Two Towers Teaser Trailer

SicariusMan writes "Seems there is a Two Towers teaser out at movie-list.com. Thank goodness for the CrossOver Plugin." And Astin writes "Ain't it cool news has a list of mirrors showing the new LoTR trailer. More action and burning and orcs, etc, etc, etc."

Comments

Meta comment

[Laplace]

* This movie is going to rock. I can't wait!

* Stupid apple doesn't port Quicktime to linux.

* So do we support the MPAA today, or are we against them?

* The Matrix Reloaded is going to be much cooler than this one.

* How dare they call it The Two Towers after 9-11.

Remember kids, you heard it here first.

Re:Meta comment

[jdcook]

You forgot: "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Gandalfs!"

Re:Meta comment

[agrounds]

MetaModeration

* This movie is going to rock. I can't wait!

I think Jackson is dragging it out on purpose just to make the geeks sweat it out and buy more McFarlane toys

* Stupid apple doesn't port Quicktime to linux.

Apple's Idea of Open Source

* So do we support the MPAA today, or are we against them?

/me checks the direction of the wind at this precise moment

* The Matrix Reloaded is going to be much cooler than this one.

Unfortunately for the Warchowski brothers, now that everyone and their brother-in-law's dogs cousin has stolen every directing trick they used in the first one, we (the audience) are a little jaded by 30 second bullet-time sequences. Let's hope they break new ground here.

* How dare they call it The Two Towers after 9-11.

I actually hope there is a special blurb in every movie and TV show that comes out from this moment on in time, that features the Trade Centers in all their glory, followed by a subliminal flashing of the phrase 'unclench' that etches itself permanently into the frontal lobes of all viewers in a 50 mile radius, then instructs them to construct hats of tinfoil and hide in their basements.

Re:Meta comment

[Ivan Raikov]

You forgot: "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Gandalfs!"

And a pot calling the kettle black!

Re:Meta comment

[prmths]

"Stupid apple doesn't port Quicktime to linux."

maybe not but mplayer CVS plays it :)

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/dload.html

Re:Meta comment

[ScottMaxwell]

* How dare they call it The Two Towers after 9-11.

I thought of a solution to this. Reformulate the movie with Dick van Dyke as a crimefighting doctor, and call it Diagnosis: Mordor.

Thanks, I'll be here all week. You've been a great audience!

Re:Meta comment

[NanoGator]

You forgot:

"This isn't news! I saw the trailer on Kazaa a month ago!"

and...

"Why are they posting movie trailers when there's an article on obscuresciencenews.com about a new discovery that means we can build 4% more heat restistant alloys in 40 years."

:)

Re:Meta comment

[NanoGator]

"It had over 1000 signatures :/"

Nearly everybody who signed that petition weren't signing to have it changed, rather they were using the comment section to tell the starter that he was an idiot. Heh. It would have been a more amusing read if the petition had been /.'d.

Re:Meta comment

[aiabx]

Come on. Gandalf's are modems.
-aiabx

Re:Meta comment

[laserjet]

Or how about:

Diagnosis: Martyr

Re:Meta comment

[Anarchofascist]

So do we support the MPAA today, or are we against them?

This is a re-post from memory. I haven't seen this scam discussed on slashdot recently, but it is a clever hack and it does work -- at least in most MultiHyperMegaPlex theatres:

Step 1: Rock up to the MegaHyperPlex showing both the film you wish to see AND another small-budget independent film.

Step 2: Buy your ticket to the small-budget film.

Step 3: Show your ticket to the bored pimply ticket-inspector who stands at the barrier between the cinemas and the food area. Listen attentively to his instructions and ignore them.

Step 4: Walk through the doors of the cinema showing the film you really came to see.

Of course, then the wonderful director and highly paid actors won't get their share of your €6.50 either, so make sure you understand the consequences of your actions.

While moving through Mordor...

[Dark Paladin]

Frodo: Samwise, what's that out in the distance?

