Oscars, HP Directors!

[caes56]

---------Susan Wrote:-------------
But why is easy equated with good? Accessible with excellent?

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     It's a very simple premise that seems to be lost on a lot of 
people who are either very educated or who read a LOT. See, when 
people do a lot of one thing and start to gain "taste," as it were, 
they tend to forget what exactly that thing is. Movies and books are 
the two penultimate examples of this: Books are written for one of 
two main purposes. The first is for Information and Learning. The 
second, and more popular reason is simply entertainment. LotR and HP 
are simply that- Entertainment. Why is easy equated with good? 
Accessible with excellent? Simple. If a person with a job, with a 
busy life, comes home from a long day at work, tired and exhausted, 
do you really want to read a book about some world that you have to 
get a dictionary out to understand? (I'm not saying it about any 
book in specific) Movies also cause this phenomenon- they are also 
written for information and learning or for entertainment. So why 
exactly is it so bad when a movie, like Harry Potter, is made to 
Entertain as opposed to being totally accurate? Why must it be a 
science? Let's face it- most(but not all)critics of books and 
movies, as well as most people at home, want to believe that they 
are fullfilling some greater purpose than entertainment when they 
read a book, or watch a movie. But simply put, that's all they are. 
And a lot of people nowadays don't want to believe it.
    This leads into my second point: While maybe the LotR movie was 
enjoyable for people who read the novels first- and for that, I am 
happy for all of you. But almost all of you misunderstood the point 
I was trying to get across with my first posting, which is probably 
my fault as I should probably have explained it in a different way. 
See, my problem isn't that it's accurate to the books- from the 
concensous(did I spell that right? I don't think so) of most people 
I know they were. Rather, my problem is that the movie itself 
doesn't do a moviegoer justice- someone who hasn't read the books. 
It doesn't explain the movie well, nor the plot, nor the characters 
out. Yes, it gives them a great backstory, but doesn't explain why 
the characters go from hating each other to being close friends. 
They go from caring mostly about their own races and kingdoms to 
suddenly caring about each other and the hobbits because they showed 
the characters climbing up a mountain and Boromir suddenly deciding 
to teach the hobbits how to fight. Did the book explain it more? I'm 
sure of it, because every single person who explains to me the same 
things gets it from the book. Movies aren't and should be a science; 
you shouldn't have to go home and read a book as a prerequisite to 
being able to understand a movie version of the same book. 
      So, essentially, yes, it is a good thing to have 
accessibility. It's because a lot of people have read the book 
before seeing the movie that they understand the LotR movie. As I've 
stated before, this is one of the bigger flaws of people judging the 
movie. I didn't mean to offend anyone when I asked for people to be 
objective; I wasn't speaking to anyone in particular. What I meant 
was to ask you to stop and consider my points- the best method being 
to try and see the movie while trying NOT to take anything you read 
from the book and applying it to the movie. Of course, I'm NOT 
asking you all to do that- I don't have the money to give you to see 
the movie, and I wouldn't ask you to spend it to go see the movie 
again in theatres. But I will ask you to try to go over in your mind 
the movie, and see exactly where they explained that Boromir didn't 
hate the hobbits? All they showed was him arguing with the council 
that they shouldn't be defending the ring, that they shouldn't be 
allowed to go(and as I recall being the fantasy version of a racist 
in the process). However, none of his dialogue seemed to denote that 
it wasn't a personal matter, or that he really liked them but just 
didn't want them there at that moment. 
       On a bit of a side note, this part of my posting is to be 
directed towards Susan.

-----------Susan Wrote:-----------
Certainly, the members of the HP list are not so stupid as to say 
that LOTR books are ordinary. Have you read them? If  not, please do 
not express an opinion (no more than I can tolerate people who say 
that HP is devil worshipping and has not read them).

