Viggo Mortensen tell it how it is about peter jackson and the used of cgi.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10826867/Viggo-Mortensen-interview-Peter-Jackson-sacrificed-subtlety-for-CGI.html#disqus_thread

Thanks Johnny, but its already under discussion on the 'in defence of TT thread' in the LotR's section.

All Mortensen was doing was repeating views he's been known to have for years, him being honest about his feelings towards the films is not big news to me, I agree with his views, but I don't get why some people are taking this news so seriously.

He's an actor, this was a job for him, like all jobs there might be crummy days and things we don't like, on TORn some people think he was insulting Jackson by being so open, I think by being honest about his feelings (the flaws he point out are recognised by many) he was paying a complement, Mortensen owes Jackson alot and certainly has proven he respects the films and crew (he has stated before how enjoyed working on the films, and remains proud of the impact and legacy) but he's earned the right to say what he wants (especially in a edited biased article) especially if he feels it was accurate.

Jackson does his own thing so I doubt he'd care anyway.

I hope this means Viggo Mortensein will not be appearing in part three as Aragorn.  

I'm pretty sure he's not. In fact, I think he said he wouldn't do it when PJ asked him if he would during pre-production

I had debated putting this in its own thread but decided against it. However, it's spawned more discussion than I thought it would (both here and on other forums I frequent), so I can't complain about it having its own thread. Here's the link to the other discussion for posterity, though.

http://www.hobbitmovieforum.com/t970p105-in-defense-of-the-two-towers-which-is-your-favorite#138819

Anyway, on the CGI topic (which we actually haven't discussed too much here yet), I'm not entirely sure I agree with Viggo. TTT and ROTK were definitely more effects-heavy than Fellowship, but that's largely a factor of the story opening up and become more martial and epic in nature. This is partly due to how the book unfolded, taking a really long time to set stuff up before shit hit the fan big time, and partly because PJ seized the opportunity to up the action ante more and more in the latter two films. Regardless, LOTR used a crazy amount of practical effects, especially miniatures. Way more than most productions would have, given how ubiquitous CGI was becoming. I do think that by the end of the trilogy, the freedom of CGI to make last-minute adjustments was eating away at PJ's better instincts as a filmmaker, but even taking that into consideration, LOTR is still a monumental achievement in SFX history, both practical and digital.

I was really disappointed when we first heard that The Hobbit would be foregoing practical effects almost entirely, and the finished product has not sold me on PJ's claim that these days CGI can do anything practical can do just as well if not better.

It comes down to want is presented - PJ's choice.

There is no massive fight between a line of charging Oliphanuts and the Rohirrim, Eowyn and Merry dont take down a Mumakil with a spear and a couple of sword swings in the book, but it takes a fair chunk of screen time.
Depending on your leanings the fact that its an exhilarating spectacle of cinema that is inventively shot and impressively realised will over right the sillier moments, or that it makes no sense and the fact you just lost the wedding of Eowyn and Faramir as well as a proper development of their relationship in the gardens as a consequence and Araiorn pitching his tent outside the city because he will not enter it or claim his title while the fate of ME is still in the balance. Or him displaying what sort of king he will be by allowing the men too scared to go on to the black gate to go back and defend the crossroads or to return home.


Do you pad out the first of half of TT with cgi extra inclusions like the warg attack and Aragorns falling off a cliff, or Legolas and Aragonrs fall out make up scenes just you can make the second half a big battle with big cgi shots that ends the film in the middle of the book of the same name?
And do you likewise pad out the second half of Frodo and Sam's story with invented material and an invented cgi Nazgul filled finale just to make it fit the film format you have artificially created?

Knowing you just lost all the development and dialogue of secondary Rohan characters like Gamling and you just lost Erkenbrand because there is no time for him either. And kiss goodbye to Merry's friendship with Theoden.

And kiss goodbye too to Sam passing through the Watchers with the phial of Galadriel and his temptation by the Ring.

Choices. PJ choose effects. I dont think to him the manner of delivery of the effect is as important as what he can do with them.
When he made LotR's he wanted it to be the pinnacle of the type of effects available- so he pushed the envelope on miniatures and he pushed the envelope in cgi effects with WETA.
Now he has fancy 3D super hires cameras, and with cgi tech and enough money he can realise just about anything he can think of and he is pushing the boundaries again with that- and he is even happier I reckon.
The way the effect is delivered does not seem sacred to him.

But the cost is character development, the subtly of allowing characters enough time to do more than just deliver their purpose in the plot before moving on to the next big effect scene.

It's funny that you should mention Frodo, Sam, and Gollum in TTT because I think they actually get a ton of character development in that film, most notably Gollum, but all three of them.  Yes, they sort of meander around a lot because intercutting ruined the chronology of their story, but because of that we actually got some interesting, relatively slow-paced, character-heavy scenes with that trio.  Of course, once things pick up for them in ROTK, it is all very condensed, but it cuts both ways.

