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Games Entertainment

Peter Jackson Not Pleased EA Experience 33

Posted by Zonk from the could-have-been-better dept.
The New York Times reports in an article about the King Kong movie based game that director Peter Jackson wasn't entirely happy with his EA dealings. From the article: "Mr. Jackson, said close associates, chafed at his dealings with the industry heavyweight, Electronic Arts, during the making of the Lord of the Rings games. 'Electronic Arts was not interested in input from the filmmaker,' but later marketed the games as if he were closely involved, said Ken Kamins, Mr. Jackson's manager."
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Peter Jackson Not Pleased EA Experience More

Peter Jackson Not Pleased EA Experience

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  • What's with the misleading headline? (Score:4, Informative)

    by volpone ( 551472 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @04:47PM (#13892165)
    The article has nothing to do with Electronic Arts. It briefly mentions it in a couple of sentences (conveniently copied above) as an aside. That's all.

    It's a good article, but come on, enough with the obligatory EA bashing.

    • Re:What's with the misleading headline? (Score:4, Informative)

      by sgant ( 178166 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @04:52PM (#13892213) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, no kidding. I clicked on the article thinking it would be a whole story about this, but come on...it's mentioned in a few times in an article that has nothing to do with this issue.

      The summary that the main poster made was ALL of the EA stuff mentioned in the article!
    • Interesting to see the changes that PC/ console gaming has wrought upon the film industry. It has given them a new line up of tired ideas to create pretty, but dull, movies. Especially in the action genre are we far from where the films are basically promos for the game? After all it allows the financiers able to cash in not only on the movie (NZ$15) but also the game as well. The games (NZ$100) are always much longer and give a more immersive feel than the movies and keep interest alive until the inevitabl

  • Forget Peter Jackson (Score:2, Interesting)

    by chriso11 ( 254041 )
    I'm sorry, but I can't get really bent about that. After Jackson basically chopped the LOTR, I don't give him much credit. If JRR had complained about EA not working with him, then OK, then there is someone who has a valid criticism.

    But where does Jackson get the "Only Official way to interpet LOTR" badge? If he wasn't happy with how EA made the game, and didn't want his name attached, he could have easily sent lawyers.

    • Lol..."chopped the LOTR".

      That's funny stuff there tough-guy. But hey, you're entitled to your opinion. But I suppose, and this is only a guess, that you're one of those people that feels that everything in the books should have been put down on film including the Scouring of the Shire and such? Am I right about that? Oh, and the Elves at Helms Deep probably really sticks in your gums too doesn't it? Did you get up and walk out when that happened like I've heard others write?

      Just wondering...guess this also
      • There were no Elves at Helms Deep! Where does that no good hack Tolkien get off writting a crappy book about Peter Jackson's movie!
        • Lol.

          But the fact of the matter is...who cares? It's a fricken movie...AND it's a fricken book! If both were erased from existence tomorrow the Earth would still spin on its axis and life would continue on. Getting upset about this crap is kind of silly.
      • Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the movies, and I think that they were some of the best book-to-movie conversions, especially on that sort of scale, that I've ever seen. But I really do wish they'd included Scouring of the Shire. It was my favourite chapter, and really added quite a lot to the book. Tolkien even wrote specifically about that chapter in his forward, saying that it was an essential part of the books, and planned from the very beginning.
      • Let me provide an example:

        Compare the original theatical release to the extended DVD version. There is no argument that the extended release version tells the story better.

        OK - your first thought is "DUH - the theatical release was the longest you can make a movie, so some things had to get taken out".

        But then look at what was IN the theatical release that must have been deemed more important than actually telling the story - yes, the "Stair jumping in the Mines of Moria", hopping from tumbling step to crum

        • Re:Forget Peter Jackson (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Ayaress ( 662020 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @06:49PM (#13893108) Journal
          So 10 minutes of some stupid video game excerpt was more important than explaining how Isildur died.

          Stuff like that was what worried me years ago when I first heard about the LOTR movies.

