@Collin1000 Yeah, Glen's been making a lot of sense recently. I like how, instead of Glen being a doofus, he and @matthew are having real conversations. Sometimes I forget that @matthew is talking to himself.
@Collin1000@SSteve I feel good about the fact that Glen still seems very wrong to me. But I do like the bit about @matthew talking to himself. We all have the voices, man. Own it; and open up the dialog.
No. This trilogy monstrosity doesn't exist in my reality. I will not support the desecration of Tolkien's legacy any further by acknowledging its existence ever again. NO. They already fucked its world raw with the whole arwen and elves at helm's deep and destroying the whole godsdamned point of Faramir garbage... and then... then this. This trilogy... thing. I AM NOT EVEN GOING TO TORRENT THIS LAST ONE.
... so traumatized. (May they never get any portion of the silmarillion in their grasps, ever ever ever ever.)
@goldenthorn I loved the LOTR movies. Didn't really like the first Hobbit movie and have little desire to see the other 2. I tried to read the books, I really tried but I just couldn't do it. Tom Bombadil stopped me in my tracks, he was so terrible I had to give up.
@goldenthorn Try to think of Jackson's Tolkien movies as complete retellings, rather than straight screen adaptations of the books. It's kind of analogous to {insert your favorite director here}'s version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Do fans of Dickens freak when, say... Scrooge's nephew Fred is left out / has his lines changed / is characterized differently? Eh. Probably not. Same deal. Now, if you want to evaluate Jackson's stuff on their own, as movies, have at it. For me, in that regard, the Lord of the Rings movies were far superior to The Hobbit(s). Like... not even close. And don't worry, nobody's going to make a Silmarillion movie.
@JonT Visually, the LotR movies are perfection, and the actors all perfectly cast, too. Hells, the FotR was amazing, mostly. Such high hopes! But then it went the way it did. I understand not liking the books; they certainly don't suit all tastes. If they didn't catch me when they did, I might have rolled my eyes at it, too!
@Crixus Actually, yeah, fans of Dickens, Hardy, Wharton, Austen, etc do get rather frothy when characters/stories/meaning get significantly twisted in adaptation. Not that Tolkien is anywhere near the level of Hardy et al. quality-wise (I may be a crazy fan, but not that crazy!), but passion-wise, sure. Why not fall into some madness about it?
@goldenthorn gotta agree with you here. People will always complain and freak when any sort of adaptation of a well-loved piece of fiction is done. When something hits people the right way and they feel a deep connection to it they tend to take things personally. You better believe I would raise hell if a Firefly remake was done poorly. Preacher is my favorite comic book of all time and I'm incredibly nervous that it'll be butchered.
@Crixus You had me until "nobody's going to make a Silmarillion movie." But very well said on the rest. Add to this the people bitching about the recent Noah and Exodus movies. People need to find some other hobby besides getting offended that the "integrity" of someone else's story hasn't been maintained to their liking.
@goldenthorn The hubris is that these people presume that they know and own the works of the supposedly offended original authors and that they have the right to dictate what someone else can and cannot do with that work. Even the original authors don't own their own work that way.
@joelmw Yeah, absolutely, there are definitely levels of intensity on the passion spectrum, and your description certainly falls on the crazier end. Passionate opinions can certainly get ridiculously out of hand and presumptive. Conversely, they can also be unreasonably dismissed by those who do not share nor understand the passion.
@goldenthorn I probably take words like "should" and "shouldn't" too seriously (and I mean that sincerely). :-) And folks often seem to be coming from the perspective that something (other than their subjective experience) has been violated.
@joelmw There is a fundamental difference between embellishing what is there (the Dol Guldur sub plot) and violating the laws of physics (dwarves and elves in love). All of that aside, the fundamental issue with the movies is that like Star Wars Epoisodes 1-3 before them, they were heavy on effects, but the characters, well, the characters I didn't care about this time. the story was very "flat". A solid mediocre attempt.
