h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice review, but for me the films (both of them) are rubbish. You CANNOT change the book willy-nilly for no apparent reason and not expect people to get riled. The changes he has made are always for the worse and seem to have no rhyme or reason, plus all the bits he left out. Where did Tom Bombadil go? Why wasn't Erkenbrand at Helm's Deep? Etc. etc. Secondly, he has changed not just story elements (putting Sam and Frodo in Osgiliath ~ shudder) but has also changed the characters in a manner which suggests serious 'dumbing down'. The characters in Tolkiens books are by no means hugely complicated but are far superior to the two dimensional cut-outs which inhabit the films. When will directors ever learn that we the movie going public are not as dumb as they think we are? I don't need a neon sign over a character's head saying 'BAD GUY' for me to figure it out, and I feel insulted when directors do it anyway time and time again. This is the manner in which the 2 towers has been filmed. Frankly I was appalled at what a mess he has made of Tolkien's work so far. No wonder Tolkien's family were against this project from the start.

And finally-- elves surfing down stone staircases on shields firing arrows at orcs? Gah! Fetch me my phaser and set it on 'gratuitous violence towards directors'.

I agree with you, to a point, I think the films are great entertainment (but then again so are James Bond films etc) but Jackson went too far in changing characters, plot and themes and thus lost the special element that sets Tolkien apart from other fantasy authors, to such an extent that it somehow doesn't seem right to call him a fantasy author.
Unfortunately our view will always be the minority, most people find what they seek in the films and are content. We must be content to let them be happy, yet remain sorely dissappointed by the films.

Why can't people stop nitpicking about one man's wish to turn a long and very complicated book into something millions of people can enjoy. I find it hard to imagine how many people have now gone on to read the book having watched the films, it must be a figure well into the hundreds of thousands. If that's not a good thing for Peter Jackson's films to have achieved, I don't know what is.

There are also those people who might never read the book but can still come to love the story by watching the movies, I have a handful of those in my immediate circle of friends. I thinks it's a shame that people who pick the film and Peter Jackson apart for what is, in truth, a valiant and successful attempt at translating one of English literature's greatest works into a visual medium, can't accept it for simply being that. Never mind the millions of Tolkien fans who have found the films exciting and exhilerating!!

It is strange however, that the people who codemn the films most have gone to see both of them. If the first film was such a travesty, why bother wasting your money on going to see what will be, in your mind, another 3 hours of shameful, inaccurate garbage!!

The fact that no-one else has managed to get the project, not only off the ground, but kept well up in the air is testament to the task at hand. Peter Jackson has taken on the mantel of a man to be forever villified by purists and never fully recognised for his achievments.

And I for one, want to praise him for it.

"Why can't people stop nitpicking" Major changes are NOT nitpicking.

"There are also those people who might never read the book but can still come to love the story by watching the movies" Don't you get it? They won't come to love the story because it isn't the same as in the books. And if they can't (or won't) read them, too bad. Let them stick to the Beano or somesuch.

"...a valiant and successful attempt at translating..." Rubbish. Give me the dough and I'll show you a REAL film, not some nancied-up crappy dulled-down version.

"It is strange however, that the people who codemn the films most have gone to see both of them." Why? I would hardly feel qualified to discuss them if I hadn't seen them now, would I?

"The fact that no-one else has managed to get the project, not only off the ground, but kept well up in the air is testament to the task at hand." Yeah, right. Give me the money, etc. etc. I'd go for the absolute bare minimum of CGI because a film is about ACTORS and ACTING. Something in short supply in those films.

"Peter Jackson has taken on the mantel of a man to be forever villified by purists and never fully recognised for his achievments." His achievements would be what exactly? To take a huge quantity of cash and make a half-arsed version of a classic book? Hey, 'Way to go Peter!'.

Maolmuire

The films are openly and without apology different from the books, and there are many reasons for this.

1) EVERY reader has a certain picture in mind of Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo, Treebeard, Elrond, etc. and you can bet any amount of *dough* that you want that your version is different to mine.

2) Your typical two-dimensional film adaptation of a book *usually* comes from a novella or short story, of less than two hundred pages (frequently as few as fifty pages). Look at Blade Runner - Dick's short story barely meets even those criteria - and even then the material is thin on character development and pursues a *single* theme. LOTR *is* 1500+ pages of ideas, concepts, places, characters, things, etc, with in excess of 1500+ pages of background material. To film LOTR completely without dropping *anything* would mean making (IMHO) in excess of 24 hours of film. That PJ has got away with making as much as 10 hours of film is a triumph not a defeat.