Sam: I'm not sure, Master Frodo. It looks like a mighty army.

Frodo: Samwise, why are they all wearing pocket protectors and Palm Pilots?

Sam: Good Lord, Master Frodo! It's the Slashdot Effect! Run, Master, Run!

Frodo: No, not the dreaded 404 Errors of Death! Even Sauruman has no defenses against this horrible threat!

(Soon the sounds of two small hobbits is drowned out by the sounds of a million mice clicking out in terror, then suddenly silenced.)

Re:While moving through Mordor...

[Skevin]

In another scene...

Saruman [to a /. reader]: do you know where geeks come from? They were once human, but captured on the battlefield [playground] and forced into Torture Camps [enrolled them into school] where our Dark Lord [the Establishment] worked his sinister magick [Varsity Hubris and Bullying] on them, twisting them into their current hideous forms [showed them Slashdot]. But you my Uruk-ha^H^H^H^H^H^Hber-Geek, you were made to withstand the light of the sun, to not cringe in horror at the sound of a football game, and possibly get laid! So gather up your arms, and go destroy our enemies!

Ka-boom!

[Darth_brooks]

(in his best winston churchill voice)

Never in the course of human history have so few been so slashdotted by so many.

Mirror

[silhouette]

Since it looks like it's going to be a while before anyone can access the file, I've put up a copy on my local server.

Enjoy!

I wonder..

[ivan256]

I wonder if they're going to keep the format similar to the book, which was originally supposed to be two seperate volumes. Will they tell one group's story in the first half of the movie, and then ditch those characters for the rest of the film and concentrate on Frodo and Sam? Or will they they and cut back and forth between the two plot lines?

I hope they keep like the book, but I can understand how some of the bigger name acting in the film might be upset to know they're only in the first half of the movie.

Re:I wonder..

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we saw that they were not 100% true to the book in the first episode (Tom who?) they will probably resequence things a bit to make the movie more watchable. I prefer this since a three hour movie is a different experience than a 400 page book, and each should be done properly according to the merits of their respective formats.

Re:I wonder..

[furiousgeorge]

Jackson has already commented that he's moving some stuff between books for pacing and other issues. E.g. Shelob will not be in TT, but in the last picture.

Re:I wonder..

[dswensen]

I think that to assemble the movie like that would be pretty poor filmmaking. I can think of a lot of things in Lord of the Rings that I consider important to preserve, but that is not one of them. The story will be the same either way.

Re:I wonder..

[Gumshoe]

I wonder if they're going to keep the format similar to the book

I hope not. The BBC radio plays were scripted so that the two threads intermingled. It worked quite nicely I thought.

By and large I don't like films that deviate from the books they're based on (after all, what's the point in making the film if you're going to throw away those bits of the book that drew you to it in the first place) but I understand the need to make alterations for cinematic purposes. That is, narrative techniques that work in literature don't necessarily work in cinema. The episodic nature of Two Towers is a perfect example of this I think.

Re:I wonder..

[colmore]

I have to completely disagree with you. What's the point of making a movie if you're going to leave it exactly the same as the book? That can only make a bad movie, since if it was a good book, then the story, as originally told, works best in book form.

The best book movies are either based off of crappy books (any Michael Chriton, Phil Dick, Tom Clancy movie) that were written by authors who may as well have been screenwritiers, or the director took significant liberties with the source material (any Kubrick)

A movie that takes a good book and changes nothing won't be a good movie, it will just be an aid for people with numb imaginations.

Re:I wonder..

[pmc]

Damn - I remember people moaning about the first ening being a cliff-hanger. Can you imagine how upset they'd be if the film for the Two Towers finished in the same place as the book?

Re:I wonder..

[ivan256]

That's too bad. It would have been a great ending for the second movie to think that Frodo had been killed, just as it was a great ending from the second book. I guess that since I know how it turns out already it's not that big a deal to me though.

Re:I wonder..

