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Info on the LOTR:FOTR DVD
WonderBoy Cox writes "IGN's FilmForce has an interesting article about the much anticipated Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (LOTR:FOTR) DVD coming in the fall of 2002, and the next two movies. According to Jackson The Two Towers is fairly complete in rough cut and Return of the King is coming along nicely. "Both films will be between two-and-a-half and three hours in length with 500 to 600 effects shots, much like the first movie." But, the best part, is that he DVD will have around 30 to 40 minutes of extra footage! "
...but getting the news from "Wonderboy Cox"?
I wasn't prepared for that!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Perhaps they will have the option of "un" expanding Arwen's role... ech.. ;-)
Justin
I guess vendors are not too worried about re-releases, theatre showing,etc. I think they have come to the conclusion that DVD is the way to go. Now when I buy DVD #1, I wait to buy #2, but then a new release of #1 with more interviews and footing comes out so I buy #1a. #3 comes out, there is a new #2 and eventually a set (1a2a3). So now I am the proud owner of 5 DVDs vs 3 VHS.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
You can read?
Gosh, and here I was waiting for LotR to be released with all new bloopers & outakes...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
The question is, is it worth waiting for the inevitable box-set with all three films in it? I suppose the answer to that question will depends on whether the box-set will contain the same extras or a completely different set (in an attempt to get fans to buy both).
sorry, i'm a non techy, but how much can a dvd hold, and would it be physically possible to get all three movies on one disk? of course, one would need a foley catheter and IV hydration to sit through all of them at one sitting!
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
When leaving the theater the one thing on my mind was "Oh man, I wonder how long the Directors Cut is going to be!"
:) )
Heh.
How much do you want to bet that after all three movies have been released that they will go about and release a newer 'more uncut' version of each movie ala Star Wars (just alot more extra footage.
Oh well, even if it is an obvious scam to make more money, I'd still buy them, hehe.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Will it be released on laserdisc? :P
Anywhere, that is, I'm used to importing stuff
--- Do you believe in the day?
Inevitably, there will be a box set of all 3 films sold, sometime around 2004 or 2005 (just in time for Christmas I am sure!). No doubt, the box set will be a no holds barred affair, lots of extras, behind the scenes, cut scenes, booklets, etc. This no doubt will be the one to own. I'm glad that FOTR is being released singly, but I'll wait and buy the full package with all the trimmings.
I'm glad that the DVD will contain some extra footage, especially the evoloution of Gimli's character in Lothlorien. When that entire theme was left out of the movie, I was concerned. The friendship of Gimli and Legolas becomes important in later books, and without showing it's beginning, it would have been rather unexplained later. Truthfully, there was a lot that was left out of the movie that I'm afraid will make the later films a little rough. Hopefully the extra footage will eliminate future wrinkles.
Man, they could expand that initial battle scene where Sauron comes tromping out, taking out 4 & 5 people at a swing, and expand THAT to about an hour and a half. Oh man, that was so freakin sweet.
But whatever they put back in can only be good. Jackson did such an incredible job with the entire movie that I still can hardly believe our good luck. Someone did the movie who was not only intelligent about it, but genuinely seems to love the trilogy the way some of the geeks 'round these parts do.
Lucas suxors. Jackson rulez.
who wants to bet that the next two movies will be available for download long before they're released?
I'd buy it. . .
Read the article.
No Tom Bombadill, no Tom Bombadillo.
No Barrow Wights. *sigh*
Expanded "interaction between the fellowship" and apparently John Rhys-Davies is going to "fall" for Cate Blanchett, errrm, Gimli is going to "fall" for Galadriel, like in the book.
So no Tom Bombadill and no Glorfindel. Fie! Curse Peter Jackson!
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Given that Tom Bombadil adds absolutely nothing to the storyline (other than providing the Hobbits with their weapons, which was handled pretty well in the movie), I'd be more than happy if they kept him out of the DVD.
Dinivin
There's a reason the footage isn't in the original cut.
Yup - the moviegoing public has limited patience for 4 hour films.
From the description, the extra bits will be sequences that got cut for time in a film that had to work especially hard to fit a large story into a smaller viewing slot. There's no evidence that these sequences are less well shot - just that G**** falling for G********* and thus changing his opinion of E**** didn't directly relate to FOTR as it did to the Trilogy as a whole, and thus it got cut.
All the other "extras" they claim are in them are just crap.
We'll see. In August. I am looking forward to it. The only big question is whether it'll be spliced into the story or if it'll be set aside.
I wish they could have included old Tom. And of course, the river-daughter.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
..the best part, is that he DVD will have around 30 to 40 minutes of extra footage! "
I think the she DVD should have 58008 (upside-down calculator) minutes of extra footage!!
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
BTW, I don't know if it's technically possible with DVDs, but I'd like to see some system wherein you can watch the movie either with or without the added scenes.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I am so glad to hear this since all I heard bitch wise from people was that it was LONG but yet still enticing during that time. I was just waiting to hear the studio to tell jackson that he would have to edit down the others.
Also - I sure would like to see it done as a 2 disk set - one with out the extra and one with the movie in its entirety w/ extra footage built right in. Or do it like they did rush hour 2 and have that seemless
... http://us.imdb.com/top_250_films
Still #1
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
I wonder if in the future, we'll find people saying "I'll wait for it on DVD", because only by viewing it at home with your digital projector and 5.1 sound (minus the local talking idiots)with all the bells and whistles of extra footage can you see it "as the director intended". Maybe at that point movie theatres will only be for people too poor to make a "perfect" experience at home.
That doesn't even get into the possibility of people getting snobish about only watching "their version" (digitally re-edited version) of a movie....
"...you can steal my woman, but you ain't done nuthin' smart."
Whoa! LOTR DVD! forget that! I can't wait! wow!
Maybe the extra footage won't interest most people, but for fan boys like me, it sure as hell will. There are lots of reasons stuff doesn't make it into a movie. FOTR has to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, because it cost so damn much. So a lot was left out to keep the running time friendly to the mainstream audience.
/. readership is part of that niche.
Fanboys and cinemaphiles love the kind of extras in DVD's. While the general public might not care about missing scenes or directors commentary, there is definetley a niche market that does, and I think in the case of FOTR, much of
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Just give me lots of Eowyn pining after Aragorn, and Merry copping a feel on horseback.
Can I watch the movie as it originally showed if I want? "Director's Cut"s are often nice, but there's some authenticity lost when you're not watching what you watched and liked before. Maybe it's too much to ask for a DVD player to optionally splice in the extra new material, but I still think it's something that should_be_done.
Start Running Better Polls
My biggest nag is the lack of Glorfindel and his replacement/expansion by Arwen. The ford scene was totally borked in my opinion.
Justin
Just as Star Wars in 1977 set the trend for Sci-Fi movies LOTR seems to be setting a trend not only in fantasy movies, but how movie trilogies should be handled in general.
I commend everyone in the production of a movie masterpiece that has at the very least lived up to the expectations of most on a time honored classic!
><));>
How much more lingering over painfully attractive, bathetic, cloyingly emotive faces can one tolerate before shaving one's head and climbing the nearest water tower? I guess we'll find out.
anarchy rules
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Besides, T & A isn't the kind of thing that should go into a movie such as Apocalypse now. It's a different *kind* of movie.
I guess to sum things up, usually what gets cut gets cut for a reason. I'm willing to agree with the producers/directors on what should be cut initially. I'd rather not let the remastering/DVD guys have more say than the original producers!
</end rant>
Bringing irony to the Slash-masses
I am missing the, Tom Bombadill-o!
Where were the on my screen-o!
'Tis there a part of you,
Some unheard tune-age,
appearing in the additional footage!?
Seriously, it would have been cool to see some of the swamp/forest/willow/Tom from the book even though it would have extended the time it took for Frodo to find Strider and begin the second part of his adventure...
The Digital Bits has some more info and also a link to Urban Cinefile which has an interview with Barrie M. Osborne a producer on the project.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
it was a 3 hour movie, so that's 3 hours worth of footage they thought was worthwhile. You could tell there were sections that were led up to and then skipped (Gimli and Galadriel). I would like to see that part so i will rent the dvd when it comes out, that extra is worth it to me.
