Tell Me Why You Liked The LOTR Movies

The only character in the whole trilogy that rang false for me was Celeborn, that slo-mo spaced out sillybilly.   

Yeah, I never did get that ? why the ssslllooooow mooooo ?? Did it add anything ? NO, Suspense ? NO, were the actors waiting for the auto cue to be set up ? YES !   

I hate the whole dream style to the Lothlorien section.   

I dont think there should be much issue with Elijah, it seem obvious to me- he was too young, the script for the character was too altered from the character of the book, the dialogue wasn't good enough for the most part and all you need to do is go listen to Ian Holm playing Frodo in the BBC radio adaptation to appreciate the difference and what might have been had Frodo been written properly and given to an actor of more years and greater depth, which Elijah lacked through youthfulness (he would probably make a much better Frodo now).

"I disagree"

You cant disagree he is too young, he is demonstrably too young, Tolkien gives us Frodo's age.
Even accounting for him being a hobbit he is approaching middle aged when he sets off in the book. Elijah was what 18?

"nope it wasnt altered much"

Well we shall have to disagree it seems over the mountain of evidence presented so far that the film character is fundamentally different from book Frodo.

You earlier accused people of not giving any facts to prove their case- I have yet to even hear what your case is let alone any facts which support your claim the character of Frodo remains the same book to film.

"boring"

If you think that then its as boring as the book given how closely it follows Tolkien. I never did find the book boring. Nor the radio play.

"Elijah was perfect and had great depth"

He was perfect there wouldn't to be people complaining about his performance.
And I would be amazed that anyone can listen to Ian Holm's performance and Frodo and say Elijah is perfect, not with a straight face anyway. Holm was as good a Frodo as he later was a Bilbo.


"he looks wrong now"

If he has put on a little bit of weight round the middle and he is nearer the right age now, and more experienced as an actor, I dont see why he wouldnt do it better.  

  Elijah was perfect in every way

  

 

Elijah = Mary Poppins.

Anyway, that's a statement, not an argument. For me, Wood lacked in every conceivable way, though not all or even most of the blame is his.

Julie Andrews is a much better actor than Elijah Wood.

In every way

You could say she is practically perfect.

she is and so is Elijah in every possible way with raindrops and kittens.

Elijah's Frodo is not one of my favorite things...

I found Elijah Wood annoying before I read the book, doubly so afterwards-nothing against the bloke or his acting I just don't like him for no real reason.   

I feel the same way about Richard Armitage (Ah! it's such a relief to post that on a forum where I won't get swamped by fangirls/50 year old tolkien 'fans' defending his hair...you can guess which forum I refer to) just can't accept him in the role.

malickfan wrote:I found Elijah Wood annoying before I read the book, doubly so afterwards-nothing against the bloke or his acting I just don't like him for no real reason.   

I feel the same way about Richard Armitage (Ah! it's such a relief to post that on a forum where I won't get swamped by fangirls/50 year old tolkien 'fans' defending his hair...you can guess which forum I refer to) just can't accept him in the role.

I think it's because it's hard to look at Rob Zombie and think king of the dwarves.

As for Elijah Wood, I don't mind him anywhere else. I was impressed by him as a youngster in the 1990 movie Avalon.

I found Elijah Wood tolerable in Deep Impact...though I haven't seen it in seven or eight years   Though I was grudgingly impressed by him in Sin City.

I maintain Ian Mcshane or (ironically) Billy Connoly would have been better Thorin as per book, and frankly probably more interesting to watch, that said Armitage does get some points for being a Tolkien nerd of sorts. Armitage can be a great actor...but he is a piss poor dwarvish king and a rather annoying mock hero.

Yes, he was effective in Sin City, playing way, WAY against type.

The Faculty is another watchable performance/movie.

I found nothing in Deep Impact to be tolerable.

