>watch the films again after reading the books
>realize Christopher Tolkien's comment about them being "Hollywood action films for 15-25 year olds" is kind of true
There really is just way too much focus on action and spectacle over characters and world building, especially in Towers and Returns. The avalanche of skulls scene is like something out of Pirates of the Carribean. The Hobbit films proved that these films were good in spite of Peter Jackson, not because of them. It really should have been 5 or 6 movies to properly do the books justice.
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what did he think the movies were going to be and why didn't HE do better?
>what did he think the movies were going to be
Audiobook + slideshow
Morgan freeman reading the book
Movies are not literature and can't have similar pacing.
>It really should have been 5 or 6 movies to properly do the books justice.
Don't be fricking ridiculous, then it would have the same problem as the Hobbit movies being long, drawn out tripe
>Don't be fricking ridiculous, then it would have the same problem as the Hobbit movies being long, drawn out tripe
Wrong, the entire first film just being a comfy Hobbit adventure to Rivendale similar to how the book is paced would have been pure kino.
No it wouldn't, it would have been dull.
The Weathertop change was easily the most intelligent decision to keep the pacing, and that was the one Christopher b***hed about the most.
Nobody would have known what the frick was going on when frodo started his autistic Elbereth shrieking
Weathertop has a huge payoff with how Merry is able to injure the Witch King with his barrow blade and its one of the best parts of the books, you got filtered
You don't even realise that you're saying the book relies heavily on scenes prior that they'd have been lunatics to keep in an adaption, which is just further proof that the change was warranted.
The filtering comment is very fitting in this regard.
Nah you’d have the same problem as dunc where the film would just end without feeling like you experienced a whole story.
>the film would just end without feeling like you experienced a whole story.
Plenty of people felt that way about fellowship
No, they didn't.
Yes they did
Not a single person did. Stop trying to make shit up.
Yes they did.
Fellowship ends with two plotlines "setting out" to do something after telling you their plans, then it fades to black.
A Hobbit movie could easily end the same way in Rivendell with them preparing to continue on their adventure. Instead it ends with a shitty sequel bait of Smaug opening his eyes, because audiences need that hook to feel fulfilled.
would it work as a hbo miniseries?
Sure, if you want to see black lesbian Gandalf and hairy hobbit sex
I don't mind the second half
>Don't be fricking ridiculous, then it would have the same problem as the Hobbit movies being long, drawn out tripe
you almost certainly could have done 4 films out of the 3 LotR books, probably even 5. A lot of stuff was cut from FotR
>A lot of stuff was cut from FotR
All of the stuff cut had nothing to do with the plot or story.
>Christopher Tolkien
Who cares what he has to say. It always tickles me when the family or children of successful figures who have passed try to pretend they have the authority to do so.
the dude took every single manuscript made by his father and put it together into a consistent narrative in the Silmarillion. I would say he's a respected figure in the matter
a stapler could've done the same thing.
>redditllion
it always tickles me when morons share their moronic opinions
I thought the LOTR films were good fun but couldn't stomach the books. I just don't care about troop movements, genealogies of tangential characters, and bad poetry/songs that make zero sense in the context of the story. I give a ton of credit to Tolkien for all the effort he put in, but his actual writing is dry as the Sahara. When I read fantasy, I want a rouse adventure. If I want a history book, I'll read a history book.
You are the kind of person who loves the name of the wind, and I know I am not wrong.
wrong, I read Robert E Howard and CS Lewis
Try Jack Vance and Gene Wolfe
I'm also in the "lotr is boring" camp
>Robert E Howard
>CS Lewis
I kneel.
Why would that be the case? Nothing interesting happens in Name of the Wind either
You’re right but it’s important to appreciate that the films were the best we could reasonably ever expect to come out of Hollywood. They were made at the perfect time when special effects were good enough to capture the epic fantasy scale, but not so good that they totally replaced practical effects. The cast was almost perfect, and lots of talented people behind the scenes were passionate about the source material and tried to be as faithful as they could. And the music was god tier. The Hobbit flicks and later Amazon slop shows how much worse it could have been. Yes the books are much better, and NPCs like will never appreciate them anyway, so it’s good that the trilogy gives them a chance to enjoy the story anyway. You can see the cracks in the later films with the overuse of quips and CGI, but it doesn’t ruin anything for me. I’m very thankful these movies exist and got made when they did.
