50 Reasons Lord of the Rings Sucks

Pointless Waste of Time ^

[A.J.Armitage]

50 Reasons why
LORD OF THE RINGS


sucks

1. Fellowship of the Rings was shoved down our throats.
   
   I've heard some students are even forced to read some novelization of the movie in their literature classes. Ridiculous. Does Hollywood run our classrooms now?
   
   
2. Greed.
   
   Hollywood can't make a movie these days without crapping out a sequel the next year to squeeze more money out of the sheep. Guess what; there's ANOTHER LOTR movie coming this Christmas. Gee, I wonder what will bring Rocky out of retirement this time?
   
   
3. Quality Control at New Line.
   
   Millions of copies of the LOTR DVD have thick black bars at the bottom and top of the screen throughout the film. Didn't anyone catch this? You know what happens at the end, in the extreme foreground and extreme upper sky? Neither do I. Bush league, guys.
   
   
4. They switched Darrens on us!
   
   Look closely and you'll notice the human member of their party is played by two different actors at different points of the movie (it takes a sharp eye to notice, but one of them has red hair, one black).
   
   
5. Quality Control at New Line, II.
   
   In the massive Mt. Doom battle scene at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, a DVD pause reveals at least half a dozen of the 50,000 Orc Warrior extras are wearing modern tennis shoes.
   
   
6. Speaking of Orcs...
   
   The Orcs were obviously stolen from PC game maker Blizzard and its Warcraft series. Too bad Blizzard is apparently too scared to sue New Line over it.
   
   
7. Racism.
   
   Percentage of protagonists in Fellowship who are white: 100. Meanwhile the black antagonists and their black crow spies and their black glass seeing ball inhabit their black towers and perform black magic. Gosh, I wonder if there's some symbolism there?
   
   
8. Gold: The Stretchy Element.
   
   The ring, which is seen to be at least two inches in diameter at the beginning to fit the polish sausage-sized finger of Sauron, suddenly fits Frodo's child-sized finger later. I guess this movie takes place in a world where rings magically change sizes on their own.
   
   
9. Violence.
   
   Give me one reason that story couldn't have been told without all the fighting.
   
   
10. Horse sense.
    
    Why didn't they take horses on their quest? Or even better, why didn't Gandalf's giant flying bird friend haul them into Mordor? Watch out, Frodo! All of your methods of transportation have been swallowed by the Dark Lord of the Plot Hole!
    
    
11. Retracted.*
    
    See below.
    
    
12. Return of the Living Dead.
    
    If you watch closely during the Inn scene, Frodo and his crew are shown getting stabbed by the Ring Wraiths. Then, five seconds later, they are fine again. Note to the director: try proofreading your movie before you release it to the public.
    
    
13. Did someone say plot hole?
    
    Liv Tyler's character is seen easily defeating nine strong supernatural beings, even though she is clearly a woman.
    
    
14. The Battle Droid Syndrome.
    
    The mutated muscular soldiers of Mordor turned out to be hilariously ineffective soldiers, a dozen of them held off by a single dying human. Apparently they made the beasts by crossing Orcs, Goblins and the French.
    
    
15. Sloppy CGI.
    
    Gandalf's smoke boat is pretty impressive, but smoke cannot be made to travel horizontally, thus revealing it to be nothing but a cheap special effect.
    
    
16. The Asbestos Wizard.
    
    We all saw Gandalf fall into the molten core of Middle Earth after his battle with the firebeast thing. Well, I guess the Gandalf action figure must have sold well, because in the slap-together sequel coming up this year Gandalf is back. I wonder if they'll even bother to explain it. Maybe he'll be resurrected via voodoo, a la the corpse in Weekend at Bernie's II (look closely and you'll notice LOTR steals several elements from the WAB films).
    
    
17. Invisible Implausibility.
    
    Every time Frodo or Bilbo went invisible with the ring they should have also gone BLIND. Your eyes cannot function unless light is reflected off the cornea. If light passes through it (as must be the case with invisibility) sight is no longer possible. Also, rings do not turn you invisible.
    
    
18. The Asbestos Wizard, II.
    
    The giant fire beast thing at the end was breathing a firey breath hot enough to send heat-distortion waves through the air. The sheer temperature of the air should have burned off Gandalf's beard and eyebrows. None of my reading on evolutionary biology reveals a single reason why a particular race of humans would develop unflammable facial hair as this would provide practically no advantage in either survival or mating.
    
    
19. I'll have to rent that one.
    
    The rushed-through story the screenwriter threw in as the first ten minutes of Fellowship of the Ring looked a lot more interesting than the movie we were forced to watch. Why didn't somebody make a movie off that instead?
    
    
20. Magic Mechanics.
    
    Experts on the occult say in order for a wizard to floorspin a fully-grown man like Gandalf, he'd need three magical staffs, not two.
    
    
21. Finders, keepers.
    
    So Bilbo, who we are supposed to identify with as a protagonist, finds a piece of someone else's jewelry and just keeps it for himself? That's funny, because I would expect a good man to submit it to the local Lost and Found so it could be claimed by its owner. It makes me wonder if he bought that hillside house or if he was just squatting.
    
