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Review:Fellowship of the Ring
Everyone has expectations about this movie. I imagine most of you have read the books. You all have ideas about what a Balrog looks like. What Gandalf is like. And yes, hell, even what the ring should look like. And you simply can't expect a movie to meet everyones ideas... but this thing came just as close as I could have hoped.
In short, there aren't many great movies that come out any more... but this is one of them. Everyone seems nearly perfectly cast. The special effects are nothing short of brilliant. The sets from the Shire on out look so wonderful and believable that you just wanna move in... until the Ring Wraiths show up and make everything all miserable.
Elijah Woods pulls off Frodo quite well. Yeah maybe he fell down one to many times, but the angst is believable. And Gandalf? His desire for the ring is intense and his actions are truly heroic.
I can't imagine a film adaptation of perhaps the best book ever written being done better. The first 45 minutes are a bit slow going, but once the Fellowship starts coming together I just didn't want to blink.
I could find things to nitpick about: some scenes the audio mix wasn't quite right, but that could partially have been the mediocre sound system in the theater: dialog was a bit muffled under the music. Some of the effects were noticably CG, but those were rare. Quite frankly nobody has done CG monsters as convincingly in a film to date. There was a handful of shots that looked faked, and all the rest seemed as perfect as could be.
God damn. The hype is warranted. The wait was worth it. But 12 months for the next one? At least I have my copy of FFX to keep me occupied during maybe 40 hours of the next 8,760 or so I have to wait. But who's counting?
It's based on a 50-plus-year-old book. Whoever hasn't heard of the plot by now probably has been living under a rock. Why bother keeping it spoiler-free?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
LoTR is good but not great. It does a great job of bringing a mainstream story to the silver screen, but it doesn't introduce any new concepts or demonstrate any real creativity. This makes it a good film. Go ahead and flame me for this.
Social Contract? I don't remember signing any Social Contract!
This one says:
For long sections of the film, I didn't take any notes; it's hard to scribble when your jaw is on the floor.
Da Blog
The trilogy enjoyed a resurgence in th 70's and the movie will give it another boost into the limelight again. I hope that this will always be a popular novel - a gateway into reading sci-fi/fantasy for many people. I gave it to my nephew and now he can't get enough of it.
..........FULL STOP.
The movie is amazing and I'm not gonna go into it. (Just see it)
But Liv Tyler gets on my nerves. How dumb can somebody look? Her elvish was annoying and really took me outta the movie.
C'mon Taco... high time for a LOTR/Tolkien icon on slashdot methinks...
$6.21 is the number of the beast before sales tax. Meh.
My suitemates and I went to the midnight showing of Lord of the Rings yesterday at a local theater. I was totally impressed by the movie's accuracy. The Gates of Gondor were exactly as I had imagined them when reading the book. Wow.
However, two things made my experience not the best it could have been:
1. I half expected Elrond to say "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson"
2. The audio in our showing became out of synch with the movie during the battle at the Gates of Gondor. I can't believe that I had to sit through the death of Boromir with the audio lagging by 5 seconds!
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
And I've got to grudgingly agree. The thing just kicked my ass and took it home in a box. In a very good way. I mean, I went to the showing expecting to hate Elijah Woods because of what a whiny little bitch he is, but his character got right in tune with the Hobbitt idea that I had cooked up in my brain after about the tenth reading of the trilogy.
I've already got tickets to see it again tonight. woo!
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
My boss is treating everyone in company (about 200 people) to a showing at 2pm. My god he even reserved the tickets. I mean my boss is a hugh LOTR fan, and to allow about 600 hours of work to be skipped and foot the bill for the ticket. I guess I'll have to give him a real christmas present this year!
"Get them before they get....
I got two things out of this review:
1) CmdrTaco likes his job.
2) CmdrTaco liked the movie.
Which is great (I'm glad you liked it.) But this review doesn't tell me anything about why I would like the movie, or even the #1 reason to see this movie according to CmdrTaco. It doesn't even go into detail of why CmdrTaco liked the characters, or which one was his favorite and why.
"I liked the movie and you should see it" is certainly passable for an elementary school show-and-tell, but for a popular geek website geared toward college students and adults, this doesn't cut it. Most of us have read the books, so even a little "This scene was like the book and that rocked" teaser would be helpful. At least give us one good reason to hand $8.75/person over to the movie theater!
--
SlashChick
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
Yes. Read The Hobbit, then LOTR.
Virg
The movie was the first book. The next two movies (due out December 2002 and 2003) cover the rest of the story.
Virg
The icing on the cake? The Star Wars EPII trailer!
...do we need someone Taco to mention he has Final Fantasy X?
At least I have my copy of FFX (from this article)
then play more FFX (slashdot://01/12/19/1356248)
That's two within 6 hours.
I wonder if you can still beat the game by simply repeatedly pressing the circle button. Call me jaded but the over-hyped FF7 was not that great; maybe I'm just not blinded by all the hype each time an FFn game is released.
Alice In Wonderland?
The Phantom Tollbooth?
This
They eat seven or eight times a day, like to take naps, have never been far from home and have eyes that grow wide at the sounds of the night. They are like children grown up or grown old, and when they rise to an occasion, it takes true heroism, for they are timid by nature and would rather avoid a fight.
Good god! I never thought of it before, but you have just described the vast majority of the IT department where I work. No wonder geeks love Tolkien so much.
- I understand that a lot had to be cut for time, and to add some hollywood moments here and there, but why remove the repair of Aragorne's sword? It would seem to be critical later on.
- Jackson's take on what happens to the wearer when the ring is on is... a little out of place with what Bilbo goes through in The Hobbit
- Some of the special effects for the hobbits were inconsistant. I couldn't figure out if they were supposed to be 3 feet tall or 5 (though this faded as I got more into the movie and stopped paying attention to the details of FX)
- Gollum's part has been re-worked quite a bit. In place, we're given a visual omen of doom (the creation of the Uruk-Hai). I'm not sure I like that trade-off, though it does make for a more traditional Hollywood action feel, and bad-guy training montages never get old
;-). - Everyone does a great job, but I really felt that Elrond was a little wooden compared to the rest of the cast. In just about any other film his performance would have simply been unremarkable, but the level of acting was so damn good, here....
Now for just a few things that I think were brilliant:- The eye. 'Nuff said.
- I thought that taking Tom Bombadil out of the beginning would break the pacing. Boy was I wrong! It's important in the book because we're being taken on a slow, guided tour of Frodo's education about the world. Tom is a gentle introduction. The movie simply ups the pace, and that works fine.
- Someone give Ian McKellan more money... NOW!
- The mines were perfectly done. I think that was probably the biggest challenge, visually, in the movie, and it was brilliant.
Thanks, Peter. Oh, and about making us wait a year... YOU BASTARD!Here's some alternative choices for Best Sci-Fi book ever written; add your vote!
OK, I loved the movie. Very nice. They cut the right parts and I have no major bitches about the changes... save one:
Was anyone else pissed off when Gandalf was made to look like a bit of a tottering old fool? In general, for the first 20-30 minutes, but specifically hitting his head on the DOOR? I mean JINKIES! He's a bloody WIZARD, one of the most powerful beings in middle earth. I don't recall him hitting his head on a bloody DOOR in the book!
OK, end rant. Good movie. Go see it if you haven't.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
This is a big part of the reason that I decided to go back and reread the books over the last month or two. My memory said that she didn't show up until book two, but when I reread them I realized that my memory was wrong.
There are a few sequencing problems though. The biggest one I noticed was that by the time the company gets to weathertop Gandalf should already be free of Saurman. In the book he fights a battle with some of the nine riders several days before the company gets there, they can see flashes from a distance.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
This is to the people who feel the need to bring their 2 year olds to midnight movie premieres. You shitheads are going to rot in your graves the next time you do that. If you're too fucking cheap and lazy to get a babysitter, then stay the hell home and don't ruin it for the rest of us. I like kids, but I do not want to hear them crying their eyes out because the movie gets loud, or when I go kick in their parents teeth for being selfish pricks.
Thank you. We now continue with the review.
Holy Fucking Shit
When I was 15 years old, I dated a girl named Denise. Denise was a tall (3 inches taller than myself) redhead, full of curves up top, a flat belly in the middle, and blood as hot as fire. When she graduated and left for MIT (she was a senior, I was a junior) it broke my heart.
I'll always remember one spring day in Washington, when she drove her car (she was 16, you realize) to the park. I won't go into detail, but the next 90 minutes in the backseat was one of the most incredible moments of my life, and the only thing that went through my head during the experience (which left windows fogged and two teenagers slick with sweat) was "Holy Fucking Shit".
13 years later I'm watching Peter Jackman's adaptation of "The Fellowship of the Ring" (FOTR). I'm not even going to pretend that it was even close to making out with Denise in the back of her car. But only one thought went through my head when the closing credits aired.
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
For those who have missed the last 50 years
Once upon a time, there was this bad ass named Sauron, and he made this bad ass Ring. This wasn't just any Ring. With it, he could control all of these other powerful rings and the people who used them. It also turned him into the ultimate kick ass guy. He'd sweep his sword once, and 20 men would go flying. Entire buildings were built with the force of this ring. The ultimate in evil, The Spice Girls weren't created from the Ring - but the Backstreet Boys were.
Well, one day Sauron decimating people left and right gets his fingers chopped off (not so invincible now, are ya?) and he gets destroyed. No, not really. Turns out that he put a large part of his own soul into the Ring, so as long as the ring exists, he exists. And the Ring wants to return to his master, for with it great and terrible things can be done. (Like Austin Powers 3.)
