This past Thanksgiving, to prepare for the upcoming release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I picked up the Lord of the Rings: Extended Editions blu ray set. I really loved the Lord of the Rings films and was excited to revisit them in on their glory!
I can’t explain to you what happened, because these movies are awful. They’re terrible. I can’t outright prove that these three movies caused all of the cancer in the three years they were released, but it can’t NOT be proved, either. Here’s a bunch of reasons why Peter Jackson ruined everything and also probably caused Superstorm Sandy!
Disagree? I’m @joestarr187. Let’s yell at each other! But also, you’re wrong and I’m a writer on the internet!
Crappy slo-mo shots!
I’m sure slo-mo shots looked fantastic in PJ’s wannabe Sam Raimi zombie films, but there’s really no place for them in a billion dollar epic franchise based on the king of all fantasy books. But there are a thousand of them anyway: In Fellowship, almost every shot of Orcs doing stuff in Saruman’s forges looked like Ash would be swinging in yelling ‘GROOVY’ while chainsaw arming people to death. I’m amazed no one got raped by a tree.
Maybe if Peter Jackson hadn’t been so worried about his beard looking nice against his piles of money he would have spared us all the B movie overkill cheese, because by the time Haldir slo-mo died I almost fast-mo died.
Justifications, please!
In Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, we’re just told things, and never really told why. It’s something that is in the book, so it needs to get marked off of the checklist. If you haven’t read the books, the vague justifications seem like lazy and nonsensical writing. Of course, lazy writing is to be expected from Peter Hackson.
In Fellowship, Elrond tells us that ‘the time of the elves is over’ and that they’re ‘leaving these shores.’
Ok.
Erm… Why? And if they’re leaving, why do they keep sticking around to do things? It makes no sense.
Why not just have Elrond remind Gandalf that the elves have been defending Middle Earth for centuries and are being ordered to evacuate. It’s more or less faithful to the books, as the elves had been encouraging everyone to get on the ships and get the hell out for ages and it’s a better reason than ‘they just are.’
And why does Gimli want to go to Moira? That place is clearly terrible and it seems like he’s the only guy that doesn’t know it. It’s like that one buddy who hasn’t been to a Pizza Hut since 1995 and always wants to go to Pizza Hut and doesn’t know that they fell into shadow sometime in 2001. Is Gimli an idiot? He keeps talking about going to Moira and Gandalf just rolls his eyes with intense fear at the idea and Saruman the Narrator tells us it’s full of crazy looking demons but Gimli keeps right on rambling about his cousin Balin and dwarf buffets.
Just let Gandalf explain why he doesn’t want to go: no one’s heard from Balin’s colony and they might be dead and you need to deal with that and Gimli can ach and laddie and bad date and I’d rather watch that scene than Cahadras, the most worthless ten minutes of any film ever made (and I’m including every youtube video ever uploaded).
Who are all those men fighting for Sauron? We’re never told. They’re just wicked, which with the robes and the elephants just ends up being uncomfortable code for ‘brown people.’
No more original songs!
There are a million songs in Lord of the Rings. If you cut all of the songs out of Lord of the Rings books, they’re shorter than The Hunger Games.
So why Fellowship ended with a song written by Enya is a mystery so unsolvable that Robert Stack should be telling you about it.
Explain why LOTR is terrible? I can’t deal with that right now! #Transformersjoke
You really have to have Enya? Fine. Just have her open to a random page of the book and plink out some Pure Moods with a rain stick and some synthesized chimes. Just use the lyrics that are already there.
Tolkien is a better writer than you!
Thanks to Eater Jackson, Lord of the Rings is not a good example of an adaption that improves the movie. His version of Aragorn and Arwen’s story is a great example.
Aragorn is ‘one of them Rangers’ and he loves Arwen and he is supposed to be the king. What’s a Ranger? Why isn’t he King? Why hasn’t he just gone ahead and married Arwen?
Apparently in the book these explanations are super complicated, so they had to be changed. So Pete, why isn’t he the king? Well, he’s full of fear and self doubt! The most muddled and lame justification in movie history! Yay!
The problem with Aragorn being full of doubt and weakness is that throughout the next 3 days worth of movie, nothing Aragorn does remotely suggest that he’s afraid, weak, or unsure of himself. He is a total bad ass that sets the Witch King on fire at Weathertop. Gandalf couldn’t even do that, and he’s Magneto. And that guy in Da Vinci Code. Remember when that was a thing that mattered?
