08-01-2012, 06:27 PM
(08-01-2012, 10:01 AM)Richard Wrote: But film rarely does justice to any book...
A total of 6 or 7 hours to bring Bilbo's entire journey to life?
Maybe he should have gone for 4 movies.
When I read the books at age 14, I was enthralled by the sheer vastness of the world Tolkien had created. For years, I listed TLOTR as my favorite books.
Many years later, I was surprised that my son didn't share my enthusiasm for the books. He thought they were boring! What? Sacrilege!!
But then I reread parts of them, with a beginner's mind, and I understood what he meant. Actually, there was very little character development, almost no emotional suspense, and pages and pages of reading about Orcs' gray blood kinda got old. I then remembered, to my chagrin, that I had skipped over many of the battle scenes the first time around, but had conveniently forgotten that.
My son had by that time already read so many of the knockoffs - those epic fantasies that copied Tolkien's style, but in some cases with better character development. The works of Ursula LeGuin and TA Barron come to mind...these were the masterpieces of my son's pre-adolescent reading. (Harry Potter came later and, although great fun, I wouldn't quite put them in the same league...though they are in a league all their own.)
Anyway, point is, that I normally agree that the movie is never as good as the book. But, surprisingly, in this case I actually thought the movies far surpassed the books, mainly in terms of character development. Jackson did a fabulous job of fleshing out the characters, whereas the books, if we are honest we'd have to admit, are mainly action with very little emotional depth. Jackson also brought the female characters to life, who were merely names, with almost no personality, in the books.
Needless to say, I was very very pleased with the movies! I don't care for gore so I had to do what I always do during the violent scenes: close my eyes. (Not wimpy...just don't like those images polluting my mind.) But that couldn't be helped. In particular, the scene with Gandalf fighting the Balrog was stunning! it really conveyed magick. The scene with Arwen and the magickal river horses was also truly beautiful...Ah, the movies were so well done! He really brought the characters to life.
The Hobbit just doesn't have nearly as much depth, though, but I'm sure it'll be great anyway.
(ducking for cover!)