I'm fairly certain that you've seen The Princess Bride and will proceed under that assumption.
(If you haven't seen it, then you need to be flogged for nerd insolence.)

Have you ever read the book on which the movie is based?

I think Goldman's setup in The Princess Bride does a good job of summarizing my feelings on the LotR books and movies.

The frame story with the boy and his grandfather is delivered in a different manner in the novel.
Goldman tells that part of the story from a first-person perspective, reflecting on his grandfather repeated readings of a fictional book called "The Princess Bride" to him as a child.
When he reached adulthood he found a copy of the book (his grandfather's, perhaps) and read it for himself.
He was surprised to find out that it was not the story he'd been lead to believe. While the main points of the narrative remained consistent with his memories, the actual book was much more boring. It spent exhaustive amounts of time delving into stuff like the local political and economic structures of Guilder and Florin.
Basically, the real thing was aboug as exciting as reading the "A begat B. B begat C. C begat D. etc." stuff in Genesis.
His grandfather had edited the book during the readings and turned it into the exciting story he loved as a child.
And Goldman's novel is his retelling of that story in his grandfather's method.

I see the Tolkein movies in much the same way. Those books were dry.
When Jackson brought them to the screen, he cut out all of the dry crap to make the stories enjoyable in the same way Goldman's grandfather had done.

I don't have a serious problem with people being against eating veal. I said I have a "serious problems with the Animal "Lovers" that make such a big deal about it." Seriously, my stance on hot dogs, and the way I go about it, is less obnoxious than anti-veal people in my experience. Also, I've known people who've worked in labs who have had their lives threatened by "animal rights activists", so Animal "Lovers" tend to not sit will with me the moment they go off on the subject.

Don't like veal? Don't eat it. Don't want to eat veal because of the manner in which it's raised? Don't. I'm fine with both of those.

Great point. Don't forget the cost to your IQ!

(This coming from the man who routinely watches the worst movies ever made with little robots.)

Dude. TL; shouldn't bother.

This is like telling us that water is wet. You don't need to go into a molecular biology lesson to get the point across.

I FREAKING LOVE PIP!

I was watching some children a few years ago and their parents were throwing out an old Sony. The picture goes green and I have to smack it, but it's the first TV I've owned with PIP; but I've always wanted it.

Playing video games while channel surfing is a thing of beauty.

Thanks, but screw whether or not I'm right; what do you think of it?

Here's my original post that started that whole ball rolling:

http://community.fantasyflightgames....ead/?p=1336470

My point in coming down so hard on the show was that, despite all that stuff that kinda bothers me, I still like it. I actually like it A LOT. I'm scratching my head as to why, but I still like it.

Also, what do you mean by "first episode"? With that show, there's the Shorts, the Film, and THEN the episodes. I'm not being pedantic, I just want to know what, exactly, you have seen before I talk about it and perhaps spoil stuff.

This is probably crap I'VE posted before.

No, for me, the essence wasn't there.

When Greedo shoots, the essence of Han Solo's character is changed.

The stuff that Jackass changed in many ways changed the essence of the story. Not all the changes did so; but many of them did.

While Vlad's assessment of the situation is accurate, I'll direct your attention to my response to Char and my response to your Princess Bride post.

And now, Harpua's assessment of the situation is accurate; although I am uncertain as to the appropriateness of flogging. What's slightly more severe than that but still short of execution?

I'm glad to finally discover evidence that I am not the only person who read the novel.

Perhaps it's my Tolkien background, but I wanted to see and read the "original Morgenstern" text after reading the book.

But Jackass did not just cut out the descriptions of terrain and the lineage of several characters. He added Dwarf Tossing. He added Legolas "surfing" on any and every given surface. He added a forbidden love that wasn't there. He added Elves at Helm's Deep. Why? That's the one from the LotR films that I get the most traction on with people. There is NO narrative reason for the change.

I've probably said THIS crap before:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Lion/Witch/Wardrobe are the best examples of what Jackass did wrong.

