Lord of the Rings (The Movies) in one word. - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

**The Saucepan Man** · 12-06-2006, 08:12 AM

Aaron

You might be interested in this old thread, which I started shortly after watching TTT because I found myself rather taken aback by what I considered to be some rather extreme reactions to the films:

Why all the anger?

It's rather hard going at first, I am afraid, because of the changes in the site's formatting since it was first started, but it's worth a look. While "anger" is perhaps an overstatement of what many people felt, many certainly felt disappointment and dismay at the films and they provide insightful explanations in that thread of why they felt like this.

For many, I think, the the character alterations and simplification that were necessary (in my view) to bring these films to a mass audience in some way mar something (the book or particular aspects of it) that they hold dear. And this, I think is understandable, given how special the book is to most here. There is also regret at "what could have been".

For myself, while I share some of the concerns expressed about the films and do find myself getting irritated by internal inconsistencies and continuity issues, I still think that as films they are exceptional examples of their genre. And while the book remains very dear to me, I do not feel the same disappointment and dismay as many others because I hold the films as separate from the book. The characters and the events portrayed are slightly different and so, in my view, do not "change" or "mar" or affect in any way the story that Tolkien wrote or my feelings about it. The films provide an approximation, not a reproduction, of the story told by Tolkien, and I am able to enjoy them as such.

Oh, and welcome to the Downs, by the way.

12-06-2006, 08:12 AM	#23
The Saucepan Man Corpus Cacophonous Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: A green and pleasant land Posts: 8,390	Aaron You might be interested in this old thread, which I started shortly after watching TTT because I found myself rather taken aback by what I considered to be some rather extreme reactions to the films: Why all the anger? It's rather hard going at first, I am afraid, because of the changes in the site's formatting since it was first started, but it's worth a look. While "anger" is perhaps an overstatement of what many people felt, many certainly felt disappointment and dismay at the films and they provide insightful explanations in that thread of why they felt like this. For many, I think, the the character alterations and simplification that were necessary (in my view) to bring these films to a mass audience in some way mar something (the book or particular aspects of it) that they hold dear. And this, I think is understandable, given how special the book is to most here. There is also regret at "what could have been". For myself, while I share some of the concerns expressed about the films and do find myself getting irritated by internal inconsistencies and continuity issues, I still think that as films they are exceptional examples of their genre. And while the book remains very dear to me, I do not feel the same disappointment and dismay as many others because I hold the films as separate from the book. The characters and the events portrayed are slightly different and so, in my view, do not "change" or "mar" or affect in any way the story that Tolkien wrote or my feelings about it. The films provide an approximation, not a reproduction, of the story told by Tolkien, and I am able to enjoy them as such. Oh, and welcome to the Downs, by the way.