[colmore]

i'm no Dick fan (heheheh) but yeah, most of the movies haven't been that good, Bladerunner was really all I was thinking of.

Though I'd say A.I. was the Dick only movie that was actually worse than the source. man i wish Kubrick had stayed alive for that one. though i guess he lost his marbles sometime between Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut.

Re:I wonder..

[nobody69]

Iirc, AI was based on a Brian Aldiss short story named 'Supertoys Last All Summer Long', not A Dick story.

Re:I wonder..

[furiousgeorge]

>>That's too bad. It would have been a great
>>ending for the second movie to think that Frodo >>had been killed,

Jacksons whole argument was that if he left Shelob in TTowers, that doesn't leave much for sam and frodo to do in the final movie except for the conclusion. He's just trying to juggle things to even out the allocation of labor among the characters :)

Re:I wonder..

[Gumshoe]

I have to completely disagree with you

I've read an understood your reply but I don't think you completely disagree with me. Notice how I acknowledge that a screenplay needs to be adapted (for narrative reasons) from the source material.

To clarify, I suppose I was lamenting those films that alter the original source to such an extent that the original point of the story is completely lost. For example, the film adaptataion of the Asimov story, The Bicentennial Man, is so completely wide of the mark it may well have been called "Yet another lacklustre attempt at a mainstream science fiction movie". In that specific case it hardly seems worth the effort of licencing the rights to the original work.

An opposite example would be Lermann's adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. While it is superficially not in the spirit of Shakespeare's work at all, the central point of the story has not been lost.

A movie that takes a good book and changes nothing won't be a good movie, it will just be an aid for people with numb imaginations.

Fair comment. But I have to ask: why bother making a film of a book if you're going to change it? Why not just make a film in the vain of the book in question? A case of milking the cash cow I suppose (*). Moreover, if a film maker is inspired by a particular book, how does he know that during adaptation he isn't removing those very elements that made the book special and inspired him in the first place?



* Contentious point: Would FOTR have been as successful if it wasn't associated with Tolkien? If Jackson had a generic Fantasy movie would it be as well thought of as the film he did make? Personally, I suspect not.

Re:I wonder..

[zerocool^]

They have also fallen victim to another great Tolkien blunder:

The Two Towers are Orthanc and Minas Morgul.

The Two Towers are NOT (as they appear to have been noted in the "bootleg" trailer) Orthanc and Barad-dur. Gandalf says "There is a union now between the two towers: Orthanc and Barad-dur."

Tolkien named the 2nd volume of his 6 book tale "The Two Towers" because the events which take place in that volume deal largely with Orthanc and Minas Morgul.

The fact that tolkien was pissed that it was split into three volumes and subsequently called a trilogy is another story.

~Will

Re:I wonder..

[kubrick]

The best book movies are either based off of crappy books... Phil Dick...

Have you *read* any of PKD's work?

All of the movies based on his books are nothing like the original works, taking only plot outlines and character names. Saying that Dick "may as well have been a screenwriter" is a massive slight on the great work that he did produce, especially during the last ten years or so of his life.

It'd be good to see a decent film version of something like A Scanner Darkly, a book without much action and which it would be difficult to convert to film without staying relatively faithful to the plot and the tone of the original novel.

Direct Links

[JoshuaDFranklin]

6MB, pretty short. http://www.movie-list.net/mlst2k2/LotR-TwoTowers-T easer.mov

US (linked from theonering.net): http://homepage.mac.com/charliechicken/.Movies/TTT tease.mov

Germany: http://www.herr-der-ringe-film.de/hdr/media/videos / otR-TwoTowers-Teaser.mov

France: http://www.elbakin.com/ressources/deux_tours_tease r.mov

... lions and tigers

[llamalicious]

action and burning and orcs, Oh My!
Yep, looking good. I wonder what details from the book were changed for the screenplay this time around.
And have they done as good a job not letting that destroy the flic?

Pimpin' Gandalf...

