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Originally posted by: Darth Chaltab
He stated a strangely unshared opinion as fact. I just made the point that because from his post James is obvioulsy disgusted by the unfaithful ness of Lord of the Rings and the mysterious lack of fun he found in all but the two of the worst Zelda games. (I enjoy LoZ and AoL, but the fact remains they are archaicly outdated by today's standards)... I figured that mellowing out would make some of his hate for the direction these franchises took go away.
1. "Today's Standards" is little more than a cruel joke when applied to games. There are good games and bad games. There are not "Games that were good then, but suck now."
Would you say that The Three Stooges are "outdated by today's standards?" Would you use that phrase to describe Gone With the Wind? Citizen Kane? Star Wars? Would you use it to describe Sherlock Holmes novels?
No? So why would you use it to describe video games?
Besides that, often "Today's standards" are worse. "Today's Standards" are where RPGs are more about their storyline than their gameplay (just compare Might & Magic to Final Fantasy X and you'll see what I mean) and people will think you know nothing about the genre for trying to advocate that it should be otherwise (even though I've played more RPGs than the people I argue with have). "Today's Standards" are where the GTA games are considered great because they allow you "absolute freedom".... even though they really don't, and in fact are horribly limited in terms of what you can do.
2. As for unfaithfulness, it wasn't just that... I could mind them being unfaithful if they had created a good product as well--after all, I'm a fan of "Hook," and that movie contradicts James Barrie's original Peter Pan novel in several very major respects. The problem with LOTR was not only that it was unfaithful, but many of the changes were stupid, pointless, and overall detracted from the film. The romance scenes between Aragorn and Arwen, for example. Yes, I know they're supposed to be in love, but did the romance have to be so cliched and stock-hollywood? This isn't Tolkien or Middle-earth, this is just stock. And why do so many of the battle scenes seem like they came right out of an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys? Why are so many parts of the first movie so tongue-in-cheek in a story that's supposed to be of an overall more serious tone?
The scene at Weathertop is one such example--this is a scene that should've been very suspenseful. Instead we have the "terrifying" ringwraiths screaming like little girls, getting burned, and falling off cliffs all so Aragorn can look bad-ass. But... the Ringwraiths are supposed to be the most powerful servants Sauron controls. If all nine of his most powerful servants are beaten easily by ONE GUY, and Sauron himself looks like a reject from Power Rangers, how am I supposed to take the entire conflict seriously? Especially when Legolas is also portrayed as a superhero, and Gimli is always making every situation so lighthearted? Mind you, I don't mind lightheartedness, but it just doesn't fit in these films, at least not in the manner it was handled.
The worst offender was that Peter Jackson didn't know anything about "subtlety." Seriously, he's worse than Lucas in this regard--we can't figure out for ourselves that Frodo's becoming a slave of the ring, he has to actually turn into Gollum for a brief moment! And he can't show the deepening conflict between loyal Sam and a Frodo who is slowly being corrupted just by their actions and emotions--Sam has to get the point across by saying "Screw you Frodo, I'm going home."
Seriously, if I hadn't have read the books and seen Bakshi's film first, I probably wouldn't have been interested after seeing these movies. And unfortunately the LOTR movies are probably going to become the defining image of LOTR now, just like how the Conan movies became the defining image of Conan.