Yeah, this. The best Tolkien adaptation only exists in everyone's mind anyway, it's impossible to get something like that right. OP is right too, they are kind of schlocky and the world is definitely Jackson & co's modern take on fantasy inspired by Tolkien, not actually Tolkien's. But they're OK and comfy and are probably the last fantasy movies to have that magical atmosphere you can't find anywhere nowadays. My only real annoyance is that artists don't even bother with more accurate designs and copy fashions from the movies. If I have to see one more bearded Numenorean and Elf wearing robes and plate...
The older I get and the more I read the deeper I feel that he's a shit writer. Growing up is realizing Bloom was right.
I started reading fellowship and after 20 years of dicking around in the shire, I decided that I would stick with my action movies
basically this
Same. Tolkien is extremely prolix.
and to think the books got so famous
the last time i watched return of the king i couldn't believe how many shitty action movie quips were in it
Both you and Chris are moronic nepo babies. No movie can do any book justice if only the pre-existing fans watch it. You put the action and spectacle centre stage to draw in general audiences, and then those that give a damn about any other elements go back to read the books after.
>Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! hop along! Fal lal the willow! Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
BRAVA TOLKIEN
BRAVA
Tolkien would have loved Sneedposting
Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.
Tolkien managed to pen a novel without an ounce of postmodernism in the same era that shat out waiting for godot.
Such gravitas, so dignified.
You know it's a fantasy series because even fat morons like Tom get their pick of giga Stacy wives like Goldberry.
He has a 10 inch dick and can sing a merry tune, what do you have?
A 10 inch dick and an MP3 player.
I read the books and was shocked to find that there was a 5th hobbit that the movies completely ignored.
He's in it, but it's just a cameo like a lot of cut characters
Peter took the character of Fatty Bolger personally and had him cut.
that was a good cut though. it's not like jackson could have included everyone and everything. the fifth hobbit's role was very small and given how the first film was paced, it would have been even smaller
The movies were designed to appeal to American manchildren, I.E. Star Wars fans, specifically. It's the only way PJ got it past the Weinstein's was a pledge to turn Tolkien into 21st century quippy action movies that obese soda guzzling amerilards would clap to and buy all the merch.
Big studio Hollywood shoved their israeli fingers right up Tolkien's butthole to ensure they could turn one of the greatest British fantasy works into Commercial Product #43 *Now with extra Quips!*
The skullvalanche was an extended scene, you aren't really supposed to have seen it. But yes, it was significantly commodified.
It's a fantasy movie homie. People don't watch these just to see some hairy manlet crying about no food and no rosie cotton pussy. Everyone wants to see swords and horse hooves cave in orc homie skulls
70% of the trilogy is about the characterization of Frodo, Sam, Gollum, Merry & Pippin, and to a lesser extent Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. The latter three providing the majority of the spectacle and creating some of the most memorable buddy-warrior moments in history. These spectacular action scenes also all have huge stakes riding on them and lead to major storyline developments.
Loads of highly respected and influential people in the LOTR world absolutely hate these movies. They all squarely lay the blame at the feet of Jackson too. He just wanted to make his own action movies/tech demo and threw LOTR to the side. Just action and CGI for the sake of it, by the end of ROTK it's essentially all studio work set to green screen and handed over to a VFX team to sort, Jackson had checked out well before then.
As a result Viggo refused to ever work with him again, CT refused to ever even meet him and Ebert regarded him as one of Hollywoods biggest hacks to the day he died.
The take in the middle is moronic, Aragorn is an OP superhuman, basically all of the main cast are. That doesn’t diminish the contributions of the hobbits either. Only problem with the movies is some hammy action crap in 2nd and 3rd movie and some obvious plot changes in the 3rd
>Loads of highly respected and influential people in the LOTR world absolutely hate these movies. They all squarely lay the blame at the feet of Jackson too. He just wanted to make his own action movies/tech demo and threw LOTR to the side. Just action and CGI for the sake of it
Gollum is by far the worst and most blatant example of this.
>So there's this character that's like small, skinny looking Mr. Hyde guy
>How should we portray this character on screen?
>Cast a skinny small ugly guy and put make-up on him?
