #1 fantasy author in my eyes. I just finished reading the trilogy for the 5th or 6th time and my wife got me a beautiful set of 1st editions which was another amazing experience to read the same story but in the original vintage versions.

There's nothing wrong IMO with loving the movies and the books. PJ did some changes that irk me, but overall, the movies had such a profound impact on my childhood that all I wanted to do was draw trebuchets, catapults, play "orcs" with my childhood friends, and most importantly, read the books for myself.

I just recently watched the again for the first time in 20 years.  I was struck by how glorious some of the scenes still were.  The costumes and props still hold up today.  The casting was still excellent, the acting superb.  There were a few very jarring scenes that didn't fit, but overall the movies were still excellent this much later.

Practical effects and scaled set pieces combined with creative camera work. It's much more time consuming but holds up much better over time than CGI which can feel dated if not done incredibly well.

Just bought the trilogy on 4K Bluray.

But I should say, if asked, the tale is not really about Power and Dominion: that only sets the wheels going; it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness. Which is hardly more than to say it is a tale written by a Man![T 1]
He commented further:
It is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality; and the 'escapes': serial longevity, and hoarding memory.[T 2]

Tolkien

Dupe

I'll have to disagree. Book Ents and Faramir were decidedly different from what was portrayed in the movie. Faramir, for example, deduced a lot of shit in a very brief time, such as what Frodo and Sam were actually doing, and instead of going all half-Boromir on them and only changing his mind at the last second, he loaded them up with supplies and helped them on their quest. If you can't see that as a fundamental change to a character, I don't know what to tell you. Faramir was among the best of them all, succeeding where his brother and father failed. Merry and Pippen watched the Entmoot, they didn't browbeat the Ents into action or trick them into seeing Saruman's corruption. They chose to do the right thing unprompted. Again, if you can't see that as fundamentally different...we'll just have to agree to disagree.

What you're saying here is fundamentally different than your initial argument. I agree that it's presented differently, but I do not agree at all that Faramir "failed" or that the Ents had to be "guilt tripped"...they just had to see the truth.
Faramir knew his life was forfeit when he let Frodo go. The Ents were harder to convince, only until they saw first hand what was happening.
I do not believe this makes the characters fundamentally different, even if the circumstances were presented a bit differently.

#metoo

It had been years. Still great movies.

In a GigaChad level of toxic masculinity, Jackson had filmed her character at Helm's deep. He decided it didn't fit with the story or character, so he cut the scenes and digitally altered her out.

There's a few videos on YouTube about it.

Huh, no shit. That's interesting. Well, if those scenes had been left in then it would be a very valid critique.

It is true,  and you are wrong, but it's because you're thinking of a different part of the movie.

The ents weren't going to go. The hobbits had to get them there to see it in the first place. The ents were depicted as being too mentally slow - IMO literally retarded, nearly in the clinical sense, and insular to see the threat.

In the source material they are effectively the wisest of all the races, and very deep thinkers, relating things together that even the elves have forgotten. They have a meeting and decide for themselves to go, and they take the hobbits on their last march to war at isengard.   It is almost the contradictory opposite of the way jackson's movie handled it and his movie denigrated them - and worse, for  no discernable good reason.  Heck, when the hobbits meet fangorn and the topic of saruman comes up fangorn already knows of what saruman has been doing and hates it, with an almost terrifing rage.


I suspect you've not read the books?

To even be in visual sight of one of the nazgul in their open and unveild wrath is enough to undo the most stout hearted warrior. Yes, functioning in their presence and doing so well enough to get others away from them is action hero stuff.

It added nothing to her character in the setting and told nobody anything. She's Galadriel's daughter and galadriel may have been one of the few others on the planet able to openly stand against the riders. Also, yes, it meant nobody got to see Glorifindel, a person so amazing and important that he was reborn by ao (the setting's god) and returned intact, with all his memories. The dude took on balrogs, IIRC single handedly and sacrificed himself to save a great many others doing so, and he was and is several rungs down the ladder from what Gandalf is.

