LoTR nerdfight redux

[Riggswolfe]

Kind of, I suppose.  It seems to detract from the movie.

Series are rebooted all the time.  Watching the Spider-Man movie, I don't think it would be greatly improved by incorporating some time travel subplot in which comic book Spidey comes back in time to explain why he doesn't have mechanical webshooters anymore.  You don't need to do that.  We're not retelling the battle of Gettysburg or anything; explaining how one fictional setting ties in with another fictional setting is only really helpful if it adds to the current story somehow, and I don't think it does here, since this is a reboot and therefore is supposed to stand on it's own.

And time travel plots in general are full of WTF, so I'd just as soon avoid that.

I think you're missing a major factor in all this. The fans. Particularly the obsessed ones, you know, the guys who speak Klingon and stuff? J.J. and crew had three options for a Prequel:

a) Make everything exactly as these fans know it is based on years of EU and such. (and yes, Kirk has a very established backstory at this point). This probably would have bored J.J. to tears and made the movie not very accessible for your average movie goer.
b) Make almost the movie we have but without explaining the differences. The hardcore fans would have shit bricks and badmouthed the movie to anyone who would listen. It might still have succeeded but it would have alienated a large part of this existing fanbase.
c) Do what they did. Find a way to reinvent things but do it in a way that will satisfy as many of these hard core fanatics as possible.

Let's be honest, there are three main fanbases I can think of that obsess enough that if you fuck with things you have to find a way to explain it in-universe.

 1) Star Wars fans. I think this is part of the bitching about the prequels from the hard core fans. Lucas ignored EU and such and pissed some of them off. We're ignoring for the moment the quality, or lack thereof, of the prequels. Now, imagine if someone rebooted Star Wars but Leah was on Tatooine with Luke and the look of the movie was very different. The Falcon? That ship is absolutely brand new! Not a speck of dust. You can bet the fans would be up in arms!

2) Lord of the Rings fans. You know those guys who speak Elven? PJ pushed their buttons simply by having Arwen at the river with Frodo in FOTR instead of some elf prince whose name I forget. Can you imagine if he changed anything major without explaining it somehow?

3) and this one is of course Star Trek fans...

[Ratman_tf]

2) Lord of the Rings fans. You know those guys who speak Elven? PJ pushed their buttons simply by having Arwen at the river with Frodo in FOTR instead of some elf prince whose name I forget. Can you imagine if he changed anything major without explaining it somehow?

The real tragedy is that Liv Tyler was a shitty choice for Arwen. Hell, she's a shitty choice for anything but T&A in her daddy's music videos.

[stray]

What was wrong with her? She was hot and spoke Elvish. What more do you want?

edit: Of course, I don't care much about Lord of the Rings to begin with. I'm not exactly sure who Arwen is supposed to be.

[Ubvman]

....
2) Lord of the Rings fans. You know those guys who speak Elven? PJ pushed their buttons simply by having Arwen at the river with Frodo in FOTR instead of some elf prince whose name I forget. Can you imagine if he changed anything major without explaining it somehow?
....

I agree with you for the most part.

Now, about the LoTR thing, there ARE MAJOR changes and departures that Peter Jackson did that was never explained away.
Saruman (you know, the owner of one of the Two Towers), just disappears at the end of the 2nd movie - last we saw of him, he was looking mighty annoyed at the water damage he may not be able to claim insurance on. Yes I know theres a DVD deleted scene, but in the movie - he just disappears without so much of a how-de-do from Gandalf. I have a personal theory that maybe PJ or the powers to be wanted to do a "Scouring of the Shire" sequel to the LoTR trilorgy - thats why they left out the filmed end of Saruman/Wormtongue  (which really takes less than 5 mins to resolve) from the movie.

Then theres a whole bit where Aragorn falls off the cliff with the worg, which I don't think thats in the book or explained away well.

The thing is, I personally believe that most of the hardcore fans can be bribed off or placated for the most part if you bring in enough of "TEH AWESOME!" into your movie.

PS: Transparent Aluminum already exists - its called Sapphire, α-Al2O3

[Riggswolfe]

I agree with you for the most part.

