LOTR

Yeah, I wondered too why there weren''t any threads about it yet.

I just saw it - I think it was great. They have taken more liberties in relation to the book this time, but then again, Tolkien wasn''t in the movie script writing business. I think Jackson et co did a pretty good job of transforming a very complex story into something that actually works on the big screen.

---

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can''t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don''t remain stone- written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us -- Charles Bukowski

quote:

---

Original post by Arild Fines
I just saw it

---

So, was Arwen at Helm''s Deep or not?

---

No. And she didn''t get into any swordfights either - don''t worry.

---

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can''t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don''t remain stone- written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us -- Charles Bukowski

quote:

---

Original post by CWizard
So, was Arwen at Helm's Deep or not?

---

If that bitch Liv Tyler had her way, she'd not only have single-handedly beat the entire orc army at Helm's Deep, but she'd also take out Sauron for good in the next movie. Fleh;



[edited by - mithrandir on December 18, 2002 4:23:42 PM]

[WASTE BANDWITH BY STATING THE OBVIOUS]

// It was sooooooo good 

while(LOTR == showing)
{
    watch LOTR;
}
 

[/WASTE BANDWITH BY STATING THE OBVIOUS]

---

pan narrans
Study + Hard Work + Loud Profanity = Good Code

This is the first movie I can remember walking out of and wishing I could walk right back in that minute. And I really had to pee at the time

Aww man, that ruled so much. Original plan was to see it 3 times today but it twas only the once. I am lost for words, it wasn''t best movie of all time but it was pretty damn up there on the list.
My advice, go see, now, NOW

---

When we fall, earth will die, sun will set, and moon will shine, and the only image will be the Raven''s shadow in your eyes. So it is written, so it shall come to pass.
Quoth the Raven, nevermore...

I just saw it too, and I thought it was excellent. There were only a couple of diversions from the book that I noticed, and they were minor. They kept the best bits of the dialogue in too. The plot seemed to jump around quite a lot between the different characters, but then it''s like that in the book too, so I''m not complaining.

My only slight critisism is maybe the film was too short; there were a few times where the dialogue just seemed to be cut short, particularly when Frodo meets Faramir, for example. An extra 20 minutes would have made a lot of difference.

Now, if you''ll excuse me, I have to go into hibernation for 12 months or so.

____________________________________________________________
www.elf-stone.com

I liked a lot of it
They had lots of Smeagol/Gollum which was cool, lol @ when he went all schitzo when frodo and sam were sleeping. Some of the bits which were supposed to be funny were a bit :S like when Sam and gollum were arguing about chips, the kids found it hilarious though.
Gimli on the other hand, BAHAHAHA he was so great, particularly at Helms Deep.
some bits were a bit different though, I noticed they had changed a lot of the Ent bits, and wern''t they supposed to drive the Saruman forces back into the forest of Ents? I know they kinda retreated but all the Ents did was surround Orthanc tower.
And also :O at the beasts the black riders/ringwraiths rode, it was a long time since I read The Two Towers, can anyone remind me of what they were called?
But anyway, great film, if you havn''t seen it, go see

---

When we fall, earth will die, sun will set, and moon will shine, and the only image will be the Raven''s shadow in your eyes. So it is written, so it shall come to pass.
Quoth the Raven, nevermore...

That pisses me off so much! Frodo gave away the fucking ring!

---------------------------------------------
"Love is a disease"

quote:

---

Original post by sanguineraven
some bits were a bit different though, I noticed they had changed a lot of the Ent bits, and wern''t they supposed to drive the Saruman forces back into the forest of Ents? I know they kinda retreated but all the Ents did was surround Orthanc tower.

---

The ents, or rather their sleepy friends "consumed" large chunks of Saruman''s army, but that was not detailed in the book, only stated.

quote:

---

And also :O at the beasts the black riders/ringwraiths rode, it was a long time since I read The Two Towers, can anyone remind me of what they were called?

---

Nazgul?

quote:

---

Original post by nes8bit
That pisses me off so much! Frodo gave away the fucking ring!

---

WTF!?!? That''s blasphemy!

---

It was pretty cool.

But was pisses me off, is this incredible marketing and merchandising around it, especially now, right before Xmas. Before the LOTR movies, Tolkien''s books and ideas had this somewhat mythical, magical atmosphere. Now, that atmosphere got totally killed by commercialisation and corporate driven hype: LOTR figures, LOTR toys, LOTR this and LOTR that. LOTR everywhere. If I read a Tolkien book now, I don''t know, it''s just not the same feeling anymore. It feels fake suddendly. Death by over-commercialisation. Sad.

