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You are here: Home / TV & Movies / Movies / Open Thread

Open Thread

by John Cole|  March 20, 20136:42 pm| 113 Comments

This post is in: Movies, Open Threads

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While the rest of you have been focusing on politics all day, I have been dealing with more pressing matters after watching the Hobbit last night. For example, I like the character of Radagast because it shows wizards can have many different personalities and areas of strength and power, and I like the whole idea of a woodland wizard, but did he really need to have birdshit in his beard? That was all I could focus on. I was even ok with the birds in his hair, but could his guests not show enough decency to not shit all over the side of his head? Fer fucks sake. Even Rosie feigns guilt when she shits in the house, and usually that is my fault for not letting her out while being gone for too long.

And given that the Hobbit was nearly four hours long, how bloody long is the Director’s Cut going to be?

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113Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    March 20, 2013 at 6:46 pm

    given that the Hobbit was nearly four hours long

    Isn’t this the first of three Hobbit movies? At 12 total hours, wouldn’t you save time just reading the book?

  2. 2.

    kindness

    March 20, 2013 at 6:46 pm

    And it’s a trilogy, isn’t it?

  3. 3.

    Chris

    March 20, 2013 at 6:47 pm

    And given that the Hobbit was nearly four hours long, how bloody long is the Director’s Cut going to be?

    That’s what occurred to me when I heard that they were cutting it into THREE parts. I’m not sure it wouldn’t take me less time to actually READ the book than it would to sit through all of that.

  4. 4.

    Chris

    March 20, 2013 at 6:48 pm

    @Baud:

    Fuck. Beaten to it.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    March 20, 2013 at 6:48 pm

    Our minds have become one.

  6. 6.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 20, 2013 at 6:48 pm

    @Baud: Fuck that. I could read the book in the four hours of the first movie. It is a quick read.

  7. 7.

    Comrade Jake

    March 20, 2013 at 6:51 pm

    Last night via Netflix streaming I watched “Trust”. Tough to watch as a father of two daughters, but gripping nonetheless.

  8. 8.

    raven

    March 20, 2013 at 6:51 pm

    Going to the March Madness calcutta in a minute. Last year the #1 seeds went for over $950 and I didn’t even bid on a team. I’m hoping the bidding is a bit more moderate this year and I can pick up my Illini for under $100.

  9. 9.

    scav

    March 20, 2013 at 6:53 pm

    Bird droppings makes me think of Merlyn in A Once and Future King.

  10. 10.

    Turgidson

    March 20, 2013 at 6:54 pm

    Cole: This movie seems to have elicited mostly hate from the people I usually discuss movies with, so I’m curious what your overall opinion was.

    My brother for example, who I love dearly but can be insufferably hipsterer-than-thou when critiquing movies and music, went on a tirade about how the trolls looked like Shrek (I thought they looked how I’d imagined, and were consistent with the cave troll from the Fellowship of the Ring movie), how the action sequence in the mines was awful (I agree it was over the top and looked a little bit video game-y, but still thought it was fun and visually impressive), and thought the pacing was crap (I’ve heard that a lot and don’t really get it). Oh and that the 48fps showing was bad (I didn’t think so) and that it was too long (agreed on that one – the Hobbit does not need to be a trilogy, much less a trilogy where each installment is 3+ hours long).

    I dunno, I got what I wanted out of seeing it, and the tepid-to-angry reviews it got baffle me.

  11. 11.

    raven

    March 20, 2013 at 6:57 pm

    Hey, anybody get a shingles shot? How much?

  12. 12.

    wvng

    March 20, 2013 at 6:58 pm

    My family, LOTR fans all, uniformly hated it. My sister-in-law, who knows more Tolkien trivia than anyone I know, and loved the LOTR movies, left the theater in a total huff and was reassessing Jackson in general.

    Our attitude was, in general, much like South Park’s classic on the fourth Indy Jones debacle. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/south-park-whip/

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 7:01 pm

    But how about the important issues? What’s up with the mustard?

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    March 20, 2013 at 7:04 pm

    @Turgidson:
    For a three-hours plus movie, I thought The Hobbit actually went by rather quickly. In its defence, Jackson is trying to place it in the larger context of Middle Earth’s history so the additions do justify some of the length.

    About length of a movie in general: if I reckon a movie is really good, I won’t mind that it’s long. On the other hand, a bad movie is always too long no how brief its running time.

  15. 15.

    Turgidson

    March 20, 2013 at 7:05 pm

    @wvng:

    Is the hate mostly based on Jackson fudging the particulars of the events and characters in the book? Because in that case I’m ignorant, as I read the Hobbit long, long ago and do not profess to be an expert.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 7:06 pm

    @wvng:

    My sister-in-law, who knows more Tolkien trivia than anyone I know, and loved the LOTR movies, left the theater in a total huff and was reassessing Jackson in general.

    Sorry, but nothing in that movie was as much of a travesty as what Jackson did to Faramir, which was utterly infuriating. He did some stuff I wasn’t happy with- too much time on Radagast, Bilbo acting like a hero at the end, way too much time on getting chased by goblins and orcs- but none of it undermined a critical character as badly as he did with Faramir.

  17. 17.

    SatanicPanic

    March 20, 2013 at 7:07 pm

    @Turgidson: I thought it looked blurry, I guess because of the frame rate? That kind of gave me a headache. But otherwise I loved it. Thought they did a great job giving the dwarves distinct personalities.

  18. 18.