Seeing him would be like seeing the glory of the ancient world uncorrupted. It makes me suspect jackson punked out and didn't want to try to live up to it.

My hippie 5th grade teacher read and acted out these stories to us. I looked forward to that everyday.
Since then I've waited for a good movie version of this trilogy, I was not disappointed.

Agreed.  I hate the Tom Bombadil stuff.   I think most of the changes Peter Jackson made were good calls.

Glorfindel is one of the coolest characters. Stays behind to tend to hold off balrogs and orcs to let his friends escape (and take down one of the balrogs before he is dragged down to his first death)

It’s unfortunate though that by cutting out Bombadil, we lose out on the barrow downs and the origin of the hobbits obtaining their magic daggers which are crucial in defeating the witch king later on.

No, I'm not wrong. Once the Ents see it, they immediately attack.

Yes, I have read the books and PJ had a decision to make:
1. Go into detail in Glorfindel- which does NOT happen in LOTR, and instead happens in The Silmarillion. He may have chosen to do this and include Silmarillion material, however it would have turned a 4 hour long movie into an even longer one over- let's face it- a character that was inconsequential in the the trilogy, as important as he was in the First Age.
2. Had some no name elf do it. Maybe still Glorfindel, but we wouldn't learn who he is or why he's important.
3. Introduce us to the love interest. Aragorn stood against the riders on more than one occasion. So did Gandalf (unsurprising). Running away from riders and not even fighting them (as Aragorn did) is hardly action hero stuff.

Now, personally, I'd prefer #1 and you probably would too. However, in the real world, I understand why PJ chose what he did and it takes absolutely nothing away from the movie, as unless you've read the Silmarillion you really don't know Glorfindel in the books anyway.

Yeah that part in ROTK doesn't make sense when you really think about it if you don't know about the daggers from the books.

I would also have liked to see those parts in the movies, but it would have made them unwatchable for a lot of people, and probably would mean 4-5 movies total if we add things like Bombadil, Barrow Downs, Scouring of the Shire, Glorfindel, etc.
I mean....sounds great to me, but most people would be out.

Yes, you are wrong, because ... again (please, slow down and read, you already missed this once) -  you and he (and I) are talking about different parts of the movie and the book.

You are talking about when the ents got to the edge of the forest and saw.

I am talking about before they did. In the book they already knew and were already considering what to do about it and had the entmoot to discuss it. The hobbits were secondary to the meeting, and the ents already knew what saruman was doing and they were ticked about it.

In the movie, the ents were too spectacularly ignorant and retarded to see it as a threat and the hobbits had to get the ents to GO to to the edges of fangorn forest by isengard before they decided do something about it.





He didn't have to go into detail. If he was going to depict that, all he had to do was SHOW glorifndel standing against the nine at and near the forge. There was no necessity for him to go into details from the sil - and gandalf's short little explainer to frodo later would have covered explaining that for the audience. Did you forget that from the book?

Not more, not less. Jackson chose to not do that.



You have to have your wits about  you and not freeze up and not stop as they are chasing you and using the black breath and their voices on you.  It is very hard to oversell how much of a threat they are.

Yes, aragorn did. In part, in pursuit of Arwen, because to him, she was worth it.

I understand what you're saying, you're missing my point that they still acted fast once they saw, and that's hardly being "guilt tripped".

He stood against them at Weathertop as well. Eowyn stood against the Witch King as well. Even regular ole' men rode away from the riders at Osgiliath. Sorry, trying to claim Arwen is an action hero for running away efficiently just doesn't make sense when so many others did as well, and at least one other woman did too (so much for only Galadriel being able to stand against them). My point is that he chose to add some detail to another character rather than introducing a new one. I get it, it happens all the time and it's not a huge deal.