          Not that they would do this, but that they' WOULDN'T. LOTR, as it's set in the books, isn't very theatrical. There's a lot of walking. A lot of discussion and revisiting of old topics, lots historical background, lots of closure to plot lines lines that didn't actually play a part in the trilogy, some of which don't make complete sense unless you also read the Silmarillion or the Hobbit. There were lots of bits of minor excitement leading to entire chapters - and Tolkein seems to have liked long chapters - of talking and singing and carrying on (The Tom Bombadil stretch is a good example), which could be skipped without damaging the major plot thread.

          That works in books. It works very well in books, in fact. Just not in movies. With a movie, you have that invisible clock ticking - the LOTR movies were pushing the limits of how long I wanted to sit in a cramped, poorly cleaned theater chair pondering what caused the strange discoloration on the back of the seat in front of me.

          A lot of the backstory had to get dropped. Look at Serenity: One of it's main weaknesses is that it's an ending, not a beginning. People who didn't watch Firefly tend to be lost. LOTR had to be a beginning. It was pulling the series off the shelves of nerds and putting it in front of the entire world.

          Movies also have to end on a BIG finish. I liked the Scouring of the Shire, it was an important part of the books, but it wasn't that exciting compared to the apocalyptic battle that just finished. I've seen movies that end like that, and I find myself wondering more when it'll be done so I can go pee than what's actually happening.
          • 10 minutes of wobbling around on steps is never acceptable, you didn't even actually try to justify it. I read the books but even I was hoping the steps would just fall and kill them all so we could get to the next fucking scene.

            There have been films longer than LOTR that didn't rely on endless dull action.

            Even then, there were action scenes in the book cut out that were more interesting than Jackon's made up stuff like crumbling staircases and endless stupid dream sequences.

            How can he justify taking stuff
          • Actually your example of Tom Bombadil is a BAD example. The end of his interaction with the Hobbits is how they get the Elven weapons, one of which is used to help bring down the Witch King of Agmar (did they even say they were special in the movies, I only remember some knives Strider gave them). Another important part of the Bombadil encounter is at the start with Old Man Willow. Apparently Jackson saw this as an important enough part to move it into the Fangorn segment.

            IMO he should have been in there. T
        • I guess you think that the original LOTR books should all be taken out and burned, so that only Peter Jackson's Masterpiece should be available for the masses.

          No, actually I don't. I think both things...the movies and the books...can exist in the world. I mean, let's boil it all down shall we? It's a fricken movie and book! As I said on another post WHO CARES when you get right down to it? They're both entertainment. If they were both wiped out of existence tomorrow life would go on. Getting pissed over one

    • Re:Forget Peter Jackson (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sgant ( 178166 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @05:51PM (#13892718) Homepage Journal
      Jackson doesn't get that badge...but he DOES get the badge for that particular vision of LOTR. It was HIS images and look and feel EA was using. If they didn't want his input, they should have brought in their own art directors and designers. It's not something he could have just taken his name off of when the entire thing looks like his movies.

      Something to think about perhaps?

      • Re:Forget Peter Jackson (Score:4, Funny)

        by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Friday October 28, 2005 @12:31PM (#13897399)
        EA manager: We are making a fighting game.

        EA marketing: Let's use Peter Jackson's name and the LOTR name.

        EA dev: We have this D quality fighting game for 2 years, we just need to slap on a label.

        EA marketing: Mr Jackson please sign here for $$$ and direct credit to the game.

        Peter Jackson: Great. Now I think the environment should....

        EA manager: STFU. Let's put this game on the shelf asap.

    • Re:Forget Peter Jackson (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kelson ( 129150 ) * on Thursday October 27, 2005 @06:25PM (#13892961) Homepage Journal
      But where does Jackson get the "Only Official way to interpet LOTR" badge?

      If they were making games based directly on the books, then yeah, there'd be no reason to get Peter Jackson involved unless they wanted to. But they made games based on his movies.