    Comrade Dread

    March 20, 2013 at 7:08 pm

    I saw in in the theaters in low tech. I really enjoyed it and thought it captured the more light hearted tone well. Though they could cut the necromancer stuff and I would have been okay with that.

  19. 19.

    Tim C.

    March 20, 2013 at 7:11 pm

    I left feeling mixed about it. I thought the acting was fine, and some of the story changes were okay too. It just felt totally indulgent and over the top with a lot of the effects shots. There were also about a dozen chase or fight scenes that had no purpose in advancing the plot in any way shape or form. Acting was pretty good though, all in all I’ve seen lots worse.

  20. 20.

    ranchandsyrup

    March 20, 2013 at 7:12 pm

    I loved the animated version of the Hobbit from the 70’s. It went well with recreational enhancement.

  21. 21.

    Comrade Dread

    March 20, 2013 at 7:12 pm

    @Roger Moore: Do you mean Faramir being tempted by the ring?

  22. 22.

    JPL

    March 20, 2013 at 7:13 pm

    This was on John’s twitter ..

    I just broke both halogen lights on my stove hood when I dropped a can of artichokes on it. There goes 15 bucks.

    How does that happen?

  23. 23.

    Sawgrass Stan

    March 20, 2013 at 7:15 pm

    Didn’t see The Hobbit yet, but in “The Sword in the Stone,” when the boy Arthur meets Merlin for the first time, Merlin’s carrying Archimedes the owl on his shoulder— which is covered with birdshit. I think it just has to do with wizards and birdshit; what’s the connection anyway.
    BTW– I don’t think birds have conscious control of their sphincters the way mammals do.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    March 20, 2013 at 7:15 pm

    @JPL:

    Is it any wonder that West Virginia is the unhappiest state?

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    March 20, 2013 at 7:17 pm

    @raven: Dunno, but worth every penny.

  26. 26.

    lamh35

    March 20, 2013 at 7:27 pm

    Hmm, tough questions for the BJ guys.

    Is there ever a time when a man can tell a woman the honest truth about how she looks?

    Does it matter to you who makes more money in your relationship?

  27. 27.

    Spaghetti Lee

    March 20, 2013 at 7:27 pm

    I think the bird shit thing, on purpose or not, was supposed to be ‘realistic’, like “Yeah, he’s a powerful nature wizard, but it’s not all sweeping vistas and being at harmony with the land. There’s lots of literal shit there too.” Wasn’t supposed to be pleasant, per se.

    I confess I can’t really get worked up about what Jackson added or left out from the book, although I know that matters to some people. I also did not see it in 3D, so I can’t speak to that working or not. I thought it was good. Yeah, a little long, but long isn’t bad.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 7:28 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    Do you mean Faramir being tempted by the ring?

    Of course I mean Faramir being tempted by the ring. It’s a drastic change from Tolkien’s character and story that undermines a major idea from the original. One of the repeated plot points from the novel was major characters being faced with the temptation of the ring. They don’t all have access to it- Saruman and Denethor never get within a hundred leagues of it- but the desire for its power tempts just about every major character. The form and strength of its temptation is supposed to tell you something about the personality and interests of the character it tempts. Having Faramir succumb to the temptation, even temporarily, undermines two important points: his own wisdom in recognizing its false promise, which he draws very vividly, and that there are men who are capable of resisting. I thought it was by far the worst change Jackson made in the whole trilogy.

  29. 29.

    quannlace

    March 20, 2013 at 7:29 pm

    I like the character of Radagast

    Okay, I know i can go to my bookcase and pull out the volume in question to check, or even Google it right now. But doesn’t Radagast the Brown appear in LOTR’s too? I think he’s the one who Saruman bad mouths. And isn’t he also the one who sends the eagle to rescue Gandalf from Saruman’s tower?

  30. 30.

    dedc79

    March 20, 2013 at 7:29 pm

    I went in expecting the worst, and ended up liking it way more than I expected.

    That said, I would have preferred to see what the guy who did Pan’s Labyrinth would have done with the story. I suspect he would’ve taken lots of liberties with the plot, but hell, that happened with Jackson anyway.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 7:33 pm

    @lamh35:

    Is there ever a time when a man can tell a woman the honest truth about how she looks?

    Yes, there are a few times. He might tell her the truth when it’s very flattering so honesty has no drawbacks. Or he might tell her the truth if he’s really angry and wants to hurt her feelings. But by far the most likely case is if he has no interest in (or hope of) sleeping with her.

  32. 32.

    magurakurin

    March 20, 2013 at 7:34 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    yeah, that, because Faramir wasn’t tempted by the ring. That’s what made him such a cool character. Faramir asked Frodo what the hell were they doing there and Frodo and Sam just say well, Gandalf sent us. Boom, Faramir is all, “say no more, say no more”. And he sends them on their way. Also, too, if a bit more minor, Faramir’s dad, Denethor gets a shit deal as well. We never learn in the movie that he had a Palantir, through which Sauron had poisoned his mind. Can’t imagine why Jackson didn’t have an extra 30 seconds to have Pippin find the stone and Gandalf say, “ah so that’s why he was bugshit crazy.”

    The only thing worse of the treatment of Faramir in film is the treatment of William McMaster Murdoch in Titanic. And that really cannot be forgiven at all because….he was a real guy. Fuck James Cameron, too.

  33. 33.

    SatanicPanic

    March 20, 2013 at 7:37 pm

    @Roger Moore: Aragorn resisted the power of the ring. Faramir is too minor a character for me to get all that upset about. And is it just me or was it kind of messed up that Tolkein basically awards Faramir to Eowyn as a consolation prize for not getting Aragorn? That always struck me as a bit too John Hughes an ending.

