Jackson got it right on the Scouring

[Nurvingiel]

Not that we're counting right? When RotK is a month or so away, I'm going to start an hourly countdown. I'll start it when I buy my advance tickets. Scouring or no Scouring, I'm excited.

[druss]

i love hobbits and as such really want to see the scouring of the shire..it shows how far hobbits have come and also how far they have grown up. it is an integral part of the books. however after seeing TTT i was very dubious as to how ROTK would end, so much more to come. PJ should have given the book a quartilogy this would have shown how encompassing the books were and appeased tolkien fans with bombadil, a decent faramir(my biggest bug bear) and a chance to develop the characters as the book portrays.. FOR GODS SAKE if HP is going to go to umpteen films why not give LOTR a decent outing?????

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Coney

Why do I feel RotK ending will be akin to the medal giving ceremony at the end of Star Wars?....only the ending will be Aragorns coronation....with the fellowship standing in front of Aragorns throne, grinning like a set of baboons.

Wow - good prediction, made in early 2003. I just stumbled upon it here.

[The Gaffer]

Nicely dredged. Spooky stuff. I wonder how many other doomsayers got it right?

* waits for someone else to look them up coz is too lazy to do so himself *

[bropous]

Originally, I loved the LotR films, especially Feloowship. However, as the films progressed, the needless additions and subtractions to the original work really took the gild off the lily for me.

Jackson would have done far better to keep to the original story. He could have left some things out, but his unnecessary (and, one might say, blasphemous) additions/alterations to the original source material ended up taking away from what could have been a truly representative depiction of the greatest work of literature of the twentieth century.

Nowe that I have seen the film treatment of CS Lewis' tome, I am even more disappointed that his drinking buddy's greater work was treated so shabbily by a filmmaker. Had the folks who had done LWW treated the book the same way in the current blockbuster, the part of Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan as adults and finding their way back to the "Real World" would have been excluded, and the film would have simply ended after their coronation at Caer Paravel.

With the benefit of hindsight, and a year or two under the belt to think on it, I'd have to give a final opinion of failure on the part of Peter Jackson and Pippa Boyens. The elimination of the Scouring of the Shire and the death of Saruman at Bag End was a great mistake and another unnecessary alteration of the original story. Aside from the really good depiction of the Uruk-Hai and some of the other visual representations, the films absolutely failed, in my humble and semi-literate opinion.

Again, the only true benefit of the films was that they may have spurred a few more people to actually read LotR, but I truly wish that Jackson had never gotten his hands on the rights to make the films, and that some true lover of the books had been the one to present the story on the Big Screen.

[Jon S.]

So sorry you feel this way.

The movies are "based on" the books. They're not "the books."

But even the books are, in a sense, just one writing of the historical reality (the Red Book of Westmarch derivation). I believe Tolkien would have loved the movies because he, himself, believed in the retelling and evolution of myth.

There are some things I'd have done differently from Jackson (one quick example: the Mouth of Sauron scene).

But there are many more places where I understand, and dig, what he changed and why.

I count my blessings every day that it was Jackson, and not Disney or the like, who got to make the movies.

[Nurvingiel]

The movies could have been worse, a lot worse, but I don't think Tolkien would have liked these movies. I don't think he would have liked Bakshi's movie either. This is IMO of course.

I do think he would have like the music in Jackson's music though.

However, the removal of the Scouring is not the worst change in the movie. In some ways, it works. I think I would have put it in myself, but I prefer Jackson's movie Scouring-less.

[BeardofPants]

Good god, has the penny not dropped for you people yet? The music SUCKS more than a gigantic hoovering monster. I will freely admit that I did a small snoopy dance of joy when I found out that Howard Freaking Shore was fired from King Kong. *jiggles*

[olsonm]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Good god, has the penny not dropped for you people yet? The music SUCKS more than a gigantic hoovering monster.

The music sucks!?!? What are you deaf or something!?!.....Oh wait you are deaf, I forgot. Sorry. The Scouring would be very difficult to fit into any movie version.

[CrazySquirrel]

The Scouring as such would be a totally foreign element in the film.

How do you think PJ would change it?

He would make the four hobbits kill lots of ruffians + trolls + dragons + elephants in the Shire all on their own .

He would make Frodo lead the battle, wielding sword and riding a white horse.
Also I pretty well see the scene how Frodo kills Saruman in a swordfight.

No, thanks. I am so happy the Scouring was not despoiled by movie-makers as all the rest of the book.

As for the music... just average, IMO, not that bad, not that good.

[Nurvingiel]

I liked the music, it was good epic-sweeping movie music. Not the kind of classical music I normally listen to, but I don't want a movie distracting me from Dvorak's New World Symphony.

You seem to have a serious hate on for Howard Shore though. Don't forget Boppy, that music is subjective! One person's crap is another person's anthem.


edited because apparently i cant spell