I saw an interview with your bearded compatriot(?)

He is.

in which, once I could understand his accent,

Sorry, should we all speak American instead of English?

he mentioned that very point. He said that since everyone would have their own mental image of the story, it would be the kiss of death for him to attempt to form some sort of amalgam of various views.

Whose would he take note of? How many LOTR fans are there? That's how many views he would have to amalgamate!

He felt that the best thing, in fact he said the only thing, he could do was produce a trilogy of films consistent with his own internal vision, and hope that at least some others liked it.

He's expressed that view many times. Everyone agrees with the philosophy, but, as he fears, that may not make the final result more palatable to some.

I think that it's not a bad philosophy for tackling such a task.

But it does bring us back to the fundamental question that was being asked at the start of it all - should it have been done at all? And I don't know if I can answer that at this point. As I said, I didn't see enough to be able to actually form an opinion which may be just as well. For me success will depend on the flow of the story, the scenes included and excluded, the emphasis (Hollywoodisation), the direction and the characterisations. The casting of the part of Gandalf was, for me, a mistake. The person who SHOULD have played it given my internalisation of Gandalf was the original Dr Who. Which is not a slur on the actor at all, especially since the actor who played Dr Who is now deceased. I actually don't have a clear mind-picture of Frodo, so that won't matter. Sam Gamgee does. So do Merry and Pippin and Aragorn. Galadriel and Celeborn don't matter. Smeagol does. But that, too, will be different for everyone!

So I guess we'll just have to wait and see ...








The idiot also known as Capfka ...