FUNNY: 50 Reasons Why Lord of the Rings Sucks

[TXlib]

1. Fellowship of the Rings and Two Towers were shoved down our throats.
   
   I've heard some students are even forced to read some novelization of the movie in their literature classes. Ridiculous. Does Hollywood run our classrooms now?
   
   
   
2. Greed.
   
   Hollywood can't make a movie these days without crapping out a sequel the next year to squeeze more money out of the sheep. Guess what; there's ANOTHER LOTR movie coming this Christmas. Gee, I wonder what will bring Rocky out of retirement this time?
   
   
   
3. Quality Control at New Line.
   
   Millions of copies of the LOTR DVDs have thick black bars at the bottom and top of the screen throughout the film. Didn't anyone catch this? You know what happens at the end, in the extreme foreground and extreme upper sky? Neither do I. Bush league, guys.
   

More...

[anti_shrub]

1. Thats brillant

Sadly, however, too many people think widescreen movies have something cut from the top and bottom....

[Atlant]

8. Actually, that's sometimes true!

The more-recent Stanley Kubrick films (e.g., The Shining)
were shot in a more-square format than it was typically
projected at the movie houses. (They were shot in full-frame
1.33:1 but typically projected in the movie houses matted to
a more-widescreen 1.85:1.)

So in those particular movies, the top and bottom of Kubrick's
frame actually WAS cut off! When the DVD came out, it
wasn't as "widescreen" as the theatrical presentation because
they were showing the full Kubrick frame.

Atlant

[Rashind]

2. Forced to read a novelization?

I can't even begin to express how upsetting that is. Who would write a novelization of LotR?

On edit: Okay, I'll preserve my stupidity above so everyone can get a good laugh out of it. Anyway, now that I clearly see that the rest of the list is a joke, I can reclaim what little (very little)faith in humanity I once had by believing that there's no novelization of the films. Wrong on so many levels.

[On the Road]

3. I Think the "Novelization" is a Joke

The clueless author heard about kids reading LOTR in class and assumed it was a novelization rather than the original books.

[Terran]

16. The whole thing is a joke!

#9. Violence.

Give me one reason that story couldn't have been told without all the fighting.

LOL!

EDIT: OMFG this is funny!

16. The Asbestos Wizard.

We all saw Gandalf fall into the molten core of Middle Earth after his battle with the firebeast thing in part 1. Well, I guess the Gandalf action figure must have sold well, because in the slap-together sequel Two Towers, Gandalf is back. Perhaps it was voodoo, a la the corpse in Weekend at Bernie's II (look closely and you'll notice LOTR steals several elements from the WAB films).

17. Invisible Implausibility.

Every time Frodo or Bilbo went invisible with the ring they should have also gone BLIND. Your eyes cannot function unless light is reflected off the cornea. If light passes through it (as must be the case with invisibility) sight is no longer possible. Also, rings do not turn you invisible.

[TXlib]

4. I especially liked #22: Go-go Gadget Arrow Sprouter

Oh, and by the way, this list is SATIRE.

[supernova]

5. FUNNY!

Thanks, TXlib!

The Asbestos Wizard! Gollum as Jar-Jar Binks! LMAO!

This is a great piece of satire. Kudos to whomever wrote that. :D

[TlalocW]

6. pvponline.com

An online comic about computer, games, and basic nerdiness. In one story, the older people introduced the teenager to Dungeons and Dragons, which he had never played since he was too busy playing on the computer. At the end of the game, one of the adults gave him a copy of LOTR so the teenager could read what inspired it all. The teenager was reading it and came to the conclusion that Tolkien was a hack what with the ranger, the wizard, and the halfling thief, and that Wizards of the Coast (D&D manufacturer) should "sue his sorry ass."

Well, I thought it was funny.

The start of the storyline for the D&D game
http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=19991101

The start of the storyline for reading LOTR
http://www.pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20010321

TlalocW

[damnraddem]

7. I can't wait to see the third movie.

By the time I heard about the early showing, it was too late -- all sold out for the marathon.

[THUNDER HANDS]

9. best one

Why didn't they take horses on their quest? Or even better, why didn't Gandalf's giant flying bird friend haul them into Mordor? Watch out, Frodo! All of your methods of transportation have been swallowed by the Dark Lord of the Plot Hole!

[THUNDER HANDS]

10. another good one...