    
22. Go-Go Gadget Arrow Sprouter.
    
    Legolas shoots arrow after arrow at his enemies, and yet the number of arrows in his quiver never decreases. I guess elves have glands on their back that secrete arrows.
    
    
23. Watch out! He's going to explode!
    
    The heroes are shown eating again and again, and yet no one ever goes to the bathroom throughout their entire quest.
    
    
24. Meesa gonna make theesa movie suckah!
    
    The character of Gollum in The Two Towers will be entirely computer animated, in a cheap effort to cash in on Jar Jar Binks Mania. Thank you, Peter Jackson. Thank you right to Hell.
    
    
25. Propaganda.
    
    The Elves, clearly the most advanced and wise species, are also clearly gay.
    
    

26. Speaking of Elves...
    
    Elves are beautiful and wise and tall? Great warriors? Makers of fine lightweight weapons? Our modern knowledge of elves has observed only an ability to make cookies and toys. All the elves in the film are portrayed as living in a warm paradise (Rivendell) but our own information tells us the aforementioned group of toymaking elves work and thrive in the arctic. Hey, Mr. Jackson: Research is half of writing.
    
    
27. Homage or theft?
    
    The "happy village of little people" idea was stolen from Willow.
    
    
28. Homage or theft II?
    
    The wise old wizard character was stolen from Harry Potter.
    
    
29. Homage or theft III?
    
    The "travelling on our quest through a corn field" scene was stolen from Shrek.
    
    
30. Homage or theft IV?
    
    The character of the rebellious-but-helpful Ranger was stolen from Val Kilmer in Willow.
    
    
31. Homage or theft V?
    
    The concept of the violent dwarf was based on Al Pacino.
    
    
32. Homage or theft VI?
    
    The "old man looking through the door hatch at the approaching little people" scene was stolen from A Clockwork Orange.
    
    
33. Homage or theft VII?
    
    The cantina scene with a noisy bar filled with a mix of otherworldly species was stolen from Cecile B. DeMille's One Night in an Alien Bar.
    
    
34. Homage or theft VIII?
    
    The incident with the flock of evil magical spying crows serving the All-Seeing Eye was based on an actual incident.
    
    
35. Homage or theft IX?
    
    The character of the Giant Evil Flaming All-Seeing Eye was based on former President Jimmy Carter.
    
    
36. Homage or theft X?
    
    The character of Elrond was based on Agent Smith from The Matrix.
    
    
37. Weighty issues.
    
    AKA "Plot Hole No. 273." Even with all that walking and light eating, the character of Sam only got fatter.
    
    
38. Realism, schmealism.
    
    Liv Tyler's immortal elf volunteers to give up her eternal life for a single romance with a human man. Could any man really be that well endowed? I find it unlikely.
    
    
39. Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.
    
    The most advanced civilization is that of the elves, which are long-haired, new-age types? Sorry, Mr. Jackson, but modern science has proven that in any modern civilization, hippies would be extinct.
    
    
40. Too many notes.
    
    No movie should be over two hours long. Did we need that whole thing in the mine? Didn't it seem like they were just adding pointless scenes in the middle to pad it? It's like they decided beforehand they wanted three hours and used filler to flesh it out.
    
    
41. Too many notes, II.
    
    I just want to re-emphasize the above point. There is no reason entertainment can't be concise.
    
    
42. Too many notes, III.
    
    Too many characters to keep track of. The dwarf was clearly only there as a token dwarf character to sell tickets to lucrative movie-going dwarf demographic. Lose him.
    
    
43. Rationalization for violence.
    
    Why is the black octopus creature painted as the bad guy when it attacks, when one of the fellowship had clearly been throwing rocks at it?
    
    
44. The Shoeless Land.
    
    The Hobbits both 1) refuse to wear shoes and 2) run a livestock-based farming economy. Wouldn't they constantly be stepping in crap? Why doesn't the movie address this issue?
    
    
45. Casting.
    
    Why couldn't Frodo have been played by Christopher Walken?
    
    
46. Casting, II.
    
    Why couldn't Gandalf have been played by Bruce Campbell?
    
    
47. Casting, III.
    
    Why couldn't Bilbo have been played by Vin Diesel?
    
    
48. Casting, IV.
    
    Why couldn't the Ranger have been played by a monkey?
    
    
49. The Score.
    
    The background music wasn't nearly funky enough for me.
    
    
50. What's that smell?
    
    As bad as the Lucasfilm leaks were last year, the filmmakers of The Two Towers already have the novelization out in paperback. I've seen it at Barnes & Noble already. As if we needed any less of a reason to go see it.

*RETRACTED REASONS LORD OF THE RINGS SUCKS:

11. Damn you, gravity!

The giant firebeast thing is defeated by Gandalf when he destroys the bridge, sending the creature plunging to its death... despite the fact that it has wings.

This was retracted when a reader pointed out that the wings, like the rest of the beast, were made of shadow and fire and thus would be useless for flight. Thanks for the tip!

