Tom Bombadil. Played by Jack Black. Imagine it.

As a Tolkien nerd who actually read the Appendix and wanted MOAR, I liked the Jackson movies. They were well done, although missing some minor details. But that's why I don't speak Quenya, I guess.

The Stealth Hippopotamus: They wanted a three year 66 episode HBO series that went word for word with the books.

Yeah, I'd watch the sh*t out of that, honestly.

Just a Scouring of the Shire.

CtrlAltDelete: Tom Bombadil. Played by Jack Black. Imagine it.

Too fat.

I'd be in favor of that, only if it was overlaid with text advising you that this was considered the film's intermission and it would be followed up by a C-SPAN-esque wrap up at the conclusion of the polite elvish bickering.

DontMakeMeComeBackThere: Too fat.

Okay, Michael Cain, then.

Two words: Tom Bombadil. I've never been so bored as I was when reading his endless songs and musings in the first book.

1. No elves at Helms Deep.

2. Don't make Frodo look like a p***y in Moria.

3. Don't make Sam & Frodo gay lovers.

Is that too much to ask??

News flash: Film adaptations are made for wide appeal and not targeted to fanboys. If you can recite Aragorn's lineage back to great uncle Elrond, speak Tolkien's elvish, or can convert between the elvish and hobitt calenders in your head, perhaps you shouldn't see the movies.

Same logic applies to Watchmen, Hellboy, etc.

JohnFernelius: Two words: Tom Bombadil. I've never been so bored as I was when reading his endless songs and musings in the first book.

I know. I could picture ol' Tom running around in some ladies wear. The guy sort of had that salad tosser aura.

Did anyone who read the books read and and every poem/song? The orcs would have kicked their a55es had then stopped and sung every 5 minutes.

/wanted more Eowyn

tl;dr

/like the Silmarillion

Cue Boromir Council gifs

flatblack: As a Tolkien nerd who actually read the Appendix and wanted MOAR...


so ... did The Silmarillion knock that desire out of your head, like it did to mine?

yes

CtrlAltDelete: The Stealth Hippopotamus: They wanted a three year 66 episode HBO series that went word for word with the books.

Yeah, I'd watch the sh*t out of that, honestly.

Ditto that.

CtrlAltDelete: Tom Bombadil. Played by Jack Black. Imagine it.

Well, here's the thing. We could watch that. Or instead, we could do something less painful, like sawing our eyes out of our heads with rusty hacksaws, or shoving red-hot pokers up our asses. Which, coincidentally, is what I wanted to do to Tolkien after slogging my way through that bloody series.

Which I'll get to, just after singing another 42-page song in Elvish.

My only complaint about the movies were how they turned Gimli, Merry and Pippen into bumbling comic relief characters.

Other than that I liked em.

RichieLaw: 1. No elves at Helms Deep.

2. Don't make Frodo look like a p***y in Moria.

3. Don't make Sam & Frodo gay lovers.

Is that too much to ask??

Apparently.

Where are they taking the hobbits? clicky (new window)

Foxtrot did it:



I wish I could find the comic where he's doing the filming as a Hobbit for Peter Jackson, and starts going word for word. But alas, my google-fu is poor right now, and I don't have time to find it.

phaseolus: flatblack: As a Tolkien nerd who actually read the Appendix and wanted MOAR...

so ... did The Silmarillion knock that desire out of your head, like it did to mine?

Dear God, no. In some ways I liked the Silmarillion better than LotR.

Osomatic: Well, here's the thing. We could watch that. Or instead, we could do something less painful, like sawing our eyes out of our heads with rusty hacksaws, or shoving red-hot pokers up our asses.

All these things are true, yes.

Look, I mostly don't mind the omission of scenes and characters. I understand that a film has to make edits to meet time constraints. I wasn't raging about the omission of Tom Bombadil (an interesting and significant character in his own way, but not super crucial to the overall narrative). I don't care that female characters like Arwen and Galadriel were given more important roles.

