[Variety] New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movies Set at Warner Bros.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

Apparently Warner Bros. has purchased the film rights to Lord of the Rings. Not sure what this means for future films, but I'm not particularly excited!

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/lord ... 235533672/

[Rivvy Elf]

Time for a movie on the talking fox from fellowship of the ring!

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Another suitor for this stuff? Is, what Weta ever did, not enough? We got two nice trilogies to enjoy, as what can be said, not forgetting critical issues around books putting to screen. As Reikon, I neither have interest. Not said that Warner has not produced excellent movies before in the past.

[Hanasian]

I for one look forward to what all they come up with. Peter Jackson/WETA isn't Tolkien, just someone's vision of their interpretation of what Tolkien wrote. I'm all for others presenting their interpretations of Middle Earth.

[Lady of Shadow]

I won't be watching this, since even the Rings of Power didn't interest me enough to even watch it, so I don't think these ones will either. Not any kind of purist (I don't mind if they change things around, as long as it's interesting), but if the advertisements don't interest me, neither will the final product. Peter Jackson's movies aren't perfect, but it got me interested enough to re-read The Lord of the Rings (read it about four or five more times, since I originally read it in college), as well as The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and volumes 1,4,5 and 12 of The History of Middle-earth series. If I want more Tolkien (I have too many other fandoms at the moment), I'll just finish the latter series.

[Hanasian]

I read Lord of the Rings again (It had been a number of years since my last reading) and then made an attempt at watching the PJ take on Lord of the Rings, and the movies were worse than I thought. Seems every time I try and watch those movies, they are even crappier than the last watch. And this from a guy who was initially passively accepting of the changes, deletions, and additions PJ made to the story back twenty years ago.

I've binge-watched Rings of Power again and I find that despite its disjointed narratives, I find the presentation from what they had to work with reasonably decent. I do look forward to War of the Rohirrim, and also to see what Embracer/Warner Brothers come up with from the goldmine summaries available in the appendices of the Return of the King book.

[Silky Gooseness]

What did you not like this time round which you liked initially, @Hanasian? Interested as to what aged badly for you.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Hoi @Hanasian, a rare thing but for once I'm with the Goose. Any chance of some elaboration on your recent response to the old PJ movies?

What you say certainly speaks for me too, in broad terms. I do recall the days before them, when there was only that unfinished animated movie, thinking that it was not possible to make a movie of LOTR, and then coming out of the cinema blown away - because someone had actually done it. What changed things for me was actually The Hobbit movies. They were so incredibly awful, and demonstrated such an astounding failiure to appreciate the genius of this particular story, that it opened my critical eyes to what PJ also failed to understand in LOTR.

[Hanasian]

What did you not like this time round which you liked initially, @Hanasian? Interested as to what aged badly for you.

Hoi @Hanasian, a rare thing but for once I'm with the Goose. Any chance of some elaboration on your recent response to the old PJ movies?

What you say certainly speaks for me too, in broad terms. I do recall the days before them, when there was only that unfinished animated movie, thinking that it was not possible to make a movie of LOTR, and then coming out of the cinema blown away - because someone had actually done it. What changed things for me was actually The Hobbit movies. They were so incredibly awful, and demonstrated such an astounding failiure to appreciate the genius of this particular story, that it opened my critical eyes to what PJ also failed to understand in LOTR.

Mostly some imagery and some acting. After the initial euphoria of seeing Fellowship in the theatre in 2001, I never was one to hold those movies in high regard in the first place. I used to give Legolas a reluctant pass in this, but in retrospect after this latest watch, Orlando Bloom was terrible and lifeless. I know he was a hit with the fangirls back in the day, but geez... he sounded like he was phoning it in most of the time. The other thing that fell down was the distance shot of Minas Tirith from Osgiliath (which was portrayed way too close in the first place). It looked like a big toy. A lot of that was the dated CGI. Also, the consistency seemed off to me in Return of the King. Was it daylight or was it night. Wasn't it always dark after some point?

The parts that gave me the irrits back then still give them to me now, which are the wholesale changes, deletions, and additions to the book story. On the good side, Ian Holm nailed Bilbo, and they got the Shire right. Also, Andy Serkis is flawless as Gollum, which still looks and sounds good after twenty-some years.