I like the little "did you forget that from the book". Yeah dude probably. It's what, 1,500 pages total? I've totally forgotten things from the books. Sorry we don't all have photographic memories.
Did YOU forget that Eowyn actually kills the leader of the 9?

Its one of the many things PJ did to make Arwen a trilogy-long love interest. Arwen is barely mentioned in LotR until the 3rd book towards the end and the appendices. I think she gets mentioned maybe 2 or 3 times in the Rivendell chapters when Frodo sees Aragorn off talking to her and that's about it because he is chatting with Bilbo.

Yeah. I mean, I get it- he wants the movie to have the most appeal possible while staying close to the source material. I would have loved a perfectly 100% faithful rendition, but I think it would not have done so well...IMO most of these changes are not deal breakers.

Jackson talks about it himself in the making of series.

Yes, aragorn did stand against them. THE king of the men of the west, last of one of the purer branches of the vine of men from numenor who stayed loyal to AO and never worshipped the evil. Yes, the men did ride away at osgiliath, because they were under the leadership of faramir, who held them together and kept it from being a complete rout, and gandalf still had to go save them when faramir got put down by a black dart - faramir who is shown as one of the greatest of the lesser men, almost enough to not be put in the shade by the greatness of Gandalf (recall gandalf and faramir's father contesting each other).

Regarding Eowyn, in the book it is clearly alluded that she is there to fulfill prophecy, and is only standing between that horror and her kinsman because it's family, and she canot let the vile mount feast on family. She and merry barely made it out alive and they both would have died had they not had the healing arts of the men of the west put to work on them almost immediately and they still were going over the threshold to death and had to have the king call them back from what is effectively portrayed as a near death experience.

Jackson put arwen at the ford because he wanted to use the actress more in the movie.

Jackson said what guided him, Fran, and Philippa in writing the screenplay. Frodo. If the subplot didn’t advance the story of Frodo without affecting the pacing of the movie, it was cut. History, audiences, and the reception of LOTR supports his choices in filming an unfilmable movie.

So...not just Galadriel as you said before A handful of others, plus Galadriel's own (grand)daughter, who didn't stand against them, but ran away quickly. And this makes her an action hero? Come on man. You can dislike the change, that's fair enough, but claiming this makes her a wanna be action hero is silly as hell.
In fact your making a pretty good case that Galadriel is badass enough that it actually makes sense that Arwen would maybe be one of the very few that could in fact stand agains the riders.

Yes, that's exactly why he put her there. I don't really blame him, again, he's going to wider appeal and cut a character that the vast majority would not miss.

Book is always better. That said I loved the movies and watch them at least once a year.  For Jackson to strictly stick to the books the movies would be 12 hours long each.

I am still searching  - it's been over 20 years - but I still clearly recall jackson saying something very much like "how can you have her (liv tyler) and not use her" - and learning the bit about the cut scenes from helms deep just reinforces that. He was basically doing the 2000s version of "strong woman" with her.  I suspect out of an entirely misplaced and pathetic need to say that women aren't as good as men if women aren't out physically doing the stuff that men do.


So basically you're saying that getting away from the nazgul and taking the one thing from them that they want the most is not worth being called heroic .. . nor action ... when you know that just being around the riders when they aren't veiling their threat is enough to scare people so badly that they freeze up ...

Well, if you want to stick on that, go for it.

I haven't said she couldn't or wouldn't. Where did this come from?

Action hero brings to mind what would have been a fair assessment if she had actually been at Helms Deep. It was pretty clear what you intended to convey with that phrase.

Was it not you that said something to the effect of "galadriel may have been one of the few others on the planet able to openly stand against the riders" this implies Arwen couldn't stand against them. Maybe that's not what you meant to imply, but it pretty clearly does.

Your argument was that she's portrayed as an "action hero"....this is not true at all.

First DN nail it

Boy, you’ve got Ana’s backwards perspective…

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Everything the left is trying to destroy