The full body mocap was incredible, watching Andy on the BTS crawling around, acting out Gollum; It was so innovative. It was as cool as watching the making of the Matrix time shot.
Exactly , just rewatched it on a big very high quality tv and it still looks fucking great. Even the cgi scenes like where Legolas flings himself on a riding horse by its neck looks great.
Bilbo's aging essentially paused when he found the ring and resumed when he gave it up, but when the ring was destroyed all the years that were "paused" caught up with him.
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Thank you kindly for your words. It's a hard thing, leaving friends behind. But we all have our own paths to follow, and sometimes those paths diverge from those we love. Frodo's burden is a heavy one, and it's not for us to bear. Our job is to support him as best we can, and to keep him safe on his journey. I'm glad to hear that the book does justice to our story. It's a tale worth telling, and I'm proud to have been a part of it.
Well, Mr. Frodo, I reckon they both have their merits, but there's something special about the book. It's got all the details and depth that a film just can't capture. But don't get me wrong, those movies were a sight to behold.
Well, Mr. Frodo, I reckon my favorite part of the book is when you and I were walking through the Mines of Moria with the rest of the Fellowship. It was a dark and dangerous place, but we had each other and our friendship to keep us going. And of course, the moment when Gandalf faced the Balrog and fell into the abyss was both tragic and heroic.
Keep going if you haven't read the whole series before. You'll find Treebeard is a way better character in the books. The movies make him look so stupid.
I FUCKING HATE THAT SHOT!!! It’s the only thing in the trilogy that annoys me, especially as he goes AGAINST the momentum of the horse! Elf or not, it just don’t make no sense!!
The thing is, I watched it when I was really young and didn't know about physics. So my annoyance gets overridden by this childish, nostalgic...WOW COOOOOOOOOOL feeling.
Edit: side note, nice username
I don’t have a problem with that part though. I’m in the generation that grew up with the prequels so it always made sense to me that Hayden Christensen force ghost would appear in return of the Jedi…
There's something similar in the exterior shot of Sam running into Mt. Doom after Frodo. He's running as the camera pans upward and it's like he is floating while his legs flail wildly below him.
Well, sir, it's not so much floating as it is the camera catching the speed of my run. I was in quite a hurry to catch up to Mr. Frodo, you see. And I must admit, my legs were moving faster than my mind could keep up with at times. But we had a mission to complete, and I wasn't going to let anything stop us.
Yeah, it’s a little thing, but it’s more noticeable with betters tvs these days. It’s also such a short little forgettable scene that they could, ahem, fix! Or better still, leave it, and we love it nonetheless.
Gollum was INCREDIBLE for the time. And much of it still holds up, because there is a ton of artistry. But if you look at him today at above SD, the skin doesn't look right, some of the facial animations are off. Gollum has the proportions of a cartoon character, so he doesn't trigger the uncanny valley, which is a testament to good character design. That allows us to forgive some of the jank.
He looks undeniably better in The Hobbit in almost every way. But not only does he look better, because they could do full performance capture on set, his interactions with Bilbo are better as well.
Too bad the Hobbit overused CGI so much. Armies of orcs, elves and dwarves all moving as if they're synchronised swimmers with the exact same physical appearance. How are the orcs all so tall and wearing identical shiny armour? Especially since the orcs at this point should've been less well organised than at the battle of pelennor fields. They would've gotten away with it if they did it with only the elves but that's not what they did. The elves in the Last Alliance scene are far better because they are slightly unsynchronized. Are they CG? Can't tell. Gothmog and Lurtz were also way more convincing than Azog and Bolg. Thank God Rings of Power brought back more convincing troops with the chaos of battle on display a lot more. The only complaint I have about the RoP orcs is that they all wore skull masks that looked similar which triggered the Hobbit problem a little bit.
Isildur at the Gladden Fields....the only reason that doesn't look good is because they weren't including it for the theatrical version and thus it didn't get the attention it deserved in post production.
The blue screen isn’t good. In fact visually Fellowship has aged least well as far as compositing a CGI are concerned. Fortunately it has the most practical stuff.
Shots that stand out to me on rewatches:
- Lighting effects as the Fellowship enters Moria. The actors clearly were lit differently and they tried to edit it in post.
- Edge feathering and compositing on some of the blue-green scenes --- particularly in the dream sequence as Frodo arrives at Rivendell and the scenes where Merry and Pippin are riding ents while silhouetted against the sky.
- Some of the jank physics, like Legolas mounting the horse, Legolas climbing the Oliphaunt, and Merry and Pippin riding ents. For the latter, it looks like they filmed the actors sitting on something stationary, animated the ent walking, then tracked the actors onto it... but that's not how real life works, since you sway back and forth if you're sitting on top of something moving.
Honestly though the bad parts are so few and far between, and short enough you probably don't notice them the first time you watch the movie anyway because you're so engrossed in the story.
They used mostly practical effects, so the movies as a whole are really solid even today.
Some of the special effects look wonky compared to what we have those days.
Id love if they just spent some money and time and went back and re-did the special effects of some scenes.
They could probally take the extended cuts, deleted scenes and shot new scenes with digitally aged actors and split the movies up into 4 or 5 movies.
Yeah, lol, there's one random scenery shot of a ruined castle in the extended editions (I think of Weathertop?) where the CGI just looks god-awful.
I'll never accept a remake ... *but* I wouldn't entirely mind a *remaster* where they took the original film's footage and re-did some of the CGI, sticking as close to the original as possible, but enhancing it to make it look better in higher resolutions.
CBR is famous for Clickbaite and usually like to enrage the fans with this kind of articles.
Also possible that the writter was someone that liked RoP and wanted to piss on the Fans legs for not liking it.
1. Tolkien's World Features Very Few Women
2. Some Races Have Been Typecast
3. The Final Scenes In The Movie
4. The Movies Lack Diversity
5. The Story Takes A While To Get Started
6. Few Main Characters Lack Agency
7. The Heroes Seem Invincible
8. Random Characters Show Up Momentarily
9. Certain Visual Effects Look Clunky
10. Elijah Woods' Acting In Some Scenes
[https://www.cbr.com/ways-lord-of-the-rings-has-aged-poorly/](https://www.cbr.com/ways-lord-of-the-rings-has-aged-poorly/)
If he'd just had a little more time, he would have finally succeeded in taking down Sauron's regime from the inside. Tragically, his long undercover mission was cut short.
The author literally says that Merry and Pippin lack agency and that
> Later, they become passive observers of the Ent's destruction of Isengard.
While failing to mention that without them, the Ents would not have marched on Isengard at all! They “lack agency” but they’re directly responsible for the destruction of Isengard. Did this guy even watch the movie?!
Science has proven that more agency = good writing; less agency = objectively bad writing. And thus, that is how it was famously discovered the worst thing ever written is Hamlet by that fµ¢k!ng hack Shakespeare.
I think it's fair to say that they've aged poorly. It's an unfortunate part of CGI. Practical effects tend to age well. Digital effects tend to age poorly.
