So Long, PJ, And Thank You For the Visuals...

[perelleth]

...but please, please, do stay away from The Silmarillion.

So I went to see The Battle of the Five Armies on Christmas Day.. The she-balrgogling loved it. Me, I almost fell asleep in places.

Comments

[perelleth]

I was thinking about you and your great insights while thinking about all this stuff... So first, happy Christmas in its deepest sense to you. You were in my thoughts on Christmas Eve.

I was plainly bored by this movie. Thinking about it, I believe it is because they are not telling anyone's stories, but snippets of individual stories and a lot of special effects.

Steadily PJ refuses to make his characters behave as part of something larger than themselves, and steadily they act propelled by short term, tactical or individual reasons. THe spirit of the time? perhaps.

Granted, the Hobbit is childish in many parts, but is also the tale of a hobbit's growth, nothing more and nothing less. We only get a glimpse of that at the end of this movie when Gandalf tells BIlbo " you are a small Hobbit in a big world, Bilbo Baggins". Which made me snicker, remembering your very useful writing advice " show, don't tell"

Also The Battle of Dol Guldur is a simple nija confrontation between Elrond in full battle regalia, Saruman and Galadriel going to rescue Gandalf, rather than the White Council making a long term, strategical decision they had been postponing for so long.

As I said in the tin, I am grateful for the visuals PJs worked for all of us, but his interpretation deprives Tolkien's works of its depth, and that bothers me. As this article in the LA review of Books puts it, "Tolkien’s own writings are almost comically reductive with respect to morality, but the Jackson films have only exacerbated this perception by reducing the nuances of the books even further"

So I turned back to the original, and I'm enjoying it more than I ever did. BIlbo is, definitely, my all-time favourite hobbit.

It's good to hear from you, Nillmandra. BEst to you and your menagerie!

[fafojoy]

pJ really does miss the greater whole, that the individuals were part of something bigger than themselves. This is such an important theme of Tolkien.

I appear to have influenza and my breathing is poor. I covet your prayers.'

[perelleth]

I'm sorry to read that. I'll keep you in my thoughts. Hope it eases up soon.