However, what annoys me is when the films fundamentally alter character traits of major characters in a way completely contrary to the novels' intentions. When in The Two Towers, for example, instead of succumbing to the lure of the ring and the temptation to use it, albeit for good purposes, Faramir lets Frodo, Sam, and Gollum continue on their way to Mordor, despite the heavy risk that the Ring would be re-captured by Sauron, spelling the end of Gondor. This episode says a lot about Faramir's character, and draws an important contrast with his brother, Boromir, who failed the same test. In the film version, however, Faramir behaves in a completely uncharacteristic way, abducting the hobbits and the ring and taking them to Osgiliath. This can't possibly be justified by editing down the material to fit in the film - hell, it adds a whole scene that isn't anywhere in the books.

That was my biggest complaint. My second biggest complaint was the lack of the Scouring of the Shire. By completely altering the ending, I think that Jackson completely altered one of the major themes of the books.

Count me among those who saw the chances as... necessary.

In addition to the digestibility problems with Tom Bombadil, there's the simple factor of LENGTH and PACING. If you include all of Frodo's faffing about in the shire prior to departure then the full events prior to Bree, you are two thirds of the way through the first book before the Fellowship even departs Rivendell.

One thing I find it interesting that the "purists" also never complain about was the interweaving of the stories. It is so common in modern movies that nobody really notices, but if you were to be true to the writing of Two Towers, it would have been 90 minutes of disjointed accounts of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimly then Merry and Pippin, then their eventual reunion (Book III), then a completely incongruous 90 minutes of Frodo and Sam walking (Book IV). Even with Tolkein dropping time-synch statements into the narrative(describing that such and such happened in Emen Muil on the same day that such and such happened in Rohan), it was hard to keep the book chronology straight. The same issue pervades Books V and VI.

Doc Daneeka: That was my biggest complaint. My second biggest complaint was the lack of the Scouring of the Shire. By completely altering the ending, I think that Jackson completely altered one of the major themes of the books.

Boy, that would have been the ultimate definition of anticlimactic. It'd be like an Exorcist movie where the devil himself finally gets exorcised and all loose ends are tied up...but wait, before the movie ends the hero must help a schizophrenic who ran out of his meds!

No, it worked in the book but no way in the movie.

Doc Daneeka: Look, I mostly don't mind the omission of scenes and characters. I understand that a film has to make edits to meet time constraints. I wasn't raging about the omission of Tom Bombadil (an interesting and significant character in his own way, but not super crucial to the overall narrative). I don't care that female characters like Arwen and Galadriel were given more important roles.

However, what annoys me is when the films fundamentally alter character traits of major characters in a way completely contrary to the novels' intentions. When in The Two Towers, for example, instead of succumbing to the lure of the ring and the temptation to use it, albeit for good purposes, Faramir lets Frodo, Sam, and Gollum continue on their way to Mordor, despite the heavy risk that the Ring would be re-captured by Sauron, spelling the end of Gondor. This episode says a lot about Faramir's character, and draws an important contrast with his brother, Boromir, who failed the same test. In the film version, however, Faramir behaves in a completely uncharacteristic way, abducting the hobbits and the ring and taking them to Osgiliath. This can't possibly be justified by editing down the material to fit in the film - hell, it adds a whole scene that isn't anywhere in the books.

That was my biggest complaint. My second biggest complaint was the lack of the Scouring of the Shire. By completely altering the ending, I think that Jackson completely altered one of the major themes of the books.

THIS.

CtrlAltDelete:

Tom Bombadil. Played by Jack Black. Imagine it.

THIS! Or Tom Bombadil in general. Or Tom Bombadil in his own epic poem for FSM's sake. Or Farmer Giles of Ham, or.... Really fruity singing Sindarin in The Hobbit.

Though the Barrow Wight parts of FoTR were among my favorites when I was a kid. Creepy stuff.

Doc Daneeka: Look, I mostly don't mind the omission of scenes and characters. I understand that a film has to make edits to meet time constraints. I wasn't raging about the omission of Tom Bombadil (an interesting and significant character in his own way, but not super crucial to the overall narrative). I don't care that female characters like Arwen and Galadriel were given more important roles.