    If I had to get annoyed with Jackson about anything it was the way Aragorn was totally leading Eowyn on about his intentions. Or was that just in the extended version?

  34. 34.

    Groucho48

    March 20, 2013 at 7:38 pm

    The action sequences were all three times too long and twice as silly as they should have been. I liked the non-action parts quite a bit. It did bother me a bit that Bilbo didn’t get to be actually useful in the group, as he was in the book.

    I, too, didn’t like how Jackson changed Faramir in the movie. Even more, though, I didn’t like that Frodo lied to Faramir in the movie about knowing about Gollum, where, in the books, Frodo’s honesty about Gollum at a dangerous junction, was one of the things that led Faramir to trust him enough to let him go on with his mission.

  35. 35.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 20, 2013 at 7:40 pm

    @lamh35:

    Is there ever a time when a man can tell a woman the honest truth about how she looks?

    Only if it is really, really good. If something doesn’t look good, I am more likely to say something like, “That’s okay, but really I like the way that black pencil skirt/blue sweater dress/whatever looks on you.”

    Does it matter to you who makes more money in your relationship?

    Not particularly.

  36. 36.

    Maude

    March 20, 2013 at 7:41 pm

    @JPL:
    The can was in the cabinet above the stove and it slipped out of his hand.
    It could happen to anyone, but John has a talent for this sort of thing.

  37. 37.

    Gravenstone

    March 20, 2013 at 7:41 pm

    @JPL: At a guess, the can was in the cupboard above the hood and John dropped it while trying to retrieve. Or, we could just ascribe it to that unique Cole sense of physical coordination.

  38. 38.

    pete

    March 20, 2013 at 7:43 pm

    The book The Hobbit was really a different tone than LOTR, even after Tolkien edited the later editions to make them match the subsequent saga better. The movie seemed to be trying to make it a 3-episode prequel, which is just not what the source material was. Too much whoosh-biff-bang and not enough comfy chuckling for my (hobbit-like) tastes.

  39. 39.

    Turgidson

    March 20, 2013 at 7:44 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    You’re probably aware of this explanation, but here:

    “Q: In the book, for example, Faramir is very pure and very noble, but here in the film, he’s got this evil touch. He’s even tempted by the ring.
    “Peter Jackson: For a short time, yeah. We made that change, just to use that example — and this is really where being a filmmaker differs from being a writer. You make decisions as a filmmaker and, rightly or wrongly, you change things if you think they need to be changed. We wanted the episode with Faramir in this particular film to have a certain degree of tension. Frodo and Sam were captured. Their journey had become more complicated by the fact that they are prisoners. Which they are in the book for a brief period of time. But then, very quickly in the book, Tolkien sort of backs away from there and, as you say, he reveals Faramir to be very pure. At one point, Faramir says, “Look, I wouldn’t even touch the ring if I saw it lying on the side of the road.”

    “For us, as filmmakers, that sort of thing creates a bit of a problem because we’ve spent a lot of time in the last film and in this one to establish this ring as incredibly powerful. Then to suddenly come to a character that says, “Oh, I’m not interested in that,” to suddenly go against everything that we’ve established ourselves is sort of going against our own rules. We certainly acknowledge that Faramir should not do what Boromir did and that he ultimately has the strength to say, “No, you go on your way and I understand.” We wanted to make it slightly harder, to have a little more tension than there was in the book. But that’s where that sort of decision comes from.”

    I think the reasoning for the change was sound, but that it was taken too far, i.e. Faramir starting off as basically just as big a prick as Boromir had been.

    Given that a lot of the moviegoers hadn’t read the books and didn’t know Faramir from a skidmark in their drawers and also might have had trouble accepting the premise that a stupid fucking ring could create so much drama in the first place, I thought the change made sense for the continuity reasons Jackson states, but that it could have had a lighter touch – ie a momentary temptation but otherwise the noble soul the books portrayed, preserving the concept that Faramir was the stronger brother of the two because he was incorruptible, while still moving the power/seductiveness/danger of the ring thread forward. That’s just my stupid opinion though.

  40. 40.

    JPL

    March 20, 2013 at 7:49 pm

    @Gravenstone: @Maude:
    Two good guesses.
    He’s just lucky the can didn’t land on his toes.

  41. 41.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    March 20, 2013 at 7:50 pm

    @raven: Yes, the wife and I both did, 170 @ Costco.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 20, 2013 at 7:51 pm

    @JPL:

    How does that happen?

    Tunch finally has a minion nimble enough to set the trap.

  43. 43.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 7:52 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    If I had to get annoyed with Jackson about anything it was the way Aragorn was totally leading Eowyn on about his intentions.

    You can’t blame that one on Jackson; that’s in the original.

  44. 44.

    WaynersT

    March 20, 2013 at 7:52 pm

    People are so angry about The Hobbit because the LOTR trilogy was so awesome.

    The only thing that kept me awake (literally) was Gollum – he was great.

    Love the Gollum.

  45. 45.

    Schlemizel

    March 20, 2013 at 7:53 pm

    @Baud:

    Plus it would be true to the book!

  46. 46.

    Chris

    March 20, 2013 at 7:54 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Also, she shouldn’t have needed any help killing the Witch King.

  47. 47.

    lojasmo

    March 20, 2013 at 7:55 pm

    @lamh35:

    Is there ever a time when a man can tell a woman the honest truth about how she looks?

