Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Edp (A) on August 10, 2002 at 11:01:09

In Reply to: Re: Boring...for children..a mixe of Star wars & Dune &... posted by patricku on August 08, 2002 at 05:53:48:

it does not really do more that duplicate what professional critics always do, try to elivate themselves by playing down popular books, media and entertainment. Usually under the guise of "trying to enlighten the masses to the shallowness of their tastes".

Long before CGI, the books were read by hundreds of millions and in that midst the book critics put down the story as tepid, lacking emotional detail and was more focused on culture/world/language than on characters. All true, but still the books carried on and entertained.

Of the hundreds of millions there are at least 10 million who are far more critical of a movie than any jaded unattached critic could be. The director of the movie truely was up against a very rabid following ready to pounce on just the smallest mistake of detail. Peter Jackson was not only up to the task, but VERY quickly showed his zeal on detail and commitment to the story/culture/languages to be far greater than most Middle Earth wanna-be's.

When I read the books at 16 the story affected me more and differently than when I re-read it at 45. Kinda like "Tales of Topographic Oceans " by Yes. When I was 45 I wondered what was I thinking by that music when I was 16. Still the story and transporting at 45 was worth looking at the film with some of the zeal of the 16 year old.

The film has excelled at both selecting and filming the landscapes/setting, adding the extreme details (with very few CGI) to the different landscapes and displaying cultures of the different species that inhabit Middle Earth.

The film has excelled at presenting the different cultures visually, not as charactures, but as conveying their presence and place in Middle Earth in visual and sonically true to the intention of the author.

The film has excelled at bringing the unnatural through CGI and props/sets with a very convincing realitiy with FEW hoaky frames.

The film ultimately renders the books with a story only as deep in character development that is in the book. No one, even the zealots, ever felt that the characters development was much more than thin, but what is to be expected from an author who was an expert/professor in ancient languages, cultures and cultural mythology. Defintely not Hamlet, but a tale that transports the reader/observer to a place the author and now filmmaker intended.

Films like music are not for everyones taste, for you films need to be about deep gritty interpersonal relationships in the world you live in, usually spoken in a language you don't normally know so a focus on the acting/emotion through actions/faces is highlighted. To me they look like boring infintil Frenchmen smoking too many cigarettes in mostly shadows talking at length about the price of sealing wax.

Many Sci-Fi types are not enamored with the Wizard/Magic type stories, but Fantasy is different than Sci-Fi as Jazz is from Blues. Both have traits of the other, but are not really the same. I like Jazz by the hours, I can take Blues for a few cuts. Neither is wrong or lesser in culture, just ultimately for different tastes.

The trilogy will never be a critical aclaim in either book or film, but is a classic that not only entertains but evokes emotion in hundreds of millions, across boarders, languages and cultures. Tolken canvas was done with words, Jackson's is done in cinema, but both are extremely succussful at achieving their targets, transporting people to a unreal, but believeable world where ultimately it is not the magic that succeeds, but the friendship, personal sacrifice and teamwork that prevails. With a few ultra cool monsters/special effects thrown in.