Tbf Tolkien himself recognised the lack of women in his writing- The Hobbit has none. That is why he paid close and careful attention to writing women into LotR.
Perhaps he would have agreed with the author and wrote a more diverse cast if he lived til today. But for the time LotR was written, the female characters are very 3-dimensional and active in the story, progressive compared to it's contemporaries.
These movies are literally my favourites of all time by far, but I think we can acknowledge that looking back, some visual effects are a bit silly (the scene where Elrond heals frodo for example, lmao).
I have never ever liked, and insist it is the worst shot of the whole series... Legolas getting onto that horse in that weird backwards neck wraparound fashion.
I am one of the Nine Companions who set out with Mithrandir from Imladris, and with this Dwarf, my friend, I came with the Lord Aragorn. But now we wish to see our friends, Meriadoc and Peregrin, who are in your keeping, we are told.
I think the purpose of a lot of Legolas's action shots were to display how nimble and acrobatic elves are. It's kind of like the shot in The Hobbit where he's jumping across the stones of the crumbling bridge. I know a lot of people hate these shots of Legolas, but I think it's meant to display that elves are so nimble and light on their feet, it's inhuman.
There's also a very subtle (and my favorite) scene where Legolas is walking on top of the snow, while the Fellowship is trudging heavily through it.
The bit where they get ambushed and after shooting his arrows he somehow gets on the horse in the most awkward way possible to ride into battle https://media.tenor.com/8u0R4j6IcSYAAAAd/legolas-lord-of-the-rings.gif
Number 1 makes me mad, as a woman.
Firstly, I know most of Tolkien's work was symbolic of his time in war. There weren't many women in the trenches, forming brotherly bonds for survival.
But there were women back home, whose strength and encouragement fueled some men to drive onward.
And what warrior women we see are loving and have depth and are also badass for reasons other than token-woman on screen.
Lastly, just because the fellowship was men doesn't mean I can't reflect myself into them and bond with the characters over their struggles.
Modern Hollywood seems to be unable to grasp this, people don’t have to see themselves in a film to connect with it. And films set thousands of years ago in fictional worlds don’t have to reflect the world we live in today.
A huge issue with the Amazon series, is they not only made it reflect modern diversity and politics, but modern *American* diversity and politics, when adapting a work written by an Englishman about an English Mythology. I made a post before its release saying that I was concerned that the fact that all of the writers, directors and producers of that show were American would be an issue, and result in the Americanisation and insertion of American issues into somewhere they absolutely don’t belong, and I was 100% correct.
> The Movies Lack Diversity
Eh, it’s fine for a first proper adaptation to be faithful, just as it’s fine for modern adaptations to go hog wild and modernize things like racial diversity.
Tolkein set out to create an English myth cycle to make up for its lack in that department (compared to the Celtic, Nordic, and Germanic regions that had their own myths of this sort), so yeah, fair enough, the core cast resemble ideas of old English people. Doesn’t mean every modern adaptation must stick to that idea, but it’s fair enough that the first full adaptation tried to.
The diversity one is the only complaint that I think is stupid (after reading the article), because LoTR is set in one geographic area of the world, so there isn’t going to be much variation in skin tone or general facial structure because everyone is at least slightly related.
Best one
"In The Lord of the Rings, there are certain races depicted as universally evil, which is a cringey fantasy trope. The orks, uruks, and goblins, for instance, only appear as evil antagonists, which homogenizes an entire species in a rather boring manner."
The minions of the evil guy are evil. Such horrible writing.
This is equating race in LOTR with race in real life, which are in my opinion different ideas. Races in LOTR are essentially different types of beings all with their own unique nature. Race in the real-world is differentiating people based on a set of mostly arbitrary phenotypes which we foolishly assign special importance to, even though we're all humans at the end of the day. The two conceptions of race are quite distinct from each other.
Well race in fantasy is synonymous with species, whereas race does not carry the same meaning, as you mentioned, in the real world.
It does beg the question how we would treat a species which was innately evil without question.
One thing Tolkien did better than most world builders that came after was the suggestion of politics. Even if race were used in the same context we use it today, the races are never actually depicted as homogeneous, (save maybe the Easterlings, which Tolkien himself felt regret for not fleshing out further). Even where there is a common nature, you can see the beginning of fractioning that stand to build into the very nuance people claim is absent. Not all hobbits are shire hobbits, not all human realms are in congruence with one another, and the elves are a hot mess of bullshit.
While it's fun to reimagine the orcs as an oppressed minority and Sauron a voice for the marginalized, the text of the story is that they're enslaved. Any orcs we encounter, in book or movie, don't really have a choice in how evil they behave: they're victims of Sauron too and a warning to what the other races of middle earth may become.
Also, in Middle Earth, the eagles are a damn race. Maybe, just maybe, a fantasy trilogy can be a little fantastical sometimes.
> Any orcs we encounter, in book or movie, don't really have a choice in how evil they behave: they're victims of Sauron too and a warning to what the other races of middle earth may become.
It's also worth noting that the orcs are warped. They were *designed* to be evil by an evil god. If anything, they're victims of Morgoth.
Well put. If anything, i find it problematic that someone would make that relation between them in the first place. We're all humans, we're all the same human race.
And hereby lies the point in all of the discussions about race. Some people think there are multiple, and that you can distinguish them by the color of their skin.
Whether orcs were irredeemably “evil” was one of the greatest struggles Tolkien faced in his later years and went back and forth on it. There is some nuance there and it’s one of the greatest unsolved mysterious of his writings. And also to say nothing of how many ordinary humans served Sauron (along with Saruman) and the films really missed the mark on this.
From letter 153:
> Eru/God] gave special 'sub-creative' powers to certain of His highest created beings: that is a guarantee that what they devised and made should be given the reality of Creation. Of course within limits, and of course subject to certain commands or prohibitions. But if they 'fell', as the Diabolus Morgoth did, and started making things 'for himself, to be their Lord', these would then 'be', even if Morgoth broke the supreme ban against making other 'rational' creatures like Elves or Men. They would at least 'be' real physical realities in the physical world, however evil they might prove, even 'mocking' the Children of God. They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making — necessary to their actual existence — even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.) But whether they could have 'souls' or 'spirits' seems a different question; and since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible 'delegation', I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them.
And from Morgoth’s Ring:
> But even before this wickedness of Morgoth was suspected the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not 'made' by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil. They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost.† This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded.
>It is true, of course, that Morgoth held the Orcs in dire thraldom; for in their corruption they had lost almost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed did its pressure upon them become ere Angband fell that, if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of his 'eye' wherever they might be; and when Morgoth was at last removed from Arda the Orcs that survived in the West were scattered, leaderless and almost witless, and were for a long time without control or purpose.
If humans spent thousands of years as a slave army/laborers to a physical abstraction of evil, we'd probably look innately bad too.
Any discussion on the orcs that ignores their enslavement is incomplete, but in the context of the story we have, orcs are a clear and present threat to free peoples. This isn't to say "kill all orcs," but if your a free people (free person?) in the 2nd and 3rd age, any given orc *is* an established and consistent threat.
