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Post by Zipp on Mar 13, 2006 17:56:06 GMT
I think they did change the point of the books, though. Tolkein was writing a book, like I said, about philology on hand, and about the horrors of war on the other. If you read Lord of the Rings, you'll see that war is not glamorized. Yet the movies did glamorize it. I still remember after they cam out how people who had never read the book went on an online rampage about how Tolkein supported war.
I know about their whole Faramir excuse, but I think it was still avoidable. There were other things they could have done there, and instead they went over the top. First of all, Faramir had no reason to pound Gollum into [nuts] like he does. It doesn't even make sense in the movies. And what the hell was that whole encounter with the Black Rider? Frodo's like, here, I have the ring, and the Black Rider doesn't report it back to his master? Bullshit. A moment that wasn't needed. It's not so much Peter Jackson's changes that got me as how far he went with them in order to make every funking moment dramatic.
And I thought Willow was WAAAAAY better than Connan.
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Post by HuntingWolf on Mar 14, 2006 1:04:41 GMT
I like Conan and Willow too.
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Post by outspaced on Mar 14, 2006 10:19:51 GMT
Gotta be brief--I'm a bit busy :-\
Tolkien was not anti-war, Zipp. He believed there were things worth fighting for. The whole basis of The Lord of the Rings is the Last War to End All Wars. In fighting Evil, of course there will be loss, but there will be glory and honour also, and emancipation. I don't see that he was writing specifically about the horrors of war; that's liberal apologists trying to reconcile Tolkien's views with whatever the zeitgeist might be. However, if some people came out of the cinema thinking that Tolkien/LotR was glorifying war, despite the contents of the book, despite the lingering shots of people experiencing the pain and horrors of loss in the film, then they are idiots, and I'm glad they missed the point. *shrug*
On Conan: There's a lot in there. The relationship between man and his maker ("My God is Crom, but I do not pray to him; he does not listen"); the stupidity of future generations forgetting the lessons of the past ("No one will remember if we were good men or bad, why we fought and why we died"); the nature of charismatic religious cult leaders, always quick to pass the buck and blame everyone else, while falling back on quasi-religious mumbo-jumbo ("[your strength, your desire]: I gave you this. Such a waste. Contemplate this on the Tree of Woe. Crucify him."); the nature fo revenge--is it really worth it?--and of loss ("He is Conan--a Cimmerian. he does not cry. So I cry for him"); and also of love ("All the gods, they cannot sever us. If I were dead and you were still fighting for life, I'd come back from the darkness. Back from the pit of hell to fight at your side"). And it has a brilliant musical score, and cinematography, direction, and art direction.
Willow teaches us that film actresses really can kill their careers with just one film (Joanne Whalley), and that a wand can create a slug, which when kicked into a moat will become a huge, two-headed hydra for no reason. I enjoyed Willow as a kid, but just like Star Wars, it's a shallow, empty film on any other level.
And I liked the music score for LotR--what you complain about, Zipp, is a convention used in many films. Have you ever watched Sergio Leone's C'era Una Volta Il West (Once Upon A Time in the West)? Each character has his own musical theme which plays whenever they are on screen. That film was called "an Opera of Violence". The score for that film, by Ennio Morricone, is excellent--as is the three scores of the LotR films by Howard Shore.
Gotta go . . . :-\
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Post by Zipp on Mar 14, 2006 16:57:29 GMT
Where are you reading this stuff? I never said I didn't like the music! Just like I never said I liked Dune the mini series!
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Post by gothmog on Mar 14, 2006 17:18:09 GMT
Gotta be brief--I'm a bit busy :-\ Tolkien was not anti-war, Zipp. He believed there were things worth fighting for. The whole basis of The Lord of the Rings is the Last War to End All Wars. In fighting Evil, of course there will be loss, but there will be glory and honour also, and emancipation. I don't see that he was writing specifically about the horrors of war; that's liberal apologists trying to reconcile Tolkien's views with whatever the zeitgeist might be. However, if some people came out of the cinema thinking that Tolkien/LotR was glorifying war, despite the contents of the book, despite the lingering shots of people experiencing the pain and horrors of loss in the film, then they are idiots, and I'm glad they missed the point. *shrug* Everyone's got a different interpretation of it - as I recall, Tolkien said he liked the fact that different people could apply the storyline to their own experiences of life. I mean, there are environmental themes running through the book that must have appealed to the hippies in the 60s - there are also Merrie England undercurrents in the portrayal of the Shire that appeal to British Conservatives (of the old school, anyway - probably not to that Blair-clone Cameron. but I digress). However, I think there are significant criticisms of modern warfare in the book. I recall reading Tolkien say that the Lord of the Rings was an account of a war worth fighting, in contrast to the insanity of pointlessness of World War 1. That's not the same as being anti-war, necessarily - just that his experiences of the trenches must have partly gone into his writing of the book, as any author draws upon his own experiences in his (or her) writings. I prefer Conan as a film to Lord of the Rings, partly because I'm more interested in Howard's Hyborian age than Tolkien's Middle-earth, but also because I genuinely think that for all it's faults, it's a better adaptation of the books than PJ's efforts. Actually I think it might possibly be my comments on the music score you are referring to - but in any case, the convention of musical themes doesn't bother me, and has been used for god knows how long (it's present in Wagner's operas, and had probably been around for a long time before then as well). It's just that in the LotR I felt it was unsubtle, predictable, and distracting - though considering I wasn't so keen on the visuals either, maybe distraction's not such a bad thing. Basically, I feel Jackson's LotR adaptations are valiant efforts but ultimately unsuccessful and hugely overrated for what they are. But hey, whatever floats your boat - I don't like the Matrix either. ;D
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Post by HuntingWolf on Mar 14, 2006 19:21:02 GMT
You know what I like? The Hobbit-Holes. Those are awesome houses, and when there's a storm, no worries about getting their little Hobbit arses blown away by tornados. Then again, there's always a flood to worry about.....
