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"Lord of the Rings" Quicktime Preview Available
esk writes "A QuickTime 4.0 preview of the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie is now available at the official site." There's only about 30 seconds of actual footage from the movie in the two-minute trailer, but it's enough to give you an idea of what the characters will look like -- and they came out almost exactly as I have always envisioned them, even the Trolls and poor, sad Gollum. Yessssss!
pouring hot grits down The Witch King of Angmar's pants. thank you.
Until the guys at Apple decide kindly to make a Linux player available *hint, hint*, here's a second best alternative: ;-)
A shot-by-shot summary from the kind-hearted folks over at theonering.net
Lest the author be accused of karma-whoring, he is posting anonymously. However, suggest you moderate this up as informative.
What has been bothering me, is: why the hell the eagles just coudn't fly in, drop the ring and be done with it?
Note that the elves apparently did not know where the Ents were (and the Ents didn't know where the Entwives were), so incorporating them in a battle they weren't aware of wasn't an option.
Cavalry would have had a hell of a time getting over the Misty Mountains.
The hobbits were remarkably resistant to the Ring's effects. Bilbo and Sam were the only beings who ever voluntarily gave it up, and Bilbo nearly couldn't. (And Frodo largely snatched it from Sam.) Saruman was corrupted by the thought of it and planned to capture it and challenge Sauron. Borimir was also corrupted by the thought of it, and tried to take it by force.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
You're right - Gollum was captured at the border. My mistake.
;)
The point about Sauron expecting the Ring to be used against him and not an attempt at destroying it is still valid though.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
No, you can't. It uses the Sorenson codec.
Bleh. Why do people get so hyped up over remakes of old movies that won't hold a candle to the orginal? First talk about remaking "Planet of the Apes" and now this? There can be only one "Lord of the Rings" movie, and that's already been made. What's next? Some idoit is going to remake "2001", replacing HAL with Wesley Crusher?
>I watched this film a long time ago, and was mostly bored. The thing
>is, Bakshi was the wrong guy for this film. Have you ever seen Fritz
>the Cat or Coonskin? In his early days, Bakshi was the kind of guy
>that just likes to do crazy visuals without worrying too much about a
>plot.
Just like I suspected. This thing is going to turn out to be another "Wing Commander" or "Starship Troopers". Feh.
Ok, I'm probably being anal, but why is a movie domain .net? .com?
Shouldn't it be
Was it just that lordoftherings.com was taken and they really wanted that domain name?
Does this sort of stuff even matter anymore?
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Rush off to a lab windows machine./ www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_t he_rings/images/click2full.mov'. Please verify that the path and filename are correct and try again.
i mages/click2full.mov didn't help either, so maybe someone lost the content at apple.com?
Cannot open 'http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/51/e2d91ae227744c
Suggestion: Check the web site or content source for information about playing this content.
Visiting www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_the_rings/
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
The Two Towers is great, and not only on a "war strategy" level:
Great preview! That said, isn't everyone just a little tired of the "Mason" typeface they use in their title? I personally file Mason right under Exocet (Diablo, Tazo, "Man in the Iron Mask", etc.) in the annoyingly overused category.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
In my minds eye Ive always imagined Gollum as looking a lot like Don Knots.
I started with nothing and I still have most of it.
Gandalf once brushed this subject when Frodo asked him why the Ring should have left Gollum just when Bilbo would happen by to find it. After all, "wouldn't an orc have suited it better?" And Gandalf said (danger! quoting without checking source! #include <stddisclaimer.h>) "I can put it no more plainly that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its Maker." The question sometimes comes up as to whether this mysterious Power that summons councils, appoints burdens, and directs the loss and finding of a powerful weapon is actually Iluvatar or maybe just one of the Valar, Manwë most likely.
I don't think that Manwë is the Unnamed Power in this case, because his input into the situation was the sending of the Five Wizards--Gandalf was one of those. But although Gandalf did a lot for the cause, there were a number of things that happened above and beyond his control or knowledge. The "fortuitous" meeting of the Council, the selection of Frodo, of Bilbo even, all these came to Gandalf and the others from "outside".
I read a webpage once that opined that Gandalf's downfall in Moria constituted the actual failure and ruin of the plans of the Valar for Sauron's overthrow. Gandalf's aid was essential for the resistance--everybody knew they had next to zero chance of withstanding Sauron without him, for although he was not as powerful as Sauron, they were beings of the same order, and Gandalf had wisdom that nobody else had. But upon meeting the Balrog, which, like Gandalf, was also a Maia, Gandalf engaged the thing in combat, knowing that he could be no more help to the Company or anyone else, and in so doing he died.
His coming back to life was not the doing of Manwë at all. He had no such power. It was Iluvatar himself that sent Gandalf back. Tolkien meant this as a "seal of approval" on the sacrifice that Gandalf, and all the Valar, had made. Their plan had failed, and could not but have failed against such an enemy, but they had done the right thing in trying it. So Iluvatar stepped in and made it possible to succeed anyway.
None of this is explicitly stated in the books, which avoid directly mentioning Eru/Iluvatar in Middle-Earth contexts.
Not so...Gollum didn't "slip into" Mordor, he was captured at the frontier and dragged in, then interrogated and eventually released. When Frodo was given the mission to sneak into Mordor, nobody had any proper idea how he was supposed to do it. All the Council were certain of is that force was not an option, and if the Ring were to be destroyed at all, a hobbit might as well do it as anybody. And Master Elrond sensed that Iluvatar was actively guiding the process, and that He had appointed Frodo particularly to take the burden. That decision was not taken lightly, no more than it would have been in RL.
There is a reason for the similarity -- they draw on the same source material -- the Siegfried legend of Nordic mythology. Read Lin Carter's "Tolkien: A Look behind 'The Lord of The Rings'" for a full description. Another similarity of course is the sword that was broken and forged again -- Nothung (Wagner)/ Narsil (Tolkien).
However, I've read that Tolkien had very little respect for Wagner's version of the legend.
Yes, that's accurate. Frodo planned to take the ring for himself just as they reached the cracks of Mount Doom. This gives meaning to all the constant reminders how everyone (Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Bilbo..) could not bring themselves to killing Gollum, and Gandalf's foreshadowing in Rivendell that Gollum had some part to play before the end.
And one insane hobbit isn't worth saving the world?
No one else volunteered to take the ring, and anyone who held any amount of power would be corrupted by it. Gollum was an example how hobbits could wield the ring discretely (he used it to kill orcs underneath a mountain!). Frodo was the perfect choice for a ringbearer. Anyone else would have been overcome with desire to wield the ring openly against Sauron (and in a matter of hours find themselves surrounded by Sauron's millions of orcs).
Sorry..Bilbo volunteered, but he was far too old for the journey.
The only reason I caught it is I just reread the Silmarillion last month ;)
Currently rereading the LOTR, I'll try to pay closer attention when Sam uses the phial, you've got me wanting to know now.
Sauron watched his lord and master Morgoth brought down by the Valar, not by Elves and Men. Morgoth utterly defeated the Noldor, and Beleriend was destroyed, and men were terribly weak in the Elder days. His victory was nearly complete when Earendil sailed west to ask the Valar for aid. The Valar came, and almost entirely destroyed Morgoth's servants. Morgoth was thrust outside the world, into the void. Sauron was summoned to Valinor, but he hid in Middle Earth. What you are thinking of is when Sauron rose in power after he had destroyed Numenor (indirectly, by causing the Numenoreans to assail Valinor). The men of the west who settled in Middle Earth, Aragorn's descendents, allied with Gil Galad's Elven forces. Together they defeated Sauron, but he was not destroyed (Isildur kept the One Ring, as we all know). Elrond states that the reason they cannot assail Sauron by force is that Elves have greatly diminished in power and number. The majority of the High Elves have already sailed to Valinor, there are only the small remnants in Lorien and Rivendell. And I'm not so sure that the power of the high elves can be "detected", but the orcs thought Sam was an Elven lord because he had fought against Shelob and won. I could be wrong about this, though.
uggh. Wagner. Some nice minutes, some very boring hours.
I can't understand how anyone can enjoy that wagnerian crap with its insufferable geman nationalism.
support gun control: take guns from cops
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are most definitely among my favourite books. I do not read a lot *shame on me*, but the quality stuff just gets to you.
My dad gave me a great set of these books during a deal we made during a ski trip (I gave him a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe) and I was hooked since the very start. It is a real shame I didn't read this earlier, although, I am glad I read it *now*, because I have a lot more appreciation for my "first time" now than I would have had being a teenager.
Despite the evil MPAA, this will sometime be one of the DVD's I will own. With pride.
you can export to avi from qt pro. from there you should be able to mpg it with no probs.
and the ring of dooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!
in case one is needed.
The 'pipeweed' is tobacco... they even call it tobacco in that same chapter (I just finished that chapter).
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
I'd rather wrassle an Ent than miss this one on the big screen!
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
...why does that one look like it's pouring hot grits down it's pants?
Did Tolkien just never consider this?
I can't leave it alone.
Saruman's Uruk-hai were defeated in 2 places. Both times by the Rohirrim.
Once were the small group that kidnapped the hobbits Pippin and Merry and killed Boromir. They were killed outside Fangorn forest.
The second group fought a battle outside of Helm's Deep, also in Rohan. These were killed by Riders and by the Huorn (sp) old ents who got more tree like.
At the Battle of the Pellinor fields you have Sauron's forces of orcs and men against the forces of Gondor, later reinforced by the Rohirrim.
Outside of Morder;s front gates you are more or less right, but the Rohirrim where there too.