Hopefully this won't derail the thread but I found this article from 2010:

Peter Jackson defends Richard Armitage's The Hobbit casting

Seriously, Peej, just shut the fuck up.

agreed about McShane he would have been better than Armitage, but he is not above wooden acting. Have you seen The Dark is Rising? they ruined a brilliant book and Mcshane helped them do it.

Elijah comes in for some beating, doesn't he.

I agree with some of what Figg said. Though his performance certainly had it's faults.

I think it's important however to seperate ones criticism of the script and of Elijahs performance. One certainly shouldn't labour him with the failures of Jackson, Boyens and Walsh.

Welll, at least it would be deeply unfair to do so.  

Most of the problems with these films are a by-product of Walsh, Boyens, and Jackson.

Exactly.   

Mrs Figg wrote:she is and so is Elijah in every possible way with raindrops and kittens.

well, before mrs. figg started trolling, i thought we were having an interesting discussion. here are my thoughts:

1. as to the question of whether frodo is brave or cowardly in the scene at the end of FOTR when he leaves knowing that his friends are in danger.

first, we have to look at what's happening from peter jackson's perspective. of all the changes that were made, of all the changes the needed to be made, could have been made, etc, when adapting the books into movies, the most obvious change that had to be made, in my opinion, is taking the beginning of the TT and moving it to the climax of FOTR. i haven't heard many complaints about that change, so i assume most people see the wisdom in it.

once that change is made, however, it causes some other changes. you need to end your move with a big climax, which means action scene. so i totally get why you have frodo telling aragorn he's leaving just before the orcs get there. it sets up the big finale. so frodo does make the decision to leave on his own before the orcs arrive, but only by a few seconds.

then we get this scene where merry and pippin see frodo and realize he's leaving, just as the orcs arrive. frodo now must make the choice between staying to fight with his friends or continuing the journey on his own. some of you have said this makes frodo cowardly. others that it makes him brave. in fact, i think it does neither. because in fact, there really is no choice there.

there is one overriding priority that is more important than anything else: do not let the enemy get the ring. frodo absolutely must run. if he were to stay to help his friends, then he would have been captured too, and the ring would belong to the enemy. he must run. it's not brave of him to run, nor is it cowardly. he has to run, frodo knows it, pippin and merry know it. the whole fellowship knows it. to do anything else there would have been stupid. so i do not believe this is a scene that reflects poorly on frodo. you can say it reflects poorly on jackson, because he's changed the narrative so that frodo must runaway when his friends are in danger, but i honestly don't have a problem with that.

i actually think that if frodo's character hadn't been changed in all the other ways that were mentioned up above, then this wouldn't have been a big deal. everyone would have said, hey, that was a necessary change to properly structure the three movies. but because of all the other examples of frodo's inaction in the face of danger, this one became yet another example of it.

2. my real problem with that scene is that the action is so poorly choreographed. aragorn charges into a wall of orcs. every time the scene cuts away from him, he's about to be overwhelmed. then it cuts back to him, and he's retreated a bit so that he couldn't be surrounded. there's even one point where he's on the ground and surrounded. cut away, and when it cuts back he's back on his feet somehow. it's so awful. those couple of shots from overhead, when we see the mass of orcs about to surround him, and yet somehow they don't manage to, thanks to the magic of editing. would it have been so hard to stage this more realistically, where the orcs come charging in a few at a time??? it makes me cringe every time i watch this scene.

and how is it the entire army of orcs suddenly materialized right where frodo and aragorn happen to be without any other warning. what about legolas. in other scenes he can sense orcs from miles away. yet the party can be surprised by an entire force of orcs without legolas noticing and shouting a warning?

3. i find it really interesting that people can view the movies from such different vantage points. for many of us, we can't get over all the many many mistakes. we can't enjoy the good parts because of all the bad. but for others, they can acknowledge many of the problems, but they still chose to enjoy the movies overall. they aren't great movies, but they greatly enjoy them for the different reasons that have been mentioned. and then there are some parts that people just have completely opposite views on, as this thread has highlighted.