A Rant That Will Probably Make Me Unpopular

[poliphilo]

I see there is much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in fandom.

The movie Serenity (which I haven't seen) has divided the followers of the Firefly cult (I haven't see Firefly either.)

Oh come on guys, it's a story. It's fiction. It didn't really happen. That guy that got killed (and you're all getting so worked up about) didn't really get killed because he was never really alive. That was an actor. He got paid at the end of the day and is sitting comfortably beside his pool in the Hollywood hills waiting for his agent to ring.

It's the religion thing, isn't it? We stop believing in God, but it leaves such a huge, gaping, black hole and it hurts so much that we panic and rage and go round looking for things- any old things- to stuff into the emptiness. And so we start believing in Joss Whedon or that guy who made the LOTR films (whose name temporarily escapes me) or (heaven help us) George Lucas.

And just as true believers make themselves blind to the inconsistencies, impossibilities and stylistic infelicities in the New Testament, so fans convince themselves that their favourite TV shows and films aren't in fact a load of crap.

Look, I liked Buffy. I was sort of in love with Willow. But series #7 was garbage, you know it was.

And Lord of The Rings. I love Tolkien (not uncritically) but the movies kinda highlighted all his faults and failed to translate his real merits into filmic terms. Wake up, guys, those films are dull. As dull as the Pentateuch. And I for one never want to see another CGI battle ever again.

As for Lucas- everyone agrees that the prequels are horrible- so why do you keep going to see them again and again? Are you mad?

Wake up, think for yourselves, think critically. Stop being such sheep!

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

No accounting for taste, I suppose. I thought LOTR was magnificent -- enough so that I bought what my kid calls "the complete sucker version" of each on DVD, with extra footage and all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff.

On the other hand, I'm pretty bemused by folks' admiration of Bob Dylan.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My vision of Lord of the Rings is sooo different from Jackson's. I'd have made it darker and grimmer and paid much more (close) attention to landscape. Also I'd have spent much less time on (yawn) the battles.

I think we differ on almost everything, Laura, and that's one reason why I love having you on my flist.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

And my husband complains that the films are too dark as it is.

I thought there was plenty of attention paid to the landscape, and I thought that lots of it was wonderfully conceptualized.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I see LOTR as very, very English. Tolkien feels those landscapes on his pulses. Jackson's landscapes are spectacular, but they're not felt in the same deep way. Besides, they're New Zealand landscapes, not English ones.

For me the creepiest sequences in the Books are the Mines of Moria and the Dead Marshes. I thought Jackson wasted his opportunities with both of them. With the first he opted for spectacle rather than suspense, and with the second he opted for a below-par studio set and some generic CGI spookiness.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I see LOTR as very, very English. Tolkien feels those landscapes on his pulses. Jackson's landscapes are spectacular, but they're not felt in the same deep way. Besides, they're New Zealand landscapes, not English ones.

I would argue (gently, of course) that your Englishness may leave you less than perfectly sensitive to Jackson's deep feeling for his own landscape. I am not at all convinced that Tolkien's LOTR landscape remains English once the scene leaves the Shire (and possibly Bree). I agree that it would have been nice of the Shire had had a larger nod toward England.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Lothlorien is English- and Rivendell- and most of the landscape that Frodo and Sam traverse
until they come to Mordor- which is Birmingham crossed with the Western Front.

I guess the land of the horse lords (who bore me fearfully- even in the Books) is probably Norway.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

The magic of Tolkien is that we each make him our own, see ourselves and our lands in his writing. Though, being a freak, I never saw any of "America" but rather other countries: England, Scotland, France, Japan (Lonely Mountain!!)...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's true.

For me his realization of Middle Earth is the greatest thing in Tolkien. I get the feeling that he knew every pebble and blade of grass along the routes his heroes take.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's odd, but I forget the bits with Sam and Frodo on Mt Doom (in the film I mean.) They're just overwhelmed by that damn never-ending battle and the glow-in-the-dark dead guys.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Peter Jackson has made horror films, right? So how come the green deaders were so lame? Actually I thought he fudged all the spooky bits. The Mines of Moria, the passage through the Dead Marshes- none of it was the least bit scary.

The ghosts in Pirates of the Carribbean weren't scary either, but they were certainly a whole lot more fun.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like spiders.

I guess I was secretly hoping the spider would win.

I've always thought that episode was where Tolkien secretly (or not so secretly) betrayed his horror of female sexuality.

Re: She-lob

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Heh-heh-heh...

The misogyny (which most of the time ammounts to the comfortable assumption that women just don't exist)is the one thing that really gets me pissed at Tolkien.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well said, Cecil!

(the C did stand for Cecil, didn't it?)

In spite of having all that time to play with, Jackson does very little to develop his characters- and that's why one gets very little sense of the bonds of respect and love which tie the fellowship together.

One of the many things I find hard to forgive is his turning of Gimli into a comic (but unfunny) stooge and the skimping of the growing relationship between him and Legolas.

Bah, the more I think about it, the more I convince myself that Jackson did a lousy job.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Clive, of course. there was a Cecil lewis who was poet laureate back in the 60s.

You're right about the women. Jackson was too respectful here. He had the opportunity to give Tolkien's cosily patriarchal world-view a good shaking- and he didn't take it.

Another thing about the Gimli character is that he was so muffled up in prosthetics you could barely see his face. How is a chap supposed o act under those conditions?

Tolkien's Gimli has great dignity. Jackson's has none.

"ash and cordite smell"- beautifully put.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The dwarf tossing was horrible- on a par with skate-boarding the elephant.

I didn't think any of the acting was that wonderful. Not even Sir Ian as Gandalf. If anyone stole the show it was Andy Serkis as Gollum. But who wouldn't steal the show as Gollum?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've seen a (much younger) Serkis is a couple of old TV shows recently. He's a damn fine character actor. He reminds me of Peter Sellers (than which I can conceive of no higher praise.)