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Quality Contributions to the Main Motte
Contributions for the week of March 30, 2026
Contributions for the week of April 6, 2026
- "I think Terry Pratchett is the atheist version of C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien."
- "But Halo... Halo was magic."
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Notes -
I want to piggyback on your reply and disagree with @Amadan's take:
I think there's still an important difference. A Christian can read Lewis and interpret the book as a direct moral lesson, a form of guidance. An atheist steeped in Christianity will read the same book, understand that it's intended to provide moral guidance to Christians, but it won't affect him in the same way. The message for him is not "here's how you might turn away from God and here's how redemption and forgiveness might follow", it's "here's what Christians think turning away from God would look like". Which is useful knowledge if you have to deal with Christians, but not directly applicable to the reader himself.
Pratchett's message is different. "How do you survive in a world where amoral beings more powerful than you do things for shits and giggles? How do you do the right thing when doing the selfish thing is easier? What even is the right thing?" are questions for which a Christian has easy answers, but an atheist doesn't.
Just like an atheist might fight Lewis interesting and useful, so can a Christian find Pratchett useful. But it's a different impact. "Oh, so that's how they justify doing the right thing! Good thing you can just follow the word of the Lord IRL."
Do you think regular normie movie goers know that Narnia and LotR are related to Christianity? I'm curious, because to me this was not obvious at all. It's just fun adventure stories in the cinema.
Narnia, even the heavily secularised film version, is obvious enough that I don't think you could miss it. Even before seeing the film itself, Narnia is famous as a Christian series of children's books, and C. S. Lewis is extremely widely beloved by everyone from Catholics to evangelicals, despite being neither. The first Narnia film was trying to imitate the Jackson LotR and go for mainstream appeal, but by the sequels my impression was that they had realised they were making films for a niche, mostly-Christian audience.
LotR hides it a bit better, especially the films, which tend to strip out Tolkien's ethics in favour of generic fantasy action. It was, of course, Tolkien's intent to be less direct, but in this case the films take out most of the moral worldview, and I'm skeptical much made it through to audiences.
I disagree that the films take out most of the moral worldview. I will grant that it is less obvious than it is in the books, but one of the reasons I think both the books and Jackson's adaptation was so successful was that they successfully capture the essence (or "vibe") of Tolkien's very traditional Catholic worldview and why it might appeal to someone without being "preachy" or in your face about it. Gandalf's conversations with Pippin, Théoden's speech at Helm's Deep, Aragorn at the Black Gates, and the entire character of Samwise Gamgee, are all faithfully represented and carry what I understood to be Tolkien's thesis well.
By rights we shouldn't even be here, but we are... Is a good speech in it's own right but hits even harder in context of having been written by a veteran of the Somme who was looking down the barrel of WWII.
Sean Astin definitely does a good job, though I'll disagree with some of your other examples and characters. In general I think Jackson's films tend to emphasise martial achievement too much, while mis-casting or mis-portraying characters like Aragorn, Gimli, or even Denethor.
For the most part I just don't like the Jackson films, and I feel somewhat vindicated in the Hobbit trilogy, which show the same flaws, only now it seems that the scales have fallen from the audience's eyes and they can see them.
In general I think there's a solid case that the Jackson films are, for the most part, competent Tolkien-inspired action films, but I do not think Tolkien himself would approve, or that they capture much of what he wanted to say. I think they are probably the most overrated films of the 21st century thus far, and there is a lot of competition for that title.
I agree that the absence of both Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire makes Tolkien's commentary on the nature of good and evil much less explicit than it is in the books, and but I have to disagree with the allegations of miscasting or that they didnt capture the core themes of Tolkien's work.
My issue with the Hobbit trilogy is that it is abundantly clear that the studio wanted more LotR movies but the Hobbit is a very different work from Lord of the Rings in both tone and content.
There are some castings I really like - Sean Astin's Sam, Christopher Lee's Saruman, and John Rhys-Davies' Gimli all stand out as inspired castings. (I think the films do Gimli dirty, but Rhys-Davies is not the reason why. Fantastic choice.) Sean Bean as Boromir is a good choice as well. Ian McKellen is quite serviceable as Gandalf, and I like Karl Urban's Eomer. Cate Blanchett is a fantastic choice for Galadriel, as is Ian Holm for Bilbo.
Holm brings the role that hapless charm that he also brought to roles like Arthur Dent.Never mind I am a dummy.There are a couple that I also reluctantly acknowledge as good but not to my tastes. Andy Serkis as Gollum is not how I pictured Gollum, or would have played him, but I acknowledge that Serkis knows what he is going for and does it extremely capably. I think that's just a reasonable difference of taste on my part. Miranda Otto's Eowyn is one that I can't quite make up my mind on - it's not how I would have portrayed Eowyn, I think, but I can see what they were going for.
At the same time, there are plenty that I think are bad. Elijah Wood as Frodo and Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn are just obviously not up to the role - Wood plays Frodo as a beatific victim and largely nothing else, while Mortensen is completely unable to evoke the majesty or nobility that Aragorn needs to. Orlando Bloom never manages to rise beyond the level of a handsome blank. David Wenham's Faramir and John Noble's Denethor are disappointing as well, which is a shame because I know Wenham has given good performances elsewhere (I liked him in Molokai). Hugo Weaving and Liv Tyler are just bad - the films in general just cannot do elves. Blanchett is probably the only elf role in the films that I have praise for, and even that is dragged down a bit by the temptation scene.
In general, I think the films lean too much into being heroic war films, in the face of Tolkien's reflections on the horror and futility of such things, and the theological substrate of the story is pretty much entirely lacking. I don't mind omitting the Scouring or Tom Bombadil, actually, and some choices like that are necessary, but Jackson generally favours bombast over silence, and inserts fake drama whenever he's getting bored. In the book, Faramir's temptation by the Ring takes only a few seconds; Jackson adds a whole sequence. In the book, Frodo and Sam's travel through Cirith Ungol is unnervingly silent; Jackson adds a whole bit where Sam abandons Frodo.
Meanwhile he also cuts many of the book's quiet moments, such as Aragorn looking out to see the dawn at Helm's Deep, or Sam reflecting on the stars. I feel like Jackson hates quiet, whether it's a chilling or terrifying quiet, as in Cirith Ungol, a tense anticipatory quiet, as at Helm's Deep, or even a consoling, reassuring quiet, as at other times.
Anyway, re-doing LotR as just a war story is arguably viable, but there I think the films are undermined by, well, their war being total nonsense? They are full of logistically impossible movements (the elves at Helm's Deep! why?), or maneuvers that range from the physically impossible and suicidal (the relief charge at Helm's Deep) to the physically-possible-but-stupid (the Rohirrim at the Pelennor). I would be able to just enjoy the fighting more, I think, if the fighting were done well. I can suspend disbelief and ignore dodgy fight or battle choreography if the story and character writing are solid, but here they're not, and also Jackson spends so much time on the battles. Helm's Deep is a relatively short section of The Two Towers as a book, but it's half the film, and the Pelennor is inflated as well. If you're going to blow up the battles and spend so much more time on them, at least do them well?
Sorry, was there an other adaptation of the HHGTTG I missed, or did you get Ian Holm confused with Martin Freeman who played Bilbo in the Hobbit movies and Arthur Dent in the recentish hitchhiker movie?
The other role I mainly remember Ian Holm for has him a lot less hapless charm; Ash in Alien.
Oh, dangit, you're right.
Sorry, Martin Freeman was Bilbo in The Hobbit and Arthur Dent. Ian Holm was old-Bilbo and was never Arthur Dent.
Oops. That's embarrassing.
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