Hi, it's me again! Over the past few months my sister and I watched the cinema versions of the The Lord of the Rings films directed by Peter Jackson. These films are of course very famous, as is the original work by J.R.R. Tolkien. More recently, Peter Jackson also adapted Tolkien's The Hobbit, turning it into a three film epic trilogy too. I would like to hear some opinions and discussion on these films, and their relation to the original work. There is no regard for spoilers here: if you're reading this thread, we may assume that you don't mind to hear any plot details about the books or the films concerned. Personally, I liked the trilogy a lot! I thought the cinema versions were well paced, which should be no surprise, as they won a lot of awards. I can well imagine that the extended editions are preferred by most, however. Maybe I'll get to see them one day! While watching, it had been a while since I read the books, and there were quite some deviations that I didn't notice, but realised when reading the Wikipedia pages later. Of the changes that I did notice, some I liked, and others I didn't like. Broadly speaking, there are two things that stood out for me: Firstly, the romance between Arwen and Aragorn received a lot more focus in the films than in the books. In the books, it is told mostly in one of the Appendices, which means it doesn't distract from the story about the One Ring and Frodo's journey, which is to me the main pivot of the story. However, my main problem with the romance being emphasised in the films is that for some reason, several of the scenes concerned with this made me cringe. I don't know why, but I found them really uncomfortable. Perhaps it's because I don't like the performance of Arwen by Liv Tyler? I am reminded of my favourite quote from Charles Dickens' work: There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose. To me it seems as if Arwen and Aragorn have an unsuitability of mind and purpose. Aragorn seems quite intellectual, and a deep thinker, whereas Arwen seems very simple of mind, mostly concerned with the present. At least that's how it seemed to me, what do you think? Edit just into here: having seen some of the scenes where Arwen has dialogue again, she does not seem so simple as I remembered. What is it then that makes me cringe so? Secondly, in the films there were several extra moments or deviations from the original storyline to emphasise the power of the One Ring. I liked this a lot! I thought Bilbo's facial transformation in The Fellowship of the Ring went a bit too far, but several small moments throughout the film, as well as the big change with Faramir's part, seemed very realistic to me, and made a much greater impression of the 'weight' of the Ring than I got from the books. In general, I think the films do a great job of recreating Middle-Earth; I am quite impressed. While reading, I find it hard to imagine action scenes, cities and landscapes, and people's appearances, and it was really nice to see these all pictured so well here. There were very few cases where I was not impressed. I had seen Gollum before (he was done amazingly well), but the other two characters I was most curious to see were Treebeard and Shelob. Now, Treebeard didn't impress me very much; he looked good enough, but it was weird to hear him speak so quickly (although I get that it makes sense for a film), and I had imagined his voice to be more awful (although I would have no idea how to execute that). Shelob looked great though, I loved her. If anyone here has seen the The Hobbit trilogy, I would love to hear your thoughts about it! I hear that they are not as well received as the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I must say it does seem strange to turn one children's book into three epic films.
I always read the book first, always better that way. Also makes the movies better when you know more of the details regarding what is occuring in the film.
