Lord of the Rings

[DFM]

It had green flecks in it I keep it in my desk drawer now to protect me from superman.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Geminex

Whereas Sauron is decidedly not. The plot revolves around him, and, even if he doesn't get very much screen-time, the mere existence of the character has a pretty massive impact on the movie. Remove him and the story gets one hell of a lot less elegant, since it's less "epic quest" and more "Retarded Picnic with lots of orcs". So I think he is important.

I don't see why. Replace "evil ring created by Sauron" with "evil ring" and Mordor with "land of monsters", the story is going to play out the same. Sauron is just a name they drop so they can be like "ohhhh bad things are happening".
Or even if you don't like that Sauron could be replaced by any generic bad guy. He has no traits that impact on the story in meaningful ways- he just a vague evil who is bad somewhere.
Compare Sauron to Saruman- Saruman has a character, Saruman does shit, Saruman impacts on the story.

Sauron's not really the main villain either. The main villain is pretty much mountains.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

Here's the thig, you can make a little paen to your fantasy world and you can spend ages on every characters costume, even extras, making sure they have the right symbols and stuff as they did, but at the end of the day you still have to make an interestig film which they didn't. If your're massively invested in Tolkein then you can appreciate it but for the general audience it means nothing.

I think there's a wild majority of people that watched the films seem to disagree with you there Smarty.

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

I don't see why. Replace "evil ring created by Sauron" with "evil ring" and Mordor with "land of monsters", the story is going to play out the same. Sauron is just a name they drop so they can be like "ohhhh bad things are happening".
Or even if you don't like that Sauron could be replaced by any generic bad guy. He has no traits that impact on the story in meaningful ways- he just a vague evil who is bad somewhere.
Compare Sauron to Saruman- Saruman has a character, Saruman does shit, Saruman impacts on the story.

Sauron's not really the main villain either. The main villain is pretty much mountains.

For a guy that's for all intents and purposes dead at the start of the films I'd say he's done pretty well for himself.
Sauron himself can't do much because he's an eyeball at the top of a tower, but every single orc you see from the Two Towers onward is his doing.
Fall of Osgiliathe, the invasion of Minis Tirith, the battle at the black gate, the corruption of men and EVERY FUCKING THING ELSE IN THE STORY is Sauron. Fuck, even Saruman is a pawn of Sauron.

If you take all of that out then you truly are left with a boring movie. The side plots, battles, and a world you don't need to read deep into to enjoy were key to the successes of the films.
If you disagree that's fine, but it's rather obvious by the acclaim the films received that they did something right with them.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

There's also a wild majority of people who like Transformers 2 or Epic movie. Don't make them good movies.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

There's also a wild majority of people who like Transformers 2 or Epic movie. Don't make them good movies.

Yes. It does; in other peoples opinions.

They're entertainment films, if they entertain people then there's nothing wrong with that.

You might not like them, but that doesn't make them objectively bad movies.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

By making that argument, however, you render the ability to critique films void. The best of film of all time by this reckoning is Gone with the Wind.
We can cancel all film studies classes, we can fire all critics, we can now judge films by their box-office receipts only. I could make an intentionally awful film but if I put stars on the billboard, have a big advertising budget and give it the name of something already popular I guaranee I'll make a massive profit.
You can make flims that are both popular and innovative but if you make a film hat is popular and derivative, lazily written and not providing anything new, then its a crap movie.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

By making that argument, however, you render the ability to critique films void. The best of film of all time by this reckoning is Gone with the Wind.
We can cancel all film studies classes, we can fire all critics, we can now judge films by their box-office receipts only. I could make an intentionally awful film but if I put stars on the billboard, have a big advertising budget and give it the name of something already popular I guaranee I'll make a massive profit.
You can make flims that are both popular and innovative but if you make a film hat is popular and derivative, lazily written and not providing anything new, then its a crap movie.

Right but for all other bounds of logic and understanding the Lord of the Rings is pretty damn alright at least. But you think it's boring, therefore it's a bad film.

