The same is true of Jackson in the Middle-earth films. What he does really well is in capturing the epic sweep of the tale and the look and feel of a real place that you can actually believe in because it is so multi-layered and detailed. It looks more real than real life normally does. He brings Middle-earth to life and makes it real.
IMO, PJ's Middle Earth is a thinly-veiled theme park. There are moments of beauty and verisimilitude in LOTR, but even there I never bought the world (think of Minas Tirith and its stock inhabitants...)
I've seen period films which do a much better job.
The same is true of Jackson in the Middle-earth films. What he does really well is in capturing the epic sweep of the tale and the look and feel of a real place that you can actually believe in because it is so multi-layered and detailed. It looks more real than real life normally does. He brings Middle-earth to life and makes it real.
IMO, PJ's Middle Earth is a thinly-veiled theme park. There are moments of beauty and verisimilitude in LOTR, but even there I never bought the world (think of Minas Tirith and its stock inhabitants...)
I've seen period films which do a much better job.
First, it is NOT a period film in the sense that it is from a period of world history that can be identified.
Second, a well financed period film would have an advantage in that one need only reproduce what is already created.
Third, what are "stock inhabitants"?
I think much of the usual objections are simply from the perspective of the inability to mentally build a wall between what is a book and what is a movie.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
My objections to the film have little to do with your psychoanalysis, actually. I am both a huge fan of Tolkien, and a lover of film.
IMO, to capture the essence of LOTR, PJ should have paid more attention to fleshing out the world and it's inhabitants.
The "stock inhabitants of Minas Tirith" are just that. A number of cardboard extras flanking the heroes. There's no sense that these are real people with real fears.
The "allies coming to help," Beregond and/or Bergil episodes may have helped. But it's not just that. It's the way PJ stages things that gives a string sense of "this is just a set!"
He should have been aiming for period-piece realism when it was called for, and mythic lyricism when it was called for. He largely failed to do either, IMO.
But his failures in AUJ are much greater, I agree. At least LOTR had a sense of "this is a once in a lifetime film experience." AUJ felt like more of the same CGI-action nonsense that Hollywood is adept at churning out.
This may have some relevance to the discussion in this thread, since AUJ arguably falls victim to some of Norman's criticisms:
Film critic Barry Norman gave a speech yesterday at the Henley Literary Festival criticising the film industry:
Speaking at the Henley Literary Festival today Mr Norman told how great films require ‘great plots’ but that too many today fall into the trap of ‘crash, bang, wallop effects.’
He said summer blockbusters in particular often used expensive effects for action scenes which end up amounting to nothing put great explosions of short lived excitement.
Mr Norman said: ‘Too many films are made for a generation with the attention span of fruit flies.
There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.
~Diana Cortes
Elentári wrote:This may have some relevance to the discussion in this thread, since AUJ arguably falls victim to some of Norman's criticisms:
Film critic Barry Norman gave a speech yesterday at the Henley Literary Festival criticising the film industry:
Speaking at the Henley Literary Festival today Mr Norman told how great films require ‘great plots’ but that too many today fall into the trap of ‘crash, bang, wallop effects.’
He said summer blockbusters in particular often used expensive effects for action scenes which end up amounting to nothing put great explosions of short lived excitement.
Mr Norman said: ‘Too many films are made for a generation with the attention span of fruit flies.
SO TRUE! its all about style and substance over the story. As if the audience has no intelligence to be able to comprehend something more than flashy action and OTT antics. I understand being entertained but when the story suffers for it (which IMO the mess Jackson rewrote falls under this) its not really worth it to me.
If your going to adapt a story you love WHY change it into something else? I truly am curious about that.
Elentári wrote:This may have some relevance to the discussion in this thread, since AUJ arguably falls victim to some of Norman's criticisms:
Film critic Barry Norman gave a speech yesterday at the Henley Literary Festival criticising the film industry:
Speaking at the Henley Literary Festival today Mr Norman told how great films require ‘great plots’ but that too many today fall into the trap of ‘crash, bang, wallop effects.’
He said summer blockbusters in particular often used expensive effects for action scenes which end up amounting to nothing put great explosions of short lived excitement.
