• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Anyone else thinks "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy is awful?

Page 4 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Jun 22, 2009
10,644
2
0
Visit site
Llewellyn said:
Oh yeah - it was dreadful wasn't it. Thank god it didn't last a minute longer - we had free tickets but what a pity to waste them on that. I always suspected that Angelina Jolie couldn't act her way out of a paper bag but she proved it conclusively in that steaming pile of @#$%.

And Johnny Depp should have known better

Sorry, straying OT

Ya that was a stinker, I figured as much beforehand but the girlfriend wanted to see it. She is lucky I didn't give her the flick after that.
 
Re: Anyone else thinks "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkNwQAWu5AM&t=173s

Tolkien, Reactionary & Catholic Writer by Christopher Lannes

Those who are following me in “La capsule”, my audio show have already heard of that story, I’ve already mentioned Tolkien but there’s no reason not to make you enjoy it in a video clip.

Aaah Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Magic, Heroic Fantasy, … Well no, those who think that way are absolutely wrong. Unlike many thought and still think today Tolkien in the sixties was not a heroic fantasy author loving magic esoterism or New Age philosophy, even hippie could we say. Not at all! Tolkien was first and foremost a traditional Catholic and politically speaking he was ultra-conservative and reactionary! Ah yeah !! Really! We are far from a joint smoker. Through the Tolkien biography which was written already a few years ago by Humphrey Carpenter we may realise that Tolkien was a much deeper and more complex and most of all miles away from the way we see him today. Like I said he was a Catholic. He loved the magical Catholicism that reigned in the Middle-Ages. He was fascinated by the medieval era with all its mysteries and legends. All this universe came to him by an agitated childhood which we will talk about immediately.

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State, you know, it’s in South Africa on 3 January 1892 but he can’t stay long in his native country because he suffered from extreme heat and that’s how he left for England. His father passing away while he was aged 4 his mother, Mabel, gave him his upbringing. A traditional upbringing. She was a fervent Catholic herself. So a traditional upbringing in which she inculcates to him the values of the past and the love for the fatherland.

There the hippies watching this video have already fainted, so we’ll go on together.

His childhood hero was not Cristiano Ronaldo, Booba [French rapper] nor even Cyril Hanouna [French TV announcer of culturally atrophied shows]. He doesn’t have a poster in his bedroom either. It’s the medieval Knight. He loves the King Arthur legends and all this Knight idealism with his values and virtues fascinates him. He’s steeped in Latin. He loves languages, word musicality, consonance, etc and so he got a passion for Northern and Indo-European literature and mythologies. That’s how he created his first universes. In 1915 the Great War comes disrupting all that and he enlisted with the British army as a liaison officer. For those who've seen the film "Stalingrad", well liaison officer, you do need a thick skin. It's a very open post. He notably took part in the Battle of the Somme but like so many he came back from that conflict totally traumatised by all this madness.

That's where his universe takes a much darker dimension. He notes all this in his diaries. Between two offensives in the trenches he starts writing his first texts which takes a much darker form with ferocious beasts and monsters, etc. He could come out of all that with pacifism, no-borderism, etc. But no, his patriotism was consolidated by that experience and in his work he pays tribute to the British soldiers who are no less than the Hobbits. Yes, those hobbits, these fragile humble rural petty bourgeois but who yet in the great hours contributed to the victory and showed their courage : the British infantrymen.

After a wond he was reformed in 1917 and during his recovery he writes his first elfie tales which he had already started in the trenches. He capitalised on this convalescence to develop even more this whole universe in which he more and more takes refuge in.

His patriotism and his respect for the small infantrymen/hobbit got consolidated but he also came out of this war with a radical hatred towards Progress, Modernism, Industrialisation. He who was inspired by the valorous knights filled with values and virtues only could note the powerlessness of a human being faced with technological and material insanity in which the one who wins is on the right side of the artillery barrage.

Progress is chasing him. Living in Oxford he sees the landscapes of his childhood ravaged by the building of roads, factories, etc and he's deeply upset by it. Yet even when he later got rich he refused to leave his small Oxford suburb because like a good English soldier and like a Hobbit, he has to stand up.

According to Humphrey Carpenter, his rootedness and his will to face dangers shows a deeply Christian and ascetic attitude.

In 1920 he became an English Professor at Oxford University. He teaches English but also regional languages and medieval litterature.