>No! We'll make him completely CGI for no fricking reason!
It just shows how Jackson is really just interested in the tech side of things at the end of the day. Why did he make Gollum CGI? Because it was fringe mocap tech and he could, it's that simple. The worst part is that there's a brief scene of Gollum in mid-transformation from the ring's corruption and its actually just Serkis in make-up, and it looks way better.
This might hold water if Gollum wasn't hailed as the single best CG character of all time by pretty much everyone, then and now.
Davy Jones in Pirates mogs Gollum hard, and unlike Gollum him being CGI actually makes sense because the whole slipperly tentacle beard that's moving around doing stuff would have looked stiff and awkward with practical effects
You fricking idiot, Gollum is supposed to have been deformed beyond recognition. Even the characters mention that he bears little resemblance to hobbits.
Ephialtes looked wonky in 300, and that was some minor deformities.
Davy Jones is the absolute peak of CGI and actor mixing together in one performance but without Gollum there would simply not be any Davy Jones as we got him.
Zoomers don't seem to get how big a gap four years was for CGI back then.
>even Viggo, who was turned into the star of the entire trilogy, is disappointed with the results
That says a lot... I think the movies are perfect for pre-teens but it is a structural mess. FOTR is still just about perfect however.
If you bother to find the article, he's talking about the production of the second and the third films, not the results.
Jackson's biggest sin was how the films failed to capture Tolkien's moral and spiritual beliefs that are very prevalent throughout the books. How a greater power is guides the way, how the heroes are rewarded for their goodness, and how the villains are always unmade by their own evil nature. The heroes basically never use underhanded tactics like pic related.
actually this goes against the international law
Also make Aragorn look like a b***h than can't control his temper. He's supposed to be a dignified, returned king, not some sperg who resorts to sucker punches because someone said mean words.
It was post-9/11 and America Frick Yeah energy was extremely high, please understand
>Tolkien's moral and spiritual beliefs
good, he was kind of a jobber
The movies are better than the books but the Silmarillion is better than the movies
The Hobbit (novel) > all else
Both of these apart from the Silmarillion shit.
Can I just skip the singing?
You’re absolutely moronic if you think a direct adaptation of a book would be good. Especially a book about wizards and elves.
it goes downhill fast in tt and rotk. its like 9/10, 7/10 and 5/10 for the three films.
love me books
love me films
simple as
cope seethe etc
I love the Fellowship, but with time, Towers and King feel unwatchable.
My view exactly. They go from mystique and wonder to popcorn blockbusters with shieldboarding at Helm's Deep.
>I love the Fellowship, but with time, Towers and King feel unwatchable.
The films were a victim of their own success, if Fellowship flopped the sequels would have been direct to video because New Line Cinema was going bankrupt. After the success of Fellowship they had reshoots and balooned budgets
I agree. Fellowship is about as good as you could hope for, the other two are middling aside from a few scenes near the end in rotk (sam carrying frodo is such pure kino it basically carries the whole movie)
Based and mature take. The most egregious thing to me about the sequels is the Saving Private Ryan color grading that makes it feel "so real" and "gritty". Completely loses the fantastical feeling and charm of Fellowship
>inb4 durr the sequels have le epic battles of course they're supposed to look shitty!
No, the opening battle of Fellowship proves that Jackson fricked with the color grading in the sequels to sell them to middle fricking america morons gung ho about killing arabs in the middle east.
The books are the same. They're just feelgood bedtime stories for tradcath larpers.
what
Rewatching films you considered flawless 10/10 masterpieces as a kid and realizing they're very much typical Hollywood films in a lot of ways is a deflating experience, LOTR and Indiana Jones were the big ones for me
The movies did more character building for Boromir than the books.
his best part in the movie was when he tooted his horn. like LOL wtf did he think was going to happen? did he really think he was not going to get swarmed or did he think they would get frodo so he could claim the ring?
>for piss sakes, they just lost a wizard they were afraid of, let them rest
I did not believe that one single bit
You sound completely inept if this is your whole takeaway from the movies.
oh, his father loved him more.
>toot
>toooot
>toooot
He was counting on getting swarmed, yes.
no they didnt. it adapted him faithfully.
Good point.
the movies fixed how corny and outdated the books are.
>the movies fixed how corny and outdated the books are.
