Originally posted by: lord3vil
The art of capturing emotions and impressions like these in the finished product in a way the audience can easily relate to has to be the most difficult art of cinema, and there just isn't a single director out there who's ever been able to do it consistently and at will. So even though I don't think the movies quite fulfill their true potential, I don't blame Jackson for it. I think his attempt was honest and commendable and even though it fell a little short of the mark, it's still quite good.
I agree. In fact I thought the movies were fantastic. My problem, is that as a fan of Tolkien, I cannot accept a number of certain, absolutely needless changes to his story for Jackson's films. It cannot be argued that the nature of cinema required them in any way. But, that's not a debate for this thread.
Originally posted by: Scruffy
Jackson's movies, Bakshi's movie, the Rankin/Bass movies ... if we accept the conceit of LotR, that it's a translation of one historical document about ancient events, then all of these coexist with Tolkien's translation. Tolkien's translation of the Red Book may be the most interesting and artistically valuable of the lot, but that should not stop other artists from using telling historical fiction about the Third Age. In fact, it seems the main obstacle to that is the Tolkien Estate.
The art of capturing emotions and impressions like these in the finished product in a way the audience can easily relate to has to be the most difficult art of cinema, and there just isn't a single director out there who's ever been able to do it consistently and at will. So even though I don't think the movies quite fulfill their true potential, I don't blame Jackson for it. I think his attempt was honest and commendable and even though it fell a little short of the mark, it's still quite good.
I agree. In fact I thought the movies were fantastic. My problem, is that as a fan of Tolkien, I cannot accept a number of certain, absolutely needless changes to his story for Jackson's films. It cannot be argued that the nature of cinema required them in any way. But, that's not a debate for this thread.
Originally posted by: Scruffy
Jackson's movies, Bakshi's movie, the Rankin/Bass movies ... if we accept the conceit of LotR, that it's a translation of one historical document about ancient events, then all of these coexist with Tolkien's translation. Tolkien's translation of the Red Book may be the most interesting and artistically valuable of the lot, but that should not stop other artists from using telling historical fiction about the Third Age. In fact, it seems the main obstacle to that is the Tolkien Estate.
Heh, I suppose. The problem for me though, is that Jackson named the films as “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings” and so, even from the standpoint of the fantasy, I can propose that better translations are possible.