Politically speaking, well I'm hesitating a bit because if some leftists have held through thus far and hadn't collapsed yet they will have it for their money. Well he is ultra-conservative, reactionary, anti-Modern, as an Englishman he's bound to his Monarchy which he even finds too democratic. In his opinion democracy leads to the dictatorship of an order.

He equates modernist values with pollution. Like there's industrial pollution, modernist values are in his opinion spiritual pollution.

He didn't beat around the bush, you know.

When WWII broke out he was very resentful to national-socialist Germany for inspiring from Northern Mythology which he so much loved and he declared:

“I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

After WWII he took refuge in men's clubs. No, not that (while posting gay pictures). Men's clubs mean authors' clubs. So with C.S. Lewis - the author of the Chronicles of Narnia - he founded the Inklings which is a Christian Authors' Club. He also founded a Viking Club in which he invited his friends to sing, drink and laugh and most of all leaving the modern world aside and let is melancholy going.

With regards to his work it's filled with symbolism and Northern, Indo-European but also Christian mythology: this magical Christianism that took place in the Middle Ages, pervaded by myths, legends, etc, which he most of all doted on. Of course he didn't believe in the primary sense of his creation but in his opinion, whatever, it was symbolical and they nonetheless corresponded with deep truths.

His best-seller - The Lord of the Rings - was a late-bloomer. He wrote it in 1955 and he needed 10 years before it was really successful: 1 million copies sold at that time. Over 200 millions nowadays. In the span of a few months he became a true idol but most of all a misunderstood master. You know his readership were rather hippies and people who were pervaded by this New Age state of mind and who found themselves in his works. But Tolkien deplored the fact that his readers only superficially understood his works and didn't dig deeper. His work was fundamentally medieval and Christian and he couldn't stand being adulated by hippies who themselves couldn't stand all he conveyed: values and tradition.

Despite all that he was still fair play and enjoyed kindly and humbly answering his admirers.

Despite the success Tolkien aged in a sad way. His best friend and wife died before him. He cut from a university world he considered too degenerescent. Religion also played dirty tricks on him because with Vatican II, as you know, religion bowed to Modernism and he as a liturgy fan was brokenhearted to see the office formerly served Latin now served in vernacular languages. Yet he remained true to Rome and until the end of his life in 1976 he took more and more refuge in his works and in his clubs in order to retire from this Modern World which he so much hated.

Beside Bilbo the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, his two best-known works which have been adapted to cinema he has also left us dozens of fantastic short stories, university works and, as a language passionate, an elfist alphabet.

The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the "happy ending." The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation. All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know.
Tolkien [in his essay: “On Fairy Stories” (1939)]

I think we can stop with that.

Thank you all for attending this new episode of "La petite histoire". I really hope you enjoyed it. I say "see you soon on TV Libertés on Tuesday and on Radio Libertés on Friday." See You!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the comments I even read:
Chouan77:
Tolkien a soutenu les nationalistes et le Caudillo Franco pendant la Guerre d'Espagne, à l'instar de son ami le poète sud-africain Roy Campbell, qui s'est battu aux côtés de la Phalange espagnole.

“Tolkien supported the Nationalists and Caudillo Franco during the Spanish Civil War like his friend, the South African poet Roy Campbell who fought alongside the Spanish Phalange.”

The author’s username suggests that he approves of the said support. Let us remember here that the Spanish Civil War was a time of great religious persecution: 6,800 clergymen killed (20% of the Spanish clergy). Roy Campbell converted to Catholicism by that time. He offered his home to welcome Toledo Carmelite but those refused in order not to put the lives of his family at risk (but the Carmelite Fathers agreed to store their priceless library at Campbell’s home). However this does not mean he was a Fascist. Campbell enlisted with the British army during World War II and after the said war he disavowed Franco for Salazar because of the former’s connivance with the Axis Powers.

Besides Roy Campbell was a fluent speaker of Zulu from childhood and in South Africa he intended to excoriate the Afrikaner racist society. He wrote the beautiful poem “Zulu Girl”. Tolkien’s character “Aragorn” was partly based on Roy Campbell’s personality.

The Zulu Girl - Poem by Roy Campbell
When in the sun the hot red acres smoulder
Down where the sweating gang its labour plies
A girl flings down her hoe, and from her shoulder
Unslings her child tormented by flies.

She takes him to a ring of shadow pooled
By the thorn-tree: purpled with the blood of ticks,
While her sharp nails, in slow caresses ruled
Prowl through his hair with sharp electric clicks.

