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! "

Comments

Arwen Rewrite

[_Neurotic]

Perhaps they will have the option of "un" expanding Arwen's role... ech.. ;-)

Justin

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[Quizme2000]

30 to 40 mins. of that steamy Liv Taylor scene...no wait that would a different movie, but I would like to know why Peter Jackson didn't include a wet t-shirt scene when she was escaping the ring wraiths in the river. Think DVD pause and Zoom.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[akiaki007]

Now, why would you want to do that. I enjoy seeing Liv more. While it might change the story line a little bit. The sappy girls that tag along will have something to look forward to as well. I mean, there _were_ only two women in the movie, and one of them turned out to freak the hell out of me.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[Have Blue]

Don't you mean Glorfindel?

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[ZaMoose]

I wouldn't mix my elves. It's rather like mixing your alcohol: leaves you feeling rather strange and, more often than not, with a terrible headache.

Plus, they're pretty good shots, so you just might end up with an arrow in the eye.

Just ask the Yrch.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[Anthony Boyd]

I would like to know why Peter Jackson didn't include a wet t-shirt scene when she was escaping the ring wraiths in the river. Think DVD pause and Zoom.

Well. I thought the film couldn't have been improved. Apparently, I was wrong.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[gaudior]

Borking the ford scene?!?!

That was excellently rendered. And combining Arwen with Glorfindal does NOTHING to wreck the story. (RANT ON)I have really had it with the nit-pickers. 'Oh, the left out Tom Bombadil', 'Oh, Arwen shows up for more than 2 sentences.' For God's Sake, did you want a 10 hour movie? Why don't you just listen to the Books on Tape? I really appreciate what Peter Jackson has done. It is clear that he LOVES the books, and has done a masterful job in CREATING the story for the screen. Just look back at the Rankin-Bass version of the Hobbit and Return of the King for examples of how NOT to do it. (Oh, also Ralph Bakshe's(sp), POS). I knew what was going to happen, and I still wept when Boromir died. I cheered when when Aragorn said, 'Let's hunt some Orc.'

That is what made this one of the best movies I have seen, and perhaps the best adaptation of the LOTR possible.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

but her replacement of Glorfindel (not to mention the general borking of the ford scene) is more than I can condone.

Gonna have to disagree on this. We did not need Yet Another Elf who would show up, do one thing, and vanish without any explanation. It makes a lot of sense to put Glorfindel's role into Arwen's.

The only verb sense of "borking" I can bring to mind is to deny a Supreme Court justice a seat based on his past writings, so I'm not sure how that applies to the ford. :)

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[WotanKhan]

SPOILERS BELOW:

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!!!

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[hey!]

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).

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[roju]

For God's Sake, did you want a 10 hour movie?

Sure, why not? Besides, in my mind, it wouldn't take an extra 7 hours to add what they missed. I think PJ did an excellent job, however my main complaint was that Jackson focused to much on the 'epic' bits of the story, and so missed out on lots that made the adventure memorable for all the readers.

The problem is, the books are enjoyable because they tell a story, and they tell it well. I don't claim that Tolkien is the best author ever, but his attention to detail made the story more vivid (unlike Jordan's attention to EVERY FUCKING THING EVER which after chapters of talking made me want to burn his books... but I digress). Sure, the epic moments are, well, epic. But the smaller moments make the books feel more like a real story.

The whole Arwen/Glorfindal doesn't really bother me, the movie has to try to appeal to others than us nerds who've actually managed to finish the Silmarillion. However, I missed Legolas and Gimli's little tiffs and growing friendship. It was hinted at during the Counsil of Elrond, but not really explored. During the books, that whole relationship makes for an interesting and sometimes humorus departure from the main storyline.

I personally was pained by the way Lorien was glossed over. In the books, we get a sense of restfulness and relaxation. In the movie, they show up, Galadriel does her crazy weird freaky thing, then they leave. No rest, no relaxation. How about Gimli falling in love with Galadriel? When does he have a chance? He's only in the Woods for like 5 minutes. And that whole blindfolding thing when they enter the woods. That was key character development. arr.

Well, just a couple of things that've been bothering me. All-in-all, it seems to me that that 30-40 minutes of promised extra footage might just do the trick.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[roca]

The giving of the gifts scene in Lothlorien, plus the part where Gimli falls for Galadriel, were both filmed. Hopefully they'll be on the DVD.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[Tet]

For God's Sake, did you want a 10 hour movie?

Personally speaking, yes, if that's what it takes to do the books justice. Perhaps Glorfindel doesn't add anything much to the story, but why arbitrarily replace the character? What does that add to the story? I appreciate that the film I want to see would be too long to make economic sense, but I feel it would be a better result. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a great film -- I just think it could have been better. The reforging of Narsil, for example, is an important part of the story, yet was barely mentioned in the film at all. Perhaps it'll show up in the DVD. We can only hope. The thing is, the books were such an important part of my childhood that to arbitrarily change them will never do them justice in my eyes. The bits that were kept faithful to the books were stunning. It just grates that he didn't do that all the way through.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[weatherbee]

only one reason of many that LOTR should never have been made into a movie in the first place.... read the book, don't see the movies.....

Yes, stay right there in your hobbit-hole with your books and don't even think about going on any adventures in the scary wild world! It's not safe!

Sheesh. If Bilbo had kept thinking like that, we wouldn't have had any story at all!

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[totallygeek]

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...

I thought it was good too that she was responsible for the flooding of the wraiths. To use Elrond for this without his formal introduction into the story would have lost most people.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[acroyear]

on authentic pronunciation, they even went as far as the dialog coach heavily reviewing the appendices of RotK and other notes scattered throughout Chris's compilations of JRRs notes and drafts.

McKellen has this to say in his grey book diary:

For instance, I have to learn a new pronunciation. All this time we have being saying "palanTIR" instead of the Old English stress on the first syllable. Just as the word was about to be committed to the soundtrack, a correction came from Andrew Jack, the Dialect Coach; he taught me a Norfolk accent for Restoration, and for LOTR he supervises accents, languages and all things vocal. Palantir, being strictly of elvish origin should follow Tolkien's rule that the syllable before a double consonant should be stressed - "paLANTir" making a sound which is close to "lantern."

Talk about picky...when director's license wasn't changing things for the film media, the care for accuracy is astounding at times...

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[nomadic]

Gonna have to disagree on this. We did not need Yet Another Elf who would show up, do one thing, and vanish without any explanation. It makes a lot of sense to put Glorfindel's role into Arwen's.


If it did why didn't Tolkien do it?

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[Lemmy Caution]

It would probably not work for film in general. They are different mediums, and flow and continuity and the ability to maintain different types of ideas in memory and reference them is distinct. Peter Greenaway has noted that, as compared to written text, film is really not very good at telling stories of any complexity; it is better at being a visual representation of the elements of simpler stories, like painting. Including Tom Bombodil might be truer to the structure of the story, but possibly at the cost of bringing over the feel of the story, and the palpable sense of time and place.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

If it did why didn't Tolkien do it?

Because, sometimes, authors aren't perfect. It takes nothing away from the breath-taking audacity of Tolkein's genius to note that there are small places that things could be tightened up.

Also, isn't Glorfindel a bigger player in the Similarion(sp?)? Tolkein had a different tapestry in mind than just the War of the Rings. I still think Jackson's call was the right one for the movie.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[DunbarTheInept]

I just re-read the FOTR book after the movie and realized that in many places where I thought the movie deviated, it was actually spot-on and my memory was bad. Some of the things you cite are like this. Frodo really *did* try to pass on the ring to a lot of people in the book. The place where he *stopped* doing that was after seeing how it affected Galadriel - that scared him into realizing he can't do that anymore.