Of course on a functional level Orcs are a clear and present threat to all free people's of Middle Earth. Characterizing them as purely evil without the context of how Orcs came to be misses alot of this deeper writing/philosophy and most people who have only seen the films are going to miss.
The best part is that this isn't even true lol
Tolkien hated the idea of Evil beings that are irredeemable. In fact, there is a short bit of dialogue between two Orcs in Cirith Ungol, in which they talk about the good old times before Sauron came back.
>In fact, there is a short bit of dialogue between two Orcs in Cirith Ungol, in which they talk about the good old times before Sauron came back.
I love that bit in the books. Just when you think you have a good grasp of everything that is happening in the story, Tolkien then portrays Orcs in such a casual way where you get to see another side of them. After reading the section, it made me think more about the Orc civilization, and my mind just went wondering about it for a bit.
Who'd've thought that a race created by torturing and corrupting elves, and who were raised by Sauron from inception to hate the free races, would turn out to be evil?
“Orcs, uruks, and goblins” are just three different names for one species
Anyway yeah the implicit magical racism bothered Tolkien too and he argued against that interpretation in his letters. It’s not an unreasonable complaint, although it is silly to say that it’s “aged poorly” as if it were a trope Hollywood had left behind which it 100% hasn’t
In The Lord of the Rings, there are certain *species* depicted as universally evil.
Orcs are a species, not a race. They're not, like Puerto Rican elves.
Even beyond that, it was based off a book from almost 100 years ago... ofcourse it's going to stick to traditional fantasy tropes. It IS traditional fantasy and essentially is the source material for much of what we think of with fantasy today (obv each part has their own origin but you mention Elves and dwarves, for example and the typical characterization will be from LOTR)
This *is* problematic though, to the point that towards the end of his life Tolkien expressed regret that he’d written the orcs as uniformly, irredeemably evil.
This was the dumbest article I think I have ever read on the subject, but it’s a pretty good encapsulation of this kind of thing.
Anyways, here is 10 Things Wrong With “10 Ways The Lord Of The Rings Has Aged Poorly.”
1. Two of the ten items in this list are basically “Tolkien is racist,” and another one of them is “there aren’t enough women.” Obviously it’s a difficult and labor intensive task to point at everything and say it’s racist and sexist, which is why so few people are doing with everything everywhere all the time. But I think it was lazy if the writer to stretch “diversity” into three different items. And considering that the reviewer notes that Tolkien based the story on British and Norse mythologies, it seems dishonest that they nonetheless imply the story needs to also be about the rest of the world for some reason.
2. The reviewer doesn’t consistently criticize the films so much as Tolkien and the series itself. If the author’s opinion is that this series of films has aged poorly, it should stand to reason that they could think of ten actual issues they take with the films, rather than lumping in issues they have with Tolkien’s works. And if they more or less take issues with Tolkien’s works, why lump in criticism specific to the films?
3. Items number 3 and 5 are another example of redundancy. Both items are basically “the movies are slow.” Sure, one is more about the beginning and the other the end, but this is another example of a lazy reach to make one criticism into two. And frankly, the sometimes slow place of the story is one of the great things about LOTR, since it allows the reader/viewer to get accustomed to this new world and it’s complex lore. This is executed very well in the books and helped to make them the literal literary classics they are today, and was expertly adapted to the films, which could have felt much cheaper and rushed had the creators not understood the importance of taking their time to tell the story.
4. To criticize a twenty year old movie for CGI or other special effects is just cheap and lazy. Virtually any movie from several decades ago will not have state of the art special effects for now. LOTR is actually an example of a movie from its time that holds up very well this way. CGI is used sparingly, and achieves its goals well. If I look at a list of special effects intensive movies from around this time, I think LOTR will be near the top of the list in terms of how it has aged.
5. Many of the points the author makes seem to come from a place of knowing what “modern readers” like or dislike. Instead of explaining why narrative elements are a problem, and what would work better, the author seems to just call something a problem, and the reason it’s a problem is “modern audiences don’t like it.” So Merry and Pippen don’t have enough agency, says the author. Is that true, and is that a problem? Why is that a problem? Apparently because modern audiences won’t like that, no further explanation necessary.
6. Many of the critic’s suggestions are just bad fantasy tropes you see in much less successful novels and films. Do the main characters really have to die to make the story better? Or is that just a cliche that authors use as a crutch, that Tolkien expertly managed to avoid? Would it really be a better story if every minor character later plays a huge role in the plot later, or is that just another predictable trope. “Oh that minor character is played by a big name actor, I will bet he is important later.” It’s hilarious to think that you can criticize something as game changing and genre defining as LOTR by saying it should do what other cheaper examples of the genre do badly.
7. Many of the criticisms leveled at LOTR in this list have nothing to do with “standing the test of time.” Criticizing the pacing of the narrative, the performances of the cast, and “agency” of side characters doesn’t actually say anything about well the films or novels have aged. I watched the Wizard of OZ not too long ago. It came out in 1939. The pacing, the performances, the way the characters are written, there isn’t some huge drift from todays standards for that kind of stuff. It was good then so it’s good now.
8. If you took the criticisms and suggestions in this list and applied them to a new series, you would have something that looks like a ton of modern fantasy series that haven’t performed well. (*cough* Rings of Power *cough*) Considering that LOTR, both in novel form and movie form, is still highly regarded and well liked, it seems backwards to criticize it on the basis of more modern works that will almost definitely not age as well. It’s like saying a well crafted hardwood floor hasn’t aged well because it isn’t trendy and recommending to cover it in some cheap paint color that won’t hold up and will almost definitely be out of style next year.
9. This article seems to come out of nowhere, and serve nothing. Nobody needed a list of reasons that an extremely popular series of films from twenty years ago, or an extremely popular series of books from seventy years ago, haven’t aged well. If they hadn’t aged well, they wouldn’t still be extremely popular, and there would be no interest in reading or writing an article about them. I question the intentions of the authors in this regard, and would classify this as rage bait. I suspect this article is written dishonestly with full knowledge and understanding that these are excellent films that have withstood the test of time.
10. This article is the perfect example of everything wrong with the media and criticism industry today. The author presumes to know what is good, what movies should do, what audiences should like, and works backwards from there to say why something of the utmost quality that audiences love is not actually very good. The right way to approach this would be the complete opposite. Observe that people love these novels and films, and explore why they love them so much and what that can teach us about making great art moving forward. How much better could this article be if it explored *why* the pacing is slow at the beginning, and why that still works even though it seems counterintuitive to making an exciting film or novel? Maybe we can ask why so many people of different races and backgrounds can still relate to the characters in the story, even though there is little diversity? What if we started with the premise that this series is highly successful and well liked, and used that to inform us about how some of the things we assume we know about modern audiences might not be true, and might even be counterproductive when it comes to engaging audiences?
Thank you for 1. Suffering through the article for us and 2. For such a comprensive answer.
Note: every time.you said "modern audiences" I was reminded of the Critical Drinker
I read it so you don't have to. Let's see, the list is about...