The elves in Rivendell, Lorien, and Mirkwood were all under attack themselves by branches of Sauron's forces. They were not going to be any help. The dwarves were also under attack in the iron hills and the lonely mountain.
That's the shits man. I read that quote and I see Eomer standing in the fields getting ready to go out and get himself killed in his grief and percieved end of everything.
These staves he spoke, yet he laughed as he said them. For once more lust of battle was on him; and he was stil unscathed, and he was young, and he was king: the lord of a fell people.
Gives me the chills each and every time I read them. That is why Tolkien is the best, he characters, writing, plots, stories, whatever it is move you in ways that nothing else can.
Actually, Legolas's father, Thranduil, was a Sindarin elf. The Sindarins were found in small numbers among the Silvan elves and were often the leaders.
Basically there are Elves who never even started the journey, and elves who started the journey but stopped around the misty mountains. They are collectively known as the Elves of Darkness.
Then there is an overlap of the elves who stopped around the misty mountains (known as Silvan) and those who went all the way to Beleriand but didn't go over the sea and who were under the lord ship of Elwe (Thingol) and they are known as Sindar. Collectively they are known as the Umanyar, or the Eldar who are not of Aman. Eldar being a term applied to all elves of all 3 houses who at least started on the journey.
Finally, there are the leves who went all the way. These are the Calaquendi and include all of the Vanyar and Noldor, and that portion of the Teleri who went with Olwe, brother of Elwe.
Anyway, Sindar and Noldo rule, everyone else drools. Long live the Longbeards. Moria Rocks.
BullSh*t.
Get it straight, she chose to stay. Nobody forced anything on her.
All of the Eldar were invited back to Aman at the end of the War. The only elves who had anything special upon them were the two surviving sons of Feanor, Maglor and Maedhros. Eonwe told them they would have to go and receive judgement from Manwe and Varda.
Hell, all Galadriel did during the first age was hang around with Melian and learn to make lembas. What a spectacular waste if you ask me. At least Finrod (her brother) discovered and befriended men, established a kingdom, helped on the quest for the Silmarils, fought with Sauron, saved Beren's life, etc. Sure, he got killed, but that's living baby.
Even Mablung (second fiddle to Beleg) did more than she did.
What planet are you from?
The Lord of the Rings is about the only fantasy novel you can get that is perfect for the story it tells.
The Shannara series by Brooks are too long, the Eddings sagas are complete humor fluff that are too long, and Robert Jordon, oh please, can you drag this out any longer to make more novels to make more money kinda crap?
What is there to edit out of the LotR? Death of Boromir? Council of Elrond? I know, the Battle of the Pelennor fields. Anything that is not immediately essential to the story is always essential to make Middle-earth the rich fantastic world we all wish we had lived in or could experience and that all fantasy novelists aspire to.
End of discussion and post.
There were also trolls at the battle outside of Mordor.
Pippin slew one after it had crushed down Beregond. The troll fell on top of him and he passed out. Gimli later found him as his foot was sticking out.
Interesting note about the name Grond. It was also the name of the mace of Morgoth in the Silmarillion. It's what he beat up Fingolfin with. Fingolfin rules. I still get choked up when I read about his battle.
If you want to avoid the slow link at the lordoftherings.net you can get the trailer directrly through http://www.apple.com/trailers/ on Apple's web site.
Thank god the movie itself is Akamized, or none of us would ever see it.
Cheers,
WFE
===========
20 years or so ago when my freinds and I were reading it, we though David Bowie might make a good Elric. 'Course, now he's a geezer, so... I could rattle off a dozen fantasy/sci-fi books that I'd like to see made into movies (OK, OK, Cook's Black Company series, Zelazny's... err... just about anything) which might be easier with computer-generated effects. But, let's face it, *all* movies are going to become easier and more realistic (or perhaps the word authentic is more fitting). I'm reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels now (which deal with the British Navy, around the era of Napleon. Think Star Trek: TOS, but on a sailing ship). I think the state of the art still isn't quite there yet (oceans are a still a real bitch to get right, I hear) but eventually you could make these novels into really kick-butt movies, without resorting to the old "models in a bathtub" way of filming battles which made all of the old swashbucklers look sorta cheesy. I read about a new Pearl Harbor movie (hmm.... targent... has anyone registered PerlHarbor as a forum for discussing Perl programming? :) in which a lot of the battle will probably be done on computers. The hired a few vintage airplanes, but to really fill the skies with zeros and the sea with wrecked battleships, it's going to have to be CG. Eventually, you figure that more and more of all types of productions will be going virtual. Many might bemoan this, but it will mean that a once huge, blockbuster film can be made for less... meaning more creative risk-taking, meaning lesser know books and totally new concepts coming to the screen. Personally, I can't wait for this sort of stuff to trickle down into the mere mortals realm. I dabble in computer graphics. I suppose, with the software and hardware at my disposal, I could probably remake the CG portions of TRON (well... of course, there's that pesky talent portion of the equation I'm lacking...) today. That was state of the art 20 years ago in movie making... I wonder what I'll be able to whip up on my desktop 20 years from now... stage my own personal battles with 60,000 orcs? Whee!
I always thought that rather than take the risk of sneaking it into Mordor, they should have gone the other direction and dumped it at sea. You could make a chain out of mithril (rust-proof), attach it to a big rock and dump it when you are several hundred miles west of the shore.
Yeah, the problem would have surfaced again in a few millenia when the ring figured out how to get itself caught in someone's net or something. But in the meantime it would have been life as usual back in MiddleEarth. Destroying the ring meant the end of a lot of things - so don't destroy it at all.
It was something that I've thought about before.
Jackson is either going to make a mockery of the story or kick much ass with his film adaptaion, and from the looks of the trailer, he is kicking much ass.
There are a few reasons.
1) The ring is more dangerous to more powerful people as the temptation to try and use it for good would be overwelming.
2) Hobbits are suppost to be able to resist it for longer, for some reason.
3) To take it away by force would likely drive the person mad (is Gollum)
4) Elves, and Ents would be to obvious, part of the problem was that they could not defeat Mordor by force of arms.
5) Saruon would be able to sense Gandauf and a high elf.
It's been a while since I read it so I'm not sure.
Glynn
Well I haven't done all the collateral reading--I've just read the four books (Hobbit + LOTR), and this is my take on the Solo Frodo thing--hobbits have extraordinary constitution and incredibly ordinary ambitions. Key to keeping the Ring from falling into evil hands was keeping the Ring from hands that would become evil under its influence. nb Saruman and Boromir's lust, and Gandalf's refusal to take possession of the Ring. Every other wise and powerful character likewise refused to take custody, knowing that the temptation would be beyond their ability to resist. Frodo didn't have that problem. Anyway, that's my $0.0199999999 with a Pentium FP erratum.
Never refuse a breath mint.
How about this: The ring had it's own agenda and went where it wanted. Even if they had tried to give it to someone else the ring wouldn't have stayed if it didn't want to. I personally believe it could, in a small way, see into the future so it's possible that it believed that Frodo was it's best way of getting to Sauron, which may have actually been true. This leads me to believe that if someone other than Frodo had taken responsibility for the ring Sauron still might not have gotten his hands on it. It's been said already that if left to Frodo the ring would not have been destroyed. Gollum was the key.
"Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."
The reason is because Sauron was so much stronger than they were. Any attempt at matching him force to force would certainly end up in disaster. The Council of Elrond determined that the ring could be disposed of stealth much easer that by force. Also, to take the ring from Frodo would probably cause him to go insane.
No matter how powerful a force the Council sent, it would not have been enough. Their only hope was secrecy. You can't have that with an army.
Of course, that still doesn't explain why the elves didn't send stealth experts. You would think that a small band of commando-elves dressed in black with the latest James Bond devices would have been able to do it. But then, it occurs to me that a stealth specialist would find The Ring's invisibility function to be particularly useful and inviting. This would lead to usage and corruption.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If I recall, when Aragorn's diversionary force attacked Mordor, they opposing force had some trolls. One of the hobbits (Merry or Pippin) may have even killed one (or had one fall dead on top of him, or something like that). (I guess it's time for me to read again.)
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well put. But I don't think the Queen ever actually held the ring to give it back to Frodo. The ring was actually so powerful she barely had the willpower to resist taking the ring when he offered it to her.
Cordova
Can't Lurk all the time.
My microbes must have translated that wrong! - Aeryn Sun
Gandalf says that secrecy and unexpected moves are their best hope - go to the library and find the letters of JRR Tolkien - he explains it much better - basically, if Sauron knew where the ring was exactly, and it would be obvious with many Elves around it, then he would throw all his force there, and win.
http://www.bombcar.com It's where it is at.
Fellowship 9/11
Some companies of trolls were organized by Mordor, yes. Pippin was almost crushed by one in the last battle. Re-read Return of the King.
At least as important as the special effects will be the acting, so here's hoping they get that right, too.
It's incredibly important to bring across the geniality of the hobbits, and Frodo's mistakes in the initial flight from the Shire, and Strider's transformation from Ranger to King, etc. etc.
J.R.R. Tolkien wasn't necessarily the most natural writer of dialogue, but I've seen enough bad fantasy movies to know he's much better than most of them, and it will kill the movie if we don't care about anything but the next special effect.
So here's hopin'!
the director for the upcoming trilogy is peter jackson. i really don't think he's the type to turn it into another "wing commander." check out "heavenly creatures."
Doesn't qt pro cost money? I'm not going to spend money to convert it. Now, if I already had qt pro...
Eric
As I remember the Orcs tend to resemble traditional Aryan enemies a lot, in their looks (swarthy), weapons (scimitars), language (which resemble Turkish or Arabic).