Oh well, just my opinion. The movie still was very good.

"Nazgul?"
No, those were the ringwraiths themselves. I don''t know if their beasts had names.

"WTF!?!? That''s blasphemy!"
I''m sure he''s joking about Frodo giving the ring away.

quote:

---

Original post by GameCreator
No, those were the ringwraiths themselves. I don''t know if their beasts had names.

---

I know it''s not the creatures, but I thought that might have been the name he was looking for, as from that point they are mainly refered to as that. I don''t think the creatures had any name, at least not told in the books.

---

Yeah thats the name I rememeber, thanks for the info

---

When we fall, earth will die, sun will set, and moon will shine, and the only image will be the Raven''s shadow in your eyes. So it is written, so it shall come to pass.
Quoth the Raven, nevermore...

I was tired. I had not slept for almost 18 hours at the time I sat down for the earliest show around noon. I admired the geeks around me, and I chuckled when a real hardcore fan came in wearing a cloak.
I watched the previews. Nothing too spectacular.
The music started up and I got giddy. Not to shouting like the other people, but giddy.
They showed the mountains and then it clicked. "Oh no," I whispered, which elicited a question from Tina about what was wrong. I hushed her and watched...yup, they hacked it up and put Gandalf''s Great Story at the very beginning. I decided it was okay and lived with it.
Dear God, why is everyone so afraid to make a stand about this movie? I nearly walked out of it after the first hour, and only stayed because I realized that I probably would never watch it again.
I thought Fellowship was a nasty rendition. Hacked up and changed far too much. Now I want to watch Fellowship again because Two Towers just set my standard of how bad a book->movie translation can be.
This film got Lucas''d. Badly.
In that Episode 1 sense.
I''m not going to stand by quietly and let you guys proclaim the diety of this movie while Gollum, one of the deepest and most fleshed out characters of the story gets turned into little more than Jar Jar''s cinematic cousin.
Or try to cram in five Short-Awkward-Dwarf jokes a scene.
Or turn Legolas into Jackie Chan.
Gandalf they actually got pretty good, I think.
Aragorn into Romeo.
etc.
etc.
etc.
"Oh, but look at the limited time they have to cram all these plot points into!" I hear many people shout.
If Harry Potter can get budgetted for 7 movies, I think LOTR could manage.
All in all, what really leaves me feeling the most empty is the complete utter lack of anything remotely tangible about the characters. The entire story is being told through 3 second cuts that don''t flesh anything out.
Run across huge landscape.
*Make dwarf joke*
Run across huge landscape.
*Make dwarf joke*
Run across...
/cut/
*make gollum joke*
brood and sneak
*make gollum joke*
brood...
/cut/
*dwarf joke!*

Blah. I doubt I''ll ever watch that movie again. And I only pray they fix Return.


-Run_The_Shadows@excite.com

The movie was abysmal. I can't believe you people are standing up for that utter drivel.

I think I finally realize what Peter Jackson's "vision" was: To make Middle-Earth (an arguably interesting place in itself) the setting for some ridiculous special effects extravaganza, storyline be damned.

quote:

---

There were only a couple of diversions from the book that I noticed, and they were minor.

---

A couple? Minor? Hah!

I'll give you credit in saying "that I noticed", because perhaps it's been too long since you've read the books to remember.

But there were more than a "couple" of "minor" diversions. To fit TTT into 3 hours of film would make you think that parts would have to be cut out (which they were), but it seems they thought it would be a better idea to add a whole bunch of useless nonsense.

I don't remember any battle with wolf-riding orc scouts, in which Aragorn fell off of a cliff. Why were the wargs made to look like something out of Beast Wars?

The scene in front of the Black Gate was ruined by the writers. In the book, they hid in a crater a safe distance from the gate. What's this about Sam falling down a hill and catching the eye of one of the Southron soldiers (who were nothing like what the book described.)

The oliphaunts were pretty stupid. Far too large. They might as well have left that part out of the movie if they were going to ruin it.

Faramir was nothing like his character in the book. Osgiliath wasn't visited in the book. Faramir didn't want the ring. There was a difference between Faramir and Boromir and you'd think the movie would emphasize it.

The encounters with the black riders were ridiculous. There's plenty of room in The Return of the King to show black riders flying on fell beasts. The Nazgul were merely shadows of dread across the moon when they appeared in The Two Towers, but the film makers obviously thought it would be so much more interesting to resort to 1950's style special effects. Did they use a blue screen or did they just have someone dress up like the grim reaper and sit in front of a projector screen? I'd really like to know.

