<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Playbahnosh @ Aug 16 2007, 11:13 AM) [snapback]304865[/snapback]</div>
It is just as well that the HALO movie never got made. It would have been another Doom-- a movie of a video game.
Peter Jackson is not that great a director. What made the LOTR films so great was the story on which they were based. Not that the films were really all that great anyway. Rankin Bass Productions did a much better adaptation of Return of the King way back in 1978. It was a made-for-TV feature length animated film. The first thing that makes it better is that, even with commercials, it only runs ninety minutes. Yes, it does nearly gut the book to fit the story into that small slice of time; however, where it shows artistry is how it manages to link the vignetttes that it does include into a seemingly complete story. Unlike Jackson's version, we actually find out why Denethor is unhinged, but the whole affair with his madness is wrapped up in less than a minute with narration about how the Steward of Gondor is so dispirited, he has ordered his own execution, followed by a cut to Denethor telling Gandalf about what he has seen in his palantir. The Paths of the Dead is left out. It turns out that The Black Fleet was captured by Aragorn and his army, and is being used to quickly transport them all to Minas Tirith. Enough is left in to recognise the story, yet enough is left out to keep it short. Jackson cut stuff out and still had the films run to three hours.
Rankin Bass productions also did a version of The Hobbit.
LOTR is such a great story, that even Ed Wood could have made a compelling film out of it, providing none of the actors died during filming (Ed Wood was such a bad director, that he passed through the looking glass, and his films are fun to watch, even if only in a MST3K type of silly mood).
The best thing about Jackson's trilogy is that it paves the way for someone else to come around, at a later date, and do it right.
I can truly understand why Bill Murray would not have wanted to do Ghostbusters in Hell. Acting in front of a greenscreen, being upstaged by things that will only exist after post-production editting, combines the worst of both possible worlds of film and radio plays. You are by yourself and everyone can see you.
The only reason these films are considered the greatest films never made was precisely because they were never made. There were likely lots of better films pitched by nobodies that never had their phonecalls returned.