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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
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janesi87
First Love
6 Posts |
 Posted - 25/01/2013 : 06:47:15
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| well. according to what on the video, it's too disappointed when we see he new Hobbit film. However, i think that the film partly express the content of the book |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 25/01/2013 : 15:42:59
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As most know here, I will never watch a Hobbit film. I only need see a short clip to know.
I already "see" every scene and character in my mind. I've read, browsed and thoroughly enjoyed the Trilogy and The Hobbit since 1967, and I will not let Hollywood tell me what Bilbo or Gollum or Gandalf look like, or how they act. I already know.
I have regretted & endured watching a portion of the Trilogy/Part 1. And after yelling, "why did you do that, or why did you change that line, or where is Tom Bombadil (the most important character of all)! Oh my god!", I will never return!!
JRRTolkien painted a clear picture with his words. I will not corrupt it with a mere movie.
Believe me this is not always the case. "To Kill A Mockingbird" is every bit as good in book and film! So is "Harry Potter". Or many play adaptations such as "Harvey".
Tolkien is just too dear.
Thanks Hollywood, but no thanks. I have my 1960's hardbound edition!
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Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
Edited by - lemonade kid on 25/01/2013 15:51:44 |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 25/01/2013 : 17:33:40
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the problem is that its WAY too long
Its nice for to incorporate stuff from the Silmarillion and the appendixes following Return of the King, but the film is WAY too long
And its the first of THREE??!!
These days I tend to read Tolkien by listening to it on cassette while reading the annotations for Lord (in the Lord of the Rings Readers Companion)(by Wayne Hammond) - I find thats the best way to read it
I might want to try to read Joyce (Ulysses) the same way with Giffords companion to the work, though I fear I may get bogged down by chapter 3 on Sandymount Strand! |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 25/01/2013 : 17:34:34
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Tom Bombadil was a Maiar btw  |
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Kula John
Old Love
United Kingdom
756 Posts |
Posted - 25/01/2013 : 17:45:40
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I saw the Hobbit as it's one of my favourite books.
The film was quite frankly, boring. Way too long, and terribly uninteresting.
As you said LK, I'm sure Tolkien wrote those books so that as the reader WE would use our imaginations and paint a unique and independent picture in our heads of how everything appears.
I haven't seen any of the Lord of the Rings film and I doubt I ever will. I'll stick to the books.
For the time that I've been given's such a little while and the things that I must do consist of more than style....
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 26/01/2013 : 00:16:11
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The Lord of the Rings films are actually pretty true to the books (especially the extended editions)
(Except in the case of Faramir. In the book hes the character Tolkien most connected with. He even gave the character the dream of Numenor that he would often have, and his younger brother Hillary)
The cartoon The Hobbit is very good, especially the bit with Smaug
I'm just not sure The Hobbit needed 3 films. Its a simple story, so simple that Lord is based on it (Travel to a mountain and back - although in the Hobbit somethings gained and in Lord somethings lost (The Ring, Frodo coming back a little shell shocked as after a war, etc!)
I mean, its cool in the new Hobbit film to see the White Council meeting (this before Saruman turned to evil late in the Third Age and started seeking the Ring on his own near the Anduin)
I'm just not sure it required three films to tell - I hope Smaug is in the next one (The Desolation of Smaug) cos Smaug is the most interesting character
Along with Wodehouse (Jeeves & Wooster) Tolkien is someone you can get comfy with and escape from the world. Lot of good books on his work too - the Carpenter biography is excellent, as well as the Carpenter book on the (unreadable) Silmarillion (up there with Finnigans Wake!)
The Master of Middle Earth (by Kocher?) book is great, especially covering Strider (Tolkien didn't even know why he was when he popped up in Bree) and the annotated Lord (The Lord of the Rings Readers Companion, 2009)
Theres probably been entire books on the Inklings, Tolkiens time served at the front in the Great War (which inspired the desolation before Morannon, the Black Gate, and also the Dead Marshes) - hes a writer whos really caught on, inexplicably.
I mean, isn't part of Lord in Elvish, and pages and pages taken up with songs, poems, maps? who'd have thunk it?! 
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 26/01/2013 : 21:58:33
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It may be generally consistent, but I did see PART 1 (i put it out of my head!) and part of the second-I gave up in Rohan & the insulting portrayal of Theoden!
I feel that certain character traits and story lines are just too different for me. The Journey to Bree, the Old Forest, Old Man Willow, the first meeting of the hobbits & the Elves in The Shire, Tom Bombadil and the Hobbits linking up in a corn field on the way to Crickhollow; all were just too much for me! And that part of The Trilogy is my favorite of all books. It's all deleted!
All I could say is, "why did you say that!? Why did you change that!? Holy Crap!"
Oh, and by the way, I love historical literature, and to me, THE SILMARILLION is every bit as good as The Trilogy, and gives us the history of Middle Earth. It ties all the history of the Silmarillions & Rings together, and illustrates the sorrow of the ELves in Middle Earth, the sundering of the Dwarves and the Elves, the history of Sauron & Morgoth, and the alliance of Men and Elves...it is EPIC storytelling at its best!!!