His sleepy mouth, plugged by the heavy nipple,
Tugs like a puppy, grunting as he feels;
Through his frail nerves her own deep languor's ripple
Like a broad river sighing through the reeds.

Yet in that drowsy stream his flesh imbibes
And old unquenched, unsmotherable heat-
The curbed ferocity of beaten tribes,
The sullen dignity of their defeat.

Her body looms above him like a hill
Within whose shade a village lies at rest,
Or the first cloud so terrible and still
That bears the coming harvest in its breast.
 
Re:

Alpe d'Huez said:
Did anyone here see the film Heavenly Creatures? An earlier Peter Jackson film that's quite good. That film has drama and emotion LOTR lacks.

As to The Hobbit, from what I have seen in the clips, it looks like it will be leftovers, much less compelling than the LOTR trilogy. I really fear it will be a lot of money spent on 3D trickery.

Yeah that was a good movie and based on a true story. The two girls were very good. Braindead was a good horror comedy and better than Bad Taste. I never saw his version of King Kong but from what I heard I didn't miss much. I think the LOTR movies got progressively worse and I thought the third one would never end ! The Hobbit movies were pretty much the same as far as quality went but I enjoyed the second one the best.
 
Re: Anyone else thinks "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy

boomcie said:
The whole story is super boring and makes no sense whatsoever most of the time. Absolute stinker.
Which trilogy are you asking about? Just to be sure. The Peter Jackson production with Ian McKellen etc? Or the original annimated single movie that came out in the 1970's (lol)?
The 70's version wasn't worth toilet paper. Jackson's production was, an adventure. I liked Jackson's version the first time. Second viewings, or thirdsies (slay me for that if you will lol) are B O R I N G.
 
Re: Anyone else thinks "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy

I really don't like the Hobbit movies.

They just buy the rights, spend 50 million on CGI, 50 million on marketing, and know that they can make 10 x the profit, no matter how *** the film is.

I really didn't like how every single one of the main characters (10 dwarfs, 1 hobbit) have character immunity for almost the entire trilogy. The whole film is them getting into sticky situations with the orcs, and each time, the 10 little dwarfs kill 50, 000 orcs and survive.
 
on3m@n@rmy said:
Jackson's production was, an adventure. I liked Jackson's version the first time. Second viewings, or thirdsies (slay me for that if you will lol) are B O R I N G.
I stumbled upon the LOTR DVDs several years after the movies had come out in theaters, so can't say I was influenced by any hype. Loved the adventure, as you would say, couldn't wait to see the next part.

Don't really want to rewatch LOTR now, I'd like to retain the memory of that magic I felt when I saw the trilogy the first time.
 
Oct 23, 2011
3,846
2
0
Visit site
Re:

Red Rick said:
Thread is hilarious.

I liked the books and the movies for the world building, not for the actual story, which is quite boring. The whole good-vs evil part makes for a huge lack of compelling characters.

Why does good vs. evil make for uncompelling characters?

I really liked the books and the films, for the adventure/story, for the world-building and also for the characters. The Hobbit book was great and I'm just going to pretend the Hobbit films don't exist. The Silmarillion was also great but there I can imagine some people would find it a tad dry, Children of Húrin was maybe the best Tolkien book I've read, and I could go on for a while because I went full Lotr-geek mode during high school. :D
 
My cousin read me large parts of The Hobbit when I was a boy, and I loved it. I never read LOTR, and didn't have any bias one way or the other going into the films. My thoughts are:

I mostly liked Fellowship of of the Ring, I loved the sub story of Boromir being corrupted by the ring. The movie was a grand spectacle, that's for sure. All were. I didn't like the ending at all. It's as if they ran out of film that day, so stopped the movie there. Twin Towers was okay. Not great nor bad. I however didn't care for Return of the King as much. I found it mostly predictable, and the third act dragged to me. Surprised it won so many Oscars, but this was considered a weak Oscar year. It beat Mystic River, Seabiscut for example, which I also think were overpraised as well.

As to the Hobbit films. The first one was a bit silly, and dragged on. The second one was actually quite good I thought. I really liked what they did with Smaug, and Laketown, but didn't like the ending of it much either. The third one I didn't care for at all. It was way too long, and tired. It could have ended with Bard's overcoming of fear in fighting Smaug. In fact, all three Hobbit movies could have been turned into 1, and centered around this compelling story line.