Like most people who have actually read the book, I was VERY disappointed in the "Lord of the Rings" movie.
It omitted several of the most important aspects of the novel.
Specifically, there was no island, no conch shell, and no "Piggy". Instead, we got a bunch or fanciful immature swords-and-sorcery dungeons-and-dragons crap.
Far too many dramatic liberties were taken.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Whoa...speak for yourself. Firstly if you buy a DVD, generally it means you really like the movie (otherwise you'd just rent it), and as such usually you'll find behind the scenes, making of, info on the various actors, etc. superb. I'm not a big fan of the director's commentary tracks, but it is neat to switch to it for some perspective on how they did things. I would say that "trailers" are indeed the least interesting extra on DVDs, and I'd say that the studios agree.
LOTR less than a year to make it to DVD and Star Wars is going to take no one knows how many years?
As far as the movie i saw it last night and it was great. Unlike star wars the evil characters actually acted and looked evil. Believably evil. Not funny austin powers evil like sw.
"But, the best part, is that he DVD will have around 30 to 40 minutes of extra footage!"
Once the DVD format is wildly accepted and used, expect to see those "free" stuff being sold separately on (you guessed it) DVDs.
Karma stuck at 50? Add 2-5 inches.. err.. 2-5x Karmas Count to your pen1es.. err.. Karma all naturally and private
and time seems to go by faster. With more than 3hours of entertainment this will be like watching a looney toons short in comparison to you humans.
Please don't mention extra footage. Hobbits can be very sensitive about their height you know.
I can see those poor bastards cringing to publish the story and holding on to their dear website, before the gates of slashdot were unleashed upon it.
Rapid Nirvana
no Glorfindel. Fie!
I don't have a problem with this. They dropped a one shot character who appears in that one scene in order to introduce Arwen earlier so she doesn't just come out of nowhere in the third movie.
Seems like a reasonable tradoff to me.
-Rob
And when the DVD comes out, there'll be a revised version of the list, I'm sure. Yeah, I'll pick me up a copy...
I'm only wearing black until they come out with something darker.
Tom Bombadil adds considerably to the mystical nature and history of the world of Middle Earth.
I personally found that the travels of the hobbits between the Shire and Bree accomplished much character building for me.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Is the DVD going to come with an ending? Watching that movie in the theater was like making out with your middle-school girlfriend for three hours and then having to go home...
...only you can't even finish the movie yourself!
second society
I can see a bit of Jackson's reasoning for not wanting to introduce another character (many of the non-readers that I've talked to have complained about the sheer volume of characters in the film). I am still pissed, though, that they made the ford scene one of Liv Tyler playing the Elven Amazon warrior, instead of letting Frodo take what he thought was going to be his last stand.
Yeah, he was on horseback, but Glofindel wasn't with him. It was him going face-to-face with the Nazgul.
That was my biggest gripe with the movie: the way the hobbits were portrayed as wide-eyed, bumbling know-nothings who couldn't fend for themselves if their lives depended on it.
Most people would place Frodo as the "hero" of the books, but I've always been of the opinion that Sam ends up being the truest, most noble hero in the book... Ahhh well.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Wow, I couldn't disagree more. (In fact, I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but in grand slashdot tradition I'll take your statement at face value.) In the book, Sauron is an unnamed and unshown omnipotent power, the very force of evil. In the scene in the movie, he's pretty much reduced to being a supervillain.
(In general, I was pretty happy with the movie, despite its missteps.)
Agreed....I thought about that when I saw FOTR. They even led up to it with G****'s speech before the Fellowship entered...the place where all the E**** lived. (Sheesh, this is getting retarded. I'll do this instead:)
SPOILER!!!
Gimli's infatuation with Lady Galadriel doesn't really come into play until the Two Towers (where Gimli and Legolas' friendship blossoms), so it would make since for the Gimli-Galadriel thing to be in the next movie, rather than this one. Had it gone into this movie, there wouldn't have been any time to follow up on it, and it just would have seemed out of place.
El riesgo vive siempre!
What to Expect in the Other Lord of the Rings Films
Also, get the scoop on FOTR cut-scenes, box office results, and the possibility of a Hobbit film.
by Paul Davidson 2002-01-03
While I and other countless Lord of the Rings fans are still drooling over the trilogy's first marvelous installment, director Peter Jackson and his production crew are making great progress on the other two films: The Two Towers and The Return of the King. According to Dark Horizons, Jackson dropped hints to the press during some recent interviews and press conferences that were held in conjunction with the first movie's opening. They have a fairly complete rough cut of The Two Towers already finished, as well as a loosely assembled cut of Return of the King. Both films will be between two-and-a-half and three hours in length with 500 to 600 effects shots, much like the first movie.
Jackson confirmed that the Ents and Treebeard will be playing an important role in The Two Towers as in the book. Faramir, son of the Steward of Gondor, and his romance with Eowyn may also play a more emphasized part on-screen than in the book. It was also hinted that Arwen's character would appear briefly in the second movie, though she is not mentioned in the second book.
The film's principle actors may be returning to New Zealand in May and June for any necessary reshoots. There's no word yet on what parts might be added or modified.
And here's some good news for fans disappointed by some of FOTR's omissions: the DVD, being released later this year, should have an extra thirty to forty minutes of footage on it. The additions would include some much-needed interaction and development among the members of the Fellowship, an important aspect of the book that was weakly portrayed in the film. Another addition would include the sequence in which Gimli falls for Galadriel, a turning point for his distrust of Elves.
While we ponder what is to come, Fellowship of the Rings is doing terrific business at the box office. After nearly two weeks of release, its domestic take has climbed above $160 million. The second weekend saw the fantasy epic easily hold onto first place, with only a 21% drop from last week and an impressive $11,000 per venue. Fuller details can be seen at Box Office Mojo.
With New Line Cinema's risky $270 million investment clearly paying off, folks are beginning to ponder the idea of a prequel based on The Hobbit. Fellowship co-writer Philippa Boyens discussed the possibility in an interview, saying that there were no plans as yet. In addition, she stated that The Hobbit, being a more difficult adaption with its large number of characters and shifting plotline, might be best left to a more experienced writer. At any rate, she and Jackson won't be considering it for a while yet.
ooh boy... the movie was GREAT, don't get me wrong, but even MORE footage to ogle... i dunno that i could sit still through that.
heck, even my friend was mentioning to me in the theatre as we were watching, "god, this is a LONG movie". it turned funny when the movie ended, and he whirled on me with a wild look in his eyes, exclaiming "THAT'S IT?".
the poor unwitting soul had no idea it was a trilogy.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
ehh.. they could have kept the romance and introduced her at Rivendel.
I'm buying both. I'm sure that, in the three years between when the release FOTR and the boxed set, I'll easily be able to get my $20 worth out of the first one.
Shit...I've worn through two sets of copies of the books...I don't see why the dvds should be any different.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
For me, the biggest question will be the format of the extra material.
I suspect that the will have the "deleted scenes" in the DVD coming out in August. However, I would love to see the extra scenes actually integrated into the movie. We will probably have to wait until the boxed set for that.
I would certainly buy the boxed set if they had a version of the movie without the CGI in Galadriel's ring speech. Cate Blanchett certainly didn't need it and I weep for what the scene could have been...
From the IGN article...
Fellowship co-writer Philippa Boyens discussed the possibility in an interview, saying that there were no plans as yet. In addition, she stated that The Hobbit, being a more difficult adaption with its large number of characters and shifting plotline, might be best left to a more experienced writer.
*More* difficult? Is she being sarcastic?
No, the best part is that the DVD is being released in a reasonable amount of time. Unlike Mr Lucas' efforts.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
You're right that most bonus material is pure crap, but it doesn't increase the price that much. It comes down to us justifying paying more for a dvd than it's worth for immediate viewing. I could always rent a dvd I wanted and buy it later...but I've saved like $5 total that way...so no big deal.
bleh
I heard somewhere (maybe from my girlfriend who used to manage a theatre) that they will never show a movie that is longer than 3 Hours in a theatre. I don't remember running times, but I noticed it in Braveheart, which came in just under 3 hours at the theatre, but the VHS copy runs about 200 mins.
