How Well Did Peter Jackson Do On The LOTR Trilogy?

maek · Member Joined: 26 Jan 2004 Location: Arizona

Loved the books, loved the movies!

What I found great about the movies was that it struck a fair balance with the book dialogue. Seriously, if I saw Legolas go into his paragraph long speech about woe this, betrayal that, and the descendants of wherever ON SCREEN, then I would have blown my brains out. However, the script dialogue did manage to capture that essence without making it seem the characters were wasting time with flowery speech.

Not to say that the books are bad!! The books are extremely good, but screen and text work on completely different visceral levels.

I feel sorry for those "comma counters" that are worried that every word is not carried forth from book to movie. That's not the intention here, people. Imagine if George Lucas or James Cameron were given the task...*shudder*. The former would have had acting more wooden then the Ents and then the latter would have had Pippin standing on the table with his arms outstretched behind Merry screaming, "I'm the king of Rivendell!!"

I jest, of course.

Sillyname · Member Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Location: United States

yoda313 · POLLSTER Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: the real world

Hello,

Well to get back on topic I love both

I first saw the movies and the read the books. I finally finished Return of the King and appreciate both versions a lot.

The movie gave a full reality to it that helped give feeling and depth to the books. And of course no movie could ever completely catpure the fullness of a book but Peter Jackson and the team at WETA did a superb job.

Let's not forget New Line Cinema's courageous leap of faith in financing all 3 films together. That was the movie industries biggest gamble ever and I have a feeling it paid off handsomly for them

Kevin

--Can't wait for the Return of the King extended edition dvd to finish off my extended edition collection

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redwudz · Mod Neophyte Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Location: AZ, USA

I enjoyed the movies, I thought they did a great job. I discovered the books in high school, and imagination can never compare to a movie.

If you have the books, look at the appendices; Tolkien put an incredible amount of information there. Great imagination to create a whole world. I enjoyed the National Lampoon spoof, 'Bored of the Rings' also. Still have a paperback copy.

Tommyknocker · Posted: Nov 07, 2004 01:57

I never read FOTR, but once I saw the movie, I couldn't wait for the sequels, so I tore the local library apart to dig them out.

Tolkien was bit wordy overall, in my opinion, but it was quite a tale. I liked the movies so much more, even if they did decide to take lirary license with the story. Case in point, I liked the Arwen scene when she outrode the the Nine, even though it never happened in the books. Wouldn't trade that scene for anything.

The little hobbit yelling "Gandalf!" didn't bother me in the least, as I never read the first novel, my mouth had fell open in shock.

So, my vote was he did fine, but the books were boring. Hope my Chief doesn't read this, as he thought they both were great.
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NamPla · Member Joined: 29 Jun 2004 Location: Whoop Whoop

I thought the films were GEEK CITY. Those hobbits look STUPID. And the books (yes I've read them) start off OK but get long-winded & boring.

One of the most overrated films (and books too!)...(IMO).

"The Hobbit" was a much better book to read. I s'pose Jackson will ruin that, too, with his stupid-looking hobbits.

Here's a director who started great (Bad Taste) and went downhill from there. Same ol' story...

I would've liked to see LOTR made on a shoe-string budget, rather than a multi-trillion dollar budget. Scrap the pathetic CGI nonsense. Get rid of the "airy-fairy" elves (they don't act/talk like that in the books!). Basically scrap the whole stupid thing & do it again with unknown actors instead of "name actors".

There. That's my 2 cents.

(LOTR is on TV right now, ha, so that's why I'm seething a bit!

)