Monday, November 20, 2006

One Ring, or Maybe Two

Well this is an interesting development. These sorts of things never end well. Look at Superman II (and ultimately III). Look at Never Say Never Again. (You don't have to, it's an expression.)

I'm not a Jackson fan. Just not. Still haven't seen King Kong, maybe that will change my mind. My problems with LotR can be summed up with the fact that he made Gollum falling into the Cracks of Doom into a laugh moment. On the other hand beneath the mis-steps (in my mind) of the films is the firm conviction that those movies are love letters to the books that they're based on. Even if Jackson and I disagree on how he handled it, and have a (very) different sense of humor, I think he loves the books more than I do.

On the one hand I see a Jacksonless Hobbit as an opportunity. OTOH, I can easily see them going too far to be closer to Jackson's LotR or going too far to distinguish themselves from it. Ah well. Maybe in 50 years I'll get to see new movies of all four books that I love. (I'd be 87. Well, that seems unlikely...)

5 comments:

Rhino said...
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Rhino said...

OK, let's try this again...

I don't know what movie you were watching, but in the version of "Return of the King" that I saw, I certainly didn't see Gollum falling into the Crack of Doom as a "laugh moment".

If you prefer, we can go back to the Rankin/Bass and Ralph Bakshi cartoons as the only visual representation of LOTR. :-)

Tallguy said...

When Gollum gets the ring (after landing in the lava!) he has this Emperor's New Groove moment (Yay! I'm a llama again!) when he gets the ring, grins and laughs and life is good and then has the comical "Ohhh darn!" moment from many a WB cartoon.

For all of Bakshi's many many sins, he managed to keep Fellowship pretty close to the book (nobody EVER does Tom Bombadil) in 1/3 of the screen time. I like his Moria better and I like his Strider (NOT the lead character, btw) WAY better. When he got to Two Towers he had big problems, true.

I will never understand the need to tell the history of the ring up front. Tolkien didn't. Did any of the readers of the book claim to be lost not knowing where the ring came from? It's supposed to be REVEALED. Bakshi, the BBC, and Jackson all tell it up front. Lame. (NONE of them include Bombadil, OTOH.)

koly said...

King Kong will not sway your opinion toward 'like.'

Besides, the Jeff Bridges version was better (with the added bonus inclusion of Charles Grodin, no less).

Tallguy said...

And a John Barry score and Rick Baker make-up!

Ahh well, time to put Jackson in the Kevin Smith pile then. Appreciate him, glad he has a vision, just not anything I like.

And Jackson is producing a Damn Busters remake.