Uncle Jay knows what I am talking about!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!
The worst part about being a gaming nerd is the irresistible urge to pontificate about things you know a lot about even if you don't give two shits about the topic at hand.
And I have.
I don't care if the character of Beorn from Hobbit II is all wrong, but I sure can say that it's true that the grainy picture doesn't match the description from the book; and I am compelled to say so.
I am also compelled to mention that I hated the depiction of Radagast the Brown.
I am repelled by King Scrotum Beard.
I don't think we needed the additional character who's chasing Thorin from place to place.
I am not near so captivated by Mr Jackson's efforts as many others, but then again I read those books when my family didn't have a television and we lived in a very remote locale. They got a very thorough reading and I still own those copies.
I greatly enjoyed them and taking liberties with the story bothers me when it's not a change required by the change of media. The omission of Tom Bombadil did not bug me at all. But changing when Narsil is reforged into Anduril pissed me off. It's an important aspect of the character's acceptance that it's time to claim his birthright.
I am definitely more vocal about Lord of the Rings than many other books made film because Jackson came so close to pulling it off. And he collapsed in a wreck just short of the finish line.
I was excited to see Starship Troopers being made into a movie. My reaction to seeing the movie is to hope that Paul Verhooven dies of a painful wasting disease that somehow also adds decades to his life.
300 and Sin City are good examples of not fucking up the source material.
Harry Potter emerged from movification recognizable and intact.
Trainspotting ended up being better than the book as has A Song of Fire and Ice (which I am no longer reading [Mr Martin you made the point ten pages ago, you made it bluntly, and we got it; you can stop driving the lesson home now]). Last of the Mohicans by Michael Mann is a shit-ton better than the book! It's not really recognizable any more, but it's definitely a good movie!
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Yeah- but don't stop being "That Guy"...
ReplyDeleteSadly (I guess) our opinions don't differ that much.
I just accept that fact that people making movies will do things that differ from canon for any of several different motivations...
Alas, getting pissed about it us a waste of emotion.
Accept and move on.
Did I rant and rave about what a poor choice Matthew McConaughey was for Dirk Pitt? Or Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher?
Enjoy what you can, ignore the rest.
Jackson's LOTR was leaps and bounds better than Bakshi's pathetic attempt. It has flaws, flubs and outright stupidity, but it's better than the cartoon version they tried to foist off on the movie-going public.
Yes- there are some that adhere to the original pretty well... And I completely agree that Starship Troopers was bad beyond belief and the director should die in a fire...
But what metric do we use to decide if a movie has merit based on how much deviation from canon the screenplay/director makes?
0% dev = Awesome?
10% dev = Meh?
50% dev = Draw and quarter director, kill all actors?
Some novels need changing to make the story work on the screen.
I was having a hell of a time figuring out how they were going to make "World Was Z" based on the documentary style of the book.
(Still don't know... Haven't seen it yet.)
Here I go... Just rambling on...
TL-DR:
Be that guy.
TBG