Ralph Bakshi versus Peter Jackson movies
Thanks to speedyhobbit for linking this in her journal first! These videos made my day! :D
Bakshi versus Peter Jackson's movies =)
Part I
Biggest points in my humble opinion ( Read more... )
Bakshi versus Peter Jackson's movies =)
Part I
Biggest points in my humble opinion ( Read more... )
Click to view
I, too, really liked the fact that in Bakshi Frodo actually had guts... but I still don't see why making Frodo an "utter beauty" is necessarily a positive aspect to the Jackson films, especially since they tied the "beauty" thing to the "weak" thing. But I've been on that high horse many a time, so no need to respond to it.
I do have to take you up on the "weakening Aragorn" defense, though. It seems like a good idea in theory, but:
1). He's 80 at this point. If you have a character who was running around for 60 years who still hasn't come to terms with his destiny, that doesn't speak well for his ability to eventually be a King of Kingliness. In fact I think that PJ et al. ended up realizing the full problems of this approach when they ditched the "sprequel" idea--the film that would have covered the 60-odd years in between TH and LotR. Aragorn was about the only character who would have worked well during this time period, but the fact that they arrested his character development until the time of LotR means that all he would have done was run around killing bad guys--no real character development then.
2). It's unrealistic. Yes, the Ring War was a big deal, but people are going to interact with it in different ways. Not everyone is going to make the same character arc jeeeeeeeuuuuurney in the same way, because we're all at different points on the process to maturity and dealing with what Destiny hands us. The fact is that Aragorn in the books has already had his character arc, dealing with all of the insecurities and all of that. What we see in LotR is just the tail end of that. That's why, if PJ et al. had decided to portray Aragorn as he was in the books, they would have been able to do a good Aragorn-biopic sprequel.
3). Most importantly, the Law of Unintended Consequences kicks in. Because Aragorn was weakened, all the other characters who served as foils to him had to be changed in some fashion to make him look good. This is exactly why Theoden is afraid of war, Denethor is incompetent and has bad table manners, and Faramir considers taking the Ring. It's also why Gandalf becomes so weakened in RotK, and the Black Gate is Aragorn's idea, not his. In fact, you can trace just about every character change--and many of the plot changes--to the weakening of the central character in each plotline: in this case, Aragorn and Frodo. So even if you could avoid the problems in 1 and 2, the problems in 3 I think are so large that you could never justify giving Aragorn a more obvious character arc in LotR.
However, Sam WINS in Jackson. Only one inconsistency in the whole films: the fact that he left when Frodo told him to.
Ultimately, however, I'm still going to have to go with the Sibley/Bakewell radio interpretation. Battle scenes are pretty eh, and apparently eagles are countertenors, but no one ever breaks character.
Reply
I, too, really liked the fact that in Bakshi Frodo actually had guts... but I still don't see why making Frodo an "utter beauty" is necessarily a positive aspect to the Jackson films, especially since they tied the "beauty" thing to the "weak" thing.
I know...i wish PJ would make Frodo stronger and worth the whole "hero" image. He really made Frodo somewhat reliant on the fangirls' image of him and banking on that to make him a attractive Frodo rather on the inherent qualities that Tolkien's Frodo had that makes him such a well respected character.
BooK! Frodo was stronger, more resilient, more loyal, had better lines, wiser, and just made a lot more sense.
That's why, if PJ et al. had decided to portray Aragorn as he was in the books, they would have been able to do a good Aragorn-biopic sprequel.
Isn't that what the Hobbit Prequel is for? :P
I think for the non-bookies sake, PJ and crew decided to do this story arc line to be more dramatic and hit it home to all the non-bookies that Aragorn is finall coming into his kingship and the speeches and resolve that he finally had in RotK finally showed. I liked the examples shown from "NostalgicFan" in Bakshi's version where Aragorn was more resolute though.
Because Aragorn was weakened, all the other characters who served as foils to him had to be changed in some fashion to make him look good. This is exactly why Theoden is afraid of war, Denethor is incompetent and has bad table manners, and Faramir considers taking the Ring. It's also why Gandalf becomes so weakened in RotK, and the Black Gate is Aragorn's idea, not his.
Good points with those characters. I didn't agree with PJ's portrayal of Denethor necessarily either. It's way too dramatized and you feel like Denethor is a psycho by the time he dies but you really need to get into the backstory of the Palantir to really see that his despair and negativity stems from something.
I liked PJ's Theoden and i think he did great things in RotK though. The whole Grima/Saraman bewitching him to that extent was too much but i understand for the purpose of the movies why that was done.
I so did not like ROtK's Black Gate scene but again, they needed to show Aragorn's "kingly" side with his decision to storm the Black Gate. I really liked book version more though-- so many great quotes from Gandalf !