Most of the "corniness" in the books is literally contained in the early Shire parts to show how Hobbits are merry cheerful creatures that live in their nice little fairytale world, it's supposed to directly contrast with the darkness and seriousness of the outside world that comes later, showing how sheltered Hobbits are. Of course moviegays don't bother reading that far to realize this.
The films now feel way more outdated and corny with the overuse of 2000's CGI and constantly having Legolas doing a bunch of badass Matrix shit
> early Shire parts to show how Hobbits are merry cheerful creatures that live in their nice little fairytale world, it's supposed to directly contrast with the darkness and seriousness of the outside world that comes later, showing how sheltered Hobbits are. Of course moviegays don't bother reading that far to realize this.
This is perfectly shown in the movies you complete frickwad.
in the movies they show a working mail system(in the shire).
I never once saw in the books where there was a postman.
i dont remember that scene
a lot of people do not pay attention. you're not alone.
what supreme irony, you fricking moron. the post office is mentioned in the first chapter of the fellowship multiple times.
well why didn't gandalf mail frodo his progress instead of waiting 100 years to go back to the shire and ask him
>is it secret
>is it safe
major fricking plot hole and still no postman
wrong
>“But the offices of Postmaster and First Shirriff were attached to the mayoralty, so that he managed both the Messenger Service and the Watch. These were the only Shire-services, and the Messengers were the most numerous, and much the busier of the two.”
and where is he in the movie?
i'll wait. i'll wait for you to post him.
why didn't gandalf mail the green dragon?
because in the movie Gandolf didnt frick off for 17 years before returning.
>and where is he in the movie?
you literally see hobbits opening their mail in the movie, what are you complaining about?
>why didn't gandalf mail the green dragon?
because he wasn't in the shire, god you are FRICKING STUPID
no, you see ONE(1) hobbit using a mail system
and ONE(1) registered mailbox
>someone used a mailbox
>in a society with a mail system and a postmaster
>and this is a plot hole
were you expecting to see multiple shots of people opening their mail, and that didn't happen, so somehow this is a plot hole? what is your argument here?
The location of the shire is a secret.
no it isn't
a shit load of dwarfs found it
those grim reapers found it
Yeah because gollum told them after being tortured
if gollum told them why did that grim reaper ask the hobbit
>BOGGINS
>SHIIIIRE
Because he was asking for directions you fricking moron.
> there no baggins here. They’re up in hobbiton! T-that way!
right, so that scene wasn't needed if gollum told them.
it was there for what purpose?
To show they didn't know the way
The purpose of the scene was to show that the grim reapers didn’t know the shire area. All they know is Shire and Baggins. That’s it. It’s like if I told you that in India you can find someone called Poopoo in the sharlata city.
sounds like all frodo had to do was build his own town and call it frodotown and they never would have found him.
he could have mailed the god damn ring and it would have been lost forever
> sounds like all frodo had to do was build his own town and call it frodotown and they never would have found him
The shire is not a secret anymore because gollum told everybody where the shire is you complete fricking moron. Watch the movie next time Jesus
gandalf knew where the shire was
Ok but he’s a secretive dude
would you consider yourself literate? you seem to be missing things in both the books and posts you "read"
no there are just major major fricking plot holes.
huge ones.
their main crop longbutter leaf was well known.
>longbutter leaf
holy frick, you really are illiterate. btw i just skipped though the shire intro to fellowship and there were, in fact, multiple mailboxes
and aside from frodo getting mail without postage stamps/return addresses how many were used?
1
if there was a working mail system, all the reapers would have had to do was look up frodo/bilbos and all relatives addresses. huge, major plot hole.
the nazgul didn't even know what village frodo's home was located in, i highly doubt they would have known where the post records were kept or whom to contact to collect them. they aren't the fricking shire police
>nazgul didn't even know
>SHIIIIIIRE
>BAGGGIIIIINNNNSS
>immediately followed by the hobbit telling him there are no baggins in this village
you know the shire is just a region of middle-earth with various towns, villages, forests, etc., right?
>in this village
it was a hobbit splitting wood with a coward for a dog.
confirmed for moron urbanite
no, that hobbit literally dropped dime on his whole kind.
