A mate of mine mentioned the other day that apparently LOTR was initially considered as being made as a single movie by Peter Jackson, instead of the trilogy it was made into. Now, WI that had been the case ? How would cinematic hist have been affected (IMHO, for the worse) by a singular LOTR movie encompassing all 3 books ?
WI LOTR series made as 1 movie?
- Thread starter Melvin Loh
- Start date
Melvin Loh said:
See the animated version of LOTR made in the 70's...
animation--good.
story--**shudder**
Last edited:
Well, actually Jackson's LOTR is one film. I'd no more call it a trilogy than I would describe the Russian WAR AND PEACE as a double bill. And watching the Bakshi LOTR again for the first time in about a quarter of a century, I still disliked the animation, but thought he done rather better with the plot than I remembered.
it would have sucked.... even if given 3 hours, the story would have been so compressed, it would have been a rather jumbled series of action/battle scenes with scarcely any intervals... or, they would have had to chop major portions of the story out. Helm's Deep would have been on screen for 15 minutes... Pelannor fields would have gotten 20, maybe...
One movie.
I wouldn't be suprised by a "Special Edition" DVD with a feature to have all three movies run together.
Melvin Loh said:
I wouldn't be suprised by a "Special Edition" DVD with a feature to have all three movies run together.
With it as one movie, we have two options:
1. The story would be very compressed.
2. It would be one long movie. If made like this, there would have to be intermissions between the 'books' or 'acts'.
1. The story would be very compressed.
2. It would be one long movie. If made like this, there would have to be intermissions between the 'books' or 'acts'.
it wou;ld have been better if it had been a 12-15 hour mini-series.
1 movie-ABOMINATION
1 movie-ABOMINATION
fortyseven said:
I agree! man--that animated version I saw still makes me cringe. Really a pity too--it was made by the same guy who did 'Fritz the Cat' and the animation itself was pretty astounding (for the time anyways), But, man, it was incredible how much stuff was cut out...
NapoleonXIV
Banned
Prunesquallor said:
So, in fact, was the book really one book. A trilogy is supposed to be three separate stand-alone stories that, put together, make one longer one. The LOTR books even have cliffhanger endings in some volumes.
That being said, the movie would be terrible as one movie. The idea of a runtogether DVD is good. The idea of seeing it as a TV miniseries (which is how it will probably be broadcast eventually) is probably best of all.
this is off topic, but I'm REALLY looking forward to the special edition of ROTK. When I have all three special editions, I'm going to take a whole day and watch the whole thing nonstop
Well, when ROTK was released, they had special showings in some cities. They got 35mm prints prepared of the extended versions of FOTR and TT and showed them back to back followed by ROTK. And the novel was never meant as seven books. No more than the Iliad is twenty four books. Tolkien disliked having separate titles for the volumes, he would have preferred vols 1, 2, and 3. The titles were the work of the publishers. He especially disliked RETURN OF THE KING. He thought it gave too much of the plot away and would have preferred THE WAR OF THE RING. The idea of a seventh book comes from the fact that Tolkien had originally planned a supplementary book of information on Middle Earth, but working in his usual dilatory fashion was so far behind that he was forced to scrap the idea. Irritated letters had been arriving at Allen and Unwin demanding when part three was coming out? To get it finished he simply compressed as much of the material as possible into the appendices. Paper shortages (this is coming up for ten years after the war) had nothing to do with it.
NapoleonXIV
Banned
It was that popular when first released? My understanding was its first showing was so lackluster that noone bothered to renew the copyright, and it had run out before it was rediscovered in the 60's (tho that doesn't seem time enough). Thus the famous release on the back that makes certain editions more sought.
Yes it was. I first read it in 1963, and we were quite a cult (if not as large as it became) even then. By then TFOTR had gone through 13 impressions. Later we looked at the newcomers just as old Nazis with low membership numbers regarded the "March Violets". The problem was the confused state of American copywright law. ACE BOOKS were able to put out what amounted to a pirated edition by finding a loophole in the law. Since they weren't paying any royalties, they could be cheaper than the authorised edition. Tolkien, who to his publishers' annoyance spent a huge amount of time answering letters from his American fans instead of getting on with his writing, found this paid off. Every reply to an American fan now contained the info about the pirated edition. They mounted a boycott and ACE BOOKS caved in.