I don't remember children fighting at Helm's Deep... or even being present there. Weren't they supposed to be at Dunharrow?

Correct me if I'm wrong (it's been a while since I read the book, too), but did elves actually come to asist Theoden at Helm's Deep? Seems rather improbable.

Three hundred against ten thousand? Whatever. The Hornburg was manned with well over a thousand. It looked like they had much more than three hundred in the movie. And it looked like there were much more than ten thousand enemies. Where did the Dunlendings disappear too?

The ents were turned into morons. I don't recall Merry tricking Treebeard into going to Isenguard to witness the damage. Treebeard was aware of it. I'm pretty sure the way it happened was that the ents decided on their own at the Entmoot to make war.

Gandalf didn't "exorcise" Theoden in the book.

If they had avoided all of the stupid additions to the story, they would have had time to perhaps show or hint at what the conflict between Grishnakh and Ugluk was, because it sure wasn't about eating the hobbits.

Don't even get me started on Gollum. The annoying voice was unbearable -- the Rankin-Bass cartoon did a much better job in that department. The visuals were okay, but his face looked too mushy and over-done. CG is still in its infancy. As a character, Gollum was overdone in the movie. The arguments he had with himself were different in the book.

There's much more...

I don't I'm picking nits here. There were some serious flaws with the movie's "interpretation" of the book.

quote:

---

They kept the best bits of the dialogue in too.

---

Oh, yeah, right.

"You could have picked a better spot!"

Haha. Real funny. Cheesey Hollywood wisecracks are oh so welcome here.

Some of the actual lines from the book were spoken by the wrong characters in the wrong places, too.

The dialogue was by far one of the worst things about the original movie and this one as well. It's ridiculous and doesn't capture any of the feel of the book whatsoever. They throw down cheap references to Middle-Earth history here and there in a vain attempt to please the die-hards (Helm Hammerhand, Valinor, etc.), but it adds little redeeming value.

quote:

---

The plot seemed to jump around quite a lot between the different characters, but then it's like that in the book too, so I'm not complaining.

---

The jumping around could be justified. The book chose to do it differently (and after seeing the movie, I feel it's superior.) But I'm not going to slam the director's decision here. He probably wanted to show things as they were happening simultaneously.

Unfortunately, all sense of time was lost. Sense of space was never really present, either. I'm familiar with the geography of Middle Earth, having read the books, but I doubt the audience had a clue as to what was going on, even with the lame attempt to educate the audience by showing Faramir's map.

quote:

---

My only slight critisism is maybe the film was too short; there were a few times where the dialogue just seemed to be cut short, particularly when Frodo meets Faramir, for example. An extra 20 minutes would have made a lot of difference.

---

Cutting out the crap would have made more of a difference.



I came into this movie with a very enthusiastic attitude. I left sorely disappointed.

These movies can't capture the feel of the book. They're devoid of the kind of atmosphere the book provided. Okay, so it's just a movie, it's excusable to a degree. The Two Towers was far too haphazard and chaotic to make any sense; for those who haven't read the books, this is an embarrassing introduction to an outstanding piece of literature.

The special effects this time around were really lacking in some parts, enough to make them stick out in stark contrast to the rest of the film. The blue-screen (if they even used on) sequences were awful. Though elaborate, some of the costumes were just plain wrong. So many things looked out of place. It's like a big melange of gaudiness.


Am I the only one who was let down? This has shattered any shred of hope I had for films. I'm now convinced that cinema is a shallow medium not fit for anything more than a cheap, mindless thrill. LOTR was never intended to be some profound philosophical piece of literature, but these movies are reducing LOTR to the level of trashy, supermarket paperback fantasy novels.

---
Bart

[edited by - trzy on December 18, 2002 10:41:29 PM]

I think people need to realize that movies will never be the same as the book. Most movies will have major changes from the book s they''re based on. This is just the difference in the media. If you absolutely can''t stand it when a book gets changed when going to movie form, then don''t watch movies based on books! I never read the books, so I found the movies to be great. I''ve seen quite a few books get butchered by movies, but I really could not care less as long as the overall idea is the same. I understand that major changes have to be made to accomodate the movie format, so it doesn''t bother me.

I seriously doubt the director wanted to completely bastardize the books.

I too noticed the blue screening was pretty horrendous.

As for the rest of the film..the scenes in the movie, for the most part, worked. It was the transition between scenes/locations/events that the movie fouled up on.

---

swift URL | browse my bookmarks [server may not always be on]

Sensimed | Info/download