Now, about the LoTR thing, there ARE MAJOR changes and departures that Peter Jackson did that was never explained away.

snip

Yeah I know but I didn't want to do an exhaustive review of the changes, the Arwen one was the first that popped into my head. The one major LOTR fan I know has bitched about each and every one of those changes. Not to the level of "it ruined the movie for me!" but still has bitched. If you go to other forums you will find some of these people that say it did ruin the movie for them and I once saw a post by a guy who never saw the other two LOTRO movies because Arwen at the river ruined it for him from that point forward.

[Ratman_tf]

What was wrong with her? She was hot and spoke Elvish. What more do you want?

edit: Of course, I don't care much about Lord of the Rings to begin with. I'm not exactly sure who Arwen is supposed to be.

Perzactly. Jackson made this change in going from book to movie, and people still ask "Who's Arwen supposed to be?"

[HaemishM]

I generally liked the movie, it's just that the time travel thing was something I didn't see the point of.

It was to give the nerdragers some reason to differentiate this Trek from their Trek. While I had no problem with the time travel part of the equation at all (I actually thought it was a good way to bridge to the two versions AND give them free rein to do their own stories from here), it was just to suck up to the Trek fanboys.

[stray]

What was wrong with her? She was hot and spoke Elvish. What more do you want?

edit: Of course, I don't care much about Lord of the Rings to begin with. I'm not exactly sure who Arwen is supposed to be.

Perzactly. Jackson made this change in going from book to movie, and people still ask "Who's Arwen supposed to be?"

I mean who's she supposed to be other than what was showed? Not what she is supposed to be in general. I gathered enough about the character from the movie that I didn't deem it confusing or bad. Her story seemed to be that she was an immortal in love with a mortal. And she seemed to play the part as well as anyone else who played an elf in it. What exactly am I supposed to not like or want more of? As far as cinematic storytelling goes, it worked. If you're too close for comfort with the books though, it's usually the reader's habit to forget that they're dealing with two different mediums here. Movies tend to distill things, and mostly convey plot through symbolic and/or essential actions. The worst kind of scripts are ones that don't do that. Nobody wants to watch an additional 5 hours of Arwen picking berries or some shit.. even though a LotR fan might think that's great and all, he's wrong. He's the only one in the room with his arms up in the air about it. [edit] That goes for just about every book adaptation.. and big fans of the respective books. Take a step back and realize that Jackson made a pretty timeless trilogy based on books written in the fucking 1930's or some shit. I'm not a big fan or anything, but they are pretty good. I'd only consider Conan the Barbarian the better fantasy movie.

[Reg]

I'm not a fanatical enough fan that having Arwen at the ford instead of the elf who was supposed to be there bothered me.  It's just I couldn't see much reason for it.  It looked like they were trying to beef up Arwen's part in the movie. It didn't work. She was a minor character in the books and seeing her a couple of extra times in the movie didn't change that.

Edit: Hmm this isn't the right thread for this. Sorry about that.

[Samwise]

The Star Trek thing is beaten to death anyway.  On with the derail!

Arwen was a minor enough character that I didn't notice her being at the river as a big change when I saw the first movie.  Having reread the books a couple of times with more attention paid to her, though, I think why some people got bent out of shape about the change was that she wasn't supposed to be a warrior princess like Eowyn.  She doesn't tend to charge to the rescue and save the day; her strength and her role in the story are very different from Eowyn's, and I think to some extent Eowyn and Arwen are meant to represent two sides of Aragorn's character and the choice he has to make in what sort of man he's going to be.

[Quinton]

I think my biggest complaints about omitted stuff are the breaking of Saruman's staff, and the Scouring of the Shire, both of which provide some resolution to largeish plot threads (what happened to Saruman, how did this whole adventure change the hobbits, who we have followed through the whole story).

The thing is, sometimes they'd add things that just felt fantastic and fit great (Bilbo telling stories to the hobbit children at the birthday party -- brilliantly done), and sometimes I think they just went off the rails trying to muck with stuff that really was fine as is.

Arwen at the ford certainly didn't ruin the movie for me though.

[Samwise]

I'm still really annoyed that the Scouring of the Shire, which would have been an awesome scene in every way, was omitted in favor of fifteen minutes of slow-mo hobbits jumping on a bed.