    When she looks beautiful?

    I loved the Hobbit. Every minute.

  48. 48.

    Darkrose

    March 20, 2013 at 7:55 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Sorry, but nothing in that movie was as much of a travesty as what Jackson did to Faramir, which was utterly infuriating. He did some stuff I wasn’t happy with- too much time on Radagast, Bilbo acting like a hero at the end, way too much time on getting chased by goblins and orcs- but none of it undermined a critical character as badly as he did with Faramir.

    THANK YOU.

    I’ve said that so often that my wife just tunes me out. But Faramir was my favorite character in the books, and the character assassination job Jackson did was one of the big things that pissed me off. The whole point of the character is that he’s different from his father and his brother, and that it’s possible for a man to be both strong and wise enough to reject Sauron, something that even Isildur couldn’t do.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 20, 2013 at 7:56 pm

    @Chris: Merry helps.

  50. 50.

    Anoniminous

    March 20, 2013 at 7:58 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Faramir not attempting to take the Ring has been used by the Modernist LitCrit crowd to deem Tolkien a lousy writer. Whether he was tempted by the Ring depends on one’s interpretation of, “He stood up, very tall and stern, his grey eyes glinting” and what Tolkien meant by Faramir saying “it was too sore a trial for Boromir.”

    My take is he was tempted and rejected it. I add it’s up to the reader to decide them ownself.

  51. 51.

    SatanicPanic

    March 20, 2013 at 7:59 pm

    @Roger Moore: Really? I thought he just brushed her off in the books, but my memory is unreliable. What on earth was Tolkein thinking with that?

  52. 52.

    Schlemizel

    March 20, 2013 at 8:00 pm

    @lamh35:
    Q1: Don’t know, I am not great on details and she always looks fabulous to me but her insecurities do not allow her to accept that.

    Q2: NO! When we were first married she had more education and a better paying job. I thought it might be that way for a long time. The company I worked for paid for my classes (as long as I passed) and rewarded me with a much better job once I was qualified. I had no problem when she earned more & no problems when that reversed. I was just happy as hell to have a total income that allowed us to live a middle-class life

  53. 53.

    jl

    March 20, 2013 at 8:01 pm

    The director’s cut will be hobbits in real time. Why even bother asking, Cole?

  54. 54.

    Amir Khalid

    March 20, 2013 at 8:02 pm

    @lamh35:

    Is there ever a time when a man can tell a woman the honest truth about how she looks?

    When the honest truth really is what she wants. But there’s the rub, isn’t it?

  55. 55.

    Anoniminous

    March 20, 2013 at 8:04 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Tolkien has been accused of being soft hearted towards his minor characters and I agree. The happy ending for Bill the Pony is an instance. Eowyn and Faramir getting together is another. There’s really no given reason for Eowyn’s change of heart although one can cobble one together, i.e., she was “walking in the Shadow” because of a spell cast by Grima Wormtongue and when Sauron ate it the spell was broken, I don’t buy it.

  56. 56.

    SatanicPanic

    March 20, 2013 at 8:05 pm

    @Chris: Yeah, that would have been much cooler, but I guess Tolkein had to give Merry something to do besides be luggage. Though in Merry’s defense he isn’t an outright hinderance like Pippin. Frodo should have left those two in Rivendell.

  57. 57.

    PaulW

    March 20, 2013 at 8:08 pm

    Never say anything bad about the Seventh Doctor, dammit.

  58. 58.

    dance around in your bones

    March 20, 2013 at 8:08 pm

    Just re-watched Lost in Translation and started leaking out my eyes at the end. Grandkid asks why? I had no answer, but it made me think again about what the heck Bill Murray whispers to Scarlett Johannson at the end of the movie.

    It reminds me of one time when I went out with an old friend of my husband’s (who was at the time lost in Afghanistan) and we had a great time at a concert and a bar and he took me home and there was this awkward silence as we sat in the car and I said “In another place, at another time…maybe it coulda happened”.

    I think maybe it was that kinda whisper in Scarlett’s ear.

  59. 59.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 20, 2013 at 8:10 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Pippin and Merry were essential to starting launching the ents against Isengard. In addition, for them, the LOTR was a coming of age story; they were preparing to be the heroes during the scouring of the Shire.

  60. 60.

    Schlemizel

    March 20, 2013 at 8:11 pm

    @WaynersT:

    Sorry but LOTR sucked & made me not want to see Hobbit. The books has so much story and so much texture. The movies had so many battle scenes and so little story.

    That he now wants to make Hobbit run too long to add texture and story was a wonderful thought but my guess is 3 long movies is too much & reading about how he changed the story makes me glad I have not seen it yet. I will but I am not excited about it an will try very hard not to compare it to the book.

  61. 61.

    Darkrose

    March 20, 2013 at 8:11 pm

    @Turgidson: I do understand the difference between the filmmaker’s craft and the author’s.
    What I really disliked, though, was that Jackson was perfectly willing to change things, like giving Arwen a much bigger role than she does in the original because a modern audience expects more from a female character. And yet when someone asked him if he was going to have any major, non-evil characters be something other than pasty white, he dismissed the concern as “political correctness”.

    Then, of course, he went on to do King Kong.

  62. 62.

    Anoniminous

    March 20, 2013 at 8:13 pm

    @Chris:

    That’s straight out of the book.

  63. 63.

    JoyceH

    March 20, 2013 at 8:14 pm

    ” I was even ok with the birds in his hair, but could his guests not show enough decency to not shit all over the side of his head?”

