Posted: February 18, 2000 at 21:12:45: by Goodgulf
: : I've seen Kubrick's name mentioned from time to time on wish lists for directors for LOTR. I personally wouldn't want Kubrick (if he were alive) to do it. The film would definitely be Kubrick's LOTR, not Tolkien's. Cinematically I know Kubrick could get the scope and look and feel of Middle-Earth. Any one who has seen Sparticus and the terrific long shots of the Roman legions moving into phalanx positions to battle the "slave" army can't help but be impressed. But I think that Kubrick's ideas and concepts might over-shadow Tolkien's. In other words, the film would have more of Kubrick's stamp on it than Tolkien's. I think that the book needs a director like Jackson, who loves the book and wants to get as much of it on screen as is practical, and is a straight foreward and competent director. Of course Jackson (or any director) will have his own ideas about the book and will put them in the film, we can hope that it will be along the lines of whether or not the Balrog had real wings or just shadows. Or making Arwen a bit more active and included in more scenes to give the romance a more solid base. These are questions we all debate time after time, but in the end it's a matter of personal interpretation. Some will like Jackson's interpretation, others won't. From the photos I've seen, the production looks pretty good. But for many of us the test will be in the details.:
: I agree with you 100% on Kubrick. As for PJ, I just don't know enough about him to decide whether he has the talent to pull it off. I agree that his attitude and approach seem ideal, but that doesn't mean the movie won't suck. I'd rather have a slightly-askew but entertaining trilogy over a faithfully-adapted but uncompelling one. Anmd I agree with you, but I think we differ on which director will provide a compelling presentation. My fear is that Kubrick's view would be more than slightly askew. It would be a creation wholly his own, with his own ideas and conceptions relating little to what Tolkien. Fropm what I hear of Jackson, he's competent and capable of making a sound production. One of the problems I had when reading the book was getting myself as terrified as the Hobbits when the Black Riders approached. I wasn't. But I knew the Hobbits were and I could intellectualize what their terrible fear and trembling must have been - even though the book (at least for me) didn't give me the creeps. Some books do give me the creeps, but Tolkien wasn't writing a horror novel. So I think Jackson may be able to do what Tolkien did not. He may give me the creeps at the appropriate times and places, and make me feel what the Hobbits were feeling. That's not saying Kubrick couldn't do it too, and do it very well as in The Shining. But many were very disappointed that the Shining deviated from the book as far as it did, so we have Stphen King's "The Shining" and Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", two very different tales.
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