2007-07-21 — Quote of the Day
“Unfortunately, Hollywood does not understand literature. Peter Jackson did not understand Lord of the Rings, for that matter, or he could not have made the foolish, needless mistakes he made — like eliminating the “Scouring of the Shire” and trying to increase Aragorn’s “jeopardy” by adding meaningless silliness to the character of Arwen. In every case, Jackson’s foolish changes were right in line with the nonsense that is taught in screenwriting classes and that studio executives have learned to parrot without any understanding of the fact that the screenwriting classes teach formulas, and the formulas simply do not work at the level of fine literature.”
- Orson Scott Card,
in some French Interview.
Posts
11 Responses 
And yes, I’m trying to post a quote every day now, or at least as often as I can. Most of them will still be spec-fic ones, as most of the quotes I’ve collected in the last couple of years have been of this kind.
21. July 2007 @ 02:30 ( Permalink )
I read this a bit before I went off on my holiday and, being my usual patriotic self, I must heartily disagree. For reasons everyone here should be able to figure out themselves (there are just too many that my mind went boogly when I tried to list them).
25. July 2007 @ 19:50 ( Permalink )
I’m not sure if I agree with everything, either, but I’ve decided to try and post some quotes I don’t necessarily agree with, too, as conformity has a tendency of getting boring pretty fast.
What I do agree with, though, is what he said about the Scouring and Arwen…
25. July 2007 @ 21:48 ( Permalink )
I actually agree with eliminating the Scourging.
I know, I know, you’re off fetching the garotte, but the thing is, with the story-dynamic, it simply wouldn’t work in a movie. You can’t have three movies building up to one moment, having the moment, and then another fourty-five minutes (which I’d demand used to make the Scourging worth the bother, and added on another ten minutes at least earlier in the movie keeping track of Saruman, and no, the poor stuff on the Extended Edition really didn’t measure up to what would be needed either) of movie building a new plot, a new conflict, a new mystery, and a resolve to all this. You can’t. The experience of the movie, for anyone but the hardcore fans of the book, would be ruined, I honestly believe that. It’s not just Hollywood doctrine, it’s basic storytelling logic. You do not keep going for half an hour after Snow White gets the prince with telling about how their first four years of marriage was not quite as idyllic as one’d hope, but then sorted itself out in the end anyway.
What I’d love, however, is if they’d made five movies, not three. I said this already at the release of the Fellowship, after finding I to my great surprise loved the movie, they should’ve made the Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, the Two Towers, the Return of the King, and the Scourging of the Shire. I still think the Scourging would make for an awesome sequel. As a movie on its own, it’d work well. As a hang-on at the end of Return? Gah. Would. Not. Work. No matter how lovely it’d be to see Grima stab Curinir on the big screen.
As for Arwen, I’m not sure what sillyness we’re talking about. The additional scenes in Two Towers were a bit unnecessary, yes, if that’s the thing, but hardly the biggest mistake of the movies. (*coughskuillavalanchecough*) Lots of mistakes in the movies, especially the third one bugs me a lot, but what Mr. Card is mentioning, I must admit, never struck me as problems.
25. July 2007 @ 22:12 ( Permalink )
Sure, when you put it like that, how can I disagree? (How? Simple: With actual arguments, dear Terje, if only you’d had the cognitive capabilities required for such activities….
)
I guess what I meant was (and if I meant something other than what I wrote, how come I didn’t write that, hmm?
) that I felt the removal of The Scourging reduced the depth of the story, as well as what I see as one of the most important themes of The Lord of The Rings: That no matter where you are, war affects you, hiding is futile.
But that removing it was sensible from a story-telling perspective — at least this one — I can’t disagree with. After all, the movie’s end was long enough as it was; the people I watched it with hadn’t read the book, and as such thought what the hell those last thirty minutes were there for. And if they’d thrown in another 30-50 minutes… :\
In the case of the whole Arwen thing — and here I must add that I haven’t seen the movies in about two years, and you (should) all know what my memory is like — I suddenly got a bit unsure, too. Sure, I get what the man’s hinting at: The enlargement of Arwen’s role, the inclusion of The Tale of Arwen and Aragorn, and that whole yarn — all these things were redundant, if seen in connection with the books (as I suspect Card was doing; after all, he’s probably read it more times than all of us combined). After all, in those, Aragorn is shown as more than a fighter, and he is given depth through the descriptions of the first travels of the Fellowship, i.e. the journey to Imladris. But in the movie, they didn’t have as much time for this part of the quest, and so it was easier to throw in a few scenes from The Tale of Arwen and Aragorn. This way, they also got another female character with more than three scenes, and I guess there are advantages to this, too.
So perhaps I don’t necessarily agree with him; maybe it’s more correct to say that I understand him. Anyway, I believe we’ve just proved how much more fun controversial quotes are. Yay us!
26. July 2007 @ 00:04 ( Permalink )
I was happy they included the scenes from The Tale. The expansion of Arwen’s role prior to that was mainly twofold - the dream/flashbacks of Aragorn in TT, and her taking over for Glorfindel (if I’m messing up my elfnames now I’m truly sorry, I haven’t read LotR since high school) in Fellowship. The former was a little bit unnecessary, and kind of dragged out, but in principle, I didn’t mind it. The latter I wholeheartedly approve of. In point of fact, Arwen always puzzled me in the book, she was given a lot of secondhand attention, but we never actually see the character DOING anything which makes her worth all the fuzz. That little change took care of that, and removed a redundant character.
26. July 2007 @ 01:46 ( Permalink )
Yeah, that redundant character removal is something I, too, endorse, and in fact find myself defending quite often over at tolkiens.net. After all, when they were gonna give Arwen such a prominent role in the mvies, it only made sense to introduce her as soon as possibly, and also to expand her part on the expense of more peripheral characters — like Glorfindel.
Still glad they chose to cut her from the Battle of Helm’s Deep, though.
(And you’re not the only one who hasn’t read LotR since high school.)
27. July 2007 @ 02:40 ( Permalink )
It’s weird, I read it at least once a year for years and years, and then suddenly, one year, I hadn’t. Then another, then another, then another. Not ’cause I didn’t want to, it just wasn’t prioritized anymore - suddenly, my reading-pace was so slow I actually didn’t reread stuff anymore. Not just LotR. I haven’t reread ***ANYTHING*** since high school, ‘cept GoT and CoK before Feast came out.
27. July 2007 @ 04:06 ( Permalink )
I think I’ve reread a bit more than that — a couple of WoT books, ASOIAF, the Harry Potter books, American Gods, and maybe a couple others — but compared to how I reread books in high school (i.e. from I was 13 till I was 19), it’s hardly anything…
29. July 2007 @ 16:40 ( Permalink )
But GODS! how much I want to!
Just in the last week, I’ve wanted to start rereading Harry Potter (which I intend to do as soon as the English copies I ordered arrives), ASOIAF, Malazan, Gobi, Liveship Traders, The Count of Monte Cristo, 1001 Nights, Discworld, and (continue) WoT.
And this is just in the last week…
29. July 2007 @ 16:53 ( Permalink )
Gods, Monte Cristo, I want to reread Monte Cristo! ;_;
29. July 2007 @ 18:21 ( Permalink )