response 59 of 153:

Feb 7 16:32 UTC 2006

Re #56: Bombadil *is* an anomoly (sp?). Tolkien said (to loosely paraphrase)
that he just appeared, and he didn't fit into the cosmology at all (while the
hobbits were made to fit).

Re #58: The "extraneous material" that "we have discussed", as I said, is in my
opinion the *most important* part of the work.

response 61 of 153:

Feb 7 16:47 UTC 2006

See that's where my viewpoint as a historian comes in. I LOVE all that
extraneous material. That's what history is made up of- not just the big
events, but the little things that happen along the way.

response 63 of 153:

Feb 7 16:47 UTC 2006

61 slipped.

response 65 of 153:

Feb 7 17:55 UTC 2006

re resp:62: Well, I find it defensible that they glossed over that part 
of the book.  I'd have had a hard time if they'd omitted Boromir, 
Galadriel, Eowyn, Treebeard, Faramir, Moria, or the Palantir.  And I'd 
have walked out if they left out Gondor, Minas Ithil, Rivendell, the 
orcs, or Mordor.  It'd have been nice if they had make 6 movies for the 
6 books of the story, but given the splendid job they did with the 3 
movies they did make, I am well satisfied with them.

response 67 of 153:

Feb 7 18:25 UTC 2006

The movies weren't perfect, for sure.  What they were, was *good*.  I 
had no expectation of that, and so I was very, very pleasantly 
surprised by them.

response 69 of 153:

Feb 7 18:49 UTC 2006

I have seen a lot of movies based on books that I've read.  Very few of 
them were more faithful to the book than the three Lord of the Rings 
movies.  I agree there were some differences -- and that some of those 
were pretty faithless and pretty pointless.  However, my impression was 
that the movie was very close to the books; as close as it could have 
been.

response 71 of 153:

Feb 7 18:55 UTC 2006

Like I said, it looked to me like whoever was doing the adaptation said "This
could be a good story if ..." and just decided to keep the name. The other
possibility I've thought of is that the adapter didn't actually read the text
in its entirety but worked from something like Clif's Notes (which I've never
used, so I can't say whether that's realistic) -- because the point-by-point
*plot* corresponds quite well, but the themes and character development are
totally off.

response 73 of 153:

Feb 7 19:41 UTC 2006

re resp:71: Just curious, but did you see the recent Chronicles of 
Narnia movie, and have you read the book?  What was your impression of 
how those two compared?

We certainly had very different impressions of the LOTR books and 
movies.

response 75 of 153:

Feb 7 20:27 UTC 2006

Have you ever seen a movie based on a book which told the story in a 
satisfactory way?

I thought the Narnia movie was so close, it was almost unnecessary to 
read the book.  But then, as I said, I was very impressed with the 
handling of the LOTR movies as well.

Generally I consider myself kind of fussy about this sort of thing.  I 
don't like seeing movies based on books as a rule.  Maybe I've gotten 
lackadaisical in this area (which is probably a good thing, if it's 
true, in my opinion).

response 77 of 153:

Feb 7 21:47 UTC 2006

re #75
Goodfellas did justice to the book Wiseguy, imo

Jarhead was also a good movie representation of the book

response 79 of 153:

Feb 7 22:00 UTC 2006

jep, kingjon, et al, I offer you my loremaster knowledge to answer all your 
LOTR questions and misunderstandings - but not here in the movie item.

I loved the LOTR movies for the scenery and the bold conception that Jackson
showed for staging etc.  I can simultaneously hate parts of it for needless 
and sometimes outright stupid changes in the movie from the book which added
no value and sometimes introduced confusion or conflict.

In the movie, the Nazgul "attack" on Frodo & Sam was at the ruined city of
Osgiliath, which sits abreast the river Anduin.  Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul
were originally built as outposts, on the edge of the white mountains and
Mordor respectively.  They are by no means "just a bridge apart".

As far as the substitution of Arwen for Glorfindel, it was convenient (not
to have to introduce another character), but I also suspect it was PC.
"We've got to have some women fighters!"  It was also ridiculous, for many
reasons.  There is no way that Elrond would let his daughter go confront the
Nazgul.  Further, she had no mystic powers as depicted in the movie, and
Glorfindel was an elf-lord from the Blessed Realm, having a funky "dual
existence" that Arwen and not even Elrond had.  Anyway...

As for the hobbits not having much use in the story, you forget (among other
things) that only Merry's use of a weapon, he not being a man, would have any
effect on a Nazgul.  Etc. etc.

Bottom line for me is that the movies' spectacular natures far outweighed the
sometimes egregious changes that Jackson made.  That's why we have fingers,
to hold our noses temporarily, when necessary.  ;-)

response 81 of 153:

Feb 7 22:47 UTC 2006

I dunno..I didn't feel they underscored Santino's womanizing nor Michael's
USMC background well enough.

response 83 of 153:

Feb 7 23:52 UTC 2006

The better to Ramble On