Can anyone confirm/deny the 3 hour rule?
The one thing that was missing from the movie that I really enjoyed in the book was the poetry and songs. It would be nice if some of the additional footage brings this element back into the story.
- the discovery of the troll statues in that one shot (alluded to in the movie during Bilbo's tale to the children).
- gifts from Galadriel (Gimli and her hair maybe? The giving of the cloaks and string?)
- more elaboration of race relations with elves/dwarves (the blindfolding prior to entering Lothlorein)
- a few more minutes of sombreness after Gandalf dies, rather than cutting from tears to smiles in Lorien...
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I think it would be great if they took advantage of DVD technology and offered both original version and director's cut on the same disc. I think this trend of offering menus of deleted scenes is just laziness... with the option of having multiple play-back paths on DVDs, there's no reason why they can't allow you to play it back with the scenes spliced into the right places.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
... In Hong Kong, that is.
My friend just came back from Christmas vacation in HK and he brought back a DVD version (complete with DD 5.1 audio!) of LOTR. However, the video is actually someone taping the LOTR with a VHS (I suspect) Camcorder and then moving that on to the DVD.
Yup - the moviegoing public has limited patience for 4 hour films.
...as do movie theater owners. The longer the flick, the fewer showings (and thus less revenue) you can have in a day. And even if they raised the ticket price, you probably wouldn't buy much more in the way of snacks.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Okay, I'll bite:
"Irony Nazi's Butt: what did you think of the new Apocalypse Now With Added T &A?"
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
How can this be listed as a spoiler... it's like the lady who got mad when someone told at the end of Titanic, the boat sank.
------
"And may your days be long upon the earth."
Exactly! Stuff _is_ cut for a reason. As others pointed out, if it is a movie you really enjoy, you may love the extra features. Else, they just seem like useless crap.
Now, I am a big Simpsons fanboy. I just bought the Season 1 DVD set and I must say that I love it. The extra features include the Simpsons in about 6 different languages, which is quite comical, a "behind-the scenes" look at pencil sketches used to make an episode, and an original ep that was 70% redone.
I sincerly doubt that. Most people never even use the extra features, let alone will they pay $5 for them. Maybe the extra features will just slip away. But how hard is it to include cut scenes and audio commentary? Some audio commentaries I've heard sound like they're recorded with a $2 RadioShack microphone.
An interesting comment on the movie itself though: As a New Zealander, I only recognised 1 location specifically. There were a lot of nice "top of mountain ranges" that could be anywhere, but just one said to me, I've been there.
I think the river where Arwen challenges the Ringwraiths to follow her across, while ferrying Frodo to Rivendell is the Waikato. Specifically, a rapid called Fuljames, at Ngaaparua (highly questionable spelling). It's just below a hydro power station - no need for special effects shots.
... and today's pet project has
Probably because longer movies -> less showings on a given screen. Since they charge the same price for every movie, showing a movie that is longer than three hours will result in the theaters taking in less money. I don't see this changing for anything other than a GUARANTEED blockbuster, which FOTR wasn't.
Actaully, Snatch has just this ability. It's a tad intrusive, since an orange diamond appears on-screen during deleted scenes, but it's nifty anyway.
Brandon
interesting. im currently reading the book (up to the 2nd book actually in FOTR actually!), and i regard it as the best book ive ever read so far. its interesting, never boring, keeps me involved - i look forward every day to coming home from work and getting stuck in. i dont know if i want to see the movie now that ive read it, i fear it will never be as good.
Dont ask me...Im just the bass player.
How many DVD players can't do seemless branching? Mine can, but it can't do a layer change without gliching the video. I suspect there are a number that can't do it correctly.
-Rob
What DVD-Region is Middle-earth?
sulli
RTFJ.
Custer's Revenge: The greatest video
Why use real words? LOTR:FOTR DVD INFO would be sufficient
When is the Harry Potter DVD coming out? That might have some cool extra footage. I heard that there was more than an hour of extra film.
But like LOTR it might be wisest to wait for the boxed set.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
That chapter in the book amazing when I first read it. When Glorfindel said, "fly", meaning roughly "Get the hell out of here" was pretty gripping.
I'm kind of upset a little that they cut out Glorfindel and had Arwen instead of Elrond raise the ford, but I understand for purposes of the movie why they did that.
The best part I liked in the movie had to be the beginning when they talked about Isildir.
Fuck Ajit Pai
Apparently, Peter Jackson is an avid Slashdot reader with all the free time on his hands. Having read this story, he decided to add a few hours of Nien Nunb to the director's cut along with Hammerhead and the Jawas. Says Jackson, "The movie was running short and, hopefully, this will give them the added exposure they so richly deserve. Who knows, maybe this story will even be duplicate-posted on Slashdot in 5 or 6 months!"
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
That is part of the reason the releases are so spread out. Gollum is CGI and has many minutes in the next two films. Also there are more extensive battle scenes than in the first film too. I believe the tree-giants (Ents) are real actors. Shelob the spider is probably CGI.
The DVD editions will have a solid R rating. For those of you who are more perceptive, I'm sure you noticed during the fights that there are a lot of folks swinging, but not a whole lot of hits. There were a lot of quick cuts made to the fight scenes to make the films PG13 (so they could get the kids in the theater of course), and this is one of the reasons why the fight scenes are so wild and crazy... you are missing about a fifth of the action.
Remember that this is Peter "Brain Dead" Jackson. He has done his share to set the bar for film gore. You cna probably expect the fight scenes to be a lot more like BraveHeart and Gladiator on the DVDs.
I'm looking forward to the 40 minutes of character development that hit the floor myself...
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Goodness. So now you're going to take a movie that was nearly three hours and make it three and a half or so? I was looking at my watch from about the halfway point in this movie. I'll probably lose karma for this (but it's only karma, right?), but this movie really isn't a good movie. There's virtually no character development, the action sequences are usually done badly (i.e. too close), and the storyline is rushed (for obvious reasons).
Gak. If you want to see a good three and a half hour movie, go get the Apocalypse Now Redux.
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
Yes, but what about us that don't have/don't want to buy a DeeVeeDee player?
OK, mod me down now. *POOF!*
--pi
The rough cuts are done.
Just have to add F/X and music.
Please! Pretty please?
I can't wait that long!
I seem to remember JFK being pretty damn long; the theater I saw it in when it was released even had an intermission. Couldn't tell you if it was really over 3 hours, but it felt like it.
It hurts when I pee.
So the dvd with have 30 - 40 minutes of extra footage! ... more ring shots
So, 30-40 minutes extra footage? How many more scenes of Frodo crying does that translate to?
"Nobody throws McDwarf" -McDwarf
do not read this line twice.
You best be working on that attention span there buddy.
Were you the guy who was talking to himself next to me and had his backpack on from right after the first half hour, on the edge of his seat, ready to leave the whole time.
Sucks when you can't click a mouse and move on to another story.
Buddhist meditation works wonders for getting things balanced again. You might wanna try it. Modern life destroys normal thinking. Messed up ain't it?
One of the scenes I suspect they filmed but cut was the discovery of the stone trolls while walking through the woods.
In this scene, the hobbits walk into a clearing gaurded by trolls. The look around, cautiously, and get quite frightened. Later, however, they realize that the trolls were the ones that Bilbo had seen 60 years prior, and are made of stone now.
I believe this scene was filmed and cut for two reasons-
The first is that bilbo tells that very story in the party scene early in the movie. This allows them to tie that scene in, without having the hobbit made.
The second is that we SEE the trolls. In the scene where they are resting before Arwen arrives (just before), look in the background. There be trolls there!
I can understand why the cut the scene, hwoever, it must have slowed the pacing in the early act.
I mean, run from danger, run from danger, Oh my god, trolls!
Oh wait. They are stone. Let's all have a good laugh.