For the Ring is evil. Not as in an evil thing, but as in an intelligent thing, one that tempts and corrupts all who touch it. (Kind of like Don King. Only without the stupid ass hair.) People just looking at it lust after it (like Denise and me), they need it, and only those pure of heart can hold it for long - and even these will ultimately become corrupted by the Ring.
The ring, after betraying it's new wielder, passes from hand to hand, to Gollum who hides in the mountains, to Bilbo Baggins, who just happens to get lost in the mountains, and finally to Frodo, a young man who has no idea of the can of whoop ass he's holding in his hand.
And this is where the story begins.
Where the hell is page 53?
"The Lord of the Rings" is a very long, and in my humble opinion, rather slow series of books. Events can take months to happen, and most of the books are spent with people talking their lips off at each other. Yes, it's all cool and good and the story of nobility and betrayal is the basis for pretty much all our fantasy today. But damn, it's long in getting there.
The movie for FOTR gives the story a much needed jolt in the ass. Months are shortened to days, but they don't lose the core of the story. Just moves it along a little faster. We see Gandalf, master wizard and know-it-all at large, discovering that this magic ring his friend Bilbo has is The friggin' ring, and everything goes to hell from there. Frodo's on the run from a psychotic black-clad collection agency called the Ringwraiths - immortal bad motherhumpers who are just about unstoppable. Gandalf is being betrayed by a former friend and trying to get his old bearded ass out of the trouble he's in, and the audience isn't dragged into it, we sell our damn souls to be taken along this ride, and we love every second of it.
Yes, there are moments that are over the top. When some Elf King guys tells the 9 they are the Fellowship of the Ring and the music climaxes, it's hard not to think "All right, that was camp city". Or other moments when the dialogue is there to explain, and we have to wait through it. But the moments are few and in between. Like getting a bitter bean in your chili - it's gone before you make a bad face.
Probably the biggest problem with this is with the non-standard names that are thrown out. Just a part of the movie, but there were a few moments like this:
It's scary. People get dirty, leaves in their hair, blood in their faces, and we jump in terror when something comes around the corner and goes "Boo", because Jackman is a friggin' genius who really makes us think that the Good Guys are about to have their asses handed to them on a plate. And even when they prove what bad asses they are, we can see the odds are just so way against them, they'd better stock up on life insurance.
It's also beautiful. In the beginning we see The Shire, Bilbo's home that rolls like like the British countryside that we all dream about - full of long, green hills and farms. One of those places you want to take a vacation, then a shotgun to shoot any bastard that starts talking on their cell phone.
Then we see the rest of the world, and we're overwhelmed by its size. Inside the mines of Moria, we see miles upon miles of excavated rocks and bridges and columns, and just go "God damn, that things huge!". Or a look at the creation of a new castle crawling with tens of thousands of orcs like ticks on a dog, and it's mind boggling that anything could be so big. It's an incredible effect - and yet, we never notice it.
The Effects that weren't there
For the past 5 years, folks in Hollywood have been engaged in a circle jerk to decide who can make the best special effects. Take "The Mummy 2", a movie which had a bad plot, bad dialogue, bad action, bad concept - but the special effects were cool, so the producers figured they could feed us shit by covering it in honey. And that's just scratching the surface.
In FOTR, we never notice the special effects, because the movie isn't based on them. When we see Bilbo turn into something awful for a split second, we don't say "Wow, nice effects!" We think "Damn, what happened to that nice old guy that we've come to love?" There's none of the slow-motion, camera turning crap that doesn't do a thing for the story. But we do see a river swollen with water that turns out to be horses - but it's gone so fast and the story keeps on, we don't have a director so in love with himself that he forces us to watch computer animation for 5 minutes just to prove how cool it is. It's there, in, out, and done.
It's the subtlety that show how well the movie is made. Later in the movie a Balrog appears - a demon made of smoke and fire (kind of like the Republican party). But we don't see it for a long time - just a red glow coming towards the characters, as we watch their eyes get big, and finally Gandalf says "Let's get the fuck out of here." All right, so it's not that, but we get the idea, and without seeing this thing, we know it's bad news.
The best special effects are placed to enhance the rest of the world, and make us forget that this whole thing was made up from somebody's brain case. The hobbits aren't midgets - they look just like regular people, only shorter. I'm sure the guy who plays Frodo isn't really 4 feet high - but when he's standing next to Aragorn, he looks just 4 feet high with hair-covered feet.
Or when Galadriel, the elf queen, who is a beautiful woman (not sexy, like I want to jump her, but a noble beauty that is to be looked at, terrible in its power) turns around and reveals her own lust for the ring, her visage is still beautiful - and awful. We want to look at her and hide from her. She is the Mother God and Demon Bitch rolled into one.
It's called Acting. Look it up
So without the special effects to hinge on, that means we have to rely on the acting to carry the story. And this is where the movie is at its best.
First, Ian McKellen is Gandalf. No, he doesn't play Gandalf, he is Gandalf. Here's an old guy with a big white beard who seems just that - old, absent minded, into simple pleasures. It's a guy with crinkling blue eyes, the grandpa you want to sit in his lap while he smokes a pipe because he's a cool old guy.
He's also a bad ass motherhumper that if you cross, he will reach down your throat and pull out your spine, then feed it to you on a plate. You do not want to mess with this guy, old hair and all. There's steel in those bones, and you'll break yourself before they bend.
He's a man who suffers, who watches others and feels their pain. When he sees Frodo taking up the Ring, because Frodo is the only one who can, we can feel Gandalf's torment at the loss of innocence. When the Ring is offered to him, we know he's terrified to touch it, terrified of the temptation to use it for good, and the evil that would follow.
Elijah Wood plays an amazingly good Frodo Baggins. He's not a teenager, but an innocent young man who's thrust into this situation. We see how he suffers because of the Ring, because of how others react to the Ring, and how it preys on him and strips away that happy man we saw earlier. We suffer right with him as he moves towards Mordor and his destiny.
Each of the rest of the cast know their place is to act and entertain us, and they do that. Men cry when their companions are hurt. People actually act like they like each other, not that they met 5 minutes ago and say their lines. And I don't know what happened to Liv Tyler, who normally doens't do anything for me (something about those lips that make me think she's going to eat me - and mind out of the gutter, you), but damn, she looks lovely in here. I still don't want her naked in my bed, but I wouldn't mind snapping a picture of her on the horse and hanging it on my wall. The girl looks good
There's plenty of action to be had. Fights with orcs underground, above ground, swords flashing, arrows flying - you name it, we've got it. And there's blood, limbs and heads hacked off. Not gratuitous, a little over the top at times, but it's there for the sake of the story, and we're never quite sure if the good guys are about to punch out their tickets. Even folks like me who have read the books still get that "Dude, they are so dead" feeling, even though I know they show up later.
I'm stingy with my 10 ratings. If you want a 10 from me, you're going to friggin' earn it. Is this movie as good as sex with Denise? Nope. But it's good, it's entertaining, and it's the first 3 hour movie that 90 minutes into it I checked my watch - and was glad there were 90 minutes more to come. This only bad thing is that when you leave the theater, there's 12 months to go before the next movie.
And it's going to be a very long year.
As always, I'm John "Dark Paladin" Hummel. And that's my opinion.
PS: The Spider Man trailer kicked ass. That's all I'm going to say on that.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I found my way to a midnight+5min showing last night to see one of the first screenings I could.
;)
Wow! I have been so afraid for months (years?) now about what it was going to come out like. Ever since I heard that viewers of a pre-screening (Before Cannes last year) had to sign a Non-(negative)-Disclosure, I was doubly concerned.
Set your goals low and you can be pleasantly surprised.
I deliberately haven't read the books for a few years now, and I wanted to go into with as "fresh" of pair of eyes as I can. I avoided all the "Making of..."s. I didn't download the quicktime trailers. (well, maybe just one -- but only for a little bit.)
Sure there are places that didn't stick exactly to the book. That has to be expected.
Sure stuff got left out. (I thought they could have added 2 more hours. But then no one else would be sitting in the theater.)
But I am glad they waited this long to do the film. To do it right.
I was worried about Vigo cast as my favorite character. He did much better than I expected.
Some one complained about Liv. I'll agree, but didn't let it get in my way.
They kept the tongue of the Elves. (Subtitles for us non-speakers.) Beautiful.
The scenery is STUNNING. Allow me to repeat: STUNNING. STUNNING. STUNNING. STUNNING. STUNNING. STUNNING.
The sets are fantastic.
The visuals in a lot of respects are what were in my mind's eye.
The casting was otherwise great.
The audience (after lining up for hours -- they opened 3 screens for it as they continuted to sell out of advance tickets all day) and sitting for over an hour in the theaters, was ecstatic.
They cheered in the battles.
The crinched in horror at the Balrog.
And after over 4 and a half hours of sitting (plus the lines just waiting to get in), were visibly and audibly disappointed to see the film end.
Take everyone you can to see it this weekend. In this age of inflated box office stats, I want to make sure this film sits above the drivel that seems to otherwise draw.
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
Tolkien was a professor of english and was especially interested in old english language. LotR is as much an exercise in language and a forum for Tolkien's own "retro" poetry as an epic novel, but if you haven't ever read a better book, maybe you should put down the O'reilly and take a literature class!
This is a pretty spineless reply to CmdrTaco. Sure attack him for picking Lord of the Rings as the best book (or books, depending on who you ask) ever written, but you don't offer an alternative "best book". You just talk about a literature class and attack him for interest in computers. How is an attempt to look superior without risking anything an insightful comment? (moderators? hello?!?)