3) LOTR was originally conceived by JRRT as a myth, a replacement for the myths lost through 1,000 years of invasion and conquest by Romans, Vikings and lastly the Normans. In Tolkien's mind it became a history, but in reality EVERY myth gets re-told in a multiplicity of versions and so it should be with LOTR. There is room yet for further adaptations to suit other media. I suggest that you try telling it as a bedtime story and you will get a real feel for the problem.

4) Film is a different media to paper. Conveying the range of emotions experienced by a character together with their deepest thoughts in a single paragraph is one thing, but how exactly would you compress some of JRRT's more convoluted paragraphs into the expressions of a handful or even one actor. For example, I'm not happy with the change to Faramir's character and you and I could discuss at length how this distorts the plot, showing him to be the same as his brother or even his father, but this does not invalidate PJ's interpretation.


We may well have read LOTR every year for the last twenty years (well *I* have), and have read the Silmarillion, the Hobbit, Unfinished Tales, et al, but so what.

Think about what you are saying.

Can you imagine what it would be like in just the opening sequence of FOTR if PJ had used all of the character names and identified all of the items and places involved. Gil-Galad, Elrond, Elendil, Isildur, Narsil, Oroduin, Sauron, etc, etc?

In just the first few minutes PJ paints enough of a picture to capture the imagination of people who haven't read the book.

No I'm not happy within the first few minutes. Its a wonderful device to show the battle, but to not mention Gil-Galad is criminal to me.

No I'm not happy that Elrond is shown to be little more than coward. Sending the elves of Lothlorien to their deaths while he makes for the Blessed Isles is hardly noble, for elf or man.

No I'm not happy with the absence of Tom Bombadil. He is an enigma, an important one at that.

Yes, if I were in PJ's shoes, I would have tried to include Tom Bombadil and the Old Forest, I would have tried to retain Erkenbrand, I would have tried to retain the Barrow Downs, Glorfindel and even Fatty Bolger pretending to be Frodo at Crickhollow, blubbering on a doorstep and raising Buckland in response to the raid by the Nazgul.

But so what?

As well as a book that I continue to enjoy reading over and over, I now have a film that makes me think even deeper about the books!

I think that while the films so far have been very clearly PJ's interpretation, they add so much more to the entire world.

Madent

Hi Madent, I take your point that film is a different medium to book. Allowances must be made for that. However, to suggest that the films are the director's 'interpretation' and that therefore any egregious (IMO anyway) errors are ok is nonsense. He didn't have time to put in Bombadil, yet he had time to invent a stupid cave troll in Moria so he could slip in yet another cgi (yawn) scene into the film. Gratuitous, that's what it is. He 'kills off' Erkenbrand yet he invents stuff for Arwen to do. She has five lines max in the book, the subplot (which is really only explained in the appendix and therefore wasn't even in the original book, but he probably expanded it to fit in more scenes for a VERY poor actress- is this a good enough reason?) becomes far more important that it deserves. Aragorn pauses and ponders a dalliance with Eowyn. WTH? How many characters has he grossly changed? And for what purpose? I do not expect a slavish rendition of Tolkien's LOTR, but I do expect to see TOLKIEN'S LOTR, and not some nincompoop's 'interpretation' of it. To fundamentally change characters isn't 'interpretation', it is just plain wrong.

Coming next: Wacky HenryVIII pogo sticks it over to the Tower of London to see if the Royal Light Sabre has been recharged yet.

Yes, i would love to see a 5 hour long movie filled with nothing but people running around and talking to each-other, but it wouldn't be intertaining. The producer doesn't want to make people fall asleep, he wants people to enjoy the movie. You can only put so much into a movie and still have people enjoy it

Everybody's a critic. I have come to accept the fact. There is some truth to what the LOTR maniacs drag on about. After all, Frodo is supposed to be educated in some elvish, and there is supposed to be merry song and verse every few minutes. Of course I will admit that in order to facilitate the reading of LOTR I skipped a good bit of the singing parts, and skimmed whatever I didn't skip. If there are any who believe I missed something in the interpretation of the books through skipping the songs please let me know. I would like to point out something that may not have been thought of concerning PJ. I challenge all PJ critics to hunt down and watch all of PJ's previous works. If you'd rather not, let me just say that his previous works are thought of as very "B-movie" like, not necessarily by me, but according to a documentary on television, the collection of PJ's works worried many high ups and funding people. Read reviews of PJ's stuff, whatever it takes, then I hope you will realize that he had to make a huge leap onto our attention spans from what he used to do to produce something as relatively high quality as LOTR.
If you don't want to consider that, then consider this. I can not recall a book I have read that has a motion picture counterpart that is entirely accurate. The reasons differ, from the discretion of a twisted director, to the sheer impossibility of containing EVERY SINGLE ELEMENT from the book in the movie.
Of course, there is the idea that maybe, JUST MAYBE, if we wanted the book portrayed perfectly, we could depend solely on the book and our vivid imaginations? AND it surprises me to know that there are people who have been mislead into thinking that novels are scripts in disguise.
And ask yourselves this question: IF, just suppose for a moment, the movie was NOT preceded by a literary giant such as J.R.R.T., are the LOTR movies REALLY all that bad?
But then again, I know nothing.

