Writer's Block: Book based
Apr. 27th, 2010 09:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badseed1980[Error: unknown template qotd]
Here's the thing: my love of the Lord of the Rings series is almost as old as I am. My father started reading The Hobbit to me when I was about five years old, I think. Maybe a little older than that, but definitely younger than nine, because we'd already finished the entire series by the time I got my own copy for Christmas in 1989, and reading those books aloud, not even every night? Slow going.
And here's the other thing: I am not always a perfectionist about staying as close as possible to the books. When it comes to making a movie out of a book, I am a big picture person. I want the FEEL of the movie to be as close as possible to the feel of the book. So, while it might irritate me if a chunk of plot is removed or a timeline is changed or simplified, it's nowhere near as important to me in most cases as good casting, for example.
When I first heard that they were going to make a live-action film version of LotR, I was gobsmacked. I had all kinds of conflicting thoughts about it: "That is SUCH hubris. It can't possibly work." "OMG OMG OMG I CAN'T WAIT!" "Oh no, what if they fuck it up?" "I wonder who they'll get to play $character?" "Is this just going to be a special effects extravaganza?" "THIS IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME! I need to go see it with my father!"
The more I read about the making of the film as it progressed, the more hopeful I became that it wouldn't suck. And I did go see it with my father. I was utterly and completely blown away. Sure, plot points got changed. Some of them were things I'd loved that got left out. (I understand why they left out Bombadil and the Barrow-Wights and all, but...argh!) But the feel? Just about as spot- on perfect as it could possibly have been. Just enough change to make it a good movie, because as the book was, it needed some changes to make it a good movie. The movie had CLEARLY been made by someone whose love for the story was as deep and genuine as my own. And the second and third movies hit me in the same way. Plot points that grated a bit, but overall, the films preserved the sheer magic of the books. The end of the last movie made me cry, just as the end of the book often does.
The best thing about it, IMO, was the casting. Well, except Liv Tyler. I wasn't impressed by her. But I suppose it was hard because they really tried to build up her character without much to go on, so maybe she'd have been better if the character had been better. But everyone else was phenomenal. Sir Ian McKellen, in particular, WAS Gandalf. To the minutest detail. Just the right blend of laughter, sternness, and mysticism. Viggo Mortensen was of course brilliant as Aragorn. The man is just an amazing actor, and does "conflicted hero" like nobody's business. I can't believe they almost put Stuart Fucking Townsend in that role. And who could possibly have been a better Sam Gamgee than Sean Astin? Cate Blanchett was the only person ethereal and yet commanding enough to play Galadriel. Seriously, the casting was superb.
Oh, and yes: I have seen the animated movies. I know they are terrible, but I enjoyed them greatly as a little kid. I still remember the music, and many of the images. The movies all seem to have imprinted themselves on my psyche, just as the books did.
Here's the thing: my love of the Lord of the Rings series is almost as old as I am. My father started reading The Hobbit to me when I was about five years old, I think. Maybe a little older than that, but definitely younger than nine, because we'd already finished the entire series by the time I got my own copy for Christmas in 1989, and reading those books aloud, not even every night? Slow going.
And here's the other thing: I am not always a perfectionist about staying as close as possible to the books. When it comes to making a movie out of a book, I am a big picture person. I want the FEEL of the movie to be as close as possible to the feel of the book. So, while it might irritate me if a chunk of plot is removed or a timeline is changed or simplified, it's nowhere near as important to me in most cases as good casting, for example.
When I first heard that they were going to make a live-action film version of LotR, I was gobsmacked. I had all kinds of conflicting thoughts about it: "That is SUCH hubris. It can't possibly work." "OMG OMG OMG I CAN'T WAIT!" "Oh no, what if they fuck it up?" "I wonder who they'll get to play $character?" "Is this just going to be a special effects extravaganza?" "THIS IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME! I need to go see it with my father!"