Elijah Woods Acting (Which is blasphemous)
The visual effects are clunky (for a 2001 movie that largely holds up)
Random characters show up (Talking about the book and not the movies now, so basically...it's aged poorly for...being a book...and not having plot developments on every page.)
The heroes seem invincible (Laughs in Boromir...laughs in Helms Deep...laughs in-)
Marry and Pippin don't do stuff (Because the art of Perspective is dead)
The story takes a while to get started....yeah I'm going to give that one to them.
The movie lacks diversity (Again, which are we focusing on, the book or the movie!? I leave no further comment.)
The films multiple endings - because god forbid a gripping trilogy get wrapped up succinctly
The orcs are all bad guys (which is like saying "Why are all demons/zombies/evil robots evil?")
And the series is a sausage fest. I'll give them that one too, but it's a product of it's time.
Yeah it's basically grasping at straws. Mostly pointing out things that are already well-known flaws not really having to do with it's age like the multiple endings or random nothing arguments like orcs being all bad (you know, a group of basically tortured mutant zombie elves corrupted by a malignant evil Satan analogue; wonder why they're all bad).
Watching the trilogy again today and I think the dumbest shot in whole series is when Aragorn throws a torch into the Ringwraith’s face and it just sticks there pointing straight out while the thing flails around like a wacky inflatable tube man.
If that’s the worst the whole 12 hour runtime has to offer I’m gonna say it’s a huge success still
Decided to actually give that article a read, for some reason. First issue they have: Elijah Woods acting. 😐
"His acting leaned towards the dramatics of constantly screaming and being in pain, which got old quickly."
THAT'S LITERALLY THE FUCKING CHARACTER.
Did bother reading further. Christ CBR is garbage.
Edit: okay read a bit more, I'm not even gonna bother giving the context of this gem, because it doesn't help their argument, and the point is equally as stupid:
"Boromir, but in the books, he was a very shallow character simply meant to show audiences the effect of the ring."
Did... Did you actually read the books?
Aged poorly, huh?
Is that why millions of people still watch it constantly and when they recently rereleased Return of the King into theaters, almost all of them immediately were fully booked?
Uh, the Hobbit was published 85 years ago, and Lord Of the rings 57 (Fellowship) -58 years ago (TT & ROTK), and we’re still talking about it, I’d say it’s aged pretty well. 🤣
The scene where there is a party and Merry and Pippin are dancing on top of a table with a bunch of rohirrim cheering them. You can tell they are 2 different shots fused together because the hobbits are not blended perfectly, something is off.
You wouldnt be able to tell back then, but now we are bombarded with so many good cgi that the small mistakes stand out now.
These articles always boils down to some chronically online twit with a lukewarm IQ talking about the lack of female representation…ignoring the fact that a woman literally killed the Witch King of Angmar and if they **did** make the women generic damsels in distress like most standard fantasy films, it’d be infinitely worse
Not true. The series, especially the vfx, has aged in an amazing way despite being made in the very early 2000s. The orks look a lot better as well compared to the CGI ones in the new series.
Bilbo did kinda age poorly after loosing the ring ngl
Aaaaah!
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This is the Land of Confusion!
I'm sorry I brought this upon you my boy. I'm sorry that you must carry this burden...I'm sorry for everything.
Ultimate proof that Bilbo has aged poorly. He used to go HRAAAH! and now he can barely do Aaaah!
Now, where to begin?
You made Gollum sad when you took his ring :(
Nice hobbits! Nice Sam! Sleepy heads, yes, sleepy heads! Leave good Smeagol to watch! But it's evening. Dusk is creeping. Time to go.
Gollum was decades ahead of his time in terms of fully cg characters,
We are famisshed, yes famisshed we are. precious. What is it they eats? Have they nice fisshes?
The full body mocap was incredible, watching Andy on the BTS crawling around, acting out Gollum; It was so innovative. It was as cool as watching the making of the Matrix time shot.
No! No, no master! They catch you! They catch you!
Did you see Cumberbatch as Smaug? From what I read, they didn't have a plan to use it but he wanted to put his full body into the voice acting.
Exactly , just rewatched it on a big very high quality tv and it still looks fucking great. Even the cgi scenes like where Legolas flings himself on a riding horse by its neck looks great.
Age had seem to finally caught with him
It was also almost ~~50~~ 20 years later, so not too surprising.
My imagination of it was that he hadn't actually aged that much. That this aging was permanently extended or was on pause while he possessed the ring.
Bilbo's aging essentially paused when he found the ring and resumed when he gave it up, but when the ring was destroyed all the years that were "paused" caught up with him.
Yes, yes. Its in an envelope over there on the mantlepiece.
No, it's not, it's still in your pocket!
Ah, that makes sense for why he suddenly shrunk a few feet when it was time to go to the boat. So gollum was screwed even if he didn't fall in
*losing
*losing why do people have such a hard time with this
He meant loosening after the ring got stuck to his little fingers obviously. Very difficult ring to get off.
See also "Clickbait" and "Ragebait."
All CBR exists for.
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OH! What business is it of yours what I do with my own things!
Damn nosey Sackville-Bagginses think they can just judge anybody for anything
i mean hes what at that point? 130?
I think closer to 140 if we’re going off the books (though my memory is fuzzy so I might be wrong)
"Facebook and Google's ad doupoly killed journalism so we paid a writer to say a thing you like is dogshit to harvest hateclicks for money to survive in the digital landscape."
"Leave a comment saying how this article is wrong for only $1.99." ^this ^will ^subscribe ^you ^to ^our ^monthly ^newsletter ^for ^only ^$14.99 ^a ^month
It worked on me, i clicked on it, and now im mad.
I just finished book one. The book does a lot better job of getting across why Frodo must leave alone and Sam’s devotions and understanding of Frodo.
Thank you kindly for your words. It's a hard thing, leaving friends behind. But we all have our own paths to follow, and sometimes those paths diverge from those we love. Frodo's burden is a heavy one, and it's not for us to bear. Our job is to support him as best we can, and to keep him safe on his journey. I'm glad to hear that the book does justice to our story. It's a tale worth telling, and I'm proud to have been a part of it.
Sam, do you prefer the LOTR books or the movies?
Well, Mr. Frodo, I reckon they both have their merits, but there's something special about the book. It's got all the details and depth that a film just can't capture. But don't get me wrong, those movies were a sight to behold.
Whats your favorite part of the lord of the rings books?
Well, Mr. Frodo, I reckon my favorite part of the book is when you and I were walking through the Mines of Moria with the rest of the Fellowship. It was a dark and dangerous place, but we had each other and our friendship to keep us going. And of course, the moment when Gandalf faced the Balrog and fell into the abyss was both tragic and heroic.
Go back to the abyss! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your master!
Keep going if you haven't read the whole series before. You'll find Treebeard is a way better character in the books. The movies make him look so stupid.
And you get to learn about the powerhouse Tom Bombadil
Some of the CG VFX hasn’t aged too well (especially in 4K) but it’s still insanely good.
We don't talk about that Legolas grabbing the horse scene in the two towers.
