the saga continues ...

Opinion, indeed.

Of course.

The facts

1.ROTK didn't even deserve most of it's nominations.
2.The Star Wars OT was far more popular. It was diversified into many many mediums, such as novels, comics, etc..., had several immitators, both in movies and TV, and it's merchandising blows LOTR away, just as the trilogy does. The WW market has expanded greatly, and they've only recently been keeping count and sharing with us in all of the markets, so you have no idea what SW made at the BO, but don't let that stop you from thinking you know...lol If you would have put the original SW DVD set out against the ROTK EE DVD on the same day, SW would have buried it. As it is, it will STILL bury it in sales, and you'll get a little taste of just how wrong you are.

That's a "fact"?

You're reaching Mav. You are in BKB territory here.

Kinda hope you're joking, 'cuz I thought ROTK was the best movie released last year, and I'm not even a LOTR nut.

The Star Wars series was much more popular than LOTR in it's prime, IN AMERICA, yes, definitely.

LOTR is far more popular overseas, though.

The US is only 5% of the world's population, so yeah, overall, worldwide, LOTR > Star Wars.

I'm just kidding now that I see you hope that I am. :arrow:

Well guys, I just can't disagree with her, and I have to quietly back out of my ROTK/Oscar comments. She's too credible to have a real chance against, huh? :idea:

I personally don't mind you debating Mav, but when you take extremist positions in the context of acting devil's advocate you come suspiciously close to trolling

I would not have given the Song award to Lord of the Rings (I would have given it to "Kiss at the End of the Rainbow") and it would be a toss up for Best Adapted Screenplay, but I personally don't think the awards are a "sham", it is just basically a democratic opinion of 7,000 Academy members.

Here is my impression of Maverikk when he is 85 years old:

"I can't rest until everyone acknowledges that there was a conspiracy to name Lord of the Rings as best picture in 2003! Come on, admit it! It ahs to be! There is no other explanation! My tastes are the only ones that matter, and all the critics and acaedmy voters who named it Best Picture and gave it the highest Rotten Tomatoes score that year were all in on it! All of them! There can be no other explanation! It's a conspiracy, I tell you! Why won't they listen to me?!!!!"

Nurse: "Shh, come on now, Maverikk, time for your medicine."

I have purposely stayed away from tastes and preferences, though, and have stuck by the structure of the storytelling, and it's not what best pictures are made of. It's not tight enough the way it was released, and I've pointed out each instance, of which are very legit complaints, in a storytelling sense. Any writers should have no problem identifying every one of these, as should the over critical academy and critics, but let's face it, the choice was made before the movie came out, which was an argument that was even made by more than a few LOTR fans when debating with baumer as to why the first fantasy movie in history would finally win, yet now, it's being ignored that such an argument was used when it supported your cases.

Your tastes and bias are determining your starting point in regard to how the award was given, so don't give me the line about your objectivity. Everyone here (except you?) knows it is not the truth. What you are doing is making a case for why Lord of the Rings should not have won Editing or Directing. You are very lightly touching on aspects of its screenplay.

You then throw out challenges like "ask any writer" as some sort of defense for your behavior. But I DO know writers, professional, published, PHD, and they... for the most part (one doesn't like fantasy really) LOVE it. So that leaves us exactly where we started.

I'm not going to talk about Star Wars, the aims of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are completely different and Lucas is much more free to deliver whatever he wants than Jackson is, who is bound by the adaptation.

The storytelling problems rest, in a large sense, with Tolkien's novel, which is also a bit of a juggling act. I know people don't like to say that, but that's why Lord of the Rings was considered unfilmable, because of the absolutely crazy structure it had. Jackson, Walsh and Boyens turned that structure into a moving flowing river of emotion... it is probably one of the best novel to film adaptations I have ever seen, and while, true, it doesn't follow the conventional beats of movie dramas, it still is stunningly accurate to the spirit and pace of the novel.

I think the theatrical edition is quite a bit tighter and more linear than Fellowship or Towers' extended editions. So of the three, I don't think it is the biggest mess. I actually don't really think that the Extended Edition of Return of the King is much better than the theatrical, it is kind of a wash. That 50 minutes of extended footage is a little too long. There are some nice moments, but...

So in total: Of the three films, I think Return of the King is a stunning work of book to film adaptation.

