rumtap wrote:
Sithious wrote:
I hear ya. I remember the days when we knew about releases two months ahead of time. I really hope that new Heads at GW go back to advertisement saturation... in the internet age, it is dirt cheap to have tons of people talking about and building up desire for your products.
I agree. It is so cheap and easy to create demand. Just release a photo and BOOM, we are all over it like a Gollum on a ring..
Indeed. In my opinion this is a clear marketing mistake on their part. Apparently they do it because they want to encourage "impulse buying" when people visit the shop.
WTF does that even mean? Collectors who impulse buy a product which is basically a commitment to, at the least, several hours of work after purchase? Impulse buying for gamers who need to plan their army lists and purchase strategy in advance?
Anyway, even if it did make some sort of sense, obviously the massive free advertising and hype that you get on the internet nowadays is far more valuable than the slightly sinister desire for your customer to make unplanned purchases based on your marketing chicanery rather than their own plan.
I think this is another reason they're loosing out to the competition. In an age of instant gratification people are won over by the hype of a product which is actually marketed and advertised outside the shop that sells it.
On the subject of more films, meh, I'm ambivalent. on the one hand I want to see as much of Middle Earth as is possible. On the other hand I don't like "light" treatment of subject material which I hold very dear. I do understand why people who aren't hardcore fans of the literature don't mind unnecessary changes. I also understand why hardcore fans of the literature hate to see any changes whatsoever.
The reality though, is that books need to be rewritten to fit in to a filmic structure, and sometimes, to convey the true meaning of a book you need to change things around, condense several characters in to one, etc etc. You loose something, but keep something else.
That said, while I think most if not all the LotR changes were very well thought out and necessary to serve the pace, theme and dramatic effect of the book, my opinion on the hobbit films is somewhat different.
I think there's a certain degree of "change for the sake of change", or more appropriately, change in order to market the films sell to the maximum possible audience with far less regard for the subject material itself.
So part of me wants to say "if it's going to be more like this, please, leave it alone".
However, if we went back to the way Jackson treated the LotR, more please!
Some of the later material in the Silmarillion would be very suitable for film treatment. The Tragedy of Turin Turambar springs to mind. Perhaps even Beren and Luthien. Just nothing where depiction of the Valar or Valinor is necessary. The Middle Earth stories, basically.
However, I can't imagine a project who's goal was to treat the material respectfully and with the tone it was intended to be told in would ever get the sort of funding necessary to make them on the scale of LotR or Hobbit.