generalfrevious said:
Now the question is: were the Hobbit movies faithful to the book?
Define "faithful to the books." Movies are movies, not books, so they naturally tell the story differently. The question is really whether or not they told the same story.
If it had the complete opposite message of the source material, then it is a bad adaptation. Jackson's Middle earth saga was just glorified World Of Warcraft fanfiction. If Tolkien saw all six movies he would not recognize the message of what he was trying to say in the Hobbit and LOTR. Even if it is well made, it cannot be good if it disrespects the source material altogether.
generalfrevious said:
Jackson's Middle earth saga was just glorified World Of Warcraft fanfiction.
You're funny.
TV's Frink said:
generalfrevious said:
Jackson's Middle earth saga was just glorified World Of Warcraft fanfiction.
You're funny.
read these articles then get back to me:
Those articles are on a site that also wants me to read "The 15 Sexiest Celebrity Butts."
TV's Frink said:
Those articles are on a site that also wants me to read "The 15 Sexiest Celebrity Butts."
Those are the clickbait articles! They even have them on Forbes for crying out loud! But what did you think of the articles themselves?
Why does it matter? I like the movies. I don't care what liberties were taken with the source material, and calling the third movie a two hour video game cutscene is as silly as the things you've been saying.
TV's Frink said:
Why does it matter? I like the movies. I don't care what liberties were taken with the source material, and calling the third movie a two hour video game cutscene is as silly as the things you've been saying.
I guess it would be okay then to bulldoze 50 acres of forest to put up an outlet mall, and say the choice was good because they have a Pinkberry store in the food court.
Or what if Peter Jackson went to Tolkien's grave and exhumed his corpse without the deceased family's consent? That's what he did with these Hobbit adaptations, and why I do not want to see them.
You haven't even seen them? Get out of this thread.
TV's Frink said:
You haven't even seen them? Get out of this thread.
I don't need to eat arsenic to know it's poison. And I have seen the LOTR trilogy, so I should be in half of this thread.
If it was arsenic, why would I eat it?
Some of the people here are terrible at analogies.You're at the front of the line.
TV's Frink said:
If it was arsenic, why would I eat it?
Some of the people here are terrible at analogies.You're at the front of the line.
Peter Jackson is still butchering Tolkien into something unrecognizable and insulting to his work and his fans. I'm sorry you can't see that in spite of my alleged bad analogies.
generalfrevious said:
TV's Frink said:
You haven't even seen them? Get out of this thread.
I don't need to eat arsenic to know it's poison. And I have seen the LOTR trilogy, so I should be in half of this thread.
Anyone can make a movie look bad to someone who hasn't seen it, but that has little to do with whether or not that person would enjoy it or not if they actually saw it.
The insult is debatable, but even if I agree with that, it doesn't matter to me. I happily enjoy the films on their own merits.
And yes, it's a terrible analogy. No allegation needed.
Speaking as someone who has seen the Hobbit films and is not prone to hyperbolic analogies, I can confirm that they do not, in fact, have any merits at all . . . aside from making it obvious to many that Peter Jackson is full of crap.
That's something I've been aware of for 12 years, but since many were previously deceived as to his abilities, it is gratifying that there is now a much greater awareness of this. In all likelihood, those who still do not see it simply don't care enough about what Tolkien actually wrote to ever be convinced. For them, these stories are about something completely different than what their original author intended.
That's fair enough. I read all the books after seeing the LOTR trilogy first. It makes no difference to me how faithful they are to the source material.
But I disagree strongly that Jackson is full of crap or the movies have no merit.
I agree. I see the books and the movies as separate entities--I don't expect a movie to be entirely faithful to its source material. I expect it to do its own thing, and I got what I expected. I prefer the books, but the movies are great in their own way.
Disney used to get a lot of crap for diverging from the source material for all those fairy tale adaptations.
Read the original Pinocchio sometime, and decide if Walt made the right call. ;)
Where were you in '77?
For The Jungle Book Walt deliberately tried to create something original and avoid telling the same story in the book--IIIRC, most of the people working on the movie had never read it (though that's probably pretty normal).