I do not agree that this is the consensus of the list..because most 
people on the list have at least a room temperature iq.
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        Susan, this is the PRIME example of why I asked people to be 
more objective before posting to the list when referencing this 
discussion. Although you were referencing Roleplayer's post, I take 
this as a personal affront as well, due to the fact of the way that 
you state your response. First of all, Let me explain something. I 
am not an uneducated person by any stretch of the imagination- I do, 
admittedly, have a somewhat eclectic sense of taste, but by no 
stretch am I ignorant or stupid. As a matter of reference for all 
the people who think before posting, I state the following for 
credentials(though it shouldn't be needed): I frequently read the 
classics, my favorites being Dumas and some Shakespeare. I read John 
Grisham's law novels(admittedly, his older titles, they are a recent 
undertaking of mine and I haven't made it to anything recent yet). 
For the US people out there I scored a 1260 on my SAT's and am 
currently studying for a bachelor's in computer science with every 
intention to go into Video Game programming, which while sounding 
childish to some, to anyone with any knowledge of the programming 
world will note freely that game programming is the toughest and 
most difficult realm of the programming world, due to the extensive 
knowledge that must be gained  and the extensive programming that 
must be done to make a game. When I was applying for colleges here 
in the northeast, I was scouted by Rensalear Polytechnic Institute, 
a very good computer college, among others. So, as stated here, I am 
by no means a stupid person. I also by no means have a "below room 
temperature IQ." Yet, I think that the Tolkien LotR books are 
ordinary at best. Why? Simply put, it shouldn't be a chore to read a 
book. I read for pleasure when I read books like LotR, HP, etc... 
The way they should be read is such. But I do not feel that I should 
have to exercise my brain trying to understand everything. While 
reading "The Three Musketeers" and "The Count of Monte Cristo"(both 
in unabridged form) I admit to not knowing every word said, or every 
phrase stated by the characters. Let's face it, the books are a 
couple of hundred years old and not every slang term or every object 
has survived in common tongue nowadays. Want to know why they are 
great books? Why they are the classics? Because you can still read 
them. Everything you need to know you either do or you can infer it 
from the text. I'd love to get into specifics but I don't have the 
books in front of me. Now what does this have to do with LotR? Well, 
it's also fun to read and interesting to find that these books have 
still survived. But LotR, in my opinion, lacks the one feature that 
all classics seem to have: the ability to convey a great story(which 
LotR has, somewhere, down deep, beneath a skin of boring and dull 
writing) with ease. Granted, Dumas and others are becoming harder to 
read as time passes, but that is NOT because the writing was bad, 
that is only because the terms used are growing further and further 
from the common vernacular of the modern world. I admit that one day 
technology will probably grow to the point that people will actually 
have to read history "books" to know what paper was, or ink, or a 
sword. But LotR, while a classic in a lot of people's minds(and for 
them, I feel good, they can see past his writing to get to the 
story), starts out the road to being a classic with a disadvantage: 
As Shannon stated in her post:"I totally understand your comment 
about Tolkien's writing style, it's dense and a very difficult, 
tiresome read."  So, Susan, yes, I have more than a "room 
temperature IQ," but NO, the LotR books are not classics in my mind 
nor will they be. And if you can't stand an opinion like that, 
please, for everyone's own safety, do NOT leave your house. For even 
walking to the edge of your street you will find that someone has 
passed you with a different opinion, and they have every right to 
believe in it. You don't have to agree with every person you meet
(Lord only knows I don't), but you do have to respect their ability 
to have an opinion. 
       Now I must also point out that not liking LotR and calling HP 
Devil worshipping are completely different in every sense. Have I 
read the books? Not in their entirety. Have I tried? yes. If you 
believe that this is a problem, I'm sorry for you. But don't insult 
me or other list members based on your tolerances and what you 
percieve of the world. By declaring members of this list "stupid" 
because they don't like LotR as much as you is no different in any 
way than the people you "can't tolerate" calling HP devil 
worshipping. Basically, you both convey the same ignorant message 
that has pervaded the history of the world, that has caused more 
senseless deaths and shameless wars than anything else: If you don't 
agree with me, you must be wrong an ignorant and therefore are not 
worth being here. That is possibly the most ignorant belief in the 
world itself. And if that is truely what you believe, then that is 
probably when you should stop yourself and reevaluate your life and 
beliefs to this point. Not because you aren't smart, or whether or 
not your opinions are wrong or that your beliefs are, but because if 
you can't believe that you COULD be wrong, then you almost certainly 
are wrong. 
        I do not mean to offend anyone in my post(though I realize 
if she reads this, Susan probably hates me, and for that I am 
sorry). On a side note, to all those who were in the chat room on 
sunday: I do apoligize if you misunderstood my poor attempt at 
humour: these postings regarding LotR were not an attempt to 
aggrevate LotR fanatics- I was just joking when I said that. The 
opinions within, however, are for the most part mine(or borrowed and 
are now mine:-))


-Vin