Towers is still my favorite though, score, screenplay, origional song ("Gollum's Song"), picture, directing, special effects, cinematography, acting (other than Bean in Fellowship and Astin/Boyd/McKellen in Return of the King). It is the best one. Hands down.

I would have MUCH rather seen Master and Commander win the top awards last year and had The Two Towers win 11 against the nasty 2002 Academy Awards which awarded pictures like Chicago and The Pianist, which I don't think are particularly great films.

After saying all this... I would have at least given Return of the King a nomination, and maybe a win for its Adapted Screenplay.

Mav -- you are certainly entitled to your opinion. You just have to realize that it is just an opinion -- an opinion that is not shared by 97% of the movie critics and a vast majority of those who vote for the Oscar.

It doesn't make their decision a sham.

I mean, I could write page after page about how terrible a President George W. Bush is, and 49% of the population will agree with me. It doesn't make his election a sham (Well, not this time, anyway).

Sometimes your opinion is just the minority one. It doesn't mean anything more than that.

Mike, those critics, and the grades they give movies are hardly anything to trust and believe in. They are so full of political motives, it's not even funny. And as for the Oscars, well, let's just say that I don't regard them as credible either.

There are opinions, and there are facts. Rules of storytelling, that should never be broken. #1, you don't introduce things through scenes and dialogue, and ignore resolving them. That's a fact, not an opinion. I'm not making that up, as it's a tried and true formula for good writing. The other is never looked at as such.

It can't even be debated that ROTK broke these rules, and since it can't be debated, then how can those simple facts be said to just be an opinion. That's like somebody telling somebody that snow is white when it falls to the ground, and that somebody trying to tell them that it's only their opinion that it's white.

:? :!:

You know I'm truly trying to find the comedy in this because if yu really believe in what you are saying, then I do feel sorry for you and I may understand why debating with you is impossible; it transcends your bias and I think has something to do with your mental thought process. You are so blinded by your own infatuation of hating the movie, that you are in more denial than any LOTR fan that ever was in favor of the films. Now that's a fact!

So all those 97% of critics were all brainwashed the universal WORLDWIDE acclaim for ROTK (Don't forget, it won at BAFTAs as well!) was all manipulated and not to be taken seriously?

After your last post in this topic, your opinions on the matter of storytelling are moot. It's quite clear that you are either incredibly naive, plain stupid or wanting to rile people up. And I don't think we need any of that here.

You are turning into BKB, Mav.

Oh wow...I forgot about y'all.

Again, how is giving the movie a B considered "hating" it? (besides the obligatory "if you don't worship it, then we will say you hate it" scenerio that seems to be a legal binding agreement between some of you and the precious.) Why would I go to such extremes as you claim? I'm just being a realist here. I'm seeing infatuation blinding somebody here, but it's not me if you truely believe that I'm hating a movie that I've watched several times, and know it front to back.

Folks, we've got another live one here. :idea:

People are sheep, Lecter, remember that. Critics are shepherd in just like the rest of them are.

My opinions on storytelling have nothing to do with it, it's facts about what is good storytelling, and yes, they are facts. You can't just structure things anyway you choose, you have to structure them so they are coherent for an audience, and you don't waste space on things that you don't plan on resolving. These are considered unwritten rules, because they figure everybody should know that doing such things is not acceptable.

The only people who would get riled up, would be those who know it's true and don't want to believe it. I'm not telling anybody that they can't like it just as much as they like it now just because their standards were compromised over LOTR. It's cool. More power to them.

If anybody is getting riled up, I'm sorry, and I wish that you wouldn't. Just skip over this thread , and don't reply or read it. Ignore it and it will ignore you.

People get riled up about your LOTR opinion in the same way they get riled up whenever someone says something that is so much out of the mainstream that you sit back and say "What doesn't this guy get?"

When 95% of the population agrees on something it is a rare thing. And even those in that 5% who do not usually say something like "Well, I disagree with most of the people, but they are entitled to their opinion."

It's the few in that 5% who say "Everyone else is sheep!" that cause the problem, Mav.

Usually these people's sanity borders on the edge of paranoia. They are convinced that only they know the truth, and that the whole world is against them. "Fools! why can't they see the truth!" they proclaim from their mad scientist lairs. "If only they would listen to me and see the error of their ways!"

Go ahead and rant, Mav, but don't get upset when people treat you like the guy on the corner who tells us the end of the world is coming and we're all idiots for not seeing the obvious signs of the apocalypse.