• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Can there really be a better adaptation of The Lord of the Rings than Peter Jackson's?

Griffon

Member
The LOTR trilogy is soon gonna enter public domain.
As soon as it happens, you guys are gonna get much more than you bargained for.
 
Last edited:

tkscz

Member
No

PJ worked magic with LOTR, but really fucked up with the Hobbit.

The Silmarillion is nothing like the LOTR or the Hobbit. People said LOTR was impossible to put into film, but the Silmarillion probably is impossible if you want it to be a perfect adaptation.

I would say leave it, but the Tolkien estate will now accept anything if the cheque is big enough. They have no respect for the source material and will open their cheeks to the highest bidder.
In his defense he didn't original want the Hobbit to be stretched out into three films, that was from execs who wanted to milk the book for what they could. The Hobbit would've worked as one movie since the book it's based on wasn't very long.

However, the Silmarillion reads like what it's meant to be, a bible of the world of Arda. It tells many stories and gives details on why things are the way they are in LotR and The Hobbit.

It could work as an anthology of animated segments, I'd enjoy seeing that.
 

Laptop1991

Member
I liked Peter Jackson's version apart from the Glorfindel switch for Arwin which made no sense to me, i really didn't like Arwin lol, but i thought the rest of his trilogy was really good.
 

Rival

Gold Member
I thought the movies were fine, great movies even, but in comparison to the books there really is no comparison. The depth of language and descriptions used by Tolkien could never really be captured on screen. Don't even get me started about a TV series.
Yeah I’ve recently gone through and listened to them all on Audible which is an amazing way to experience these stories and you’re 100% correct. It’s really a completely different experience. FWIW I never read the books on my own prior and did always enjoy the films. I stopped watching the Amazon series halfway through the second episode. It was garbage.
 

sankt-Antonio

:^)--?-<
The implosion of Hollywood and Streaming providers race to the bottom of the barrel is going to prevent this happening for decades to come.

No one is going to spend what is required to do it justice in hardware and sets, streaming showed it can’t handle these IP‘s and the generation that could have managed this as director is growing way to fucking old.

AI video is our only hope.
 
Last edited:
No

PJ worked magic with LOTR, but really fucked up with the Hobbit.

The Silmarillion is nothing like the LOTR or the Hobbit. People said LOTR was impossible to put into film, but the Silmarillion probably is impossible if you want it to be a perfect adaptation.

I would say leave it, but the Tolkien estate will now accept anything if the cheque is big enough. They have no respect for the source material and will open their cheeks to the highest bidder.
I have a feeling that PJ, who hasn’t made a narrative feature since 2013, is going to announce a big Silmarillion project as his next. Just watch.
 
Last edited:

violence

Member
He could've made each film a two-parter

Very apparent in The Hobbit. He had a year? Six months? And had to invent the third movie from scratch while filming?
From what I heard it was six months of planning while trying to repurpose someone else’s movie.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
I wonder if people read the book now and say that isn’t what happens in the movie.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
In his defense he didn't original want the Hobbit to be stretched out into three films, that was from execs who wanted to milk the book for what they could. The Hobbit would've worked as one movie since the book it's based on wasn't very long.

However, the Silmarillion reads like what it's meant to be, a bible of the world of Arda. It tells many stories and gives details on why things are the way they are in LotR and The Hobbit.

It could work as an anthology of animated segments, I'd enjoy seeing that.

There is the problem. The studio would get involved.

I'd rather they left it alone.

I have a feeling that PJ, who hasn’t made a narrative feature since 2013, is going to announce a big Silmarillion project as his next. Just watch.

I really hope not. The Silmarillion is a work of art and Tolkien's magnum opus. If it was made it wouldn't respect the original work and further piss on Tolkien's legacy.
 

VulcanRaven

Member
They should make a new animated version. Maybe anime. Also Ralph Bakshi should be allowed to make his Return of the King.
 
Last edited:

Oberstein

Member
I say the Tolkein estate should just fucking let Peter Jackson make some Silmarillion movies

There's also the big problem of licensing rights: it's a mess.
By the way, Amazon doesn't have the rights to The Silmarillion.

"We only have the rights to The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices and The Hobbit. And that's all. We don't have the rights to The Silmarillion, The Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, or any other of these books."

Basically, they can only rely on Lotr's Appendices.
 

Adeptus

Member
Yeah, I remember when at the start I was surprised "If they are doing show about the period depicted in Silmarillion, why they so much emphasize that thay are doing LoTR show?".
 

Synless

Gold Member
It can never and will never be done better. A remake might have a shinier coat of paint, but the original trilogy was lightning in a bottle.
 
Last edited:

Kadve

Member
The only thing really "missing" from the books are things such as Tom Bombadil (who was a insert from one of Tolkiens earlier works, even he admitted it was a mistake in hindsight), the 17 years between Bilbo's party and Frodo's departure (which was glossed over anyway) and most of the filler (such as most of the stuff with the Ents and the gangs encounters between Bree and Rivendell). The rest is quite faithful and i think an "accurate" adoption would be a bit of a bore. So much worldbuilding that would be really hard to translate.
 

Oberstein

Member
The only thing really "missing" from the books are things such as Tom Bombadil (who was a insert from one of Tolkiens earlier works, even he admitted it was a mistake in hindsight), the 17 years between Bilbo's party and Frodo's departure (which was glossed over anyway) and most of the filler (such as most of the stuff with the Ents and the gangs encounters between Bree and Rivendell). The rest is quite faithful and i think an "accurate" adoption would be a bit of a bore. So much worldbuilding that would be really hard to translate.

There's always room for improvement, but the films were released at just the right time.

As for Tom Bombadil, it's so out of keeping with the tone of the story that it would have been odd, but he still saves the Hobbits from the Barrow-wight. It's a scene that would have lent itself well to cinematic play. But it's true that the years elapsing between Gandalf's arrival and his return would have made for an awkward "17 years later" fade to black.

Otherwise, rare Tolkien interviews are always good to dig up.
Why create a lore? Tolkien's answer: why not.

 
Last edited:
Top Bottom