Title: Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings is Utterly Awful
Article: Look at me. Look at me. Hey, Internet, over here. I said something controversial. Pay attention to me.
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
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If the article starts with "seriously", you know to not take it seriously.
Seriously, that is great advice.
Seriously
That guy sounds just like my dad.
While I’m all for criticism where it’s due, harping about something for decades doesn’t make you any more fun to listen to.
Almost every teenage goes through a phase where they think that criticizing things makes you sound smart. I did it. I have a teenager going through it right now.
Some people never grow out of it.
The first trilogy is great.
The second trilogy ran about 5 hours too long.
don't get me started about that cringey romance arc too...
Yeahhhh that really wasn’t necessary at all.
The animated Hobbit movie from the 70's is still better than the Peter Jackson trilogy just on the music alone.
But his LOTR trilogy is better than the animated LOTR one. I mean... It at least finished the story.
But in all seriousness, while I do think the films are alright, they are nothing compared to the books. People should definitely read them before watching the adaptation, it really is an experience.
I think the movies are the best adaptation we could have gotten. The books a hard read and most of it wouldn't translate well to film. All the songs, the long winded dialogs, descriptive parts, the ending, etc. I can understand Christopher Tolkien though, especially since he grew up and old with these stories, and probably nothing would ever do it justice compared to what he imagined his whole life.
Having read the books long ago, and recently listened to them narrated by Andy serkis, holy shit the books do NOT translate into movie form.
Maybe a miniseries like Battlestar Galactica, but the budget for it would have to be insane.
People don't seem to understand that nobody is going to fimund their dream movie adaptation, because their dream movie adaptation has a larger budget than most countries' GDP.
I would LOVE to have seen Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights. I'd love to have gotten to see everything in the book, but let's be realistic here.
Go back in time with a few metric tons of gold, fund it however you see fit. I think if given proper funding, and more strict guidelines to keep the funding, he'd make as perfect an adaptation live-action could get in a miniseries. Make it like 90-100 minutes per "episode" and stretch it out however long it takes.
Do people not realize he was told initially it would have to be shown in ONE movie? And he fought to have at LEAST two, and that the studio we finally got insisted on 3 because this story is too long and complex (and lucrative) to be only two movies?
It could have been much, much worse. But hot damn do I wish it were better, even recognizing how good it was.
I read the books as a child and young adult multiple times before the films came out. The films are fantastic and a solid adaptation for a different medium, they got the feeling down even if some parts were left out as part of the change to the other medium.
The Hobbit movies are hot garbage though, and I blame studio meddling for those.
On the Hobbit movies, I don't even think studio meddling was the biggest issue.
Peter Jackson had so much time to prepare for the original trilogy, where as he took over the Hobbit movies quite soon before they were scheduled to shoot and he couldn't use the preparation the previous director had done.
So he had no time to prepare and basically had to wing it with 3 movies and little to no prep.
That lack of time is a direct result of studio meddling. The studios pushed Guillermo del Toro out, threatened Peter Jackson with removing the production from New Zealand to force him into coming on as director, and tried to force him to keep to a similar timetable as the GDT production.
Can't argue with this at all, but the books aren't for everyone.
You're correct, of course... But the people you're referring to can be taught to read.
I'll always miss the scouring of The Shire. I know the movie didn't need more endings, but it is a big part of Frodo's end and it's the big payoff for Merry and Pippin
Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!
Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
I always rate my movies by volume of Tom Bombadil.
Peter Jackson asked him if he wanted to be in the movies, but he just trotted along saying "Goldberry is waiting"
So I don't blame him. I wouldn't keep her waiting either.
Does that fluctuate based on how well Goldberry's been feeding him?
Here's the article, btw.
not gonna lie, the author does make a few interesting points
Gimli is a vehicle for cheap gags
This is a fair point in particular.
Jfc the ads on that page are obnoxious
Guess my ad-blockers are doing a great job. I was completely unaware.
Unfortunately I was browsing away from my pihole at the time
Whoever wrote that article is a servant of Sauron.
Imagine being this vocally stupid
This post better not be anything except a long tirade that omitting Tom Bombadil as an additional 2 hours of content is a travesty.
I mean ... the warg fight in the second film is pretty bad. Even Mr. Jackson copped to that part being ... under produced.
Must be a book reader
As a book reader, I still don't get it. The LOTR movies are probably the best book adaptations of all time. I can't think of very much they could have done better. The extended editions really make the trilogy sing. Would a book reader want this to have been MORE than 13 hours? That's ridiculous.
The best adaptation is Forrest Gump because they got rid of all the over-the-top bullshit in the novel and turned it into a great story
Three simple words: Droning minor chords
You get maybe, in a 2 hour movie . . . 20 minutes maximum. Not 100 minutes.
If you feel it's that bad, create better.
I've thought this for a long time, I thought the movies were bad, like actually bad, and the first one, despite being the most boring, was actually probably the best one. This year I watched the extended version of the first movie and it was the first time I enjoyed it, but the others felt like large set piece battles and some simple, high fantasy plot as glue.