As for his obsession with the ring, that doesn't start yet. In FOTR he isn't all that corrupted by it yet - it's not until later (the next 2 books) that it becomes hard for him to keep his mind off it.

Saruman *did* affect the pass at Caradharas, or at least Gandalf suspected so.

I also don't mind deleting Glorfindel. He doesn't appear for very long in the book, and in a movie it's a bad idea to spend precious time fleshing out a character that is never going to be seen again 15 minutes later in the film.

Re:Arwen Rewrite

[DunbarTheInept]

Uhm - she *was* responsible for the flooding, even in the book. The change is that in the book she wasn't actually *at* the riverbank at the time. She sang her spell from back home and the reader only hears about it seconhand when other characters mention this.

No bloopers & outtakes?

[stefanlasiewski]

Gosh, and here I was waiting for LotR to be released with all new bloopers & outakes...

Box set

[Ehrine]

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).

I think I'll wait for the box set...

[billmaly]

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.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Foochar]

Or if he follows the George Lucas theory of releases it will be as follows:

1) Fellowship of the Ring
2) Fellowship of the Ring with extra features
3) Two Towers, with redesigned packaging
4) Fellowship of the ring with packaging to match
4) Two Towers with extra features
5) Return of the King with redesigned packaging
6) Fellowship with packaging to match
7) Two Towers with packaging to match
8) Return of the King with special features
9) Complete boxed set

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[ZaMoose]

You better add a couple of VHS editions if you're going the Lucas route.

On a side note, when the heck are Lucas and Spielberg going to release an Indiana Jones DVD box set? I've got the VHS edition, but my VCR isn't hooked up and I do so hate turning those coax nuts with my bare fingers... *sigh*

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[dschuetz]

....
> 3) Two Towers, with redesigned packaging
> 4) Fellowship of the ring with packaging to match
...

How's this any different than what's already done by the publisher for the books? How many different versions (covers, sizes, sets, etc.) of LOTR are there on the shelves at your local Borders *right now*? It's flat-out amazing.

The sad thing is that most of the new paperback copies of LOTR all feature covers with photos from the movie. I used to have a paperback (maybe early 80's) with some really nice artwork, that I'd much prefer to have on hand for casual reading (so I don't damage my nice red-leather copy), but they've disappeared. And they were probably 5 covers ago.

So, really, in a way, it's a new thing that you buy some kind of software (book, movie) in a package that's the same forever. Publishers are (or seem to be ) used to repackaging stuff every now and then...

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Anthony Boyd]

10) Two Towers with a scene altered so that it appears that Solo^H^H^H^HFrodo fired in defense.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[ZaMoose]

Nawww. They just want to sell more copies of those endless "Artwork of Middle Earth" books and are sick of us freeloaders getting our fill from the covers.

This edition, which comes with the Hobbit, as well, has some semi-groovy, non-movie cover art too. It's the copy I picked up last year at my local B&N.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Nerds]

How many different versions (covers, sizes, sets, etc.) of LOTR are there on the shelves at your local Borders *right now*?

One. Back in the day I read my dad's copy of the book, and with the movie out I figured I'd finally get my own copy. The only one I could find (at two Borders and a B&N) is the cheesy paperback with Elija (sp?) Wood's picture on the cover. Couldn't bring myself to buy that one, so I guess I'll order it a the B&N website...

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Rob Kaper]

Universal did some stupid stuff with their European movie rights. Basically they don't make any money on those because of a deal with Columbia and they will wait with some blockbuster Spielberg releases until the deal is expired.

See also the Back To The Future DVD page.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Rob Kaper]

ThinkGeek has a nice LOTR set as well. I've seen many more versions, though. Of course the book is decades old, in which case several editions are more justified than planned marketing attempts.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[ConceptJunkie]

Don't forget the special edition with the new song-and-dance number by Elrond.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Eimi Metamorphoumai]

That'll be "The Hobbit" special edition, where Gollum wagers the Ring in the Riddle game.

Revisionist history isn't only in Star Wars.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[tswinzig]

9) Complete boxed set

And then:

10) Re-release in theatres with special CGI effects, such as: An additional 'ring' of flame exploding around Mount Doom when the ring is finally destroyed; instead of Gandalf destroying the bridge at Khazad-dum, the Balrog takes a potshot at him underneath the table, THEN Gandalf destroys the bridge!

11) Prequel: The Silmarillion. Melkor will be played by Jar Jar Binks, with N-Sync making a special appearance as the Silmarils. (But don't worry, they are only on-screen for a second or so.)

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[BrianH]

Agreed. The value of my (rare) copy of LOTR has climbed to more than $400 thanks to the movie hype, so I when I decided to reread the trilogy before seeing the movie, I thought it would be wise to buy a new set...and got that one. While the set is paperback, it is very nicely done with quality paper and good artwork (no cheesy movie shots). I now point people to this set when they're looking for a readable, lower budget copy.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Rogerborg]

• No doubt, the box set will be a no holds barred affair, lots of extras, behind the scenes, cut scenes, booklets, etc

The people I worry about at the folk giving it 10/10 at IMDB, while at the same time looking forward to the director's cut.

(Spinal Tap Mode) Ah, but this site goes to eleven.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Nightpaw]

This is probably the first time in my life where I can expect more than 0.0001% of the readers to get the reference.

Not much more.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[jafac]

you forgot the special editions, and collectors editions.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[ConceptJunkie]

I haven't see FOTR yet. Does he have a receding hairline and dress in brown? Does he like to palm Gimli's bald head and complain about his sweat?

Of course, everyone should realize that the little golden circlet and not Frodo is the One.

I need a life.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[evilpenguin]

I'm not sure about the 1993 paperback art, but I think my mid-1970's paperback edition's "lame paintings" were done by Tolkien himself, so perhaps they are not quite so lame per se, just the best work by a poor painter...

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Suidae]

That'll be "The Hobbit" special edition, where Gollum wagers the Ring in the Riddle game

Um, I haven't seen the animated move in ages, but in the book, Gollum in no way wagers the ring, he offers "If precious asks, and it dosen't answer, we eats it, my precious. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, then we does what it wants, eh? We shows it the way out, yes?"

The ring has already been found (or allowed itself to have been found) by Bilbo. If you want take it a bit further, the ring may have played a part in causing Gollum to loose the riddle contest, since it was aiming to get back to Mordor.

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[dswensen]

"9) Complete boxed set, the LAST TIME THE TRILOGY WILL EVER BE AVAILABLE IN THIS FORMAT!"

Ironically, after the Star Wars Special Greedo Shoots First Edition, I bet there are a lot of folks out there that wished they'd listened a little closer to that particular ad campaign...

Re:I think I'll wait for the box set...

[Eimi Metamorphoumai]

Ok, I'll explain. In the first edition of the Hobbit, that chapter is a bit different. Gollum did indeed wager the ring, not knowing that he had lost it (in both versions he doesn't realize it's lost until after the game is over). Finding that he cannot meet his bargain, he shows Bilbo the way out.

As the writing of the Lord of the Rings progressed, it seemed more and more out of character, so Tolkien rewrote the chapter, into the version you described. Tolkien later explained it as the first version being what Bilbo wrote in his own early accounts, at which time he was lying to himself to justify stealing the ring (in the same way that Gollum created the "birthday present" story). The later additions indicated a correction based on better,more accurate manuscripts Tolkien translated.

See http://www.daimi.aau.dk/~bouvin/tolkien/changesofh obbit.html for more info.

Extra Footage

[DonnarsHmr]

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.

Re:Extra Footage

[wass]

ruthfully, 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.

Does anyone else out there think that instead of squashing FOTR into one 3 hour movie with cut scenes and modifications, it might have been better to break it up into 2 movies based on the two distinct books within FOTR?

