CinemaDome: CtB vs LotR:FotR

You're supposed* to vote for your favourite, not whichever passes some subjective criteria for "best."

*there are no rules except that two X enter, one X leaves, etc.

what? I've been voting for which is better.

We need to test this theory. Can we put Under Siege up against Schindler's List just to see what happens?

The hobbit was a fun little book that I enjoyed immensely. I'm not sure what cataclysm happened to Tolkien between that and LOTR, WWII one supposes, but LOTR is long, grim, and overflows with the crushing burden of duty. Essentially the Nerd equivalent of reading the bible, and watching the film feels like the cinematic equivalent of going to church. It can be uplifting and all, but man it does go on, it holds no surprises, and is entirely too reverential to the oppressive source material.

Frankly, if offered the choice between watching one-third of a film about the world brutally crushing a little man, or watching Conan stride through Hyperborea kicking ass and taking names, and you choose the former, I've either got to call you a liar, question your manhood, or look around the room for small children.

Conan, the relative quality of the films does not even apply here, although both are excellent.

Fellowship of the Ring. That scene where the Black Riders creep through the inn while the innkeeper cowers behind the counter sobbing is brilliant. Top that off with one of my favorite scene from literature put to film, Gandalf vs. the Balrog and you've got a clear winner.

Conan is fun, but Fellowship is way better.

Black Barney wrote: what? I've been voting for which is better.

We need to test this theory. Can we put Under Siege up against Schindler's List just to see what happens?

Jiminy Cricket! You may have found the one movie that I have to vote for Schindler's List over. Under Seige 2 on the other hand...

Nah, Under Siege easily wins the vote over Schindler's List. My votes are 90% based on if I stumbled on it when it was on tv, would I bother to watch it.

Exactly. I'm not actually joking about that match up since it would show what motivates people's votes. I think we would be practically unanimously thinking that Schindler List is the better movie (except for Booth cuz he's an enthusiastic Holocaust denier), but most FATTIES (me included) would prefer watching Under Siege.

I think where people go really, really wrong in assessing something like LOTR is they tend to home in on a few missteps and not look at the whole thing in aggregate. In a film of this size, scope and scale...you're going to get some bits that don't work, some elements that don't fit together well, a couple of performances that aren't on point, jokes that don't land, etc. There's enough clunky moments in the whole trilogy (what, like TWELVE HOURS) that they would crush a single film. But if you're going to sit there and get uppity because of the dwarf-tossing or Legolas skateboarding...you are ignoring the other ELEVEN or so hours where this film is quite literally as good as it gets or will ever get as far as fantasy filmmaking goes. You simply have to have a degree of forgiveness for these fumbles because the vast, overwhelming majority of the footage is extraordinary. I groan at those moments, I shake my head at some of the sub-par CGI (probably set up by WETA's B-team)...but as an audience, we tend to forget the realities of making a movie like this. HUNDREDS (maybe even into the thousands) of hands were involved. Many different levels of skill, many different levels of talent, many different levels of experience, many different levels of commitment. This was a particularly grueling, "life's work" level of production that extended over many years. In the editing room, after who knows how many hours, there were inevitably moments where Jackson and co. looked at the CGI in a scene or a flopped joke and said "it's good enough for this part, we've got to let that roll"...so they could focus on the Balrog sequence, Pellenor, Gollum's performance, the Hobbiton intro and the things that REALLY matter, the great things that make these movie what it is.

Conan is such a tiny film compared to it. Its greatness is much more because of its silliness (and yes, it is an EXTREMELY silly movie) than because of any kind of great filmmaking or anything. It's FUN, but it's also rather crudely made, simplistic and there really isn't anything special about it other than Schwarzenegger's ridiculous acting. Camel punching doesn't make a movie great or special or resonant, it makes a movie fun. Like Matt said, it's a culty kind of fun that just isn't anywhere near LOTR.

I think where you go really, really wrong is in thinking up aunt sallies to explain why people have different opinions than you.