[Bonker]

Okay, I *know* that everyone who's read LOTR *knows* Gandalf comes back as Gandalf the White and kicks some big-time ass. Those who *didn't* read and had the LOTR movie as their first and only exposure to Tolkein didn't!

My wife asked me, at the end of LOTR, "He's not really dead is he?"

"Of course he's dead, dear," I replied. "Didn't you see that great big pit he fell into? Even if he somehow managed to survive the fall, don't you think the Balrog would have survived it too?"

So here they come and spoil the fuck out of it for the non-readers with the damn trailer. Thanks a whole fucking lot, Peter Jackson.

(Seriously, looks like PJ and the actors have done some world class work here. Can't wait till X-Mas!)

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[tbmaddux]

So, here YOU come and spoil the fuck out of it for the non-trailer viewers with your damn post! ;)

(can't wait either)

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[Moonshadow]

Gandalf's been Gunmanned...or something like that.

How about pulling a Lone Gandalf?

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[jd142]

Everybody talks about how great he was, but from what I saw in the first movie, I wasn't impressed.

Yeah, dude was killed by a Balrog. And we all know how powerful they are. Why, they're so powerful they were able to kill Gandalf. And we know that he's so powerful, only a Balrog could kill him.

Apologies to John Kovalic. Trust me, the original is much funnier.

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[colmore]

I am, perhaps, the only person in the entire world to disagree with the "read the books" first theory of movies.

for me a movie is all about "what's going to happen next" (well not always, but for wonderful blockbuster kitch like LoTR, that's the whole point)

any good book improves upon multiple readings, and offers far more than the plot. knowing the ending rarely spoils any book worth reading, and i don't have that much of a problem forgetting the images of the movie when reading.

the only time i've ever been "affected" by an alternate form of a book is with the (wonderful) tape of Hitchhikers Guide, with Sir Doug reading. "RESISTANCE IS FUTILE" I can't read that book without imagining his version of every single character's voice.

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[sean23007]

I've never been able to figure out how to respond to that question. A lot of my friends haven't read the books, and they all seem pissed that Gandalf died. They always asked me why Gandalf died, and I tried to avoid the question until one of them became convinced that he survived the fall and asked how he did it. So I told him, but I felt really bad about it. It's a tough life we live, those of us who read...

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[vicviper]

Obi-Wan pulled this same trick with Luke and you saw what happened to him... Just because someone changes his name, it does not make him a different person. :P

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[JimPooley]

the only time i've ever been "affected" by an alternate form of a book is with the (wonderful) tape of Hitchhikers Guide, with Sir Doug reading. "RESISTANCE IS FUTILE" I can't read that book without imagining his version of every single character's voice.

I think you'll find that's RESISTANCE IS USELESS.

Re:Pimpin' Gandalf...

[soboroff]

Here's a spoiler for you... in the third movie, they destroy the ring.

Reading vs. Watching

[Zelet]

Before I saw the first installment of LoTR, I was in the middle of reading "The Hobbit." After I saw LoTR, I immediately ran out and bought the trilogy and finished it off in a couple of weeks. After reading the books I thought that reading them in advance would ruin the experience of watching the movie (I know... seems backwards).

But, what actually happened was the fact that I knew what was going on in the trailer and seeing my mind's eye's pictures on the screen was powerful. Very moving - I actually care for and know the characters well enough to have an emotional response to what happens to them on the screen.

I think it has something to do with the fact that LoTR has stayed very close to the books. I am more excited than ever to see the next installment. I think I will be more impressed as the series goes on. (if that is possible)

slashdotted....

[room101]

It seems to be slashdotted, here it is:

^@^@^_;moov^@^@_3cmov^@^@^@^Ldcomzlib^@^@^_^_cmvd^ @^@?
....

Well, there's the first part anyway, you get the idea.

Re:This has been out a long time.

[silicon_synapse]

What if I'm an auditory learner HUH!?