However, what annoys me is when the films fundamentally alter character traits of major characters in a way completely contrary to the novels' intentions. When in The Two Towers, for example, instead of succumbing to the lure of the ring and the temptation to use it, albeit for good purposes, Faramir lets Frodo, Sam, and Gollum continue on their way to Mordor, despite the heavy risk that the Ring would be re-captured by Sauron, spelling the end of Gondor. This episode says a lot about Faramir's character, and draws an important contrast with his brother, Boromir, who failed the same test. In the film version, however, Faramir behaves in a completely uncharacteristic way, abducting the hobbits and the ring and taking them to Osgiliath. This can't possibly be justified by editing down the material to fit in the film - hell, it adds a whole scene that isn't anywhere in the books.

That was my biggest complaint. My second biggest complaint was the lack of the Scouring of the Shire. By completely altering the ending, I think that Jackson completely altered one of the major themes of the books.

i fell asleep

The movies came out nine years ago. They're still biatching?

CtrlAltDelete: Tom Bombadil. Played by Jack Black. Imagine it.

Sure. An ironic Tom Bombadil. Exactly the tone the movies required.

phaseolus: flatblack: As a Tolkien nerd who actually read the Appendix and wanted MOAR...


so ... did The Silmarillion knock that desire out of your head, like it did to mine?

Honestly, The Silmarillion rocked my world. I remember securing a good supply of marijuana and rolling papers, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon in a hammock, stoned out of my gourd, having my mind blown continously.

/The sun is just like, ONE FRUIT from the tree Telperion, man

The movies are pretty amazing...unless you're reading the book at the same general time. I was re-reading it and spent a couple nights watching the movies for about the third time, and the differences in tone were jarring. Scenes that I loved the first few times I saw them seemed to emphasize all the wrong notes, to miss the tone of the book or overplay the obvious notes in very ham-handed fashion.

Not that Tolkein was Nabakov to begin with, but he did a nice job with his story, and it was uniquely his. I guess it's unrealistic expecting anyone to really crawl into the heart of that story and bring it to life with the same overall vision.

I'm fine with cutting a lot of the dialogue - and every song except the Green Dragon drinking song - out of the films, but if you're chopping up a story for the screen, why would you add things that never happened? I'm still looking forward to The Hobbit, even knowing that Jackson will muck it up a bit, but don't let him do The Silmarillion. Those stories call for a defter touch than he apparently has.

I should just stick this in my profile, and refer to it every time this thread comes up.

I'm just going to toss this idea out there, how about you just STFU and enjoy a goddamned movie for once, so what they didn't follow the book exactly, big whoop it's just a farking movie and not a retelling of a true story

also, calling yourself a purist of any fictional book, really really makes you look extra dorky and describes why you still live in your parents basement

Der Poopflinger: I'm just going to toss this idea out there, how about you just STFU and enjoy a goddamned movie for once, so what they didn't follow the book exactly, big whoop it's just a farking movie and not a retelling of a true story

I find myself suddenly curious about your opinion of the Will Smith version of "I am Legend" as it compares to the book...

I kind of did want an hour long council of Elrond, if they kept the dialog/dramatics within the bounds of the books.

The way the movie did it was just plain cheezy.

I'm not really a movie pooh-pooher.. I love the movies... but yeah, just saying, the council of Elrond half a scene blew.

CtrlAltDelete: I find myself suddenly curious about your opinion of the Will Smith version of "I am Legend" as it compares to the book...

item a and item b are vaguely like each other, but used for different purposes.
also last I checked I am legend isn't a retelling of a true story, it's just a movie made for our entertainment, or to give the "purists" something to complain about.

I still dig the Unfinished Tales and the Histories of Middle Earth, but lately it just seems like a re-hash of the good stuff, and most of all, Christopher Tolkien's shameless plundering of the smallest scrap of his grandfathers writing.

The War of The Ring is interesting though. It details Saruman's plots and schemes involving the great rings of power. Apparently he made a lesser prototype, based on his studies of ring lore. Wormtongue was his lab rat for this little experiment.

/INTERESTING STUFF!