None of the movies were all that interesting to me. The last one was the only one I saw in the theater because i thought it would be epic, for some reason. First one, meh. Second one, meh. So... the third one should be epic right? Oops. Anyway, it seemed like Jackson tried to repeatedly say that this trilogy (at least the last one, I honestly can't remember much about the others) was a prequel to the LOTR. I felt like it should have been strong enough to stand on its own. And then other gripes. Spoiler alert: "The eagles are coming." End movie. Meh!
@darksaber99999 I thought it was a fine set of films. Not great, not at the level of LOTR, but ok. Sometimes it is alright for movies to be ok. They definitely made it more of a childrens tale, which made it "campy" for some people. Other than that, I didn't think the liberties they took were so far off the path to be overly obnoxious (and I read each of the books, including the Hobbit and Silmarillion)
Personally, I think two movies would have made sense (especially to follow the Thorin character development):
Movie 1: From the Shire to the Lonely Mountain
Movie 2: Death of Smaug, decline and redemption of Thorin
Glen, dead on this time. Cut the love story, beef up on the plot points that fell to the wayside (BEORN!) and make 2 solid films for this one. They added too much filler and overshot it.
Two films too many, IMHO. Hated that whole Orc addition and the Kili/Legolas/Tauriel love triangle. I really enjoyed the LOTR movies, though, especially the extended versions. A little too heavy on the Arwen/Aragorn love story, but hey, ya gotta Hollywood-ify it a little I guess.
Oh, and I guess I was the one person who was disappointed that they cut Tom Bombadil from the movies. I wanted to see that Goldberry hotness.
@jsh139 I too missed it, but it must be admitted that in the context of a movie that the whole Tom Bombadil sequence isn't really strategic to the overall story line...
@Headly Strategic? No, definitely not. But he does rescue them from the first two dangers that they encounter on their way to Bree (Old Man Willow and the Barrow Wights). So, he's not altogether worthless. Plus, they get their swords from the Barrow, so there is some significance to that part of the story. But, I'm nit-picking here.
They need to cut out the 30-minute chase scenes (multiple per film) and reinsert the text of the riddles and Smaug boasts that they cheated us on with the first two films. Might be a little difficult to stretch it to two whole films then, though. I'm glad they at least included Beorn (the Rankin-Bass cartoon completely skipped him); he's interesting. And yeah, what was that love story crap?
I've given up on integrating movies and books--just won't happen in a way that makes me happy, so I evaluate them as a stand alone creation. And much as I'd like to gripe and whine about wedging in love stories (and let's face it, this one made NO sense), it happens to most all movies. I chalk it up to Hollywood thinking a significant portion of the population won't go see a movie if there isn't something gushy included.
@Mavyn Well, there's adding stuff, and then there's adding stuff that completely goes against the established order of things. Like elves loving dwarves. Uh, no.
@Headly Oh, I know. The whole thing is absurd. But if you look at it in terms of 'there MUST be a love story' the only other option would have been changing gender on a dwarf or adding a hobbit...and that would have been worse. Weirder, anyway.
@Mavyn They could have constructed something but I mostly agree. It would have the benefit of actually being possible within the framework of elvish/dwarvish relations though...
@Headly But going against the established order of things is part of what's great about it. And you've gotta admit, it's a hot topic more generally, with various implications.
This makes me want to re-listen to my LOTR books on tape. I have the unabridged versions of LOTR, Hobbit, and Silmarillion narrated by Robert Inglis. A necessary addition to any Tolkien fan's library.
@jsh139 If you haven't heard nor obtained it, Martin Shaw's reading of the Silmarillion is absolutely glorious. Better than Inglis'. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Sunk cost fallacy. Hah! Glen understands basic economics, which puts him one up on the general public. And (unfortunately) a lot of people in Washington spending our money.
People are apparently forgivingly forgetting that most of Tolkien's work is dense and rambly and allusive. In and of itself, it flows for shit. Sure, the Hobbit is better in this respect than LOTR, but it's still not what I'd call fluid narration. And the story was at best a secondary concern to Tolkien anyway.