"Unfinished Tales" is also a must-have addition, especially the chapter with Gandalf's tale of how he really got the Dwarves to buy into Bilbo's joining in on the "adventure".
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Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 26/01/2013 : 23:19:53
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Don't think much of the Silmarillion. Terribly tedious and dull
Its interesting when talking about the Third Age and the Rings of Power, but Tolkiens better when writing about Hobbits
Wonder who has the film rights to Silmarillion? Maybe Johnny Depp can play Feanor!
But no, the First Age is (basically) unfilmable. Unless they're animating Angband and Melkor and all the rest
Me, I LOVED Fellowship in the theatres, saw it as a different medium (also liked the BBC Radio adaptation of Lord with Ian Holms as Frodo)
The book is (basically) unfilmable (the most engaging chapter in the book - Council of Elrond - is (basically) people talking) - but I think Peter Jackson got a lot right: spoken Elvish (!)
A compression of time to get Frodo off snappily rather than waiting years in the Shire hiding the Ring
And the casting is perfect. Frodo might be a little younger than in the book (he sets out at 50) but I didn't have problems with the changes for the film because it IS such a hard book to film (most of Book IV is internal, with very little action and Smeagol fighting a battle with himself due to Frodo's kindly pity of him, only to have his last good impulse killed off by the heedless Sam (who becomes the primary hero by Book VI).
Didn't see how they could keep that in the film, not to mention Sam being tempted by the Ring and held back by his love for Frodo, or him seeing a star in Mordor with the beauty of it striking him there |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 26/01/2013 : 23:38:14
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It is so interesting to me, how we all can have so many takes on any one subject or book. I love it! Each to his own.
The Silmarillion is totally engaging, from Feanor to Morgoth, from Sauron to Beren One Hand, from Turin to Hurin; just so much grandeur and grace, sorrow and joy and magic. In some ways it is the pinacle of all of Tolkiens endeavors, and the root & core of all that came after. Without it we wouldn't have the RINGS Trilogy. It was as if Tolkien researched the history of Middle Earth & The West so he could write the rest.
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Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 27/01/2013 : 01:39:50
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wrote it in the trenches I understand
guess the character of Sam Gamgee came out of that (ie, the Great War) of a type that "Tollers" recognized as so superior to himself
Tolkien would have had a scout with his rank I imagine
Of course all of his friends died - I guess the "Book of Lost Tales" was written in response to that
Certainly LotR doesn't glorify war - Faramir & Aragorn & Theoden go to war because they must, because the Enemy will "eat them, eat all the world" (Gollum/Smeagol)
I tend to read the trilogy as it holds up - The History of Middle Earth is interesting, as one can read of Aragorn's origins (as a hobbit named Trotter who wore shoes) but its the "trilogy" that Tolkien's reputation rests
Numenor might make an interesting film, have the battle concluding the Second Age that consumed Sauron's physical form animated
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
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rocker
Old Love
USA
3606 Posts |
Posted - 28/01/2013 : 15:34:48
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Thanks Hollywood, but no thanks. I have my 1960's hardbound edition
Keep those books kid. the films are ok but the imagination is better when you read!
You know it's interesting that besides JRR's "ring" there was also another one foating around in the arts and that was Wagner's "Ring of the Neibelungen". Surely different in their views, i.e Christian vs pagaan outlook and fate vs free will and freedom. Something surely happened when JRR's trilogy came out and got real popular with students in those heady 60's! |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 28/01/2013 : 16:35:46
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I think that the Trilogy also awakened some of the 60's environment movement.
When reading the Rings and The Hobbit, one can't help but see that Tolkien was all about a deep love for the natural untarnished beauty of (Middle) Earth, and the wanton senseless destruction of the planet in the name of "progress" and the desire for power over nature & its inhabitants.
His descriptions of the deep green secret forests and the majesty of the Misty Mountains are hypnotic and engrossing, and one can't help (if open to it) but to want to help the Elves save the Earth from those that would destroy it for their own selfish desires. The deadly smoke from Mount Doom and the heartless clear cutting of Treebeard's realm are drawn in unmistakeable parallels to own own fading Earth.
Like the Elves, we feel a great love mixed with a great sorrow to see all of Nature that we cherish destroyed; slowly and surely.
lk
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Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 29/01/2013 : 04:51:23
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Thought you quit drinkin lk!
Seriously though, the Shire is a love letter to the area (Sarnhole?) where Tolkien grew up - 1890s England?
This is pre telephone
(doesn't the Shire only have mail, which is overloaded at the time of Bilbo's party)
and before the pollution spoilt the countryside (the smoke)
(Picture Saruman aka Sharkey ("Old man") making a wreck of the area around Bag End, cutting down trees wantonly, ruining the Water and making of the land a waste
Still think the Silmarillion should be filmed, though I can't imagine it would be very coherent (Christopher did the best he could at the time, though the fact that Tolkien changed his mind about certain characters (ie Galadriel) didn't help!
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 29/01/2013 : 05:02:19
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Dunno...filming an epic that spans tens of thousands of years sounds a bit daunting.
I think Christopher did a great job compiling The Silmarillion, and especially on the stand alone narrative novel, "The Children Of Hurin".
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Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
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The new Hobbit film - video review