Peter Jackson did the best he could with what he had. Ok, fake statement. Dunno why I said it, but who cares. LoL. I HATE the Matrix, and almost all Keanu "Like, WHOAH DUDE!" Reaves' films.
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Post by gothmog on Mar 15, 2006 1:46:44 GMT
Actually he doesn't bother me - it was just the reckless unoriginality on the part of the Wachowski brothers that didn't endear me to the Matrix. Most of the ideas in the film can be found in earlier works, and much better done as well. But this has absolutely puck all to do with the Black Cauldron, so I'll shut up now.
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Post by Zipp on Mar 15, 2006 3:19:09 GMT
No, don't stop, the Matrix is an interesting study. The first one was really well put together, but after that everything sucked, from the novels to the video games.
And there was SO much they could've done with it. What in the garbage spewing butt naked Hollywood Hell were they thinking?
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Post by gothmog on Mar 15, 2006 13:50:59 GMT
Yeah the last two were a big disappointment. Ask anyone what they were about and the reply will probably be something like this: "uhhh well the matrix is being killed off by agent smith, who's turning everyone into himself, and erm... neo has to do something to stop it... and there's some kind of battle between the zion guys and the robot things... and that's about it." If you ask me though, the whole thing's a little too post-modern. Everything's a reference to something else, an homage to some kung-fu film, comic book, novel, anime, whatever. And slick, really, really ultra-slick. It seems to be an unfortunate trend in American cinema now, what with Kill Bill, and the 100 million remakes of everything you can think of. It just doesn't work for me I'm afraid - the fact that every single action/sci-fi/horror film made afterwards seems to rip it off in some way doesn't really help. Which is a shame, as I really like the stuff that inspired it - William Gibson, Phillip K <his name is D I C K you idiots>, Ghost in the Shell, John Woo, Terminator, HR Giger, innumerable sci-fis, comic books, animes, martial arts flicks, random scraps of esoteric philosophy ranging from Zen to Baudrillard to the Gnostics, they're all OK as far as I'm concerned. The package presented by the Wachowskis just falls short of them for me. Anyone seen their adaptation of V for Vendetta? Alan Moore apparently thinks it's "imbecilic" and Jonathon Ross kicked the carp out of on Film 2006, so I'm not getting my hopes up. <edit: reverted censoring of PKD's surname - [fudgeing] censors...>
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Post by HuntingWolf on Mar 15, 2006 13:56:04 GMT
You know Zyon is from the Jewish Bible?
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Post by gothmog on Mar 15, 2006 15:52:30 GMT
Yeah there's a whole load of religious references in the Matrix. Zion is thought to be a double reference to both the concept of a refuge for humanity echoing the biblical Zion, and to William Gibson's Neuromancer, in which the main character visits a Rastafarian space colony called Zion (the Matrix Zion has a large population of what appear to be Rastas). Agent Smith is kind of like the Antichrist to Neo's Christ. Supposedly his name comes from a passage in the Bible as well. There's more here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_series
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Post by HuntingWolf on Mar 16, 2006 2:21:51 GMT
I.... see.
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Post by jardek on Mar 16, 2006 9:22:22 GMT
I hate the matrix, because I had just bought myself a new black leather trench coat that I looked really awesome in, and could only wear for about a month.
Now that I think about it, I think I narrowly avoided being some kind of walking faux pas.
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Post by gothmog on Mar 16, 2006 15:30:03 GMT
I imagine the Goth community must have got pretty sick of people accusing them of ripping off Neo's look.
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Post by Zipp on Mar 16, 2006 17:44:23 GMT
The Matrix's religious andn philosophical relations were weak after the first movie. If you want a real philosophical and religious mind screw, go watch Neon Genesis Evangelion.
You mentioned Kill Bill, gothmog, as being part of that slick genre. I disagree. Kill Bill was a play ont hat slickness. Half the movie is a spoof of action movies. The Kill Bill movies were well thought out and pretty good, though I thought the second one was lacking.
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