Posted on 07/20/2004 12:26:58 PM PDT by quidnunc
More Lord of the Rings movies — oh, yesss, preciousss, we wantsss them.
And within the next twenty or thirty years, we'll get them. Children who watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy will take their own children to a complete remake of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's inevitable.
Most great movies will never be remade. We will never see remakes of The Godfather, or Gone with the Wind, or even Star Wars. But Lord of the Rings is different.
Why? Consider these five reasons.
• The pre-existing fame of the LOTR novels prevents the actors in the LOTR trilogy from dominating the roles they played.
No sane actor would dare to recreate the role of Vito Corleone; the role is bound up too tightly with the performance of Marlon Brando. Similarly, what actress can hope to compete with Vivian Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara? But in the current LOTR trilogy, no actor consumes his role so completely. The finest performance in LOTR (Gollum notwithstanding) may have come from Ian McKellan as Gandalf. Yet, much as I enjoyed his performance, I can think of several actors who could have done as good a job portraying Gandalf: Sean Connery, Brian Blessed, Derek Jacobi, Anthony Hopkins, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart — the list goes on. The major characters in LOTR are so densely textured in the books — and yet so indelibly etched into the minds of Tolkien's fans, after decades of reading and re-reading the novels — that the performances of the leads in the current trilogy seem like interpretations of the characters, rather than definitions. Moreover, Peter Jackson's direction emphasized plot, rather than characterization, thus allowing room for future actors to place their own imprints on the characters in a way that would be impossible in other remakes.
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(Excerpt) Read more at techcentralstation.com ...
Oh, Geez! So, I guess this isn't the last we've seen of that Hobbit Hole thread.
Hear! Hear!! What you said!!
Can we get Ralph Bakshi to finish his version of LOTR?
Have you been to the chat side recently? We're well into our thirteenth thread.
Ring
YES! Worst cast of the entire project, IMO.
What?
That said, this is a totally not-necessary subject, wasted band width, and I guess the 'already a remake' comment fits in pretty nicely.
Jackson did as good a job as could be done within his time constraints of not having any movie go above 3 hours.
There is such a wealth of material there, though, that somebody without time constraints, producing a 30-hour series, could mine
How about ......... James CARVILLE??
It'll never happen. Tolkein sold the rights to Saul Zaentz. Zaentz will never allow a competing version.
Amen and Amen
Occam's Razor is never any fun, though.
I have heard what you are saying before. I think it was derived from something Christopher Tolkein said. However, as I remember it, CT said Bombadil was a bedtime story, but he didn't know whether he pre-dated the history of Middle Earth.
That is the issue. PJ produced a classic. We can and do debate some of his choices, but his LOTR will stand the test of time. Sooner or later, someone will be tempted to try again but the bar is set pretty high. FWIW, I think Hollywood will do it, if only because PJ didn't throw in any sex and nudity. One of the leftcoast dimbulbs will decide the story needs a more "mature" and "sophisticated" treatment.
It's o.k., though, as C.S. Lewis has George MacDonald tell his narrator in The Great Divorce, poets (in that case, Keats) oftentimes aren't entirely clear about what they meant.
I'd guess 9 of 10 remakes are inferior to the originals.
Splashy special effects are no match for good acting and screenwriting.
OK, The Day the Earth Stood Still is now known to be a retelling of the Passion of Christ, but few know it was based on a pulp short-story entitled "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates...in which only the names of Klaatu and Gort were retained. And Forbidden Planet is Shakespeare's Tempest; who would dare remake it?
Let's see a decent full-length Atlas Shrugged, or Asimov's Foundation trilogy (without the mangling applied to "I, Robot" first, OK?
Let it be.
--Boris
Did you come up with that yourself? It's great!
This is a good discussion on Tom:
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/tombombadil.html#riddle
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