Maybe you're trying to state your opinions here and I'm just reading it wrong, but it really sounds like you're trying to convince me that it's objectively a bad film which doesn't seem to be the case by any reasoning other than your own.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'm saying it's a bad film becaues the script is awfull dragged out for no real reason, the "villain" doesn't exist, the dialogue is hammy and the characters are 2D walking cliches who don't change or achieve anything over 9 odd hours of film. You watch the first 10 minutes, you watch the last 10 minutes of film and you've seen all that happens.
The film is just a massive block of padding.

I've said all this mulotiple times and nobody has said anything related to why Lord of the Rings is any good except the action scenes which are passable bu would need to be excellent to rescue this script.
The effects are pretty good as well but they aren't being used to create anything interesting so it doesn't help.

[Geminex]

If you take all of that out then you truly are left with a boring movie. The side plots, battles, and a world you don't need to read deep into to enjoy were key to the successes of the films.

Well, Smarty's not entirely wrong. If you can justify all the other shit that happens, then Sauron isn't strictly necessary, because, like you said, he's more of a driving force. If you can replace him, he indeed may not be absolutely vital.

Though Smarty, I'm saying that it's quite difficult to elegantly replace Sauron. You'd need to restructure the story, and find reasons for all the evil guys to do all the evil shit they do already. Even if you could do that believably (for the value of "believably" that applies in a universe where small men with big hairy feet smoking weed all day is perfectly normal), I very much doubt that you could do it concisely as well. In the interest of keeping the movie short, and the story at least mildly believable I'm saying Sauron is necessary.

You might not like them, but that doesn't make them objectively bad movies.

WELL THEN, I'LL BE OVER HERE WATCHING SPACE JAM. AND THAT HE-MAN MOVIE. OH YEAH AND I GOT THIS NEW ONE CALLED "STAR WARS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL" AND ITS SO FUCKING RAD. MAN, THE ENDING JUST MADE ME TEAR UP AND CHEWBACCA'S FAMILY IS SO RELATABLE.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

I'm saying it's a bad film becaues the script is awfull dragged out for no real reason, the "villain" doesn't exist, the dialogue is hammy and the characters are 2D walking cliches who don't change or achieve anything over 9 odd hours of film. You watch the first 10 minutes, you watch the last 10 minutes of film and you've seen all that happens.
The film is just a massive block of padding.

I've said all this mulotiple times and nobody has said anything related to why Lord of the Rings is any good except the action scenes which are passable bu would need to be excellent to rescue this script.
The effects are pretty good as well but they aren't being used to create anything interesting so it doesn't help.

And I'm saying that the script is fine, the villains actions are there and have consequences for the cast, you just have to actually look for them. The characters seem like cliches because they invented the cliche. And they don't change much because they're presented as completed individuals.

They're not a group of teenagers or an amnesiac protagonist building his personality as they go along, they're people who've lived full lives that are out on what we can assume is yet another adventure for them. Why would they need to go through some massive personal revelation or fundamental change in personality? They start out as who they are, they finish as who they are.
At that, note change much. They themselves don't change personalities much because they shouldn't. But their opinions of each other, their interactions with each other and how they present themselves does.

Gimli starts the story hating on Elves, he ends it still maintaining that he does, but he's still fully willing to admit Legolas is his friend.
It's. Subtle.

Originally Posted by Geminex

WELL THEN, I'LL BE OVER HERE WATCHING SPACE JAM. AND THAT HE-MAN MOVIE. OH YEAH AND I GOT THIS NEW ONE CALLED "STAR WARS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL" AND ITS SO FUCKING RAD. MAN, THE ENDING JUST MADE ME TEAR UP AND CHEWBACCA'S FAMILY IS SO RELATABLE.

I didn't mean to imply you can't make an objectively bad film, just that your personal opinion on it is a poor basis for calling it as such. Especially when presented with a large group of people that disagree.