[Cleburne]

Not to mention all that pipe-smoking turned me into a hopeless addict- until I discovered (a) the high price of a good pipe and (b) Longbottom leaf is terribly hard to come about. I'm still suing Peter Jackson, the Tolkien Estate, and the Shire Council of Commerce for emotional damage.

[finnman69]

If you watch closely during the Inn scene, Frodo and his crew are shown getting stabbed by the Ring Wraiths. Then, five seconds later, they are fine again. Note to the director: try proofreading your movie before you release it to the public.

If you have an IQ over 5 you could figure out that the good guys switched rooms to hide from the bad guys.

This is a funny rant.

[nina0113]

I "got it" on the 3rd one & laughed all the way through.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Two subtle for sum hear too muse.

.... and there in is the pity of it!

[2nd Amendment]

I speak as a devoted fan of LOR. I do not dismiss your analysis as improper. A few comments in defense of LOR
1. If the same scrutiny was applied to Alice in Wonderland and other children's novels, they would be anathemized.
2. I've always looked to Tolkien and Lewis for imagination not theology. God's Word never changes.
3. I can find dozens of areas where LOR reinforces my christian belief. It prepares a pagan mind to accept the only real truth. The Bible.
4. Didn't the apostle Paul begain and address to the Romans using the Unknown God as a starting place.
5. anything done to excess can have deleterious results to the soul.
I would like to contine this dialogue. .later

[Forgiven_Sinner]

Hi Tim Benzadrine!
Hash Boo Valvoline!

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Why then is Liv Tyler dark-haired?

She's just too pretty to be blond.

[Coto]

"...have thick black bars at the bottom and top of the screen throughout the film. Didn't anyone catch this..."

What a moron...

[HairOfTheDog]

Just wait till the Hobbit's Hole crowd sees this.

The Hobbit Hole crowd "gets it"! HA!

[Sabertooth]

You missed the fact that Gandalf caught his sword on the way down. Of course, as any physicist knows, a sword has a higher terminal velocity than a human, or Maia--he should have never caught it.

Terminal velocity is different for wizards plunging to their deaths.

Besides, how did Saruman make Gandalf's staff fall up into his hand in FOTR? Or make Gandalf fall up to the ceiling of Orthanc and land on the roof in the same movie? But then, why couldn't he make Gandalf fall back up to the roof from his eagle-mount during his escape?

Clearly, Middle-Earthian physics are different. Probably magic.

[HairOfTheDog]

Focusing on the believability of catching up the the sword, when we are talking about a fight between a Wizard and a Balrog made of smoke and fire, means the rest of the effects must have been rather believable!

[My2Cents]

None of my reading on evolutionary biology reveals a single reason why a particular race of humans would develop unflammable facial hair

Gandalf isn't human.

[My2Cents]

the movie we were forced to watch

Funny...Where we live, attendance at the movie showing was voluntary.

[Liberal Classic]

Percentage of protagonists in Fellowship who are white: 100. Meanwhile the black antagonists and their black crow spies and their black glass seeing ball inhabit their black towers and perform black magic. Gosh, I wonder if there's some symbolism there?

Sheesh!

[My2Cents]

The incident with the flock of evil magical spying crows serving the All-Seeing Eye...

The crows were spies of Saruman, not Sauron.

From some of the points, the list is meant as humor...but it's not very funny.

[Rockitz]

Lighten up! It's a fantasy, which pretty much gives the producers license to do anything they want including a Pepsi commercial. Thanks for ruining it for everyone.

[Alouette]

It seemed that every other european country had it's own mythos, but with the Norman conquest of England, "their own" mythology was lost, with the exception of Beowulf.

LOTR has always seemed to me very similar to the old German epic, Nibelungenlied ("Song of the Nibelungs") which was also the basis for the series of operas by Wagner.

[RabidBartender]

ROFL....Funny.

Almost as funny are the ones who took it seriously, nitpicked at it, and then when they figured out they'd been had - they say 'oh...it wasn't that funny - that's why I missed it'. BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

'Also, rings do not turn you invisible.'

[Jael]

Actually, I feel so strongly about not being involved in the occult, that I would never read the books. :-)
So you lost me with the pipe stuff.;-)

[Jael]

Hi! Thanks for writing! I appreciate the time you took!

You said "1. If the same scrutiny was applied to Alice in Wonderland and other children's novels, they would be anathemized."

Can we start there?

Personally, I think many childrens books are really no good. We may view them as harmless fun, but are they? Don't they prepare you for that next bigger step?

My parents always read to me. But we read a lot of biography. We did read Peter Pan, but that is about the only "fairy fiction" I remember.

I do remember "Goodbye Mr. Chips" and "Little Women" very fondly, among others.

But those books dealt with real people facing things that could really happen, in that they did not take place in some kind of fantasy world with occult images.

My parents predisposed me to read great books, not just fairy tale fiction. So when I was older, I was not looking for books that flirted with the occult. It was a great thing!!!

I also never got involved in watching Soap Operas, or lots of other type fiction melodramas. I think my life has been the better for it, all things considered. :-)