    Well, I don’t think birds can ‘hold it’. When it’s gonna come out, it comes out, nothing they can do about it.

    Some animals (like cats and dogs) can hold it till they get to where they want to make their deposits and others can’t. Horses can’t, for instance. I remember years ago going to see the Royal Lipizzaners perform. These horses were obviously trained to the nth degree; just about anything a horse could be trained to do, they were trained to do. But right in the middle of these awesome, graceful, athletic movements, they’d take a plop right in the middle of the arena. Between numbers, the pooper-scoopers would run out and remove the evidence. Because not pooping when the time came to poop wasn’t something they could be trained to do.

  64. 64.

    Kirk

    March 20, 2013 at 8:15 pm

    Coming back to the bird shit, my experience with bird owners is that it’s common. Not necessarily typical, but if they let the birds roam freely there will be shit everywhere, and if the birds like the owner and spend a lot of time part of everywhere is the head or shoulders or back.

    It was: “Oh, this person likes and hangs with birds a lot.” It came off, I admit, as also making him look a bit of a kook. Again, my experience with that sort of bird owner…

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 8:17 pm

    @Turgidson:
    I don’t really buy Jackson’s justification. What I liked about Faramir is that he wasn’t rejecting it because he wasn’t tempted; he resisted the temptation because he could see that it was a false hope. He understood the temptation of the ring and knew that Boromir wouldn’t have been able to resist, and from that he is able to extrapolate and see that winning through the power of the ring would destroy Gondor as surely as being conquered by Mordor would. His saying that he wouldn’t pick up the ring if he found it at the side of the road isn’t a statement of disinterest, it’s a sign that he’s considered and rejected its temptation. I think a great filmmaker could have made a very powerful scene from Tolkien’s material, and it says something about Jackson that he didn’t try.

    I think that highlights another interesting point about the characters’ resisting the temptation of the ring. Bilbo sees its effect on himself and how he’s being changed into something like Smeagol. Bombadil is supremely uninterested. Sam overcomes it through humility. Gandalf and Galadriel both see it undermining them personally. Faramir sees it destroying his country. Just as they’re each tempted a different way, they each resist differently and in a way that highlights their individual strengths.

  66. 66.

    Darkrose

    March 20, 2013 at 8:17 pm

    @SatanicPanic: I was okay with Eowyn/Faramir, because it’s real clear who the dominant partner is there. She wouldn’t have been able to have that with Aragorn. What I didn’t like was in the books, where she’s all, “Now I’m in love and I can stop going out and having agency, like a real woman should!”

  67. 67.

    R-Jud

    March 20, 2013 at 8:19 pm

    We finally watched this the other night, and I felt really annoyed with it for a number of reasons. I’ll talk about three.

    First, it’s my impression that the studio wanted three movies more than Jackson did. You could sort of feel his irritation in some of the hugely long scenes and added plot lines, particularly the prologue narrated by Ian Holm. It practically screamed, “We gotta pad this out, guys.”

    Next, it should have been called “The Gandalf”, as Bilbo seemed to get lost among all of the stuff pulled from Tolkien’s notes/appendices involving the White Council. And they’d cast a perfect Bilbo with Martin Freeman. I was irritated by the waste of his talents (although I did like that on the morning after the Unexpected Party, he chose to go with the dwarves rather than getting badgered into it by Gandalf).

    Then, Thorin, both in terms of the character and the actor who played him, wasn’t great. I get that he’s meant to be this trilogy’s stand-in for Aragorn/Viggo Mortenson, but we really did not need the extra “pale orc pursuing him in revenge” storyline. It’s enough that he’s trying to reclaim his ancestral kingdom from a fucking dragon, but only has this rag-tag band to do it with.

    I don’t expect a film adaptation to be a point-for-point rehash of the novel, I understand it has to be different than that, having adapted this actual story myself as an exercise for a screenwriting course in college. You have to pick and choose which themes to develop, which characters to emphasize.

    But it should have the same “feel” as the source material. Jackson did that quite well with “Fellowship”, and at intervals in the other films when the music wasn’t beating you over the head (or when Viggo Mortenson was being awesome, he was a cracking Aragorn). Here, he wasn’t so successful: it was alternately dull and chaotic up until Bilbo and Gollum start telling riddles in the dark. I’m one of those nerds who can write in Sindarin and I also wave hello to Tolkien’s boyhood home whenever I run up the hill. But after seeing previews, I wasn’t bothered to see this in the theater.

  68. 68.

    SatanicPanic

    March 20, 2013 at 8:19 pm

    @Anoniminous: The survival rate of good guys in LOTR is just a little too high.

    @Omnes Omnibus: They didn’t really need Merry and Pippin to do that though. IIRC Pippin and Merry found out about what Saruman was doing from the Ents themselves. I don’t want to get into the Scouring of the Shire, I know it has a lot of fans here, but I felt like it wasn’t needed.

  69. 69.

    dance around in your bones

    March 20, 2013 at 8:19 pm

    @scav:

    Bird droppings makes me think of Merlyn in A Once and Future King.

    Jeez, I loved that book as a kid. The Wart gets turned into an ant, various birds, a fish….it was magical to me. Seeing the world from all those perspectives. Then he becomes the King of England.

  70. 70.

    magurakurin

    March 20, 2013 at 8:20 pm

    @Darkrose:

    Then, of course, he went on to do King Kong.

    I sort of felt some of the charges of racism in LOTR were over the top, but….after I saw King Kong…wow, there are some serious, fucked-up racist scenes in that stinker.