This way there could be two 2-hour movies portraying FOTR more accurately, and not whizzing too many things by. I thought some scenes seemed rushed, even though they were severely truncated already. For instance, at the Prancing Pony.

Of course, there's the issue that the public might get tired of a 6-movie series instead of a trilogy, and thus reduce demand which would rake in less dollars. However, from a fan-of-the-book viewpoint, I think the 6-movie approach would be truer to form and more interesting. Any comments?

Re:Extra Footage

[IdahoEv]

Of course 6 film would have been the appropriate way to do it to get the best rendition of the books onto film. JRRT originally planned on releasing all six books as separate volumes, with the appendices in a seventh. His publisher insisted on the three-volume format.

That said, it would of course have never flown in a business or cultural sense. Six is too long a series to plan in either financial or marketing senses, and the public is now utterly used to the three volumes and their names. Besides, "the Fellowship", "The Two Towers", and "The Return..." make much better film names than "The ring goes south" et. al.

As a perfectionist and a hardcore fan I do have my quibbles, but I think on the whole Jackson did a fine job.

Re:Extra Footage

[wagadog]

wass:Does anyone else out there think that instead of squashing FOTR into one 3 hour movie with cut scenes and modifications, it might have been better to break it up into 2 movies based on the two distinct books within FOTR?

Absolutely! It works better structurally, it works better dramatically.

At the end of each book there's a real cliffhanger. (nb there are SIX books, not three in The Lord of The Rings , with two books bound in each *part*, the first *part* being The Fellowship of the Ring).

An even easier way to "package" the six books as three movies would be to have three four-hour movies, with an *intermission* (remember those?) between two two-hour features. Sell more popcorn that way.

Going to the movies used to be a big festive occasion, where you planned to spend the whole evening or afternoon enjoying the entire experience -- the music, the big ornate theatre itself, the stage-show (kept only at Radio City Music Hall anymore), the cartoons, the travelogue shorts, the "A" feature, the intermission, the "B" feature...(Here in New Zealand, you can't even get the big movie-sized boxes of Milk Duds and Jordan Almonds! How can you watch a movie without Milk Duds and Jordan Almonds, I ask? Sno-Ccaps? Not a chance. Junior Mints? Good Luck. Not Even REESES PEANUTBUTTER CUPS? No. Not even Reeses Peanutbutter Cups. Not even at the MOVIES? Not even at the Movies. It's a hard land, New Zealand, a hard land she be....)

Uneconomical you say? Consider the simple old-fashioned double feature. They used to charge nearly double! With derrierres in seats guaranteed for the second feature, already paid for! The true test of a really good theatre was when they'd do brilliant pairings of movies for double-features. You know, like M*A*S*H* and Catch-22. Take the Money and Run ("I have a gub") with Bananas.

One theatre I used to go to when I was growing up in New York put on the entire Apu Trilogy in a day, with a local Indian restaurant providing snacks during the two intermissions.

With a double feature, theatres have so much more latitude in making it a memorable event -- rather than just being packed into a shoebox in a cineplex after being stuck in traffic and paying a whole pile of money just to see something on a marginally bigger screen with a marginally better sound-system than I can do at home with a DVD player--with more footage.

Re:Extra Footage

[dswensen]

I think Saruman's time to shine really comes in The Two Towers, where he delivers his speech to Theoden et. al. at Orthanc. He also gets a bit in Return of the King that will doubtlessly get expanded, if the first movie is any indication.

I think they knew they only had so much time to go around for character development, and focused on those characters that needed it most (Boromir, for example). Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas they can afford to gloss over a little -- they've got two more movies to develop their characters. No such luck for Boromir.

Re:Extra Footage

[dswensen]

But Saruman was always a more interesting breed of evil than that...

I agree, but I really look to the books for that level of characterization. It may sound like a cop-out to say so, but there's no more detail of Saruman's evil than there is of Gandalf's good.

I agree that he's simplified, but 1) I consider that "the breaks" when viewing a movie adaptation, especially of a book so huge, and 2) seeing Christopher Lee in action makes me forgive the shortcoming.

Worse, it's looking pretty likely that he DIES in Two Towers: there is no Scouring of the Shire.

Where did you come by this information?

Re:WHat do you think

[ZaMoose]

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!

Re:WHat do you think

[dinivin]

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

Re:wooo. extra footage

[bourne]

There's a reason the footage isn't in the original cut.

Yup - the moviegoing public has limited patience for 4 hour films.

...the distributor threw in an extra hour of crap that they tossed on the cutting room floor...

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.

"Wait for it on DVD" not an insult?

[scaramush]

Hmmm...back in the day if you said about a movie "I'll wait for it on video", it usually meant you were kind of excited about it, but not interested enough to [leave your home|pay 6 bucks|sit next to strangers] to see it.

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....

wowee!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fight the evil bastards at the MPAA!

Whoa! LOTR DVD! forget that! I can't wait! wow!

Re:wowee!!

[ArtDent]

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.

Re:wowee!!

[bfree]

Well I've been to the cinema 3 times in the last 3 years. Scary Movie 2 when I was still drunk and kept drinkg on my Birthday :-) Harry Potter with my girlfriend who asked me to go months before it was released and before she knew I wouldn't/didn't go to the cinema (it was relesed about 3 days before her birthday) AND LOTR. As for DVDs, I haven't bought 1 yet (except data DVDs with PCPlus for the linux software/distros). I keep looking for a Region 0 DVD WITHOUT the DVD-Video logo (I found 1, a German Metal band but I just couldn't do it) so I can test out playing DVDs, but I will also need a Regionally Encoded one at some stage to test that too :-( So I keep looking and getting tempted (BBCs new Ocean series comes as about 4 1/2 hours on 3 DVDs Region 0 but the carry the DVD-Video logo and I'm not into Oceans :-( LOTR would get me! Star Wars IV-VI would get me (TPM you can keep). It galls me but actually existing without spending a penny of money on the MPAA/RIAA fools is hard and sometimes you give in. For LOTR I don't mind cause the Studios might make more stuff like that (i.e. not Films by Numbers) which would be a good thing! Anyway while your moderated as funny, I would give you points for insightful if I had any.

Re:wowee!!

[bricriu]

Yes. I am (in the face of my girlfriend's wrath, no less).

But I'm a random crackpot, so, hey.

And no, I don't know anyone else boycotting anything.

Re:wowee!!

[poot_rootbeer]

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.

Re:wowee!!

[realdpk]

Frankly, I don't plan to let a law stop me from enjoying what I feel is reasonable, such as watching an out-of-region DVD on my region-hacked player. I feel I have a good sense of what is right and what is wrong, thanks in part to my parents and schooling, and I rely on that to make my decisions.

It may get me in trouble one day, but I'm not too worried about that.

Re:wowee!!

[Loligo]

There is a difference between boycotting a company and them not producing anything you have any real interest in.

When you DON'T buy something that you WOULD have if it had been produced elsewhere, THAT'S a boycott.

What you're doing is called "having some taste".

-l

Re:wowee!!

[DunbarTheInept]

Correction: It could be corrected with LESS technology, not more. The MPAA enforces that DVD players must add the work to make these two unwanted features work: Region enforcement and mandatory-viewing sections (where you can't fast forward). To fix this would actually result in a SIMPLER player - just don't bother to enforce those flags in the player - ignore them.

Making a DVD player that doesn't have the fair use and free speech problems is actually easier. The MPAA had to force manufacturers to add these features because the consumer certainly doesn't have any need of them (the opposite in fact), and it would be cheaper to develop a player without them.

Re:wowee!!

[Tom]

I'm happily breaking the law according to Valenti every time I rent a DVD (I don't buy many. I own maybe 6 or 7). I use non-licensed DVD players exclusively (VLC mostly).