      As for "he could have easily sent lawyers" -- he just as easily chose to pick his battles and vote with his wallet instead (by choosing another company the next time). Seriously, do *you* sue every business that does something you don't like? Or do you just file a complaint and take your business elsewhere?
    • Chopped it up ? Tolkien might have been the first fantasy writer. but he sure as hell wasn't the best. The story was mediocre (at best) and way too long-threaded. I am GLAD he chopped it up and made it 'wachtable' (and even then, some people considered the movies to be too long-threaded ). I can't imagine the amount of boredom it would have caused for the audiance if he hadn't.

      One thing JRR should be severely punished for however is for the ending of the third movie. Half an hour of gay-ness, while th

      • Re:Forget Peter Jackson (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Grab ( 126025 )
        It depends on whether you think the movie is all about Aragorn, or all about Frodo. It very much plays out JRR's experiences in WWI.

        Aragorn is your typical uber-hero. He's spent his whole life fighting. He gets through it OK, gets the girl, gets the kingdom and starts the rule of Men in Middle Earth. Merry and Pippin don't start that way, but they are clearly natural rebels to start with, and have extensive support structures in the armies they join.

        Frodo though is your typical "normal" person, put in a

        • Re:Forget Peter Jackson (Score:2, Interesting)

          by stevey ( 64018 )
          He's the one who wins the battle, but he's completely spiritually broken by the experience, can never get over it, and in the end chooses to opt out of the world because he can't keep living with his experiences in a world that pretends nothing's happened.

          Not to mention of course that he failed his task.

          The fact that the ring was destroyed was due to Gollum. Frodo himself failed (though he did a damn good job up until the moment inside Mount Doom).

          I've always thought that was a large part of the reason

    • Re:Forget Peter Jackson (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GaryPatterson ( 852699 ) on Thursday October 27, 2005 @10:15PM (#13894162)
      He sure did "chop the LOTR."

      All the way from an unfilmable series of good books to a series of great films.

      The pieces of the book that were chopped were sometimes good (Glorfindel), sometimes bad (Bombadil) but in the end not central to the story. I'd have loved the Scouring of the Shire as well, but that's the way it is.

      It wasn't the absolutely perfect film trilogy it could have been, but it was pretty damn close. Using the books as screenplays would have turned out a horrible, unwatchable but incredibly accurate series of about six films. And the handful of fans that watched the final film would have wondered why the cinemas were so empty.

      This may be one of those times when you have to just accept that a director like Jackson knows what he's doing better than some random guy somewhere on the Internet.
    • Did you see the EA games based on LotR?!

      Gandalf escaped Moria unscathed, because he used Lightning Sword.

      Did you feel the ground tremor? That was Ronald Reuel spinning in his grave.
  • Now he knows how authors feel about the movie adaptations, or mutilations, of their work by "auteurs".
  • Peter Jackson has been seen to be an individual of tremendous intelligence, creativity, and (unusual) humility. It is completely understandable that a person posessing such characteristics would have problems dealing with the brainless, soulless, mindlessly commercialistic ghouls that we have come to know and loath as Electronic Arts. Witness how they treated Richard Garriot. I truly find it difficult to adequately verbalise the intense hatred and contempt which I feel for this particular corporation. W
  • The King Kong game was created by Ubi pictures (a division of Ubisoft located in South France), makers of Ray Man, Tonic Trouble, and Beyond Good & Evil. Not sure what that all has to do with EA except they may be distributing. They had a ton of news coverage here with Peter Jackson visiting the developers and whatnot. Would journalists be guilty of hyping an empty story? .. Nah..

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  • I still can't believe that EA is still so popular... just look at B&W2, they gave the CE of the game a tiger pet, only unlockable if you bought the CE version, then EA goes and puts the unlocker on their site... as for the article, why is he complaining when (i assume) EA is paying him? if the game sells well he probably gets more money, using his name to advertise the game is only going to make the game more popular therefor more profit for both he and EA..

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