Doesn't work in the fast push of the Movie.
Colin
Colin Davis
being a more difficult adaption with its large number of characters and shifting plotline
Okay...it is a pretty simple story. Wizard comes with dwarves to hire Buglar Baggins to go recover treasure from a Dragon.
Along the way they have some adventures:
- meet some trolls and find treasure
- meet some elves
- meet some goblins, lose their ponies, get lost
- get saved from said goblins
- Bilbo finds some treasure of his own that makes him invisible
- regroup, meet some more goblins, get saved by Eagles
- go into a scary forest, meet some more monsters, kill monsters, meet more elves
- get captured and escape
- meet people of Dale
- see dragon, annoy dragon, kill dragon
- have big war.
Good lord. If this doesn't sound like an easy Hollywood plot, I don't know what does. 90% of the time, all the main characters stay together (the dwarves and Bilbo) with Gandalf coming and going when needed.
Plenty of special effects and action sequences without all the history of LotR.
Remember, this was a story that JRRT told his kids. With the exception of having "The Greatest Adventure" playing over and over, the Rankin/Bass version did a decent enough job of this already.
If PJ can do a Balrog and tons of Orcs streaming out of Mordor, then Smaug and the Battle of Five Armies should be cake!
Branching and layer changes are very different. Branching isn't really anything special DVDs, it comes for free. It's not like DVD's are serial like tapes: the video is stored in one area, and a description of what order the video is played in another area. Every DVD player can support branching. Presumably all that the authors need worry about is that branching is all on the same layer as lots pauses for the laser to re-focus on a different layer before and after every branch would be bad... but they already have to bear this in mind.
He finished all three movies at one time, for consisency sake. (this is really good, something Lucas should have done) According to Liv Taylor it took 15 months to shoot while a normal movie takes 3 to 6... She was film the other scences in the book while they were shooting for the first book...All Peter Jackson has to do..is put the films through the editing process...
This is all fine and good, in theory, and the Open Source movement has garnered a vast following from across the untamed corners of the internet. In this essay, I will explore how Mr. Stallman came to embrace this movement.
RMS was born in Modesto, California and attended Berkeley University. This shouldn't surprise anyone, since Berkeley is the Liberal Hive of America and RMS is an admitted communist. RMS began his bizarre lifestyle while attending Berkeley, where he occupied the attic of a clock tower. This eccentricity continues today and RMS will not travel without a grandfather clock and a spitoon.
RMS' penchant for thievery was evident from the very beginning. His attic "apartment" was filled with equipment stolen from the Berkeley computer labs. This was quite an achievement in the early '70s, when any computer equipment was the size of a refrigerator.
RMS and his hacker friends cut class regularly, opting to spend their time and parent's money constructing illegal electronics devices designed to covertly access phone lines. The group of pirates would hack into the phone company, and charge enormous phone bills to unsuspecting Republican professors.
It was during this period that Stallman met Steve Jobs. RMS' technical savvy was far exceeded by that of Jobs and, never one to like being second-best, this caused him to pursue software hacking. RMS' hacking ability was innate and he and Jobs formed an alliance which would later result in the birth of Apple Computer.
Jobs' technical accumen was matched only by his ability to sell. He designed the internal electronics and outer package design of the first Apple, which was financed by Nolan Bushnell. He set RMS on to the task of developing the computer's "operating system" - a sequence of low-level MS-DOS commands which tell the computer how to decode program codes.
Though a gifted "coder", Stallman was quite lazy and didn't fare so well with the new operating system. His sloppy design and bloated codes were barely useable on the first microcomputer. Jobs dumped Stallman and hired John Wozniack to rewrite the internal operating system codes for the Apple I.
This situation didn't sit too well with RMS. Though he effectively dropped out of college, through non-attendance, he remained in the clock tower, unbeknownst to the faculty and administration of Berekely. His bizarre reclusiveness and tendency to "hack" only in the night kept him invisible to everyone, though rumors did circulate around campus about the "haunted clock-tower" and the deformed ghost that would occasionally appear, transluscent white, on top of the tower playing a magical flute.
Stallman grew sullen and withdrew into his own world in the clock tower. He watched as the joint Apple/Microsoft empire grew to become the computer industry and he vowed to topple it by undermining the livelyhood of his arch-rival Steve Jobs (and, by extension, Bill Gates) with his illegal offerings.
Stallman conspired with Linux Torvaledse, another Berkeley student, to create a hacker operating system which could be used to leverage the internet and wreak havoc on corporations everywhere. RMS even went so far as to use Microsoft's innovative GUI (Graphical User Implementation) which he had stolen from Microsoft's mainframe computer and given the hacker alias "X-Windows". Unfortunately, RMS was not able to acquire the latest Microsoft GUI codes and was thus forced to settle for an inferior version.
RMS' continued interest in communism provided him some insight as to how to spread his hacker tool across the internet. By stressing the free nature of the software, he would appeal to the welfare nature of the public.
This marketing scheme worked spectacularly. RMS' hacker tool is now installed on countless computers, hidden away in the dark bedrooms of LSD-using hacker teens.
But Stallman didn't foresee the desire of the consuming public for Quality software, as opposed to his lean, second-rate offerings. Not even a price of 0.00 could turn the general public to installing this unwieldy hacker tool known as "Red Hat Linux".
Today, RMS and his following, consisting mostly of unpopular teens who gravitate toward the cult-like group of pirate hackers, continue to sing the praises of their "operating system". Neglecting to mention that it violates current DMCA legislation. This "operating system" is primarily used to trade illegal hacker "warez" and music videos.
Popular music stars like Metallica have called RMS and his hacker tool, "the single greatest threat to artistic expression in the history of man." And Bill Gates has noted, "They are all thieves. They spend their time stealing instead of innovating."
My hope is that this short essay has opened your eyes to the illegal Open Source movement and will give you pause when you may be enticed into downloading it, virus-like, into your unsuspecting computer.
Spoiler warning for FotR
Peter Jackson (in the first film anyway) decided to focus on the corrupting influence of the One Ring, as the central theme of the first movie.
When you view it with this in mind, a lot of reasons for the changes from the book become apparent: Tom Bombadil is beyond the currupting power of the ring, so he was left out as unnecessary to the main theme. Gandalf touches it himself and is visibly shaken by it, even muttering about "precious". Extra emphasis is given to Boromir's lust for the ring; he even holds it on Caradhras. Galadriel's little witch spaz was a little overdone, IMHO. Even Aragorn treads the line, right from his confiding in Arwen at Rivendell about the weakness of his ancestral blood.
This is why Lothlorien was cut so short... once the powerful moderating influence of Gandalf is gone, the rest of the movie is about leading to Boromir's fall... his discomfort in Lorien, Galadriel's warning to Frodo, then the rushed trip down the Anduin to Argonath and Rauros. Anything else would be a distraction from what he was trying to hammer home.
Spoiler warning for Two Towers
I don't see how he can maintain this theme through the Two Towers... unless he really focuses on Gollum and Faramir; but I doubt he will since the story just explodes in so many directions.. Theoden and Wormtongue, Riders of Rohan, Treebeard and the Ents, the White Rider, Helm's Deep and Isengard... all of which really have nothing to do with the currupting influence of the ring.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I'm a sucker for director's commentary. I love hearing the behind-the-scenes stuff, and Peter Jackson is a greatspeaker (well, he WAS awhile ago - hope the experience hasn't changed him that much. Arrgh! Hollywood-speak!)
:)
That's what I'm waiting for. Watch the film, then sit back and watch it again, and confirm everything I noticed that I learned in film school.
Triv
Region 3 for the Elven Kings under the sky,
Region 7 for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone,
Region 9 for Mortal Men doomed to die,
Region 1 for the Dark Lord on this dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
I hope that helps.
I just want to take over the world...Why does that automatically make me EVIL?
While there were parts of the movie that were amazing, overall I didn't like it as much as most. Here are some of my reasons
1) Orcs, orcs, orcs. Too much hacking and slashing. At times it felt like a Schwarzenegger double feature. The ugly cave troll sequence was particularly pointless. I'd have preferred more atmospherics and less heroics.