SilverWook said:
Disney used to get a lot of crap for diverging from the source material for all those fairy tale adaptations.
Read the original Pinocchio sometime, and decide if Walt made the right call. ;)
IMHO, he did. The book is pretty bad, most of it a retelling of Apuleius with a hamfisted morality spin put on top of it.
I can't remember enough of the book to pass judgement.
Having now seen BotFA, it's time to render a verdict on the Hobbit Trilogy, and compare it to the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.
First of all, Battle of the Five Armies is the most tonally uneven of all the Hobbit films, with poignant character moments jarringly interspersed with mind-numbing CGI battle scenes. The oddest part is that I had a better understanding of the battle while reading the book than by watching the confused movements of CGI armies on the big screen.
Moments which were cinematic in the book, such as the return of Bard from the ruins of Laketown or the heroic battle of Thorin and his company agains the orcs, are completely different and strangely muted in the film. On the other hand, the character of Thorin is actually more heroic in the film than in the book in my opinion.
The primary decision of Bilbo, which I believe is the most important character moment in the book, is done justice. Barely. However, just as much or more time is given to characters entirely absent from the book and who add nothing to the story. Characters such as Tauriel and Legolas ultimately serve no purpose in the story, and the character of Legolas is entirely confused in an attempt to link him to a character in The Lord of the Rings.
In summary, I was relieved to see that the central story which focuses on the titular Hobbit remains strong throughout all three films. Unfortunately, the final chapter shows just how superfluous all of Jackson's additions really are to the story, and how pleasant the story will be when someone edits the films down to a single movie about Bilbo.
So is the Hobbit trilogy suffering from the same problems as the prequels? Not remotely. There is a compelling story hidden within the Hobbit films, something entirely absent from the prequels in any form.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
Maybe we should collect similarities between the two trilogies (maybe Hobbit spoilers!):
Episode I / Hobbit AUJ:
- Contains an annoying character that is supposed to be funny: Jar Jar Binks / Radagast
Episode II / Hobbit DOS:
- Contains a forced awkward love story between two characters: Anakin & Padme / Kili & Tauriel
- Contains an exaggerated sequence towards the end of the movie that is supposed to beef up the action. Both were filmed against Blue Screen during additional Reshoots: Anakin and Padme inside the Droid Factory / Smaug VS Dwarfs inside the Forges of Erebor
Episode III / Hobbit BOTFA:
- One of the main villains dies within the first ten minutes of the movie: Count Dooku / Smaug
Rogue One is redundant. Just play the first mission of DARK FORCES.
The hallmark of a corrupt leader: Being surrounded by yes men.
‘The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly.’ - V.E.S.
‘Star Wars is a buffet, enjoy the stuff you want, and leave the rest.’ - SilverWook
Also, both trilogies were released in theaters!
RicOlie_2 said:
generalfrevious said:
TV's Frink said:
You haven't even seen them? Get out of this thread.
I don't need to eat arsenic to know it's poison. And I have seen the LOTR trilogy, so I should be in half of this thread.
Anyone can make a movie look bad to someone who hasn't seen it, but that has little to do with whether or not that person would enjoy it or not if they actually saw it.
Yeah well said, I at least watched the last Transformers movie before calling it garbage. Now I may not be interested in the next Star Trek movie after the last two but once it comes out I wouldn't claim to know if it was a good or bad movie when I have not seen it.
I have read all of Tolkien's stuff several times and that doesn't stop me from enjoying Jackson's version of middle earth. They are well made films and anyone who says otherwise doesn't know a thing about modern film making. I live and breath bad movies and there are far worse films out there.
Also adapting a book to the screen in a way that you think will best work as a film and get investors in the film their money back is nowhere close to digging up a corps. Oh and Tolkien himself said that anyone who wanted to turn his books into films would have to make major changes to them in order to do so and he was fine with that, that is why he let the film rights go cheap when he was alive, because he knew the director would have to put a lot of work into the script to make it work on screen. I can't say the changes bother me. I enjoy the films and I have seen them.