It's the kind of thing I didn't realize the first dozen times I read the book as a kid, and wouldn't have cared about much. Actually, I don't think I care about it much now -- art draws on deep parts of our collective unconscious.
Well, IAAN, and I think it's just peachy keen
No, you misunderstood me. I was using N for neo-nazi not Numbskull!!! Ha what a laughable misunderstanding! Naturally as you are numbskull you didn't understand the clearly stated parts of my post that said that I liked Tolkein. Similarly you failed to understand that my worries about the movie are due to the fact that I don't necessarily want my own images to be replaced with other peoples images.My, you sure are an idiot. :-)
"Frodo Solo" was not the original strategy. That was a result of what happened along the way - losing Gandalf in Moria, Boromir's attempt to take the Ring by force. It was Frodo himself who decided to try and do it on his own, though Sam foiled that part of the plan at least. Aragorn would have wanted to go with him as well, but he turned out to be needed in Gondor much more to rally the troops.
Besides, Frodo Solo actually failed in the end, and it was only his mad insistence on showing Gollum mercy that saved him (and the West) from Sauron's complete victory.
I, Frodo, son of Drogo, will take the ring, although I do not know the way (pp)
Frodo was unwilling, and everyone else (of wisdom) were willing he should, but he still volunteered for it.
My point is that the council would not have thrust the ring upon anyone, as you have suggested.
---
Jedi-Bene Gesserit
"Teachers leave us kids alone
The Ring also affected different people in different ways. If Frodo had completely sucummbed to the ring, he would have become a wraith. If Gandalf had taken the ring, he would have become like Sauron (remember, both were Maia) and controlled the wraiths.
I don't disagree that Frodo selflessly sacrificed himself - I think the last pages of the Return of the King are the saddest, when Frodo is unable to heal and is always in misery. I'm not intending to be dogmatic, but to say that Frodo was a guinea pig would suggest that the ring was thrust upon him. he voluntarily took it, and would not have been asked if he hadn't volunteered.
---
Jedi-Bene Gesserit
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Have you people forgotten Lynx?! Highlight the link to the movie, and hit "d" for download. Heh... there are even Win32 versions of Lynx available, so that's no excuse. ;)
] D
They should pick up a copy of "Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien". Tolkien was actually asked by the Nazis themselves whether he was of Aryan origin. He sent back a letter letting them know he didn't believe in any of their mumbo-jumbo.
Ryan
Quicktime Pro won't let you export it. Quicktime won't let you save/export. Other programs have severe problems opening it. They can't or crash. I can get a copy onto MiniDV, the problem is I don't have a firewire card to get it back onto the PC.
"Frodo of the nine fingers,
Frodo of the nine fingers..."
Gawd, that was awful.
Rankin-Bass did a pretty good job with the Hobbit, but Lord of the Rings just sucked. It's just pretty hard to cut 1K+ pages down to a 90 minute cartoon. I sure hope this movie is good.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
Frodo had a lot of help from Gandalf (often working behind the scenes) as well as the other members of the Fellowship. He also had a magic sword once he reached Rivendell: Bilbo gave him Sting, as well as his suit of elven mail.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Sure it can probably be cool, if anyone ever uses it for something useful...
Using 66% of the screen for a "see again" button when you can press the play button again instead is not what I'd call "cool".
But it seems to me like the web-site was created by someone who had memorized "Creating Killer Websites" so I wasn't very surprised.
There is only one LotR movie, and it's crap.
This one looks like it will be a lot better. As someone else pointed out, condensing 900+ pages into 90 minutes is pretty much impossible. 270 minutes is maybe doable.
--
E_NOSIG
There was a little band around for a while called Led Zeppelin.
darius
Get the movie at:
:)
ftp://ftp.alignment.net/pub/lotr_640l.mov
People have actually SEEN the preview, so there's a good chance a mirror isn't really necessary. But slashdot effects happen, the world is an imperfect place.
Besides, I might be faster. Who knows.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
As an aside, am I the only one that thinks that the abillity to embed those interactive elements in the movie file is pretty boss?
One other detail that should be mentioned is that Sauron was familiar with the Elves, Dwarves, Men, etc. But did not have any real knowledge of Hobbits. Hobbits came on to the scene _after_ the Rings had been created and given and were, thus, largly unaffected by their power. The best example is, of course, Gollum. He, unlike the men, possessed the Ring for many years, yet never fully turned to a wraith. Yes, he was corrupted, but he was still less affected than the humans were.
I often think that the Hobbits were created specifically by one of the Valar (or, possibly, by Illuvetor Himself) in order to counter the Ring's power (similarly to the way in which the dwarves were created). Their origins were always shrouded in a mystery that even Gandalf could not penetrate.
They're definitely not unknown. Liv Tyler, Elijah Wood, Sir Ian McLellan, and John Rhys-Davies are all listed in the credits.
It's cool that they're actually doing the trilogy, instead of trying to cram them all into one long movie.
They did give him a guide, who had a magic sword (ok, ok, it was broken...), along with the most powerful good wizard in existence, along with a few others. The guide they gave him was perhaps the only good person to ever have snuck into Mordor before. It just turned out that the companions were forced to separate due to the divisive influences of the ring.
Actually my 'cynical response' more goes like - "they better make the first episode a blockbuster or they'll never get the funding to finish the other 2"
They are filming all three concurrently, so this
really isn't a concern. Last reports I heard, they were already filming Helm's Deep scenes, which take place halfway through the second novel.
Eric Berg
I must say I had some serious doubts about this movie, particularly how the characters would be portrayed but I must say: Holy s*?t!
So far this looks like an unbelievable production.
As of now I say forget Ender's Game, Lara, Star Wars 2 and 3 and Matrix Sequels. I live for LOTR!!!
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
As did I. Some twenty minutes later (don't know what took me so long) I was in my car racing off to Barnes&Noble to pick up the boxed set (The Hobbit plus LOTR).
Just finished The Hobbit and am preparing to tackle the Fellowship of the Ring.
As I was reading The Hobbit, I was noticing so much more detail than I remember from my prior reading (some ten years earlier)... how Bilbo's dwarven companions were in the barrels for two days and escaped being detected three times (initally in the Elvenking's stronghold, again on the river by the elves charged with moving the barrels down the river and when they landed). The detail of Bilbo's interaction with Smaug gave me chills!
Truly this was an excellent work. I look forward to rereading LOTR and even more so to it's theatrical debut!
who know WAY too much detail about the answer to this question. Is there a Tolkien University out there somewhere I haven't heard of? Or an ICS program?
:-)
I've enjoyed reading these posts... but GEEZ!
How'd it get it's power?
Just asking. I'm ordering the paperbacks right now so maybe I'll find out. But I don't remember the answer to that from the time I spent reading these in high school (10+ years ago).
...why did the supposedly wise Elves entrust this mission to a young hobbit with no military experience, supported by any friends he happened to pick up along the way?
My take is that a powerful force (ie, buncha bad-ass elves, assorted Rangers and a mottley wizard or three) would have been easy to track, observe, harass along the journey and then finally drop the million-ton s-hammer on, once they got in range.
So the decision was to send a "stealth" force. Remember that ol' Lidless Eyeball hisself hardly knew what a hobbit was... all he had to go on is what he wrung out of poor Smeagol.
What would have made more sense would have been to assemble said Mighty Elf Army, send it marching the long-way round, and act as a distraction for the A-team.
a. Frodo's lack of military experience gave him no preconceptions on the 'proper route.' His thinking was less blunt, less predictable.
b. Everyone else was swept up in Gandalf's plan to throw everything at Sauron to gain Frodo some advantage in disposing of the ring.
c. Sauron generally did not respect anything but brute, obvious power. One main theme in the book is everyone's blindness (except for the wise, eccentric ones) to the enormous potential of power in the soul of a little being. Gandalf would often say that he was endlessly surprised at the deep hardiness of the hobbits, underneath all their painful stupidity. Even then, he was required to divert Sauron's attention, since Sauron was a quick study.
d. Sauron may still have been weakened from the ordeal of coming to power, but he could concentrate a great deal of force whenever he wanted, especially in his own territory. In addition, he mastered the dark illusory arts where he could mess with the morale of an otherwise exemplary army. Gandalf saw that he needed to split Sauron's forces, hit him with two threats that were each very deadly.
e. The elves were in the pocket of Gandalf (though he would call it 'respect') and he was a student of overconfidence. (There were a number of encounters with adversaries where this possible aspect of his personality was brought out.) He felt that Sauron was the type to take a grim sort of glee in exercising his renewed power and rest on his laurels just enough to make a feint work.
Can't wait, it gave me the goosebumps watching it. I have read and reread the triology many times and have been waiting for this day. As they said the technology has finally come of age to do justice to the visions of Tolkein. That animated adventure made many years back was no good although the The Hobbit animated movie was good. The best part, they aren't trying to squeeze in the whole story in one 2 hour movie but in a true triology. May we not be disappointed as which happens many times (ie Dune!)
So can someone do this? .mov can't be downloaded except via the imbedded player, and I don't want to do that.
The actual
Anyone with video capture and editing equipment?
https://www.idrive.com/briogh/files/Shared/
happy file grabbing
Ok, here is the solution!
Using this, you can export the movie and all the other fun stuff!!!! OK, first, download the movie using techniques described elsewhere in these comments. Next, download the program "Dumpster" from this page (Near the bottom). Now, open up the movie with dumpter, colapse the track info, expand the 'udta', and under it, the 'nsav'. Set all the values to 0 and save it. Open it up in Movie player or whatever and have fun. This worked for me. I can extract tracks, export, and all the other fun stuff.
You see? It's like I've always said. You can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than you can with just a kind word.