2) The trick of the movie is making the journey seem long. The length of the journey and the distance from home is central to the theme of the story, and the movie totally failed at this. Trying to get so many events in paradoxically made everything seem short. The events in the movie felt as if they had taken place over the course of a week.
3) Gandalf was overplayed, seemed more like Dumbledore. Boromir was a pointless bore. I kept wanting him to die alredy. (The rest of the Fellowship was well cast, though I could have done without some of Frodo's ligering facial expressions.) As others have pointed out, there was no time to develop the fellowship among the Fellowship. Too busy slaying orcs.
4) Lord of the Rings is the source of so much, so this is hardly fair, but much of it felt oddly unoriginal and derivative. I was particularly struck by how much the Balrog sequence reminded me of Shreck without the jokes.
5) Orcs, orcs orcs. Did I mention how bored I was by the orcs?
6) Ignoring the niceties of language. While my favorite LotR words "eleventy-first" and "unmade" both made an appearance, they waited for several appearances of "destroyed" and "hundred eleventh".
7) Biggest gripe - damaging the story arc. The whole point of the story is that it starts out light in the shire and gets darker and darker. Only gradually do the hobbits get the idea of what a serious business they are messed up in, and the reader is pulled along. By starting with the history of the ring, this effect is totally spoiled. Similarly, the disappearance of Gandalf was supposed to be mysterious.
8) Too many orcs.
----
mt
That is not the future, that is now for the home theater folks. My wife is very reluctant to go to "public theaters" (same connotation as "public restrooms", "public housing") anymore after I built a modest but nice theater in our house with 65" HDTV screen, lighting control, etc. Very few public theater's projectors and sound systems are properly calibrated and so I really do get a superior viewing experiance at home, albeit a little later.
I thought the movie was really true to the book, in fact too true for a movie. It wasn't he movie length but the fact that the story could and should have been streamlined or condensed somehow to make it a little less complex, but then the Tolkies would have had a snit and the movie would have gotten bad buzz.
As it stands now I thought the plotline was only slightly less complex than the Big Sleep -- too many characters, too many drastic scene transitions to make it flow smoothly.
Not bad ... now spreading in a 1.7 gig package ... obviously a DVD rip ... at your local p2p outlet.
....
Winmx being the best chance at the moment but it's spreading rapidly and the CD burners are starting to sing.
Better than I thought it would be actually
Um, that's because hobbits are wide-eyed bumbling know-nothings who couldn't fend for themselves if their lives depended on it. I think that's quite clear in the book. Our four hobbits become more than that, but they do so during the journey... they (gasp!) grow into their herohood. It's pretty clear that people in the Shire have it easy and aren't really ready for the roughness of the world.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
some movies clock in at more than three hours in theatrical release. for example, the theatrical release of the green mile was 3h 8m long (imdb). perhaps instead of "will never show" she meant "dislike showing", since a longer running time means fewer screenings and less income for a theater.
after escaping from Orthanc?
I didn't think to ask this question (or realize the book doesn't address it) until I saw the movie...
The SCO lawsuit makes me wish my company were in Utah. We need a new building.
Totally decent DVD players are available for US$200 or less. They're not _quite_ as cheap as VCRs yet, but they're getting close. If you don't WANT to, though, then you're just beyond our help...
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Now that would add some class to the movie:
Orcs tripping, gandalf swearing like a sailor as he bumps his head, Liv farting....
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
That's the timeframe being considered according to videotropic.com news from 12/27. That leaves a window for either a Special Edition in November, or a short re-release of the theatrical version about the same time.
A November freshening of the DVD will also let them put some extra making-of and trailers for LOTR-TT in the mix.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
One thing to note is that when I purchased Episode One I was all excitied to see the deleted Scenes. But after seeing them, it still left something to be deserved.
For LOTR If the scenes were deleted in post production, I dought they will have a major affect on the movie. I have a lot of respect for Jackson, and maybe he was thinking of these scenes all along. I bet more then likely though, those 30 to 40 minutes are silly, not-needed, deserved to be removed scenes, just like Lucas has done.
I hope Jackson proves me wrong.
Funny you should mention this, b/c I watched this for the first time just the other day. I liked that "fraternizing with bunnies" part. It was good comic relief with Chef flapping around like a bird and the guy staring through the window saying "I'm next ma'am".
But the part with the French plantation was completely random and unnecessary.
Why do you people even go to movies you piss me off. "As a reader of the book I think I can say for everyone that this was a disappointment!!" Screw off its a movie you wingnut go watch the moving pictures and enjoy it or stay home yet another night reading the book. Just my five cents
***I GOT NUTHIN***
Why is it so important that the movie glue itself to the book so tightly that it becomes impossible to tell the story visually. I've been hearing people say one of two things: either it was a great movie and very enjoyable or it was crud because a certain part of the book was left on the cutting room floor.
Gene Siskel complained that one scene (with the Balrog) was extremly short in the book but played out longer on screen. Other people are complaining that their favourite parts of the book were omitted. My question is who cares as long as the movie tells the story.
Going into the theatre there are two kinds of people: those who have and those who have not read the book. I think those of us who have read and enjoyed the book have a different perspective than those who are seeing it all for the first time. I know what scenes are missing and how the book portrays the story differently. These are, afterall, completely different media and there are many that believe that large books such as LoTR cannot be conveyed on the screen - it is a world that exists in the mind of the reader. What I think often happens is that some readers create different understandings of the same material and, when presented with a conflicting view, become all too defensive.
There will never be a definitive Lord of the Rings movie that trancends the silver screen and gives everyone the full experience of the book. The movie is simply one person's description of the taste of the story. It is up to the individual to bite into the book.
I enjoyed the movie for all it's flaws and omissions because what it presented was clear and complete within iteself. I don't think it is necessary to add scenes back in simply to make it more closely resemble the words from the book.
It's an opinion, that is all.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
oh yea, all you fags.
Bull.
Yeah, they do some stupid stuff and are saved by Tom Bombadill, but Tolkien makes it constantly clear that hobbits are made of "sterner stuff" than anyone ever gives them credit for.
Yes, the Shire did need protecting by the Rangers, but it has always seemed to me to be due more to protecting their innocence than to an inherent inability for hobbits to defend themselves. See the end of the Return of the King for some organized butt-stomping courtesy of a group of pissed-off hobbits.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
. . . that only Bill Gates can play the DVD in Region 1 ???
Given that Tom Bombadil adds absolutely nothing to the storyline (other than providing the Hobbits with their weapons)
Weapons found a barrow down which were forged by the ancient kings of Numenor (sp?) which were specifically designed to defeat the Old Enemy (Sauron's master), which travels with Pippin to the gates of Gondor where it find itself buried in the knee of the King of the Nazgul (Thus fulfilling it's 10,000 year destiny) which distracts him long enough to get killed which distracts Sauron long enough to allow Frodo to reach Mt. Doom... Whew! Sounds pretty important to me, actually.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
The artwork on the 50th anniversery paperback edition was pretty neat. However the books themselves were in bolder, smaller print making it a little harder on the eyes to read - especially when I tried to read the Two Towers in one sitting.
Fuck Ajit Pai
Great Scott!
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
I totally agree...the extra features on DVD's are good in general, and even better on Director's Cuts. Prior to DVD's, the only way to get ahold of extra features such as deleted scenes, widescreen editions, and extra audio tracks was to purchase the LaserDisc versions. I have a fairly large assortment of special/collectors edition LD's, and I have to say that although I get ~80 lines less resolution, I believe that the LDs are better in some cases. Take the Criterion edition of The Princess Bride on LD...the mastering work looks better than what's on the DVD...probably because more attention was paid to the LD master, because they were pretty strictly marketed to Audio/Videophiles. Another great advantage to LD's is that there are never (in my experience) any god-forsaken commercials on the disc that I pay good money for. Putting in the disc and pressing Play, to be presented with (other than the legal statement) only perhaps a THX intro and the movie itself is more professional and tasteful than having some horribly ugly menu interface and a smattering of advertisements/trailers for other movies.