There aren't that many stories. Out there. In the whole. Wide. World. Most of fiction is theft from a previous narrator.
Text and film are two entirely different media. That shouldn't have to be said. Sigh. But apparently it does.
An artist's calling is precisely to reinterpret--not to reinterpret precisely. Even a simple translation (if it's any good) will readjust to the archetypes and vernacular of the destination culture, among other things.
Your reading/hearing of the Tolkien corpus isn't canonical.
Ergo, any film adaptation is going to be someone's retelling of an old story (older than what you think is the original) in a way that's consistent with their reading, and that fits within the media and other constraints. It's a new thing that necessarily samples heavily from its sources. But it's not its sources. And it's not a mirror. It's not and doesn't need to (arguably, shouldn't) be a satisfying abstraction somehow essentially identical to the "original."
It's okay to like one thing more than another, though a little unfair to assert an unequivocal superiority of one type of work to another. That's not even comparing apples to oranges. More like comparing apples to bunny rabbits. Or coffee makers. Or binary searches.
I just get tired of listening to people whine about how an adaptation isn't faithful to the original. I don't care if they're talking about Tolkien or Austen or Shakespeare or P. K. Dick or whatever your favorite comic book author's name is.
And I say this having been raised on (and growing to love and then dedicating much of the rest of my life to) a book that's broadly translated and routinely obscenely misinterpreted (I mean, in and of itself and in terms of what it probably meant to its original authors and audiences). One day I realized that the Book doesn't even take itself that seriously--that it and the traditions that have grown up around it make a point of twisting and recasting and inverting and exploding its own stories and messages (though, obviously, the traditions lie to themselves about their penchant for reinterpretation, and pretend, like any good Tolkien fan, that they're only arguing for the integrity of the original). And, to be clear, the Bible takes its own stories and, to put it in terms a hater of the Jackson Hobbit movies can appreciate, destroys them.
Creative reinterpretation is a good thing. And, yes, it's okay to creatively reinterpret something and still attach the original something's name to what you've done. That's part of the context.
@nadroj That's fair (and I did wonder if some smartass would feel the need to say it; congratulations ;-) ). I actually presuppose that most people aren't going to give a shit about what I'm saying (with regard to this sort of thing in particular). I just figure that if I have to listen to the same tired old complaint every time anyone adapts a book, the least I can do is bitch back. I don't think the counterpoint is made nearly often enough. Do you have a substantive objection to what I'm saying?
@joelmw I agree with pretty much everything you said. However, I do expect that the people making the movie have some respect for the material. Reinterpritation is one thing, and why I love the LoTR and HP movies even though they often vary significantly from the books. I'm with you on that. What I don't like is when the movie makers do something that would be impossible or completely stupid within the univers in which they are setting the movie. In the LoTR movies, the only thing that really bothered me was the changing of Farimir's caracter, and that didn't really bother me, because it fit well, and added tension, and within that universe was plausible. When they do something like they did in the Hobbit that is basically impossible I have to wonder if the director respects the work? My overall beef with the hobbit is that they just weren't that great, especially compared to the LoTR. I paid my $10 to see each movie and I'm therefore entitled to my critique.
@joelmw I think there are (at least, but as far as I'm concerned right now… at most) two valid objections… the first being that… I don't think anyone expects these things to be 100% true to source. I mean, even if you wanted to, that's impossible when you're crossing media from one where you have to invent images in your mind to one where everything is laid out neatly before you. But, there becomes a point where too much is too much, and a broader consensus starts to form around that notion. Sure, plenty of people love the films, and plenty of people dislike them for other reasons… but I think enough people have concerns over the level of disparity to validate such grunting and groaning. The second point comes from the first, in that… once enough people agree on this, it becomes a sort of cultural thing… There begins a sort of ownership of being on team 'This Is Shit,' a sort of camaraderie among the (easily located) folks who agree that this just simply was not worth their time and money. Once shitting on the thing becomes something bigger like that… well, people don't like having their team shit on, even if it is a team of shitters! I say all of this with the utmost respect, and the utleast fucks given about the topic at hand (saw all three movies, hate that I paid what I did, but didn't hate them per se, felt pretty neutral really. Except the one I got roped into seeing in 3D, which was a truly god-awful experience). I just think it's an interesting discussion, and the passion from either side… it's fascinating!
