tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post1830754202026124463..comments2024-03-17T11:05:22.464+00:00Comments on The Life And Opinions of Andrew Rilstone: Downfall MemeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-89056506372695411222019-09-17T09:17:27.492+01:002019-09-17T09:17:27.492+01:00You have a curious belief that admirers of a book ...You have a curious belief that admirers of a book automatically want to see it made into a movie. I don't. If I like the book, I'm content with reading and re-reading the book. It doesn't occur to me to think, "Wow, what a great movie this would make." Though I watch some movies, I'm not a big fan of movies as an art form. My mind doesn't go that way.<br /><br />That's totally apart from the fact that, whenever they do make a book I loved into a movie, I don't like the movie. Usually that's because it's a lousy adaptation, even if it's not also lousy as a movie. But even if the adaptation isn't lousy, it clashes with my own ideas, and that's an uncomfortable experience to have, consequently I don't like it.DBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-53399504310868748842019-08-29T07:39:47.478+01:002019-08-29T07:39:47.478+01:00Attacking the Hobbit movies is fine, obviously, bu...Attacking the Hobbit movies is fine, obviously, but the computer game? That's going too far.Matthewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-57524703505431423792019-08-28T10:13:55.312+01:002019-08-28T10:13:55.312+01:00Mind you, one reason that Jackson's Minas Tiri...Mind you, one reason that Jackson's Minas Tirith, Hobbiton, Rivendell et al are mostly acceptable is that Alan Lee and John Howe had been drawing them for decades already. Sure, it might have been better if Jackson had found an entirely new look; in this case, I think he understood that his ambition exceeded his reach and it made sense to talk to (and use) the closest we have to experts.<br /><br />(I don't disagree that a long tv series might have been better; I do think the paradox is that it's only because of the films that a long tv series is at all viable.)Scurrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15182486408258989295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-8318079397158103382019-08-28T07:35:08.788+01:002019-08-28T07:35:08.788+01:00The word barbecue was a native Carib word. The pir...The word barbecue was a native Carib word. The pirates of Tortuga would cook strips of boucan — wild boar — over wooden frames. That’s how the became known as boucanier — bucanneers. There is a modern novel which suggests that Silve actually got the nick name barbecues because of what he used to do to his enemies....Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-20218525782633284392019-08-28T01:46:56.722+01:002019-08-28T01:46:56.722+01:00Amazon have to make a Lord of the Rings TV series,...<i>Amazon have to make a Lord of the Rings TV series, and I will have to watch it. </i><br /><br />Oh, I sympathise. It's like The Television Programme That Currently Bears The Title '<i>Doctor Who</i>'. I mean what am I going to do, not watch it?<br /><br />I have not seen <i>The Hobbit</i>. They conned me into watching one long boring tedious fantasy trilogy with too many endings; they weren't going to get me again. Though I do wonder if sometime one of my friends might lend me the disks, together with a list of the exact timecodes of all the scenes Sylvester McCoy is in (as a character who is not in <i>the Hobbit</i>).SKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09102522819364312684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-89530424665380763122019-08-28T00:49:43.617+01:002019-08-28T00:49:43.617+01:00As a matter of fact, I was not really at all inter...As a matter of fact, I was not really at all interested in the LotR movies when I first heard they were making them. Then at the cinema to see something else, I saw a trailer for an unnamed film that showed three small boats gliding between two gigantic statues and I was immediately moved. That was the moment that made me want to see the film. Cinematic, as you say, but more than that: the film (and even that clip out of context) conveyed the weight of years and glory of a long past. They're not just big statues — they <i>mean</i> something, and the film nails that.<br /><br />"The last homely house" is indeed the phrase that defined my mental image of Rivendell, in so far as I had one. It's pretty weak sauce. Perhaps had I read LotR before the Hobbot, much of the damage would have been avoided. Still, however you slice it, I don't at all see how you can call Jackson's Rivendell "wrong". Wrong how?<br /><br />I now have to see that pirate-defining movie. (I've read the book but not seen the film. I was struck by how different Silver was from what I expected, and particularly put out that for much of the book everyone calls him "barcebue".)Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-27072701745819136472019-08-28T00:04:44.629+01:002019-08-28T00:04:44.629+01:00The Argonath is an interesting one: Tolkien says s...The Argonath is an interesting one: Tolkien says something like "giants they were", but doesn't really convey any sense of their size. Jackson shows them and conveys their awesomeness; so something which is a quite a small incident in the book becomes a great set-piece. But Jackson makes no attempt to convey the idea that at that moment, for the first time, "Strider" looks like a King: he just leaves everyone gawping at the big statues. I think its a case where he's justifiably and successfully replaced a literary effect with a cinematic effect. <br /><br />Minas Tirith is very good creation of what's in the books. Rivendell is, in my opinion, just wrong; although I think Jackson deals as well as could have been expected with a problem in the book -- Rivendell is still "the last Homely House" from the Hobbit; back when Elves said "daffy down dilly the valley is silly" rather than "a elberethh gilthoniel."<br /><br />Pretty much our whole image of pirates comes from Robert Newton's Long John Silver in the Disney Treasure Island movie. No-one goes "arrr" in the Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn movies; and Silver doesn't have any of those mannerisms in the book. (Karloff's Frankenstien would be the other obvious example.) <br /><br /><br />What is a pirate's favorite letter of the alphabet? <br /><br />Most people think it's "R", but actually they're all about the "C". Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-29824584756215589032019-08-27T23:15:34.758+01:002019-08-27T23:15:34.758+01:00I can't deny that it's a thing.
I didn...I can't deny that it's a thing.<br /><br />I didn't know that about pirates: what actor in what film?<br /><br />My approach to all this is a bit different from yours in that I approached the Jackson films as a not particularly keen Tolkien fan, and it was really his films that made me go back to and appreciate the books. I'd read LotR a couple of times, but (to pick on example) I'd never been particularly moved by the Argonath. Jackson's film changed that, and started me on the path of grasping the depth and richness of the fictional history that stood behind them.<br /><br />So, yes, his Rivendell is different from what I'd imagined — but I'm not ashamed to admit that it's much <i>better</i> than what I'd imagined. And that goes double for Minas Tirith. For all the very real missteps in his films, Jackson opened up the emotional weight of the underlying text for me, and that makes much more ready than you are to forgive him the films' failures — and their successes.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-43619460367483883662019-08-27T23:06:01.232+01:002019-08-27T23:06:01.232+01:00I don't know if it is "damage" exact...I don't know if it is "damage" exactly, but it is true that I can't visualize them in any other way. So that's changed how I read the books. So if someone does a good job in "making up" additional history of Numenor it will be very hard not to think of that as the "real" history of Numenor, which will change Middle-earth. Which isn't damage exactly. But it is a change. <br /><br />One actor playing one pirate in one film made an "arrr" sound to represent a Weskuntry accent, and from then on the only thing anyone knows about pirates is that they go "arrr". Not a bad thing, but certainly a thing. Andrew Rilstonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05786623930392936889noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9987513.post-67551712531961074082019-08-27T23:00:32.320+01:002019-08-27T23:00:32.320+01:00I was horrified by the threat of a Lord of the Rin...I was horrified by the threat of a Lord of the Rings TV series.<br /><br />But I am curious, and even mildly optimistic, about the prospect of a Second Age series.<br /><br />I don't share your sense that any damage is done by Jackson's superb realisations of Rivendell and Minas Tirith, and I am not completely sure that you do either.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.com