Final Fantasy had a plot, it just takes more than the cursory look that the majority of audiences are willing to give, in the US at least. I really liked the move, and would have liked it if it was live action rather than CG.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Your review? Insightful? Hahaha
That's Roger Ebert's review from today's Chicago Sun Times.
hahaha
Things I love:
Oh my god the cinematography was incredible!! Many people usually say that to mean that the landscapes were great, and it sort of implies the whole _Braveheart_ thing of the characters walking on mountain ridges while the camera pans quickly about them. LotR has those, but some of the other cinematography is just as impressive. I'm talking lighting, focusing on characters' faces on key moments, and awesome camera angles. One cool thing that I think they got from the animated movie of all things was when the Nazgul attack the Prancing Pony at Bree. You'll have to see it, but my heart was in my throat.
The acting(??)!! I couldn't believe it, but almost all the characters were well acted. I mean, REALLY well acted. I very much expected to be disappointed by the acting, because it is par for the course in any kind of sci-fi or fantasy or epic or even "big" movie. Not so here. I was blown away.
The story. It was also amazing the Jackson didn't screw it up. There were some things I wish he had kept, but brevity *is* the soul of wit, at least when 3 hour feature films are concerned. Any deviations he made seemed perfectly justified to me, and some of them were really needed to make the film flow faster. The bit with Merry and Pippin and the fireworks was hilarious, and it allowed for good quick characterization of both of them. Pippin almost seems a whipping-boy for Gandalf throughout the movie, but it's all because of his foolishness.
Stuff I didn't like as much:
Aragorn. Aragorn was probably my second favorite character in the book (next to Faramir), and I didn't like the way he was portrayed as bearing a family "weakness". He isn't really supposed to be a "weak" character that needs to prove himself. In my mind he's supposed to be a breath from the amazement of the men of Westernesse. You kind of get a glimpse of what men used to be when you see him. Not so for this Aragorn. I very much understand why he's protrayed this way; in order to be an interesting movie character he needs to grow. He needs to come out of his insecure shell and become the king he was prophesized to be. I'm hoping that once he grows he'll recapture the wonder of Numenor(sic?).
Boromir was too "evil" feeling. I never had the impression that he was more than just prideful and slightly arrogant. In the movie he feels deceitful and a little slimy. I also understand why that needed to be done, there needed to be more "undertones" within the party.
Galadriel was too mystical. She was more of a "witch woman" than one of the last of the Noldor. This is really the only one I don't think was justified, but it was very minor in my eyes. It was almost just a different way of interpreting the character, so I don't hold it against the director. The contrast between her as the "terrible queen" and the elf queen was awesome though.
OH OH OH. Gollum ROCKS!!
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Tolkein was no Shakespeare, no Chaucer, no Hemingway, no Faulkner, etc. It's impact is a tiny fraction of that of a Bible, Quran, or Tao Te Ching. It's quality isn't nearly that of a Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, or Faulkner -- just to pick a random span of good ones. I'd say that Tolkein was a great storyteller, but no good story should be that damn long ("brevity is the soul of wit" and all that), so let's just call him a good one and leave it at that.
I'm looking forward to seeing these movies, but I'm dreading all the geekish fanboy raving, overstating the magnitude of Tolkein's work. It was good, but lets not get carried away here...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I love this kind of 'review.' Absolutely no spoilers, just an overall reaction to the film.
Why the hell would I want to read an in-depth review of a film that I am getting ready to go see? It's almost as bad as those trailers that give you a summary of the movie instead of a teaser...
"And like that
One of the best perks about my job is the excuse to skip out and catch the first showing of Lord of the Rings at the local theater.
And that's so much better then free coffee, think about the number of times you can make use of it!
Look everyone, Roger Ebert is an anonymous coward posting on slashdot... oh wait.. just some plaigarist i bet. Here is the link this poster should have cited: Ebert's review of LOTR.
porp
Is there an O'Reilly book on LotR? What's the cover organism -- Gollum???
One last thing; Elrond was played byt he same guy as the lead Agent on The Matrix. Every time he said anything I couldn't help but giggle because I was imagining him in the "Mr. Anderson" lines. It wasn't his fault, it was just his voice.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
It is, anyhow, an interesting take on the film. At least AC didn't go for the karma whoring.
I have my tickets in hand and will see the film in two hours. My only fear is that the action will resemble Batman with quick close shots. I am hoping for the sweeping action of Iron Monkey.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Tolkien was British.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Gandalf - before the events in Moria - is not particularly powerful. He is subordinate to Saruman, in rank, wisdom, and power.
The bridge at Moria is were we first get a glimpse that Gandalf may be more than he appears to be.
After his return, the gloves are off - he becomes the new head of his order, given that Saruman has derelicted the post - and I suspect you'll see a lot more "ass kicking superbeing" and a lot less "kindly old wizard".
To be honest, I'm suprised and amazed at just how deeply Sir Ian and Jackson grokked Gandalf's character.
.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I read that review, too, and was about to bitch, but to the AC's credit, he did sign the review "RE".
Tom is also missing from the BBC's radio dramatization of the book, which I just finished listening to a day or two ago.
I agree - in the book, it's a fun interlude but he doesn't really add anything critical to the storyline so saving time is justified IMNSHO.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
I don't think she shows up at all in "Two Towers." And in "Return of the King" all we have is the wedding scene. I think there is a fairly substantial piece (half a page or more) about her being the beauty of Luthien returned to Middle-Earth in the first book.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
...a gnat!
The great beauty of the Trilogy in book form is the attention to detail. I cannot think of a single fictional work that I have a better mental picture of precisely because Tolkein put all the little details in there.
No, no, no. You need to reread the books. The first two books (the first volume, i.e. -- The Fellowship of the Ring) *IS* largely captured by the "bigger people". It's not until the 3rd-6th books that we see the valiance, stamina and strenghts of Hobbits in full-force. You're right in saying that Hobbits are center-stage. You're just wrong about FOTR.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
I know it sounds weird, but the addition of the Ewoks really made sense.
That's the beauty of Slashdot. The sites already finished, he doesn't need to code on a daily basis (although he could fix some of the bugs).
Personally I hope there's not too many young geeks treating these guys as gods. It's not like they are gurus of any kind. They don't appear to actively learn anything new on their own (remember the Cisco router fiasco). It's not like they're creating anything new either. I think playing video games has pretty much become their full time job aside from occasionally picking a random story to post.
I'd be real interested to know what Taco's annual salary is though.
Apparently, the film that was being fed into the projector jumped, wrapped itself around something, locking a frame in place.
I saw a frame MELT before my eyes on the silverscreen. I now have a free pass to see it again. I'm in pain. Let's hope I have better luck second time around.
Like let up on the guy... you're just jealous anyway. One geek out of the horde figures out how to enjoy life, and you're pissed at him?
My guess is that, if any one of us could lead the life we *imagine* him to be living with no strings attached or ill effects, we'd do it.
But I bet you enjoy cleaning the gutters on the house more, right? Yeah, well get back to work you gimp.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
[Gandalf, Strider & Co]... are so well-seen and acted, so fearsome in battle, that we can't imagine the Hobbits getting anywhere without them.
Having re-read FOTR this fall in preparation, I'd have to say... yeah. That's pretty much the way it is. The hobbits get saved repeatedly - by elves in the shire, by Strider the night they meet him, again by Strider on the hilltop, by the actions of the elves at the ford,... It isn't until "The Two Towers" that the hobbits start taking care of themselves, once the fellowship breaks. And in "Return of the King" they finally start giving the enemy nasty suprises.
So, yes, LOTR is about the bravery of the hobbits... but not from day one. They grow into their bravery - the Sam that left the shire never would have acted as the Sam who returned to it.
So, let's see what happens in 2002 and 2003 before we start accusing the movies of removing the lesson of the bravery of little people.
It's certainly not a spoiler to anyone that's read the book...
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Reminded me of wedding where you briefly meet alot of long lost relatives who become blurred in your memory. There were the nine in the Fellowship, a couple of Elf Lords, a flaky uncle, two big bad guys, and a token love interest. Thats 16 main characters without mentioning the minor ones. Everyone gets 15 seconds of fame and recedes into the background. If I hadn't read the book six times I would have been lost. Another recent movie- Oceans 11- has about the same number of major characters, yet I felt I knew them better.
I haven't seen it, but if this IS the case, I look forward to a time when we can have an open source project dedicated to recreating the book with CG characters.
Couldn't we do that now? What could be done with some fancy artwork, some scripting, and the quake III engine?
Sure it would take a while, but it seems like most Tolkien fans have no shortage of spare time. And then there wouldn't be any issues with "making it appealing to the general public" by shifting the focus to violence and sex.
Just my 2 cents.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
I hated the ineffectual little hobbits...
You didn't "get" the book then. The hobbits may seem meek and preoccupied with creature comforts, but over and over and over Tolkien emphasizes that they are the toughest guys around. They don't wield the biggest weapons, but the strength of the hobbit character is exactly WHY Frodo was chosen as Ringbearer, and his stength of will was shared by the other hobbits, especially Sam. (though he acts like country bumpkin most of the time, that I won't dispute)
Frodo survived an injury from a Ringwraith's blade, which was remarkable.
Pippin (maybe Merry, can't remember) even looked into some awful evil crystal ball thing in one of the books, and Gandalf said that such exposuse could have destroyed a lessed man; the hobbit recovered fully in time.
The hobbits weren't ineffective. They *saved the world*.
Sounds like an answer in Jepoardy.
New Zealand was beautiful, though many of the
scenes in the movie reminded of other movies.
I hate you so much. You watch movies, you play video games, you go to conventions. I hate you so much. Get a job. I hate you so much.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Some day, your daughter will make a geeky boy very happy!
I might see your point with some of the authors you mentioned, but Hemmingway and Fitzgerald!? I guess it is your opinion.
LOTR is great literature, IMO.