That, and I can watch Star Wars - Special Edition in Dolby AC-3 (aka 5.1, aka dolby digital), and Indiana Jones movies. :-)
Only down-side is the cost and (recently) the availability of movies on LD. Any new releases I now get on DVD, but the LDs are still holding up well. DVDs will always have a better price point, I admit....the Criterion version of the Princess Bride on LD cost me $100 originally!
man tunefs | grep fish
...by shiny colors and candy while the MPAA rakes in more of YOUR dollars to bribe politicians and pay their lobbyists.
Wake up.
Maybe not in a cineplex for the reasons another poster cited, that it would decrease the number of showings possible. However, I saw Shinji Aoyama's Eureka in an art house theater last year, and it has a running length of over 3 and a half hours. Excellent movie, too.
See you in hell, dinner plate.
It would have been more . . . continuity friendly just to leave him out, given that we didn't see how Sam and he became friends on the trip to Bree.
Stefan
DVD extras add a lot to the movie. Most people would not want to sit through a four hour movie in the theaters cus you may have to take a dump, but at home where we can have violent bowel movements in peace, we won't hesitate to endure.
I can't wait for the assey screen tests shot in low-res, trailers that I've seen 1000 times, deleted scenes w/ no f/x that look like they were filmed in my backyard, and the cut X-rated footage of Froto and Sam masterbating each other in the woods while Aragorn slices his penis off with his sword.
I agree with you on the Flight to the Ford. That scene was my only real gripe with the film. For being the climax of the first book (Book 1, not FOTR), the movie treatment of the scene was a real letdown. To make matters worse, when I complained about it to a friend who hadn't read the books, she said, "Oh, you mean that part when the elf lady makes the river flood and kill those black riders?" I almost cried. I mean, seriously, I don't mind that Glorfindel was replaced, but Frodo was supposed to be all alone facing the riders.
Besides that of course, holy shit, what a fantastic movie.
Oddly enough, that was really the only scene I was happy with in the 1978 animated LOTR. Funny, huh?
Can anyone confirm/deny the 3 hour rule?
Titanic was 3 hours and 18 minutes. Of course, very few theaters ran that small independent film....
Peter Jackson is a master of gross out special effects. Such master works such as Dead Alive and Bad Taste have FX so icky that the films lose about 20 minute of footage to get a R rating.
From what I've heard Jackson filmed the action like he would any other film and just kept cutting it down until he had the rating the studio wanted.
But all bets are off for the DVD, and there is a good chance you'll see a restored DVD version with a lot more gore. That would be my hope at least.
Perhaps I'm in the minority (probably), but I'd much prefer them to release it without the extra 30-40 minutes of footage. The pacing of the original was perfect. Adding another half-hour will, in all likelihood, just slow it down.
Why is it that, whenever a movie comes out that everyone likes, the director is visited by a little gnome that says, "They all liked it the way it was in the theaters, so make sure that you don't release it like that on DVD."
There's no doubt that the weapons are important. In terms of the plotline, however, Tom is not. The weapons could have reached the Hobbits through numerous other, quicker, less distracting, means.
Dinivin
Before everyone mods this down as a troll or something, hear me out. I've seen tons of DVDs, and have always been excited to see the deleted footage at the end. Inevitably, though, the deleted scenes tend to suck. There's usually a reason that the scenes were cut out, people. Has anyone else seen the Mallrats DVD (Kevin Smith movie)? The deleted scene in the beginning is ~15 minutes of pure hell. Granted, there are some cool deleted scenes that were trimmed to get the running time down, but for the most part, deleted scenes were deleted because they A) Didn't help the plot move forward or B) they just plain suck. I've stopped getting excited about deleted scenes after being let down so many times.
Colin Winters
That was the only thing that really jarred me during the whole movie... Elrond being played by (and as!) Agent Smith from the Matrix.
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr Anderson...
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and this has perhaps already been said, but the longer cut of the movie may not appear in August, instead waiting until 2004. That's one of the many rumors I've been hearing anyhow. The reason is that New Line does not want anything to interfere with the theatrical runs of the films, and a longer cut of the film may do just that. People may reason that if they only waited 6 months for a longer, better cut of the movie, why bother seeing it in the theater at all? Seeing as how Hollywood is especially timid, I'm placing my money on the dvd release happening this way:
August 2002: Fellowship, Original Cut. Plenty of extras, probably a 2 disc set.
August 2003: The Two Towers, Original Cut, Similar set as FOTR.
August 3004: The Return of the King, Original Cut, again.. another 2 disc set.
Perhaps that same month: I huge box set containing all films and longer cuts of each film. Probably a s---load of extras as well. I heard they shot over 600 hours of documentary footage while making the films. If but 10 hours makes it onto the discs, that's still a heck of a lot of extras.
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/g/glorfindel.html
Steve
Well done.
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
I wonder if the 40 so extra minutes of scenes will actually make the movie follow the book. How dare someone think they can rewrite tolkein.
Maybe one reason to leave some of the scenes out in the cinema version is out of resect for people's bladders. You can always pause the DVD version while you take a quick slash.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Precious is purdy, and expensive...
Buy The Ring
"where are we going, and why am I in a handbasket"
I hear that there is a 15 minute scene that was left on the cutting room floor with Jack Nicholson playing Tom Bombadil.
Ah! That would explain the complete lack of pacing in the theatrical release.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I think there's an aspect to Tom that is too often overlooked and is a reason why I would have liked to see him in the movie (although I understand why he was cut). This is the fact that he's the only character in the book who can completely resist the ring. He toys with it, but as he says, it doesn't really mean anything to him and it would just become a forgotten plaything. No one else, no matter how good their intentions, is able to do this, and I think that's pretty significant.
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.
It's Bombadil, not Bobmbadil.
I found that Tom added quite alot to the book, not only in the respect to the world, but towards their quest. The fact that Tom could put on the Ring and not be effected by it, made me as a reader feel a bit more depth to the book. Meaning, there are things much older and still stronger than Sauron, but they really don't care about what is going on the world outside of their home. Not saying the Balrog is stronger than Sauron, but I found the Balrog was a strict contrast to Tom, it too was older than most things on Middle Earth and also very powerfull. So leaving out Tom made a feel of inbalance I found.
your right, LoTR is not a trilogy. but it's not a 6 book story either. it is a single continuous narritive that was split into three volumes for practical reasons. tolkein's own separation of the story into six "books" was done along natural breaks in the narritive.
when The Two Towers comes out, i doubt that they'll split the movie into two separate stories told one after the other like Tolkein wrote them. more likley the film will cut between the high speed action of book three and the slower paced book four for some dramatic effect. i think that would work better as a movie.
when the dvds come out, i would love to see all the footage edited together as a single nine (or ten or eleven) hour long narrative. just the thing to watch on a snow day or over a long winter weekend.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Yet another discussion of LOTR on Slashdot made me think of something.
:)) and so on. Its kind of easy reading.
:)
I've been reading the biography of Tolkein by Carpenter, and it becoms clear that Tolkein was a Luddite (in the nicer sense of the term). His favourite characters are Hobbits (personifying rural idyll) and Elves (personyfing art).
Anyway, who are the biggest cheerleaders for Tolkein these days ? The technologists....
An example, Tolkein never bought another car after wwII because he hated the way road development had ripped up Oxfordshire...
Anyway, the book is great -- lots of information on the origins of things like the word Gamgee (a midlands word for Cotton Wool!), Hobbit (possibly after a well known twenties book called Babbit (sp?) about a guys with a mid-life crisis
Just my 2 cents
Winton
The article says a Hobbit movie would be MORE difficult due to the many characters and shifting storyline! Huh? The Hobbit is definitely a simpler movie to make
There's a nice Red-bound LOTR and green-bound Hobbit that's available off and on at typical big stores. You might also find 'em on amazon.
:(
I just found these two pages with lists of all the past tolkien cover art. I used to have the "fourth issue" (or silver anniversary) edition, except for Two Towers, which I just learned was a first edition paperback (which my father had given to me). Damned if I can find any of them anymore. Urgh.
