"Ridley Scott vs Peter Jackson" Topic

Ridley Scott would have done a better job with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

There. What everybody's been thinking all these years.

I think we would have had better battle scenes than from that hack Jackson and he probably would have stayed closer to the story.

And don't get me started on that abomination that is the Hobbit trilogy. (Though Trevor did almost make the first movie watchable.)

1492
Kingdom of Heaven
Robin Hood
Prometheus

And the kicker:
G.I. Jane.

Ridley Scott can produce some dreck, too.

I think PJ did just fine with LotR. Would I have liked some elements to be closer to the books? Yes. Were there some over-the-top moments? Yes. But overall the films are an epic achievement, and I love ‘em.

The first two Hobbit films were acceptable, though some of the extra stuff left me cold (the "she-elf", the "White orc"). I actually enjoyed the silly action sequences (Goblintown and the barrel escape) as being in keeping with the light-hearted tone of the book— this is Bilbo's adventure, not Frodo' dark quest.
The third Hobbit film was a crapfest.

By the way, some of the blame falls on Del Toro, too. Which surprises me, as usually he is astonishingly capable and imaginative. But I think the sand worms were his addition, among other nonsense. ‌

There often comes a point when an director or a writer or almost any artist have reached the status where no one is willing to tell them, "Yeah, that idea of yours really sucks. Maybe something different?" Lucas hit it with RotJ. PJ was approaching it with RotK. Scott has fallen into it as well.

So, no, I don't think Scott could have made a better LotR trilogy. And given his obsession with dark and depressing endings, I don't think he could have handled The Hobbit at all. I don't see Scott as being able to make a film with a sense of fun to it. And if you don't have a sense of fun, you can't grok The Hobbit. And if you don't have an attitude of hope, you can't capture the heart of The Lord of the Rings. For these reasons, I don't think Scott would have been superior to Jackson. I wish Jackson had been more restrained (or constrained), but Scott is not the director to replace him.
Maybe Whedon or Favreau, but not Scott.

FWIW, the Director's Cut of Kingdom of Heaven is a pretty good movie. Still not very good history, but there is soooo much more background for the characters, and the storyline is more fleshed out. Many things that either make no sense or are eyerolling in the theatrical release are explained by the restored footage, principally that Balian was never just some simple blacksmith. He had experience of war in France, including building siege machinery. Oh, and the local seigneur is his uncle (Godfrey's brother) and the priest he kills is his half-brother.

Sorry for the tangent.

Ridley Scott, I mean, come on man. Alien.

The first movie on both LOTR and the Hobbit were quite good, but both trilogy went downhill after that. With each film PJ drifted farther and farther from the books and relied more and more on epic spectacle rather then good story-telling. Granted, the epic was pretty epic, but that can't carry a story by itself. As for RS doing better… I don't know.

Ridley Scott would have done a better job with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

There. What everybody's been thinking all these years.

I think we would have had better battle scenes than from that hack Jackson and he probably would have stayed closer to the story.

And don't get me started on that abomination that is the Hobbit trilogy. (Though Trevor did almost make the first movie watchable.)

EVERYBODY? Certainly not me.
For one thing, it would not have been filmed in New Zealand, which IS The Shire.

Let's not forget that in the Fellowship movie, Jackson did not have an unlimited budget. You see the same problem in Game of Thrones.
So, some things had to be cut. Like Tim Bombadil. (Thank God for that!) however, it led to some strange choices, like Aragorn passing out hobbit swords in Bree.
It also meant that Elrond had to meet up later with Aragorn. "Here's your magic sword. We patched it up for you, good as new!"

I would say that the movie(s) were 95% of what I expected. Some changes improved the story. Some did not. But I certainly didn't feel cheated.

As for The Hobbit. Ahem. I had to refrain myself from kicking the dog when I went home. The end of the first part harkened back to those horrible Christopher Columbus/Stephen Spielberg "children's movies" of the 80s. With screaming rides, serried ranks of children screaming….
Every now and then, the movies veered back into something vaguely resembling The Hobbit. As an aside, why did The Hobbit have to be a trilogy? Studio greed is the only explanation.
As for Ridley Scott doing The Hobbit. Yeah, sure. It badly needed a bit more whimsy a la Blade Runner.

