Well, maveric, everyone is allwoed to have their opinion. Just don't call everyone a fanboy and avoid the word overrated and you'll do just fine.

Though, personally, I'm glad the 2 movie thing (or one for that matter) never happened. In fact, the reason the film ended up at New Line at not through Miramax (aka Disney) was because they balked at the idea of a trilogy of 3 hour films. They wanted two (or even better one big long one!) which, by all means, would've been a massive disservice to the story being told. What made these so great was we got a fully fleshed out, massive epic story that was realized on a massive budget, and was good throughout. It was like a miniseries done at top quality level, something I can safely say has never been done, at least not that long. Star Wars in total is what, 6 hours overall? Not even half as long. I mean, can anyone name a 12 hour cohesive story-film that accomplishes so much on every level, both story character action special effects spectacle.

But, much like Kill Bill, there are those who'd rather it be just some 2 and a half hour movie. But then there are many of us who just cannot wait for the 4 hour 10 minute extended edition. There's so much rich story, honestly I do get the sense that many of those who find the films too long, also probably would find any 4 hour film too long. I never understood it, but some people feel that anything over 2 and a half hours is just too long, regardless of what the story is. Not that that's you guy, but I've noticed in Hollywood (and definately years ago right around when Dances with Wolves came out) that long movies were looked down upon. Which, honestly, Kevin Costner deserves some credit, and Dances really gave some street cred to long movies. Even Jim Cameron gives Costner props for the success of that film which paved the way, nonetheless I recall critics who would critisize anything that was long just cause like long equaled too much. Fortunately, that's not longer the mindset.

Nonetheless, I'm rambling. I'm going to set my beer down and try to remember what my point was.

These films really can't be compared to The Godfather. The Godfather book is a pulp novel that was elevated into art by the film. You don't need to read the Godfather to really understand it. Lord of the Rings, however, is nearly 1000 pages (depending on the edition) with 100 pages, or so, of appendices that further illuminate the story plus the Silmarillion, which is like an Elvish Old Testament. Tolkien had histories he had worked at for 50 years. Nearly anything anyone could possibly want to know (except, inexplicibly, whether or not Elves have pointy ears and if Balrogs have wings) is available. Or if you don't want to know, then you don't have to.

It's like baseball. You don't have to know Babe Ruth's batting average, but if you are inclined to, it makes the game that much more fun.

As far as the length, that is kind of the purpose. Tolkien wrote it because he wanted to try his hand at creating a really long epic story. Those of us that do, love it precisely because it is so long and epic. There is such depth and richness that one can emerse completely into it. Life is a long struggle towards an end. Lord of the Rings is kind of like life. We start off as children in our little world and then finally go out and make our way in the world. Tolkien's Hobbits had for 1000s of years kept to themselves and did little more than navel gaze. Then a few were given their opportunity to make a difference and through their own abilities and strengths, managed to change the world. We all have that potential in us.

You know who the best character is? It's Sam. He's not the smartest, he's not the strongest, he's not the tallest or most handsome, but what he does is just plug away. When he picks Frodo up to carry him up the last few steps of the mountain, as cheesy as the moment is, it makes me want to cry. He is what I aspire to be. I want to be the kind of friend that Sam is. What wouldn't we give to have a friend like Sam?

Now, as rich as the book is, a film can only be an approximation. Tolkien means so much to so many people that Peter Jackson tried to invoke it as much as he could within the limits of the medium. Could it have been sheared down a bit? Perhaps. But Jackson had so much respect for it that he tried to bring as much of the experience of the book as possible. To the unintiated, he put in too much; to the fans, he couldn't bring in enough. He made a reasonably successful stab at it, too. He put it in the context of a big bloated action movie, but there's still enough Tolkien in there for those with open minds to enjoy, especially in the extended editions.

I wouldn't have them any other way.

^^^
What he said.

Jack: once again I have to agree with you. Costner did do a lot for the return of the three hour epic.

You also have to give PJ even more credit for making LOTR as a trilogy of three hour plus movies. Heck, IMO it's a miracle he got FOTR to be released the way it was in theaters.
"Okay people, we have invested $300 million in a trilogy, the first of which will be a low-action, character driven, 3-hour fantasy movie at the end of which the bad guys will more or less have won."
At the time of its release, many studios would have scoffed at such an idea, so kudos to New Line for allowing it to go that way.

To clarify, the fanboy term was directed at those engaged in personal attacks rather than constructive discussion of the topic. I think most would agree that someone who attacks another just for believing something is not the "best of all time" is somewhat of a fanboy. There were only a handful of individuals that this applied.