No excuses for the Nazgul thing in Osgiliath though, that was bullshit.

Do you pad out the first of half of TT with cgi extra inclusions like the warg attack and Aragorns falling off a cliff, or Legolas and Aragonrs fall out make up scenes just you can make the second half a big battle with big cgi shots that ends the film in the middle of the book of the same name?

This is kind of an ironic complaint given how little of a shit Tolkien gave about the three volume division.

I reckon what we do get of Sam, Frodo, Gollum in terms of not just made up stuff but adapted from the book includes a few brief moments in the Taming of Smeagol section, a few brief moments before the gas bunsen burners Frodo falls in the marsh scene, the meeting with Faramir, the scene in the cave when he finds out about the ring (different but recognisable) an the parting scene save for his throttling of Gollum nonsense. Then the conversation in the woods about story.

Its probably about fifteen minutes all together. Stretched to fit the longer story line going on on the other side with Aragorn and co with their own invented character arcs.

Now you can argue some of the padding they added aids the character development in their own invented plot line- Gollum causing a split between Frodo and Sam needs an arc.
Sams speech at the end. OK I'm struggling for other examples now.

But they are not necessary at all except if you end the film after Helms Deep and you need to film a lot more time on the Frodo arc than the book has story for that time period.

Its one of the weirdest things to me about the choices they made. When trying to adapt and condense a difficult long book into three films they instead stretched huge parts of it and forced themselves to cram or ditch large other parts of it to do so.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Now you can argue some of the padding they added aids the character development in their own invented plot line- Gollum causing a split between Frodo and Sam needs an arc.

Stuff like this is why people will always give you shit about judging the films solely as adaptations and not as films in their own right.

Sams speech at the end. OK I'm struggling for other examples now.

Gollum's conversation with himself and "po-tay-toes" are both iconic within TTT. They're also both from the book, but the actors managed to completely own those scenes and make them shine on screen.

But they are not necessary at all except if you end the film after Helms Deep and you need to film a lot more time on the Frodo arc than the book has story for that time period.

Its one of the weirdest things to me about the choices they made. When trying to adapt and condense a difficult long book into three films they instead stretched huge parts of it and forced themselves to cram or ditch large other parts of it to do so.

I will agree that it's weird, but I think it's pretty easy to understand once you realize that PJ saw Aragorn as the main character of the trilogy (despite his publicly stating that Frodo was the main character). It is the narrative needs of Aragorn's story that drives and structures the films, especially in TTT. But yeah, it does make for some really weird decisions in terms of adaptations. I just don't think this always means that the result -- as a film -- was bad.

Guys don't fight   

I just don't think this always means that the result -- as a film -- was bad.- Eldo

Nor do I. There are plenty reasons for that based on poor structuring, hasty editing (warg scene springs to mind), plot points that dont make sense- why does Gandalf think Theoden would have stood a better chance either at Edoras or out in the feld against 10,000 thousand orcs rather in a massive fortification? Where did Eomer get 2000 men from? He didn't have 2000 men when Aragorn met him and then he was arrested.
How did Gandalf find him when Theoden states explicitly he will be 200 miles away by now?
Why didn't Treebeard know Saruman had chopped and burned thousands of the trees he was supposed to be top Shepherd of in his own wood? To name but a few.

But I would argue that whilst it might not always result in a bad film just not to follow the book, it does result in a bad adaptation, especially when the changes are not up to the standard of story telling or internal scrutiny of the original material they replace.

And if you have hoped your whole life that if it was ever made, it would be a good adaptation, its hard not be very crabbit in the end result.



Guys don't fight- RA

I hadnt realised we had started one!! Hold on I need to break this buckie bottle over something.    Ready!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

Guys don't fight- RA

I hadnt realised we had started one!! Hold on I need to break this buckie bottle over something.    Ready!

  

Don't worry RA, we've gone through this plenty of times before.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Nor do I. There are plenty reasons for that based on poor structuring, hasty editing (warg scene springs to mind), plot points that dont make sense ... To name but a few.

I've complained about all those things plenty of times too, and I can certainly understand why it's a deal-breaker for you. But I think that the positive elements of TTT (and the rest of the films) outweigh the flaws by a considerable margin.

But I would argue that whilst it might not always result in a bad film just not to follow the book, it does result in a bad adaptation, especially when the changes are not up to the standard of story telling or internal scrutiny of the original material they replace.

And if you have hoped your whole life that if it was ever made, it would be a good adaptation, its hard not be very crabbit in the end result.

I've never argued that LOTR was a good adaptation of the book, and I doubt I ever will. It can put me in the weird position of jumping in to defend the films from criticism of their cinematic qualities while pointing out their divergences, sometimes in the same thread. (This is more something that happens on non-Tolkien forums.) But I've insisted for years that a film can be a bad adaptation (bad defined here as unfaithful) while still being a good or great film.