Harry Potter deleted stuff. I knew that had to happen. The whole book wouldn't fit in the space of a movie.

Ever seen The Bird Cage? "Just subtract: Don't add."

LWW added the chase scene with the wolves at the frozen waterfall. I groaned a bit. It was a little Hollywooded and Cliffhangered up, but I was okay with it, and without it, there would have been a BIG boring spot in the film.

But the LotR films, especially as they went along, just looked more and more like the play of a kid in his sandbox. Again, someday I am going to sit down with the books, and I'm going to torture myself with the films and write out a dissertation on the every misstep and why it takes a dump on the source material rather than improving it, but I'm at the point where I don't think it will help much.

The best proof that LotR was ruined in several parts was the fact that Hobbit was ruined, almost in its entirety, and people still just don't see it.

It's a Jar Jar/Special Ed. level thing to me, and I still sit in amazement that people who plainly see that, and The "Hobbit" for what they are, just don't see this.

Yet.

STOP.

Haven. . . Post?

I think this part is dead-on:
...but I disagree that the difference makes the Hobbit better than the Lord of the Rings. It's kind of like saying that X-Wing is a better tabletop game than Twilight Imperium because it has a shorter rulebook. (Come to think of it, I do think that I'd rather play X-Wing over Twilight Imperium most of the time, but that's not the reason why.)
I have not read the book, but now I'm interested in it. And that sounds a lot more like the writing style of the Hobbit than Lord of the Rings.

I'm curious, though, since I know you've been reading the Song of Fire and Ice books as well, do you have the same complaints about Martin rambling on for pages about the food served at feasts and other useless details? I don't remember who I saw point this out first, but Martin being called "the American Tolkien" is pretty accurate even when it's not being used as a compliment.
I feel like you're taking animal rights extremists as representative of all animal lovers or even just those that are against eating veal. And I think that's about as logical as thinking that because a Muslim extremist attacked the World Trade Center that all Muslims are bad, or that because a Christian extremist bombed an abortion clinic, all Christians are bad.

Personally, I choose not to eat veal and will explain why if the topic comes up. (Just like Chik-Fil-A) But I don't tell other people they're not allowed to eat it, or any of the more extreme behavior that you described.
I was going to find what I saw on wookieepedia and post the link, but it doesn't seem to exist.

As far as i can tell, what I saw and was thinking of as the "first episode" seems to be the Spark of Rebellion movie split into 2 half hour episodes, and without the scene with Vader. Going by the wiki page calling "Droids in Distress" the 1st episode, i think I've seen episodes, 1, 2, and 4-7.

I like the show for the most part. I'm not blown away by it, but it's not bad. The tone feels a lot more like the original movie than a lot of Star Wars media does. I think my favorite bit was when Canan first revealed himself and the reactions of the imperials. And at the end,when


Which does bring me to another point, though. There are a few scenes of them improbably taking down stormtroopers with blasters by running up and punching them, but there are other times that they pretty clearly are killing lots of dudes. I had a bit of a fridge horror moment earlier when I realized that the rebels essentially are using child soldiers to conduct often lethal attacks. (cue the Death Star discussion from Clerks.)I 'm curious if any of the material in the expanded universe has actually covered this angle by telling a story from an imperial perspecitve or anything like that.

Also, I can't for the life of me figure out what the deal is with carrying around the lightsaber in 2 pieces...

Also, I still don't get the "anime flavor" comment from a couple days ago. I have no idea if you're referring to people, the characters, the show, or the network...
I'm with Char-Vell (and I hope you know how much it pains me to say that ) in feeling that the LotR (not Hobbit) movies captured the essence of the books pretty well. I think most of the additions were unnecessary, but I thought that the Legolas/Gimli rivalry was done well, even with the stuff that wasn't right from the books. I could have done without surfing and some of the other ridiculous-looking combat feats, but that's a visual change that doesn't affect the nature of the characters. The elves at Helm's Deep were odd, but didn't ruin anything for me.