Here is a partial solution. I placed the movie file into Final Cut Pro. I then turned off the audio tracks and exported the video (after I cropped it to 640x272). It exported, only I ended up with a data rate of about 811kbytes/s. Way too high. It is very likely that I just don't know what I am doing (I don't work with video that often, but have access to FCP) or that I don't have the good Sorenson Codec. If anyone out there has Final Cut Pro and the Developer Sorenson codec, give this a whirl. We can at least get the video. Now if anyone can figure a way to get the audio, we can reconstruct this to create the full movie file without the no-save restriction. Then we can make an MPEG or whatever out of that.
You see? It's like I've always said. You can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than you can with just a kind word.
Legolas' father was king of the Wood Elves of Mirkwood Forest. This makes him a Prince and therefor an elf-lord.
At the Battle of Minis Tirith it was trolls who opperated Grawn, the huge battering ram to smash the gates to the city.
It's Minas Tirith, and the name of the ram was Grond. Should've looked at the book before I posted. There were also trolls in Moria.
I watched this film a long time ago, and was mostly bored. The thing is, Bakshi was the wrong guy for this film. Have you ever seen Fritz the Cat or Coonskin? In his early days, Bakshi was the kind of guy that just likes to do crazy visuals without worrying too much about a plot. This isn't so much the case in later films, like American Pop and Hey Good Looking, but you can still see this in spots (like the goofy ending of Amer. Pop), where he seems to say, "alright, let's forget what's happening and do some cool visuals, or maybe something just wierd (like the talking trashcan in the begining of Hey Good Looking)". This is just the opposiite of what a LOTR film needs, because Tolken fans are pretty nit-picky about details, and Bakshi just wanted to skim over the work and do what he wanted to do.
This is discussed in chapter 2 of book 2 (the second half of "The Fellowship of the Ring").
From the purely military point of view, the combined forces may have equalled those of Sauron, but were not overwhelming enough to overcome the formidable defensive structure of Mordor.
Elrond sums up the desperation of their plight: "The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is of the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because the must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."
There is also the question of destiny. Again, quoting Elrond: "If I understand aright all that I have heard, I think that this task is asppointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the great. Who of all the Wise could have forseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?"
HTH, Mark.
PS, my favorite quotation in the chapter, from Frodo: "I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way."
I just hope it has a decent treebeard
*grin*
Dude, it's a lot easier to do than all that... ever heard of a "hard link". NTFS supports hard links -- even to files that are open (what bloody idiot designed "sharing".)
Additionally, the player will place it's cached file in %TEMP%... just change %TEMP% to somewhere else -- presumably where there aren't such f***ing stupid sharing restrictions or another machine where the "file sharing" can be disconnected.
Time invested: 15seconds.
Actually my 'cynical response' more goes like - "they better make the first episode a blockbuster or they'll never get the funding to finish the other 2"
2 - the enthusiastic response - Great! This should give about 7 hours of story! Plenty of time to fully explore the whole story!
yup - that's the real intention -this thing has basicly taken over the entire New Zealand film industry for a couple of years - friends tell me bizarre sets are popping up in disused quarrys and other strange places. This is probably a good thing - there must be a lot of extras with time on their hands now that Hercules and Xena have stopped filming
Cartoonish? Maybe that's because they WERE Cartoons.
However I agree with you, it did suck.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.
May be a bit off topic, but I've heard that LOTR is a favorite read among neonazis. Probably a result of the very clear differences between wrong and right, good and bad etc...
It might also have to do with the obvious skin colour of elves and orcs, but I've never asked a neonazi...
This is twice now that I have posted a story suggestion to slashdot *hours* before the story that appears on the front page. Man, I get sick of this. Makes me feel its not worth suggesting stories....
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
This isn't the first movie version of the Lord of the Rings. There was an animated film made a long time ago (not The Hobbit).
And tho they didn't cut much out of the story for that film, it was terribly unclear from a lack of background. Everyone who reads LotR was introduced to the Tolkien universe in The Hobbit, but a movie isn't gonna include both stories.
On the other hand, this is a movie _trilogy_, so it will do more justice... unless it comes out like Star Wars. There's more to Tolkien than scary monsters.
Anyway, we won't know till the Christmas after next. (Just great to watch a pagan movie on the 2000th aniversary of Christ's birth!)
Where is my mind?
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
The message in LOTR is universal (which is demonstrated by it's extraordinary popularity). This really has nothing at all to do with neo-nazis, except peripherally, like evil characters in the books, that they represent the worst in human nature.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
I believe you are correct. When Frodo offered the ring to Galadriel, the elven ring (one of the three) she wore started to shine and she appeared to grow in stature. Then when she finally refused the offer, as you said, in an exercise of immense willpower, she returned to herself.
I always found that part of the story very compelling. Its when the reader finally gets an inclining of just how powerful the artifact would be in the hands of one such as the Elf Queen or Gandalf.
I also especially appreciate the part when she laughs and confesses that Frodo, through his honesty, had bested her. She had passed her test.
Its been a while. I always enjoy reading that book. Perhaps I'll pick it up again... for the fourth? time.
Perhaps it should be noted that one element of the reason for giving the ring to Frodo was merely the fact that Sauron did not expect it. Sauron was convinced one of the Elves or Wizards would try to wield it against him. He never imagined that they would instead simply destroy it.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
..dogmatic, but to say that Frodo was a guinea pig would suggest that the ring was thrust upon him. he voluntarily took it, and ...
I couldn't disagree more. The ring was indeed thrust upon him. In fact, if you re-read the earlier chapter where Gandalf explains the nature of the ring, Frodo was quite verbal in his expression that he wished somebody else had received the charge. That said, when given the burden, Frodo was strong enough to carry it to the very end. The wheight of the ring can also be seen by how relieved he was when Galadriel asked him for the ring. He was ecstatic about giving it to her.
Frodo most certainly did not volunteer to be the ring bearer but was up to the task when he became it.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
okay, making a movie of the Lord of the Rings is fine, but let's face it, wouldn't the Silmarillion kick butt as a film?
It's certainly my personal favorite Tolkien story, I think it has a much stronger storyline than LotR and the characters are much better drawn
Perhaps the biggest drawback in it is that it can be a little difficult to understand at first, especially with things like Ainulindale attached. (Ainulindale is Tolkien's creation myth, it's very good).
Then again, considering the story runs for around 4000 years, maybe it would be a little long. But it does have it all: revenge, betrayal, magic, a beautiful love story, and a brilliant, literally earth-shattering ending. What more could you ask for?
life is a canvas/and the paint is hope and promise/the world is ours/no one can ever take it from us.
I never realized the peril LOTR fans were in. What would Lucas have done to us? Gollum with a jamaican accent, tripping and falling down all the time. Frodo yelling yippee as the ring is destroyed. Sauron and Gandalf oweing their powers to parasites in the blood. The fact that George couldn't get his politically correct, ages 12 and under hands on Tolkein is something for which we can all be greatful.
and if you don't believe Lucas is politically correct, I refer you to the scene in the re-released first star wars movie where Han Solo is confronted by Greedo the bounty hunter. I seem to recall that the original version had Solo blasting Greedo from under the table with out warning or mercy. In the enhanced re-release, Greedo shoots first so Solo can fire in self defense. No reason for it, other than to be pc.
I'm sure that it will be better than Star Wars.
If you're refering to Phantom Menace, I don't see how it could be any worse.
Jolt! Take that George, Jar Jar sucks, George.
Yeah, the problem would have surfaced again in a few millenia when the ring figured out how to get itself caught in someone's net or something.
Well it could have worked... but the elves and Gandalf as immortals, would have a longer view. Some skimming of some of the dates once suggested to me that Galadriel is over 10 000 years old at the time of LoTR even though dates don't work properly before the Rising of the Sun.
Besides, Sauron would probably win if the Ring was lost - note how hopeless the last defence is. Whereas the destruction of the Ring is the destruction of all his power.
They probably don't care about random distribution, but they would like to keep the content "read-only" as much as possible. But you're right, it is futile nowadays...
----------------
Overheard: "Aww, why'd you go and install Windows on a perfectly good machine?"
The offical archives of Tolkien are at Marquette University in Milwaukee. So, if you plan on being at GenCon, take a walk up Water Street and see if MU will let you look upon his original works :-)
Artwork -just found this link today...wasn't actually looking for it. http://www.spowers.net/Tolkien/Tol kienWorld.html
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Also there are a few mirrors around (and yeah, some of them have already been pointed out). Links to places where all four versions of the trailer are being mirrored can be found here.
Anyone know if there is a childrens book version of The Hobbit and/or LotR? My Daughter (11) saw a play of The Hobbit and was interested in reading the book, but its a bit too much for her.
--
--
The fellowship encountered those three petrified trolls on their way to Rivendell.
Here's the song from that passage:
Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.
Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll:'Pray what is yon?
For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim,
As should be a-lyin' in graveyard.
Caveyard! Paveyard!
This many a year has Tim been gone,
And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard.'
'My lad,' said Troll,' this bone I stole.
But what be bones that lie in a hole?
Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead,
Afore I found his shinbone.
Tinbone! Thinbone!
He can spare a share for a poor old troll,
For he don't need his shinbone.'
Said Tom:'I don't see why the likes o' thee
Without axin' leave should go makin' free
With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin;
So hand the old bone over!
Rover! Trover!
Though dead he be, it belongs to he;
So hand the old bone over!'
'For a couple o' pins,' says Troll and grins,
'I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee Now! See Now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now.'
But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind
And gave him the boot to larn him.
Warn him! Darn him!
A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thought
Would be the way to larn him.