  71. 71.

    Andrey

    March 20, 2013 at 8:21 pm

    At what point was Faramir strongly tempted by the Ring? He started bringing the Hobbits back, yes, but I never interpreted that to be a desire for the Ring so much as a desire to please his father. I know that is also not present in the book, but it’s a rather different kind of flaw.

    Personally, I enjoyed the Hobbit film. I could tell that it was both in the same context as the LOTR films, and at the same time had a fairly different tone.

  72. 72.

    HinTN

    March 20, 2013 at 8:24 pm

    @SatanicPanic: You all suck in your interpretation of Faramir as a minor character and in getting Eowyn as s consolation prize. He is MAJOR in the narrative as regard “man’s fate.”

  73. 73.

    R-Jud

    March 20, 2013 at 8:26 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    I don’t want to get into the Scouring of the Shire, I know it has a lot of fans here, but I felt like it wasn’t needed.

    As an LOTR fan from the age of 8, I agree with you. I also think that dropping Bombadil was a good call. My mother adores Bombadil to the point where we can’t discuss our differences about him. Politically we’re sympatico, but Tom Bombadil could cause broken crockery at Thanksgiving dinner, for real.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    March 20, 2013 at 8:27 pm

    @SatanicPanic: I see the LOTR as a Tolkien mixing several story lines. Frodo and Sam on a quest. Aragorn being tested. The coming of age tale of Pippin and Merry. The passing of an Age. And more. There is something for everyone.

  75. 75.

    lamh35

    March 20, 2013 at 8:29 pm

    thanks for the comments guys. been having discussions between my friends on the subject of honesty and guys. We all agreed that honesty is one thing when it comes to things that you just need to be completely honest about, like whether or not your married, been convicted or been to jail, or whether you really like my sisters…lol. But looks, heck no, it’s best to go with the least likely to inflict pain and discomfort.

    As for the 2nd question, this one was a bit harder to say yay or nay to. As a woman who makes a pretty good living, unless I meet someone in my same line of work, or somehow meets some sugar daddy millionaire the majority of the guys I currently meet (who are actually single, which is getting harder to find at 36 than in my 20s) are not in my same financial bracket, so yeah I’ve got to adjust my thinking a bit on whether or not it’s important to be financial equals with a mate.

  76. 76.

    SatanicPanic

    March 20, 2013 at 8:30 pm

    @HinTN: It’s a relative term. You could just as easily say Tom Bombadil is a more major character because he actually handles the ring and then gives it up.

  77. 77.

    joel hanes

    March 20, 2013 at 8:32 pm

    Agree about Jackson’s crimes against Faramir.

    Add miscasting to the toll : Faramir is of the nobility of Gondor, an echo in Middle-Earth of Numenor that was. He should have dark straight hair. He should be tall.

  78. 78.

    Turgidson

    March 20, 2013 at 8:33 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    I’d have liked to see it done your way as well.

    I’m just saying I could see where Jackson was coming from when he distilled the thread about the ring’s temptation to the various characters into something more fit for an audience of non-readers (ie dumbed it down), and I saw where the alteration of Faramir fit into that bigger strategic decision, though I also thought they mangled Faramir more than was needed for the situation.

    I still get kind of annoyed that elves showed up at Helm’s Deep, though.

  79. 79.

    SatanicPanic

    March 20, 2013 at 8:34 pm

    @R-Jud: Yup. I like Tom, but if he weren’t in the story it wouldn’t kill me.

  80. 80.

    John Cole

    March 20, 2013 at 8:34 pm

    @lamh35:

    Is there ever a time when a man can tell a woman the honest truth about how she looks?

    There are two times. On your deathbed if she has nothing to do with your funeral preparations, and if you have made the decision you never wish to sleep with her again.

  81. 81.

    joel hanes

    March 20, 2013 at 8:38 pm

    @dance around in your bones:

    [ loved The Once and Future King as a kid ]

    It repays rereading as an adult. The first book is darker and morally more complex than you will remember, and the stark tragedy of the second and third books is really over the head of most people under the age of forty.

    It is the particular strengths of these strong characters that weave them together seal their fates, not their particular flaws.

    Pathei mathos.

  82. 82.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 8:38 pm

    @SatanicPanic:
    The big thing in the book wasn’t Aragorn leading Eowyn on, it was Tolkien leading the audience on by not doing anything with Aragorn and Arawen. Eowyn throws her heart at Aragorn’s feet, and he steps all over it for no obvious reason, and it’s totally Tolkien’s fault for not introducing Aragorn’s fiancee when he had a chance. It’s one of the worst written parts of the book, IMO.

  83. 83.

    R-Jud

    March 20, 2013 at 8:42 pm

    @dance around in your bones:

    Jeez, I loved that book as a kid.

    I re-read it recently (aloud, with the husband) and it’s just marvelous. Such impetus in the first book, and so much knowledge of the medieval world, even down to his descriptions of bringing in the hay, or of hawking.

  84. 84.

    Darkrose

    March 20, 2013 at 8:44 pm

    @magurakurin: LOTR has an inherent race problem that stems from the fact that Tolkien was a white Englishman of a certain era. I get that, just like I get that Tolkien’s women often make me roll my eyes. But Jackson was willing to change the text to accomodate modern sensibilities for one problematic area, but not for another, and that bugged me.

  85. 85.

    schrodinger's cat

    March 20, 2013 at 8:48 pm

    I never understood what’s so great about Tolkien anyways.
    *ducks*

  86. 86.

