The Lord of the Rings

[pmmg]

The LOTR series is top in my list of best Fantasy Films of all times. I must say, I did love the Hobbit as well, but then, I am bias in a way because my job is vfx for film and although I didn't have the chance to directly work on these films myself, have loads of colleagues that did.
There is another film I can't pass mentioning which is always been one of my great inspirations for Fantasy, that is The NeverEnding Story from 1984. What an amazing Fantasy, Family friendly film!!

I say NES recently, and...I thought it was awful.

Good for maybe a after school special, but not worthy compared to so much else that it competes against.

LOTR and Avatar were probably my best movie experiences of the last 20 years, (or is it 25 now?). but Star Wars.... Nothing beats that. While I think ESB may be one of the best movies ever, Star Wars is still something that just can't happen again.

 

[eom]

I mean, I am a romantic I suppose...I haven't watched NES in a long while tbh, so I would probably not find it as good today either but I found it had a great impact in me as child back then.

 

[ThrillhoBaggins]

We got two fantastic trilogies out of this series.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

One fantastic trilogy, one moderately good movie, one messy, mediocre movie with one good scene [Smaug], and a fight scene stretched out into a terrible movie. All because of studio executives screwing over Peter Jackson, the crew, and especially the actors.

 

[ThrillhoBaggins]

Two fantastic trilogies....and a terrible love triangle. What were they thinking doing that.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

LoTR smokes Star Wars. Mind, I saw Star Wars in the theaters 12+ times as a kid, so there is something special there that will never be repeated, but, that said, LoTR f'n smokes Star Wars. Avatar is like crap that's been fired with a pretty digital glaze. It's been.a day, so I might be venting a little, heh heh.

The first rule of The Hobbit club is that I don't talk about The Hobbit. I might be bitter.

I say NES recently, and...I thought it was awful.

Good for maybe a after school special, but not worthy compared to so much else that it competes against.

LOTR and Avatar were probably my best movie experiences of the last 20 years, (or is it 25 now?). but Star Wars.... Nothing beats that. While I think ESB may be one of the best movies ever, Star Wars is still something that just can't happen again.

 

[pmmg]

Its a quality movie to disagree with. But, I still disagree Star Wars changed to the world, LOTR not as much.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Star Wars changed the world in a sense, but it wasn't as good of a movie. it was the right move at the right time. And every pass at it, Lucas has degraded it. Lucas' real genius was in marketing.

 

[TheCrystallineEntity]

Why does it have to be a competition? Can't they both have changed the world equally in different ways?

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Where's the fun in that?! Gotta bicker 'bout somethin'.

Why does it have to be a competition? Can't they both have changed the world equally in different ways?

 

[skip.knox]

LotR absolutely is the better movie. I still remember reading Sam Delaney's review of the movie in the magazine Cosmos. He hits the target on the movie's strengths and shortcomings. Harlan Ellison didn't like it, but ol' Harlan disliked a great many things. His critique said much the same thing, but with more vitriol.

Anyway, LotR is pretty flat in characterization, but it had the advantage of a superior original. All Peter Jackson and crew needed to do was to stay true to the source, which they did admirably.

I do agree that it doesn't have to be a competition, but we humans do love competitions and rooting for our champions. Gandalf vs Ben Kenobi ... go! <gdr>

 

[Kassandra]

I just spent the last 3 days rewatching the movies in the theater, and I must say, I forgot how F'n good those were despite having watched the DVDs in between. And now, my youngest daughter has them in the theater, a major bonus!

Jackson wasn't perfect, but he was damned good. It all makes me wonder once again how The Hobbit went so wrong, heh heh. Aside from the obvious of trying to stretch it into 3 movies.

I haven't read the books, so I have no point of reference. But I had watched an interview on YouTube where Jackson had pretty much said he had no idea what he was doing with the Hobbit.
Another thing that's really stuck out to me is the fact that there's so much CGI in the Hobbit... It's painful to watch. Lord of the Rings did countless things with actors (they did use digital effects too, of course, but they did a significantly bigger effort with real people).

Also... This is a personal opinion, but I could never "feel" for the dwarves. Greedy... So, I wasn't very interested in their end goal.

 

[CupofJoe]

I have the LotR movies in their theatrical and extended versions.
I like the cinema version better. There were reasons that the extended and extra scenes were not in the original movies.
We do get more Merry and Pippin [which was usually a good idea] but most of the rest was mainly filler.
As for Star Wars, there is an anecdote that Ridley Scott got pissed/annoyed watching the original film and muttered something about that was how space should look... and then went off to make the industrial, dirty Nostromo for Alien.

 

[pmmg]

FTR..I never said LOTR was not better movie than Star Wars, in fact, I think it is a better movie. I just said the movie experience of Star Wars is the pinnacle...Everyone else did not affect the world so strongly.

I've never seen the extended versions. I made a promise that I would watch them with someone, and they never made time for it, so...it lingered.

 

[JBCrowson]

Its a quality movie to disagree with. But, I still disagree Star Wars changed to the world, LOTR not as much.

I think there's an argument to be made that which movie an individual feels changed the world for them depends in significant part on what ground breaking movies were around as that individual passed through formative stages of their life, and how connected to movies they were at that point. Thus if you went through those stages in the late 70s / early 80s, Star Wars may well be 'the one'. For younger people, that life stage likely aligns better with LOTR coming out.

I agree the hobbit trilogy isn't a patch on the LOTR set.

 

[ThrillhoBaggins]

I honestly feel like they could do a fourth movie for both.

 

[CupofJoe]

I do think that there could be a film [or two] in the battles the Dwarves had in the north with goblins and Easterlings.

 

[pmmg]

I think there's an argument to be made that which movie an individual feels changed the world for them depends in significant part on what ground breaking movies were around as that individual passed through formative stages of their life, and how connected to movies they were at that point. Thus if you went through those stages in the late 70s / early 80s, Star Wars may well be 'the one'. For younger people, that life stage likely aligns better with LOTR coming out.

Thats fair, but that is frame I was trying to address my comments into. In the entire history of film, I think Star Wars was the pinnacle. While I think there have been better movies, I dont think any had delivered on the 'wow, look what hollywood can do, and I want to see more of that' in the way that Star Wars accomplished. To me, it seems everything prior was leading up, and everything after was trying to recapture. Star Wars stood on large shoulders, and cast a big shadow. LOTR was a great experience, but it was not like the Star Wars experience in its time.