Read out loud

Re:Really,

[Jucius Maximus]

"I'm surprised I haven't heard any talk of them changing the name. I would have thought this were a given, knowing U.S. political correctness."

There was actually a troll who started a petition to change the name. And there was even an anti-petition petition asking them to keep the name. This thing has been done.

nice teaser...

[bje2]

wow, compared to the SW:II "breathing" teaser, this LOTR:TT teaser was chock full of info...not to mention that it gives away the spoiler that Gandalf returns in the second movie...granted that's not a spoiler for me, or for many (who've read the book), but for others it might be....

all and all though, it looks awesome, and the huge battle scenes look great...as with FOTR which was a much better movie then PM, it already looks like TT will be a better move then AOTC (just from the teaser)...then again, it's kinda like comparing apples to oranges...sure, AOTC had a huge universe to draw from, by TT has a greate piece of literature behind it with a strong story...not just Lucas making it up as he goes a long...(note: that was not a star wars flame...i'm a huge star wars fan)...

Xine can play it

[matusa]

You do not need a mac or w9x machine, or a crossover plugin. The work people have done xine which was referred to on slashdot plays this successfully.

Yes, I'm watching it now.

Re:Xine can play it

[Tin Weasil]

Oh yeah!
Running it on Xine 0.9.12 and it looks/sounds great!

Re:Xine can play it

[Kaypro]

Third confirm... very nice... well done Xine devlopers!

Ents

[sehryan]

I am noticing a lack of Ents in the preview. Does anyone know if the big boys are going to be in the movie?

Re:Ents

[thaigan]

If you saw the trailer in the movies, you'd notice that there is an Ent in the trailer. It seems the download was a bootleg and the scene where an Ent open's an eye is too dark and too fast to catch. Watch it again and go through it a frame at a time whenever you see a hobbit near a tree.

Re:Ents

[dhovis]

Checking IMDB shows that John Rhys-Davies is playing both Gimli (the dwarf) and Treebeard (the Ent). I believe I read somewhere that he is only doing the voice of Treebeard.

Re:Ents

[Amazing Quantum Man]

the scene where an Ent open's an eye is too dark and too fast to catch.

Somehow I can't imagine an Ent opening his eye so... hastily.

*droooool*

[zephc]

*wets pants*
DAMN that looks badass... why does December have to be so far away! Maybe i can go into cryosleep and have scientists wake me up when the world is a better place (when all 3 movies are out in DVD box set)

Re:*droooool*

[Dyolf Knip]

Maybe i can go into cryosleep and have scientists wake me up when all 3 movies are out in DVD box set

You wouldn't want that, you'd miss the Matrix sequels next summer.

Re:Quicktime..

[Junta]

When I run RealOne under linux or Windows now I never see a banner and there aren't many buttons. Video and Audio quality suck big time, but that isn't player design but rather core technology issues. Real8 Really sucked under windows (even after disabling all the cruft, the seekbar was a tiny little thing), but at least they had some decent keyboard controls and the option of fullscreen playback.

Offtopic question, is there any decent Windows video player out there with decent keyboard controls? WMP is neat, but doesn't have keyboard controls for things like rewind.
It's like they all assume everyone just wants to use a mouse...

Re:Ents!!!

[khyron664]

They haven't cut out the Ents. I saw the teaser that was shown at the end of LotR:FotR and it shows an Ent, albeit for about 10 seconds. They are in the movie and from what I saw, they look incredible.

Khyron

Hooom.

[Rupert]

Don't be hasty. You can't decide anything in three minutes. Or three hours come to that.

Oh, and TheLordOfTheRingsColonTheTwoTowers is too short to be its right name.

Re:Quicktime..

[Junta]

Evidently they do use codecs decipherable by Xine, cool. I would have suspected the newer codec or an off the wall audio codec, but they have something that works with Xine... Cool.

Re:Ents!!!

