Movies and Books

[pocimop]

Reading some of the posts regarding Going Postal and how the movie doesnt match up to the book? Movies will NEVER match peoples expections to ANY book they have read. We all have different ideas as to what should be in the movie version and how things should look and feel. A director and screenplay writer will always have to edit parts of any book for such reasons as length and budget. Even if a movie was totally faithful to a book you will still get some people saying it should have looked this way or a character should have been played that way....my way of thinking is that if Terry Pratchett was happy with how it turned out bearing in mind he had a lot of input then thats good enough for me. Lets just be happy the books are getting made and we get to enjoy a few hours of escapism on the screen even if it isnt quite how we would like to see it.

"You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not please all of the people all of the time."

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I haven't really seen any of the Discworld movies except for the animated Channel 4 serialisation of Wyrd Sisters and I only saw the 1st episode. It didn't 'feel' right?

For the Sky treatments I've passed on them so far - partly because I really don't do TV at all anymore (except for some soaps that I'm addicted to - and Dr. Who of course ) and this is in part to do with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I couldn't not see those movies and the 1st one was almost visually perfect aside from a few changes that didn't interfere with the storyline too much... and some of the casting was dodgy in minor ways - Merry & Pippin not being 'posh' enough and Viggo Mortenson being far too young and good-looking for Aragorn. What blew me away with all 3 films though were the locations which were largely spot on and had me in tears at the final sequence of the 1st film (where Frodo was looking over the Dead Marshes into Mordor). The aberrations in 2 & 3 were less forgiveable, especially the final ending in the Shire. Overall I loved them and I'm glad I didn't boycott them altogether like one of my sisters 8)

In a nutshell nothing can be right on the button in a 'from the book' movie as you don't get the depth and I suppose it's more down to how well you can visualise the imagery from the words. With CGI so good now I think it's possibly a dying art, but the human mind is a very strange place and CGI is all to do with creating from the imagination so maybe I'm being over prejudiced. With Discworld being as well 'realised' as Tolkien's worlds I've been very reluctant to watch the Sky films on a casting basis although the glimpses I've seen aren't bad but seem to lack some spark on the atmospheric front? On the other hand I've been looking forward to seeing how The Hobbit turned out with Jackson producing and scripting along with Fran Walsh and Guillermo del Toro who was supposed to be directing but is now apparently off the wish list due to contractual problems and 'other directorial commitments' - in other words he's getting paid for those...

... maybe that's what it is? The eternal struggle for domination in the global clicks industry between the Guilds of Alchemists and Merchants

 

[ShadowNinjaCat]

I heard a while back that they where going to make a movie of 'The Hobbit',and when they do change some things,I hope they keep Bard in the story(he was my favourite.)

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

They're doing two films of it - Bard HAS to be in it as he's the one who kills Smaug!

The reason for the second film is so they can include some unfleshed out action involving Gandalf and Elrond which wasn't in the actual book. This is the part that really has the lore geeks excited because instead of Gandalf dropping out of sight before Bilbo and the dwarves go into Mirkwood they'll follow Gandalf to the south of the great forest for the big showdown with the Necromancer (really Sauron) which is where Saruman began his first treachery and sold the Elves and Gandalf - and Radagast the Brown I hope - down the river.

From a lore PoV this is daring stuff because Tolkien was a devil for not defining exciting events when he could be dabbling with the Elven or Dwarfish languages so the screen-writers will potentially have a field day with a mostly magic-based battle to enhance as this military action involves all the big-hitter wizards, the Dark Lord himself and High Elves too (Galadriel and Celeborn have a real grudge match in there) and not just Saruman going bad, but also some of the nastier Nazgul geting their hands dirty.

And of course Peter Jackson loves battle action so of course this makes it tastier for him too. I think/hope that Del Toro will be lured back to direct - he's still writing the screenplay so he really wants to do this. The reason he's stepped down is down to 'contractual' reasons and I suspect these will suddenly disappear once some more financial support is wheedled out of someone somewhere. Jackson has similar excuses on the directorial side too which is why I think some posturing is going as he could easily direct the film if he wanted too...

 

[Tiffany]

The only film I have ever seen that actually did stick faithfully to the book, though they did make it in a shorter time scale, book was over 10 years, film over 3 years, was... The Belstone Fox.

 

[ShadowNinjaCat]

...Bard HAS to be in it as he's the one who kills Smaug! ...

*slaps self* Well I hope they don't change his character much

 

[pocimop]

Jan....this is in part to do with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I couldn't not see those movies and the 1st one was almost visually perfect aside from a few changes that didn't interfere with the storyline too much...

Apart from the fact they entirely missed out Tom Bombadil who also appeared later in the books. Even in the last movie they again changed the ending where they killed off Saruman before he became Sharkey in The Taming of the Shire.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Tom Bombadil isn't really that necessary to the plotline of the Fellowship - the whole point of that section is for Frodo to have a vision of Gandalf escaping Orthanc which is in the book for the purpose of showing how the Ring has already made a bond with both Frodo and with Gandalf whilst they examined the ring back in Bag End - also to get us used to the idea of Huorns and Ents in some measure.

Because PJ filmed the Orthanc sequence in 'real' time, there wasn't much point in rehashing for the Old Forest and Barrow Downs sections, nor where Gandalf divulges his imprisonment to the Council of Elrond so, from a screenplay PoV with the more crucial Orthanc scene already dealt with, the rest of it was superfluous as the book version didn't add anything to the visual storyline (and less dramatic too... ). If you hadn't read the book you wouldn't have missed anything of main storyline and the Barrowdowns ditto, although that might have been more to do with certification issues as it's pretty intense for a PG13 audience.

The biggest boo-boo in Fellowship is an objection based on lore in that Arwen could not have been sent out to keep the Nazgul off Aragorn's back was that she could not have fought them - that needed a powerful Valinor Elf and Glorfindel in the book had opposed and driven off all nine Nazgul during the wars in Angmar, including the Witchking (who wounded Frodo) - her father would never have her sent out when he had others far more qualified. However that was a budget decision as that's Glorfindel's only appearance and I suppose having paid a bomb for Liv Tyler to star they needed to have her in there a little more often to justify her fees....

I very much agree that omission of the Scouring of the Shire was the greatest sin against lore and PJ knew it. I think this is why he's producing The Hobbit so he's not backed into a corner and forced to cut essential storyline material purely so there's a happy little ending which in fact completely eviscerates the contribution all the Hobbits have made to the war in the southlands. It was really astonishing to see that missed out, especially as they DID show elements of it in the 1st film in the Mirror of Galadriel section (that Sam would have seen if they'd included Sean Astin in the scene - it was just Cate Blanchett and Elijah Woods ). They did film it of course but had to chop somewhere and somehow opted to cut there - I would gladly have had the Pellennor Fields cut for 5 or 10 mins (all the bits with Legolas fighting the mumakil when he was nowhere near them - not even an Elf can move that fast! ) or cut the frankly stupid scene with Frodo in Osgiliath as that would have taken at least 4 days out of his proper journey . Then they would have had plenty of time to fit the Scouring in - no wonder Christopher Lee was livid over his big death scene as Saruman being chopped!

And so many other irrational and ludicrous boobs littering the 2nd and 3rd films, but the tone was there mostly and it was a delight to see how they handled the locations and some of the casting was inspired. I mentioned Viggo looking too young but he worked really hard on the fighting aspects especially so all in all he pulled it off remarkably well especially seeing as how he'd never read the book before being called for audition - personally I'd have swapped him and Sean Bean around but that's not a fully reasoned decision!