Family Entertainment
Ji-Soo W.

There has been no lack of articles contributed to this section regarding fears of many that the upcoming LOTR movies might not correspond to the word and spirit of the books. This is another such article, but with a different slant. I am surprised that not more contributions have addressed the issue of the movies' ratings.

It is my understanding that Peter Jackson has been forced to appease investors in the financial success of the film by ensuring a PG rating. Now, it's not that I think there should be a lot of gratuitous nudity and violence (although the battle scenes might suffer), but anyone who has read LOTR would attest that it is very much an 'adult' book. I am, therefore, concerned that the very grown up, at times dark and complex, atmosphere of the book will be perverted to some commercial, Disneyesque, lowest common denominator production. This fear is all the more palpable after what George Lucas did trying to broaden the appeal of his Star Wars Episode 1 (groan).

Furthermore, does this mean that the length of the three movies will be designed to accommodate the attention span of your typical 11 year old (i.e. 90 minutes)? In order to do true justice to the books, and in order to avoid butchering the plot significantly, we need Titanicesque lengths for all three. Of course, it could have been worse. They could have tried to fit everything into one movie. Well, I hope Peter Jackson will at least target adults with a more hardcore (and longer) DVD release.