My Unfavourable LotR's Review

[Paul Hanson]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the classic line from Gimli, "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" Hilarious!

All in all, I liked the film. I found that familiarity with the books is something of a mixed blessing; although you can understand what's going on better, you also have an image in your head of what everything ought to look like, making you somewhat disappointed when it's done differently in the film, and the surprise is gone from it all, as you know what's going to happen half the time. But still, it's a good film.

[Lonestar]

Whine, whine, whine. *I* Liked the movie....

[Seneca]

I pride myself on not being anal - I have won the regional Avon and Somerest Non-Anal championship 9 times, 10 if you count the year that Avon was replaced with the County of Bristol in 1995, and I was allowed to enter twice, although, strictly this was in contravention of the 1983 charter of the Not-At-All-Anal society, the supposedly definitive set of rules, although people who actually remember the original spirit in which the Not-At-All-Anal Society was set up in will regard the 1978 charter as unsurpassable, notwithstanding the attempted 1993 revision (of which sections 8 and 13 were a travesty of the original section 5, whose article three actually prevents such blatent subilatorianism...)

Anyway, not being anal in any way, I found the film visually spectacular (the greatest Whhooooooahh!! factor since Bespin in the Empire Strikes Back), but ultimately that willing suspension of disbelief deserted me.
Dark Riders! There's a great big tidal wave coming towards you - why not try getting out the way, by retreating to that shore four yards away! When you're trying to catch a hobbit, try making your horse run fast! You're so much more likely to catch it!
Orcs! If there's more than a hundred of you versus 9, four of whom are short and useless, you really ought to kill more than one of them.

Besides which, one of the trees in Lothlorien has brown leaves, whereas on page 278 of the book it's clearly represented as having yellow leaves, so obviously the film's crap.

[JohnT]

I remember thinking throughout the movie "Hey! This is playing like Might and Magic!"

[DanS]

The movie was by no means perfect. Rough around the edges. In that respect, it was very much like the books. Of course, we forgive these rough edges in the book because of the good that it offers. I'm doing the same with the movie, and because of this I thought the movie was really good.

I didn't have any problem separating the book from the movies in my mind. If you take the movie separate from the book, you might have a more favorable impression of the movie. Also, it helps to look at the movie and expect that it's not 100% realistic, but rather stylistic. We have no problem with this on musicals, for instance, so why not with LOTR?

JohnT: rather, you should say that playing Might and Magic is like watching LOTR.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Snapcase
Add the general humourlessness and the tedium often becomes unintentionally hilarious, from the giant statues doing the Hitler

Snapcase, you of all people should have recognized this! It's not the Nazi salute. It's the traditional first hand gesture used when performing "Stop! In the Name of Love."

[Richard Bruns]

I liked the movie. It seemed a bit rushed, but that is inevitable when they try to fit in so much. I think that it should have been six movies, or even better, a TV series with each hour-long episode being a chapter or two. The book is so big and dense that you would need that to truly cover everything.

There were lots of gems in the movie. Boromir's body being sent over the falls, Galadriel's temptation, and the ravaging of Isengard were all excellent scenes, both on their own and as adaptations of the book. The Shire, Rivendell, Moria and all the other locations looked great, and were very close to Tolkien's description. I'm glad they managed to fit in shots of Gondor and the Barrow Downs, even though they weren't a main part of the sory.

I did noticed a lot of flaws, like their being able to kill the troll. The arguing at the Council was also a big disappointment, and the thievery of Merry and Pippin and their accidental joining were annoying. But I can live with that. It was a good movie overall.

If you disliked the movie, I'd ask you to take a step back and consider how this movie compares to most movies nowadays. The typical adventure story consists of a group of heroes who run around, shedding expendable extras as they fight toward a neat victory, and living happily ever after. But in this movie, things are a lot different. If you hadn't read the books, you would really be surprised. Two important characters bite the dust, another two get hauled off by the orcs, and the remainder of the fellowship is split apart due to Frodo's knowledge of the corrupting power of the ring. That is certainly not typical Hollywood fare. Compare it to something like The Mummy and it suddenly looks a lot better.

