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On December 13 2011 04:24 sGs.Kal_rA wrote:Been listening to the LOTR audio books while driving to work for the last month. Nearly done with TT. Read the books a while ago and haven't watched the movies in a while. Its been fun listening to the old tale. Looking forward to the hobbit 
I'm interested to see if the Hobbit movie is going to be aimed at a younger audience than the LOTR movie, as was the case with the two novels.
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Fame does not make someone a good writer, but most good writers are famous. That isn't coincidence, either.
Suffice it to say, when you've written a book as influential and prolific as LotR, you can rest reasonably assure that you've written a very good book.
If someone who could barely build a Lego house was talking to a world renowned architect about how they are "mediocre" you would laugh at them, rightly so. If I went and told MVP that I thought his Starcraft 2 skills are highly overrated when compared to truly (and unnamed) good players, he would rightly ask me for my credentials. If he found out I was barely out of silver league, is he not going to instantly ignore me?
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Insight can come from anywhere, and even the most foolish of idiots can say the sun is hot and be correct. It doesn't matter how many people believe something to be true, popular opinion doesn't define truth.
However, criticisms need to be detailed, not just stated. "tLotR is terrible" is bad. "tLotR (books) often have a dry, description filled, slow writing style that doesn't resonate with modern audiences. While it may have been enjoyable in his day, much of the current writing industry focuses on delivering as much emotional punch in as small a space as we can. When defined by that goal, tLotR doesn't excel. Still, it does so many things well that I can't dismiss it on that fact alone, it just makes it much harder for me to appreciate, considering my immediacy-trained tastes," is a good criticism. Describe by what measure it is bad, and why that measure is important.
So yeah, I agree a lot with what MasterBlasterCaster is saying, I'm just saying that even a silver leaguer can give great advice if it is well reasoned and well informed. Dismissing base on credentials instead of flaws in the argument itself leads to dangerous closemindedness.
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On December 13 2011 04:26 Zorkmid wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2011 04:24 sGs.Kal_rA wrote:Been listening to the LOTR audio books while driving to work for the last month. Nearly done with TT. Read the books a while ago and haven't watched the movies in a while. Its been fun listening to the old tale. Looking forward to the hobbit  I'm interested to see if the Hobbit movie is going to be aimed at a younger audience than the LOTR movie, as was the case with the two novels.
well then you read the kids version. There is a normal one too.
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Um, no, the Hobbit was a children's novel back in the day. That is the "normal one". The publisher was quite shocked when JRRT came back with tLotR as the requested sequel for the children's book, ha ha ha.
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On December 13 2011 04:55 Skilledblob wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2011 04:26 Zorkmid wrote:On December 13 2011 04:24 sGs.Kal_rA wrote:Been listening to the LOTR audio books while driving to work for the last month. Nearly done with TT. Read the books a while ago and haven't watched the movies in a while. Its been fun listening to the old tale. Looking forward to the hobbit  I'm interested to see if the Hobbit movie is going to be aimed at a younger audience than the LOTR movie, as was the case with the two novels. well then you read the kids version. There is a normal one too.
Uhh, you're going to have to explain this to me...There's a "kids version" of what now?
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Here's just one of my biggest gripes with the movie:
Gimli didn't have much to do in the FOTR, but never came off too bad (except for the "tosses" bit) and in the extended version is quite good. In the new movie, he never does anything but act in a completely stereotypical, non-Tolkien D&D dwarf way. The first part of the book, to me, was about the three heroes chasing across the plains of Rohan. But here, it becomes the two heroes and an idiot who falls down and complains all the time, and is always lagging behind. Then, for the rest of the movie he is just comic releif--burping at a serious council meeting? Falling off a horse--Gimli never even wanted to ride one! The too-big mail shirt (he brought his own!), etc. At least he did a bit of good fighting, and laughed along with Legolas's "box" joke to save a little dignity, but the depth of his character was sacrificed for Hollywood comic relief, and I hated it.
Also there's the fact that they changed Legolas into this action super hero when he and Gimli should be equals and Aragorn should be the strongest fighter. I feel like there's way to little character development, there's just not room for enough talk and socialising for me to care about the characters. I guess the book is kinda similar in this regard. I like how the original Star Wars movies made you really like the characters just by injecting some banter and dynamics. LotR took the easy way out and just turned Gimli into a comic sidekick (Jar Jar Binks of LotR) instead. 
I recently watched Fellowship again and it's great until the cave troll where a poorly made CG Legolas rides on the trolls back and kills it while Gimli is saved only by the fact that he trips over something just as the troll swings at him...
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hm ok you guys are right. No idea how I got this idea that there was a kids and a normal version.
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On November 05 2011 07:13 SoulSever wrote: A Silmarillion movie would be mind blowing and epically long You could just take one story from Silmarillion and make a epic movie e.g. The story about the hidden city of Gondolin.
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United States706 Posts
On December 13 2011 05:20 InDaHouse wrote:Show nested quote +On November 05 2011 07:13 SoulSever wrote: A Silmarillion movie would be mind blowing and epically long You could just take one story from Silmarillion and make a epic movie e.g. The story about the hidden city of Gondolin. Beren and Luthien, such an awesome story. I'd totally watch a movie about that shit.
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On December 13 2011 07:57 AutomatonOmega wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2011 05:20 InDaHouse wrote:On November 05 2011 07:13 SoulSever wrote: A Silmarillion movie would be mind blowing and epically long You could just take one story from Silmarillion and make a epic movie e.g. The story about the hidden city of Gondolin. Beren and Luthien, such an awesome story. I'd totally watch a movie about that shit.