I also still have my decss page up, as ever. I don't see a problem here. if I didn't care for DVDs, there would be no need to protest or hack it.

in fact, people are still busy hacking it. vlc is supposed to have ogle's menu support soon, and a german hacker is close to having the ability to replace the subtitles with anything you want.

Re:wooo. extra footage

[L-Train8]

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.

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 /. readership is part of that niche.

Re:what is the maximum that a dvd can hold?

[cisco_rob]

from ati.com...

--

What are the main features of the DVD?

Over 2 hours of very high-quality (better than laser disc) video on a single disc

Over 8 hours on a double-sided dual layer disc

Support for wide screen movies

Some DVD movies allow you to select wide screen or standard screen

Up to 8 tracks of digital audio for multiple language support

Up to 32 subtitle/karaoke tracks

Up to 9 different viewing angles (DVD disc must be encoded with the different angles)

Automatic "seamless" branching of video for multiple story lines or different ratings of one movie

Menus and interactive features

Title, Chapter, and track search

Durability

Compact Size

Language choices

Parental lock

Random accessibility

Dolby Digital AC-3 audio

How much data can a DVD-ROM disc hold? How is it possible?

Three advantages allow a DVD-ROM disc to store several times more data than a CD-ROM disc:

The laser that reads a DVD operates at a higher frequency, which enables it to read data packed more densely on the disc. The new laser technology allows 4.7GB of data to be stored on a single side of a DVD-ROM disc.

Some DVD discs have a second recording layer on top of the primary layer. This in turn doubles the storage space potentially giving a DVD-ROM disc 8.5GB of data storage.

Finally, DVD can be recorded on both sides, enabling a maximum of 17GB of storage per disc.

Every DVD drive must be able to read four kinds of discs. These are; single sided single layer (4.7GB), single sided dual layer (8.5GB), double sided single layer (9.4GB), and double sided double layer (17GB).

--

at 8 hours max, and 2.5 hours per movie, I guess that it would be possible, but I don't know how much room menus, extra features, etc, take up...

hope that helps..

No offense but people like Tom made it richer

[linzeal]

Tom's songs and things like them enriched the lord of the rings with their presence and it would be most welcome to have more of this wonderous story to share with people that have not or will not read the book.

Re:No offense but people like Tom made it richer

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Frankly, for this reader, Tom's presesnce was very much an annoyance in FOTR, and added nothing to the story that couldn't have been handled in a much better manner. I, for one, was glad to not see him in the movie.

Amen. I'm glad to see I am not entirely alone in this... Bombadil was a good cut, IMHO.

Re:No offense but people like Tom made it richer

[dinivin]

Lol... I first tried to read FOTR when I was just about 12. I got as far as Tom, got pissed off, and stopped reading it till just last year (I was 25 when I started up again, from the beginning).

Dinivin

Re:No offense but people like Tom made it richer

[Weird Dave]

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. :-(

Re:No offense but people like Tom made it richer

[jeff13]

Tom is essential to the Fellowship of the Ring Tolkien once said. I'm surprised a previous poster on this thread states Tolkien once thought to remove the Tom Bombadill chapter all together. Yikes! I loved the character; his colourful cloths, and odd hobbies (what were those lilies for anyho'?). Not to mention shacking up with a beautiful elven babe named Goldberry. Yummy! His power is great, he's described at the Council of Elrond as being a candidate for hiding the Ring. Gandalf shoots this one down, describing Tom's power and place in the Universe in rather mysterious words. Tom definitely has a place in LOTR that is unique and brings whole dimension to a fully formed world.

Having said that... I would have dropped him from the movie too. I'm impressed that Jackson is playing up the evil of the Ring and the fear that underlined the book. Even with Tom Bombadill around, the story has a melancholy dread to it. Something a veteran of the Battle of the Somme would understand, as J.R.R. Tolkien was. It is an incomplete retelling of the books, (and if you wanna make a movie that detailed, good friggin' luck) but it seems that Jackson has made a complete movie. And a satisfying one to this old Gen-X reader. :-)

Re:WHat do you think

[irony nazi]

In the case of Apocalypse Now Redux, the extra 30 minutes of footage was dry and pointless -- just some extra T & A and not much else. Now I'm a big fan of a little T & A in a movie, but Apocalypse now was already over 2 hours long! This extra footage made the entire movie extrusiatingly long. If you don't believe me, then just ask my butt which is still sore from the ordeal.

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>

How about Tom, Bambadill

[curtis]

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...

Re:How about Tom, Bambadill

[ZaMoose]

Yeah. A friend of mine described it as thus: "Well, they were in Hobbiton and then *BAM* they were in Bree." No trashing Frodo's new digs (and Fatty running like a little wuss...).

Plus, no Evil Bill from Bree in the movie... And I so wanted to see Sean Astin whip an apple at somebody.

Re:How about Tom, Bambadill

[ZaMoose]

I don't know. I must have missed the part where J.R.R. described Tom Bombadill as a jumpy, hairy ex-cokehead with rainbow suspenders. Although he did have those groovy boots...*grin*

I actually never even considered who would make a good Tom Bombadill, as it was leaked fairly early on in production that Tom was getting cut for "cinematic constraints" reasons. Hmmmm.

Re:How about Tom, Bambadill

[curtis]

I was thinking of a more "hip" version of Tom --

Think: Busta Rhymes!

Hit you with no delayin so what you sayin yo? (uh)
Silly with my nine milli, what the deally yo? (what?)
When I be on the mic yes I do my duty yo
Wild up in the club like we wild in the stud-io (uh)
You don't wanna VIOLATE nigga really and truly yo (uh)
My main thug nigga named Julio he moody yo (what?)
Type of nigga that'll slap you with the tool-io (blaow!)
Bitch nigga scared to death, act fruity yo (uh)
Fuck that! Look at shorty, she a little cutie yo (yeah)
The way she shake it make me wanna get all in the booty yo (whoo!)
I am Tom Bombadil-yo!

Re:How about Tom, Bambadill

[Happy Monkey]

I've always been a big fan of the extended "Hey Diddle Diddle" song, but the scene it appears in would probably come off too goofy on screen.

Re:How about Tom, Bambadill

[bfree]

Tom adds an immense ammount to the tale, as the tale is one of balance. You have Saruman, Mithrandir, Tom, TreeBeard in the book who all stand as something apart from the affairs of the 1,3,7 and 9 rings (apart from anything else they are not from those races). Saruman of course also stands apart but his is the 1! What do they each do, when and why? Who is Tom and how/why does he have nothing to do with the outside world and what is happening? The Lord of the rings is unfortunately only a part of the story of middle-earth, that is perhaps why he was cut, but it's a shame because portrayed well he could have added a depth that will probably never be seen in the trilogy.

Through the miracle of CGI . . .

[StefanJ]

. . . The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings 2011 Special Tenth Anniversary Edition DVD includes:

• Osama Bin Laden synthespian as Barrow Wight #3
• Robin Williams as Tom Bombadil
• Elijah Wood's ubiquitous "deer caught in the headlights" expression replaced by fear or stolid determination, as warranted.
• Bill the Pony now consistently appears in scenes between Rivendell and Moria.

Re:Through the miracle of CGI . . .

[Rob Kaper]

Bill the Pony now consistently appears in scenes between Rivendell and Moria.

Yah, this was a shame. I was just about to say "hey, they left him out completely" until they said byebye. I try to see it as a wink to insiders (erm, readers) to at least put in the byebye.

Re:Through the miracle of CGI . . .

[jafac]

Robin Williams WOULD make a kick-ass Bombadil!

3 Disc DVD!

[DeadBugs]

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.