But harder than stone is the flesh and bone
Of a troll that sits in the hill alone.
As well set your boot to the mountain's root,
For the seat of a troll don't feel it.
Peel it! Heal it!
Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan.
And he knew his toes could feel it.
Tom's leg is game, since home he came,
And his bootless foot is lasting lame;
But Troll don't care, and he's still there
With the bone he boned from it's owner.
Doner! Boner!
Troll's old seat is still the same.
And the bone he boned from its owner.
-- Alper
But what's next?
Personally, I'd like to see an adventurous, stylish filmmaker take on the Elric of Melnibone story - lots of potential there for an incredible film. But who to cast as Elric?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The Ring sought out the most Powerful and fed upon the wearer's greed and ambition, always trying to get back to it's Master Sauron. The Elves were *incredibly* ambitious and a full of themselves *because* of all their might and power. The Ring always used that against them. In the book Gandalf said that even if the King were to hide the Ring in his deepest basement it would still work at his mind, trying to get him to use it. The Elves and the Mighty of M.E. knew that if they even *thought* about possessing the ring they would become like Sauron himself. Boromir is a case in point. The Hobbits were by nature not greedy or ambitious and therefore had a natural immunity to the Ring's influence. I hope this helps.
Actually, the Ralph Bakshi film was all of the fellowship and about half of the two towers. IIRC, they ended the movie at the end of the battle of Helm's Deep.
Pity the second part never got finished, but I think it was for the usual reason--the first one didn't do all that well, and despite the process (half animation, half filmed stuff), wasn't all that cheap.
I have a soft spot for the movie; it was one of my more fun first dates. (*Not* a good date movie unless the date is a Tolkien fan, but I got lucky anyway....)
I shudder to think what Lucas would have done to the Tolkien trilogy. While I doubt a Jar-Jar type of character would have been created, I envison a hell of a lot more cutsiness than Jackson (or any LOTR purist) would allow. And action figures. And McDonald's promotions.
Of course, a Disney treatment would be even worse. Can you imagine the songs?
Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org.
Online gaming for motivated, sportsmanlike players: www.steelmaelstrom.org.
or taken out by the wringwraiths on their damn bat-things, Saurons magic, and the valar know what else....
The truth is out there - we'll let it back in after it sobers up a bit. -The Cube
I believe the reasoning that was established in the council meeting was that Sauron had too many resources. Good was to badly outnumbered by evil. Their only option was try to sneak the ring into Mordor and destroy it because a frontal assault would have been crushed. The Fellowship was an eminently capable group although I don't understand why they didn't send an elf-lord instead of Legolas.
So the new question is why wasn't the ring given to a group of well-trained elven commandos to sneak it into Mordor instead of a group of hobbits.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
'Couldn't open the file because it is not a file that QuickTime understands' Whassup with that? PDG
"Where is my mind?"
surprise surprise....www.theonering.net where the review of the trailer was posted has been /.ed.
Bummer. Does anyone know how quicktime movies are cached on your HD?
Digital Philosopher. Looking for work.
As has been said before, they needed stealth above all. Eagles flying in would be a pretty visible force, and I seem to remember those things the Nazguls were riding were supposed to be faster than eagles. They would be intercepted before they could reach their destination, especially since Mt. Doom was rather close to Barad-Dur.
And don't forget that Orodruin was polluting the skies so much, obscuring everything up there. (Almost like flying through an eruption. See the beginning of the RotK).
This link may have already been posted. I haven't been following the thread...
http://a912.g.akamai.net/5/912/51/7f33d9e39a6b87/If not enjoy...the movie looks fantastic..will be tough to wait
d80669d84574a 8d80d3cb12453c02589f25382f668c9329e0375e81785ea61
d36a40938a41385e948b71d7cf058bd1 c8ef765c c3f/lotr_640_full.mov
Taco's lameness filter prevented me from creating the proper link.
Append the garble into to one long url and download at will
"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated"
There's another way, actually.
Look in the source for the page and get the filename of the movie... then make a quick little html file that contains:
-html-
-a href=http://whereever.ext/movie.qt-
-/html-
Right click on the link, and save it to the disk!
-- Dr. Eldarion --
'eh, sorry, my mistake. I didn't actually try it out... I'm at school, and the connection here sucks.
:/
All I know is that it worked for me on a couple different websites
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I understand that they're not going to try to use well-known establishment actors. Unfortunately for these folks, they'll forever be known as "Frodo" and "Gollum". When I get home I'll be able to see the previews to verify - I find it amusing that I have worse access at work than at home.
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
I think he has an interesting notion that needs to be pursued - given that monitoring capabilities exist, how do we best utilize those technologies to make our lives easier/better/more secure, rather than just griping about the folks at Ft. Meade invading our privacy?
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
The Ring automatically corrupts anyone who carries it or is near it - witness Boromir's lunacy, Gollum's mutation, Frodo's refusal to give up the ring. The idea was to find a small group of incorruptibles, and have them carry the ring to its destruction. A large part of elven cavaliers would have been easily targetted by Sauron's forces.
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
As to your second question, the elves no longer had the strength to force their way into Mordor. Their numbers and thus their powers had declinded since Sauron was last defeated. Instead, they decided to go for stealth and surprise and tried to sneak the Ring into Mordor.
Here are direct links to all four versions of the trailer
By the way, some guy has managed to save the 640x480 version and has posted it up as a 26.12 meg zip file. So here's the link. Now I'll just sit back and watch the /. effect occur!
Let's see:
I would need a re-reading of the Tolkien Ring cycle to find more similarities. For anyone reading who hasn't been interested in opera before, I highly recommend Wagner's ring cycle. The music is nothing like prissy Italian opera. It's more like John Williams' soundtrack to the Star Wars Trilogy, only darker and more complex. Ok, end plug.
Boy, this brings back memories! Anyway, I like the anticipation that the gaps built up for me, and I wonder if today's kids don't really care about Star Wars because they see it as yet another in a long series of toy fads (i.e. Power rangers, pokemon, etc). I wonder if I'll be able to impress my own kids with the significance of Star Wars some day, if they see the movies all at once.
or I'd be able to actually see it :(. Oh well, before I went off to work they showed some footage on the news that some TVNZ cameraman had sneaked of a bunch of orcs attacking some castle. hmmm I wonder where that would be... It's been so long since I read the books. Anyway, the footage looked cewl :)
Phear my l33t homepage.
Actually, they all will be speaking with accents. Most are variations on an english accent, I believe. They have a dialog coach, a Tolkien pronounciation specialist for names and such, and apparently some advisors on the right way to pronounce ancient elvish, dwarvish, etc. The idea is for the movie to have the exact pronounciations that Tolkien intended from his notes. Peter Jackson is a big fan of the book and he is being very thorough.~ ~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Guess which wrote this...
There is a frame-by frame posting and analysis of the preview in common HTML at a great fan site for info about the movie. Go to theonering.net to check it out.~ ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?
Guess which wrote this...
Although the book is 900+ pages, am I the only person who thinks Tolkien could use a good editor, and hence only about 700 pages of it is relevant? And the animated version was pretty damn good for the time, it's just that state-of-the-art in animation is a whole lot different now. Whaddya want, Jurassic Park effects? Get real!
Besides, the animated version only covered the first 2 parts (up to the end of the battle in the Two Towers). I don't even remember it covering Frodo, Sam and the giant spider (can't remember her name offhand), although I may be wrong. So probably more like 500 pages to cover.
Seriously, I think the animated version could have been the definitive version with a bit more funding to complete it (and maybe extend it in places), or at least a very good place-marker until FX technology improved. Didn't the animator die part-way through the last installment though? I seem to remember that's what halted it, and they couldn't get anyone else to replace him, and ran out of funding.
Grab.
They decided not to send a large force because the success of the mission relied upon stealth; the entire Elvish army would more than likely fail to breach the gates of Mordor in a direct attack, so the only real option was to sneak the Ring in. Add to that that such a large force would very likely clue Sauron in to the exact location of the Ring, and their chances of failure grew even further -- Sauron would only have to send in the likes of the Nazgul to take the Ring unless the Bearer was willing to wield it in his defense, since they would be unlikely to have sufficiently powerful defenders to fend off such an attack on watch every moment of every day. The option of sending a large force was out of the question.
So why send an untried and untravelled Frodo to do the job? Because Bilbo had shown that hobbits were unusually resistant to the Ring's power, while Elves and Men would have had a very high chance of succumbing to the temptation to try and use the Ring to defeat Sauron. (Examples: Boromir atempts to steal the Ring from Frodo, Galadriel refusing Frodo's offer to give her the Ring because she knew se would be unable to resist using it which would eventually lead to her ultimate corruption.) Since Frodo was of a species well suited to resist the Ring's siren call to power, and he was already the Ringbearer, they decided it best that he should be the one sent, but included the likes of Gandalf and Aragorn in the Fellowship to make up for Frodo's lack of experience.
--WhiskyJack
PS> Also, the Ents would never have entered the War were it not for Pippin and Meriadoc's jaunt into Fangorn and their fortuitous meeting of Treebeard.
PPS> No, I'm not a fan. Not at all. *insert innocent look here* ;)
-Elendale (And thus the problem with book-to-movie rears it's ugly head...)
IANAT (I Am Not A Troll)
2 responses
1 - the cynical response - Yeah, well of course they will. Why sell us 1 cinema ticket/video/DVD when they can sell us 3
2 - the enthusiastic response - Great! This should give about 7 hours of story! Plenty of time to fully explore the whole story!
Pick the one you like best.
I have not looked forward to a movie in a very long time, but LOTR is very special to me.