Mr Norman said: ‘Too many films are made for a generation with the attention span of fruit flies.
SO TRUE! its all about style and substance over the story. As if the audience has no intelligence to be able to comprehend something more than flashy action and OTT antics. I understand being entertained but when the story suffers for it (which IMO the mess Jackson rewrote falls under this) its not really worth it to me.
I would argue that style has gone out the window as well. There is no real visual aesthetic to these films either. It's just a bunch of CGI whizzbangery whizzing around the screen.
While I understand many of your criticisms of PJ, especially towards AUJ, I do think it is unfair to say that the man does not have a visual style. He most certainly has that.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
Elentári wrote:Mr Norman said: ‘Too many films are made for a generation with the attention span of fruit flies.'
That at least does not apply here. No fruit fly would make it through the beginning or middle of AUJ, to say nothing of waiting two years for the story to be finished.
Yes, exactly - the Bag End part was considered too slow, which is the part most faithful to the book. But many other parts of the film. particularly the changes, seem to have been designed for the audience Norman refers to!
There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.
~Diana Cortes
Elentári wrote:Yes, exactly - the Bag End part was considered too slow, which is the part most faithful to the book. But many other parts of the film. particularly the changes, seem to have been designed for the audience Norman refers to!
Yes - the first hour of both film trilogies seems to
1- be the most faithful to the books, and
2- be the slowest parts of the films, and
3- please Tolkien purists more than any other part of the film because it is faithful to the books.
The obvious conclusion is there to make. And yet again, the fundamental difference between a book and a film takes center stage.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
yovargas wrote:The intro pleased many Tolkien fans and, judging by the reviews, bored many non-Tolkien fans. That's somewhat telling, I think.
But it's impossible to take critics' opinions of the intro out of context of the whole film. Had everything post-Bag End (or post-Azanulbizar, which many critics liked) been dramatically and visually more compelling, as most of LOTR actually was, then it is likely we would have heard few if any Lamentations about the 'slow' beginning.
After all, FOTR's intro was also pretty 'slow,' and yet most critics appreciated the whole film, because the middle and end worked as well.
yovargas wrote:The intro pleased many Tolkien fans and, judging by the reviews, bored many non-Tolkien fans. That's somewhat telling, I think.
Yes - I agree that it is telling. And yet again we come back to the necessary differences between the medium of a novel and that of a film. And we also have to consider that film itself has changed a great deal over the last 20 years and - for better or worse - are far more action driven, special effects driven and dialogue is seriously cut from decades past.
Last year I rewatched LION IN WINTER and it was rather shocking the length of so many of each actors lines - which border on speeches. I look at the scripts for the 3 LOTR films and its almost all very short one , two or three lines at the most before the actor must giveway to something else. And I suspect we all know modern films that are even worse
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
A great filmmaker is able to rise above the "standards of the day" and deliver something that blows critics and general audiences away. Despite my general dislike of the LOTR films, PJ succeeded in that with the trilogy.
He failed with AUJ, and it doesn't look like DOS is likely to fare any better.
yovargas wrote:The intro pleased many Tolkien fans and, judging by the reviews, bored many non-Tolkien fans. That's somewhat telling, I think.
the book starts out slow and kicks into action right where Jackson did. If they had kept the whole film closer to the book I think reaction to the beginning still would have been the same. And there is plenty of action in the book its just not OTT like Jackson gave us. I think the critics would have given the same review even if Jackson had stayed true to the book all the way thru. Critics were expecting LOTR all over again and probably only remembering the high points of those films. As was the general audience. These films should have been marketed completely different than LOTR and not tried to be put in the same level of film. They should have marketed them as a completely different independent series with a couple of the same characters. Nothing more.
Maybe people should start going to movies for the story instead of all the bright shiny flashy things meant to distract us from the story. A good story IMO trumps all the special effects in the world for a movie.
If your going to adapt a story you love WHY change it into something else? I truly am curious about that.
sinister, I agree that the critics would likely have been at least as hard on the film, had it stayed truer to the book throughout. But I don't really care what they think!
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
Go figure 