Or a movie about Turin killing dragons and being Doomed, or the tale of Numenor. Either of those would be epic beyond belief. Hell, they made 8 movies for Harry Potter, which is far inferior to LOTR, let's just get someone to adapt every chapter of the Silmarillion into a full-length blockbuster. I can just imagine some of the huge battle scenes now O.O
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If they pull this movie off as well I seriously think Peter Jackson could have a place in a hall of fame somewhere.
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On December 13 2011 09:54 Forester wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2011 07:57 AutomatonOmega wrote:On December 13 2011 05:20 InDaHouse wrote:On November 05 2011 07:13 SoulSever wrote: A Silmarillion movie would be mind blowing and epically long You could just take one story from Silmarillion and make a epic movie e.g. The story about the hidden city of Gondolin. Beren and Luthien, such an awesome story. I'd totally watch a movie about that shit. Or a movie about Turin killing dragons and being Doomed, or the tale of Numenor. Either of those would be epic beyond belief. Hell, they made 8 movies for Harry Potter, which is far inferior to LOTR, let's just get someone to adapt every chapter of the Silmarillion into a full-length blockbuster. I can just imagine some of the huge battle scenes now O.O Yes the battles are awesome in Silmarillion. And Sauron is just a piece of shit to the real evil Morgoth aka Melkor.
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Canada11339 Posts
On December 13 2011 05:19 Skilledblob wrote: hm ok you guys are right. No idea how I got this idea that there was a kids and a normal version.
Well in one sense...
Tolkien didn't really like how different the styles of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were and was actually going to go back and rewrite The Hobbit in the LotR's style. However, his publishers convinced him not to. Although, I wonder if he would've done it anyways had he lived longer even if it wasn't going to get published. The style and form was very important to him. He later reasoned that The Hobbit was a surviving tale passed down from the Hobbits as kids version of the story. (Which I think is partly what's going on in the Appendices where he's detailing which copy and version got passed down to which descendants of Sam, Merry, and Pippen. There's always the mention of The Red Book aka his first version of the story with a substantially different Gollum.)
It's so amazing this thread is from 2004. Can't wait for this film to come out.
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Bilbo is one thing, but Ian McKellen is 72 already. Peter's gotta be realistic, if he's going to do it, he can't wait too long.
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On December 13 2011 10:29 ZiegFeld wrote: Bilbo is one thing, but Ian McKellen is 72 already. Peter's gotta be realistic, if he's going to do it, he can't wait too long. ? They are already filming, first film has a set release date of like dec 14 2012
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The Silmarillion would make for some awesome movies/scenes. Who knows, maybe down the road it will happen.
Cant wait for The Hobbit. Along with the LOTR trilogy, The Hobbit made up my earliest "deep" novels and fantasy books, it really is one of the most captivating and engaging things I found as a child, it's definitely stuck with me. I've only recently picked up Game of Thrones (A song of ice and fire) and Wheel of TIme (Greatest fantasy series ever) which I certainly hope will be adapted to the big screen sooner or later.
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On December 13 2011 05:19 karpo wrote:Here's just one of my biggest gripes with the movie: Show nested quote + Gimli didn't have much to do in the FOTR, but never came off too bad (except for the "tosses" bit) and in the extended version is quite good. In the new movie, he never does anything but act in a completely stereotypical, non-Tolkien D&D dwarf way. The first part of the book, to me, was about the three heroes chasing across the plains of Rohan. But here, it becomes the two heroes and an idiot who falls down and complains all the time, and is always lagging behind. Then, for the rest of the movie he is just comic releif--burping at a serious council meeting? Falling off a horse--Gimli never even wanted to ride one! The too-big mail shirt (he brought his own!), etc. At least he did a bit of good fighting, and laughed along with Legolas's "box" joke to save a little dignity, but the depth of his character was sacrificed for Hollywood comic relief, and I hated it.
Also there's the fact that they changed Legolas into this action super hero when he and Gimli should be equals and Aragorn should be the strongest fighter. I feel like there's way to little character development, there's just not room for enough talk and socialising for me to care about the characters. I guess the book is kinda similar in this regard. I like how the original Star Wars movies made you really like the characters just by injecting some banter and dynamics. LotR took the easy way out and just turned Gimli into a comic sidekick (Jar Jar Binks of LotR) instead.  I recently watched Fellowship again and it's great until the cave troll where a poorly made CG Legolas rides on the trolls back and kills it while Gimli is saved only by the fact that he trips over something just as the troll swings at him...
Even in the book, the strength of LotR was definitely not in its character development but rather in its detailed descriptions of a vast world and the epic events taking place within it. A lot of the characters are not well developed at all and change very little throughout, but again, that is not the focus. Though from what little the book does provide, Legolas was indeed changed quite a bit. In the book, he was somewhat detached, unconcerned even, but in the movies, he is much more serious and grim.
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hobbit was my favorite tolkien book. ugh if you guys have read it you probably understand how fucking epic the last battle scene will be.
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United States706 Posts
On December 13 2011 10:29 ZiegFeld wrote: Bilbo is one thing, but Ian McKellen is 72 already. Peter's gotta be realistic, if he's going to do it, he can't wait too long. Uhh... You clearly haven't been following the movie's progress, and thus don't really have any footing to make such an argument.
*slowpoke meme here*
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