I've read it on average once a year, and find that the older I am, the more I find in Tolkien to appreciate. The underlying theme of the books is, like in Genesis, the fall from grace and loss of innocence. I can only hope that the scriptwriters respected the essence of the book and did not eviscerate it in favor of an action film, no matter how great the special effects (remember Star Wars).
One Word : Napster
By the way, some guy has managed to save the 640x480 version and has posted it up as a 26.12 meg zip file.
26.12 meg? Big whoop. It is only 27.5 meg uncompressed.
Hell, even I was able to get it using Monica, so....
Oh here is the uncompressed quicktime.
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
This page spells out in painful detail why the Bakshi adaptation sucked, how many levels it sucked at, ad nauseum. It is well worth the read, IMHO, particularly for the people here who have hazier memories of the books and the films.
Not true. There were trolls in Moria, although they did little besides block out the torchlight so that the Orcs could see better. More importantly, a team of trolls manned 'Grond,' the giant battering ram that brought down the gates of Minas Tirith. Finally, companies of trolls wearing armor were mentioned in the ambush that was sprung on the Good Guys™ while they were in Mordor.
In the Hobbit, three trolls were kept up past their bedtime, and they turned to stone.
True. In Lord of the Rings, Sauron sent an artificial cloud cover out of Mordor to cover the land and provide darkness for his forces.
I just want to see their rendition of Shelob. Do it wrong, and that half-goddess giant spider will come off very unbelievably.
Agreed. I very much like what I've seen from the footage so far, though.
Quite simple really ... 1). The Ring itself CHOSE Bilbo, then Frodo. The ring had a habbit of slipping off fingers, disappearing, etc., often causing the death of the owner. To try and take the ring could bring VERY bad luck. 2). If the ring had been given to a powerful leader, like Elrond, Gandalf, Boromir, etc., they might not have been able to resist the temptation to use it. In fact, they would not! Both Galadriel and Gandalf are given the chance to take the ring, but both are terrified of the idea, because they know it would make them a Dark Lord themselves. So ... Frodo is a safe choice, because as a simple hobbit, he is almost too innocent to be twisted by the ring. Anyone else would have been subverted, and either served the Sauron or set themselves up as the next Sauron.
to take on The Enemy directly would have been too risky
What, risky compared to the "Frodo Solo strategy"? They could have given him one bodyguard, or a magic sword of his own, or at the very least a freakin' map, but they actually hung him out to dry.
In any case, there is an actual explanation of why it has to be Frodo Solo, in the book, and it isn't that one. I'd remember something like that.
Well, first off, he wasn't solo he had his companion Sam with him, and a good thing he did too. Also, he did have a "magical" sword (more like a dagger to a person) named Sting. He also received (as well as other companions) a wonderful Cloak to help disguise him.
Also, the humans did send a some what large force to assault Mordor's gates. It was only a trick though to draw Sauron's attention towards them so Frodo would have a greater chance of success.
But when it comes down to it, any large force, I mean even 10 people, would have easily of been discovered and the war would have bee lost. Stealth was the ONLY way in.
One comment on some other posts on why a group of Elves and Ents wouldn't have attacked. I dealt with the Elves already so as to the Ents there is NO way they would have gotten involved. If you read the books it is VERY clear they do not get involved in the matters of humans. To them, the world outside their forest is of little concern except finding the location of the Entwives.
While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.
May be a bit off topic, but I've heard that LOTR is a favorite read among neonazis. Probably a result of the very clear differences between wrong and right, good and bad etc...
It might also have to do with the obvious skin colour of elves and orcs, but I've never asked a neonazi...
If it is I wouldn't be surprised. Since it is also a favorite read among, sci-fi fans, musicians, writers, programmers, teenagers, role players, historians, etc etc....
These books are loved by neary everyone and that doens't just include people that are considered good.
Hobbits have a unique tendency toward level-headedness and a shallow practical view of the world. They are not tempted by power for power's sake. Gollum only used it to hide from Orcs and to catch fish. The other races would be quickly corrupted by the ring.
An army of elves might just attract a bit of unwanted attention. Don't ya think?
How Many Times have you read LOTR/Hobbit/Silmarillion, which is the best, who was the true hero (i personally would put alot of weight on Sam, and believe that his significance is highly overlooked by most), How many people use names of elvish origins.. (daeron was minstrel in King Thingol's court, and tar was the prefix added to the kings of Numenor, both in the sindarin language i THINK), etc. Also, for anyone who has read the silmarillion only once and didnt quite acquire a taste for it, re read it. i did not care much for it myself the first time i plowed through it, but the second time, (after i had re- re- re- re- read the LOTR and was hungry for more tolkien) it was much better. anyhow, heres to the movie being released on december 13, my birthday :- )
To My knowledge, not only were they being filmed simultaneously, but they were originally slated for release christmas/summer/christmas 2000/2001. this has obviously since changed, as the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) lists their release dates as december 2001, 2002, and 2003, respectively. However, those dates are obvously off by a year.. i HOPE at least. anyhow, i believe that they are doing the filming of all three movies at the same time, yes.
I bet they will not show the scene where the hobbits enter the now abandoned Tower of Orthanc and find barrels of Saruman's 'pipeweed' amongst the ruins. :-
Well can you imagine stoned hobbits in the movie ?
I can imagine the disclaimer now
Beware watching LOTR can be addictive.
Independent tests have proved that Tolkien is Hobbit forming.
Please, oh please, oh please. Someone do this ASAP. My uni's stupid NT network has tonnes of luvly bandwidth, but NO QT 4!!! ARRGHH! AND they've set it up so that only those with administrator privillages can install it! ARRGGHH! Please, someone mpeg it. please, oh please. i must see this!!
Quix0te - Wales, UK
You could write about a SWAT team of elven, that could go out, find the ring and be back before lunch, but that would hardly be an interesting read, would it????
Is is me? or does the same guy do the the voice-overs for every trailer? :)
I am the lord of the pun. Dance Knave!
I'm pretty sure I caught Liv Tyler's name in the credits.
"Never pet a burning dog."
http://godmoney.dhs.org/lotr_640_full.mov
Hurqalya
Now to load it into Premiere and convert it....
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
I think the main reason is that they were trying not to attract Sauron's attention in order to forestall any nasty attacks, and it would be a little difficult to sneak a brigade of Elves and Ents through Mordor. Given that the soil in Mordor was presumably fairly toxic (one would think), I doubt that Ents would have survived anyway.
Gimmie gimmie gimmie when it comes out on DVD!
--Baelmix
What, risky compared to the "Frodo Solo strategy"? They could have given him one bodyguard, or a magic sword of his own, or at the very least a freakin' map, but they actually hung him out to dry.
In any case, there is an actual explanation of why it has to be Frodo Solo, in the book, and it isn't that one. I'd remember something like that.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I *think* that they are actually filming everything at once, but releasing the three parts every one year mostly for post-production and marketing reasons. So, it's almost certain that either all three movies will come out, or none at all (and I'm sure they'll all come out :).
The only thing I can think of is this... what is more suspicious? A band of elven cavalry with magic swords supported by Ents, and accompanied by guides familiar with the terrain. Or a bunch of little hobbits that would NEVER EVER be entrusted with a task as huge as destroying The Ring?
Of course I waited to long to post so everyone probably has a mirror up already.
This works for windows.
This is what you do. Go to
http://www.quicktime.com
wathc the trailer, in quicktime "Add to favorites", in windows/system/ open up quicktime.qtp
look for the URL of the movie in the file, its been posted a hundred times on the site, but this is how you get it in the first place.
now show the url into your browser, watch it again, after its done, look in your temporary internet files directory and there it is. amazing.
$_='while(read+STDIN,$_,2048){$a=29;$b=73;$c=142;
Sorry this was just a Troll.
Good news, the guys at movie-list.com have a good download link. /. the poor place :-)
Now, let's everybody rush there all at once so we can
I don't think I can get this converted to mpeg.
I'm making one more attempt by trying to edit the file headers to get around some annoyances, but I have little hope of it working...
-Pathwalker
Here's how I downloaded it:
1. Download little 2k stub file.
2. set netscape to prompt before opening quick time files.
3. click on stub movie.
4. when netscape asks, choose save.
simple. Now getting it into a different format is much more tricky...
Mind sharing how you converted it?
I gave up after resorting to hexediting the header in an attempt to disable the sprite tracks so premiere might be able to load it...
-Pathwalker
Not this file - it disables save an export...
I'm working on it - this one is more tricky than most - It's crashed premiere twice so far...
If/When I get it converted, I'll post a URL.
You've received a lot of good answers here, but this pointlet has been overlooked so far:
Sauron was a overwhelming, mass-power, crush-and-dominate kinda guy. He expected the Ring to be taken up by some sort of Hero, and openly used against him. He was searching for the Ring so desperately not only because he wanted the power of it for himself, but because he feared it in other hands.
To him, the concept that the forces of good might actually wish to _destroy_ it never occured to him.
And Gollum had shown (via Gandalf's interrigation of him) that it was possible to slip into Mordor unnoticed, if you were inconspicuous enough.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
McKellen has some interesting notes on his website Worth a read...
Jón
Right click on the link, and save it to the disk!
That doesn't work because the links on the Apple and New Line page connect you to some incy wincy 9k
You still need to have the QuickTime player to be able to receive and watch the stream, but then at least you can save the file. Just look for the temp file on your drive (they try to hide it soemwhere) where QuickTime buffers the stream -- it saves the entire file so you can jump around and watch more than once without downloading again, but it deletes it when you (I'm not sure which) close the window or quit the application. The file is called something like "QTPluginTemp1234567", or just search for files created today, sorted by size. Then just copy it somewhere else before it gets deleted.