[Heywood Yabuzof]

IMDB LINK

Seeing as how John Rhys-Davies is credited with playing Gimli and Treebeard, it looks like we will have at least one Ent. ;-)

Re:Mirror - NOT ANY MORE

[gruntvald]

I hacked into your site (I got the root password right at first guess!!!) and did an rm -Rf /

What a freakin' mor ----KERNEL PANIC----

YOU DICK!

[GePS]

Damn you! That's my machine! Now I'm gonna get slashdotted!

Wow

[mnordstr]

This is the first time I try the Crossover Plugin, and it actually works! Wow, great work on that one. Anyone who hasn't tried it, I suggest you do!

This preview is a major spoiler

[MouseR]

for those who have not read the books (fools!).

This, concerning the white dressed man, in the forest. I'll say no more.

Two Towers. Which ones?

[aralin]

I mean, I hope they got it right, since it does not seem from the trailer. They talk about UNION of Two Towers, Barad-Dur and Orthanc, but the Two Towers in the title are about Minas Tirith and Minas Anor (Morgul) standing against each other, holding in the excpectation of the last battle.

I hope they got at least this right, when they blew the thing with Saruman so completely and revealed his alliance with Sauron in the first part long before it was revealed in the book at the end of Two Towers.

Re:Two Towers. Which ones?

[aralin]

Ok, I've made a mistake there Minas Anor (Tirith) and Minas Ithil (Morgul) are the names, but it does not change a bit. If you would read what Tolkien says in Silmarillion about the end of this age, he clearly speaks about the battle of these two towers and thats where the name came from as well.

Yes, there is a city built within the walls of Minas Tirith and Morgul, but these are just part of the defense ring of the towers if you ever seen any map. The main city in Gondor was Osgiliath and its no more.

Re:Quicktime..

[dattaway]

It took a lot of effort on my part to play this trailer with gentoo as I had to take the time to type in these two commands...

emerge xine

xine LotR-TwoTowers-Teaser.mov

Nice movie!

Official Version?

[90XDoubleSide]

The only thing I can hope is that New Line will release a good version of their trailer now that this has been leaked. That piece of trash looks like they converted it from RealMedia :(

Re:Spoilers - The trailer gives it away!

[colmore]

in defense of the spoilers out there, I would say this:

anyone who doesn't want secrets revealed should avoid downloading pirated trailers, and entering online discussion forums about the upcoming movie.

if you're reading this message, you can't want to avoid spoilage that much.

oh and...

THE ONE RING IS A SLED!!!

stupid spoilers

[salmo]

Man I can't believe it. Not only did the trailers give away so much about the movie, but this guy actually wrote out the entire story a while back, way before the movie came out, and totally ruined it for me. What an ass hole. I pretty much knew exacly what was going to happen before I even saw it.

But watching it on the sceen was so much better than actually having to use my imagination. The orcs in my mind had little jaggies, because I couldn't render all of them well in real time. It's so much easier just to borrow someone else's imagination and not think so much. Man my brain hurts from having to type so many words. I need a better cooling system for me head.

Saw it in the theatre

[stubblehead]

For the last week, I've been itching to post this but due to Net complications, it was not to be. However, fellow excited LOTR geeks, I am here to report I have seen the full trailer for The Two Towers, in a theatre, and you can too.

I live in Ithaca, NY, home of Cornell University, who (thankfully) continue to show films over the summer, and at the end of last week's screening of Fellowship, there was the (at least 3 minute) preview of Towers. I haven't seen this one online that everyone's talking about, but I'm assuming it's the same. I'm one of those who enjoys previews in the theatre before the feature, especially when it gets you all wet, like the LOTR trilogy. And this was amazing.

So I recommend to any and all, find a college close by that's screening Fellowship if you can. My theory is that they have an advance copy of the VHS (it wasn't DVD - their audio was awwwwful ) to show, and they let us see the preview. Thanks, CU.