@joelmw I get it, but what I object to most as a fan of the Hobbit book is the pandering to fans that was done when marketing the movie and the repeated claims that the movie was made by fans for fans, etc. and the repeated assurances that it would honor the story in a way that would bring the book to life. Which it didn't. It did create a nicely wrought and imaginative world, but one that is largely of their own creation. But I guess it's hard to convince movie studios to pony up hundreds of millions to make movies that only has male characters and no romantic love story.
@Headly I'll agree that they weren't as great as the LOTR movies. No question. Honestly, though, like when I read the Silmarillion, I actually enjoyed Jackson's playing around with stuff, and, yes, even the elf-dwarf romance. I'm weird like that. But the last movie especially lacked something, that's for sure.
@brhfl Thanks for chiming in. Yeah, I have problems with most of the us-and-thems in life. They seem mostly arbitrary and counter-productive. I do indulge occasionally, but try to remember that it's just for fun and ultimately we're all on the same team, when it comes down to it.
I agree with Glen on this one.
@Collin1000 Yeah, Glen's been making a lot of sense recently. I like how, instead of Glen being a doofus, he and @matthew are having real conversations. Sometimes I forget that @matthew is talking to himself.
@Collin1000 @SSteve I feel good about the fact that Glen still seems very wrong to me. But I do like the bit about @matthew talking to himself. We all have the voices, man. Own it; and open up the dialog.
Ugh. Should have been 1 movie. They lost me at elves that love dwarves... Peter Jackson has jumped the shark.
How would you feel about elves who love sharks? Would that jump the dwarf? (Go to 2:46 if it doesn't go there automatically.)
Yeah, the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit was 90 minutes long and covered a lot of the material. I didn't see the third one in the theaters.
No. This trilogy monstrosity doesn't exist in my reality. I will not support the desecration of Tolkien's legacy any further by acknowledging its existence ever again. NO. They already fucked its world raw with the whole arwen and elves at helm's deep and destroying the whole godsdamned point of Faramir garbage... and then... then this. This trilogy... thing. I AM NOT EVEN GOING TO TORRENT THIS LAST ONE.
... so traumatized. (May they never get any portion of the silmarillion in their grasps, ever ever ever ever.)
Sends christopher tolkien a spiritual bro-fist.
@goldenthorn I loved the LOTR movies. Didn't really like the first Hobbit movie and have little desire to see the other 2. I tried to read the books, I really tried but I just couldn't do it. Tom Bombadil stopped me in my tracks, he was so terrible I had to give up.
@goldenthorn Try to think of Jackson's Tolkien movies as complete retellings, rather than straight screen adaptations of the books. It's kind of analogous to {insert your favorite director here}'s version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Do fans of Dickens freak when, say... Scrooge's nephew Fred is left out / has his lines changed / is characterized differently? Eh. Probably not. Same deal. Now, if you want to evaluate Jackson's stuff on their own, as movies, have at it. For me, in that regard, the Lord of the Rings movies were far superior to The Hobbit(s). Like... not even close. And don't worry, nobody's going to make a Silmarillion movie.
@JonT Visually, the LotR movies are perfection, and the actors all perfectly cast, too. Hells, the FotR was amazing, mostly. Such high hopes! But then it went the way it did.
I understand not liking the books; they certainly don't suit all tastes. If they didn't catch me when they did, I might have rolled my eyes at it, too!
