12-23-2003, 09:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-23-2003, 10:05 AM by Prophet Hero.)
Quote:Originally posted by TheMarine
Then again, I feel that the director's intentions was to keep it as an adaptation, and that his concerns were more on faithfully reconstructing the book rather than make a good film.
I don't know about that. Tom Bombadil was cut as were the (tedious) Elven songs and, of course, the structure of The Two Towers film is different from the book. Watch the extras on the Extended Edition if you haven't already - I think Peter Jackson made some good choices to translate the story into the medium of film.
What it boils down to is: can you sit down to Peter Jackson's efforts and enjoy them as films? Forget the books. Forget what should or shouldn't be there. Did the story make sense? Did you want to keep watching?
As an example: I've watched the first Harry Potter film, but haven't read any of the books. What did I think? I thought it was excruciatingly dull. A plodding affair with no directorial invention and at best middling special effects.
Take The Phantom Menace as another example. Forget what you know about Star Wars and Darth Vader. Pretend you're approaching this universe for the first time. Is it a good film? I don't think so. You can argue - as I have done - that it does set everything up nicely for the later episodes, but of course my mind is already tainted by having already seen those later episodes. I've done my best to distance myself from the original three films, but all I'm waiting for is the black mask and pink lightsabre. Actually scratch that. I'm almost ashamed to say that I'm not really that bothered about Episode III. I'll see it, but...
The last rumour I heard was that Peter Jackson was interested in The Hobbit. However, if it were to happen it wouldn't appear until King Kong was finished.