    PurpleGirl

    March 20, 2013 at 8:51 pm

    I meant to see the Hobbit in a theatre but never quite got up the energy to go. I’ll have to watch via computer/cable (whatever). Bur first I want to re-read The Hobbit and the appendix materials from LOTR. The Hobbit trilogy is based solely on The Hobbit, Jackson expanded to include the appendix material. (No, he did not use the Silmarillion because he doesn’t have the rights to it. I don’t know if the Tolkien family has sold those rights to anyone.)

  87. 87.

    dance around in your bones

    March 20, 2013 at 8:52 pm

    @joel hanes:

    Pathei mathos.

    Ok, I had to look this term up – “suffer and learn?”

    I should read them again – I’d hate to spoil the magic of when I first read them.

    @R-Jud:

    I just remember getting totally lost in the book (like I often did as a kid – I mean, transported out of my mundane existence into another world).

    Oh gawd, we’re having a kid melt-down here with screaming and yelling …. two of them got inoculations today and are probably insane from the side-effects. Sigh.

  88. 88.

    MikeJ

    March 20, 2013 at 8:58 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I’m with you, which is why I stayed out of this thread. I would hate it if somebody who just blindly declared he hated all country music started telling me how much Johnny Cash sucks so I try to avoid conversations about stuff where I know I won’t contribute anything useful.

  89. 89.

    R-Jud

    March 20, 2013 at 8:58 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I never understood what’s so great about Tolkien anyways.

    I like him less now that I’m grown; I can see the problems in his worldview and the shortcomings in his prose. But reading the Hobbit and LOTR as a kid was the first time I realized that books didn’t just happen. They were invented, and you, or I, in choosing to become a writer, could invent an entire world. It was immensely liberating.

    ETA: And until my mother stopped being a Republican (about 15 years ago) it was the one thing we could discuss safely together, as she was a first-generation Tolkien fan.

  90. 90.

    IowaOldLady

    March 20, 2013 at 9:03 pm

    Yes on the travesty of Faramir! On the whole Steward’s family really. In the book, Faramir says he wouldn’t pick the ring up if he saw it lying by the side of the road. In the movie, he says “the ring must go to Gondor.” At which point, I thought I must have misheard.

    OTOH, re

    how bloody long is the Director’s Cut going to be?

    I’m a sucker. The only answer I can give is “not long enough.” I love this stuff even when I complain.

  91. 91.

    dance around in your bones

    March 20, 2013 at 9:04 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    I loved the animated version of the Hobbit from the 70′s. It went well with recreational enhancement.

    Oh man, I hear you :)

  92. 92.

    Roger Moore

    March 20, 2013 at 9:08 pm

    @lamh35:

    Does it matter to you who makes more money in your relationship?

    I don’t think it would bother me to be in a relationship with a woman who made more than I did, as long as I could still feel as if I were a financial contributor rather than a dependent. Society tells us that we’re supposed to be providers, and a lot of us have adapted to the idea of being equal contributors, but it’s a big blow to the ego to be a sponge.

  93. 93.

    PurpleGirl

    March 20, 2013 at 9:16 pm

    @Anoniminous: Eowyn is a royal, bred true to the blood. She knows that her marriage will not be totally one of love but must take into consideration her role as a royal. (A daughter of kings and shield maiden of Rohan.) When it is clear that she can’t have Aragorn, and she must still marry a royal, Faramir is the best candidate. Realpolitik, you know.)

  94. 94.

    scav

    March 20, 2013 at 9:18 pm

    Never was wildly wildy enthralled by the story or species as such, but what really got me as a kid was the sheer depth of the world (all books) — it seemed coherent, not thin backdrop to the players marching about enacting the plot. As a kid /v. young reader, the contrast was probably even more stark. Was rather an Ent fan, feel free to track me down and light me on fire. And Gollem chez us meant a treasured thign in an odd slippagg. Machu Pichu meant a dreamt of activity, to go completely off the rails.

  95. 95.

    PurpleGirl

    March 20, 2013 at 9:20 pm

    The Hobbit trilogy ISN’T based solely on The Hobbit, Jackson expanded it to include the LOTR appendix material.

    Argh, proofreading, how does it work?

  96. 96.

    YoohooCthulhu

    March 20, 2013 at 9:22 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    The form and strength of its temptation is supposed to tell you something about the personality and interests of the character it tempts. Having Faramir succumb to the temptation, even temporarily, undermines two important points: his own wisdom in recognizing its false promise, which he draws very vividly,

    It’s not just that. Faramir may actually be one of the most *realistic* characters in the book, besides the hobbits. Not everyone is about fame and influence, and Faramir is a rare example among the humans of the book who isn’t–he would like his father’s approval, but doesn’t crave it.

  97. 97.

    lol

    March 20, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    Good to see the Seventh Doctor getting work.

  98. 98.

    BretH

    March 20, 2013 at 9:37 pm

    @magurakurin: +1 on the racism in that turd of a movie.

  99. 99.

    jl

    March 20, 2013 at 9:56 pm

    @lamh35:

    ” Is there ever a time when a man can tell a woman the honest truth about how she looks? ”
    When she looks great (same goes the other way. Hey, what happened to that famed large and fragile male ego all of a sudden?)

    ” Does it matter to you who makes more money in your relationship? ”
    No.

  100. 100.

    aimai

    March 20, 2013 at 9:58 pm

    @Roger Moore:
    I could not agree more. I don’t forgive Jackson for that–any more than I forgive him for leaving out the cleansing of the shire and the replanting of the party tree with the elven dust.