@Crixus Actually, yeah, fans of Dickens, Hardy, Wharton, Austen, etc do get rather frothy when characters/stories/meaning get significantly twisted in adaptation. Not that Tolkien is anywhere near the level of Hardy et al. quality-wise (I may be a crazy fan, but not that crazy!), but passion-wise, sure. Why not fall into some madness about it?
@goldenthorn gotta agree with you here. People will always complain and freak when any sort of adaptation of a well-loved piece of fiction is done. When something hits people the right way and they feel a deep connection to it they tend to take things personally. You better believe I would raise hell if a Firefly remake was done poorly. Preacher is my favorite comic book of all time and I'm incredibly nervous that it'll be butchered.
@Crixus You had me until "nobody's going to make a Silmarillion movie." But very well said on the rest. Add to this the people bitching about the recent Noah and Exodus movies. People need to find some other hobby besides getting offended that the "integrity" of someone else's story hasn't been maintained to their liking.
@goldenthorn Aaaaaand, they shouldn't either. IMO.
@joelmw I profoundly disagree. shrugs
@goldenthorn I can agree with shrugging. Does that count? :-)
@goldenthorn The hubris is that these people presume that they know and own the works of the supposedly offended original authors and that they have the right to dictate what someone else can and cannot do with that work. Even the original authors don't own their own work that way.
@joelmw Yeah, absolutely, there are definitely levels of intensity on the passion spectrum, and your description certainly falls on the crazier end. Passionate opinions can certainly get ridiculously out of hand and presumptive. Conversely, they can also be unreasonably dismissed by those who do not share nor understand the passion.
@goldenthorn I probably take words like "should" and "shouldn't" too seriously (and I mean that sincerely). :-) And folks often seem to be coming from the perspective that something (other than their subjective experience) has been violated.
@joelmw There is a fundamental difference between embellishing what is there (the Dol Guldur sub plot) and violating the laws of physics (dwarves and elves in love). All of that aside, the fundamental issue with the movies is that like Star Wars Epoisodes 1-3 before them, they were heavy on effects, but the characters, well, the characters I didn't care about this time. the story was very "flat". A solid mediocre attempt.
@Headly The movies were a little mediocre. But as I indicate below, I can be in for some violation. Ahem, um, not meaning too much by that.
None of the movies were all that interesting to me. The last one was the only one I saw in the theater because i thought it would be epic, for some reason. First one, meh. Second one, meh. So... the third one should be epic right? Oops. Anyway, it seemed like Jackson tried to repeatedly say that this trilogy (at least the last one, I honestly can't remember much about the others) was a prequel to the LOTR. I felt like it should have been strong enough to stand on its own. And then other gripes. Spoiler alert: "The eagles are coming." End movie. Meh!
I... I liked the Hobbit trilogy.
@darksaber99999 I thought it was a fine set of films. Not great, not at the level of LOTR, but ok. Sometimes it is alright for movies to be ok. They definitely made it more of a childrens tale, which made it "campy" for some people. Other than that, I didn't think the liberties they took were so far off the path to be overly obnoxious (and I read each of the books, including the Hobbit and Silmarillion)
Personally, I think two movies would have made sense (especially to follow the Thorin character development):
Movie 1: From the Shire to the Lonely Mountain
Movie 2: Death of Smaug, decline and redemption of Thorin
@darksaber99999 I did too.
@darksaber99999 No you didn't!
Glen, dead on this time. Cut the love story, beef up on the plot points that fell to the wayside (BEORN!) and make 2 solid films for this one. They added too much filler and overshot it.
Two films too many, IMHO. Hated that whole Orc addition and the Kili/Legolas/Tauriel love triangle. I really enjoyed the LOTR movies, though, especially the extended versions. A little too heavy on the Arwen/Aragorn love story, but hey, ya gotta Hollywood-ify it a little I guess.
Oh, and I guess I was the one person who was disappointed that they cut Tom Bombadil from the movies. I wanted to see that Goldberry hotness.
@jsh139 I too missed it, but it must be admitted that in the context of a movie that the whole Tom Bombadil sequence isn't really strategic to the overall story line...