VERY disappointed in this movie

[DonkPunch]

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.

Re:VERY disappointed in this movie

[ZaMoose]

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.".

Re:VERY disappointed in this movie

[Kenja]

I agree, I mean the so called "Hobbits" are obviously just rip offs of the D&D halfling race. And could Gandolf be any more a stereotypical wizard?

Its obvious that this Tolkin hack just read the D&D 2nd addition rules and made up a story set in that universe.

Re:VERY disappointed in this movie

[frank_adrian314159]

Like most people who have actually read the book, I was VERY disappointed in the "Lord of the Rings" movie.

Well, I didn't read the books and I was still VERY diappointed with the movie. When my local newspaper gave it an A rating (one of the few movies it granted such to), I actually assumed this was going to be a GOOD movie. I can sum up the movie succintly:

do (/* seemingly */ forever) {
jabber(); jabber(); jabber();
fight(something);
slog_along();
}

In the end, I didn't really give a rat's patootie about any of the characters and half hoped that the bad guys would win (at least then there would be some shots of the goodie two shoes heroes being tortured or something and Middle Earth would be destroyed before anyone else had to sit through the next hideous sequels).

Plodding, deadly dull, and overly long. That's it.

Re:VERY disappointed in this movie

[Hard_Code]

do (/* seemingly */ forever) {
jabber(); jabber(); jabber();
fight(something);
slog_along();
}

Wow, then it was <heresy>just like the boring book</heresy>

Re:VERY disappointed in this movie

[i_am_nitrogen]

I see. So by your classification, a movie is not good if it omits system("unzip; mount; yes; unmount");... Personally, I was impressed at how LoTR wasn't destroyed by Hollywood "people" trying to "modernize" it by adding steamy sex seens, scantily clad females, and incredibly foul language (unlike slashdot, which exhibits all of those traits... but that's beside the point).

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[ConceptJunkie]

Me... I'm waiting for the re-release next year that shows Treebeard outtakes, a la "A Bug's Life"

Why does it take

[alen]

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.

Re:Why does it take

[roca]

Because New Line has to get the DVD out ASAP so that anyone who didn't catch FELLOWSHIP in the theatres can get up to speed before TWO TOWERS comes out.

Free != For-ever-Free

[garoush]

"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.

Re:Free != For-ever-Free

[Rob Kaper]

Once the DVD format is wildly accepted and used, expect to see those "free" stuff being sold separately on (you guessed it) DVDs.

Do you mean The /Matrix Revisited? (not to be confused with Reloaded)

Extra Footage

[DRO0]

Please don't mention extra footage. Hobbits can be very sensitive about their height you know.

IGN Slashdotted

[cOdEgUru]

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.

Obsessing over details is fun!

[GreyDuck]

This page has a sizeable list of contributed observations... neat little details that helped "make" the movie for various viewers. It's a fun read if only to see just how hard Jackson & Co. worked on this thing.

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...

On the contrary

[Vicegrip]

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.

Re:On the contrary

[dinivin]

Tom Bombadil adds considerably to the mystical nature and history of the world of Middle Earth.

Which is fine if you're interested in a history lesson. It's quite tedious, however, if you're interested in the storyline itself.

I personally found that the travels of the hobbits between the Shire and Bree accomplished much character building for me.

I personally found a lot of the events that happened in Bree to accomplish much more character building, and was sorely disappointed to see them cut.

Dinivin

Re:Extra footage pros, cons

[groke]

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.

Great news but...

[jsin]

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!

Re:Great news but...

[mmontour]

One thought I had while watching it was that they could have ended the first movie with the escape from Moria and the entrance into Lothlorien. The balrog scene makes a nice dramatic climax for the movie, and the timeless land of Lorien seems a good place to park the characters for a year until the next movie.

The first book is the longest of the three, so the second movie wouldn't have to be cut too heavily to make room for the additional material from 'Fellowship' (In the book I have, 1/3 of the total page count is somewhere in the Mirror of Galadriel chapter).

Re:WHat do you think

[ZaMoose]

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.

Sauron

[mattdm]

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.)

Re:Sauron

[Dalroth]

Read the Silmarillion. Sauron is VERY human in the Silmarilion (or at least very capable of putting on the appearance that he is human).

Re:Sauron

[InfinityWpi]

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.

Re:Sauron

[CaseyB]

In the book, Sauron is an unnamed and unshown omnipotent power, the very force of evil.

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.

Re:Sauron

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

But for a movie, the bad guy has to look intimidating and powerful.

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. :)

Re:Sauron

[x0]

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.

I think a villian having to look intimidating and powerful is more a function of what the director is trying to accomplish and the quality of the editing. As an example, in the original Alien, IMHO one of the best 'terror' films ever made, the villian is onscreen for only 13 seconds or so out of the ~2 hours or so the film runs. Even then, you never see what the creature looks like until Ripley blows it out of the ship. Whether or not Sauron deserves, or requires, the same treatment is better determined by the style of the movie and the intentions of the director.

Re:Sauron

[tommyk]

wasn't that was after the battle he lost that power?

When he helped make the rings, after the fall of numenor, he stilled appeared in a fair ( one presumes human-ish ) form and was known to the dwarves and elves of moria as a great giver of gifts...

then when everything came into the light came the war, and he was cut down by Isildur, had his "claw" removed and his ring taken. I assume that although he still had the power to appear nice, he wasn't using in the battle, as claws can really make some people uncomfortable.

looking nice is how he is able to slip the proverbial back-door into all the rings, and carry off the ultimate back-orifice trick on the whole world. everyone thought he was just this neato-guy... or if they had suspicions they weren't sure anyway.

After the battle he lost the power to assume a "fair form". It's sort of implied that he isn't too pretty to look from there on out...

Re:Sauron

[mattdm]

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.

That never happens in the book. It's a story that's *told* there. This is an important distinction, because it plays into a key factor that makes LotR work -- there's these ordinary stay-at-home hobbits living their lives in a peaceful "real world" where mythical creatures and events are thought to be just that -- myths. And then all of the sudden, a few of these hobbits are swept up into the continuation of the myth itself. Sauron is part of the grand narrative; he was and is a being with human-like form, but showing that form too soon in the movie is a mistake.

Someone brought up the example of the Emperor in Star Wars; I'll add another: the shark in Jaws.

Re:Sauron

[rking]

Sauron's fair form was lost to him after the forging of the rings, but before his defeat by the Last Alliance. From "Akallabeth" concerning the fall of Numenor :

For Sauron himself was filled with great fear at the wrath of the Valar, and the doom that Eru laid upon sea and land. It was greater far than aught he had looked for, hoping only for the death of the Numenoreans and the defeat of their proud king. And Sauron, sitting in his black seat in the midst of the Temple, had laughed when he heard the trumpets of Ar-Pharazon sounding for battle; and again he had laughed when he heard the thunder of the storm; and a third time he laughed at his own thought, thinking what he would now do in the world, being rid of the Edain for ever, he was taken in the midst of his mirth, and his seat and the temple fell into the abyss. But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dur, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure.

And in similar words from "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" (also by Tolkien of course) :

There now he brooded in the dark, until he had wrought for himself a new shape; and it was terrible, for his fair semblance had departed for ever when he was cast into the abyss at the drowning of Numenor. He took up again the great Ring and clothed himself in power; and the malice of the Eye of Sauron few even of the great among Elves and Men could endure.

It does go on to talk about him wrestling with Gil-Galad and Elendil and of the ring being cut from his hand so obviously there was more to him than just the Eye, but it wasn't fair of form, whatever it was.

Re:Sauron

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

But the climax of Jedi is the defeat of the Emperor

No, the climax of Jedi is the redemption of Vader. The Emperor is just gravy. A clever writer could arrange that without having the Emperor on-screen. Even if you needed him present, he should been more a lurking presence, not a many-scened character.