Anyway, these were pretty cool, if anyone's actually still reading this thread after some jerk moderated my first post as a Troll.
Gallery of Cover Art
A list of different editions with descriptions, pics, etc.
Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet ran about 4 hours, but the theatre where i viewed it had an intermission (with music) at the "halfway" point. I don't know if the intermission was standard nationwide.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
in general, i think the linguistics work shown in the movie was pretty high-quality, but i was sad to see some of the (relatively little) elvish from the book left out. we have "mellon" and "noro lim, asfaloth!" and that's great.
but how are they going to make it through the rest of the trilogy without the plot-point of "a elbereth gilthoniel" (a prayer, more or less)?
i thought it was also particularly sad that nobody in the movie said "elen sila lumenn' omentielvo" ("a star shines on the hour of our meeting"; a formal elvish greeting). in particular, in the books, that does a lot to set up the elves' reactions to frodo (which i paraphrase as "look, it's so little and cute, and it can *talk!*" :). and it might have been a pleasant addition to the (out-of-book-but-i-agree-reasonable-for-cinema) meeting of aragorn and arwen.
tolkien is often said to have written lotr so that he would have created people to speak the languages he invented. i loved the movie, but it makes me wistful to see the people and hear the voices, but to be missing the words that tolkien especially loved.
http://www.mycfnow.com/orlpn/news/stories/news-116 059020020102-080126.html
The article mentions the possibility of a movie based on "The Hobbit". I think that would be a cool idea. Though it was a children's book, a full-length motion picture based on it could (and should) take the darker, adult-oriented approach of the LOTR movies. There's also a lot of potential for some good effects shots, particularly with Smaug attacking Lake Town.
One problem would be reverse-aging Ian Holm...
> There's no evidence that these sequences are less well shot - just
> that G**** falling for G********* and thus changing his opinion of
> E**** didn't directly relate to FOTR
Gollum falls for Gandalf? That rules! Also, I agree with the changed opinions Elendil; boo hoo, fell on his sword, fucking baby.
Anyway, I'm happy to see some random homoerotic undertones put back into the LOTR. My NAMBLA chapter and I were pretty sad to see the scene removed where Tom Bombadil orders the hobbits to strip naked and cavort in the grass. And where were the random scenes of Frodo and Sam stroking and kissing each other? At least there was plenty of Uruk-Hai ass ("fighting" ass?) hanging out.
--Marlon Brando
What's up with the Z'Ha Dum thingy anyway? I heard it's in LOTR and it sure as hell is in B5.
Which one was first, LOTR the book or B5? Was the LOTR the movie Z'Ha Dum lifted from B5 or what the hell is going on...
Maybe HER theater would never show a 3+ hour movie, but I've seen a few. Dances With Wolves and Schindler's List come to mind, both of which I saw in theaters.
As a rule, there aren't a whole lot of 3+ hour movies, for obvious reasons, but when they do come around, theaters do show them. There's also the fact that really bad movies TEND to be shorter rather than longer, although there obviously are exceptions.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
The one thing I was most surprised to see left out was that Aragorn's sword was not reforged. The Sword Which Was Broken And Has Been Reforged (SWWBAHBR) is a really important part of the book and a major link to Aragorn's past. And he carried the sword with him (Gandalf's letter left at the Prancing Pony ... also left out ... mentioned the broken sword as a way to identify Aragorn).
Perhaps Jackson will reorder events to reforge the sword in the second or third movies since it was shown and mentioned in the first movie, but only in the sense of Aragorn feeling unworthy to wield it.
- StaticLimit
Yes, but it took the organization of 4 war- and adventure- hardened hobbits returning from the front lines to get them ready to "butt-stomp" Saruman and his gang of southerners....
Hobbits may have it in them to defend themselves, but the books make it very clear that it takes a lot to bring it out of them.
Tom was even cut from the (excellent) 13-hour-long BBC Radio adaptation. If they couldn't make room for him, I can understand why Jackson couldn't. Yes, he's important to the story; but most of the other things cut or rushed were even more important.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
will they be more closely tied to the book, since in movie 1 they had to dump most of the events that related back to 'the hobbit'?
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that hobbits can't watch out for themselves intrinsically. I don't like hints of racial "intrinsic" abilities anyway. (The Elves make me nervous.) But hobbits historically don't knock heads and do not, presto chango, gain the ability.
As for the Scouring of the Shire -- which I came to like a lot more on my most recent read of the books -- I view that as more evidence of the Changing of the World and the ending of the Third Age. All things are changed, we are told -- the Elves fade, the Men resurge, and perhaps the Hobbits toughen up a bit. And the price, as always, is innocence.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Well...I'm trying to sort out why I didn't love the film.
I liked it...but there are things that bothered me:
-the scene from the Second Age at the beginning of the movie, with Isildur cutting off Sauron's hand+ring, gave a completely incorrect impression, that with Sauron's emergence from the tower, ''all hope faded" or some such. Actually, the coalition of men and elves was absolutely triumphant, and while facing Sauron in single combat could not have been a picnic, the book NEVER gave the impression that a single lucky stroke from Isildur saved what would otherwise have been a victory for Sauron.
-Aragorn is too young. The original Aragorn was a man well past the initial bloom of maturity, who had seen much action, many travels and battles over DECADES. He should have had at least a touch of grey and a few wrinkles at the corner of the eyes.
-what Aragorn says when he decides not to follow Frodo and instead to chase the orcs who captured Merry and Pippin is completely out of character. The scion of the ancient ruling line of Numenor would NEVER say, "Let's go hunt some orc!"--especially not when the author was English, not American. This PJ interjection falls flat in my opinion.
I'm not religiously oppposed to any and all changes from JRRT's original work. Some of the changes were good: Arwen replacing Glorfindel as the rescuer of Frodo at the ford is fine, especially as Glorfindel has basically no role in any other part of the books, while Arwen does. Similarly the love scene between Aragorn and Arwen, while not in the original book, could well have happened as PJ shows it.
I'll go see it again soon. Maybe I'll get over my objections. Those aside, the movie is visually absolutely excellent, and (aside from Aragorn) very well cast.
Yeah, Tom Bombadil, was only like, you know, supposed to be God 'eru' 'illuvatar'...
he's sort of mentioned in the silmarillion
this is shitty movie
BAHAHAH that is SO fucking funny! Bill Gates? Dark Lord? Shit, it's like I'm in 1992 all over again!!!
There were only two changes my wife and I would have made. We were ok with the relatively angst ridden Aragorn and the augmented Arwen. All in all it was a superb result for the most difficult movie of the trilogy. (BTW, note the sword was never reforged, expect Arwen to bring it out to Aragorn in #2.)
The two changes we'd have voted for:
1. Less music. It was too intrusive in places where silence or birdsong would have worked better. The visuals were so powerful the music was often annoying.
2. They set everything up for Gimli to fall in knightly love with Galadriel, then they didn't show it! (In other words, we agree about more Lothlorien.) They could have shaved 3-4 minutes from 'Frodo pinioned by the cave monster' and Sam drowning, and used the time to restore the Gimli/Galadriel scene. I suspect they filmed it but made a misguided cut. Hope it's on the DVD.
Overall, a great result.
john
John Faughnan
jfaughnan@spamcop.net
Not sure about any rules, but the restored Lawrence of Arabia is 222 minutes. It was in limited release in theatres when it was restored. When I saw it, it was shown with an intermission (10-20 minutes? can't recall).
In the scene where a swarm of orcs burst through the door in Moria, one of them bonks his forehead on the doorframe as he passes through.
(ok, lame Star Wars reference, I admit...)
Freedom: "I won't!"
Weapons found a barrow down which were forged by the ancient kings of Numenor (sp?) which were specifically designed to defeat the Old Enemy (Sauron's master), which travels with Pippin to the gates of Gondor where it find itself buried in the knee of the King of the Nazgul (Thus fulfilling it's 10,000 year destiny) which distracts him long enough to get killed which distracts Sauron long enough to allow Frodo to reach Mt. Doom... Whew! Sounds pretty important to me, actually.
