I agree that the the movie was empty. However not because of the lack of character development - the book itself suceeds without much of that.
What the book has which is missing in the film is the sense of wholeness, of a tying up of all loose ends. The completeness of the mythology and the consistency within the complexity is perhaps the most hugely satisfying aspect of the book, and why it's so long (although I agree with Tolkien himself that it's too short!). It is probably this compleness which appeals to us technical people - we are impressed by logic and elegance within logic, and also by the high-level insight into Nature, History, and Time, albeit of a completely difefrent world.
A film (or three films for that matter) is too short and cannot represent these grander aspects of the book.
Do this with a large number of people and develop 'probability clouds' for their whereabouts. Then use multivariate exploratory data analysis techniques on critical dimensions of the probability clouds to characterize types of people according to their ranging zones. Could be interesting!
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that the the movie was empty. However not because of the lack of character development - the book itself suceeds without much of that.
What the book has which is missing in the film is the sense of wholeness, of a tying up of all loose ends. The completeness of the mythology and the consistency within the complexity is perhaps the most hugely satisfying aspect of the book, and why it's so long (although I agree with Tolkien himself that it's too short!). It is probably this compleness which appeals to us technical people - we are impressed by logic and elegance within logic, and also by the high-level insight into Nature, History, and Time, albeit of a completely difefrent world.
A film (or three films for that matter) is too short and cannot represent these grander aspects of the book.
Do this with a large number of people and develop 'probability clouds' for their whereabouts. Then use multivariate exploratory data analysis techniques on critical dimensions of the probability clouds to characterize types of people according to their ranging zones. Could be interesting!