I have always thought the lightning thing has made him seem random and, well, like a powered-up Grandpa Simpson. Though, to be honest, I love how the SFX guys colored in Luke's mouth for a few frames. That really brought home the power. And I like to think of the wild lightning bolts as proof that the Emperor is a less-disciplined (if more raw powerful) adherent of the Dark Side. Vader's use of the Force always seemed considered and efficient. Lightning bolts are just, well, flashy.

Re:Sauron

[tommyk]

Too late on this prolly but...

OK... so it goes:

Great Ring is Forged.
Sauron is confronted, cowed, returns to Numenor.
Numenor falls.
Sauron loses his form, becomes a big eye, wears his ring again.
Then comes the big battle with Elves and men.

Got it. I had the rings being forged after the downfall in my head. Thanks!

Re:Split the movies in two!

[ZaMoose]

X-Men (the recent one w/Patrick Stewart) had something similar. It's just that the editing and film quality of the added scenes was so poor that playing the movie with the "continuous" option on was jarring and not very entertaining.

If all the added scenes keep the production values of the rest of the movie, then I say, have at it, Peter Jackson. If not, well, leave 'em in a separate "Deleted Scenes" menu.

Format of additional material

[west]

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...

Re:Format of additional material

[JoshuaDFranklin]

What CGI? I thought they just ran out of money and did a simple reverse-negative (a la the B&W _Wizard of Oz_).

Re:wooo. extra footage

[Nos.]

Yup - the moviegoing public has limited patience for 4 hour films.

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?

guess at material...

[Sebastopol]

- 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...

Re:guess at material...

[Sabalon]

Easy...
Gimili: I can not run all the way to Isengard.
Aragorn: Okay...lets have some of that find lembas that Galadriel gave us before we left Lorien.

or

Hey Merry - those Orcs got you down...well I got my hands free and I still have some of the lembas Galadriel gave me.

My prefered method would have been showing the gifts and cutting the cave troll sequence, or one of the 4000 flash backs to Isildur cutting the ring off.

Re:wooo. extra footage

[Malc]

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.

Re:Split the movies in two!

[Rackemup]

Yes it's possible... some DVDs out now allow you to seamlessly integrate the deleted scenes into the original movie.

Re:WHat do you think

[ZaMoose]

Okay, I'll bite:

"Irony Nazi's Butt: what did you think of the new Apocalypse Now With Added T &A?"

Favorite scenes in FOTR

[Kiwi]

For myself, I find that my favorite scene in the movir for FOTR is different than my favorite scene in the book. My favorite scene in the book was the scene at the end of the chapter "Flight to the Ford". My favorite scene in the movie is the scene at the end of the chapter "A Knife in the Dark"; probably because the cute girl I saw the movie with snuggled against me in fear at this particular scene.

- Sam

Re:Favorite scenes in FOTR

[dan g]

Tell your sister it's just a movie and not to be scared.

Easy answer: a must buy.

[Monty Worm]

I know this is going to prove what a hideous geek I am, but it's an automatic purchase-on-sight order here. As will be a DVD player if it's only available on that media.

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.

Re:Easy answer: a must buy.

[Have Blue]

It's just below a hydro power station - no need for special effects shots.

I didn't know outflow from NZ powerplants took the form of mystical wild horses...

Important Question

[sulli]

What DVD-Region is Middle-earth?

Re:Important Question

[TH4L35]

lol. thanx.

Re:Important Question

[ZaMoose]

I hear they still use Betamax.

And I bet Gondor uses PAL instead of NTSC.

I hear tell that Rosen and Valenti have enlisted Saruman to breed them uruk-hai lawyers capable of litigating and tracing pirates by IP...

Re:This was expected....

[zhensel]

Actually, it's kind of a clever handle. If you've ever read "The Natural," you've probably noticed that Robert Redford's (sorry, I forgot the character name, so I'll reference the film) bat is the most undeniably phallic item in most any novel you've read. My sophomore english teacher (in high school) refused to acknowledge this and suffered greatly in class. Oh yes, the bat's named Wonderboy for what it's worth. I really don't think I could've gotten through that terror of a book without all the phallic references, so I'm happy for it. A nonstop chuckle fest for me.

Flight to the Ford

[Nick]

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.

More F/X in next films?

[peter303]

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.

Re:what is the maximum that a dvd can hold?

[Dimensio]

A single DVD-18 would probably hold all three movies, but it would hold little else and you would likely make sacrifices in video and audio quality to squeze everything on there. You would also have to get up at some point to flip the disc, as DVD-18 is dual-sided. You could even probably stuff everything onto a single-sided DVD-9, but kiss any video/audio clarity goodbye.

Personally I'll be quite happy with three discs with some nice extras, a good Dolby Digital (or dts for those with the support) soundtrack and a well-mastered anamorphic image.

Woah, left out a crucial bit of info there...

[EvilNight]

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...

Even longer?!?

[MikeyNg]

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.

Re:Even longer?!?

[MikeyNg]

Well, it's rushed compared to the book. I mean, let's face it. For a grand fellowship involving a handful of diverse characters, we really get no feeling at all for them. We just have a handful of people who simply kick butt, but with different weapons. Great. I think Predator had a more interesting cast as far as their personalities go for a band of people kicking ass.

Although I guess I will hold out some hope for an extended version. Improving the fight scenes would go quite a ways to improving my feeling for the movie. Especially that last fight scene. All right! It's going to be an epic battle between the main good guy and main bad guy. Oh, it's over already? yeesh...

Of somewhat interest to me is how my original comment was modded to +4 and then got a "troll" and "flamebait" down to +2. I guess you just can't express an unpopular opinion here.

Re:Even longer?!?

[sporty]

Its actually kinda backwards for me. I thought the movie was too short. So much detail taken out and just cool stuff. Like Tom (as if THAT wasn't said enough), all those little details, like the part of the story where Merry and Pippin join Frodo. The Maggot family and the whole waggon afair.

IMHO, they should have made each book a movie. But that's my humble onion, er.. opinion.

Please release both movies in 2002!

[peter303]

The rough cuts are done.
Just have to add F/X and music.
Please! Pretty please?
I can't wait that long!

Troll Scene in FoTR

[E1ven]

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

Re:Troll Scene in FoTR

[Speare]

In the movie, the party was standing in the ring of stone-turned trolls, but they didn't explain what they were. Bilbo told the hobbit children the story during the party.

A very understated treatment and quite nice.

Unlike the ham-fisted approach to Galadriel's inner struggle.

The Hobbit is more difficult why?

[Sabalon]

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!

Re:The Hobbit is more difficult why?

[Sabalon]

Well, you get some no name actors to play the dwarves, which cuts down on the cost. You get Ian Holm and Ian McKellan to play Bilbo and Gandalf. Of the 13 dwarves, you only give major parts to a few of them.

The interaction with all the CGI could add a little bit, but as the article was talking about having to get someone else to do the scripting, I was taking it as more difficult.

I love your review of FotR after the Shire. Personally, I think the movie was a front for the New Zealand Board of Tourism!

Re:wooo. extra footage

[Malc]

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.

Underlying reason for all the changes and cuts

[Wraithlyn]

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.

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Why didn't Sauron turn invisible when he wore the ring?

The Ring's power is not to turn people invisible (though it can do that). It's to amplify the bearer and give him what (he thinks) he wants.

When Bilbo first finds the Ring, he most wants to escape .. he wants to evade Gollum. The Ring gives him that. Then, not knowing better, Bilbo takes that to be the power of the Ring. From then on, he only wears the Ring when he wants to be invisible (since it doesn't occur to him to wear it at other times). So, it still makes him invisible.

