"Purists"

[CmdrWilkens]

You know I've sen that word applied to me in quite a few threads, most of them currently connected with ROTK and LOTR in general.

Quite frankly I'm sick of many people jumping on the "purists need to shut up" bandwagon. Get a new hobby before I feel like turning yours back on you.

You know what...sure some material should have been left out, sure some material neded to be left out. Hwoever there is a far cry in what many, such as myself are saying, and what the "purist haters" as I shall dub them seem to think we are saying.

When I talk about ROTK, and in fact several other series such as Star Wars for instance, I recognize two very critical things:
1) I didn't create it and it isn't for me to say what Is or isn't part of that unvierse
2) That doesn't strip me of my right to love a work as it is unaltered and wish for my love to be conveyed through the inclusion of all that I love.

Unfortunately a growing number of voices seem to think that when I lament the non-inclusion of scenes or the seeming change in direction of a series (think NJO folks) that I am being unfair to the creative process of transforming a world into new dimensions.

Sure there must be change but don't hate me for lamenting it. Don't pretend that there are not things out there you wish would remain as they are (perhaps in new form) and which you would lament seeing so transformed in a way that does not include all that you love? Perhaps best for this board is to remind those amongst you who have problems with the EU, and the NJO in paticular, that half your own laments fall into the "purists" category. How many times here, and elsewhere, have board memebrs complained about unfair portrayls of military might, of the true capability of weapons, men, equipment? They all come to the point of saying "in the movies..." Here's the problem...this ain't the movies and Lucas said they could write Star Wars this way. Your complaint is that the new material doesn't mesh with how you saw the old material. Strangely this is the exact attitude of a "purist."

N.B. I recognize also there are many valid complaints about writing quality of those like KJA but that is enither here nor there.

If you want to bitch about msiuse of technology, misuse of characters, misuse of anything from the original trilogy (or the PT) then you are as guilty of being a "purist" as I am. Think on that the next time you cling to your ideas about how the Star Wars or Star Trek universe is. Perhaps before you go decrying the "purists" over things like ROTK you will remember you are speaking with great hypocrisy.

Basically shut up and get out of the way, if you want the right to bitch abotu your universe then give me the right to bitch abotu Tolkein's as protrayed by Peter Jackson. Oh yes and along the way don't pretend that just because I lament things means I didn't love the movie...I'm just saying it wasn't what it should have been .

/rant off

[Colonel Olrik]

I hated what they did to Denethor. He was meant to be a proud leader of men falling in despair at the end, not a fat cowardly idiot. I didn't like Faramir either.

And Aragorn and Eomer should have raised swords together. That would have been kind of climatic, methinks.

But I loved the movie.

[darthdavid]

And why i hell did they make that scene where gollum tricks frodo into thinking sam is out to get him or some such. That was pointless.

[Stormbringer]

There's a difference between some one saying they would have liked to see something done differently and those that simply bitch about the movies. They forget one little thing: THOSE ARE THE MOVIES. Peter Jackson didn't hurt the precious, the precious is okay.


If the only reason you went to see the movie was to bitch about how it wasn't the book then you're one of the book nazis, a heinous breed of a purist that simply bitch because it wasn't the book. They're annoying for the simple reason that simply because it wasn't done in the manner of the book it's bad and usually have to try and convince you the movie was no good for that reason. It's annoying as hell. Especially when some of those idiots don't know shit about the book to begin with!

[HemlockGrey]

My attitude to is analyze the movies from the viewpoint of them being not the books, but an adaptation of the books, which is what they are, really. Thus, I tend to ignore criticisms such as "Faramir sucks because they changed him from what he was in the book" and simply see if the movies work as their own unique story.

[Lord Pounder]

As far as the books versus movies go i'm gonna say i prefered the movies anyway. Not to boast but i'm not exacly poorly read, i read about 80-150 pages a night, but the LotR books where fucking hard to read. The movies brought the story to the masses. People who would have been put off after the 1st chapter have watched the movies and loved them. The movies are the best thing to have happened to the Tolkien Legacy.

[Peregrin Toker]

From the first movie you knew that the movies were going to be different from the books - I mean, where were the scenes of the Fellowship Of The Ring singing around the campfire?