  101. 101.

    Redshirt

    March 20, 2013 at 10:02 pm

    Since we’re doing Ishtari chat, I want to know what happened to the wizards sent to the far East. What adventures did they have?

  102. 102.

    aimai

    March 20, 2013 at 10:07 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    In response to the “how she looks” question I guess speaking as a woman of a certain age and in a long term marriage–I kind of rely on my spouse to continue to see the best in me, and the beauty in me, long after I, honestly, have given up. If your man doesn’t love you exactly the way you are on any given day what’s the point? Its not a question of honesty/not honesty. Someone you love is never ugly to you. Someone whose only attraction is their beauty or their perfection? Well, one of these days those things go so “honestly” that person will brutally give you the truth at that point. Nothing wrong with that. It just reveals that the relationship is over.

  103. 103.

    Anoniminous

    March 20, 2013 at 10:17 pm

    @PurpleGirl:

    That’s the best take I’ve seen. OK, I can buy that.

  104. 104.

    dance around in your bones

    March 20, 2013 at 10:30 pm

    @aimai:

    Oh, aimai, that’s one of the things I miss most about my husband. He always made me feel beautiful, no matter how I thought I looked – he always said I was beautiful.

    He also made me laugh a lot, which is a not inconsiderable thing. That’s another thing I miss a lot. Laughing with my man. We shared the same weird sense of humor, which I suppose is what attracted us to each other in the first place.

  105. 105.

    marshall

    March 20, 2013 at 10:39 pm

    I live with parrots. They don’t poop on me now, but when they were young, they did. It’s part of being part of the flock.

    I don’t have a beard, but years ago, when I did, I used to hate how hard it was to keep it clean enough to meet my girlfriend’s standards. It’s hard to do without preening in a mirror.

  106. 106.

    Tehanu

    March 20, 2013 at 10:48 pm

    It may be that Faramir is Eowyn’s “consolation prize” but the scenes in the book where he is falling in love with her are wonderful … as is the scene where he finally says to her, Look, you were crazy about Aragorn because he was a manly man, but he’s not really what you want, so look at me!

    I liked the movies to some extent — there are some fabulous visuals — but I’ve said all along that LOTR would have been much better as a 26-part TV series, instead of trying to cram it all in to the feature film format. And I agree with other commenters upthread about what Jackson did to Faramir — ugh — and about not having the Scouring of the Shire. LOTR isn’t “the good guys won, yay!”; it’s about the losses inherent even in “victory.” Which is what makes it a great book instead of just a ripping yarn.

  107. 107.

    PIGL

    March 20, 2013 at 11:26 pm

    @Anoniminous: or maybe she was a well-adjusted adult, who after several months of pining for an unavailable man several notches out of her league and pledged to the one of the top 5 noblest beings remaining in Middle Earth (after Elrond, Galadriel, Celebron, maybe Thranduil), she got over it and fell for someone else, almost equal in quality to Aragorn, someone that she could actually have.

    I mean, God knows I wouldn’t have done the healthy sensible thing, but apparrently some people do.

  108. 108.

    PIGL

    March 20, 2013 at 11:31 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Pippin saves Aragorn at the battle of the Gates by stabbing a troll with a barrow-knife. He also saves Faramir from The Madness of Denethor, and thus the noblest remaining house of the southern Dunedain. Also, his foolish stone in Moria leads to the death of the Balrog, which good riddance.

    You are much to harsh on the little fellow. When’s the last time you stabbed a troll?

  109. 109.

    joel hanes

    March 20, 2013 at 11:58 pm

    @dance around in your bones:

    suffer and learn

    Almost. The ancient Greek meaning is subtle.

    The denotation is more or less:
    “We arrive at wisdom only though suffering”

    This does not imply that suffering will invariably impart wisdom, only that wisdom cannot be attained without suffering — that he who has not suffered cannot really be wise.
    (PS: this is why an aristocracy of inherited wealth is toxic to a society — people like Paris Hilton and George W. Bush and the bad Koch brothers were deprived of their opportunity to suffer and learn by the layers of insulating wealth; and yet they are allowed to have power. )

    But the Greeks were deeper than that. Humans do not want to pay the price for wisdom, resist acquiring it because wisdom is uncomfortable and inconvenient, even painful, and so we mostly only become wise when impelled, against our will, through experiences that cause us to suffer and from which only a very few of us are willing to learn even so.

    Thus the tragedies of the house of Atreus, of Odysseus. Thus the reworking of that material into Dune and Ender’s Game and a thousand other pale echoes. Thus Sansa and Arya and Rob and Tyrion and Jaime and Danaerys, on their horrific separate roads to becoming wise.

    Most suffer to no end, but Gandalf and Aragorn and Galadriel have paid the price and learned the lesson.

  110. 110.

    dance around in your bones

    March 21, 2013 at 12:04 am

    @joel hanes:

    This is why I love Balloon Juice. The things you learn.

    Thank you.

  111. 111.

    joel hanes

    March 21, 2013 at 12:06 am

    @Redshirt:

    I want to know what happened to the wizards sent to the far East.

    Someone else will have to write that. Tolkein didn’t.

    And so the tale goes ever on.

  112. 112.

    Chris T.

    March 21, 2013 at 1:06 am

    @aimai: Exactly!

  113. 113.

    Attaturk

    March 21, 2013 at 9:53 am

    I want to know what happened to the wizards sent to the far East.&lt

    They became Iron Chefs.

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