AccyD wrote:
KennyR wrote:
Worth an oscar. Maybe two. Not eleven.
That's right.
Nowadays most people seem to go on the hype that a film has raised, rather than its technical merits.
For example, as Mikeymike has said Titanic is a good film, but not brilliant, anyone with a modicom of film experience will realise that it does not compare to the classics (a la Ben Hur).
But at the time the media hype meant it was virtually guaranteed the max number of Oscars.
Most of the Oscars for Return of the King were based on its technical merits.
And who here thinks that Ben-Hur didn't get a comparable hype in 1959 as Titanic or any Lord of the Rings film has had in the present? Ben-Hur would have been pushed as hard as MGM could have pushed it. Just because the movie is hyped doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the Oscars it got (Titanic deserved most, but definitely not all, of them).
Also, Ben-Hur had it slightly easier in 3 Oscar categories (Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Costume Design) because they were actually split into two sub-categories: Colour and Black & White, thus removing some possible competition.
In the "Best Effects, Special Effects" category there was only one other nominee, "Journey to the Center of the Earth"! Ben-Hur had at least a 50/50 chance of getting an Oscar there, it was hardly a hardearned win.
The same us true of Lord of the Rings, whilst it may be a good film (I have not seen it) it is not as good as Ben Hur or the other classic films, merely the media has carried the film.
How do you know any of the Lord of the Rings films aren't as good as Ben-Hur when you haven't even seen the LotR films?
Yet again, the Oscasrs/Brits/BAFTA's etc. etc. has merely turned into a backslapping event for the film industry rather than a constructive view of the previous 12 months of films, - but then again what are we to expect from this industry?
I'm not sure how many parts of the industry would be happy with a set of films that were made with a crew that aren't members of their unions, filmed in a location that is outside of their country (and thus not putting any money into their economy through usage or exposure), hired thousands of foreigners to play the extras, and in the end could take some business away from their shores? The only non-New Zealanders that could be happy with this is New Line, the people making the merchandise and the publishers and royalty holders of the original books. I certainly can't see much for the American or British film industries to backslap for.