Frodo also puts the Ring on during times he wants to be invisible (in the Prancing Pony, or when trying to escape Ringwraiths, etc.) So it makes him invisible.

But in Mordor, Sam wears the Ring. Sometimes he wants to be invisible, and so he is. But at least once he instead uses the Ring to intimidate an orc, who sees him as some great Captain. At the time, that's what Sam needed done, and so that's what it does.

We can only speculate what Sauron's desire is, although it's pretty clearly dominion. So the Ring gives him dominion over the other rings and over the minds of lesser beings.

The essence of the Ring -- and perhaps, metaphysically, the source of its evil -- is that it gives the Bearer exactly what he wants, with no constraints.

The One Region

[hal200]

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.

Re:The One Region

[TH4L35]

lol again. the perfect answer.

Re:The One Region

[decade_null]

Region 1 for the Dark Lord on this dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

But I thought that region 1 was America?

...oh, I see.

Character count was high

[swb]

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.

Re:Character count was high

[swb]

Directed by Howard Hawks and a William Faulkner screenplay adaption, it was a complicated story that was hard to translate to the screen -- claiming that Hawks and Faulkner didn't get it is a bit of a stretch. Raymond Chandler's books all seem to have enough twists and turns and strange motivational logic to drive any screenplay writer nutty just try to make them into understandable films. Practical realities like budgets, morality committees and so on and you wonder how some of them even made it to the screen.

Re:WHat do you think

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

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.

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.

Re:"Wait for it on DVD" is now

[Overzeetop]

I agree. I usually wait, and it's not just because it costs less to purchase a DVD than for me and my wife to go out. I've got a 120" screen and an HD front projector (don't scoff, in the summer of '99 when I bought it I spent the same as I would have on a 55" widescreen HDTV) and a decent 5.1 sound system.

The only exception are some of the brand new stadium seat theatres - they can be really great, even edging out my home theater. However, at 2:15 minutes into LOTR, I really wished I could put it on pause for a trip to the little boy's room. That's the real killer app of the home theater ;-)

Extra footage = bloopers

[GreenCrackBaby]

Now that would add some class to the movie:

Orcs tripping, gandalf swearing like a sailor as he bumps his head, Liv farting....

Re:That's nice but...

[Happy Monkey]

You'll be waiting more than seven years for that.

Books vs. Movie

[verbatim]

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.

Re:Books vs. Movie

[nagora]

Gene Siskel complained that one scene (with the Balrog) was extremly short in the book but played out longer on screen.

It was long, silly and plain bad in the movie if he's refering to the entire sequence from the Balrog's distant glow to the fall of Gandalf. The stairway scene was plain crap.

My question is who cares as long as the movie tells the story.

It failed to tell a story, or at least a good story. The characters were barely sketched in and since LotR is a book about characters - there are a lot of them - this really knackered it both as an adaptation and as a film in its own right.

when presented with a conflicting view, become all too defensive

I liked some of the vision: seeing Orthanc denuded was a good addition but the bottom line is that is was a POOR FILM. It suffers more than other poor films, of which there are many, due to the hype and the quality of the source material, but bad direction is bad direction.

The movie is simply one person's description of the taste of the story

I don't think the director has ever read the book from start to finish. It was pretty obvious that anything that involved characterisation or subtlety would have bored him to death.

I enjoyed the movie for all it's flaws and omissions because what it presented was clear and complete within iteself.

Actually, it wasn't complete within itself and had several continuity errors and confusing loose ends, particularly Narsil.

TWW

Re:Books vs. Movie

[netringer]

Gene Siskel complained that one scene (with the Balrog) was extremly short in the book but played out longer on screen.

You mean Roger Ebert.

Gene Siskel, a film reviewer for the Chicago Tribune, died from a brain tumor in 2000.

Ebert's current partner is Richard Roeper, also a colummnist for the Chicago Sun Times.

Re:Books vs. Movie

[Rogerborg]

• I don't think the director has ever read the book from start to finish. It was pretty obvious that anything that involved characterisation or subtlety would have bored him to death.

Careful now. He did set up and show the stone trolls, and Sean Bean's comment of "Still sharp" about Narsil could be heard as "Still Sharpe".

Also, note that he set up (but didn't pursue) Gimli's antipathy of elves, and showed the farewell to Bill the Pony but not the hello. I suspect that this was all filmed but cut by the studio (with Bill Ferny getting squished), and it will re-appear in the DVD.

Unfortunately, the combat scenes will still bite the weenie, and we'll still have the Indiana Jones debacle.

• it wasn't complete within itself and had several continuity errors and confusing loose ends, particularly Narsil

While the reforging was skipped, notice that Peter managed to keep the scene where it is used as a character development device. Although perhaps that was just to crack his Sharpe joke.

Re:Books vs. Movie

[splink splink]

Gene Siskel complained that one scene (with the Balrog) was extremly short in the book but played out longer on screen.

I didn't realize FOTR was released in Heaven/Hell. 'Cause that's the only place Gene could have seen it. Perhaps you mean Roger Ebert.

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[VZ]

> The Ring's power is not to turn people invisible (though it can do that).

It's an interesting idea and your argumentation is good but unfortunately this is not what the book says. All of the rings except of the 3 elven ones (which are different because Sauron didn't take any part in making them) made their owner invisible when put on and allowed him to see the the beings of the other world - as well as being seen by them.

Re:WHat do you think

[ZaMoose]

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.

Re:WHat do you think

[gnovos]

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.

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[Rob Kaper]

The essence of the Ring -- and perhaps, metaphysically, the source of its evil -- is that it gives the Bearer exactly what he wants, with no constraints.

So basically I spent all those hours reading and watching for a Full House lecture that says "be careful what you wish for"? Darn! ;-)

Bill Re:Through the miracle of CGI . . .

[StefanJ]

The omission of Bill the Pony makes more sense when you remember that he was introduced, and became important, in the Bombadil / Barrow Wight sequence.

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

Re:Bill Re:Through the miracle of CGI . . .

[StefanJ]

Just did . . . wasn't Bill the pony that Tom gave the group?

Re:Bill Re:Through the miracle of CGI . . .

[Arandir]

No, Bill was the overpriced and skinny pony purchasd from Bill Ferny. I think you're thinking of Fatty Lumpkin, which was Tom's pony.

Re:Bill Re:Through the miracle of CGI . . .

[Griim]

Bill the Pony was bought off of the shifty guy in Bree, the guy that they think freed all the ponies and horses from the stable.

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[still cynical]

> The Ring's power is not to turn people invisible (though it can do that). It's to amplify the bearer and give him what (he thinks) he wants.

No, the Ring was made to hold much of Sauron's power and to control the wearers of the other Rings of Power. Read the book, you'll see that that is the reason that the bearers of the Elf Rings removed theirs immediately when Sauron put his on.

> Frodo also puts the Ring on during times he wants to be invisible (in the Prancing Pony, or when trying to escape Ringwraiths, etc.) So it makes him invisible.

Back to the book again. Frodo does not put the Ring on in The Prancing Pony, it slips onto his finger to reveal itself to those who are looking for it. It is trying to return to Sauron, remember? It turns him invisible at a bad time, not what he would want.

Yes, you can watch the movie without reading the book, but you have to take it for what it is, and at face value. If you're going to ask deeper questions, such as:

> Why didn't Sauron turn invisible when he wore the ring?

You have to read the book. Although it makes no mention of Sauron turning invisible when he wore the Ring, the answer is clearly implied in the Tom Bombadil sequence. Frodo asked Gandalf why Tom didn't turn invisible when HE wore the Ring. Gandalf replied that it was not because Tom had any power over the Ring, but because the Ring had no power over HIM. I would imagine that the Ring would have no power over Sauron either, Sauron being its maker and the source of its power.