At least Tolkien had the books finished before the movies had a crack at them.

I'm with the OFM on this topic.

The Duelists. Just sayin'

I love Tolkien's LOTR. PJ turned an epic fantasy masterpiece into a big budget Hollywood action flick that visually looks great, sounds great, but ultimately is a total fail. I don't care that directors have to sometimes alter the story from the book, cut out entire chapters, combine characters, or any number of things to make a movie work. As long as it works. This movie doesn't work because the pace is too slow, the action sequences are overdone, and the characters are overly wrought with emotion in every scene. The heart and soul of a movie is the dialogue and in this case the few scenes that shine are taken directly from the narrative, but when the screen writers have the characters talk in a modern idiom it just fails. (ie Strider saying to Gimli and Legolas ‘let's kill some orc' vs the eloquence of ‘forth the three hunters [to paraphrase]). This movie lacks all subtlety.

Any number of directors could have done a better job with half the budget.

An example of a LOTR adaptation done right is the wonderful BBC radio production of LOTR from circa 1980. (Saying this less anyone think I'm just a constant negative critic.)

Point of order: What Aragorn says in the film is "Let's hunt some orc." So it's a bit closer to the meaning of the phrase from the novel, though certainly not as elegant.

Sustained.

On a separate note, I give PJ a lot of credit for the prelude in the first movie showing the final battle of the ‘last alliance' against Sauron. The scene really shows the majestic size and scope of the armies, and Sauron looks right. In the book this scene was only alluded to at the ‘council of Elrond'. And whoever designed the look and feel of the Balrog did it right. The cinematography was outstanding; but the screen play and direction are lacking. With PJ it's always too much overkill with trying to make each thing (battle, monster, whatever) bigger than the previous one. Sometimes small and subtle are good things. When everything is constantly dialed up to an ‘11', it starts to lose its affect and the audience gets bored.

PJ tries too hard to force suspense and emotion in almost every scene. The audience needs breaks of just good dialogue to help advance the story.

The
LotR trilogy is damn near perfect. The Hobbit is damn near unwatchable. Ridley Scott takes more risks, which sometimes don't work.

My biggest gripes with PJ's Lord of the Rings are:

1. Making Aragorn this reluctant guy who has renounced his claim to the throne of Gondor and wants to just hang out with Arwen in Rivendell. In the book he is the Man of Destiny. He knows it, everyone else knows it, and he doesn't veer from his appointed path by an inch.

2. Having Merry and Pipin TRICK Treebeard into attacking Isengard. The Entmoot and the ultimate decision of the ents to go to war is one of the best scenes in the whole trilogy.

3. Faramir's character is totally messed up. In the book he's the wiser, nobler counterpart of Boromir. He has the Ring in his grasp and rejects it on his own without any pleading by Sam.

4. Denethor is messed up too. In the book he's been broken by the burden placed on him, but you can see he was once a noble fellow. In the movie he's just a jerk.

5. I know that time constraints probably made it impossible, but I was REALLY disappointed that they left out The Scouring of the Shire. One of my favorite parts.

I'm more into sci-fi than fantasy so will go with RS on the strengths of 'Alien' and the original 'Blade Runner' alone. 'Gladiator' is also among my favorites.

I enjoyed PJ's LotR trilogy but they were self-indulgently overlong. 'The Hobbit' trilogy and 'King Kong' were mediocre efforts.

'King Kong', until they got to the island, was actually not bad. The rest of the movie went downhill fast.

Great points ScottWashburn. I would also add that I didn't like the way PJ handled how Theoden was under Saruman's control. In the book it is much more subtle, as Theoden was being deceived by Worntongue and Gandalf used reason of intellectual debate to convince Theoden that he was being brainwashed. PJ has a too literal interpretation of the book and lacks any eloquence and subtlety. With PJ it's in your face drama filled with overwrought emotion.

I really love Kingdom of Heaven director's cut, and Prometheus. Also some of my favorites are Black Hawk Down,
original Blade Runner with narration.

The Hobbit was a disaster…but Scott would have destroyed Lotr. Imagine "Prometheus"…but with Hobbits.