This has nothing to do with the movies, but one thing I always find funny as someone of Welsh descent and who has lived in Wales is the story behind the elven race. Tolkien was raised by Francis Xavier Morgan, a Roman Catholic priest who was half Welsh, half Spanish. Tolkien learned Welsh. Tolkien created Middle-Earth in order to give England a distinctly English legend. At the time, the legend most commonly associated with England was the Matter of Britain, which was actually a Welsh legend that medieval English scholars stole and Anglicised, and Tolkien hated that. The elves themselves have Welsh names. Stories like Beren and Lúthien (from The Silmarillion) are directly inspired by stories featured in the Welsh The Mabinogion. The elven language of Sindarin has Welsh grammar rules and words. The whole idea of them being supernatural stems from the god-like race known as Tuath Dé in Irish folklore. Even the 'inhumanly beautiful' aspect they have to them has some basis in real life Welsh people - Welsh people have a higher rate of olive skin and black hair (which distinguishes them from English and Scottish peoples), and have been consistently viewed as the most pretty people in Great Britain. The Welsh are also the natives of Great Britain, pushed into the mountains of Wales and Cornwall by the invading Anglo-Saxons - the elves are the natives of Middle-Earth, pushed into the mountains by the invading race of men. But in 1937, The Silmarillion was rejected by Tolkien's publisher, who went on a rant about how the Celtic influences the elves and the hobbits had (Hobbits are Irish-inspired) were confusing and gross. Tolkien then denied anything elven or hobbit was inspired by Celtic culture or language, and then said he hated Celtic cultures, languages, and myth. This was - and still is - a mainstream attitude among English people, who were fine to conquer Wales and Ireland in the 1100s-1300s but have had an extreme disdain for the people living there ever since. Yet... Tolkien researched these cultures and their languages extensively, based a god-like race of people in his books on Welsh people, based the hobbits (and most of his prominent characters were hobbits!) on Irish people, and spent lots of time in both countries. Works made later on, like the movies, tend to lean into the Irish folklore elements too which makes it even funnier because he saw them as 'bad Celts' (as they had successfully rebelled against English rule in 1922). Anyway, fun little tidbit about an English bloke raised to hate Celts but very obviously had a love for them he didn't want to acknowledge, I guess.
I've been reading the first book of Christopher Tolkien'sThe History of Middle-Earth. I'm going to return it and not finish it until I've read The Silmarillion, but it has been interesting to learn some things about the earliest forms of the work. If I understood right, though, Middle-Earth is (or was) supposed to represent continental Europe, and the Undying Lands the United Kingdom. Speaking of Christopher Tolkien, I read on Wikipedia that he did not approve of Peter Jackson's trilogy. It could be interesting to look more into that (but I'm going to bed now).
I love the books, like the LOTR trilogy films, really dislike the Hobbit movies. I had low expectations for the new TV show but I'm quite enjoying it so far. I'm a New Zealander and was living in Wellington at the time the LOTR films were made and released so there was a lot of excitement and support for them, they were a big event in the city. I don't know if there's anyone in the country who doesn't know a bunch of people who worked on those films. Watching them can be a bit odd at times as some of the locations are very familiar and it does pull me a little out of the illusion/immersion.
Very interesting to hear this! I'm not sure if I've heard someone from New Zealand (except the creators) talk about it before. To me, the locations look outlandish indeed! I'd seen something about a tv series, I'm looking more into it now. Peter Jackson does not seem to be involved with it, but that doesn't mean it can't be discussed here, perhaps. Although I wouldn't like it to be a major focus of the thread, so if it warrants extensive discussion, it should get its own thread.
That's interesting to know, and good too because it means that the storytelling worked for probably most of the audience. Some of it is very immersive to me too, and some has a lot of CGI so what is on screen is a place that doesn't actually exist. But some places are so recognisable, it just looks like home, places I lived or spent many holidays and I can't forget there's a road or fence just out of shot. But certainly as a child reading LOTR living in New Zealand I would look at the landscape and the mountains and easily imagine the fellowship traveling through. The regard for Peter Jackson here has shifted a lot over the years. He was loved at first, but there's been a few things local to New Zealand and Wellington in particular he's done that haven't endeared him to everyone. But that's probably off on a tangent too. Back to the story - I find I want to hold my original imagination of the characters in my head rather than have them fully supplanted by the actors in the movies, but it's quite a challenge.
Yeah, that makes sense to me. I don't recognise it though, because I don't imagine things visually when I read. The only similar thing I can think of is that when I read The Famous Five books by Enid Blyton in Dutch I mispronounced the name Georgina (simply be reading it as it would be read in Dutch, because I didn't know English back then), and when I watched a film adaptation (on further research it was probably a tv series I watched on video or dvd) I was quite bothered hearing the proper pronunciation. (I also for a time insisted that Joe Dalton from Lucky Luke was pronounced like the English 'you'... )