As an adaptation of Tolkien's work, it was mediocre. As a movie, it was excellent.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Richard Bruns
If you disliked the movie, I'd ask you to take a step back and consider how this movie compares to most movies nowadays. The typical adventure story consists of a group of heroes who run around, shedding expendable extras as they fight toward a neat victory, and living happily ever after. But in this movie, things are a lot different. If you hadn't read the books, you would really be surprised. Two important characters bite the dust, another two get hauled off by the orcs, and the remainder of the fellowship is split apart due to Frodo's knowledge of the corrupting power of the ring. That is certainly not typical Hollywood fare. Compare it to something like The Mummy and it suddenly looks a lot better.

This admirably cuts to the heart of the matter. As someone who liked the film very much and who has no investment whatsoever in Tolkien's poorly-written reworking of Norse mythology, I have to agree. It was a good movie. Elijah Wood's Frodo is really weak (he has two facial expressions: scared and nauseated), but other than that it's good solid entertainment, with a well paced story that never takes a back seat to special effects (unlike most of today's fare). Let's face it: if you wanted to make a good movie here, you had to be unfaithful to the book, since the book is unspeakably dull. Indeed, this may be the best adaptation of a mediocre text since Copolla's first two Godfather films.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly

Indeed, this may be the best adaptation of a mediocre text since Copolla's first two Godfather films.

Spoken like a man who never had to read Jaws.

[Fiera]

I won't repost my contributions to this thread since I spent like half an hour looking up for words in the dictionary. It was hard just once, I'm too lazy to do it twice...

[Fiera]

Oh, and Fantasy Literature... I think you'll find it's a bit older than you all seem to imply. What about The Ilium and The Odissey, or La Morte'd Arthur? Even better, every kind of mythology is Fantasy literature.

[Buck Birdseed]

Originally posted by JohnT
Spoken like a man who never had to read Jaws.

Or Thackeray's Barry Lyndon.

[lightblue]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Elijah Wood's Frodo is really weak (he has two facial expressions: scared and nauseated)

Yeah, I thought he already started to grate in his first scene, and continued all the way through. Though I never liked Frodo in the book either, so maybe he's portraying Frodo like |Tolkien had in mind.

[Wraith]

--"How many fantasy writers do you know of, before Tolkien?"

Well, there was that chap, Homer...

Still, Tolkien's main strength was in his world-building. The incredible detail of Middle Earth is something that hasn't really been equalled in fantasy since, mostly because it doesn't look like there are many people around willing to pay that kind of attention to detail.
Some do try, and I've seen several series make gestures/attempts at creating their own languages, but quite frankly none of them have been backed by the actual knowledge Tolkein had.

--"the greatest pioneer is not Tolkien but Robert E. Howard"

There were actually a fair amount of good fantasy stories around that time, IIRC. Not sure I have the dates exact, but I think the Barsoom stories and Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series were about that time as well.

--"No matter how nice the world is if he can't write about it he shouldn't even try..."

To each his own. I actually quite enjoy the Silmarillion.

--"they're not that hot really when you think about it..."

I'll take Tolkein above, oh, Daniel Steel or Steven King any day.

--"If you disliked the movie, I'd ask you to take a step back and consider how this movie compares to most movies nowadays"

Well, that's the thing. I got tired of Hollywood and their typical action movie a while ago. Right now I'm quite into anime, and although it has its own conventions it is quite different from Hollywood. I can't help but recognize that there are good fantasy movies and series out there, like Princess Mononoke, or Record of the Lodoss War. Even in live-action this has been done better, as in Excalibur (another non-Hollywood production).

--"As an adaptation of Tolkien's work, it was mediocre. As a movie, it was excellent"

I have to disagree. As an adaptation it was poor (see the earlier animated movies if you want bad). I was watching it primarily as an adaptation. As a movie, it struck me as mediocre at best. It only rates higher if you don't consider anything made outside Hollywood.

Wraith
Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain

[Rand Al'Tor]

I had the same feeling watching it as I had reading it. Good, but what's all the fuss about. Granted, it IS a life's work (the book that is) and there are few to no other fantasy books that are that. But heck... So what if Arargorn's lineage can be given with name and stories to year X. So what if an encilopedia of ME would have to be bigger then one of this world, so what that you've got hunderds of landsapes described in details. The story and the characters, real but in a strange setting, are what count for me, and I suspect Tolkien and perhaps those that appreciate him more then I, care less about. They're still good plots and characters, but I think there are better.

On an unrelated note, I just saw Akira yesterday. Euhm... is there anyone who understood the last scene first time? Still, good one.