The giant firebeast thing is defeated by Gandalf when he destroys the bridge, sending the creature plunging to its death... despite the fact that it has WINGS.

[KAMouflage]

19. Drop the Ring from the Bird

Perhaps the worst plot hole of all: Why DIDN'T Gandalf just fly on the back of the Eagle King and drop the Ring into the fires of Mt. Doom?

[THUNDER HANDS]

21. Gandalf couldn't touch the ring

If you remember in the beginning of the movie, Frodo wanted to give the ring to Gandalf, but Gandalf refused, saying it's power would corrupt him and weild uncontrollable destruction.

And the Eagles are saved for the third film, when they fight the Nazgul flying things.

[FlashHarry]

11. Funnier:

http://maddox.xmission.com/lotr1.html

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. HA HA! I was just thinking of this list last night,

while watching Fellowship, and wishing I could remember all of it (the list) which of course I couldn't.

Thanks for reposting!

[FlashHarry]

13. This is a joke, right?

It's hard to tell. Some of the points are actually valid. Some are totally bizarre (the sequel thing and the widescreen thing, in particular.)

[Friar]

14. Best one:

25. Propaganda.

The Elves, clearly the most advanced and wise species, are also clearly gay.

Too funny.

[zbdent]

18. Especially when you realize that, if the Elves propogated,

Middle Earth would have been overrun by Elves.

Immortal, you know. Unless they choose to become mortal.

[Aristus]

15. Funny piece of satire, but, you know,

the idea of a novelization of LOTR is not as far-fetched as it may sound. When 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' was released, they published a novelization of the movie, despite the fact that Stoker's novel is a pretty good read. Maybe they were worried that the original novel wouldn't "sell" the movie, because there was no love interest between Mina Harker and Dracula in it.

[supernova]

17. Yuck! Please

tell me you're kidding, Aristus! They actually thought a novel version of the movie would improve on the original late-night stomach upsetfest?

What were those people smokin'

[niyad]

20. so glad somebody pointed out that this mess is satire,

because otherwise I would have concluded that whoever wrote
this list is too stupid to even know that the LOTR trilogy is
one of the classics of modern literature, much less to have
actually read it.

having perused the person's web site, I can only conclude that
its name is most apropos

[Kamika]

22. FYI this guy is totally serious

read his stuff why eminem sucks etc..

[geniph]

23. I actually heard someone at a video store

bringing a DVD back complaining about the black bars on the screen. As a longtime, fanatical evangelist of seeing the whole movie, I was shocked. After the person left, I asked the clerk, "Does that happen often? Do people really not know that pan & scan or cropped movies aren't showing them the entire picture?" The clerk sighed and said, "it happens several times a day."

There are some pan & scans that actually upset my stomach to watch, because they jump around so much. Watch the videotape of Victor/Victoria and then the widescreen DVD to see one particularly egregious example. There's some cropped movies in which entire characters disappear. The videotape of Paint Your Wagon is horrible in this regard, as it butchers the glorious cinematography.

I will never watch anything but widescreen if the widescreen is available. That's why I went to laserdisc years ago, and now to DVD whenever possible.

[cprise]

26. That's conservatism: A pan & scan worldview

.

[Vasco da Gama]

24. Funny!

:-)

[joeybee12]

25. Disagree with number two--it wasn't greed

It was Peter Jackson who pushed for three movies because he felt he could only do justice to the book that way--had a hard time selling the suits at New Line on this.

Usually greed determines everything in Hollywood, but not this time!

[zbdent]

27. Actually, Jackson was going to make it in two

and the final moneybags funding it said that you really couldn't do a three-book story justice in just two movies.

So the financier actually had the faith in Jackson's vision, and the balls to fund it.

I commended Jackson (in absentia) for following FOTR pretty darn close. I was also verrry impressed with the Balrog. That really would have coincided with my nightmares (if I had any after LOTR. I read Stephen King a lot, but had a nightmare after reading Flowers in the Attic in my late 20s. Go figure).

Unfortunately, I realized that they did chop up the Two Towers to fit. Unfortunately, much of the action was not taking place simultaneously in the reading, but you couldn't do that in the film. My biggest complaint was that Faramir decided that he should take the ring (just as Boromir tried in FOTR). In the book, Faramir told Frodo and Sam about the honor of his word. When he learned of the ring (in the book), he honored his word and left Frodo and Sam (and Gollum) to journey on with their quest.