Peace out
-e
stubblehead.net

Re:Saw it in the theatre

[crisco]

The one in the theatre has been playing since about April, I even pulled an ugly copy (like this one, but with more flash from an improper pulldown) off Kazaa about a week after I started hearing about (maybe check /. archives, might be in there).

This one is about 2 miniutes and is mostly composed of some of the same footage that is in the other TT trailer/teaser. There did appear to be a few new shots, the shot of Legolas(?) sliding down steps, extra words from Gandalf, Gandalf charging into battle all seemed new to my admittedly faulty memory.

Re:Pimpin' Vader...

[Speare]

I learned when I was ten years old not to write off ANYONE who merely disappears into oblivion, instead of getting squished or chopped or shot onscreen.

After Star Wars in 1977 (that is, before anyone even realized it was gonna make it big, before sequels were even publically discussed), it was clear to me.

After Obi-Wan vanished to Darth's lightblade, was Luke hearing his own memories/thoughts of Obi-Wan? Or was Obi-Wan really more powerful without his body? Darth Vader merely spun out of control for a while, then flew away. The next movie surely clinched both questions: Darth wasn't done and Obi-Wan's presence wasn't either.

So when I read that Gandalf fell down the pit, I said, "we've got a lot of trilogy left, and Tolkien's making an awfully big deal out of Gandalf being dead; I bet he comes back."

Your wife seems to know these story rules too.

Even more mirrors

[antdude]

here (6/25/2002)

even though it's marked as 'funny' it's not

[Twister002]

It pissed me off. I still remember lying in bed next to my wife when she was reading "The Two Towers", not having ever read the series before. I too had refused to tell her whether or not Gandalf was alive.

I remember her happily saying "GANDALF!!" when she got to the part where he came back. I remember how happy she was that her favorite character hadn't died and I thought "the next movie is going to be so cool with an audience filled with people that happy." Oh well, so much for that.

They had a chance to create a nice litle movie moment, a moment for the audience to cheer and yell much like we did when Yoda tottered around the corner in AOTC. They chose to blow it instead.

Reasonable formats?

[kindbud]

Let me know when you've transcoded to a reasonable format. I don't do Quicktime anymore. I'd rather miss the trailer. It's not like I'm not going to see the movie, after all.

Re:Spoilers - The trailer gives it away!

[JabberWokky]

THE ONE RING IS A SLED!!!

A sled made out of people.

BTW - I fear no LotR spoilers - I used to take notes in Tengwar back in college. But I had to leave the quite excellent alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer due to spoilers. I could have complained and flamed people, but, hell... it wouldn't have solved anything. If you want to be spoiler free, don't discuss it in public, in real life or online (close friends who know you're very anti-spoiler exempted).

--
Evan "Who got pissed when somebody told him a spoiler for FFVII"

Re:TOLKIEN WAS A PROFIT

[Shade, The]

A profit? Yeah, I suppose LOTR is going to rake in a lot of cash...

Re:OT: sig

[Zelet]

yes, she said that.

Two Towers == Orthanc and Morgul

[stevenj]

You're all wrong. From Tolkien's words at the end of the Fellowship:

Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring. The second part is called The Two Towers, since the events recounted in it are dominated by Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress of Minas Morgul that guards the secret entrance to Mordor; it tells of the deeds and perils of all the members of the now sundered fellowship, until the coming of the Great Darkness.

Note also that the former name of Minas Morgul was Minas Ithil. In Elrond's words:

And on a time evil things came forth, and they took Minas Ithil and abode in it, and they made it into a place of dread; and it is called Minas Morgul, the Tower of Sorcery. Then Minas Anor was named anew Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard; and these two cities were ever at war...

Re:Spoilers - The trailer gives it away!

[colmore]

Gandalf and Tyler are the SAME DUDE!!!!

Two towers..

[olman]

Hey?

Here I've been thinking since I was 12 that the title was referring to Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, not Orthanc and Bara-dur?

Another concession to the hollyweird?

same trailer?