However, Sam WINS in Jackson. Only one inconsistency in the whole films: the fact that he left when Frodo told him to.
I know.. i hated that part a lot from RotK-- i fast forward that scene every time. I listened to PJ and Philippa Boyens explain it but i still don't think Frodo would ever doubt Sam and Sam would never just let Frodo go like that. ::so angry at that change::
I need to check out Sibley and Bakewell then! However, i am not too keen on radio since i have two more versions that i barely listen to... rather read or watch. :)
Thanks for your thoughts! Please reply with more if you wish. :)
Reply
"Somewhat reliant" doesn't even begin to cover it. Replace Elijah Wood with a plain-looking actor, but keep the characterization of the films, and who wouldn't want to punch that character in the face?
Sometime I'm going to have to do an analysis of the physical appearance of Frolijah and compare it to Victorian-era sentimentalism--specifically, how weak vs. strong characters (especially female ones, since Frolijah really does look like a girl) are made to appear. I know there are a lot of tropes out there but I'm not sure how he fits in. I know everyone but me is able to do this, but I honestly cannot separate that look from that characterization, which is why I'm so deeply disturbed whenever otherwise excellent fan fiction feels the need to tell me that Frodo, in this fic, looks exactly like a damsel in distress! Never mind that he doesn't act like Frolijah... as soon as the picture is in there the associations are made and I can't get it out of my head. *sigh* I'd be more okay with it if 1). only good fan fiction made the connection, 2). they included those looks for a very good literary reason all the time, and 3). there were more authors out there willing to go against the conventional descriptions. Jackson only started the problem. We made it worse.
I think for the non-bookies sake, PJ and crew decided to do this story arc line to be more dramatic and hit it home to all the non-bookies
The problem with this line of defense is that it can be used to justify almost every change made in the films--f.ex. throwing away The Choices of Master Samwise for a cheap bit of suspense (see? It's more dramatic!), throwing Aragorn off a cliff, and the Go Home Debacle. Maybe it would have worked in the case of Aragorn if Viggo Mortensen had been able to pull off the whole Innate Kingliness thing, but he wasn't. Almost everyone I know had only one reaction to his appearance in the coronation scene: HE WASHED HIS HAIR! Well, if clean hair makes a king...
Fact is that there is nothing in Aragorn's behavior in the films that suggests he'd be anything other than a good general. Which... well, now that the Enemy is gone, we aren't going to need war anymore, are we? The Black Gate scene actually crystallizes the problems with Aragorn's character, because at this point he should be as Close to King as he can manage. But what does he do? He gives this really weird, lame-sounding battle speech, and then neglects the laws of parlay and kills a messenger. Yeah. What PJ et al. showed most through what they wanted Aragorn and indeed all mannish characters to do was their own inherent misunderstanding of the concepts of nobility. Good, noble characters don't run away from their destiny for 60 years*. They don't create unnecessary sexual tension with a character that has a schoolgirl crush on them. They don't try to lay claim to another king's authority, as movie!Aragorn did in Rohan. And they certainly don't kill messengers in parlay.
Movie!Theoden did great things in RotK, because at that point Aragorn was out of the way to Summon Scrubby Bubbles. In Two Towers, though, he was a pansy.
*Which is why the sprequel will no longer cover the 60-year gap between TH and LotR but will instead be The Hobbit part 2. Because they delayed Aragorn's character development, all such a film would be is a montage of Aragorn running around on a horse lopping off orc heads while U2's "But I stiiiiiilll haven't fooooouuund what I'm looking for" plays in the background.
Every Tolkien fan, especially someone who loves both the books and the Jackson films, needs to listen to the BBC radio version just because it shows you that you can do a Good Adaptation That Is Not Jackson. (I'd argue that the musical shows you the same thing, but that's hard to get.) What audio versions do you have--books on tape, or what? (I'm always curious to discover new adaptations.) Anyhow, you can get the episodes through interlibrary loan (the whole thing's about 13 hours), and you can find them online here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=87BEFE4FA0551352. Everything that Jackson and Bakshi did wrong, these people did right.
Reply
In fanfiction, i don't agree that he could be portrayed as "damsel in distress" so therefore i tend to read more of the stronger portrayals of him. I didn't think Frolijah looked "girly" but i guess that is your point of view.
The problem with this line of defense is that it can be used to justify almost every change made in the films--f.ex. throwing away The Choices of Master Samwise for a cheap bit of suspense (see? It's more dramatic!), throwing Aragorn off a cliff, and the Go Home Debacle. Maybe it would have worked in the case of Aragorn if Viggo Mortensen had been able to pull off the whole Innate Kingliness thing, but he wasn't. Almost everyone I know had only one reaction to his appearance in the coronation scene: HE WASHED HIS HAIR! Well, if clean hair makes a king...