Other authors are probably more popular in academia, but I think Tolkien is deserving of
some respect as an author and a linguist.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Say what you like about Roger Ebert, this is a very nice writeup: http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/cst-ftr-lor
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
It's been said you plagarized the review. Doesn't matter - whoever wrote this also said he didn't read the books for the past few years, and it shows. I just reread the series, finished two nights ago, and I have a very different opinion.
The Fellowship of the Ring, the book, is *not* as focused on hobbits as much as you seem to believe. The latter two books, when the journey is reduced to Frodo and Samwise, is much more hobbitcentric. The first half of Book I of Fellowship is *entirely* about hobbits and their history and place in the greater world. But right after that, they (Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin) become observers of a greater world, and the focus is on the new places and old horrors they trip across. Bombadil takes a good chunk of Book I, and I have no problem with him being excised - it doesn't much add to the story being told (although it's a fantastic story by itself). After that, much of the story is Gandalf relating his wanderings across Middle Earth, and debate in which the Hobbits only say one thing (and that is a very defining thing, but is still very quiet). In Moria, Frodo is literally picked up and carried through tunnels. When they are in the hall of memories (what was it called?), and realize the Orcs are on their way, the entire discussion is among the battle veterans, not the hobbits. The story in Lorien revolves around Legolas and Gimli.
I wanted to add more, but I have to run... I have a half hour to get to the theater and grab a good seat. I'll reply back to this post later to see if I still feel the same way. Suffice to say, my point is - the books, *especially* Fellowship of the Rings, follow the ring, but most of the action, dialogue and such are *not* about hobbits (this changes when it's just Frodo and Sam picking towards Mordor).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
... we have another two years and two films to look forward to.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
LotR contains a great many dull fragments, even in the first (and best) volume (book one and two). Book three and five (the non-frodo books)are the worst of the bunch in this respect - they should have been cut down to 2/3 of their size. And I have not even mentioned all the awful songs in the book.
Also, LotT has deservedly been criticized for being very conservative. Tolkien's admiration for fixed social hierachies is obvious from LotR, and the subservient attitude of Sam for instance is more than I can stomach at times. (Yes I know it's supposed to be an old-fashioned epic, but I find it hard to admire a book that propagates values that I cannot respect.)
For your reading pleasure, the worst fragment of the worst chapter (The Houses of Healing) of the worst book (Book 5, first book of The Return of the King).
I love LotR, but not for the kind of prose as the above. And when people start calling this the best book ever written, I must correct them. It might be the best book you've ever read, but it is not by any stretch of the imagination the best book ever written.
Better books, in order of decreasing accessibility:
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
J.D. Salinger - The Catcher in the Rye
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
Vladimir Nabokov - Pale Fire
There are hundreds more, and you can find lists of great novels everywhere, but since somebody here wanted some titles, I provided a couple.
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from. - ast
I have 3 kids, 6, 9 and 11. How "age appropriate" is this movie? I'm sure its ok for the oldest, questionable for the middle, and probably not for the youngest? Note, they are all well behaved and never make a peep in movies so don't worry, we won't spoil your fun :)
You are joking, right? Milton's ideas were in the same league but the execution is dire; I love Azimov but LotR is far beyond his best single work.
I would never claim JRRT is the best writer in the world but the Lord of the Rings is a terrific work.
If LOTR is your idea of great literature, go take a comp lit class or something,
The funny thing is, it's always people that had to go to univeristy to be told what to like in Eng Lit that come out with this "LotR is crap" stuff.
The rest of the book-reading world, however, continues to like and know good work when it sees it.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
My only bitch is that I will have another bunch of dweeb kids who want to have their username/password to be:
SunOS 5.8
login: gandalf
password: 6O11uM
Please, God. Spare me.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
For a book (series, ugh) that creates an impressive world setting, I've seen no better example than _Dune_. The problem with LOTR, as compared to Dune, is it had the unfortunate diversion of actually being entertaining, whereas Hubert was much more focused on painting a picture of his world and wasn't about to get distracted by keeping the poor reader entertained.
It's all a matter of taste of course, but I can't help but find this relentless focus on world creation to be oppressively boring, mainly suitable for Dungeons & Dragons Gamemasters ...but then well there you go. Some people like all that puffery -- probably the same people that find the Bible a ripping good yarn once it gets into all those "$foo begat $bar begat $baz begat $blat" nonsense" -- but I'm much more attuned to William Golding's storytelling style that he used in the framing story for "Princess Bride": The Good Parts Version. I don't care about lineage & ancestry & history & who begat who and on what fertile earth and oh yes what crops that earth was grrowing while we're at it. *Yawn*. Skip ahead a few chapters, thank you... :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I've been waiting 20 years for this movie, and I'm fully satisfied.
The best part though? Cate Blanchett - she's dreamy.
Liv Tyler is cute and all but damn.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I also had that impression, as I was reading the series. I thought that the hobbits did indeed basically get pulled along because Frodo could hold out against the temptation of the ring, and in many instances the others in the Fellowship called him "Ringbearer" and underestimated his abilities. I got the feeling that the only one of the whole group that saw the Hobbits for the heroes they turned out to be (before they actually did heroic things) was Gandalf, and that's because he was Istari. I'll be disappointed if Frodo and Samwise get sideline treatment in the next two movies, but in FOTR it seems appropriate.
Virg
First off, I thought it was really good, and the flaws were minor. That said:
The movie gives away what's going on with Gandalf before Frodo reached Rivendell. Most everyone knows anyway, but I still preferred the effect of the book where they're really hoping Gandalf will show up any minute, and it's a big mystery why this wizard, who's always on time, is late.
Frodo doesn't shout anything at the Nazgul on Weathertop. Having him shout Elbereth and saving himself long enough for Aragorn to get back helped to set up the effect where Frodo sometimes just does the right thing, without knowing that it's right, because he's fated to be doing these things.
The effect of wearing the Ring was a bit over the top. If I were Bilbo and that happened when I put on the Ring, I'd have thrown it away long before finding out that it made you invisible. And I'd have never worn it for as long as Frodo does near the end.
Some of Moria didn't make much sense. They were surrounded by a huge army with range weapons and good vantage points. Then they're saved by the balrog, which scares away the orcish horde. The orcish horde almost certainly could have done them in with a bit of persistence. Then they cross the broken stairs. If they were fleeing the balrog, it must have ended up behind that area when it crumbled. So how did it catch up with them at the Bridge? It can't fly or anything, and it didn't look like there was a way around that chasm. And if the stairs were in that bad shape, they'd probably have broken under Balin's group.
Merry and Pippin didn't intentionally join Sam and Frodo. It saved a bit of time, I guess, but it seemed odd that they'd follow him halfway across the world after running into him randomly in a field.
Things I thought they did particularly well:
Bilbo, when he sees the Ring. I thought for an instant he might actually be able to take it away. Yow. Also Galadriel, when she sees it. I noticed that, despite the transformation, she didn't actually reach towards it, and Frodo didn't draw back.
Aragorn running into Frodo near the end. I was worried that it would be bad, because it wasn't in the book at all, but it worked really well. They really got what Aragorn would have done, had he found Frodo, and having it happen helped demonstrate his character even more.
The Nazgul looked more true to the text than my imagination was. The cloak is a real cloak, the horse is a real horse, and the rest is shadows.
I wished:
They'd had the camera swoop through Middle-Earth from important event to important event. The movie didn't really give the idea of Middle-Earth being a really long walk; one thing I liked about the book was the feeling that there was a really big world that they go through.
Frodo had worn the ring when he was about to try crossing the lake. But that's just because I wanted to see the boat launch itself. Plus he could have just gone by the orcs.
It had been winter outside Lothlorien, for the contrast.
And a couple dozen tiny details they didn't bother with.
Speak for yourself. I love that guy. He rocked in Matrix and he rocked in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. If he's typecast in your mind as Agent Smith, watch Priscilla. I was watching Potter with the kids yesterday and they played the FotR trailer. It was the first time I spotted him as Elrond - one more reason to see the film.
garyr
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
How about Pixar? Monsters Inc. was pretty convincing. I even felt like I had to pee when the little girl did the potty dance.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If you don't want to know the answer to the subject, stop reading NOW!
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Answer:
Aragorn gives them to them. (I haven't actually seen the movie yet, going at 10:30 tonight, but I asked a friend about this very point)
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
PLEASE someone with moderator privileges mod this down! As has been said, this is a review by Ebert.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
Tolkein was no Shakespeare, no Chaucer, no Hemingway, no Faulkner, etc.
... mishmash, baldly told, with little style. Moving on to Spenser, there's no doubt that Spenser's poetic and descriptive gifts are far above Tolkien's - when he's on. A good part of the Fairie Queen, however, is dull and lifeless, and if there's an overall plot to it, it got lost somewhere.
No, he wasn't, but then, few authors are. Tolkien's major relative failings are his prose style, which is servicible and clear, but rarely memorable, and his characterization, which is somewhat flat, without being too cliche'd. His strengths, however, put him among the greats of our century. If anyone has managed to create a complex world with a multi layered, epic mythology and married it seemlessly to a moving and relevant plot, it's escaped my attention. You've compared him to Malory, which is a good start - Malory takes the mishmash of Arturian myth and turns it into a
Moving on to Chretien DeTroyes, again, as far as I can tell in translation, he's a much better stylist, but his organizational skills were lacking. The Eddas and Sagas have a baldness of style that can be appealing but again, don't quite make a coherent whole. I could go on and on, hop, skipping and jumping in and out of the fantasy genre, but I'll save us some trouble by saying that I don't know of anyone in the field who's come up with a world of this kind of depth and integrated it so well into a meaningful story.
