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The LOTR movies are drawn out and meandering
- Thread starter Deleted member 21339
- Start date
Where is this pent up hate for the LotR trilogy coming from after all these years?
This is the second thread I've seen on the topic recently.
And you know how crazy of a task it was to make such long and detail oriented books into films that had a decent runtime but also satisfied all the major occurrences in the novels?
PJ is a hero in my opinion and I will always have a special place in my heart for those films.
I used to despise Fellowship because of how long it takes to get exciting but that film is literally my favorite of the three for the very same reasons I used to hate it.
This is the second thread I've seen on the topic recently.
Okay this got me
And you know how crazy of a task it was to make such long and detail oriented books into films that had a decent runtime but also satisfied all the major occurrences in the novels?
PJ is a hero in my opinion and I will always have a special place in my heart for those films.
I used to despise Fellowship because of how long it takes to get exciting but that film is literally my favorite of the three for the very same reasons I used to hate it.
Because they're widely loved, which makes some people want to register their disagreement in very strong terms.
Whatcha talking about. Half the Star Wars fandom hates Star Wars.
I don't really mean the fandoms. The mainstream popularity of Star Wars and LOTR utterly dwarfs the number of people who are actively engaged in fandom-related activities or discussion. The phenomenon you mention of people in fandoms eventually souring on what they initially liked but still talking about is definitely real, though.
No, he did not. This is where you are missing the point. Sam is a great character, and his bravery is amazing but Frodo is bearing the corruption of the One Ring the entire time, that is not a burden Sam had to share and that is the key fundamental difference.
Disagree. Best trilogy ever. That doesn't mean there aren't some slow parts that bore me a little on rewatches, but in general these movies are still excellent.
FotR > RotK > TTT
FotR > RotK > TTT
The movies strike a nice balance of being true to the source material, while also being more streamlined from a pacing perspective. You'd hate the books for sure, which are easily considered most seminal fantasy series of all-time.
You are missing out, in the sense they get more actiony in the ones you didn't see, so maybe you would have liked them.
Meandering? But that's the whole point! People are too caught up in the epic fantasy bull spread by video games. Fantasy as a literary movement has always, and should always be about the journey. The sense of escapism that captures you not because of its grand world, its huge battles, or its macho macho protagonist, but because of the little things. The journey is set in this huge world, yes, but the journey is so that the heroes can become part of that world, not already exist within it as these huge presences. And that's what the Trilogy as a film does a spectacular job on doing, showing the world in small doses through the eyes of the heroes, until that one final climax comes along. You are blaming the medium for doing its fucking job, but I can't blame you if didn't go into liking LoTR in the first place without understanding its role in literature or what it started.
https://youtu.be/E5_xb522jEo
Best god damn music in the series.
https://youtu.be/E5_xb522jEo
Best god damn music in the series.
It is pretty awesome, they just went too far with it. The way they make him look a hundred elves would be all anyone needs to take down Mordor entirely. It was nice little touches in Fellowship with the troll and the snow, awesome moments in Two Towers with the shield surfing and drinking scene (whereas his jumping into the horse behind Gimli in the warg riders scene just looked awkward and unnatural) and then... then they start taking it to ridiculous heights in Return. The Mumakil scene was fantastic, I grant you, but it really stretches believability.
Then we get to the Hobbit films and he's jumping on heads bobbing in the water and riding around on a giant bat and running up rock in that hilariously bad CGI scene and whatever - and it's gotten to the point that Legolas Moments are a meme-worthy thing to laugh at. In the Hobbit it seems like they needed to pad out the time so Legolas shows up, especially at moments when things are dragging. And what do we do with him? We'll do with him what we did in the LOTR trilogy - except more of it, lots more. Every second scene of his he should be doing something awesome and improbable!
And now you're at the point that you're starting to hate seeing him on the screen and he's more of a meme than a character to you now.
I watch them every year, but even I have to be in the right mindset for them. I can't just randomly start them, I would lose focus I believe.
The only thing that started bothering me more and more over the years is what many people already complained about from the start, the ghost army feels out of place. I didn't think about it that way when the movies were fresh but now after many rewatches, everytime that part comes on I feel like the tension slowly fades away. It feels like there might be another ghost army somewhere hidden in that world and they are easily capable of completely eradicating saurons entire army if motivated the right way. Doesn't sit well with me anymore.
Still love all 3 movies tho, never seen the hobbit trilogy.