Every time I watch the LotR trilogy, I watch the extended editions, and it's a test of will almost to get past Fellowship.

Dragonslayer is the best medieval fantasy movie ever made.

EDIT: added in "medieval" above. Everyone knows Big Trouble in Little China is the best fantasy movie ever made.

See, I look at it very differently.

Conan succeeds for me despite it's many mis-steps. Somehow, despite making a huge number of mistakes, it's still a highly entertaining movie that accomplishes pretty much all of it's goals. There is no slavish dedication to the source material, fuck the source material, the acting isn't great - fuck it, we don't have time for that. The story has a bunch of weird choices that don't seem to make sense.

Yet somehow it succeeds, almost despite itself.

LOTR doesn't have as many, percentage wise, mistakes in it. The movie plods along very predictably, it does exactly what it should. It follows the story very carefully and only veers away at points when the novels don't really work. Usually in places where scholars would agree with Jackson. It doesn't take chances and it doesn't surprise me. I know what's going to happen every step of the way. Sure, technically it's much better... but fuck that, technically Yngwie Malmsteen is a much better lead guitarist that Neil Young but I'll listen to Neil Young solo's ten times out of ten. Neil Young surprises me. I'm not sure what will happen next. Mamlsteen does exactly what I think he'll do. Despite the monstrous budget of Conan there is something almost punk about the way it's put together.

People even use how influential LOTR is to prove that it's better. Conan spawned this shit and LOTR spawned this great film... exactly the opposite of how I'd see it. You can't try to copy what Conan did because it's practically an accident. LOTR offers a nice clean formula for you to follow. Conan offers no such thing, it's a mess and if you try to copy that you will fail. I suppose you're just rolling the dice like they did and there's a slim chance at success, but it doesn't offer any answers as to how it's done. LOTR does.

So for me Conan is more rare. I really don't think we'll see it's like again and there is something extremely endearing about how it works despite these missteps everyone keeps talking about.

I also remind myself that LOTR offers almost nothing new. It's just a reasonably slavish version of the books edited down to the best parts. Conan is a completely new thing and I respect that much more. A person who only read LOTR and one who only saw it can have a very reasonable discussion about the virtues and points the films/books make. With Conan that is much harder because the film is much different than the stories. It exists in it's own space as an independent product. LOTR exits in parallel with the books.

LOTR is a monolith that was painstakingly worked out in intimate detail. Beautiful, sure, but almost mathematical. Conan is that piece of art that nature made, it's the mountain side that looks like a piece of art purely by accident. They're both great, but I'll take the more unique experience every time.

quozl wrote: Dragonslayer is the best medieval fantasy movie ever made.

EDIT: added in "medieval" above. Everyone knows Big Trouble in Little China is the best fantasy movie ever made.

Except for those who realize it's The Wizard of Oz.

I think it's important to distinguish a great film from a great achievement. Getting a 100 million dollar film out the door that isn't a hot mess is a great achievement, and requires a level of competence I could never aspire to, but that does not make it a great film. Sure LOTR has some great scenes, scenes which are much better than anything Conan has, or even aspired to, but for the most part, I found LOTR to be very workmanlike, and just not all that interesting or fun.

Since this is The Fort, and not The Chateau, fun wins over achievement. Of course if this were The Chateau, neither of these films would be in the dome. It would be "My Life as a Dog" and "Au Revoir les Enfants" or some similar dreck that I was conned into seeing before I realized film critics live in some sort of bizarro world where good films are shit, and shit films are great.

I think I may renew my drive to rename this place "Gaming by Michael".

JEM wrote: I think where you go really, really wrong is in thinking up aunt sallies to explain why people have different opinions than you.

Every time I watch the LotR trilogy, I watch the extended editions, and it's a test of will almost to get past Fellowship.

One viewing of the extended editions was more than enough for me. The extra material isn't sufficient to compensate the viewer for the lost time. Your masochistic viewing choices don't make any sense. Why do you keep watching the extended versions if you aren't enjoying them?