As far as the rest of modern literature is concerned, what are we comparing him to? SF novels? - not many can come close to him in that field, either. Mainstream literature? I don't suppose Tolkien had much to say about middle class angst in America or the joys of growing up in the ethnic subculture of the week, which seems to be what the modern novel has devolved into. There are a lot of good novelists around these days, but they have little to say that a lot of other good novelists aren't saying either. There were a lot of good novelists of the last century who aren't being read anymore. I can be fairly certain in 500 years that people will be reading Kafka, Joyce, and Faulkner, and to a lesser extent Hemingway. And yes, they'll be reading Tolkien. He's already had an enormous influence on culture - not just in the fantasy genre, but in the concept of creating a fictional world so thoroughly that the reader/viewer has no choice but to be caught up in it totally. He was the one who showed the creators of Star Wars, Star Trek and Dune how it had to be done. Anyone who wants to create a unique place for his characters to interact with depth HAS to study Tolkien and how he did it. He had his weaknesses as a writer, none of them fatal, but in the matter of world-making, he was the master.
> Especially that clip of him asking "Do you have the ring", it seemed too intense on the preview.
You need to remember that in this scene, the Ring really, really wanted to be in Gandalf's posession, and Gandalf really, really wanted the ring, and only through supreme effort (and telling Frodo never to offer him the Ring again) was he able to resist its corrupting influence. You'll find on reading the book that the image of everyone who asks Frodo this question calls to mind a bit of wide-eyed, lip-licking overattention. Remember, the Ring corrupted everyone who touched it (and even some who didn't), with the sole exception of Tom Bombadil.
Virg
Heh. I've been waiting all day for this review to get posted. ;-) I made it to the 12:01 AM showing Tuesday night (technically Wed. Morning). It was well worth not getting to leave the theatre until after 3AM to watch the movie.
The review is right on. I had expectations as well as anyone else. I've read the book before, and I'm a few pages short of finishing the first part of the trilogy now, so everything was fresh in my mind.
Of all the changes (there were plenty; mostly omissions), they were all chosen well to fit a screen play. The beginning was slow, but it moved much faster than the book; they got rid of years of non-events that were passed off in the book as just waiting around.
Arwin being written in more to the early story was nice, and I must say I'm very pleased with her performance. There were doubts as to her ability as an actress, but I think she performed magnificently. She was the only character who was very rewritten IMHO. Gandalf was a bit kinder/gentler than the Gandalf in the books, and Elrond a bit less so.
I'm still a bit confused about Aragorn's broken sword. Did it get resmithed and I blinked during that part of the movie, or did I misread that page the other night in the book when I thought I read that it was reforged at Rivendell right then? Oh well.
In any case, before I ramble too far, as with any movie adaptation there was a great deal of nuance lost from the book, but given the exhausting detail in the book and the tight constraints on a movie (even if it IS 3 hours long) it's difficult to imagine any improvements.
Well done! Watch it over and over again.
in the movie saruman is posessed by evil... he is a slave of sauron, made himself slave because of fear.
in the book saruman wasn't a slave. he was ambitious. powererhungry. the power corrupted him. he wanted to bekame the DARK LORD himself!
there we can see that even halfgods... yeah, saruman was one of the mayar, as gandalf and sauron were... we can see that even halfgods are human.
but there it goes. the visuals are stunning. the epic is stunning. but the movie goes not very deep as the books do... too bad for a missed opportunity.
p.s. ok well then, we forget about bombadil and those zombies. ok we forget about glorfindel... one of the most powerful and eldest elves at all... but damn jackson should have not forgotten about the gift scene in lothlorien... these 10 minutes would have explained damn much about the background and would help to understand why gimly and legolas became friends and gimly stopped about mistrusting elves.
p.p.s. legolas rulez both in the books and in the movie
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Hey, where is Jon Katz' parallel review saying "They did not get the true flavor of the hobbits...Frodo was really more like an unloved geek and that doesn?t come through in this movie. All in all, good special effects, but really just another example of rampant globalist corporatism."
naw - let's do it in ASCII-art!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Well, I was thinking that if the "sacrifice story for action" motif was real, we'd see a lot of the fight in Rohan and less of the two Hobbits crossing over at Minas Morgul. It wouldn't break my heart to see more of Gimley bustin' heads, but it would take something away from the whole "Hobbits as children growing up" theme.
Virg
Exactly! I agree wholeheartedly. Massive amounts of dialogue are omitted from the movie; it seems to be moving at breakneck speed the entire time.
Now, I'm not saying this to suggest that I dislike the movie, and I certainly sympathize with the problem the movie makers had: to keep all the dialogue would probably have doubled the movie's length. So I can't fault them for it, and I think that they did as fine a job as could be expected.
I loved it. It's a fabulous movie. I think I would have liked it better if I wasn't so familiar with the books, though, which I too have read at least a dozen times, simply because I would not have had expectations about all that missing dialogue.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Jack Valenti: Gentlemen, we have a problem. I've been surfing some web discussion boards, and it seems that many idealistic Geeks and Nerds of the world are angry about the MPAA and the DMCA! They're calling for boycotts! What can we do?
Studio Exec: Don't worry, Jack. We'll just make some more flashy movies about time travel, robots, and hobbits. These so-called "idealists" will go nuts. They'll line up days in advance to purchase overpriced tickets. They'll brag to one another about how many times they've seen the movie. Then we can use the profits to give our lobbyists salary increases, and to bribe more congressmen.
Jack Valenti: Excellent
But of course, Dune is not the greatest book ever.
Quite the opposite in fact.
I'm not saying LOTR or Tolkein are bad, because they clearly aren't. As you note, there were certain things that he did very well. My problem is that it feels to me like a lot of other aspects of his work suffered because of the focus on the setting, and for me that makes it impossible to consider anything he wrote as being among history's best ever.
Moreover, time hasn't yet had a chance to cull out the best stuff. Shakespeare, as I understand it, was much less appreciated in his day than Christopher Mallory (thus all the Mallory jokes in "Shakespeare in Love"), but came to be admired later. I think it's too soon to judge whether *any* 20th century work qualifies as "best ever" yet -- even James Joyce's _Ulyssess_, which I'm kicking myself for not mentioning in the original post. At the end of my life, hopefully 50 years or more from now, I might revisit that view, but for now, all this talk about best ever just feels short sighted & naive to me.
But then hey, this is Slashdot, after all... :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I know, I'll go download it and watch it here!
[3 hours later]
No one has it yet. Lazy slacker pirates....
-Legion
Doesn't Gandalf already have one of the Elven Rings of Power before he goes through Moria? I think he's subordinate to Saruman in rank only . . .
I wanna hear more about Denise.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
If I look at it like just another adventure movie it gets thumbs up.
However if I look at the book I have to say the movie doesn't convey most of what's important. The story of The Lord of the Rings it's nothing special. What makes the book special is its language and the amazing detail with all the linguistics, anthropology, mythology, poetry, genealogy, geology, etc that J.R.R. Tolkien spent many years researching. By looking at the movie I just see a not so original story with plenty of action and a neck breaking pace. I think the characterization, imagery and locations are very good but not enough to recreate the content of the book.
This movie is probably the best of all the possible renditions given the constraints but in all I think it's a poor reflection of the original work.
Flame away!
To those who stayed until the end of the credits:
Right near the very end there were a couple of lines of what I presume to be elven text. Are there any elven-fluent Slashdotters who happen to know what they said?
I'm extremely curious, and haven't been find the answer anywhere...
~Matt
That isn't true. The only part of the events up on the hill of sight are the meeting of Frodo and Aragorn -- that didn't happen in the book. Even the part about Sam starting to drown is form the text.
Did anyone notice:
1. The song Gandalf kept singing when he was int he Shire? "The Road Goes Ever On"...
2. The comments made (mainly in the Shire scenes) that were the titles to the chapters in the book?
I thought it was kinda neat...
Technically, it's one book conveniently split into three books because they didn't print books that big back then. So technically TT and RotK don't actually "start"
:)
I haven't seen it yet, but from the previews Gandalf doesn't seem how I pictured him from the books.
I thought his beard should be longer and his eyebrows bushier. But these are tiny nitpicks; Gandalf otherwise looks very much like I had imagined.
--Jim
Its explained in the book, which is why this should not be modded up.
Really want to know? The Sauron you see in the movie and the books is merely (and quite literally) a shadow of his former self, add to the fact that when he made these rings he was like any other Man.
Think about it, if you're big, ugly and act evil no-one would ever take a gift from you. But if you act nice and deliver gifts that seem to be generous why refuse them? And when these gifts were delivered no none knew about the one ring.
Matt
For what it's worth, I've written my own review. It's oriented toward those familiar with the book, and contains some "spoilers" (for those who, unlike me, think a film adaptation of a well-known work can contain spoilers). Enjoy!
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Who are you to choose the best book ever written? Who am I to choose that either?
Sorry you are correct, and you are so very wrong.
The best book ever written only exists in your heat and mind, no amount of "its poor literature" will suffice. I've read countless books, yet always return to Lord of the Rings. To me it is indeed the best book ever written.
Yes I know that you're trying to distinguish between the written word and how it reads to literature, but in the real world it does not matter. To individuals it does not matter, in fact it all comes down to opinion.
Shakespeare quite frankly, sucks. Why? It out of date, the prose is old and not used anymore, but why should that diminish its worth?
Matt
Bombadil, as wonderful a character as he is, did not contribute anything to the story. The Old Forest and Bombadil were mere side excursions in the book. I would have loved seeing them in the movie, but I can certainly live without them.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Read more than one. Of course you are right, but each play, each sonnet represents humanity of course, but also his/her time in which it is written.
I knew digging at Shakespeare would solicit a response, but do think of the points I am trying so horribly to convey.