(Wow, it's amazing what sticks in the mind, even after twenty some-odd years! Of course, read anything that many times and you'll be hard-pressed to forget it no matter how hard you try.)

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[tommyk]

while I don't agree with the poster that this is why the ring made you invisible ( interesting argument not borne out by close reading of the text ), another component of the ring is, indeed, as a machine to give you your desires.

Gollum's problem was that he wanted the ring in and of itself... which is the real problem with the ring. It's near absolute power makes it an object of desire in and of itself ( a perfect circle ), hence his constant hissing "My precious" and his ultimate, venemous hatred for "Baggins, Thief!"

Gollum's desire is the ring.

The ring gives one power over the wills of others. It is an emblem of tyranny... how it enslaves others to it's bearer, and the bearer to others... and itself, my preccccioussssss....

Ooops. Sorry. Going back to lurking and eating homemade sushi now.

Re:Split the movies in two!

[ScuzzMonkey]

Yeah, but with "The Abyss" you have to swap discs to get one version or the other--which means it's just like having two separate movies. I think it is technically possible, though, just based on what they can do with DVDs to run movies in "PG" mode or whatever they call it. I would think that added scenes could work the same way.

Re:wooo. extra footage

[foobar104]

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....

This may not be a kids DVD

[Kagato]

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.

Re:WHat do you think

[dinivin]

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

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[roca]

> But in Mordor, Sam wears the Ring. Sometimes he
> wants to be invisible, and so he is. But at least
> once he instead uses the Ring to intimidate an
> orc, who sees him as some great Captain. At the
> time, that's what Sam needed done, and so that's
> what it does.

The intimidation effect happens when Sam is not wearing the ring. Every time a hobbit wears the ring, he turns invisible whether he wants to or not.

Glorfindel

[WilsonSD]

I agree that replacing Glorfindel with Arwen worked well in the movie. However, Glorfindel is an interesting character. Anyone who's interested in his background (he seems to have caused Tolkien a lot of problems) should check out this article:

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/g/glorfindel.html

Steve

Re:LOTR gripes

[nagora]

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that this was an honest attempt to film the Lord of the Rings as a story. It was in fact an attempt to string together a series of very well photographed scenes of the book Jackson had noticed while skimming through it. This it does very well.

The effect is spolit by the fact that it was a movie and the director clearly had no idea what to do once the characters in these nice pictures had to move and talk.

TWW

LoTR is not a trilogy

[The_Rook]

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.

Offtopic: Reflections on LOTR, Geeks and Tolkein

[wdavies]

Yet another discussion of LOTR on Slashdot made me think of something.

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 :)) and so on. Its kind of easy reading.

Just my 2 cents :)
Winton

Cover Art

[dschuetz]

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.

Re:wooo. extra footage

[Dirtside]

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.

The Sword Which Was Broken

[StaticLimit]

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

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[ElrondHubbard]

An interesting theory, but not quite right. The true power of the Ring is to give the wearer dominance over the will of others. This was Sauron's purpose in creating the Ring - to rule other wills "by force and fear", to use Tolkien's preferred phrase. It represents the tendency of all those who seek power, even for just reasons, to overreach and end up pursuing raw power for its own sake. This is why Tom Bombadil is thematically important even though he's a distraction to the plot: he has no interest in power whatsoever, only in seeking knowledge, and therefore the ring has no hold on him.

The fact that the Ring makes its wearer invisible is a side effect of the fact that it connects the wearer to the "other world", where the Ringwraiths live. This world is where the power of the Ring lies, and the longer he possesses the Ring, the more Frodo enters it. When Sam intimidates the Orc in the tower of Cirith Ungol, he is not wearing the Ring but only holding it in his clenched fist. Having returned to Mordor, the Ring has grown in power and seems to cast an aura around Sam that contributes to the effect, but that's all.

Keep in mind that at one point Frodo asks why no one ever did what he said when he happened to be wearing the Ring, and Gandalf points out that he's never tried to make them. If he had tried, Frodo would have found even his most well-intentioned efforts succeeded only by intimidating or terrorizing people, one way or another. By the same token, if Frodo had wanted to be visible while wearing the Ring, most likely he could have been; but likely the Ring's malign influence would have made him appear as some kind of evil spirit (like a miniature Balrog, perhaps).

Bilbo, Frodo, and particularly Sam, all survive being Ringbearers with only minimal corruption because they keep it not in order to use it, but to prevent it being used. All this is in keeping with the idea that the Ring is the physical manifestation of the kind of power that corrupts absolutely.

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

All of the rings except of the 3 elven ones ... made their owner invisible when put on and allowed him to see the the beings of the other world - as well as being seen by them.

Reference for this? I don't mean to be a noodge but I did just reread LOTR and I was watching out for such things. I don't recall any reference to the powers of the rings, except that they preserve their wearers. Sure, the Rings of the Men turned their bearers into Ringwraiths -- who, notice, most certainly are not invisible -- but nothing whatsoever is mentioned of the Rings of the Dwarves other than their numbers. (Oh, and there might have been something about the hearts of Dwarves being not completely corruptible, so at best Sauron accentuated their greed, or some such.)

Re:WHat do you think

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

See the end of the Return of the King for some organized butt-stomping courtesy of a group of pissed-off hobbits.

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.

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

So what was Gollum's problem then? I can't imagine anyone would want to live of carrion buried under a mountain for 700 years.

Hmm, let's see. Gollum wanted the Ring itself, at first because it was pretty. (That's why he killed the other proto-Gollum, whose name escapes me.) Once he's committed the murder, what does he want? To escape, to get away with it, to have the Ring. And he gets that, doesn't he? He vanishes, he is never made to pay (by his people) for his crime, and he possesses the Ring for something like 500 years -- which, if you'll note, is actually way longer than anyone else. (Frodo, several months; Bilbo, 60 years; Sauron, who knows -- but you can't imagine the Dark Lord sitting around Barad-dur admiring it for very long.)

And Gollum likes fish -- his people being river people who subsisted on, I'm sure, fish -- and he does get enough. I don't think my reasoning is refuted (which is a far cry from saying it's irrefutable).

Re:Me want more Sauron stomping

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

Frodo does not put the Ring on in The Prancing Pony, it slips onto his finger to reveal itself to those who are looking for it. It is trying to return to Sauron, remember? It turns him invisible at a bad time, not what he would want.

Um, in both the book and the movie, what Frodo wants most at that time is to be invisible -- to not be seen by his pursuers. Sure, the actual invisibility granted by the Ring ironically serves to accentuate the attention paid to Frodo -- but it's still giving him what (he thinks) he wants. The Ring, I still hold, gives you what you want ... while twisting what you want into something you don't. Indeed, all the characters who refuse the Ring worry most that it will twist them to evil, distorting the good they would try to do.

All that aside, I'll grant that, in the book (now that I opened it up and looked), in the Prancing Pony it does seem to slip onto Frodo's finger without his volition.

FOTR blooper rumour

[No Such Agency]

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...)

Boycott = asinine

[Robotech_Master]

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.)

satire requires respect of the author.

[DunbarTheInept]

For satire to be recognizable, the source has to be one that you don't think would be dumb enough to actually say something so stupid and really mean it. The source has to be reasonably intelligent, and devoid of idiocy. A random slashdot post from someone you don't know doesn't fit that criteria. When you try to be satirical by saying something deliberately dumb, in a forum where there really are people dumb enough to say such things it will never work.

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.

Not Invisibility

[Lethyos]

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.

Re:Extra Footage?

[liquidsin]

So, mod me down as a troll, eh? Is that like the cave troll that skewered frodo and made him cry? Ha! Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie...just too much crying...