The more I read about the making of the film as it progressed, the more hopeful I became that it wouldn't suck. And I did go see it with my father. I was utterly and completely blown away. Sure, plot points got changed. Some of them were things I'd loved that got left out. (I understand why they left out Bombadil and the Barrow-Wights and all, but...argh!) But the feel? Just about as spot- on perfect as it could possibly have been. Just enough change to make it a good movie, because as the book was, it needed some changes to make it a good movie. The movie had CLEARLY been made by someone whose love for the story was as deep and genuine as my own. And the second and third movies hit me in the same way. Plot points that grated a bit, but overall, the films preserved the sheer magic of the books. The end of the last movie made me cry, just as the end of the book often does.
The best thing about it, IMO, was the casting. Well, except Liv Tyler. I wasn't impressed by her. But I suppose it was hard because they really tried to build up her character without much to go on, so maybe she'd have been better if the character had been better. But everyone else was phenomenal. Sir Ian McKellen, in particular, WAS Gandalf. To the minutest detail. Just the right blend of laughter, sternness, and mysticism. Viggo Mortensen was of course brilliant as Aragorn. The man is just an amazing actor, and does "conflicted hero" like nobody's business. I can't believe they almost put Stuart Fucking Townsend in that role. And who could possibly have been a better Sam Gamgee than Sean Astin? Cate Blanchett was the only person ethereal and yet commanding enough to play Galadriel. Seriously, the casting was superb.
Oh, and yes: I have seen the animated movies. I know they are terrible, but I enjoyed them greatly as a little kid. I still remember the music, and many of the images. The movies all seem to have imprinted themselves on my psyche, just as the books did.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 03:39 pm (UTC)I always liked The First Wives Club in print, but the movie was kinda "meh" to me. It did a pretty good job of capturing the essence of the complicated friendship of those women (and the casting there was terrific!)...but a lot of the stuff that gave it real dimension to me was left out. The federal investigator who helped drive the hunt for the husband of the Diane Keaton character...nowhere. Bette Midler's character coming out of the closet to herself and the world...changed to Diane Keaton's daughter (handled very adorably, but still not the same).
I understand some things have to go for the sake of a movie, but the side stories gave it more dimension and made the book richer than mere 'man-bashing." And there was, IIRC, no song number in the book.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 03:40 pm (UTC)One of the most fun moments of seeing the movies was seeing Fellowship in Helsinki, with Finnish subtitles, and getting to the Sindarin scenes - which I could understand by piecing together the scraps of Sindarin and Finnish that I knew - with the added thrill of the fact that the elvish languages were all based on Finnish.
IMO the biggest overall change that the movies made was to drop one of Tolkien's main themes, but that change was understandable. In the actual LotR, there are various things to show us that the world is larger than this struggle, the forces of nature more powerful than it, that this thing that matters so much to the characters and peoples of the story is only of mild notice to this bigger arc of nature that it all happens in. If the movies were going to drop Bombadil, then twisting the snowstorm at Caradhras into an act of Saruman kind of makes sense - both of those were part of that theme.
Smaller changes that I think the movies didn't have to make, and that I really hated, were:
1. Losing Merry and Pippin's characters, turning them into frat boy sorts at the beginning.
2. Turning Faramir's moral struggle completely around, and losing the contrast with Boromir, thus also losing the core of the theme of decay and corruption of Gondor's rule. I realize they didn't have time to really show that whole deal, but I don't understand why they messed up the parts they did show.
On a canvas of wonderfulness, those two marred it but only a little. Overall, I loved these movies.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-27 11:40 pm (UTC)favorite book, the only book which i have reread so many times i started, and then stopped counting. also the only book where i swear i find something totally NEW every time i read it.
i love the movies. they are not perfect, but they are as close as i think anyone could get.
somewhere i have the poster for the LotR animated movie. it's not a bad poster (it's quite tasteful), but i have nowhere to display it. if you want it, it's yours (if I still have it!).
no subject
Date: 2010-04-28 12:44 am (UTC)