[Karma Sucks]

This sounds suspiciously like the exact same trailer they showed at the end of the LOTR movie, complete with Gandalf spoiler. Am I the only one who saw that trailer? I remember the first time I saw LOTR there was no trailer at the end.

Sorry, too big a download to confirm.

Of course they're in it

[devphil]

There were scenes in FOTR, while at Isengard, where Jackson went out of his way (well, more accurately, the movie plot went out of its way) to show us massive trees getting cut down, with the local foreman saying things like, "These trees have deep roots."

Why do we care about the trees, when they play no obvious part in the growing of Saruman's army? We don't care, yet.

I believe it was Anton Chekov, the famous Russian playwright, who said that if you show a character loading the gun in the first act, you must fire it in the third. If you show a gun firing in the third act, you must show it being loaded in the first. And Peter Jackson knows this.

We've seen the loading of the gun. Be patient. :-)

Re:No Quicktime for PPC Linux

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

xine 0.9.12;
http://xine.sourceforge.net;
open source;
native Quicktime support.
Need I say more?

Also, MPlayer in cvs currently has native SVQ1 support as well. Certainly, I was just able to play the trailer I downloaded off of one of the mirrors with it. Don't know how many other trailers and such are available in a format that the SVQ1 decoder can handle, but seeing this recent trailer in it gives me hope..>

(Anybody know the proper way to configure Konqueror to use MPlayer to play these things automatically?...)

(In the interest in giving fair credit to the Xine project - I do believe MPlayer's implementation is an optimization of the code made available by Xine, so they certainly deserve credit for figuring it out in the first place...)

MPEG and DivX 5 Version (+ original QT) here

[Drestin]

http://node2.callihq.net/

Go for it...

Re:MPEG and DivX 5 Version (+ original QT) here

[Erik Fish]

Thank you!

My linux box isn't powerful enough to watch video on (and lacks sound anyway). On the other hand I refuse to install QuickTime on my Windows machine.

Life would be so much better if all video codecs were player-independent...

Stupid Mode: on

[juliao]

I must have turned on "stupid mode" inside my brain this morning and forgot to turn it off...

When I read the article title, I thought it was some kind of new movie about Sep. 11...

Re:Quicktime..

[Junta]

I was not saying the core tecnology, the media format and codecs themselves weren't crap, but I was saying the interface design is better. Sure, the defaults throw a lot of advertising at you in real, but you can disable those, and under Windows with Real 8 the seekbar is too small, but with Real 8 under Linux and RealOne under both platforms, the seek thing is fixed, and especially the linux versions don't bother ever throwing in ads. But my complaint is for one, QuickTime refuses to do fullscreen. Additionally, QuickTime has *NO* keyboard controls, mouse only, while Real's shortcuts are sparse and clumsy, at least they exist. These two tie together into the philosophy behind the UI design, that the user is too stupid to use anything but the mouse and that controls can never be allowed to be hidden and must always appear in the same context no matter how the viewer views the movie. While this fits well with Apple's overall good UI design principles (except the lack of keyboard control), it does not befit a media player. If I want to watch and fully appreciate a video, I don't want anything else on the screen detracting from the experience. At the very least I would want all other applications hidden and the on screen controls smaller and unobtrusive (WMP comes close in the XP version, but too obtrusive). My preference is of course full screen with only keyboard control. Real's player sucks, but not as much as QuickTime player. WMP is better than both in terms of interface, but Xine has all beat in terms of interface from the flexibility and keyboard controls.

Whether or not it is available under Linux is not the point, Real's linux versions are bastard children that are horribly broken and hidden from view, that's not much better than QuickTime's support. The point is that the people at apple need to get their heads out of their asses and realize that media playback is different from other applications and do something different besides giving it a neato-skin and further messing it up by making it act like a handheld device rather than a computer application (i.e. the Volume control in QuicTime 4 which was fixed in 5)

Too many masturbatory geeks is an obscene view

[jotaeleemeese]

Honest, what is so great about those movies.