[HaemishM]

Peter Jackson hated the Scouring. That's the reason it's not in the movies. Which sucks monkey ass as a reason, frankly. But, the movies are still good.

[Numtini]

You could probably do an entire movie out of the scouring.

[Teleku]

I'm still really annoyed that the Scouring of the Shire, which would have been an awesome scene in every way, was omitted in favor of fifteen minutes of slow-mo hobbits jumping on a bed.

Really?  I knew they were going to cut it the moment I heard they were making a movie (just like Tom Bombadil), just for pacing reasons alone.  I was never really a fan of the Scouring.  It felt really weird and out of place.  Meh, didn't really bug me, just thought the whole thing was kind of pointless.  Glad it wasn't included.

[HaemishM]

The Scouring pays off every bit of the Hobbit's journey. It's subtle, but it is the most telling example that "things will never be the same." The idyllic paradise of the Shire, so immune to the troubles of the world, was corrupted, and it took hobbits who had been changed by the external world to put right. It was payoff that the movies lacked somewhat. And it gave Sauruman a more fitting end than disappearing into Orthanc or getting spiked on a wheel.

[Evildrider]

While I liked the Scouring in the book, I don't think it would have been given the justice it deserved in the movies.  It would have had to been another hour of film.  I wish he would have filmed it and added it to the extended versions though.

[Quinton]

Yeah, I totally understand why he dropped it (the movie suffered from "too many endings" as it was).  It makes me sad though, as it's always been one of my favorite parts of the books.  I mean, there's a big story there, but the story is told from the eyes of the hobbits and the scouring of the shire shows that their world was not untouched, and neither were they.

[Evildrider]

Yeah, I totally understand why he dropped it (the movie suffered from "too many endings" as it was).  It makes me sad though, as it's always been one of my favorite parts of the books.  I mean, there's a big story there, but the story is told from the eyes of the hobbits and the scouring of the shire shows that their world was not untouched, and neither were they.

I really don't get this from PJ's film at all.  Except for Frodo being a brooding wuss, the other Hobbits seemed the same as they were at the beginning.  I think the biggest changes of all were really in Merry and Pippin, throughout the books, and that was totally glossed over in the movies.

[Riggswolfe]

Yeah, I totally understand why he dropped it (the movie suffered from "too many endings" as it was).  It makes me sad though, as it's always been one of my favorite parts of the books.  I mean, there's a big story there, but the story is told from the eyes of the hobbits and the scouring of the shire shows that their world was not untouched, and neither were they.

I really don't get this from PJ's film at all.  Except for Frodo being a brooding wuss, the other Hobbits seemed the same as they were at the beginning.  I think the biggest changes of all were really in Merry and Pippin, throughout the books, and that was totally glossed over in the movies.

It's there but it's a subtle and small moment. It's when they sit in the bar and all kind of look at each other. You get the feel that they've all experienced stuff noone else in the room has and they know it. Then Sam goes up to Goldie and it both breaks the moment and shows very well how they've changed as old Sam never had the balls to do that.

[Ratman_tf]

I mean who's she supposed to be other than what was showed? Not what she is supposed to be in general. I gathered enough about the character from the movie that I didn't deem it confusing or bad. Her story seemed to be that she was an immortal in love with a mortal. And she seemed to play the part as well as anyone else who played an elf in it. What exactly am I supposed to not like or want more of? As far as cinematic storytelling goes, it worked. If you're too close for comfort with the books though, it's usually the reader's habit to forget that they're dealing with two different mediums here. Movies tend to distill things, and mostly convey plot through symbolic and/or essential actions. The worst kind of scripts are ones that don't do that. Nobody wants to watch an additional 5 hours of Arwen picking berries or some shit.. even though a LotR fan might think that's great and all, he's wrong. He's the only one in the room with his arms up in the air about it. [edit] That goes for just about every book adaptation.. and big fans of the respective books. Take a step back and realize that Jackson made a pretty timeless trilogy based on books written in the fucking 1930's or some shit. I'm not a big fan or anything, but they are pretty good. I'd only consider Conan the Barbarian the better fantasy movie.

That's beautiful man.

