Frodo Does Lothlorien: what LOTR thankfully never was!

[eric_hinkle]

I thought I'd read it all when I read about Walt Disney's attempts at doing an animated adaptation of LOTR, with input from Professor Tolkien AFTER the script was done. (The response of that gently-born, soft-spoken Oxford don was essentially, "Not on your bloody life!")

But then I read this. John Boorman's planned adaptation of Lord of the Rings

Comments

[tuftears]

Hide me from the horribleness! :(

[eric_hinkle]

Yeah, this would have been vile, wouldn't it?

[tuftears]

Tolkein would be spinning in his grave! They'd be able to construct a necroturbine with him.

[eric_hinkle]

Kinda reminds me of something that someone said when the Astro Boy movie came out and we learned what the plot was: "And Osamu 'Spinning' Tezuka hits 3200 rpm."

[chipuni]

He did the right thing: shift his ideas to a framework that wasn't with a living author.

[eric_hinkle]

Now that gave me an idea for a Zombie Apocalypse!

All the world's dead authors rise from their far-flung graves and descend upon Hollywood to eat the brains of the writers, producers, and directors who ruined their books. Of course, this being Hollywood we're talking about, the zombies starve to death and thereby humanity is saved.

[tuftears]

You misspelled 'humanity is doomed'!

[eric_hinkle]

You're right; if humanity is saved, then it realy isn't a zombie apocalypse then, is it? ;)

[jairus_greywolf]

I didn't care much for Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy but this would have been on the order of Peter Griffin's version of "The King and I".

[eric_hinkle]

Even if Jackson's version wasn't the best possible, it's the best we'll see for a long time.

But yes, it was infinitely better than this version would have been.

Though maybe one day we can hope for a filmed version of the Silmarillion that includes the werewolves and wargs like Carcaroth and Draugluin.

[jairus_greywolf]

Peter Jackson's version was OK for those who never read the trilogy.

A filmed version of The Silmarillon would be great if it's done right. Let's just hope that Boorman stays away from it!

[eric_hinkle]

Well, I did read the trilogy and I still like the movies. The scenery and armor and aushc were all very beautiful, and I think that the critters were well done.

And a sorta-Silmarillion related question: I've found art of Carcaroth and Draugluin on DA if you'd want to see it.

And I may as well ask this now, do you have any art of your own characters up anywhere like on an FA or DA accounts?

[mauser]

Did you ever read the essay by the original screenwriter for the adaptation of Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters". He was sorry he ever broached the idea of doing an adaptation after they were done with it.

http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/rossio.html

[eric_hinkle]

After reading that, I'm left to wonder how Hollywood films ever get made in the first place.

And I "loved" this line:

So Engelberg talked Ricardo into belatedly reading Heinlein's novel. Word eventually came back that we had "stayed too close to the book," which Ricardo in fact didn't like, but it did have "a germ of an idea that was good."

My partner Ted pointed out the irony: "So even though we 'stayed too close to the book' we somehow managed to cleverly exclude the one single 'germ of an idea' that Ricardo liked."

[polaris93]

Alexander King, a commercial artist, tells a story in one of his books about painting a beautiful scene of beautifully gowned women and formally dressed men on the dance floor of a cruise liner, sipping cocktails and making small talk and all the rest of it. The painting was for an ad agency that was promoting the cruise line. King turned it in to the editor, who "hmmmmed" and "errred" and made other noises, then said to King, "It's just perfect. Now, what I want you to do is turn these people" -- meaning the ones in the scene King had painted, who numbered in the dozens -- "and turn them all to the left. Can you do that?" King was hard put not to wrap the painting around the idiot's neck. He stomped off with the painting and went home and brooded over the stupidity of editors. But a friend of his, another commercial artist who was more experienced, told him, "Alec, what you should have done is painted a great big hairy ape arm in place of that lady's right there" -- pointing to the delicate, slim white arm of one of the ladies

[eric_hinkle]

OT, but I wonder if that ever happened to furry artists with commissioned work?

Would you mnd if I made a post about it tomorrow, quoting what you've written here?

[polaris93]

The screenplay takes liberties with the book, which would have upset Tolkien purists. Perhaps the most provocative change occurs in Lothlorien where, before gazing into Galadriel's mirror, Frodo must become intimate with her (this does not cause friction with husband Celeborn because he is not featured.)

I'm not sure whether the writer of those lines is clueless, soulless, or both, but both seems likeliest. Thank God Jackson finally settled the wrangling over how to film it once and forever with his magnificent version of LOTR! (Which, however, whoever wrote the linked article probably hates.)

[eric_hinkle]

Clueless, soulless, or just brainless?

[polaris93]

Okay, I'll add "brainless" to the list, too. It fits. That, and "some combination thereof." -- Gad, I just went back and reread the changes from Tolkien's LOTR you describe above. They're even more appalling than they seemed the first time around. How can anybody be that -- that witless?! I read a description once of the time Harlan Ellison blew up at a producer who was going to produce a Star Trek episode for which he wanted Ellison as the writer. Ellison got so (understandbly) angry at what the idiot wanted that he said something rude and stomped out (I'm editing heavily here, but you get the idea). I can certainly understand why.

[headnoises]

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison

The Rod himself, it seems.