LotR Cleans Up at AFI

bigdreamer writes "Looks like LOTR is a big hit even among non-nerds. this CNN article says it won the most awards, including Best Picture, at the first annual American Film Institute awards Saturday."

Comments

how presumptuous

[rebug]

First annual?

Don't we have enough of these goons sitting around saluting themselves?

Re:Box office totals?

[inc0gnito]

According to www.chud.com, Lord of The Rings has grossed $205,500,000 as of last Monday
(box office totals are updated every Monday). This is over a three week period.
Last weekend's gross was $23,000,000.

FYI: In 8 weeks Harry Potter has grossed $300,500,000 so I don't think that LOTR has broken any records yet.

Cleans house at AFI, AS it should ...

[SuperDuG]

I gather that most of you have seen the movie by now so I will warn now ... ther might be one or two spoilers in this comment.

I think they should make a new award "Reminds me of a when I was a kid". Because the entire movie followed the book quite well IMHO. I haven't read the books for some time, but not in my wildest imagination could I have dreamed of the landscapes and characters in the film. The hobbits never wearing shoes, the magic and understanding of wizzards and elves. The hatred of elves and dwarfs and how humans are low on the totem poll of evolution.

The visual effects drew you in and you never once thought that it was fake, but the time and dedication it would have taken to make the builsings and structures that were in the film. Also the true understanding of the power of the ring and the power of commitment.

I did, however, confuse the story of the hobbit in the begining, but that was portrayed to me in a flashback at the begining where the stories start and begin. They were all meant to go together and they do so wonderfully. I don't think Tolkein could have understood what an impact his stories would have actually had on the world when he wrote them.

For a bit of humor... someone who accompanied me who had not read the books didn't irst understand that the movie WAS 3 hours long and was getting a little bored by not really understanding what was happening in the movie and not getting into it. But I think we can all relate to the next quote directly when the credits started "WHAT??!!! that was it??? no WAY ... they can't just end it like that!!!" ...

Well I will say that my X-Mas present of the LoTR book set from think geek has been confisgated for a while now :-) ... ohh well at least she'll know that the movie ended there for a reason ... hehehe the book ended :-)

Recency effect?

[Black Parrot]

Whenever I see awards or polls for "best of the year" or "decade" or "century" or "all time", I figure you should normalize the results by multiplying each entry's rank in the list by the log of the time since it came out. The recency hype dominates awards and polls, as can be seen by look at e.g. the all-time top films at IMDB. I mean c'mon, Memento as the tenth best film ever? American Beauty as the 18th???

When you see 50-60 year old films still rated in the top 50 you have to concede that they've got some genuine enduring quality, but some of the more recent ones probably won't even be remembered a decade from now.

So maybe LotR is great (dunno; the hype turned me off from going to see it yet), but right now the only "news" would be if it didn't win an award.

Re:Recency effect?

[jheinen]

FWIW, in the Waterstone poll of 25,000 readers, the LotR was voted best book of the 20th century. Not too shabby for a work that's over 50 years old.

Re:Recency effect?

[Misha]

there are still ONLY 17 films dating back to 1990 in the top 50. and although i disagree with some selections like The Sixth Sense, Requiem for a Dream and Shrek, in the past 11 years advances in film-making both technological (Matrix, LOTR, Toy Story, ), production-wise (Saving Private Ryan, LOTR, Titanic [thank god it didn't make top 50]), and screenplay-wise (The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Fight Club) have raised the standard for movies.

While it is difficult to match your first experience at the movies or the first time you saw Star Wars and Godfather, when you go to the movies you simply expect to see more. And while the audience does or does not realize it, they DO see more (Scary Movie notwithstanding :). I think that explains to some degree why over 35 percent of the IMDB is so recent, and that it is not completely undeservingly so.

Re:Christians Nerds

[ryants]

Lord of the rings is a allegorically based on biblical stories.

As pointed out by others, this was explicitly denied by Tolkein himself.

One has to remember that the Biblical stories are not all that original. Death and resurrection, battles between Good and Evil, powerful staffs, the humble and unwilling hero, etc appear in all kinds of myths, not just in the Bible, and many pre-date the Bible.

This interview smacks more of a co-opting of the work to further an agenda than anything else.

See... here's the thing.

[mindstrm]

I've heard what you said from a number of people.. and I can't dispute it. Those who haven't read the books don't seem to like it much. Those who did usually love it.

I have read the books, probably twice over the years.. so for me, the movie was an unbelievable experience.. They brought the book to life (parts of it, anyway). It's by far the most enjoyable movie I've seen in my life. It was 3 hours of magic.

The real attraction for me was watching a good book come to life on screen.. and in an amazing way. They didn't butcher it. Sure, they could have done more character development, they could also have put in all the songs, and they could have not left out whole scenes from the book... and they could also have ended up with a 9 hour movie. What you say about the Potter movies being edited 'right' for the bigscreen is exactly what I thought of LOTR.

As for what you've 'heard' about the characters in the book... I disagree. Gandalf was not a 'manipulative SOB'. He was pretty much exactly what you see in the film. Now.. of course, if you want to really know, please, read the books for yourself.

Also.. comparing Harry Potter to LOTR as literary works is apples and oranges.
Harry Potter is great, I loved the books.. but it's absolutely not in the same league as LOTR. LOTR is a literary masterpiece. Harry Potter is just a popular book that's light and interesting.

BTW.. Did you konw they renamed it for US distribution? To the rest of the world it's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone". They also changed many British words in the book to something more American, "Trunk" instead of "Boot" etc..

Allgeory and C.S. Lewis and Tolkien

[Ethelred Unraed]

Lord of the rings is a allegorically based on biblical stories. Tolkien being profoundly Catholic, will obviously have a big influence on North America's western society, most of it rooted in some sort of Christian moral basis.

As others have already pointed out, Tolkien denies any sort of intentional allgeory or historical reference in his books.

At the same time, don't forget that many of the same right-wing Christian groups that go around burning "Harry Potter" books also tend to take a very dim view of Catholics (or "papists" as they would call them). I know, my niece's mother takes my niece to just one such church, much to my and my brother's annoyance.

I gave her LOTR for Christmas...and "A Wrinkle in Time", which I call the "stealth bomb for eight-year-olds". >:-)

At any rate, it's interesting to note that the "Narnia" series from C.S. Lewis is not so often objected to by these same groups -- even though Lewis and Tolkien were close friends and shared many of the same views. (Lewis had been agnostic, and Tolkien tried to convert him to Catholicism, but Lewis became an Anglican instead -- i.e. Protestant, if only barely.) However, "Narnia" is clearly an allegory, with Aslan the Lion directly representing Christ -- Lewis said so himself.

Cheers,

Ethelred

Nerd arrogance

[Z4rd0Z]

From the Slashdot article: Looks like LOTR is a big hit even among non-nerds.

This is a rather arrogant attitude that I find annoying. These books were written long ago before there even was such a thing as a "nerd". My grandma, who was a tough Montana pioneer woman, liked Tolkien's books. In the 60s, the Tolkien books were very popular among college students. Where is it written that Lord of the Rings was made for nerds?