@Headly Strategic? No, definitely not. But he does rescue them from the first two dangers that they encounter on their way to Bree (Old Man Willow and the Barrow Wights). So, he's not altogether worthless. Plus, they get their swords from the Barrow, so there is some significance to that part of the story. But, I'm nit-picking here.
They need to cut out the 30-minute chase scenes (multiple per film) and reinsert the text of the riddles and Smaug boasts that they cheated us on with the first two films. Might be a little difficult to stretch it to two whole films then, though. I'm glad they at least included Beorn (the Rankin-Bass cartoon completely skipped him); he's interesting. And yeah, what was that love story crap?
SO and I went to the third Hobbit movie this past weekend. Should have saved the money and used it to buy walkie-talkies.
I've given up on integrating movies and books--just won't happen in a way that makes me happy, so I evaluate them as a stand alone creation. And much as I'd like to gripe and whine about wedging in love stories (and let's face it, this one made NO sense), it happens to most all movies. I chalk it up to Hollywood thinking a significant portion of the population won't go see a movie if there isn't something gushy included.
@Mavyn Well, there's adding stuff, and then there's adding stuff that completely goes against the established order of things. Like elves loving dwarves. Uh, no.
@Headly Oh, I know. The whole thing is absurd. But if you look at it in terms of 'there MUST be a love story' the only other option would have been changing gender on a dwarf or adding a hobbit...and that would have been worse. Weirder, anyway.
@Mavyn they could have done a Legolas / Turiel forbidden love thing...
@Headly Wouldn't have made any more sense and lacks the motivation for her to leave and follow, though.
@Mavyn They could have constructed something but I mostly agree. It would have the benefit of actually being possible within the framework of elvish/dwarvish relations though...
@Headly But going against the established order of things is part of what's great about it. And you've gotta admit, it's a hot topic more generally, with various implications.
This makes me want to re-listen to my LOTR books on tape. I have the unabridged versions of LOTR, Hobbit, and Silmarillion narrated by Robert Inglis. A necessary addition to any Tolkien fan's library.
@jsh139 Get the BBC radio dramas. Now those are necessary.
@jsh139 If you haven't heard nor obtained it, Martin Shaw's reading of the Silmarillion is absolutely glorious. Better than Inglis'. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
@jsh139 Hard to top Tolkien reading his own work: http://smile.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Audio-Collection/dp/0694525707/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1422557779&sr=8-4&keywords=tolkien+reads+and+sings&pebp=1422557804506&peasin=694525707
@rockblossom Yesssssss! Hah, I was going to recommend that one, too, but was too lazy to google it up.
@goldenthorn Whoops, I do have Martin Shaw's Silmarillion. I forgot it wasn't Robert Inglis. I also have The Children of Hurin, read by Martin Shaw.
@rockblossom NICE
Sunk cost fallacy. Hah! Glen understands basic economics, which puts him one up on the general public. And (unfortunately) a lot of people in Washington spending our money.
It's okay to like one thing more than another, though a little unfair to assert an unequivocal superiority of one type of work to another. That's not even comparing apples to oranges. More like comparing apples to bunny rabbits. Or coffee makers. Or binary searches.
I just get tired of listening to people whine about how an adaptation isn't faithful to the original. I don't care if they're talking about Tolkien or Austen or Shakespeare or P. K. Dick or whatever your favorite comic book author's name is.
And I say this having been raised on (and growing to love and then dedicating much of the rest of my life to) a book that's broadly translated and routinely obscenely misinterpreted (I mean, in and of itself and in terms of what it probably meant to its original authors and audiences). One day I realized that the Book doesn't even take itself that seriously--that it and the traditions that have grown up around it make a point of twisting and recasting and inverting and exploding its own stories and messages (though, obviously, the traditions lie to themselves about their penchant for reinterpretation, and pretend, like any good Tolkien fan, that they're only arguing for the integrity of the original). And, to be clear, the Bible takes its own stories and, to put it in terms a hater of the Jackson Hobbit movies can appreciate, destroys them.
