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While searching for something else, I stumbled across a preview clip of Prince Kaspian. Looks quite nice even though I'm not a big Narnia fan.
In addition to that, I found myself contemplating yet again my relationship with the Lord of the Rings films when I heard about the blasphemy that is The Seeker - The Dark is rising and decided to copy here my old English essay from high school.
A film review
The Lord of The Rings: Return of the king
As almost everyone knows, I have a passion for J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, and I have gained questionable honour by being a total purist considering the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson. When I criticize the film trilogy people always tell me to think it as an independent story that has nothing to do with the book. But I am not capable of doing such thing, and to be honest I do not even want to. Film adaptation is film adaptation, but it has to base on the original text.
In The Return of the King the main points from the book were in the film. Sauron’s army attacked the city of Minas Tirith, Rohirrim rode to their aid and the battle of Pelennor fields was fougt, the Witch King of Angmar was slain by Éowyn, Frodo and Sam struggled to Mount Doom and destroyed the Ring and Aragorn became the king of Gondor an he married Arwen.
Everything else was terribly wrong. Biggest disappointment to me was that the whole atmosphere was changed. The conflict between the book and the film was enormous. Tolkien had created a world full of magic, but Jackson has wrecked everything by simplifying it in Hollywood-style. He has ruined great amount of magnificent characters in attempt to gain artificial tension, and for the same reason he has made unnecessary changes to story. In Tolkien’s characters reader can find strength, loyalty and wisdom, where as Jackson’s characters are thin as paper, an he has made them weak, stupid and stubborn.
Even if we regard “the return of the King” movie only as independent story, it is still only an average film. The plot is really scattered, and I can only imagine, how people who are not familiar with the story have a hard time to follow the tale. Scenes were jumping from one place to another, and characters were talking about peoples, places and events, that were not introduced in the film. Special effects were also quite lousy. They were blurred, messy, and variations in colour scales were too conspicuous.
Altogether I think, that Peter Jackson did a disservice to everyone by making this film trilogy. It is only a faint copy of Tolkien’s masterpiece trying to capture the richness of the original. As Ted Sandyman said in the Fellowship of the Ring: “if that’s were you get your news from, you’ll newer want for moonshine”. By just watching the film you will never find out what Middle-earth is really like.
In addition to that, I found myself contemplating yet again my relationship with the Lord of the Rings films when I heard about the blasphemy that is The Seeker - The Dark is rising and decided to copy here my old English essay from high school.
A film review
The Lord of The Rings: Return of the king
As almost everyone knows, I have a passion for J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, and I have gained questionable honour by being a total purist considering the adaptation of The Lord of the Rings movies by Peter Jackson. When I criticize the film trilogy people always tell me to think it as an independent story that has nothing to do with the book. But I am not capable of doing such thing, and to be honest I do not even want to. Film adaptation is film adaptation, but it has to base on the original text.
In The Return of the King the main points from the book were in the film. Sauron’s army attacked the city of Minas Tirith, Rohirrim rode to their aid and the battle of Pelennor fields was fougt, the Witch King of Angmar was slain by Éowyn, Frodo and Sam struggled to Mount Doom and destroyed the Ring and Aragorn became the king of Gondor an he married Arwen.
Everything else was terribly wrong. Biggest disappointment to me was that the whole atmosphere was changed. The conflict between the book and the film was enormous. Tolkien had created a world full of magic, but Jackson has wrecked everything by simplifying it in Hollywood-style. He has ruined great amount of magnificent characters in attempt to gain artificial tension, and for the same reason he has made unnecessary changes to story. In Tolkien’s characters reader can find strength, loyalty and wisdom, where as Jackson’s characters are thin as paper, an he has made them weak, stupid and stubborn.
Even if we regard “the return of the King” movie only as independent story, it is still only an average film. The plot is really scattered, and I can only imagine, how people who are not familiar with the story have a hard time to follow the tale. Scenes were jumping from one place to another, and characters were talking about peoples, places and events, that were not introduced in the film. Special effects were also quite lousy. They were blurred, messy, and variations in colour scales were too conspicuous.
Altogether I think, that Peter Jackson did a disservice to everyone by making this film trilogy. It is only a faint copy of Tolkien’s masterpiece trying to capture the richness of the original. As Ted Sandyman said in the Fellowship of the Ring: “if that’s were you get your news from, you’ll newer want for moonshine”. By just watching the film you will never find out what Middle-earth is really like.