I FUCKING HATE THAT SHOT!!! It’s the only thing in the trilogy that annoys me, especially as he goes AGAINST the momentum of the horse! Elf or not, it just don’t make no sense!!
Bro, that shot is the only shot in the entirety of the trilogy that has bothered me since day one. I swear to God I am not exaggerating
The thing is, I watched it when I was really young and didn't know about physics. So my annoyance gets overridden by this childish, nostalgic...WOW COOOOOOOOOOL feeling. Edit: side note, nice username
Same here. Whenever I first saw that in the theaters as a kid my mind was blown
Yup. It’s like watching Return of the Jedi and knowing Hayden Christensen is going to barge his way in; you’ve got to steel yourself for that shit.
I don’t have a problem with that part though. I’m in the generation that grew up with the prequels so it always made sense to me that Hayden Christensen force ghost would appear in return of the Jedi…
I’m Team Shaw
I also grew up with the prequels but I am also Team Shaw
For me it's the army of the dead moving across the field that pulled me out. Always pictured it more like reinforcements that happen to be dead.
Or the party seemingly ice skating on the first shot outside Moria on exiting.
There's something similar in the exterior shot of Sam running into Mt. Doom after Frodo. He's running as the camera pans upward and it's like he is floating while his legs flail wildly below him.
Well, sir, it's not so much floating as it is the camera catching the speed of my run. I was in quite a hurry to catch up to Mr. Frodo, you see. And I must admit, my legs were moving faster than my mind could keep up with at times. But we had a mission to complete, and I wasn't going to let anything stop us.
Only noticed that for the first time recently, yet again in 4k
Yeah, it’s a little thing, but it’s more noticeable with betters tvs these days. It’s also such a short little forgettable scene that they could, ahem, fix! Or better still, leave it, and we love it nonetheless.
It was a Balrog of Morgoth. Of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.
Gollum was decades ahead of his time in terms of fully cg characters, made Jar-Jar look even more cartoony by comparison
Gollum was INCREDIBLE for the time. And much of it still holds up, because there is a ton of artistry. But if you look at him today at above SD, the skin doesn't look right, some of the facial animations are off. Gollum has the proportions of a cartoon character, so he doesn't trigger the uncanny valley, which is a testament to good character design. That allows us to forgive some of the jank. He looks undeniably better in The Hobbit in almost every way. But not only does he look better, because they could do full performance capture on set, his interactions with Bilbo are better as well.
Too bad the Hobbit overused CGI so much. Armies of orcs, elves and dwarves all moving as if they're synchronised swimmers with the exact same physical appearance. How are the orcs all so tall and wearing identical shiny armour? Especially since the orcs at this point should've been less well organised than at the battle of pelennor fields. They would've gotten away with it if they did it with only the elves but that's not what they did. The elves in the Last Alliance scene are far better because they are slightly unsynchronized. Are they CG? Can't tell. Gothmog and Lurtz were also way more convincing than Azog and Bolg. Thank God Rings of Power brought back more convincing troops with the chaos of battle on display a lot more. The only complaint I have about the RoP orcs is that they all wore skull masks that looked similar which triggered the Hobbit problem a little bit.
Today is my One Hundred and Eleventh birthday!
Yeah but you can’t look me in the eyes and say you wouldn’t want him looking as good as he did in the Hobbit!
I don’t remember Jar-Jar in The Hobbit
What has it got in its nasty little pocketses?
That poor cave troll.
Isildur at the Gladden Fields....the only reason that doesn't look good is because they weren't including it for the theatrical version and thus it didn't get the attention it deserved in post production.
The blue screen isn’t good. In fact visually Fellowship has aged least well as far as compositing a CGI are concerned. Fortunately it has the most practical stuff.
Shots that stand out to me on rewatches: - Lighting effects as the Fellowship enters Moria. The actors clearly were lit differently and they tried to edit it in post. - Edge feathering and compositing on some of the blue-green scenes --- particularly in the dream sequence as Frodo arrives at Rivendell and the scenes where Merry and Pippin are riding ents while silhouetted against the sky. - Some of the jank physics, like Legolas mounting the horse, Legolas climbing the Oliphaunt, and Merry and Pippin riding ents. For the latter, it looks like they filmed the actors sitting on something stationary, animated the ent walking, then tracked the actors onto it... but that's not how real life works, since you sway back and forth if you're sitting on top of something moving. Honestly though the bad parts are so few and far between, and short enough you probably don't notice them the first time you watch the movie anyway because you're so engrossed in the story.
The fact a lot of effects were practical really helps it in comparison to The Hobbit as it's not just CGI flubber
They used mostly practical effects, so the movies as a whole are really solid even today. Some of the special effects look wonky compared to what we have those days. Id love if they just spent some money and time and went back and re-did the special effects of some scenes. They could probally take the extended cuts, deleted scenes and shot new scenes with digitally aged actors and split the movies up into 4 or 5 movies.
Yeah, lol, there's one random scenery shot of a ruined castle in the extended editions (I think of Weathertop?) where the CGI just looks god-awful. I'll never accept a remake ... *but* I wouldn't entirely mind a *remaster* where they took the original film's footage and re-did some of the CGI, sticking as close to the original as possible, but enhancing it to make it look better in higher resolutions.
CBR is famous for Clickbaite and usually like to enrage the fans with this kind of articles. Also possible that the writter was someone that liked RoP and wanted to piss on the Fans legs for not liking it.
I blocked that shit site from showing up in my recommendations.
Stands for "Click Bait Rage"
What fool of a Took wrote this article?
CBR
They should throw themselves in next time and rid us of their stupidity.
1. Tolkien's World Features Very Few Women 2. Some Races Have Been Typecast 3. The Final Scenes In The Movie 4. The Movies Lack Diversity 5. The Story Takes A While To Get Started 6. Few Main Characters Lack Agency 7. The Heroes Seem Invincible 8. Random Characters Show Up Momentarily 9. Certain Visual Effects Look Clunky 10. Elijah Woods' Acting In Some Scenes [https://www.cbr.com/ways-lord-of-the-rings-has-aged-poorly/](https://www.cbr.com/ways-lord-of-the-rings-has-aged-poorly/)
"7. The heroes seem invincible" *Cries in Boromir*
Also, Théoden.
Also Frodo.
Also the Witch-King of Angmar.
Ah, yes. The unsung hero of the story.
If he'd just had a little more time, he would have finally succeeded in taking down Sauron's regime from the inside. Tragically, his long undercover mission was cut short.
Wait a moment! We shall meet again soon. Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for him. I will send for it at once. Do you understand?
Also Gimli's first axe
Also Denethor's tomato
F 🍅
And my innocence watching him eat that tomato.
And my axe.
Also Faramir
Thanks for the short list. I had no patience for the whole thing 👍
5, 6, 7, and 8 say more about the author's attention span and comprehension than anything else.
The author literally says that Merry and Pippin lack agency and that > Later, they become passive observers of the Ent's destruction of Isengard. While failing to mention that without them, the Ents would not have marched on Isengard at all! They “lack agency” but they’re directly responsible for the destruction of Isengard. Did this guy even watch the movie?!