Everybody's a critic. I have come to accept the fact. There is some truth to what the LOTR maniacs drag on about. After all, Frodo is supposed to be educated in some elvish, and there is supposed to be merry song and verse every few minutes. Of course I will admit that in order to facilitate the reading of LOTR I skipped a good bit of the singing parts, and skimmed whatever I didn't skip. If there are any who believe I missed something in the interpretation of the books through skipping the songs please let me know. I would like to point out something that may not have been thought of concerning PJ. I challenge all PJ critics to hunt down and watch all of PJ's previous works. If you'd rather not, let me just say that his previous works are thought of as very "B-movie" like, not necessarily by me, but according to a documentary on television, the collection of PJ's works worried many high ups and funding people. Read reviews of PJ's stuff, whatever it takes, then I hope you will realize that he had to make a huge leap onto our attention spans from what he used to do to produce something as relatively high quality as LOTR.
If you don't want to consider that, then consider this. I can not recall a book I have read that has a motion picture counterpart that is entirely accurate. The reasons differ, from the discretion of a twisted director, to the sheer impossibility of containing EVERY SINGLE ELEMENT from the book in the movie.
Of course, there is the idea that maybe, JUST MAYBE, if we wanted the book portrayed perfectly, we could depend solely on the book and our vivid imaginations? AND it surprises me to know that there are people who have been mislead into thinking that novels are scripts in disguise.
And ask yourselves this question: IF, just suppose for a moment, the movie was NOT preceded by a literary giant such as J.R.R.T., are the LOTR movies REALLY all that bad?
But then again, I know nothing.

"I challenge all PJ critics to hunt down and watch all of PJ's previous works." God forbid! The first one was bad, but the second one actually bored me. Eugh!

"...previous works are thought of as very "B-movie" like..." Hee-hee! I think his latest stuff isn't much better! It seems irrelevant to me whether his latest stuff is better than his earlier stuff, I still think it's awful.

"...are the LOTR movies REALLY all that bad?" Well, yes actually. To me at least. I was bored during the second film. REALLY bored. I won't go and see part three of the Bored of the Rings trilogy 'cos I think they are THAT bad. PJ has used up all his chances with me!!

"But then again, I know nothing." Dammit, I dispute that too!!

Cheers!

so it appears that lord of the rings has the perfect mix, we have some who think that it is too exciting and some that find it boring. you would assume that everyone else liked it

I want to say that I am as big a tolkien fan as you are.
I admit that the changes are bad and they shouldn't have done them. But in the end, isn't a Tolkien related movie better than a non-Tolkien related movie. it's like that thing about sex and pizza. If it's good, it's good, if it's bad it's still pretty good. this may not be the best adaptation, but it's the best one we've gotten so far.

Didn't PJ say something like 'I'm not doing this thing perfectly withought any missed details, that's what Harry Potter is for'? I know I probably got the quote wrong, but I think I remember him saying somehting like that.

I think both the films are fantastic. Allthough I must confess the changes to Faramirs character P*ssed me off. Still they are great to watch.

, i first came to this page to ask if anyone knows if the extended versions of FOTR & TTT are in cinemas in UK or just USA & if so any ideas which ones... but then i saw this convo & just *had* to read it.... u know how it is!

Like you said, everyones a critic... so heres what i have to say (or part of it.. i have practicals to prepare for!)......

1st of all, on the whole i liked the films.... I quite enjoyed seeing someone elses idea of the characters & landscapes... Im one of those who can spend hours sitting on the loor in a bookshop flicking thru the postcard books, poster collections, Illustrated Tolkien this & that.... I admit that a lot of charactures weren't how i picture them (looks & character) but spotting the mistakes & complaining about them with fellow fans lead to hours of heated debate! just think, if not for the films those hours may have been spend actually doing homework! as a seasoned Tolkien fan before the films came out I could accept some of the missing scenes, eg good old Tom Bombadil (no, please dont shoot me! i love him to bits! one of fav characters!). since i cut the film in my minds eye to kinda say they just didnt show it.. it happened really... & i ignored the story changes made around it in the film. the major problem with leaving things out in the film (sorry guys, it had to be done... while i would gladly sit thru an unabridged accurate film version for as long as it lasts many others wouldnt & it wouldnt be a cinematic success) is that other bits they have to make up to explain stuff that should have happened in the missed bit makes no sense.... eg, hobbits getting swords from Aragorn not Barrow.