My favorite film of Peter Jackson, by far, is Heavenly Creatures. Great pathos in that film.
 
Re: Re:

Maaaaaaaarten said:
Red Rick said:
Thread is hilarious.

I liked the books and the movies for the world building, not for the actual story, which is quite boring. The whole good-vs evil part makes for a huge lack of compelling characters.

Why does good vs. evil make for uncompelling characters?
Cause they rarely have an interesting thought in their head. They rarely have to make any interesting decisions, cause they always have to do the good thing. Or the stupid thing.

Biggest example of this is the Harry Potter series. One tiny thing that the main character struggles with is that he actually has to kill the main villain and he doesn't even have to do it.
 
Re: Re:

Red Rick said:
Maaaaaaaarten said:
Red Rick said:
Thread is hilarious.

I liked the books and the movies for the world building, not for the actual story, which is quite boring. The whole good-vs evil part makes for a huge lack of compelling characters.

Why does good vs. evil make for uncompelling characters?
Cause they rarely have an interesting thought in their head. They rarely have to make any interesting decisions, cause they always have to do the good thing. Or the stupid thing.

Biggest example of this is the Harry Potter series. One tiny thing that the main character struggles with is that he actually has to kill the main villain and he doesn't even have to do it.
He's fine with torture though. Besides, I don't think he's struggling with it as in 'I don't want to kill'.
 
Oct 23, 2011
3,846
2
0
Visit site
Re: Re:

Red Rick said:
Cause they rarely have an interesting thought in their head. They rarely have to make any interesting decisions, cause they always have to do the good thing. Or the stupid thing.

Biggest example of this is the Harry Potter series. One tiny thing that the main character struggles with is that he actually has to kill the main villain and he doesn't even have to do it.

I don't think this is really true though for LOTR though. We have people like Boromir and Saruman being perverted by the desire for the ring. Frodo, Bilbo and some others have the same temptation but manage to withstand it. Smeagol/Gollum goes very back and forth in this regard. We have guys like king Theoden and Denethor mistrusting their alliances with their allies and making stupid decisions. Merry and Pippin do some stupid stuff as well. At some point there is a moral dilemma about whether to kill Gollum or not, etc.

It doesn't focus so much on the psychology of the characters as much literature does. I can imagine one would miss that, but it does have plenty of good characters doing stupid stuff, people being faced with temptations and sometimes succumbing to them, in the case of Gollum/Smeagol a corrupted character who almost becomes good again. Unless you want literature that's very psychological, being driven more by character development than by plot, I think LOTR is fine. Don't get me wrong though, you're free to prefer that of course. I like that type of literature as well. You can get something like Dostoyevsky writing 700 page books with very little plot and everything being driven almost entirely by character development and focusing very much on the character's psychology. I mean, I love that too, but I think there's also a place for more plot driven stuff like LOTR. I think some of the characters in LOTR are very relatable and there is some decent character development as well for me.
 
Re: Re:

Maaaaaaaarten said:
Red Rick said:
Cause they rarely have an interesting thought in their head. They rarely have to make any interesting decisions, cause they always have to do the good thing. Or the stupid thing.

Biggest example of this is the Harry Potter series. One tiny thing that the main character struggles with is that he actually has to kill the main villain and he doesn't even have to do it.

I don't think this is really true though for LOTR though. We have people like Boromir and Saruman being perverted by the desire for the ring. Frodo, Bilbo and some others have the same temptation but manage to withstand it. Smeagol/Gollum goes very back and forth in this regard. We have guys like king Theoden and Denethor mistrusting their alliances with their allies and making stupid decisions. Merry and Pippin do some stupid stuff as well. At some point there is a moral dilemma about whether to kill Gollum or not, etc.

It doesn't focus so much on the psychology of the characters as much literature does. I can imagine one would miss that, but it does have plenty of good characters doing stupid stuff, people being faced with temptations and sometimes succumbing to them, in the case of Gollum/Smeagol a corrupted character who almost becomes good again. Unless you want literature that's very psychological, being driven more by character development than by plot, I think LOTR is fine. Don't get me wrong though, you're free to prefer that of course. I like that type of literature as well. You can get something like Dostoyevsky writing 700 page books with very little plot and everything being driven almost entirely by character development and focusing very much on the character's psychology. I mean, I love that too, but I think there's also a place for more plot driven stuff like LOTR. I think some of the characters in LOTR are very relatable and there is some decent character development as well for me.