How about "weapons that were forged by the Men of Westernesse (who were the foes of the Witch-King of Angmar) and were specifically designed to fight him. Such a knife travels with Meriadoc to the battle of the Pelennor Fields and gets buried in the King of the Nazgul's knee, breaking the spell which keeps him together, allowing Eowyn to destroy him (thus fullfilling the knife's 2000 or so year destiny). After this, and after the rest of the battle is won, the allies marched on the Morannon, thus distracting Sauron long enough for Frodo & Gollum to reach Mt. Doom."
Yeah, Tom was important (and the source of the barrow-swords even more), but I can live with the omission. Aragorn logically could have (or get) ancient blades & therefore gave them to the hobbits. I suspect that won't be explained in the third movie, but it really won't matter. The general public only needs a good movie, and we Tolkien geeks know what happened in the *real* story (this *is* only a movie, remember). And, as long as the general public keeps spending money on the movie & related merchandise, we geeks get DVDs out of the deal!
We're already planning our 10-hour marathon in front of one of the guy's big screen for 2004....
Is it just me or is there something peculiar about the shards of Narsil? This sword has been used in battle, broken when Sauron fell on it, and yet the shards look as if it is a new forged sword that has been newly sundered.
A sword that has been used for those purposes would be notched and scored on the blade, and for those of you who think that the heirs of Elendil might have cleaned it up, i think you should know that if you were to file off every single blemish on the blade you'd not have much of a blade left after a while.
Just a thought...
Don't forget to bring some popcorn.
:)
I'd rather be flying
Someone moderate the parent up further. I would, but I felt like posting instead.
The idea of a DVD boycott is laughable. It's tantamount to saying, "Hey, everybody, let's cut off a portion of our anatomy to spite the thing it is attached to! Yes, let's deny ourselves enjoyment of something, so we can bitch and whine about it to all and sundry, and thus have sneering rights at their refusal to support our holy war!" It's not being righteous, it's being self-righteous. Bleah. Every time I see someone whining about boycotting DVDs, it makes me want to go right out and buy three more.
Realistically speaking, you're never going to get even enough Slashdot posters--who tend to have the attention span and love of bright and shiny things of Kiki from Sluggy Freelance--to join the boycott, let alone the average citizens (of whom you need a lot if your boycott is to have any effect, or even be noticed). There's still an astounding number of people who don't realize why those black bars are on their screen; think someone of that persuasion is going to care about alphabet soup and free use rights?
Me, I'll continue to watch DVDs and be happy. Why, I just received a Region 2 The Last Unicorn disc from Amazon.de; it's really great! (And seeing a trailer for the Thomas the Tank Engine movie in German is really funky.)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
This is NOT the readers' fault. They've been subtly trained to expect idiotic posts to appear, so when one does it never occurs to them that it might not be what it seems.
This is the same problem usenet has with satire. If you don't have a previous record to go on, you have to assume the poster might really BE a lunatic.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I recently re-read FoTR and I have to agree. They seriously make A LOT of mistakes from the moment they step out of the Shire. It's not because they're inherent idiots, but because they simply are not aware of the dangers in the world. (Even they themselves admit this a lot). Every danger they face, someone had to get them out, whether it was Tom, Aragorn, Glorfindel, Gandalf, etc.
The books are compelling precisely because, these people who have never needed to face evil, are forced to, basically save everyone. That's why you feel for them when they get tortured by orcs, stabbed by enemies, and suffer, A LOT (esp. in Two Towers).
FoTR the movie did a good job of portraying the soft side of the hobbits because they certainly change a lot by the time they reach the end of the trilogy.
Is it just me or is there something peculiar about the shards of Narsil? This sword has been used in battle, broken when Sauron fell on it, and yet the shards look as if it is a new forged sword that has been newly sundered.
A sword that has been used for those purposes would be notched and scored on the blade, and for those of you who think that the heirs of Elendil might have cleaned it up, i think you should know that if you were to file off every single blemish on the blade you'd not have much of a blade left after a while.
You know that miracle scratch remover they sell on late night TV, that'll instantly remove chips, scrapes and gouges from your cars paint, saving you a costly trip to the body shop? Y'know the stuff? Well, Aragorn had some of that. He borrowed it from Elrond, who used it on his car, Ancalagon the '59 Cadillac.
It's all in the Silmarillion. Go ahead, check. I'm confidant that I'm right.
Why don't we all take a break from nit-picking, and just say a silent prayer of thanks that no huge liberties were taken, e.g., Tom Cruise as Gandalf, Jack Palance as Gimili, and Brittney Spears' left and right breasts as Merry and Pippin respectively.
My big beef is that they rearranged the basic scene at the ford, when they had real dynamite stuff to work with in the first place... They could have produced some awesome stuff if they had let Arwen walk with Aragorn as Glorfindel ended up doing. They completely leave out the schtick about how fast and wonderful the amazing elf-horse is, and give all it's rightful glory to Arwen's riding skills. This is bad enough to a nitpicker like myself(hey, the horse deserves his due, alright!) but my real gripe is that Frodo never got to face them down. I mean, that was real riveting stuff, and they didn't take advantage of it, to their loss, and unforunately, yours and mine.
What's in a Sig?
The moviegoing public has a limited patience for 4 hour films.... But never Tolkien fans. I'd gladly vote in favour of 6 films, one for each book, instead of the 3 novel films, if it meant that they included everything that was in the book, and stayed absolutely true to it. And people with no previous knowledge of the book are going to find a 3 hour long film extremely confusing, long and drawn out, anyway, simply because they don't have the backgroung to enjoy and appreciate it. I thought the film sped past(it seemed like 1.5 hours instead of 3), but only because I had read the book...
What's in a Sig?
Elrond: We've had our eye on you for quite some time, Mr. Baggins.
The One Ring basically causes its wearer to cross the border between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Just the same as the living cannot see the dead, you cannot see the wearer of the One Ring. It doesn't make the wearer invisible so much as it just moves the wearer to the perspective of the dead. This is one of the reasons Sauron wants it because it does the opposite for him and allows him to enter the land of the living where his power actually means a great deal.
Why bother.
he's sort of mentioned in the silmarillion
Which is fine... But we're talking about FOTR, not The Silmarillion.
Dinivin
I hereby release this Make-More-Money idea under the GPLOTR:
Puzzle Pieces:
1. Negotiate rights to an animated Hobbit/LOTR series.
1a. This need not even be an existing company like Pixar/Disney. As you read more of my idea you will see how this could be a brand new company started w/VC money. Hell, they could even IPO before even release so much as a static pencil storyboard cell.
2. Take "today's" current CG-movie technology (ala Monsters, inc., Final Fantasy, Shrek) and start production on the first 60 minutes of the series.
3. Be 100% faithful, word for word when possible, to the original text of the series.
4. Work on the series continuously, never stopping production, until the entire 4-book series is completed (Silmarillion would be available only on the Director's cut, all three directors (1 dead, 1 moved to Mars, 1 now working on "Matrix 42: Neo Rebooted", platinum-coated MPEG-12 encoded DVD5+ format in the year 2010)
Here's the kicker...
5. With each release of an episode (oh, every three months or so) they re-render the previously released episodes using the latest technologies. Each rendering being incrementally more realistic. (Well, as realistic as one can make a fictitious Middle-Earth).
Imagine what a first-edition episode one DVD would be worth when the final episode is released. Or better yet, the whole series is released on a 1cm^3 data-cube 12 years after the first episode was released.
Seriously though, I cannot imagine that somebody hasn't seriously looked into doing something similar to this by now.
Bought it at the Russian Market in Phnom Penh for USD$3.75. The quality looks decent on my ibook. Haven't watched it yet, but did check that it ran.
It can be purchased now for USD$2.00 in Saigon, I found out this evening. I picked up the Deer Hunter for my visit in country to go with Full Metal Jacket.
These are Malaysian pirate mafia copies or something. Since I can't go see the film anyway, the DVD at a cheaper price than popcorn in some USA theatres is quite a deal. Dunno about extra footage.
ltrz
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