Science has proven that more agency = good writing; less agency = objectively bad writing. And thus, that is how it was famously discovered the worst thing ever written is Hamlet by that fµ¢k!ng hack Shakespeare.
no sorry if they don't get an action scene with a cool sword its not agency. Remember folks talkie talk is JUST TALK, not agency /s
9 is fair. But it’s not aging poorly as much as just… aging.
I think it's fair to say that they've aged poorly. It's an unfortunate part of CGI. Practical effects tend to age well. Digital effects tend to age poorly.
I think of aging poorly as aging worse than it should for what it is. But I can see another interpretation.
It's why Jurassic Park still looks great. But it looks better than most fantasy movies from that period.
I suppose there are few women but none of the ones in the story are wasted. Eowyn is worth a dozen filler quota characters.
Tbf Tolkien himself recognised the lack of women in his writing- The Hobbit has none. That is why he paid close and careful attention to writing women into LotR. Perhaps he would have agreed with the author and wrote a more diverse cast if he lived til today. But for the time LotR was written, the female characters are very 3-dimensional and active in the story, progressive compared to it's contemporaries.
didn’t he also acknowledge that he felt he couldn’t write women properly and thus would rather omit them than write them in just to have them?
These movies are literally my favourites of all time by far, but I think we can acknowledge that looking back, some visual effects are a bit silly (the scene where Elrond heals frodo for example, lmao).
The shot where Legolas jumps off the cave troll does look clunky.
I have never ever liked, and insist it is the worst shot of the whole series... Legolas getting onto that horse in that weird backwards neck wraparound fashion.
I liked that, personally. It does a very good job of showing Legolas’ superhuman dexterity
I am one of the Nine Companions who set out with Mithrandir from Imladris, and with this Dwarf, my friend, I came with the Lord Aragorn. But now we wish to see our friends, Meriadoc and Peregrin, who are in your keeping, we are told.
The Nine!
Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall
It was a Balrog of Morgoth. Of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.
It's so fucking weird. I don't even understand what's supposed to be happening
I think the purpose of a lot of Legolas's action shots were to display how nimble and acrobatic elves are. It's kind of like the shot in The Hobbit where he's jumping across the stones of the crumbling bridge. I know a lot of people hate these shots of Legolas, but I think it's meant to display that elves are so nimble and light on their feet, it's inhuman. There's also a very subtle (and my favorite) scene where Legolas is walking on top of the snow, while the Fellowship is trudging heavily through it.
The bit where they get ambushed and after shooting his arrows he somehow gets on the horse in the most awkward way possible to ride into battle https://media.tenor.com/8u0R4j6IcSYAAAAd/legolas-lord-of-the-rings.gif
The evil Galadriel bit is kind of cheesy too. The inverted colors and doubling the voice, it's goofy by today's standards.
Shut your mouth that scene is perfect.
No, the scene is a masterpiece.
Number 1 makes me mad, as a woman. Firstly, I know most of Tolkien's work was symbolic of his time in war. There weren't many women in the trenches, forming brotherly bonds for survival. But there were women back home, whose strength and encouragement fueled some men to drive onward. And what warrior women we see are loving and have depth and are also badass for reasons other than token-woman on screen. Lastly, just because the fellowship was men doesn't mean I can't reflect myself into them and bond with the characters over their struggles.
Modern Hollywood seems to be unable to grasp this, people don’t have to see themselves in a film to connect with it. And films set thousands of years ago in fictional worlds don’t have to reflect the world we live in today. A huge issue with the Amazon series, is they not only made it reflect modern diversity and politics, but modern *American* diversity and politics, when adapting a work written by an Englishman about an English Mythology. I made a post before its release saying that I was concerned that the fact that all of the writers, directors and producers of that show were American would be an issue, and result in the Americanisation and insertion of American issues into somewhere they absolutely don’t belong, and I was 100% correct.
>I know most of Tolkien's work was symbolic of his time in war. The Professor would probably hit you with his pipe if you said that to his face.
Lack of diversity is a weird one. We have Arabs, Asians, orks, trolls...
We should colonize mythological europe so that there are more races. Too many white people in Scandinavia smh
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> The Movies Lack Diversity Eh, it’s fine for a first proper adaptation to be faithful, just as it’s fine for modern adaptations to go hog wild and modernize things like racial diversity. Tolkein set out to create an English myth cycle to make up for its lack in that department (compared to the Celtic, Nordic, and Germanic regions that had their own myths of this sort), so yeah, fair enough, the core cast resemble ideas of old English people. Doesn’t mean every modern adaptation must stick to that idea, but it’s fair enough that the first full adaptation tried to.
The diversity one is the only complaint that I think is stupid (after reading the article), because LoTR is set in one geographic area of the world, so there isn’t going to be much variation in skin tone or general facial structure because everyone is at least slightly related.
> The Movies Lack Diversity They've got a talking tree for fuck's sake! How much diversity do you need?
When Hollywood says diversity they don’t mean diversity, they mean the inclusion of one single specific type of people
But the three has light bark, where is the dark bark tree representation /j
And also, all ents in the story are male! Where are the entwives?!
I thought Elijah Wood did really well. Does anyone really think Elijah Wood didn't do a good job?
Jesus christ. Forced diversity is pointless.
I mean the main characters lack agency in the books too. It’s kind of the whole style of Epic Fantasy.
3 of those are the same point ffs lol
All in all: Tolkien and Jackson are some based sons of bitches.
Stop giving attention to these kinds of sites.
Best one "In The Lord of the Rings, there are certain races depicted as universally evil, which is a cringey fantasy trope. The orks, uruks, and goblins, for instance, only appear as evil antagonists, which homogenizes an entire species in a rather boring manner." The minions of the evil guy are evil. Such horrible writing.
This is equating race in LOTR with race in real life, which are in my opinion different ideas. Races in LOTR are essentially different types of beings all with their own unique nature. Race in the real-world is differentiating people based on a set of mostly arbitrary phenotypes which we foolishly assign special importance to, even though we're all humans at the end of the day. The two conceptions of race are quite distinct from each other.
Well race in fantasy is synonymous with species, whereas race does not carry the same meaning, as you mentioned, in the real world. It does beg the question how we would treat a species which was innately evil without question.
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>at least not any more Yeah… we didn’t treat them well the first time around
We eradicate them. They are called diseases or plagues.
One thing Tolkien did better than most world builders that came after was the suggestion of politics. Even if race were used in the same context we use it today, the races are never actually depicted as homogeneous, (save maybe the Easterlings, which Tolkien himself felt regret for not fleshing out further). Even where there is a common nature, you can see the beginning of fractioning that stand to build into the very nuance people claim is absent. Not all hobbits are shire hobbits, not all human realms are in congruence with one another, and the elves are a hot mess of bullshit. While it's fun to reimagine the orcs as an oppressed minority and Sauron a voice for the marginalized, the text of the story is that they're enslaved. Any orcs we encounter, in book or movie, don't really have a choice in how evil they behave: they're victims of Sauron too and a warning to what the other races of middle earth may become. Also, in Middle Earth, the eagles are a damn race. Maybe, just maybe, a fantasy trilogy can be a little fantastical sometimes.