For me it would have to be a good film on its own merits- not full of plot holes, inconsistencies, flawed logic and poorly defined characters outside of the main cast and most of them are reduced to a sort of 2d stereotype, Gimli in particular, even without reference to any book, is barely there for more than cheap laughs in TT.

The fact that it is all these things as well as a bad adaptation of the source material only compounds the matter.

I'm struggling with this (and I'm sorry, I don't want to derail this from the cgi topic). If a movie is an adaptation of a separate source material, shouldn't it be judged first and foremost on fidelity to that material? Shouldn't the goal of a film adaptation be to relate the themes/characters/events accurately in a visual medium?

If not, and the excuse is, "well, it just wouldn't work on screen/it's not what you'd do in screen-writing 101," then why make a movie out of it in the first place? If there's not enough faith in the source material, what other reason is there to adapt it other than money.

Well it's up to each viewer to decide how they want to judge a movie adaptation. The people who call the shots about what movies get made are obviously using their own metric. I'm not able to argue that "adaptations should always be faithful above all else" as a general rule, though, because I'm not able to bring myself to give a shit about whether a movie sticks to a book I've never even read. Not to mention that there are some books I have read that I think could be/have been improved by their adaptations.

I don't know. It's important to me for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. But I liked the Life of Pi movie, but never read the book.

I've read all the Harry Potter books AND thought the movies were acceptable adaptations.

It's important to me for LOTR, too, but my relationship with LOTR is unlike any other book I've ever read (even the inestimable HP), and probably any I ever will read, since a lot has changed since I was younger and because LOTR did a lot to shape my tastes in entertainment. But despite my best efforts, I was never able to spin my crabbitude over the LOTR films into a general theory of how film adaptations should be made. At least, not one I could stick to while being honest with myself.

I dont think there is a one fit all theory Eldo.
It comes down to what type of film seems best suited for the subject material.
My contention from the start is PJ should not have made blockbusters. And he did not to start with I dont think.

While there is plenty for me to be crabbit about in FotR, when I first saw it one impression I did not come away with was of having watched a run of the mill blockbuster.
I was feeling that by RotK.
FotR had plenty blockbuster elements, but there was world and character building, even where I think they got the characters terribly wrong and misunderstood the themes and did not care for the language, it did have clearly a more thought out script and steady pacing and a greater focus on characters and on how characters were reacting to the situations and places they found themselves in.
This gets less and less by RotK and spectacle gets greater and greater, and where the books provide no spectacle great enough PJ creates it at the expense of all the other stuff.

And by TH films I dont know what Bilbo thinks or feels about anything that has happened to him in the films, he is just there reacting and then moving on to the next thing.

bungobaggins wrote:I'm struggling with this (and I'm sorry, I don't want to derail this from the cgi topic). If a movie is an adaptation of a separate source material, shouldn't it be judged first and foremost on fidelity to that material? Shouldn't the goal of a film adaptation be to relate the themes/characters/events accurately in a visual medium?

If not, and the excuse is, "well, it just wouldn't work on screen/it's not what you'd do in screen-writing 101," then why make a movie out of it in the first place? If there's not enough faith in the source material, what other reason is there to adapt it other than money.

Those questions imply a pretty high standard that I don't think Hollywood has often lived up to, Bungo.

I think the more reasonable standard for judging any theatrical released film, is "Was I entertained for 2-3 hours?" That's all a production company is trying to do at the end of the day: fill seats and have people leave feeling entertained. That's just what Hollywood has always done to stories, from the very beginning.
 

Off the top of my head I can't think of one bio-pic that could be said to be a faithful adaptation of the life of a person, but I can think of many that are still fun. Yet if anything you'd think that there'd be more obligation to get a person's life right than to get a work of fiction right, wouldn't you? 

Look at 'Gone With the Wind', or 'Maltese Falcon'. The books have been butchered to make star vehicles for Clark Gable and Bogart. They suck as faithful adaptations, but you can't say they're bad movies.

(Even 'Wizard of Oz' can be entertaining at times despite the abominations it commits to the books, but don't tell Orwell I said so   )

That's why I'm torn about this. I like The Maltese Falcon movie, never read the book though. Hate The Hobbit movies. Hate the Fahrenheit 451 movie. It's a huge gray area.

You mention F451. How about Catch 22? IMO neither movie holds a candle to the book it was based on, and yet.... at least partly because of the big budget movies, both books moved from cult status to mainstream standards in every high school library, where 10's of millions more people discovered them and continue to discover them.(Meanwhile the movies have quietly slipped into the background of the Netflix inventory.) That ain't a bad thing for a good book.

And by the way Bungo, if you'r a Bogey fan, Treasure of the Sierra Madre is both an excellent book and an excellent movie, and as I recall the movie is a decent adaptation as well. A rare thing! Give them a try if you get a chance.  

I saw the Catch 22 movie a long time ago, and I think I fell asleep during it. Never read the book. I will definitely check out Treasure of the Sierra Madre.