Also, I don't think the term overrated is improper when used in the context of "best of all time." In this thread "overrated" is synonymous with "best of all time."

Again, I think LOTR is good, but not the best of all time. Is that such a crime?

No crime in that. Could you clarify why you think they aren't the best of all time? I'm just curious, because the only criticism I've heard is that they are too long. Is that the only thing keeping them from moving up in your book? Would they have been better played out as a 12-hour mini-series?

Around these parts, yes.

caligulathegod = god

I would say the editing is my primary concern. I do understand the argument about the adaption remaining true for all the books and I appreciate the insightful comments on this matter.

However, I believe that a movie should stand on it's own. To attain the title of "best of all time" I feel that this should be well satisfied. I also believe that a movie should be digestable in one sitting without having to take a dinner break.

I still say no, but it is rapidly climbing the charts

"Best of all time" is a pointless thing to discuss anyway. It's more appropriate for people to say that LOTR is their all time favorite movie series.

Movies are entirely subjective, one person's trash is anothers treasure. Trying to say something is the best movie ever simply involves arguing that ones opinion is more valid than everyone elses, which is totally pointless.

I think the OP needs to be more specific; overrated, best of all time, etc are terms that only start flamewars and not good discussions.

There was a rank the trilogies thread awhile ago

trilogies

So what do you mean by "stand on its own?"

To answer for him with the standard definition of this:

That it isn't catered only to fans of the book and/or requires reading the source material to fully enjoy the films.

It's come up several times in LOTR threads. I don't think it's valid, as I know a ton of people that have never read the books and love the movies. If it didnt stand on it's own, most people who hadn't read the books wouldn't like the movies.

I don't think that's at all valid either, but I'll wait to see what he says. I also thought he could mean that they should be self-contained, not relying on the next or previous to support its narrative.

To those raised on Spielberg and Lucas and Mtv, it looks and smells like an action movie so when it changes from that into more Tolkien-esque pacing(such as the supposed multiple endings), then it's easy to get bored. But, perhaps the films just aren't for you. That's no big deal. No one says you must like it. People tend to be more sensitive to pans because people in forums don't typically say, "I really don't care for fantasy or LOTR." They usually troll, "LOTR sucks, Star Wars teh 0wNz3rz!!11" It's been 3 years now and we've all pretty much had enough of people with nothing better to do than start threads telling us something we love is "overrated". While people do say they don't like other movies without incident, there usually aren't dozens of threads about those movies on how much they suck or we're stupid for liking them. Even if this thread didn't quite do that, it's still picking a scab that really didn't need picking. It is impossible to have a discussion on LOTR (or Star Wars, for that matter) without someone chiming in how much the films suck. There's really already a lot of threads about LOTR that could have been posted in or revived if you really needed to tell us you don't care for them. No offence, but we already know people don't like them. We're OK with it. "Overrated" is just a very charged word. As has been said, it implies that the speaker is correct and everyone else is wrong when the subject is completely subjective. A sports star can be "overrated" because he may get a lot of publicity with mediocre stats to back it up. A film can not be "overrated". There is no objective standard for judging the quality of a film. Just because a lot of people like a film and you don't doesn't mean the film is overrated. It just means you don't like the film.

Welcome to the boards, you seem reasonably intellegent, but a new thread using a poll containing such a charged word as "overrated" on a person's second ever post is really kind of obnoxious, considering the history of this particular film in this forum (and even your first post managed to insult the films while discussing something completely unrelated). You even admitted you joined the forum specifically to get a reaction from the "fanboys". Don't be shocked if you get one.

I hope enjoy the forum. Just be careful about what could be construed as "trolling".

I really find that hard to believe considering you started out your thread with this in the first post. Meaning you had no one to direct it to. You just made a blanket statement against everyone who enjoyed the film or at the very least didn't think it was overrated.

I think most will agree that making a blanket stupid statement and then not supporting it with any real examples other then "I fell asleep" while also only responding to those who agree with his standpoint is a "troll". There was only one person this applied to.....

As the poster above me stated..
You got a reaction for your bold blanket statement. Don't act so surpirsed.


Now, you finally quoted someone and actually expanded on why you disliked it

So lets compare for a minute with the other trilogy you loved. Empire Strikes back stands alone just as much as the LOTR films do. It leaves you with a cliffhanger. You can't say that everything was resolved and in many parts it added a lot more questions. Now if you were around for the theater release of empire and had to wait a couple years to get those answers, I'm sure you would also say that Star Wars is not the best ever because not all the parts stand on their own. It's a fuck'n trilogy. They are suppose to lean on each other to some degree. Back to the future as well. You can't tell me that you can watch the second or third part of the trilogy by themselves and never watch the next.