I do wish they'd quit trying to obfuscate things this way; it's so silly. For one thing, like CSS, SDMI, etc., it can never really work, so all they'll accomplish is making legitimate use (not that there's necessarily even anything illegitimate about the other uses, even if they don't like them) less convenient and pissing off customers, but they also should not even try. I understand that the "content providers" want to keep some control on where their content goes, but half the point of putting it on the web in a digital format is that people can save it, to view at their pleasure, or to show off to friends. Especially that last -- given that this is a trailer for an upcoming movie, wouldn't you think that they'd want it to be seen by as many people as possible? Letting us keep local copies can only be good for them. Probably half a dozen people will see this as a result of my keeping a local copy who wouldn't see it otherwise. They should pay me for the publicity.
But even when it's not actually better for them, they should realize that accessibility is desirable. If I just wanted to watch the content as they present it, I'd watch it on TV instead of in a low-res window on a small screen; hence, if they only want me to watch it that way, they should just broadcast it on TV. Keeping the file is what I as a customer want, and it doesn't cost them anything, so why should they go to all that trouble trying to inconvenience me, especially when it won't work anyway?
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
roamer,
One little problem: how about giving us record label and the catalog numbers for your Blind Guardian's albums? I'd like to get them but without that information, I'm not going to be able to order them online....
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
I've been hearing the rumours for this film for years upon years, I'm so glad it is FINALLY in production. If there is one trilogy that is really under exposed to the world it's Tolkien's. Star Wars is nice and all and gets props for technical wizardry but if you want good depth (Star Wars is a typical space opera with higher budget effects) you HAVE to go with LotR. I find it a bit depressing that all of the LotR stuff I have ever seen has been such poor quality and had little depth. The Super Nintendo video game sucked troll balls and I've never seen a good game reproduction of the trilogy. Maybe now with the movie exposure it will make its way into other media forms. I'd buy a MMPG if it were based on LotR or the Hobbit. Besides those you could easily use the world of the Silmarilion or the Second Age with Numenor. Fanboys unite!
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
http://www.webslacker.com/lotr
Show me some FTP space, I'll show you a 60MB trailer. Email me.
http://www.webslacker.com/lotr
If you have mirror space you'd like to spare, email me with the info.
I'm not sure if I can get around this anti-saving stuff, but in case I can, I'd like some volunteers for mirrors.
At work, I have a WinNT box on my desk and access to a RHL 6.1 box. Can someone tell me how to convert the QT file to MPG (either in Win or Linux)? I might make it available if I can convert it...
Eric
Huh??
:)
"Back to the Future" was released in 1985, part 2 in 1989 and 3 in 1990. There weren't going to BE any sequels originally, but when the green light was given, Zemeckis wanted to do 2 and 3 back to back to shorten the time between films.
That's 5 years between 1 and 3, while Star Wars was 1977, Empire in 1980 and Jedi in 1983, making 6 years between 1 and 3. How is this so different?
and OF COURSE the re-release of the Star Wars trilogy was not drawn out: the movied were ALREADY MADE!
Geez, I was 6 when Star Wars came out, and I remember getting totally jazzed up for both Empire and Jedi.
I mean, come on, it takes time to make movies, ya know
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.
May be a bit off topic, but I've heard that LOTR is a favorite read among neonazis. Probably a result of the very clear differences between wrong and right, good and bad etc... It might also have to do with the obvious skin colour of elves and orcs, but I've never asked a neonazi...
IANAN but I can see that there are certainly elements that might appeal. I always found it interesting that Tolkein and C.S.Lewis had free, white, wild Northern and Western kingdoms that were under attack from the South and the East. In LOTR there are cruel Haradrim with dark skins and oliphaunts who are a mixture of harsh noble cruelty and corrupt evil. There are the swart Southerners that have been interbred by Saruman with orcs to make slant-eyed half-men such as Bill Ferny's friends or the Isengard servants. In Lewis's work there are the Calormen to the south who have curved swords and eat oil on their bread instead of good honest English butter. The orcs in LOTR always have scimitars too instead of decent upright straight swords.
I think that this "foreigness" is a quick way to feel that the other group is not human. That supposedly is what racists and neo-nazis are all about - emphasizing difference. Tolkein was doing it for dramatic effect, utilizing something that really was probably quite common, a feeling that "Foreigners are fiends and abroad is unutterably bloody" and that "The wogs begin at Calais" [quotes from one of Nancy Mitford's characters.
All that said I still find those writers (especially Tolkein, he's not as in-your-face-Xtian as Lewis and his world has a much greater depth not matched by any other fantasy author) amazing.
I am torn about whether or not to see the movie though. I am afraid that its images will pollute the private ones that I have....what to do what to do!
The Council of Elrond discussed this very issue, and two reasons were given.
* ...or Eye. Get it?
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
>If I recall, there were no trolls in Lord of the Rings; they're not organized by Mordor
Trolls are explicitly mentioned as being among the troops commanded by the Captain of Minas Morgul on the battle before the Gates of Mordor, staged to distract Sauron from the hobbit who was at that same moment climbing the slopes of Mount Doom with the Ring. Actually these were a special kind of troll bred by Sauron, called Olog-Hai. Pippin saved Beregond by killing one.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
In trying to save the movie myself, before reading these comments, I discovered yet another way to do it. It's significantly more complicated than the rest, and I don't really recommend it, but here goes.
1. Get Quicktime Pro (by whatever means necessary) and try to save the movie. It yells at you. Apparently, they don't want you to save the movie. Reminds you of the whole DVD mess, doesn't it? Anyway...
2. Look at the page that launched Quicktime. No hints. Fire up filemon, and notice that it's reading some file in windows\temp.
3. Look at the file. It's zero bytes. What the hell? Quit Quicktime. The file disappears. argh.
4. Download the whole movie again, since they don't want you to save it anywhere... and try to copy the file. Bzzt: Sharing violation. Tricky bastards.
5. Now the fun begins. With Quicktime still running, kill Windows. Entirely. Turn off the power.
6. When the computer restarts, let Scandisk run. It'll find about 28 MB in lost clusters. Save the file.
7. Back in Windows, look at the file with a hex editor. It starts off with something that is apparently the Quicktime file header, and then either random bytes or the actual movie. Assume that it's the movie, and trim off the end of it since there's some extra crap there, but that shouldn't be too hard. (You can also look at other QT4 files and see how many ASCII 0 characters to leave at the end of the file, if you want.)
8. Watch the movie. It works. Brag to your friend about your 1337 sk1lz.
9. Accidentally delete the file that just took two hours of hacking to get. Complain to your friend because you're such a dumbass.
10. Go read the comments on Slashdot to see if anyone else has managed to get the file. Not surprisingly, someone has.
11. Not content to just blindly accept someone else's solution, try it yourself. Load the movie yet again, save it to your favorites, find the file that stores the favorites, and get the URL out of it.
12. Have Quicktime crash, completely screwing up the graphics in Windows, and requiring another restart. (Granted, this step is somewhat out of your control, but with a little luck it'll happen.)
13. Finally, just download the file (it's all one URL... complaints about this later.): http://a912.g.akamai.net/5/912/51/7f33d9e39a6b87/ a 40938a41385e948b71d7cf058bd1c8ef765cc3 f
1a1a1aaa2198c627970773d80669d84574a8d 80d3 cb12453c02589f25382
f668c9329e0375e81785ea61cd36
/lo tr_640_full.mov
14. Post your method to Slashdot (Hey Rob, what's a "lameness filter"?) and hope somebody moderates it up as Funny^H^H^H^H^HInformative.
Have a nice day. :-)
--- this comment is presented in WIDE SCREEN STEREO!!!
Actually, for the most part - yes...
There is one main guy they (meaning "Hollywood") hire to do the voiceovers for trailers (I can't remember his name) - he is on nearly EVERY trailer. It is something about his voice, and the way he does it - he can make a comedy trailer funny, and an action trailer "quickening", and a horror trailer downright scary.
There are very few of these trailer voice "actors" - and this guy is one of the top dogs...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
. . . the cartoon I will be pissed. They are going to do the movie in three installments. Each appearing about a year apart. The cartoon also did it this way, but they never finished the two towers and return of the king. I'm sure this movie has enough financial backing that it will get done. There are enough people who have read the books and loved them who will go see the movie. I'm sure that it will be better than Star Wars.
...before somebody converts it to MPEG?
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Slightly off topic, but fitting in the same thread, any of you Tolkien fans might want to try out Blind Guardian. They are very deep, hard-hitting band that writes 90% of there music around Tolkien's stories and themes. Definitely not for the faint of heart or wannabe fans- it is pretty heavy stuff, and most of the songs relate more to the Silmarillion than the Lord of the Rings (ex. "Curse of Feanor", "Mordred's Song", "Noldor (Dead Winder Reigns)"etc). Some of their stuff does pertain to the Lord of the Rings- for instance "The Lord of the Rings" song is just a rendition of the opening verse on the books- the Orchestral version of it is excellent! (for the record, these guys have been doing symphonic metal for years, way longer than Metallica S&M, and unlike Metallica, Hansi from Blind Guardian actually rights all the music for all the instruments you here in all their songs). Anyway, just a quick promo for an excellent Tolkien based band...moderate me down if you think I need it, I don't really care. Whatever you do though, check out their album "Nightfall in Middle Earth". Oh, and just a warning, Yahoo lists them as a death metal band, but don't let that worry you, because death metal they are not (I loathe death metal), they are pretty different though. For more information, go to http://www.ba-stuttgart.de/~bziller/blind_guardian /
or feel free to contact me.