The explanations in the book? NOT COMPLICATED. Elrond won’t let him marry Arwen until he’s defeated Sauron and claimed the throne of Gondor. He’s a classic movie dad making the guy that loves his daughter prove himself.
One does not simply walk into Diane Court.
Oh and Sauron destroyed Arnor, his homeland. This gives Aragorn real stakes. How cool would him trusting Frodo to go to Mordor alone with his love life and revenge at stake have been? A lot better than ‘I swore to protect you! Remember earlier when we said you’d have all our weapons?’
The adaptation also tried to make Arwen a cool bad ass chick. They started out well enough with her showing up in the woods to save Frodo, but her storyline quickly devolves into a bunch of terrible nonsense about her leaving Rivendell but coming back six times and then almost dying for some reason and who cares. She’s a Bella Swan that sits and cries and then gets married.
Let the book do the work for you. In the book, Aragorn rides around being awesome with a group of rangers and Elrond’s sons. Later, Elrond’s sons deliver all of Aragorn’s king gear to him in Rohan. Just make the brothers Arwen!
Toss a scene after the Council in Rivendell of Aragorn and Gandalf ordering the Rangers, led by a likeable Phil Coulson character, to spread out and take warnings about Sauron throughout Middle Earth. Arwen tries to go and Elrond won’t let her because parents just don’t understand. And then instead of a random group of elves showing up at Helm’s Deep, Phil Coulson can show up with Rangers and we’ll like him even more.
With Arwen ACTIVELY refusing to give up on Middle Earth instead of just dreamily saying she won’t, Elrond eventually realizes that his daughter is awesome and deserves some support, and has the sword reforged and gives it to her to take to Aragorn herself. This also givens Arwen and Elrond a logical, satisfying story arc instead of collection of random shots of them lounging in an Instagram filter.
Which brings us to the worst part of Jackson’s adaptation: the Paths of the Dead. AKA, Aragorn shows up with a ghost army and saves the day, making the sacrifice of everyone that died defending Gondor completely pointless because there are no stakes when an unbeatable ghost army gets involved. It’s why I hated The King’s Speech.
Arwen shows up with the sword in Rohan with some rangers. She says ‘hey, me and Phil Coulson gathered all the Ranger companies and the militias on the coast because remember you told us to do that in the first movie but there’s a Corsair fleet penning them in. Here’s your sword. Here’s the banner of the King. Let’s get these ghosts to get our army free.’ That’s more or less what happens in the book.
How cool of a moment could we have had in the movie if the black fleet had shown up at Gondor, and then flown the banner of the King? And then Aragorn and a shitload of Rangers and his hot wife and a dwarf and Orlando Bloom charge out of the boats, inspiring everyone to fight harder and get excited about The Return of the King? Because in the movie I’m not sure anyone knew he was back until they put a crown on his head.
Instead we followed up that fantastic charge of Rohan with a big ghost fart. It was like dumping a Jar Jar scene into the middle of Empire. “I love you.” “I know.” “MEESA LOVES AN APPLE! OHHHBIDAISIES, ANI!”
Less Oscar Moments, Please.
Peter Jackson has two settings: Frodo and Sam Are Crying and Frodo Is Dying While Sam Cries. He’s about as subtle as an episode of ‘The New Normal.’ Do Hobbits breathe with tears? These fuckers cry and hug for two entire movies. Sam’s ‘I can carry you!’ moment is supposed to be the beautiful, emotional heroic moment of the film, but at that point we just want these assholes to quit crying and get up the damn mountain.
Take out 94% of the shots of Frodo and Sam gacking up eye butter and you’ve got an extra hour for Rangers and Paths of the Dead and probably some Tom Bombadil because people seemed really pissed off he was cut.
There you have it. You now know that Lord of the Rings was crappy and now your life has completely changed from reading this article.
Is there hope for The Hobbit?
I’d like to stroll into the theatre without a care in the world, ready to enjoy Martin Freeman take his rightful place as one of the world’s biggest movie stars. But more than likely, I’ll be hoping the eagles save me 20 minutes into the movie.
At least people will finally get what the hell those eagles were all about.