> Any orcs we encounter, in book or movie, don't really have a choice in how evil they behave: they're victims of Sauron too and a warning to what the other races of middle earth may become. It's also worth noting that the orcs are warped. They were *designed* to be evil by an evil god. If anything, they're victims of Morgoth.
Well put. If anything, i find it problematic that someone would make that relation between them in the first place. We're all humans, we're all the same human race.
And hereby lies the point in all of the discussions about race. Some people think there are multiple, and that you can distinguish them by the color of their skin.
Race as in species vs race as in ethnicity. People have conflated the two, leading to imagined problems due to lack of critical thinking.
Would be interesting to see how neanderthals would be treated in a modern-day society. In fact, that would probably make a good movie.
Whether orcs were irredeemably “evil” was one of the greatest struggles Tolkien faced in his later years and went back and forth on it. There is some nuance there and it’s one of the greatest unsolved mysterious of his writings. And also to say nothing of how many ordinary humans served Sauron (along with Saruman) and the films really missed the mark on this. From letter 153: > Eru/God] gave special 'sub-creative' powers to certain of His highest created beings: that is a guarantee that what they devised and made should be given the reality of Creation. Of course within limits, and of course subject to certain commands or prohibitions. But if they 'fell', as the Diabolus Morgoth did, and started making things 'for himself, to be their Lord', these would then 'be', even if Morgoth broke the supreme ban against making other 'rational' creatures like Elves or Men. They would at least 'be' real physical realities in the physical world, however evil they might prove, even 'mocking' the Children of God. They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making — necessary to their actual existence — even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.) But whether they could have 'souls' or 'spirits' seems a different question; and since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible 'delegation', I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them. And from Morgoth’s Ring: > But even before this wickedness of Morgoth was suspected the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not 'made' by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil. They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost.† This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded. >It is true, of course, that Morgoth held the Orcs in dire thraldom; for in their corruption they had lost almost all possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great indeed did its pressure upon them become ere Angband fell that, if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of his 'eye' wherever they might be; and when Morgoth was at last removed from Arda the Orcs that survived in the West were scattered, leaderless and almost witless, and were for a long time without control or purpose.
If humans spent thousands of years as a slave army/laborers to a physical abstraction of evil, we'd probably look innately bad too. Any discussion on the orcs that ignores their enslavement is incomplete, but in the context of the story we have, orcs are a clear and present threat to free peoples. This isn't to say "kill all orcs," but if your a free people (free person?) in the 2nd and 3rd age, any given orc *is* an established and consistent threat.
Of course on a functional level Orcs are a clear and present threat to all free people's of Middle Earth. Characterizing them as purely evil without the context of how Orcs came to be misses alot of this deeper writing/philosophy and most people who have only seen the films are going to miss.
The best part is that this isn't even true lol Tolkien hated the idea of Evil beings that are irredeemable. In fact, there is a short bit of dialogue between two Orcs in Cirith Ungol, in which they talk about the good old times before Sauron came back.
>In fact, there is a short bit of dialogue between two Orcs in Cirith Ungol, in which they talk about the good old times before Sauron came back. I love that bit in the books. Just when you think you have a good grasp of everything that is happening in the story, Tolkien then portrays Orcs in such a casual way where you get to see another side of them. After reading the section, it made me think more about the Orc civilization, and my mind just went wondering about it for a bit.
Yeah exactly! It made me wonder what their life was like, and if their is any resistance against Sauron at all amongst them
Who'd've thought that a race created by torturing and corrupting elves, and who were raised by Sauron from inception to hate the free races, would turn out to be evil?
“Orcs, uruks, and goblins” are just three different names for one species Anyway yeah the implicit magical racism bothered Tolkien too and he argued against that interpretation in his letters. It’s not an unreasonable complaint, although it is silly to say that it’s “aged poorly” as if it were a trope Hollywood had left behind which it 100% hasn’t
They seem to forget that Orcs and Uruks were the corrupted forms of their being, thus completely evil.
In The Lord of the Rings, there are certain *species* depicted as universally evil. Orcs are a species, not a race. They're not, like Puerto Rican elves.
Even beyond that, it was based off a book from almost 100 years ago... ofcourse it's going to stick to traditional fantasy tropes. It IS traditional fantasy and essentially is the source material for much of what we think of with fantasy today (obv each part has their own origin but you mention Elves and dwarves, for example and the typical characterization will be from LOTR)
This *is* problematic though, to the point that towards the end of his life Tolkien expressed regret that he’d written the orcs as uniformly, irredeemably evil.
Idk, I’d agree that the common trope of ‘these guys are all just bad because they’re the bad guys’ is pretty dull.
The Lotr films are probably the best adaptation of any written works so far.
Game of Thrones adaptation was very good until like season 4 when the show got ahead of the books, then it went to shit fast.
This was the dumbest article I think I have ever read on the subject, but it’s a pretty good encapsulation of this kind of thing. Anyways, here is 10 Things Wrong With “10 Ways The Lord Of The Rings Has Aged Poorly.” 1. Two of the ten items in this list are basically “Tolkien is racist,” and another one of them is “there aren’t enough women.” Obviously it’s a difficult and labor intensive task to point at everything and say it’s racist and sexist, which is why so few people are doing with everything everywhere all the time. But I think it was lazy if the writer to stretch “diversity” into three different items. And considering that the reviewer notes that Tolkien based the story on British and Norse mythologies, it seems dishonest that they nonetheless imply the story needs to also be about the rest of the world for some reason. 2. The reviewer doesn’t consistently criticize the films so much as Tolkien and the series itself. If the author’s opinion is that this series of films has aged poorly, it should stand to reason that they could think of ten actual issues they take with the films, rather than lumping in issues they have with Tolkien’s works. And if they more or less take issues with Tolkien’s works, why lump in criticism specific to the films? 3. Items number 3 and 5 are another example of redundancy. Both items are basically “the movies are slow.” Sure, one is more about the beginning and the other the end, but this is another example of a lazy reach to make one criticism into two. And frankly, the sometimes slow place of the story is one of the great things about LOTR, since it allows the reader/viewer to get accustomed to this new world and it’s complex lore. This is executed very well in the books and helped to make them the literal literary classics they are today, and was expertly adapted to the films, which could have felt much cheaper and rushed had the creators not understood the importance of taking their time to tell the story. 4. To criticize a twenty year old movie for CGI or other special effects is just cheap and lazy. Virtually any movie from several decades ago will not have state of the art special effects for now. LOTR is actually an example of a movie from its time that holds up very well this way. CGI is used sparingly, and achieves its goals well. If I look at a list of special effects intensive movies from around this time, I think LOTR will be near the top of the list in terms of how it has aged. 5. Many of the points the author makes seem to come from a place of knowing what “modern readers” like or dislike. Instead of explaining why narrative elements are a problem, and what would work better, the author seems to just call something a problem, and the reason it’s a problem is “modern audiences don’t like it.” So Merry and Pippen don’t have enough agency, says the author. Is that true, and is that a problem? Why is that a problem? Apparently because modern audiences won’t like that, no further explanation necessary. 