The only thing that started bothering me more and more over the years is what many people already complained about from the start, the ghost army feels out of place. I didn't think about it that way when the movies were fresh but now after many rewatches, everytime that part comes on I feel like the tension slowly fades away. It feels like there might be another ghost army somewhere hidden in that world and they are easily capable of completely eradicating saurons entire army if motivated the right way. Doesn't sit well with me anymore.
Still love all 3 movies tho, never seen the hobbit trilogy.
I only recently watched LOTR as a whole. At the end of the day, a lot of the stuff that seems filler-ish ends up being important, so I didn't mind too much, but it can get a bit too much to absorb at the same time (and I even watched the extended cuts). There's a couple part that probably should have been shorter though, including the whole stuff with the trees and some of the first movie, but overall I didn't mind too much.
A lot of you guys never saw this in the cinema and are only recently watching it at home.
I can see how one would not quite see how incredible and majestic it is if you watch it at home, half interest. But it's a masterwork of film making that is best watching on the big screen. Technically almost perfect. Production, from the visuals down to the absolutely incredible sound and score. God the sound is just perfect.
A perfect cast. Amazing vibe. Just an amazing adventure. It's pretty much a perfect movie.
Perhaps the dissatisfaction is a kinda post GOT lashback from people who never would've appreciated it anyway. GOT is a different thing.
I can see how one would not quite see how incredible and majestic it is if you watch it at home, half interest. But it's a masterwork of film making that is best watching on the big screen. Technically almost perfect. Production, from the visuals down to the absolutely incredible sound and score. God the sound is just perfect.
A perfect cast. Amazing vibe. Just an amazing adventure. It's pretty much a perfect movie.
Perhaps the dissatisfaction is a kinda post GOT lashback from people who never would've appreciated it anyway. GOT is a different thing.
Quite possibly yeh, but the first one totally put me off with it's very slow pace and overload of environment shots.
I love the build up in Fellowship, the shire, getting to Rivendell, its amazing.
Also, just the making of these films is a masterwork, theres nothing else like em.
OP, have you ever watched a TV series before? Compared to say, Game of Thrones, LOTR is quite condensed and punchy. I mean, ten hours is just one season of GOT.
The movie trilogy is as good as I could hope for such a mass market product. The later parts of the trilogy made more mistakes imo. I certainly appreciate LOTR trilogy more than the new SW movies or the prequel trilogy. The hobbit movies went completely in the wrong direction, and there was very little to like about them. LOTR trilogy was maybe 90% good, Hobbit was maybe 30%. Of course Hobbit as a book is nowhere the same level as LOTR. I think some of the more humorous meme stuff and overdone action scenes don't fit the otherwise more grounded tone of Tolkien's books. Luckily there's also plenty of content in the trilogy that still adheres to the somber and serious tone of the books, and the fantastical elements aren't always overblown. Even though Tolkien's works progenated a lot of high fantasy cliches, the books themselves treated these elements with quite a bit of restraint. The movies have stood the test of time quite well.
Not having the Mouth of Sauron in the TC for ROTK is straight up scandalous. I mean, the actual design was a bit weak imo but that scene changes the motivation behind the final stand of the free peoples. Without it, they believe Frodo to be alive and they're trying to buy him time to complete the mission. With it and you see the Mithril shirt and the peoples are led to believe that he's dead, which makes it that much more special when they just say "you know what, we're all dead now anyways so fuck it" and hits you so much harder when Aragorn, looking wet around the eyes, says "For Frodo". It also adds more context as to why Merry and Pippin are balls out gung ho as fuck when they sprint out before Legolas, Gimli and even Gandalf.
I think the only line that gets me is Gimli's in TT EE where he says his axe is embedded in a dwarf's "nervous system". Who discovered the nervous system in Middle Earth? That kind of thing doesn't bother me usually but just came off as weird.
I feel like we're going to see threads like this all over the place when the Netflix Witcher series hits.
"Where are the big monster battles from the game? Why is 90% of the show Geralt walking around talking politics?"
Its also why I'm scared of the Wheel of Time adaptation. Channeling is the only fantasy bit shown for a good while, if they try to focus test it to hell and back its basically gonna devolve into The Weaboo Mystical Asian Middle Ages Power Hour, and destroy everything the series is good for.
im just responding to the arguments you keep laying out. not my fault you keep jumping around.Why did you just change the topic and bring Fox News into it and attributed a statement to me that I never made? This is exactly why I think LOTR fans are weird.
you are correct, surprised it took you so long... actually given your LOTR opinion, i stand by my original assertion.