Matt
Well, I'm enough of a geek to see it twice today. I'm well-acquainted with the books, but not such a nut that I've read the Silmarillion. Smiley. Here are some observations, with spoilers:
Honestly, I was a little disappointed the first time. The reasons may have been personal, since I know the books pretty well, but I nevertheless had this feeling. Some nitpicks --- the direction seemed too choppy in some places, to the extent that I wasn't buying a reasonable passage of time. Gandalf leaves the Shire, and is suddenly at Gondor (which was unnamed --- probably a mystery to any newbies). He then shows up back in the Shire. In the books, this takes something like 17 years before he pieces together evidence for Bilbo's ring to be the One. It is nowhere near that long here, but how long was it? Gandalf says the march through Moria will take 4 days, but it really seems like the same day that they emerge. I know we can't tell the passage of time easily in the mines, but maybe there could have been some short shots of eating and sleeping. My wife, a LOTR newbie, thought that they were only in Lothlorien overnight, when they were supposed to have been there a couple of weeks to rest and mourn. These are nitpicky things, but they added up to a rushed feel. There was no mention made that the Sword that was Broken was reforged. Maybe this is revealed later. It would have been nice to make more obvious how the Elves fate is bound to the quest --- that much of their power is derived from the 3 rings they own, and that will end when/if the One is destroyed. At Bree, Strider never mentions that he is Gandalf's friend, so one could wonder what the heck he is doing there, and why the hobbits should follow him at all. The thing that bothered me perhaps more than the others is the allegiance between Saruman and Sauron. Saruman even uses the Palantir to "talk" to Sauron and do his bidding. Didn't Saruman want the ring for himself in the books? It is much more interesting that way, and I can't imagine why that was changed.
All those nitpicks aside, the second viewing was wonderful. I knew the discrepancies the second time, and could sit back and enjoy the scenery and the score. The books are so dear to me that it is really hard to give the movie some kind of objective rating. Other than small things like the above, the movie matched very well my imaginings. It is now one of my favorites of all time, but that hasn't as much meaning as it would normally because I would probably love a movie consisting of two guys in t-shirts reading the book to each other. I have a hunch that with the next two, the pacing will improve. There just aren't as many different scenes and landscapes to cover, as well as no need for as much introductory material. The finished trilogy should be nothing short of tremendous.
Can't wait to see "Frodo Lives" spray-painted in the NYC subway system again :)
1) The movie didn't explicitly mention that Galadriel was wearing one of the Three Rings. That's important, as well as the fact that when the One Ring is destroyed, so will be the elven rings' powers.
2) Frodo stabbed one of the Dark Riders on the Hilltop before he was stabbed; he didn't just fall and cower from them. They didn't really need to make him look weaker in the first fight, did they?
3) It's OK they left out the long poems, but I think some of the essential Tolkien quality is missing, and I think it was some of the poetry. They snipped "All that is gold does not glitter / Not all those who wander are lost" which is my favorite Bilbo poem.
4) They didn't include Sauraman's magical cloak ("... an old man, swathed in a great cloak, the colour of which was not easy to tell, for it changed if they moved their eyes or if he stirred".) It would have been nice, cinematically, if when he was confronting Gandalf, he threw off his white cloak and had the multi-color cloak on underneith.
...Saw it at 10pm on Tuesday, since it got released earlier in Canada!
HOWTO get better dates on slashdot
...Tom Bombadil, is all I have to say.
If LOTR had any "so on begat so on" bible type bits then he was it.
"I'm Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo, something something something, now rhyme with 'Willow'"
In short GREAT CALL! He shat me.
:)
Personally, I felt it suffered from Potter's syndrome (I know the story line too well to be surprised; I would have found the scene with Galadriel really much more intense if I hadn't known the outcome, for one example), but aside from that it met my every expectation. I was really impressed with how true to the plot they were able to be within the limits of 3 hours of film.
But in the end, the movie will make it or not in the box office based more on the non-fans reactions than the fans. Here's looking forward to next Christmas.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Was anyone else as impressed by the soundtrack as I was? The music was set perfectly to the movie.
I want to go to the movie again, in part just to hear the sound.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
NEWSFLASH :
Nerds like The Lord of the Rings movie.
Education is the silver bullet.
Wait-- no.
:) Read the appendix of Return of the King for such history.
Numenor is a Kingdom off in the sea, halfway between Middle-Earth and the Undying Lands where the elves come from (the Gray Havens). It was a gift to Men when they helped the elves recover the Samril(sp?) long ago.
The Kings of Numenor lived longer then other men, due to their proximity to the Undying Lands, and held great favor with the elves. However, they were given one edict-- do not sail further west, do not attempt to reach the Undying Lands.
Eventually, they got somewhat greedy. There were two factions, the ruling ones who wished to reach the Undying Lands, because it was their birthright, and such, and then the Faithful, who wished to obey the edict of the elves. The attempt was made, nevertheless, and a great wave swept over and destroyed Numenor, which is now 'under the sea', as it is stated in the books a few times.
The Faithful escaped back to Middle-earth, and established Gondor, a great Kingdom under Elendil. The Kingdoms to the north, such as Angmar, are the ones which were destroyed due to war, not Numenor.
One final note-- the Numenorian blood has finally run true in the line of the Kings (and even the House of the Stewards)-- both Aragorn and Faramir are essentially full-Numenor-Men, with all the power, strength, and extended-lifespan it possesses.
There.
Funny, I just saw Peter Jackson's adaptation. I didn't know there was also one out by this Jackman fellow.
Cough, cough.
#1: the movie has a subtitle. it is "lotr: travel new zealand". i have never been to new zealand. i have never really cared much to go to new zealand before lotr. "xena, warrior princess" was pretty at times, but i had no idea. this movie has put more fire in my loins to visit those antipodes than ever before. god damn what a gorgeous country! the new zealand board of tourism should bend over and kiss peter jackson's ass and write him a check in the 8 figures for all the image building he has done for them.
;-)
#2: the film clocks in at 3 hours, but i didn't even notice. that is unbelievable, i am quite the time fidget. all i was thinking 2 seconds into the credits rolling was show me book 2 NOW! time definitely flies when you are having fun. i really can not wait 12 months. they should have made it 3.5 hours or 4 hours. put the barrow wights back in (i did miss them, but this is minor overall). show me the directors cut on dvd in 5 years clocking in at 5 hours. PLEASE!
#3: i haven't touched or thought much about lotr since i read it at age 9. yet it all began to come back to me about an hour in. when they are entering the mines of moria, i remembered that octopus thing in the lake outside the entrance before they revealed it on screen and i suddenly got one of those childhood flashbacks to the nightmares that damn thing gave me when i was reading the books. i can not describe the feeling of dejavu, long buried childhood nightmares, and amazingly dead-on special effects intersecting all at the same time, but i will tell you it involves hairs on my neck standing up.
#5: peter jackson and crew: well done, well done, well done. bravo! you guys had a million chances to fail miserably on this adaptation, and a very tiny window to satisfy. you did much more than that. you took my jar of jaded expectations and smacked me on the head with it.
#6: you heard it here first: this movie will be a cultural phenomenon like titanic or the matrix was. i already am planning on see it a second time. be prepared for blockbuster earnings and tales of fans seeing this thing 20 times over before the new years and chatter about it on the morning talk shows and in elevator rides.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In my opinion, perhaps in some ways, yes.
I read the book in 1984, and still remember all the names etc. (When I still forget my best friend's name from time to time...)
What they left out, one did not miss. (You know what they took out, but it was of little impact... I'll wait for the director's cut or something...)
The beauty, fear, angst, joy, excitement is much more so in the movie than in the book. The movie replaces thousands of words with one image, and thus had the time to give the book it's due credit in story.
Casting/acting was brilliant.
Only one thing grated my nerves: "Let's hunt some Orc"
One can't have everything!
PS: 3 rows in my cinema was double booked: I carried in a lounge couch from the hall outside rather than get free movie tickets for another time... (this received a cheer from the audience...)
:))
Well, I must admit, I voted for LotR as best book in more than a couple of polls over the years, but usually because the rest of the choices were utter nonsense. And it certainly ranks very close to the top in terms of books I've read (actually, I like Silmarillion more).
I must staunchly disagree with you concerning the most enjoyable parts of LotR, though. The second volume is by far my favorite, followed by the third volume. I enjoyed the first volume the least. Also, the "non-Frodo books" are the more enjoyable parts, IMO. Tolkien himself noted that it seemed that everyone had a different favorite and least favorite portion of the book... and that no two people could agree on which is which.
Finally, I note one of your points:
"I find it hard to admire a book that propagates values that I cannot respect."
Hello, what??!! So, just because you disagree with an author's values, you cannot respect the literary value of the work? What kind of crack have you been smoking?
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Later I realized how appropriate it actually was, and I think Tolkein would've agreed. Arwen Undomiel is the great-great-granddaughter of the elvish princess Luthien Tinuviel who dared the gates of hell (Angband) to recover the Silmarillion and to be with her lover, the mortal man Beren. She was the great-granddaughter of the foresighted and brave elvish princess Idril Celebrindal, who led her people out of the doomed city of Gondolin during the War of the Silmarils. She was the granddaughter of Elwing, who threw herself into the sea rather than let her estranged relatives the sons of Feanor take the Silmaril by force. And last but hardly least, she was the granddaughter of Galadriel who helped lead the Noldor out of the Blessed Realm into Middle Earth to fight the War of the Silmarils.
Having her take the place of Glorfindel in fighting off the Ringwraiths is entirely in character.
"I his bow, and spun and wove, likes you." Vere de Vere out of my mould's mouth dragged me of the voluntary apes.
Just got back from the movie, it's 2:13AM and I have to work tommorow but I don't care, I think I'm going to be up until dawn reading Two Towers.