What forbidden love are you referring to, though? I don't recall anything along those lines being added to LotR (unless you're talking about the Hobbit.)I hated The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I first saw the movie, because it felt like they were trying too hard to cash in on the success of the LotR movies and turn it into an epic that it wasn't supposed to be. I was also dealing with a kidney stone that night and ended up going to the ER a few hours after getting back from the theater, so I watched the movie again later to see if I liked it better when I wasn't already in pain. I decided I still didn't like it, but I didn't hate it.

I haven't seen all of the Harry Potter movies, but of the ones that I did see, I recall the changes mostly being done to streamline things and move the plot along a little faster without having to explain who all these characters are that do one thing and are never relevant again. I can live with that.
That's already been done, in case you're interested in just reading someone else doing the same thing. I've come across some ridiculous in-depth comparisons that show that some people have way too much time on their hands. (I say while debating about movies on a forum about little plastic superheroes...)Huh? I can't even begin to see how that logic works.Vlad-post!

That post was so long I need a nap...as will anyone that reads it.

Is that the women's Prison movie with Pam Grier? I can think of something I'd like to add!

Two posts of that size without a numbered list? For shame!

1) My problem with the type of animal lovers which you describe is that most of them are operating under false information that they are getting from terrible organizations like PETA.



2) It's been a while, but yeah, I used to play Tetris and stuff on my PIP.



3) Flaying?



4) That might be, but I'm pretty sure I actually am the only one to have read The Neverending Story.

5) Not me.

6) I didn't mind that. (I should add that my perspective is coming from someone who read the books AFTER seeing the movies.)

7) See, to me the narrative changes to the HP stuff was more detrimental. Much of what was deleted was, imo, important stuff. The end result is that the films take for granted that the audience has read the books and can fill in the gaps which were not presented.
One of the biggest examples of what I mean is in the third movie. The movie only really lets the audience know that James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter were high-school friends. It never discusses the process of the secret keeper and just how deep Peter's betrayal had been. (And that could have been covered with 10-20 seconds of extra dialog during the discussion between Harry and Sirius just before Lupin's transformation.)
There are tons of uncovered plot points dropped in the film which still play a role in the whole story and only work because the majority of the audience already knows them. That is not, imo, translating it correctly.

8) I prefer the original.

9) And to me that is why they work. When I was a kid my friends and I would play Ghostbusters (or whatever). Were we sticking true to the source material? No, we were taking what was there and having fun making it our own.


10) I am neither a fan of the food nor the clothing descriptions. I don't really care that someone drips the juice of a honey glazed capon onto the pocket flap of his blue samite dublet. Wasted words, imo, but I while tedious I do not find it as obtrusive as the details in the Tolkien works.

MUCH better!

WTF people?

That was a short lived line of action figures from the early 80's. Characters like Cyrus Dumbwaiter the Nude Firefighter and Old Boofull the Transvestite Census Taker didn't resonate with kids.

Maybe not all kids but I hear Norym still has his Floyd the 2-donged Gigolo action figure from that set.

Now that would have been a LotR addition I think everyone would support.

Well, it's a matter of taste, so there isn't really right or wrong.

This gets into my whole thing with comics, crossovers, shared universes and continuity. I dump all those into the same general bucket.

There's a strong appeal to having a coherent, expansive world. But there's also a point where that becomes too primary for me, or too overbearing or too unbelievable. I don't really like the notion of shared universes as they exist today in comics. It's cool when it's a nod or a tie-in or whatever, but when it starts to crowd out an actual narrative, I dislike it. LotR seemed to do this to itself, without any need to, for whatever reason. I get that some people love it. It's not particularly for me. I like Silver Age comics for a reason, and that's the sort of playful opt-in or opt-out of the larger world as the story suits. Marvel's stronger adherence to a coherent world made that world a little more real for most people, but a little less exciting for me.

Song of Ice and Fire is an interesting case, because for all its elaborate backstory, it seems to be tying it all in as it goes. Stuff which seems like filler in the first couple of books starts to be important later. I can appreciate that. I can live without the overly-long food and clothes passages, but I don't think they are as common or as long as people make out. Just intrusive.