I have to say I am a bit prejudiced against those who claim to be fans because of the films.... first & foremost LOTR is a genious work of litrature & anyone who hasnt accepted it as that doesnt deserve the honorific 'fan'. saying that i do have friends who are reading it once they've seen the films... i guess with those say 10 years younger than me (im 19 btw) this is the most likely way for it to be unfortuantly. *sigh*

One thing I hate most that hasnt yet been mentioned (Faramir... no need to say what a cock up that was even if you do allow slight changes from the book.. that was a detour that missed the point completely - that Faramir loves the things they're fighting to save rather than the battle itself as Boromir did) was turning Gimli into a joke rather than a strong willed, tough, deep character. the Legolas-Gimli friendship & banter in the book was fun in a kinda moving way (y'know what i mean right?) but in the film it was just comedy.... theres no need for that, there is comedy in LOTR, just as theres comedy in real life, its just a lot more subtle than a standup double act!

Also in general i wasnt happy about the elves... many points that i wont go into cuz only meant for this to be a short post... well done if you've kept up with the ramblings of a half awake maniac!

but i still love the films as secondary acomplishments to the book.. obviously a long way below Tolkiens own work... but how could it be anything else?

btw, you all seen the animated attempt at LOTR? I have to say there were bits of that which were better than bits in the film... sorry PJ!

I have to say the computer work was necessary.... i think Gollum was very well done... as close to acting as a comp thing could get that was.... & a lot better than a man in a mask would be!

anyway, gotta run.....

omy

PS- original Q still stands re. cinemas in UK!

I heard a rumour that UGC were going to be doing them.

keep an eye on http://www.theonering.net - they seem to get all the details you could ever (and never) want

cheers... that was one of the many LOTR websites i had in favourites on compie back home... really should get round to copying them all over to this 1 i guess

omy

Having looked through all these posts i think you've missed several vital facts.

1) This hasnt been done before. Shooting three films back to back, especially something as huge as LOTR is extremely difficult to do. Everything has to be preciese or the budget could sky rocket, or reems of film could go missing.

2) Its a trilogy. I still think our society has a problem with this notion - that we dont get it all in one sitting and we have to come back for more.

I agree that some elements would have been nice to be explained (more gil-galad), but would any of it have been relevant? The book is over a thousand pages long, plus the appendix's. I think Jackson did the right thing in following the storyline of the ring, which was the most important thing about the trilogy.

If the trilogy bored you then go watch something that gives you it all on a plate and doesnt require concentration. If you watched the two towers and thought it was boring and rubbish, and therefore wont watch the third film then i say your eating your own words. Its a TRILOGY. Dont critise one film, critise them all after watching them back to back. I have done this and am confident in what im saying. What im trying to say is if you dont like it, get stuffed.

I've studied the film for the past two years, and im proud to say i love it. No film has ever been done on this scale, never mind in the short space of time it was done in. You have to give credit where its due, and the films deserve a lot of credit.

I agree with both points... and i did realise them.
Im not denying they deserve a huge amount of credit. they r amazing & i enjoyed them immensly.
but he did change some things which he shouldnt..... i dont mind too much im leaving out certain things, or interpreting the story his way... thats his job. but to change the story & to change charactures is not on.... ok, i only know he's done this as a major fan of the book but it gives the wrong impression! eg the Faramir change and the way Gimli was primarly the comic entertainment.

omy

I probably should not even be in this conversation, except that I too have had my fill of movies that subverted all the key qualities that made a source book an outstanding achievement.

I should mention that I love watching action movies, sci-fi, comedies, musicals, dramas, filmed plays, and others. Genre though, is not enough to get me to watch, or avoid, a film. I'm told my taste seems to run from the Excellent to the Cheesy, while skipping a lot of mediocre drek in between.

I was fortunate that I had not read the books. My wife had to, in school, and was not impressed. Her views on the movies are based on pre-knowledge. My views on the movies are entirely objective. This is not something a fan can do.

My son brought the first one home, and my wife loved the characters and soundtrack enough to get herself a copy. Now he has #2, and I believe we do as well.

I have yet to see more than 30 minutes of wither one, because they keep putting me to sleep. I don't hate them, I just can't stay awake during them.