I think movies work better with suspense so that is why PJ and crew changed it to Frodo running in alone. I don't agree with it but then how else are you going to put in the Howard Shore Shelob Lair's intense score?
I agree that i hated the Aragorn cliff thing and the Sam Go Home bit-- those points i will always cringe at when i rewatch the movies.
I love your bit about Aragorn's hair! hahahaha!
Because they delayed Aragorn's character development, all such a film would be is a montage of Aragorn running around on a horse lopping off orc heads while U2's "But I stiiiiiilll haven't fooooouuund what I'm looking for" plays in the background.
hahahaha good point! I really liked that you stuck in U2's song. :D
I think i do have the BBC editions! i will listen to them again to refresh my memory. :)
Reply
And yes, I do realize that saying Frolijah looks like a girl is a bit of a value judgment on my part and everyone else's mileage does vary. But I do know that in sentimentalist novels the weaker-willed characters tended to get blue eyes (they were also portrayed very sympathetically... they just tended not to be proactive characters). The feisty ones usually had dark eyes that flashed with ire!
I just want to see how much of this is actually indicative of a wider trend in fiction and how much of it is my own personal biases. There is (or was, at least) a lot of fic out there that reduces Frodo's power of agency to almost nothing. I never read that kind of fic, but other better tales end up being guilty by association in my mind.
Movies do work better with suspense, but you have to give the audience credit for having a brain (did anyone really think for a moment that the Quest was doomed because Frodo no longer had the Ring at Cirith Ungol?). You also have to see what the relative cost of a suspense-inducing change is. Clever editing like the featherbed attack at the Prancing Pony added suspense, but didn't really take anything away. Having Frodo enter the caves alone drove a rift in one of the greatest friendships in all literature, and you really can't argue that what happened (and I'm sorry, Frodo's noises of fright really do sound like whimpers in that scene) in the films is much more suspenseful than Frodo and Sam flipping out about the giant spider together. Frodo running ahead recklessly, Sam seeing the sword glow and hiding the light, seeing Shelob coming and just about to warn him but then getting attacked by Gollum... how is that unsuspenseful? Trying to make the audience think that orcs had the Ring when Sam had it was not worth taking away Sam's Best Monologue, which Sean Astin could have pulled off beautifully (and if they had done a score to that... ahhh...)
Anyway, I do realize I'm more preaching to the choir on this one. I understand the justifications of the filmmakers but I don't think that they hold water in a number of these cases.
I've had that U2 song stuck in my head for days now... but for some reason it really does seem to fit pre-LotR movie!Aragorn in my mind.
Reply
I do love the BBC radio adaptation! The music alone is marvelous-- Bilbo's Last Song? Oh my!
Reply
At the same time, Jackson was smart enough 1). to get enough money to make all three films at the start, and 2). to film all three at the same time, thus reducing the chances of having to change actors halfway through. So much of the crack that exists in Bakshi can be blamed on running out of budget... though in that case I think it would have been much better if they had never released the darn thing.
I guess it all depends on if you'd rather blame the bad stuff on deliberate "I think this change is better than the original"ness or pure and utter sloppiness (and a tendency to milk giant cows). I mean... Pippin's hair changes color for one scene!! *mind boggles*
What's really interesting is when PJ steals screenshots from Bakshi. That whole "let's hang out under the tree roots" shot was never in the books (Frodo lies down flat in a ditch by himself).
Reply
Of course, part of it was budget; Bakshi had a running feud with the company that bankrolled it, and was disgusted with it by the end. But both he and the company knew before the film's release they would not be carrying on, but decided to keep mum about it... (that's the story as I've learned it second hand in later years). All I know is that I came out of the theater feeling royally ripped-off and ready to spit nails!
PJ *was* smart enough to get funding and the green light for the whole story! Which is what I mean by "follow through". He had no intentions of just making part of it if he couldn't make the whole!
I know that shot is not book-verse, but I do like it a lot, the four of them cowering together like that! I can't verify it, but I've heard both of them "borrowed" it from one of the Tolkien artists. I suppose if it was Lee or Howe, I'd remember for sure...Bros. Hildebrandt maybe? But not in the calendars-- I had all the Hildebrandt calendars...
Reply
That sounds incredibly likely (indeed, the only reasonable explanation I can think of). So does your reaction! Thank God that now we have the internet to let audiences know, immediately, whenever someone tries to pull a fast one like that!
I heard that the shot went Bakshi --> Naismith --> Jackson. I did see a website about it but I honestly don't remember it. There's some other really interesting documentation of screenshots borrowed from Naismith; I'll have to see if I can find it.
Reply
Reply
I kinda like them cowering too...shows them that they're in this together. :)
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment