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W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

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Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#81

Post by [deleted] »

TillE wrote: post #78
maxFlow wrote: post #30

Currently listening to the LOTR audiobooks narrated by Andy Serkis. Highly recommended. His characters are heavily influenced by Peter Jackson's movies; it put me off a bit at first, but I've really come to like it now.

The Serkis ones are good, but I really love the old Rob Inglis versions. Someone described them as the closest thing to Tolkien himself reading the books. Surprisingly I think some of his voices (eg, Gandalf) do match the vibe of the films better; even his Gollum isn't too far off.

[deleted]

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#82

Post by [deleted] »

andrewstuart wrote: post #10

It saddens me that the Lord of The Rings was commercialised. It was one of the happiest parts of life - to be able to read the books and venture into that world. It's been spoiled for me by the ridiculous movies like The Hobbit (holy god, Peter Jackson turned Dwarves into ridiculous comedy clowns, covered Radagast with birdshit) , the endless licensed garbage and whilst The Lord of The Rings movie was quite good it h…

[deleted]

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#83

Post by Turing_Machine »

zabzonk wrote: post #63
ggm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was CS Lewis

Shouldn't think so as Lewis and Tolkein were very close friends. But I suppose close friends can say things like that.

Also, Lewis wasn't exactly averse to fairy tales.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#84

Post by bombcar »

jdshaffer wrote: post #27

Tom Shippey, a very well known and respected Tolkien scholar gave a talk about the book vs the Peter Jackson movies. It also ended up in an edited version in one of his books (I cannot remember if it was "Tolkien: Author of the Century" or "The Road to Middle Earth".) In short, he argues that Jackson actually did the best he could to present the book in a format that movie studios would accept, and even then was able…

Jackson's LotR is probably about as good as you could get mass-market movies made at the time; the Hobbit, of course, was about as bad as you could get at the time (likely if it had been compressed back down to one or at most two movies, it might be salvageable: so much so that various competing "cuts" now exist, search "hobbit cut").

More and more I come to realize that the things we argued about so much at the time are actually pretty good; especially removing Bombadil - because there's no way that would have worked correctly. The elves barely worked some of the time; Bombadil would have failed utterly.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#85

Post by astrange »

slibhb wrote: post #37
stevenwoo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m old and tried re-reading it recently and the low number of female characters and voices is really jarring now. YMMV. There’s so much I haven’t yet read I just moved on.

[flagged]

Not a very close reading there!

Frodo lives with his committed bachelor uncle who's famous for collecting outfits, he goes on a journey with his male best friend, they actually kiss 4-5 times (on the hand and forehead), they move in together at the end and Frodo never marries or has children.

…And the narration calls Bilbo and Frodo "queer" several times and goes on about them comforting each other in their sleep in Mordor. (Yes that word meant the same thing it does now, and yes he knew what it meant.)

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#86

Post by ycombinete »

andrewstuart wrote: post #10

It saddens me that the Lord of The Rings was commercialised. It was one of the happiest parts of life - to be able to read the books and venture into that world. It's been spoiled for me by the ridiculous movies like The Hobbit (holy god, Peter Jackson turned Dwarves into ridiculous comedy clowns, covered Radagast with birdshit) , the endless licensed garbage and whilst The Lord of The Rings movie was quite good it h…

What was hacked for you in the LotR movies? The only egregious hacking I noticed in the movies was the character assassination of Faramir.

I must disagree on Harry Potter. All the moves after Columbus stopped directing them were bad. From angry-American Dumbledore, to Fiennes’s bizzare Voldemort, to Hermione being bolstered at the expense of Ron.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#87

Post by wolverine876 »

zabzonk wrote: post #63
ggm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was CS Lewis

Shouldn't think so as Lewis and Tolkein were very close friends. But I suppose close friends can say things like that.

IIRC, the comment was supposed to have been made at a meeting of the Inklings, who were friends.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#88

Post by bombcar »

colanderman wrote: post #59
retrac wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At one point it was supposed to be a single movie. It could have deviated completely from the books, it could have been super cheaply made. The problem, if you will, with a great but imperfect work of art is that no one else will attempt the same work again. Because it has already been done and it's hard to top a smashing success. If it had been a bad LotR movie, one would be able to hope, probably reasonably, that…

The first movie adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was quite good, nonetheless they're already working on a 3rd.

Which is interesting because the first one was quite different from the book, the second one tried to stay closer, and both have their points.

I think a remake of the LotR will happen some day, but not for quite awhile (a re-animation of the CG may happen first) - mainly because it was already filmed in high-def and on "modern" equipment.

If it does get made again, it's likely to be in a TV mini-series format, perhaps less on sets and more on dialogue/acting.

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#89

Post by ComputerGuru »

Wow. So this is what an actual book review by someone that knows how to actually write looks like. Yes, Tolkien is a literary mastermind, but set that aside for a minute: I feel lucky to have read the review itself.

If modern book reviews in mainstream media were still written this well, I think more people would read books!

Re: W. H. Auden’s 1954 review of The Fellowship of the Ring

#90

Post by bombcar »

mikepurvis wrote: post #44
hogepiyo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the original Lord of the Rings trilogy would really be filmable as a 1:1 book to film adaptation. As a book fan I think Peter Jackson did a pretty good job with it in general; the behind the scenes footage really shows that they did care about the source material. Fellowship particularly I would still say is great, Two Towers and ROTK have some moments that are either downright ridiculous or against the…

As a potential heir to the stewardship, Christopher Tolkien was very much alive at the time the movies were being made and was famously opposed to a lot of the artistic choices being made.

Rowling apparently maintained some artistic control on her movies, whereas Tolkien had sold the rights entirely, so Christopher didn't have much of a say beyond complaining.

I think the thing that really "solved" it for me was realizing that the vast majority of the people who watch LotR will never read the book, let alone the Silmarillion. And those who DO decide to read those after seeing the movie - the movie won't destroy it for them.

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