Bored of the Rings

I dunno why, but “The Lord of the Rings” movies did not work for me. I thought they were hammy, overlong and at the end of the day, simply not up my alley. No, I never read the books. But I hadn’t read “Nothing Lasts Forever” before I saw “Die Hard” and loved the hell out of that movie. I heard that the LOTR books go on for pages about the topography or whatever, not really something I felt was missing from the films. To be honest, with the amount of story there is to be found in the trilogy, I think everything could’ve been condensed into one two-hour feature. It’s the bloat that bogs down those movies. That they released Extended Editions of all three of those films goes to show how out-of-touch I am, huh?

Now they’re making two more — an adaptation of “The Hobbit” and a “bridge” film that links “The Hobbit” to the LOTR trilogy. Wait, a bridge film? Are Tolkien fans so obsessed with Middle Earth that they need five of these damn movies? I mean, I think if anything interesting happened between “The Hobbit” and LOTR books, I imagine Tolkien would’ve written about it, not to mention — in loving detail — the dirt upon which their hairy feet stood. I hope this bridge movie is Warholian and is just hours and hours of the little buggers sleeping.

I inexplicably never bought into Peter Jackson’s vision for the LOTR. Considering that I enjoyed Jackson’s Australian-made cult films — “Bad Taste,” “Meet the Feebles” and “Dead Alive” — I’m still perplexed as to why he failed to capture my imagination with a significantly larger budget.

Yet I remain somewhat conflicted about the new films. Guillermo del Toro is attached to direct them. Now I love GDT. “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is a great bit of comic book fantasy, the kind of fantasy that works for me. Maybe, just maybe, del Toro can sell “The Hobbit” on me.

According to Reuters, del Toro and Jackson are co-writing the screenplays for the two films. I’d prefer that del Toro tackled the material by himself. If anything, I want to see a fresh approach to this material. The best “Star Wars” film — “The Empire Strikes Back” — wasn’t written or directed by George Lucas; he got a “Story by” credit and served as an Executive Producer. Jackson should let del Toro have the keys to the kingdom or the Shire or wherever the hell they are. I don’t know. I never read the books.

-Brad Lohan

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