Adam Cadre has an entertaining account on watching the LotR movies as someone who has neither read the books nor picked up the content via cultural osmosis.
The movies were horrid distortions of the ethical center of the books. I hate how many people now think that the movies are even close to representing the books. In several ways the movies reverse the books: the focus on battles, the unscoured Shire, Eowyn’s pursuit of glory in the battlefield, the mercy on Gollum being treated as stupidity—the moviemakers utterly failed at representing almost every single moral point.
Adam Cadre has an entertaining account on watching the LotR movies as someone who has neither read the books nor picked up the content via cultural osmosis.
And here was my response to his comments.
The movies were horrid distortions of the ethical center of the books. I hate how many people now think that the movies are even close to representing the books. In several ways the movies reverse the books: the focus on battles, the unscoured Shire, Eowyn’s pursuit of glory in the battlefield, the mercy on Gollum being treated as stupidity—the moviemakers utterly failed at representing almost every single moral point.
Heh. The films made a lot more sense to me in the extended DVD editions—as in, the plots are vaguely comprehensible with four hours each to use.