As a Tolkien fan who doesn't give a shit about the transition from book to movie as long as they tell a good story, I thought the LOTR trilogy was about average. Some good bits, a lot of mediocre bits, and a lot of stupid shit. Liv Tyler is one of the stupid shit bits. She can't act, and they shoehorned her into the movie to give Aragorn a love interest, but all of her scenes were crap that they stuck it in there so we wouldn't forget who she was before the end of ROTK finally rolled around.

[lamaros]

including the scouring would have ruined the hamfisted allegorical significance that the movies played up

just like including the ents properly (the difference that pissed me off the most) would have ruined the human/hobbit centricity of the film

the films were just fantasy action, making them anything else wouldn't have gone down as well.

i mean, lotr isn't subtle to begin with, but even then it was too much for a 'major motion picture', so all sorts of shit got culled for those reasons... where 'pacing' stands in for 'giving the audience room to pause and consider'

[Tannhauser]

The Scouring pays off every bit of the Hobbit's journey. It's subtle, but it is the most telling example that "things will never be the same." The idyllic paradise of the Shire, so immune to the troubles of the world, was corrupted, and it took hobbits who had been changed by the external world to put right. It was payoff that the movies lacked somewhat. And it gave Sauruman a more fitting end than disappearing into Orthanc or getting spiked on a wheel.

I have no problem with Saruman's end.  Saruman defeats Gandalf.  Gandalf dies and comes back and breaks Saruman's staff.  Then the Witch King breaks Gandalf the White's staff.  I thought it was a great way to show their power levels.  I thought that was a nice touch and made the Witch King more of a badass.

Scouring of the Shire.  Really?  It felt out of place in the books and it would have made a long end after Mt. Doom even longer. 

[Sheepherder]

I have no problem with Saruman's end.  Saruman defeats Gandalf.  Gandalf dies and comes back and breaks Saruman's staff.  Then the Witch King breaks Gandalf the White's staff.  I thought it was a great way to show their power levels.  I thought that was a nice touch and made the Witch King more of a badass.

Except he didn't.  Perrin walked up to Gandalf and said "Yo, Steward dude is trying to light people on fire, might want to fix that."  Gandalf said "FFS you little shit, do I have to do all the work around here?" and while they were away Merry shanked the Witch King in the leg while Aragorn's clingy psychopath rammed a sword in his mouth, just like Aragorn refused to do with her, showing she's so over him now and has moved on to other relationships.

[Tannhauser]

Except he did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lth9e7BeKwo&feature=related

[Cyrrex]

Except he did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lth9e7BeKwo&feature=related

I don't remember seeing that scene in the film, nor do I remember reading about this event in the book.  Are you sure this isn't just a deleted scene?  I want to call bullshit, but I'll admit it's quite possible that my memory is leaky on this.

[Ironwood]

I don't remember that scene at all either.

What the fuck ?

[lamaros]

wasnt in the cinema release for sure

[Lakov_Sanite]

wasnt in the cinema release for sure

Indeed...though it was a pretty cool scene.

[Ironwood]

Not so much.  It kinda says 'The Witch King would Fuck You Up, Gandalf'.

And that's not the case.

[Tarami]

It's in the movie but only in the extended. In the cinematic version, however, a continuity error hints to that (omitted) scene, because Gandalf still grabs a spear from a guard to knock Denethor off the bonfire in a later scene;

At 4:30:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR3Z388PIew&feature=related

Edit:
And no, it's not in the books. Because of what Ironwood said.

[Cyrrex]

So in other words, it officially never happened?  Good, because it doesn't make any damn sense.

[Ironwood]

In a scene from the Extended Edition, as Gandalf races to the upper levels of the city on Shadowfax, he unexpectedly runs into the Witch-king on his fell beast. The Witch-king shatters Gandalf's staff, knocking the wizard off his horse. However, their confrontation is interrupted, as in the book, by the arrival of the Rohirrim

.


How odd.  Watched the Extended version a few times.  That scene just does not register in my memory at all.

It's still shite.

[Tarami]

I think the coolest thing about that scene is the Witch-King's flaming sword. THAT's how I want my magic swords.

[Cyrrex]

The problem with the scene is the whole Gandalf-getting-his-staff-broken thingy.  No way the Witch King could have done that (not to my way of thinking, anyway).  Tolkien wouldn't have made such a big deal out of Gandalf becoming The White only to have him get bitch slapped 10 minutes later.