:) Confrontation between Frodo and Gandalf is BEAUTIFUL. McKellan (sp?) will almost certainly have a nomination for this movie, as should Holm for supporting. After the party is where they really start slicing and dicing. There's almost no sense of time passing between Bilbo leaving and when the shit hits the fan. After Gandalf entrusts the ring to Frodo, he leaves in a hurry, we see him surveying Mordor, and reading up on the ring inscription, then he's back in Bag End all freaked out, and convinces Frodo to leave at once, literally pick up a cloak and out the door. (The riders are already asking questions by this point) No long planning, selling Bag End, to the Sackville-Bagginses, etc.. all gone. Gandalf tells him (and Sam, with the whole window scene) to go to Bree where he will meet them at the Prancing Pony. He tells them he will consult Saruman on what to do and leaves, shortly later we see his battle and imprisonment at Isengard. Frodo and Sam just happen to run into Merry and Pippin stealing from Farmer Maggot's (whom we never meet) field. Then there are some scenes with them evading the riders (no encounter with the elven band), and then they are in Bree. No Old Forest, Tom Bombadil, Barrow Downs or Wights.
:)
:) Legolas is exactly as imagined, DAMN he's good with that bow. Bean's Boromir I thought was a trifle too evil and "spot the bad guy"-able, in the book I always got the impression he was the thoughtful, patriotic type, who only really falters briefly at the end.
:) Balrog is better :) The whole Bridge of Kazad-dum and flight from Moria is better than I could have imagined. No dwelling at Mirrormere though, and no Orc army pursuing the Fellowship and getting butchered by the Lothlorien Elves, which is a pity. No sleeping on a platform, no blindfolded walk through Lorien. The tree city is very cool though. I've read some complaints about Galadriel, but I thought she was excellent. Maybe a little bit more witchy than the book, for sure, but very effective regardless. Her speech to Gimli which has a very transforming effect in the book on his relationship with Legolas is missing. Frodo doesn't see the "figure in white" in Galadriel's mirror, which was always the one image that stuck out to me in the book. Also, Frodo doesn't discover she is a bearer of one of the Elf Rings. I bet Jackson didn't want to have to explain why the Ring-Wraiths became evil and twisted, but Galadriel is still good. I wish they had put a bit more effort into Lothlorien, I wonder if there will be a director's cut of this movie?
.... sleep.. no... must.. read.. farther.. my.. precioussss..... we cannot get out... they are coming...
This is not intended to be a review, just a random compilation of thoughts and perceptions concerning the movie in no particular order. Apologies for any spelling/grammar errors, I'm not going to take the time to proof read and correct anything after I write it. There will probably be SPOILERS, but the story's pretty widely known anyway, so what's the big deal?
I feel almost like I just woke up from the best dream I ever had, the movie has an almost dreamlike, surreal feel to it because it flows so fast, glosses over so many details, because it has to, the story and world is so vast, and they've packed so much in. I've been trying to replay the entire movie in my head ever since I walked out of the theatre, savouring every scene's memory before it fades. And I know I will get more from it another time through.
I have read the books before, a long time ago. I re-read Fellowship a few weeks before the movie, to have a fresh image for comparison. Watching the movie felt like reading the book, and that's the highest compliment I can pay it. Most of the dialog is changed, and tons is skipped, despite a blistering 3 hours where not a second is wasted.
OK I'm really going to get into some major SPOILERS now, last warning for anyone who hasn't seen the movie and wants maximum surprise.
-
-
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Bilbo's party was excellent, very true to the book. Wish they included more of his final speech. No flash-bang either from Gandalf, but all is forgiven for his fireworks
I imagined Aragorn with a deeper voice, but other than that tiny quibble, Viggo is perfect as Strider. Weathertop is great, the battle is actually on top. Frodo/Ring-Vision is very cool, everything is ethereal and ghostily flaming. Ringwraiths are genuinely creepy. They camp in the petrified Troll glade from The Hobbit but don't discuss it at all. Arwen replaces Glorfindel's role as Frodo's rescuer, and there are a few brief romance moments between her and Aragorn in Rivendell. Liv Tyler gives a very mature and believable performance; it actually stands out. I was surprised. The Council of Elrond was reeeeeeally short. No storytelling. I agree with other posts that I still see Agent Smith when I look at Weaving. Kept expecting him to pull out a cell phone and say "They have the ring. Find them and destroy them. I hate this place; this smell. I must leave--for the West." but I digress. He still does a good Elrond, it's just that he did such a great Agent Smith
John Rhyes-Davies is absolutely unrecognizable as a loud angry Gimli, he's great
One real gripe: Gimli was expecting a warm welcome at Moria, he had no sense of foreboding or worry at all. In the book he was hoping to find something, even though messages from Balin's little decorating team had ceased decades previously. In the movie he bellows confidently about dwarven hospitality and roaring fires and such they can expect, while Gandalf and Strider exchange knowing glances about the horrors of Moria. It just doesn't make any sense for their conflicting attitudes towards Moria, with no discussion or resolution.
The battle at Balin's tomb is greatly extended, in the book they essentially just throw the Orcs back momentarily with a flurry of flighting, retreat down some stairs and Gandalf brings down the ceiling. Cave Troll is cool
No gollum/log spotting on the Anduin. The giant Gondor King statues are breathtaking. They stray a bit into Two Towers with the Orc attack, Boromir's death, which is a better place to end it, I thought. It ends with Frodo and Sam on the brink of Mordor, and Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn in pursuit of the Orcs that captured Merry and Pippin. Saruman seems way more in league with Sauron than in the book... but I think it still likely he will chase his own ambition in the next two films.
Well I guess that's a long enough comparison of the book.. What would I give this movie? 98%. This is truly a unique movie... and to think that this is only a third of it, the other films should have the same momentum and feeling throughout. I can't wait to see it again, or the next two films.
Time to
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I was, on the whole, disappointed. I wasn't fussed about most of the plot changes, whether major (Bombadil) or minor (Frodo opening the doors of Moria), especially where there was a sensible reason (e.g. Frodo's opening the doors showed the hobbits' love of riddles). I was fussed when the change seemed pointless (why not have the monster slam the doors shut and pile rocks and trees on it, as in the book?). And I was very fussed when the changes trivialised the book; having the council degenerate into a near fist-fight was childish, overblowing the antipathy of dwarves and elves and ensuring that no discussion took place of the three options for the ring (destroy it, use it or lose it); having Bilbo seem ferocious and vicious when asking for a final viewing of the ring was an inaccurate portrayal of its power; and having Frodo deteriorate immediately he is wounded at Weathertop actually serves to trivialise the power of the wound, by losing its insidious nature.
But my greatest beefs were with characterisation and dialogue. Both of these were, from time to time, shamefully trivialised. The hobbits appeared to be no more than children; in the book, it is clear that although merry, they are in no way child-like. Saruman was portrayed not as someone who has lost his wisdom through his own arrogance in using the Palantir, but as someone who is and always was evil, notwithstanding references by Gandalf to the contrary.
The dialogue issues were even worse. I was worried that the occassionally portentous speech of Tolkein's characters would jar when portrayed on screen. It never did. But the new dialogue frequently trivialised the characters. The most unforgivable line was Aragorn's comment about "let's hunt us some Orc" at the end. A close second were the endless comments from Frodo about how dreadful it being away from home was. It's not that he doesn't state in the books that he's unhappy to be away; he does. But he doesn't whine, and he doesn't keep restating it. He is stoic. Stoicism is at the centre of his character.
A final complaint: CGI was pretty good; many sets were really good. But I felt that Moria was nowhere near as awful (in the full sense of the word) as the book; and Lothlorien and Rivendell did not feel ethereally beautiful, they felt plasticised.
All in all, the film was not what I'd hoped for.
can be found here.
And you're right, it's awesome.
-----
Liberty uber alles.
Was I the only one who thought that Frodo was too passive and never given a chance to demonstrate his strenght & resolve? I don't understand why Jackson cut Frodo's defiance at Weathertop, Frodo's defiance at the Ford, Frodo's attack on the troll in the hall of records when Boromir's assult failed (wait, that one was to enable exciting computer graphics.) Frodo wasn't always effective, but at least (in the book) he was trying to direct his own fate rather than immediately falling back on others.
Maybe I'm just a shameless apologist. I thought that the "ring on" effect was one of the best parts of the movie. Also, remember that Sauron is alwys trying to get him to put it on, and keep it on, right? So I don't think there's anything to complain about there.
I haven't read the books in more than ten years, though, so I can probably be safely ignored.
Liberty uber alles.
...that Elrond is not a major character!
:)
Great, great, great movie though. Too bad we are all boycotting the MPAA, because we would really love to see this.
Liberty uber alles.
Perhaps the different effect of the ring on the wearer has to do with how powerful Sauron is at the time. During Bilbo's posession of the ring Sauron was defeated as the Necromancer, right? That's why Gandalf ran off and was absent for much of The Hobbit. Once Frodo finally puts on the ring the Eye of Sauron is searching for it. Sauron is growing in power. It seems reasonable that the effect of putting Sauron's ring on would be different.
Lasers Controlled Games!
1. Gandalf didn't add a puff of smoke when Bilbo puts on it ring that the birthday party. This would have helped to show his suspicions about the ring, though one of my favorite moments comes just after when Gandalf rises in power to tell Bilbo to give the ring to Frodo. You could see that the guise of an old man was covering a much more powerful being.
2. There wasn't a sense of time passing between the birthday party and Gandalf coming to the Shire again. In the book decades had passed. The only indication in the movie that it was more than a few months was Bilbo's age once he appears at Rivendell. My father who has never read the books thought that was just because he hadn't had the ring for a few months.