Creative reinterpretation is a good thing. And, yes, it's okay to creatively reinterpret something and still attach the original something's name to what you've done. That's part of the context.
TL;DR?
@joelmw for yourself?
@nadroj That's fair (and I did wonder if some smartass would feel the need to say it; congratulations ;-) ). I actually presuppose that most people aren't going to give a shit about what I'm saying (with regard to this sort of thing in particular). I just figure that if I have to listen to the same tired old complaint every time anyone adapts a book, the least I can do is bitch back. I don't think the counterpoint is made nearly often enough. Do you have a substantive objection to what I'm saying?
@joelmw I agree with pretty much everything you said. However, I do expect that the people making the movie have some respect for the material. Reinterpritation is one thing, and why I love the LoTR and HP movies even though they often vary significantly from the books. I'm with you on that. What I don't like is when the movie makers do something that would be impossible or completely stupid within the univers in which they are setting the movie. In the LoTR movies, the only thing that really bothered me was the changing of Farimir's caracter, and that didn't really bother me, because it fit well, and added tension, and within that universe was plausible. When they do something like they did in the Hobbit that is basically impossible I have to wonder if the director respects the work? My overall beef with the hobbit is that they just weren't that great, especially compared to the LoTR. I paid my $10 to see each movie and I'm therefore entitled to my critique.
@joelmw I think there are (at least, but as far as I'm concerned right now… at most) two valid objections… the first being that… I don't think anyone expects these things to be 100% true to source. I mean, even if you wanted to, that's impossible when you're crossing media from one where you have to invent images in your mind to one where everything is laid out neatly before you. But, there becomes a point where too much is too much, and a broader consensus starts to form around that notion. Sure, plenty of people love the films, and plenty of people dislike them for other reasons… but I think enough people have concerns over the level of disparity to validate such grunting and groaning.
The second point comes from the first, in that… once enough people agree on this, it becomes a sort of cultural thing… There begins a sort of ownership of being on team 'This Is Shit,' a sort of camaraderie among the (easily located) folks who agree that this just simply was not worth their time and money. Once shitting on the thing becomes something bigger like that… well, people don't like having their team shit on, even if it is a team of shitters!
I say all of this with the utmost respect, and the utleast fucks given about the topic at hand (saw all three movies, hate that I paid what I did, but didn't hate them per se, felt pretty neutral really. Except the one I got roped into seeing in 3D, which was a truly god-awful experience). I just think it's an interesting discussion, and the passion from either side… it's fascinating!
@joelmw I get it, but what I object to most as a fan of the Hobbit book is the pandering to fans that was done when marketing the movie and the repeated claims that the movie was made by fans for fans, etc. and the repeated assurances that it would honor the story in a way that would bring the book to life. Which it didn't. It did create a nicely wrought and imaginative world, but one that is largely of their own creation. But I guess it's hard to convince movie studios to pony up hundreds of millions to make movies that only has male characters and no romantic love story.
@Headly I'll agree that they weren't as great as the LOTR movies. No question. Honestly, though, like when I read the Silmarillion, I actually enjoyed Jackson's playing around with stuff, and, yes, even the elf-dwarf romance. I'm weird like that. But the last movie especially lacked something, that's for sure.
@brhfl Thanks for chiming in. Yeah, I have problems with most of the us-and-thems in life. They seem mostly arbitrary and counter-productive. I do indulge occasionally, but try to remember that it's just for fun and ultimately we're all on the same team, when it comes down to it.
@belowi No argument with your disgust with the pandering. I hadn't actually caught most of that, but I'm sure it was out there.
NERRRRDS
@matthew Says the man talking to his own hand about the nerd movie.
@matthew
@matthew That would make a great mashup if there had been ogres in the Hobbit.
Could this be the longest discussed Glen topic?
All because it's fueled by Nerds?
@somf69 Lemonade-Wild Cherry FTW