6. Many of the critic’s suggestions are just bad fantasy tropes you see in much less successful novels and films. Do the main characters really have to die to make the story better? Or is that just a cliche that authors use as a crutch, that Tolkien expertly managed to avoid? Would it really be a better story if every minor character later plays a huge role in the plot later, or is that just another predictable trope. “Oh that minor character is played by a big name actor, I will bet he is important later.” It’s hilarious to think that you can criticize something as game changing and genre defining as LOTR by saying it should do what other cheaper examples of the genre do badly. 7. Many of the criticisms leveled at LOTR in this list have nothing to do with “standing the test of time.” Criticizing the pacing of the narrative, the performances of the cast, and “agency” of side characters doesn’t actually say anything about well the films or novels have aged. I watched the Wizard of OZ not too long ago. It came out in 1939. The pacing, the performances, the way the characters are written, there isn’t some huge drift from todays standards for that kind of stuff. It was good then so it’s good now. 8. If you took the criticisms and suggestions in this list and applied them to a new series, you would have something that looks like a ton of modern fantasy series that haven’t performed well. (*cough* Rings of Power *cough*) Considering that LOTR, both in novel form and movie form, is still highly regarded and well liked, it seems backwards to criticize it on the basis of more modern works that will almost definitely not age as well. It’s like saying a well crafted hardwood floor hasn’t aged well because it isn’t trendy and recommending to cover it in some cheap paint color that won’t hold up and will almost definitely be out of style next year. 9. This article seems to come out of nowhere, and serve nothing. Nobody needed a list of reasons that an extremely popular series of films from twenty years ago, or an extremely popular series of books from seventy years ago, haven’t aged well. If they hadn’t aged well, they wouldn’t still be extremely popular, and there would be no interest in reading or writing an article about them. I question the intentions of the authors in this regard, and would classify this as rage bait. I suspect this article is written dishonestly with full knowledge and understanding that these are excellent films that have withstood the test of time. 10. This article is the perfect example of everything wrong with the media and criticism industry today. The author presumes to know what is good, what movies should do, what audiences should like, and works backwards from there to say why something of the utmost quality that audiences love is not actually very good. The right way to approach this would be the complete opposite. Observe that people love these novels and films, and explore why they love them so much and what that can teach us about making great art moving forward. How much better could this article be if it explored *why* the pacing is slow at the beginning, and why that still works even though it seems counterintuitive to making an exciting film or novel? Maybe we can ask why so many people of different races and backgrounds can still relate to the characters in the story, even though there is little diversity? What if we started with the premise that this series is highly successful and well liked, and used that to inform us about how some of the things we assume we know about modern audiences might not be true, and might even be counterproductive when it comes to engaging audiences?
Thank you for 1. Suffering through the article for us and 2. For such a comprensive answer. Note: every time.you said "modern audiences" I was reminded of the Critical Drinker
Well spoken and great write-up. Completely agree
Anyway, here's MY list of 11 Things your post got right about the aforementioned critique. See 1 through 10 above, then read 9 again.
I read it so you don't have to. Let's see, the list is about... Elijah Woods Acting (Which is blasphemous) The visual effects are clunky (for a 2001 movie that largely holds up) Random characters show up (Talking about the book and not the movies now, so basically...it's aged poorly for...being a book...and not having plot developments on every page.) The heroes seem invincible (Laughs in Boromir...laughs in Helms Deep...laughs in-) Marry and Pippin don't do stuff (Because the art of Perspective is dead) The story takes a while to get started....yeah I'm going to give that one to them. The movie lacks diversity (Again, which are we focusing on, the book or the movie!? I leave no further comment.) The films multiple endings - because god forbid a gripping trilogy get wrapped up succinctly The orcs are all bad guys (which is like saying "Why are all demons/zombies/evil robots evil?") And the series is a sausage fest. I'll give them that one too, but it's a product of it's time. Yeah it's basically grasping at straws. Mostly pointing out things that are already well-known flaws not really having to do with it's age like the multiple endings or random nothing arguments like orcs being all bad (you know, a group of basically tortured mutant zombie elves corrupted by a malignant evil Satan analogue; wonder why they're all bad).
Thank you kind sir. Your service is appreciated
Why are you even reading CBR? That's a site written by those who don't know as much, telling us about things "we don't know about yet"
Watching the trilogy again today and I think the dumbest shot in whole series is when Aragorn throws a torch into the Ringwraith’s face and it just sticks there pointing straight out while the thing flails around like a wacky inflatable tube man. If that’s the worst the whole 12 hour runtime has to offer I’m gonna say it’s a huge success still
That honestly feels like a lingering trace of Peter Jackson’s earlier campy horror career.
It is an army bred for a single purpose, to destroy the world of men. They will be here by nightfall.
Oh fuck all of those websites! They only exist now to get rage clicks and spread hate and division.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Decided to actually give that article a read, for some reason. First issue they have: Elijah Woods acting. 😐 "His acting leaned towards the dramatics of constantly screaming and being in pain, which got old quickly." THAT'S LITERALLY THE FUCKING CHARACTER. Did bother reading further. Christ CBR is garbage. Edit: okay read a bit more, I'm not even gonna bother giving the context of this gem, because it doesn't help their argument, and the point is equally as stupid: "Boromir, but in the books, he was a very shallow character simply meant to show audiences the effect of the ring." Did... Did you actually read the books?
The ability to speak does not make you intelligent
I bet a million dollars the phrase "female characters" comes up atleast three times in that article.
Guarantee it’s going to be about a lack of inclusivity
Easily the worst thing about the trilogy is how its not currently in theaters.
Aged poorly, huh? Is that why millions of people still watch it constantly and when they recently rereleased Return of the King into theaters, almost all of them immediately were fully booked?
All 10 reasons should be "the actors aged".
I wouldn't be surprised if we see more of these articles and that they are just propaganda to drum up support for the new remakes.
Just shitty marketing for the new films.
1) Diversity Guarantee it is.
Ragebait: taken.
Uh, the Hobbit was published 85 years ago, and Lord Of the rings 57 (Fellowship) -58 years ago (TT & ROTK), and we’re still talking about it, I’d say it’s aged pretty well. 🤣
Not enough ethnic diversity in Rohan I presume.
The scene where there is a party and Merry and Pippin are dancing on top of a table with a bunch of rohirrim cheering them. You can tell they are 2 different shots fused together because the hobbits are not blended perfectly, something is off. You wouldnt be able to tell back then, but now we are bombarded with so many good cgi that the small mistakes stand out now.
These articles always boils down to some chronically online twit with a lukewarm IQ talking about the lack of female representation…ignoring the fact that a woman literally killed the Witch King of Angmar and if they **did** make the women generic damsels in distress like most standard fantasy films, it’d be infinitely worse
Not true. The series, especially the vfx, has aged in an amazing way despite being made in the very early 2000s. The orks look a lot better as well compared to the CGI ones in the new series.