TV/Movies Megathread

[Barrister]

Sounds like we're getting a Ted Lasso season 4???

I mean I'm excited but nervous.  It was probably my favourite new show of the last few years.

So on the one hand fundamentally it's a workplace comedy.  There's no reason in the world why you couldn't keep grinding seasons of Ted Lasso for years and years.

But on the other hand it set up everyone's character arcs so nicely, and wrapped them up so nicely, I can't quite see where you go from there.  I mean at its most fundamental you have to get Ted back to England, but then what about his kid?

[Sophie Scholl]

But you could already see Jackson's movement away from Tolkien's ideas (if, indeed, he ever understood what they were) as the original progresses.  The Fellowship of the Ring follows Tolkien pretty closely in fell and even in most specifics. The Two Towers starts to introduce goofy shit like the Aragorn-falling-of-the-cliff bit and the cavalry charge down a cliff at the end, but is 90% Tolkien.  The final movie misunderstands Tolkien in many areas and has goofy ghost armies and a Charge of the Rohirrim that contradicts the books and would be militarily suicidal.  The trend, obviously, continued to worsen in the Hobbit movies.

I'd credit Jackson (really, in all probability, his wife) with 2.4 good movies in the first trilogy, but only perhaps 0.6 movies in the second trilogy.  The quality declined in direct proportion to the influence of Fran Walsh in the making of them.

Yeah. The Extended Editions add a lot of good content, in my opinion, but they can't overcome the baffling story choices that are made in RotK especially. I'll always wonder what could have been if del Toro had gotten to make The Hobbit movies or if Jackson had taken the much needed year plus he said he wanted to come up with a script and plan instead of just jumping into making it without anything really settled. The final product was pretty disastrous, in my opinion, and definitely felt like an inverse of the LotR films where they were incredibly enjoyable minus some hiccups, The Hobbit was quite bad with some stand out moments of quality.

[Valmy]

I will say that the Two Towers was the first time when I noticed big changes from Tolkien's story that I thought were clearly worse than the source material. And yes it got worse in the Return of the King.

But still it was amazingly done and far beyond what I thought was possible. And yes the extended editions are better.

I guess in retrospect I should have seen the warning signs coming. But it was about a decade between The Return of the King and the first Hobbit film. I had forgotten about all that.

[grumbler]

I will say that the Two Towers was the first time when I noticed big changes from Tolkien's story that I thought were clearly worse than the source material. And yes it got worse in the Return of the King.

But still it was amazingly done and far beyond what I thought was possible. And yes the extended editions are better.

I guess in retrospect I should have seen the warning signs coming. But it was about a decade between The Return of the King and the first Hobbit film. I had forgotten about all that.

Yeah.  Don't get me wrong - I loved the LotR movies despite their disappointing elements. 

[Sophie Scholl]

I will say, I actually really enjoyed the created re-taking/holding of Osgiliath scene in the EE of TTT. Granted, I'm a sucker for anything Gondor, Faramir, and Boromir related, but... I found it a really good scene and added to all characters involved.

[Syt]

I think what helped LotR was also the production design which (mostly) stuck close to "established" Tolkien art like the one from Alan Lee and created a largely quite grounded and relatable look and feel which also made the more fantastical "pop" more.

[Admiral Yi]

I've been carrying the minorest LOTR nit pick for decades now and I need to vent.  WTF did the Gondorians eat?  Everthing around their city is beaten down dirt.

[Admiral Yi]

Come to think of it, the only food producing region in Middle Earth is The Shire.

Not counting the hidden lembas factory.

[Syt]

I understand that nitpick (and there's a Fallout 3 vs New Vegas video where one of the comparisons is, "but what do they eat?" and showing that in NV there's usually some farming in or near settlements).

But it kinda depends on how you approach the movies. Do you view them as realistic alternate universes that need to depict a fully functional ecosystem? Or do you see it as a fairy tale or myth where you can play a bit loose with the rules and go with the "rule of cool" when necessary to deliver a laarger than life story about archetypes that exaggerate certain elements. I'd argue Jackson's approach falls more into the latter category, but YMMV, and people will have strong preference for one or the other.

It's something that is causing friction within Star Wars, too. On the one hand you have the mythical "Hero's Journey" of the first movie and the original trilogy, with strong mythical overtones, with space wizards and magic swords. On the other hand you have both fans and "official" creators trying to figure out how to feed a planet like Coruscant, or how what the exact technical specifications of the Death Star or a Star Destroyer are. I think it's difficult to reconcile the two a lot of the time. Internal consistency is important to a story (i.e. if you establish that you can't use the transporter to beam through shields that rule should be followed unless you have a really good explanation why it may sometimes possible), and "it's magic lol" is almost never a good explanation, but I also think midichlorians were a bad idea.

[celedhring]

In the case of the LOTR movies, though, we see such a small part of the subcontinent that it's easy to imagine there's other fertile lands. The Gondor we see in the movies is actually just a strip of the entire kingdom.

[Sophie Scholl]

I've been carrying the minorest LOTR nit pick for decades now and I need to vent.  WTF did the Gondorians eat?  Everthing around their city is beaten down dirt.

In the books, the Pelennor Fields (site of the Rohirrim charge/death of Theoden and the Witch King) are filled with crops and orchards and surrounded by an outer wall. Alas, the films do not show this and leave the Fields as just the beaten down dirt and grass you mention. Presumably these are augmented by imported materials from through Gondor via land and sea deliveries. Someone did an interesting breakdown of the logistics of feeding and the city and how only have one gate per level of the city would make it a bit of a nightmare. https://gondica.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/the-logistics-of-minas-tirith/

[Sophie Scholl]

Oh, also, before the fall of Minas Ithil/Morgul and the abandoning of Ithilien, that region was also a huge supplier of food to Minas Anor/Tirith, Osgiliath, and Minas Ithil/Morgul. Post-War of the Ring, it is said Faramir and Eowyn return it to its beautiful and productive ways.

[Syt]

From a production point of view, I'm also guessing it was easier to CGI a vast barren landscape during the battle than to have it take place in cluttered farmlands.

[celedhring]

directed by the guy whose biggest hit to date had been the Michael J Fox flop The Frighteners

For me it was "the guy who made Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, and Braindead" which made me more go WTF?

For me it was "Silver Lion winner Peter Jackson". 

As Sheilbh pointed out, Heavenly Creatures is an amazing movie and comfortably his best outside of LOTR. Also Kate Winslet's first movie role IIRC.

[Syt]

Yeah, that movie hadn't made it onto my radar at the time.