Icq#:25834656
I don't respect your opinions, but I respect your right to hold them
The Ents would have had a difficult time with the Great River between Fangorn forest and Mordor.
[
I recall the big gap between Star Wars movies in my childhood, and it was way too spread. Almost all interest had died out in one before the next one began.
As for LotR, I wonder what they'll do to boost the second volume, "The Two Towers." Most people find that volume to be a hard bridge to cross between the more exciting introduction and conclusion volumes. Lots of very important things happen in TT, but it holds less interest if you're not interested in war strategy.
[
If I recall, there were no trolls in Lord of the Rings; they're not organized by Mordor.
In the Hobbit, three trolls were kept up past their bedtime, and they turned to stone.
I just want to see their rendition of Shelob. Do it wrong, and that half-goddess giant spider will come off very unbelievably.
[
He expected the Ring to be taken up by some sort of Hero, and openly used against him.
Yes, and this is actively used as a strategy by Aragorn - that is why he uses the Palantir before venturing on the Paths of the Dead - he challanges Sauron, so as to hope that Sauron is fooled into believing that Isildur's heir weilds the Ring.
This draws more of Sauron's forces out of Mordor, thus making it easier for Frodo.
Aragorn does admit later however, that he didn't expect the response to be as swift as it is - he barely comes in time.
Dracos
"Integer: a number that represents any valid floating-point value"
Short Answer from someone who studied the books (including the Simarillion) too closely for his own good...
Sauron did not take hobbits seriously. Nobody would entrust the fate of the world to a gaggle of pint-sized twerps. Elves on the other hand were a well known enemy. He had been fighting the high elves to one degree or another for millenia. He watched his lord and master Morgoth brought down by a combination of high elves and the men Aragorn was decended from. These enemies had specific patterns he could watch for. The moment Sam invoked the Phial of Galadriel to fight Shelob, Sauron knew something was up, because that was high elven magic.
Legolas was sent because he was a grey elf. High elves were simply too distinctive and obvious. Sending a high elven lord like Glorfindel or Elrond's sons would be like sending in a panzer armed with a searchlight and a cannon into a sniper position. As soon as it fired once, you would know exactly where it was. It's trail would not be too hard to follow either. Grey elves didn't have that same type of power, because they never left Middle Earth to go dwell with the not-quite-gods.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
The answer is pretty simple really: gathering together a kickass army of elves, ents, humans etc and trotting off to mount-doom to take on The Enemy directly would have been too risky. Sauron had become too powerfull and The Ring would have been captured and Suaron would win etc etc (and anyway, the Elves would never again ally with man - the last defeat of Sauron was the Last Alliance of Mena and Elves: but that's a whole other story). Now, the only option left was to get the Ring into Mordor by stealth. Hence the ligh-footed Hobbits. Gandalf knew much of Hobbit lore and knew that they were a hardy bunch and would putt up with much to acheive their goal.
For more info on this, read the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and/or TheOneRing.net
Quix0te - Wales, UK
It should also be noted that hobbits were very resistant to the power of "fading" and to the evils of the ring itself. This is pointed out numerous times in the books. The fact is that hobbits are very tough concerning resisting magic.
Yessss, precious, we haves the first postesses!
This wasn't THE most important event in the entire history of Middle-Earth, but it was certainly one of the three most important. In order, those would have been: The casting out of Morgoth (and the end of the First Age), the defeat of Sauron at the hands of the Last Great Alliance of Elves and Men (end of the Second Age), and finally the destruction of the One Ring (ending the Third Age).
There are a number of reasons that Elrond and the White Council chose not to use force to destroy the Ring, but instead sent a small Fellowship to destroy it. The first reason is that the strength of the Elves and Men of Numenor was much less than that in previous Ages. Many of the greatest Elves had been slain in prior Wars against Morgoth and Sauron, and many of the rest had returned across the Sea to Valinor. The only Elven strongholds with the strength to combat Sauron were in Rivendell and Lorien, and few of the race of Numenor remained as well (including the Rangers of the North and the Stewards of Gondor). They simply did not have the strength for a full-on assault on Mordor.
Additionally, who would they give the Ring to? Gandalf? Galadriel? Aragorn? The desire to use the Ring would quickly overwhelm anyone with that kind of power, and they would find themselves in a position to overthrow Sauron; however, they would quickly be corrupted by the pure Evil of the ring. Of all the Ringbearers, only Frodo and Bilbo Baggins were pure enough of heart and free enough of desire and ambition to actually have a chance of resisting the temptation of the Ring, and in the end, Frodo even succumbed to the Ring's desire.
Also, they did not send Frodo off "with just any friends he found along the way". Yes, the four hobbits seemed like unwise choices at the outset, but they all proved their worth by the end. However, Gandalf (in truth Olorin of the Maia) was one of the most powerful forces in Middle-Earth at the time (remember, he faced a Balrog one-on-one and defeated it). Aragorn was the Heir of Isildur, and probably one of the few Men in Middle-Earth that Sauron actually feared, and he wielded the blade that had originally defeated Sauron at the end of the Second Age. Boromir was the Heir to the Steward of Gondor, and a great warrior in his own right. Gimli and Legolas both proved to be outstanding warriors as well, felling over ninety orcs in the battle of Helm's Deep between the two of them.
When given all of the options (hiding the Ring, sending a massive force to destroy the Ring, or sending a small Fellowship to destroy the Ring), this was the ONLY choice that had any reasonable chance of success.
They are making a trilogy .... 3 full length movies .... not 1
Fundamental to the lore of the ring is the fact that while it gave immense power to whomever wore it, it also possessed that individual totally. Witness the effect the 9 lesser rings had on the riders.
... or their hero. He selflessly sacrificed himself to destroy something everyone else knew they wouldn't have the courage to do.
Gandalf himself said he could not even hold it in its hands lest he become enthralled with the power it held. The ring needed to be carried by somebody who didn't care for its power and was innocent. That person would take longer to be possessed by the ring. It took the immense willpower and self control for the elf queen not to keep the ring when Frodo gave it to her... even then she had to give the ring back to Frodo before the desire for power consumed her.
There is also the additional side-effect to the person that destroyed the ring. The ring gradually transformed those who wore it into wraiths. Thus, when the ring was destroyed, in all likelyhood, he who wore the ring would be destroyed as well as much of what gave him former sustenance would be gone. In a way, Frodo was the guinea pig of the wizards and elves
And, on a final note, in the end even Frodo failed. Were it not for Golum, the ring would have fallen back into the hands of Sauron
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Two orc battles in LotR.
The human Riders of the Rohirrim, who knew nearly nothing about the saga of the Rings, but were next-door neighbors to the smooth charlatan, Saruman. It was Saruman's Uruk-hai (white hand) orc armies that were defeated on the Plains of the Pellenor.
Sauron's orc army remained in Mordor, until there was a clash at the front gates; this was fought by the humans of Gondor.
Elves don't breed like rabbits, humans do. Elves were giving up on life, waning in power and will to go on. Rivendell was an outpost, and Lothlorien was an enclave.
It has been years since I picked the books up, but I self-studied it pretty deeply at the time. If I'm inaccurate here, forgive.
While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.
[
Even though the first movie is a year and a half away, I think this is a better trailer than some that are showing in theaters now.
The most technically impressive shots are the two that show the orc army marching through Mordor...Massive is probably the best cg software in existence. And, watching the letters get burning into the ring is just awe inspiring.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall when George Luca$ watches this. He wanted to make LOTR in the mid-eighties but couldn't get the rights to it. What did we get instead? Willow. Sad but true.
www.theonering.net has a shot by shot analysys here.
I was in their chat room earlier...watch for the preview to be mirrored around the web.
Dracos
"Integer: a number that represents any valid floating-point value"
Here's the URL for the 27.5MB 640x320 mov, direct from akamai.net. I tried severaly times putting this all together and properly "a href"'d, but slashdot just gives me a "Lameness filter encountered: post aborted" (is that because the URL is too long or something???)... so you'll have to cut-and-paste from below. SOrry!
7 /
3 c02589f25382f668c 9329e0375e81785ea61cd36a40938a41385e948b71d7cf058b d1c8ef765cc3f
http://a912.g.akamai.net/5/912/51/7f33d9e39a6b8
1a1a1aaa2198c627970773d80669d84574a8d80d3cb1245
/lotr_640_full.mov
lotr_640_full.mov (29 MB) (Now I really hate the damn AI of /., it didn't let me put the absurdly long direct URL into a href)
QuickTime Installer.zip (8 MB) (Win32 version)
I, as many others, like to actually download the files instead of downloading a downloader program which downloads something which perhaps downloads something, that you can't even save to your HD after downloading it. These links work as of my writing, let's hope nobody changes the URLs.
For some reason, Apple or New Line have rigged it so that you can't save the trailer to hard drive. Fortunately, there are two ways to get around this.
Right, I need an answer to this question from a Lord of the Rings fan. The question is this:
Given that the Ring was so goddamned important, and that its destruction was literally the central event of the entire history of Middle-Earth, why did the supposedly wise Elves entrust this mission to a young hobbit with no military experience, supported by any friends he happened to pick up along the way? Particularly as the hobbit in question had never previously been more than a few miles from his native village.
Surely, the obvious solution would have been to assign a company of elven cavalry with magic swords, supported by Ents, and accompanied by guides familiar with the terrain. It's clear from the book that the elves could raise a huge military force when they had to -- why not use it for this mission?
The really annoying thing is that there *is* a reason why this was not an option, and a Lord of the Rings fan told me what it was three years ago. I forgot it, though, and it's been driving me mad ever since.
thanks, streetlawyer
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