The reason Gandalf thinks they should not kill Gollum is because ''he might still be useful'' (and indeed he was). So much for a moral lesson. :lol:

I do think you make good points, though. Just found that one funny.
 
Re: Re:

Maaaaaaaarten said:
Red Rick said:
Cause they rarely have an interesting thought in their head. They rarely have to make any interesting decisions, cause they always have to do the good thing. Or the stupid thing.

Biggest example of this is the Harry Potter series. One tiny thing that the main character struggles with is that he actually has to kill the main villain and he doesn't even have to do it.

I don't think this is really true though for LOTR though. We have people like Boromir and Saruman being perverted by the desire for the ring. Frodo, Bilbo and some others have the same temptation but manage to withstand it. Smeagol/Gollum goes very back and forth in this regard. We have guys like king Theoden and Denethor mistrusting their alliances with their allies and making stupid decisions. Merry and Pippin do some stupid stuff as well. At some point there is a moral dilemma about whether to kill Gollum or not, etc.
Which is maybe the most important dilemma of the whole story. The quest fails, Frodo doesn't manage to destroy the Ring and gives in to it. If Gollum had been dead, it would have been Game Over.
 
Re: Anyone else thinks "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy

Maaaaaaaarten said:
Why does good vs. evil make for uncompelling characters?

I really liked the books and the films, for the adventure/story, for the world-building and also for the characters. The Hobbit book was great and I'm just going to pretend the Hobbit films don't exist. The Silmarillion was also great but there I can imagine some people would find it a tad dry, Children of Húrin was maybe the best Tolkien book I've read, and I could go on for a while because I went full Lotr-geek mode during high school. :D

World building is the problem, actually. I'm a fantasy hater, so normally I shouldn't post on this thread but if I've bumped it it's only just because Tolkien's life and personality interests me: his Christian faith, his anti-Modernism, his political conservativeness and his fascination for medieval knight (I liked Rhubroma's post upthread :p). But I find it very interesting to understand how a guy with such background eventually comes up with fantasy work. Normally, Christian authors would stick into the real which is best to study sociology and character's psychology and make sure the reader/viewer can identify with them. In the end I'm not surprised Tolkien felt misunderstood when he finally got success in the hippie/New Age period. My idea is that he so much hated this gloomy modern world (rightly so) that he wished to escape it into a fantasy world (not really of childish banalities as Guinness said about Star Wars :p) in which he could convey his ethics but also which is appealing to young hippie dreamers who don't give a damn about society. It's not really the spirit of the medieval knight who inspired him in his childhood. It's a bit like cowardice. The best literature is the one that teaches and informs us about the hardness of the Real, not the one that escapes us from it and makes us dream. I'm not a dreamer. The main characters in Raymond Chandler's novels also have some sort of a medieval knight aspect, Philip Marlowe is some sort of a contemporary crusader but they are stuck in the Real World, in all its ugliness and hardness. Much more interesting to me. However it's fun and ironic to see the contrast between Tolkien's average reader and his personality. :p They should be disgusted if they knew.
 
To me the movies (both trilogies) are good as movies. The issue appears when you start comparing the two medias with each other in a 1:1 way. Some things that works great in books would be awful in movies, and some things that work great in movies would be awful in books.

About the Hobbit; well, I don't actually mind that they were made longer, quite nice to get to see whatever Gandalf was up to, my issue is the character of Tauriel. Not - mind you - in the sense of "They invented a movie-only character, and that's terrible!" but rather because they took a character with the potential to be awesome; kick-ass warrior, and basically turned her plotline into a love triangle.
 
Re: Anyone else thinks "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy

I personally didn't find any of the films awful. Some where better than others obviously, but none of them were 'bad,' in my opinion. I think apart from the CGI that people felt was bad, it was the fact that the important characters of the LOTR trilogy weren't in the Hobbit trilogy. Obviously there was no way they could have been there, as Jackson had to follow the books and the timeline (otherwise he might as well could have named it something other than LOTR or Hobbit and gone his own way, far away from the Tolkien), but I think people were entertained and excited by Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Samwise, Frodo, etc that the other characters (good or bad) were simply 'ho hum.'

It's why remakes are so bad these days.

Plus the LOTR movies were so good, so successful, that anything even slightly below par was disappointing for the audience.
 

TRENDING THREADS