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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! "
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.
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.
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.
They do do this.. and there are several titles which do. It's called seamless branching. It replaces chapters between versions of a movie.. two that are on my shelf that use this are the Abyss and Terminator 2. I would suspect that the FotR DVD would use this technique.
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.
Read the Silmarillion. Sauron is VERY human in the Silmarilion (or at least very capable of putting on the appearance that he is human).
Movies are a visual medium. They work best when they show you things. Have Sauron just be this vague, nebulous 'evil thing' works in the books.
But for a movie, the bad guy has to look intimidating and powerful.
In a book, you can simply have someone tell the story about how Sauron was defeated and the One Ring taken.
In a movie, you have to show someone slicing it off the guy's freakin' arm.
No movie has ever been 100% faithful to a book and been good. Simply because it's a movie, not a book.
If that was the case, then how did Isildur ever manage to hack the ring off such a nebulous entity? Sauron fought man-to-man in the book too.
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.
It's a joke. Laugh.
Perhaps the next revision of Slashcode should allow users to mark their posts as "from the blah blah blah dept." so that everyone could immediately determine the intended tone.
Oh wait. Then that would negate the whole "subtle humo(u)r" thing.
It would open up a whole new world of ironic possibilities though, like ACs annotating their own posts as coming from the "Interesting/Informative dept.".
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
Oh, I diagree, strongly. Movies most often go wrong when they attempt to show Ultimate Evil. (Except Time Bandits, of course, since Ultimate Evil was indeed a named character). Ultimate Evil is best kept in the shadows, so that you sense it viscerally. No amount of Hollywood SFX -- not even these -- can live up to the conception we carry inside.
My usual case in point is Star Wars. Yes, Vader is evil and they show him. But he isn't Ultimate Evil, since it is always intimated that the Emperor is way more evil than him. In the first, the Emperor is hardly there at all. In The Empire Strikes Back, he shows up only as a vague, intimidating hologram.
Then in Return of the Jedi, he becomes an on-screen character and shrinks to merely human proportions. The showing of the Emperor is what undermines Jedi, for my money. Well, that and Ewoks -- just another manifestation of Ultimate Evil.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
As a long-time Tolkienophile ;), I was as concerned as anyone with the rumoured revisions to the story. I even penned a message to Jackson a year or so ago about the Arwen change, pleading with him to be true to the book.
After my second viewing, the movie is obviously a labour of love on the part of a true fan. Having read the books umpteen times, each deviation from the text obviously jumps out at me, but I can clearly see how the changes help to convey the essence of the story, within the constraints of the different medium.
Merging the role of Glorfindel and Arwen makes perfect sense when you consider her lineage, and conveys much more Tolkien's sense of the role of women in the struggles of Middle-earth, and the unions of elves and man. It also helps to illuminate the transition of Aragorns character from rootless wanderer to heir of Gondor.
I liked very much the addition of Aragorn wilfully releasing Frodo to travel to Mordor alone, and the ring calling his name in temptation was nice touch. I got perfect chills from the shot of the ring reflecting the arguing councilmembers and faintly reciting its inscription in the tongue of Mordor. Other touches, such as Frodo solving the riddle of the gates of Moria, further conveyed the themes of the book, better perhaps than strict adherence to the original story.
About the only nits I have to pick, which are really more stylistic differences, are the role of Saruman, and the heavy editing of the Lothlorien segment. I think that compelling dialogue and a skillful actor could have made much of Saruman's cunning arts of persuasion, though I will allow that the visual approach is compelling. I have high hopes for the extra footage on the DVD to flesh out the Lothlorien portion. But I have to really work to find criticism, when on the whole I was absolutely thrilled with the movie. The pervasive use of dialogue drawn straight from the book, authentic pronunciation, great casting, acting and direction, all the little touches have produced a classic in its own right.
Peter Jackson thank you!!!
Even Tolkien seriously considered removing Bombadil-o from the original book. For some reason, I really like the old codger, though.
:-(
So, it really isn't too big of a decision to cut him from the movie. I think Tolkien left him in partially to show what the Hobbits (nasty hobbitses?) were trying to save. He's so powerful, yet he is truly at the mercy of the halfings. If they don't destroy the ring, he will fall to Sauron, too. I wish they could put the Tom Bombadil scenes in the DVD as an option, but that would probably be way too expensive.
Grumble, Grumble
I wasn't offended by the Arwen changes at all. The books are chock full of "minor" characters who have huge backstories. If I recall, it was Glorfindel who met Aragorn and the Hobbits by the ford in the book Glorfindel was a very important and powerful elf, one who could seriously challenge the Ringwraiths, if you knew his backstory.
This kind of apparently throwaway detail is part of the geeky appeal of the LOTR book, but it contributes nothing to movie making. Movies work better when they use characters more economically. The animated LOTR did something similar -- Aragorn and the Hobbits were met by Legolas. Whatever the weaknesses of the animated version, this detail is seldom criticized despite the fact is makes no sense. The need to do something like this is obvious, once you get away from the fear that the book is being updated for some politically correct feminist agenda.
Using Arwen for this scene was actually (IMO) a stroke of genius, because it avoided introducing a throwaway character and allowed the movie to introduce the Aragorn/Arwen romance, which was canonical but not part of the original book's narrative. I view the problem as this: the material outside of the main narrative (i.e. the appendices) is essential to the book, but unfortunately movies don't come with appendices. Well maybe with DVDs they do, but the movie is better this way than if it had followed the canonical narrative slavishly. This allows the movie to show more of the details of middle-earth in a way that (1) works in a movie, (2) doesn't leave the unititated confused and (3) does no significant damage to the important themes and narrative lines of the book. Sounds like a win to me.
Another instance is how the details of Saruman's treachery were shown rather than told at the Council of Elrond. Jackson rightly pointed out that the book devotes something like thirty or forty pages to what is essentially a committee meeting. The movie medium works better by showing than telling (although I do have some issues with how it was shown).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So, seriously, is anyone else actually still boycotting DVD?
I do remember that there was much noise made, not so long ago, about boycotting -- not just DVD, in fact, but all products of the MPAA. I never went that far, but I haven't yet felt the urge to pay money for the priviledge of surrendering my freedom.
This morning, I heard on the radio that DVD players outsold VCRs for the first time this Christmas (in Canada). The masses don't even understand the fair use and free speech ramifications, and now it seems like those who do understand just don't care anymore.
Are these just different voices I'm hearing, or have people abondoned the boycott? If you have, why?
Is it the fact that CSS was actually broken, and DeCSS widely distributed, in spite of the MPAA's efforts? The fact that this has enabled DVD playback on Linux? Do you feel that you are still protesting by accessing your DVDs in violation of the DMCA (whether for fair use purposes or copyright infringement)? Have you decided to embrace DVD to discourage its replacement by a new, more effectively protected medium? Or perhaps you have just decided that, in light of the mass adoption of the technology, resistance is futile?
I'm really curious to hear what people are thinking about this these days.
No one was actually going to boycott the MPAA and the DVD format. And no, a dozen Slashdot readers don't count.
There's nothing bad about the DVD technology (with regard to "fair use" and "free speech" ramifications) that can't be corrected with more technology. You're not surrendering your freedom in any conceivable way by watching a DVD.
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.