I came to the same exact realization after my last (and 4th) read-through, op. The movie gays here will throw a tantrum when told this, though.
Didn't even bother to read past the greentext
You're wrong. They're the best adaptations ever put to screen. Frick off.
Watching lotr nowadays makes me wish someone would make a new fiction 3 movie epic. The closest would be avatar, but those movies are fricking lame.
Just look at how Jackson erases every Gondorian character besides Denethor and his kids. This is explicitly because Jackson tried to strip out everything that wasn't a fight scene or Frodo's journey but it creates the question of why exactly the Fellowship are risking their lives to save people who are both useless in battle (because the nameless soldiers get torn apart by orcs) and extremely morally questionable because we don't see the likes of Imrahil, Ioreth or Bergil acting like normal, decent people.
Christopher is a b***h.
The animated film gets the tone and characters better than the Jackson movies.
At least Gimli isn't comic relief and Galadriel isn't a psycho
?si=AvhBlbyF7iD9eTiq
>pantless brown aragorn
Very progressive.
movie 2 and 3 yes
movie 1 no, that is a great film
>in spite of Peter Jackson
Someone hasn't read up on how The Hobbit trilogy was made
Even with their mistakes, the trilogy itself is a fricking miracle. Watch some of the behind the scenes and you will see how many things perfectly aligned in order to get these movies done.
Something as good will never be done again. Not even with all the new technology available now
>Hollywood action films for 15-25 year olds
Is this a problem?
You can still read the books you know.
the LOTR trilogy is fukken great. A fantasy epic on that scale will never be made again; looking back I'm surprised it even got made in the first place. I've read the books and the adaptation is as good as you can hope for. Also there is no blacks.
This
movies were as great as they could be, films can never be the same as the books
based
even more based
Like all the big early 2000s trilogies, Matrix, Star Wars, Pirates and Lord of the Rings, only the first movie is good.
I think the army of the dead is perhaps the most egregious change from the books. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields concluding with an invincible wave of green CGI just rolling over army of mordor and obliterating it is so anti-climatic compared to the book scene.
>egregious change from the books.
That would have to go to Faramir. Not only is it a bad change, but it's a change that makes no sense. If movie Faramir wants the ring, why doesn't he just fricking take it from Frodo immediately?
Cutting out the Dunedain army is understandable. The invincible CGI slop could've easily been fixed by showing a few orcs "killing" some ghosts so we establish they aren't invincible.
>mail and halfhelms
was gondor broke?
that was the norm for the majority of the pre-firearm age.
how long until firearms?
about 10 years, shit was going to turn into WW1 when orcs make tanks
Fellowship is the only masterpiece this has been established.
the books were way better yeah, but lack of screentime across 3 movies was not the problem
Christopher Tolkien's comment about them being "Hollywood action films for 15-25 year olds" is kind of true
Here's the truth bomb that Chris never faced up to, the books are also action adventure set pieces for kids and young dudes. 90 percent of people who read lotr and the Hobbit are kids or maybe college aged guys. The books are about going on adventures and killing orcs and dragons, no one is looking to them for "spiritual and moral" guidance.
I don't think Chris thought of his dad's novel as serious literature on par with a russian masterpiece. It's about on par with a walter scott novel (no surprise since Ivenhoe was likely the biggest inspiration after Shakespeare)
However, the fact that LOTR has brought an appreciation for European mythology as well as classic literature to a younger generation in the 20th and now 21st centuries makes it have great spiritual significance in a meta sense. LOTR was the first big book I read at 13 and it prepared me to go on to read Scott, Shakespeare and Milton
If I had read Harry Potter instead, I'd of course go on to read Steven King and basically be completely uneducated
fellowship was closest to the book and funnily its also the best movie
>The Hobbit films proved that these films were good in spite of Peter Jackson, not because of them.
tbf to Jackson he wasn't originally supposed to direct The Hobbit and had little time to prepare
Films can never truly capture a sense of adventure like books can. Films are about economic storytelling and are very plot driven, If something isnt moving stuff forward it should be probably be cut. The LOTR books go on tangents and get sidetracked with stuff that's just there to flesh out the world. It's the lack of stuff like this in film that makes it very hard to sell the idea of going on a journey in a world.
Miyazaki was right
i agree
it needed more songs
let's hope disney does a proper adaptation