So the argument that it doesn't stand alone is silly.

Yes, this is exactly what I meant by "stand on it's own." Well said Mr. Hinkle.

Let's say they didn't bother to defend Minas Tirith. Let's run with the logic here.


Orcs enter city.

Orcs kill people, subjugate the city, and use some people for slaves.


Little late for the ghosts to show up - imagine how many more people would die (and probably a lot of innocents).


Withstanding the enemy is the point of the defender.

There's a good Sun Tzu quote about the advantage of defenders, but I can't find it. Something to do with, the defender just has to survive to win, the attacker must crush the defender to win.

This is really the only point I address the so-called fanboys. Clearly it is aimed only at those posts with "venom." If your post wasn't vicious, then you weren't addressed.

Either way, there's no attack here levied at the fanboys. I only clarified that I wasn't bashing LOTR.

Blah blah blah, water and wind and fire and earth all suck. They all bow down to the power of HEART!



Seriously though, I am another guy who is not a huge fans of the LOTR trilogy. I enjoyed watching them in the theaters, it was a great experience, but I just didn't care all that much about the films. The acting was top notch, the visuals were just wonderful, and I really liked how the film was shot.

I suppose I just didn't care for the editing, and so many extended scenes that felt like they went on forever, for no reason really. I know many loved the pace of all of the films, but there were times when I just stopped caring about what was going on.

I really love the extended DVD sets though. I really love to see how different films came to be and am a huge sucker for making ofs and behind the scenes material, so yeah...the DVDs are great.

I just didn't think much of the films overall. Yes they were great, but I just didn't personally enjoy them anywhere near as much as so many other people did. I was FOR the films winning the awards for visuals and that type of thing, but I was against them all for winning best picture.

From where I sit, far better films were released than Return of the King, or any of the films in the trilogy.

When compared to other trilogys, I'd rather watch Back To the Future, Star Wars, Godfather, Indiana Jones, and on and on over the LOTR films. Doesn't mean they aren't good movies though, because they are, it just means that I don't personally love them. There are plenty of films that I'd place over the LOTR trilogy.

There, is that a more reasonable explanation?

^^^Seriously, what the fuck kind of power is heart?

I would then have to disagree with that statement then. Just because YOU didn't enjoy it. I dont think you would have enjoyed regardless of having prior knowledge of the books. The poll shows 73% enjoyed the film. I'm positive that all 112 votes so far in favor if it being a good film haven't all read the book.

That shows that these films stood on their own. That it present enough knowledge that you did not need to have read the book to enjoy it. But for those who did, it offered a little more insight to it. Not only that, but there was also the Extended Editions out there for those who read the book and wanted some more.

Your defense that it was edited wrong doesn't have a leg to stand on because they did edit it well. The pacing is there for the first to films. While the last movie may have seemed oddly paced at the end, that is how it was written. That doesn't make it bad. It just makes it so that it was a direct translation. I'm sure when the EE comes out for ROTK you will see that the pacing is there or it is not as teasing as it may have seemed.

But all three films stand on their own. You don't need any reading of the books to understand the situation, the characters or the events that happen in it. If you do have that knowledge, then it is just a benefit. But without, it's still perfectly fine to view and it shows that many agree.

^^^Exactly. If the problem is that you don't think the films stood on their own, then please elaborate. You come in and make blanket statements but never back them up or explain what you mean.

Well, I think you're really wrong about that. The universal appeal of the LOTR movies has been nothing short of extraordinary, I think. If this was just some workman-like adaptation of a popular book designed just to appeal to fans, sure it might have made a little cash, but do you really think it would have made almost $3 Billion worldwide and garnered a total of 17 Academy Awards? If you total just the gross of Return of the King in non-English speaking countries, it's still several hundred million dollars! It's just plain wrong, and borderline insanity, to say that the LOTR movies can't stand on their own without the books and that it only caters to fans.

maveric I gotta say.........you're making more contradictions than........well, say, a new member.

I know where you're "trying" to come from but you keep changing your prefrences because it seems like (well, screw that - IT IS LIKE other members are making you re-think your opinion) - that's what I'm getting from your replies so it may just be me but [supersmall font]I highly fucking doubt it[/supersmall font].