3. This is my MAJOR NITPICK: Frodo didn't offer the ring to Agent Smit... I mean Elrond. It seems to me that Frodo offering the ring to the three most incorruptible people he meets (who also happen to be Ring Bearers themselves) is an important aspect of the story. They aren't strong enough to take the One Ring and fulfill the quest to destroy it. Yet a hobbit is. I can see why many things were cut for simplicity's sake and to shorten the movie. Yet but leaving this out the movie doesn't emphasize the importance of the hobbits as much as it could. The symbolism is broken. Sure he offered it to Gandalf and Galadriel (my mom even thinks he offered it to Aragorn, while I think he was asking if Aragorn would try to take it from him as Boromir did) but these two offerings loose some of their meaning by leaving Elrond out.
4. The Council of Elrond sucked. It was the one part of the movie that struck everyone that I was with (and that had read the books) as not right.
Now I have to admit that there are a few other minor things that bothered me, but that is about it. That in itself is a major accomplishment. I thought that I was going to tear this movie apart. Instead I think it is great. I now have high hopes for the trilogy as a whole. The great thing about it is that it will have a consistent feel, having been filmed all at once. Everyone I was with would have gone right back in to the theater for another three hours if they had been showing The Two Towers. As it was, all the people that we saw dressed up like Gandalf were already seeing FotR for the second or third time that day. This was at 4pm.
In all, it was a great experience. Anybody know if the FotR DVD will come out before T2T hits theaters? My bro thinks they should re-release FotR in November 2002 so that people can see it again just before T2T.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I saw the film last night (Wednesday) and although I think it is easily the best film of the millenium, your 6 and 9 year olds would probably have nightmares. The 11 year old, maybe; I wouldn't bring my 9 or 12 year olds to see this movie. I reckon to show it to them once they've read the books -- think about it, would you really want to show your kids the battle of Helm's Deep, or the attack on Weathertop? Nazgul are scary and Sauron is Just Plain Evil.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
I don't know if this is correct or not, but me and my friends have been arguing about this one thing:
When someone [mortal] puts on the ring, don't they still cast a shadow? I remember at one point in The Hobbit when Bilbo is trying to esacpe from what I believe was a Goblin/Orc stronghold, he almost makes it out of the door, but his shadow is seen and chased after.
My friends arguments are that either this isn't a fact, or that it is, but the scenes where Frodo/Bilbo puts on the Ring are all shot at night/dark... I don't know, if there's light for scenery to be seen, there should be a shadow... It seems like an important feature of the ring, taking away everything but your shadow. I hope this thread isn't too old for anyone to see it, my friends and I need answers...
Is anyone else out there dissapointed to see Glorfindel's role of chasing the riders into the river being replaced by [Arwen]?
I was not disappointed; in fact, I appreciated it. Here's why:
I saw the movie last night, and thought it was wonderful. There were only two changes/omissions that I felt had a negative bearing on the overall story, and I thought they did a great job of getting the salient points and the appropriate aura across for pretty much everything else while keeping it a viewable movie.
...and I'm not flaming you here, just disagreeing. LOTR is much more than some run of the mill fantasy work. If anything bad has come from LOTR, it's all the garbage fantasy that was spawned by the popularity of LOTR.
I would compare LOTR to Beowulf before any other fantasy storytelling, certainly nothing I've ever read that has been written in the last 200 years even compares to it.
Lord of the Rings is a work of literature. It's not just another fantasy novel to be picked up at leisure and enjoyed any more than Steinbeck is good bathroom reading. LOTR is an epic to be treasured and awed. It is the book that you should read five or six times before you even begin to try to discuss it.
I picked it up last spring and found many new treasures in the book, and I've stopped counting how many times I've read it...first in junior high, than an average of ever two years since...prolly six times mebbe? I don't remember.
What I do remember is that the book is fascinating and I'll never tire of reading it.
When I first stumbled out of the theatre at 3 am, chittering like a Tasmanian Devil on amphetamines... I came to Slashdot, to share my hyper-jittery ramblings with the world.
Luckily perhaps for the world, (and maybe due to my slightly 'altered state'*) I couldn't find a topic on Slashdot for FOTR.
So I spent 3 hours buzzing out by myself in my room.
(Yes.
It was a work day - not that I recall much of it.)
(*Just a lethally potent combination of V (an Energy Drink), Vodka, and Fellowship of the Rings)
How can I convey the emotions I felt?
It was Epic.
It was Legendary.
It was Big.
All other movies seem so small in comparison - plain and 2 dimensional (don't nit pick - I'm being metaphorical because I know they are all 2 dimensional).
Perhaps it was the scenery, perhaps the story line, perhaps the otherworldly setting so far removed from our everyday life...
When I reached home, I was consumed by a need to do *something*.
I wanted to see the movie again.
I wanted to see the next movie.
I wanted to run away with some Elves.
I wanted to go camping*.
I wanted to play with fire**.
(* Yes it was between 3.30 am and 6 am on a workday - but see what I wrote further down about Middle Earth. I actually feel sorry for all the people who don't live here....
** I have a fire staff. http://incendium.org/movies4.htm - but I was gonna burn if I played while in that state...)
The scenery amazed. Yes there was CGI effects, but the real landscape covered in the movie contributed to that whole 'big' feeling. The Shire, Hills, flatlands, Mountains, Snow and Forests...
You do get that feeling sometimes...
If you go to the wilderness areas of New Zealand. Like the National Parks.
Watching dawn burning away a misty/ghostly veil over tussockland at dawn, or tree-moss and ferns in the glowing in the green light of the forest.
You forget you're soaked through, have spent the night under a mere tarpaulin, are carrying a horrible heavy pack.
I've lived here my whole life and still, sometimes it's purely mystical.
I didn't know if the movie would be able to capture that, but when I was watching the movie, I was just filled with amazement because...
I live in Middle Earth.
(Yes, I live in New Zealand. The movie was entirely made here (if you were unaware...)
But I still hope that people in other countries sometimes... 'see a bit of Middle Earth' in their homelands too.)
I am not in a position to debate departures from the 'Canon' of the book - because I have not read LOTR, (long explanation, but I do read Raymond E. Feist, Guy Gavriel Kay, David Eddings, David Gemmell, Sara Douglass, etc, etc, etc...).
From what I have heard, Peter Jackson has stuck pretty close to the original story, but has adapted and moved various details in order to better keep the soul of the story intact in a very different, visual medium.
The characters - were all amazing, although Liv Tyler seemed a little too like Liv Tyler rather than Arwen (although subtle effects like the 'elf glow' when Frodo saw her first, and looking more human at other times - stuck in my head for some reason), Gimli seemed like a good character - but he didn't have much of a role in this movie, and Legolas...
Well he also didn't say very much - and yet I still came down with a rather nasty elf fetish.
<waxing lyrical about male elves>
Yes, you heard me - til now I'd resisted that particular allure (it's almost as bad/sad as the common Vampire or Dragon fetishes/obsessions) - but FOTR... got me bad.
Grace, Nobility, catlike features - I'm put in mind of mind of the animals of the wild such as Eagles, Stags, Wildcats and Panthers...
In other words,
Legolas is one fricken sexy beast.
As they say in Quenya* "Mano mardenna?" and "A helta ar caita caimanna!"
(*see further down)
<negative gossip> :P
That isn't to say I'm completely associating the actor with the character - Orlando Bloom was apparently kinda sleazy to a woman here in Nelson, New Zealand. I don't know how drunk he was, but fairly un-good behaviour...
</negative gossip>
</waxing lyrical about elves>
What is the most awful thing about the movie?
Yep, the whole year till the sequel.
So, what do you do while waiting for the sequel?
I'm gonna go watch the movie repeatedly of course...
and get the Directors Cut from somewhere...
and finally read the damn books....
Oh, and there's also Sindarin, Quenya etc.
:)
For those of you that don't know, Tolkien invented several languages for his books including Sindarin, Quenya and also written forms of both... see http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/md_parl.html for more info. The swords and other things in the movie have proper meaningful inscriptions on them. So why not go totally geek and learn a near-pointless language just because... umm, 1. you'll know something other people won't, 2. it sounds and looks beautiful, and... 3. you clocked FFX already...
And what about Archery? :)
Way kickass... I'm getting a friend of mine is going to show me how to use an (admittedly more modern-style) compound bow when he's next in town
Although, perhaps I didn't just get that from the movie:
I mentioned the archery thing to my Mother, she told me about a little flat she'd lived in....
They had no TV, no money, but they did have a very long, thin, main room - and a crossbow.
Hmmmm, and here I was thinking that was the sort of thing only my friends would do?!?
She's said if ever get rich, I have to buy her a Crossbow...
Cool.
Okay, I'm ending the incoherent ramblings now.
:)
I've got to find out when FOTR is next showing...
Namárie
---- I've fallen, and I can't get up.
He is near the gates of Bree, the bearded man chewing on a carrot and burping at the camera.
ratty.
...bear in mind that I'm a callow, assinine high school senior, but I think the 11-year old wouldn't have a problem. There's certainly no sex to worry about (although why one would worry about sex I have no idea), and the movie isn't really gory. There's scary bits, but that's what makes a movie good - your oldest kid will be startled, but not traumatized.
/.'s parenting advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
The six year old? No. No, no, no. Loud noises, scary-looking monsters - you're just asking for an increase in late-night closet-ringwraith checks. Probably ditto for the nine year old, but maybe not.
May I offer a word of advice? Slashdotters, while great people (mostly), are often a little bit different from the mainstream. Ask your question to a spouse, girlfriend, drinking buddy - but
I'm the stranger...posting to
I thought Liv Tyler was pretty damn hot in this film - and I'm as shocked and horrified by this as any red-blooded /.er would be. That said, Blanchett was also hot - you have to appreciate the babe quotient in this film.
I'm the stranger...posting to