From: fwbrown@bellsouth.net   
      
   On Wed, 30 Apr 2014 17:03:16 in article <8fb0405a-2b51-49d3-89dc   
   a1b90d699c03@googlegroups.com> Mike Scott Rohan  wrote:   
   > Of course. Your imagination produces what's required, a lot more   
   > satisfactorily than Peter Jackson's. I enjoy the odd action movie   
   > well enough, but it's like candyfloss (=cotton candy) for the mind;   
   > if you've a bit more brain, you naturally demand a bit more, and for   
   > that you need the original book. And that, for me, sums up a lot of   
   > the problem with Jackson's adaptations. He and Boyens do sincerely   
   > love the books, they do catch something of the magic -- visually,   
   > in particular -- but their response, for all the detail they drag   
   > in, is on a fairly shallow level, and heavily coloured -- you could   
   > almost say contaminated -- by the inbuilt cliches of lesser fantasies,   
   > comics and video games. The way, for example, that Jackson loves   
   > having combatants stand around and square off, snarling macho fashion   
   > at one another. That destroys the sweeping element of surprise in --   
   > for example -- the confrontation with the orcs in Moria, the ride of   
   > the Rohirrim, or Aragorn's arrival at the siege of Minas Tirith. It's   
   > childish and unlikely. Or, on another level, the way he completely   
   > misunderstands Tolkien's subtle characterization of Denethor and   
   > Saruman. The result is LOTR Lite.   
      
   LOTR Lite!  I love that description.  It explains why watching the   
   films makes me feel both entertained and disappointed at the same time.   
   I leave the theater at the end thinking, "That was fun, but it could   
   have been *so much better*."   
      
   --   
   F. Wayne Brown    
      
   Þæs ofereode, ðisses swa mæg.  ("That passed away, this also can.")   
      from "Deor," in the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)