New Trailer For The Two Towers

Drakkar writes "As most of you know, the new trailer for the Two Towers was online last night for AOL users, but the link was given on the official site, LordofTheRings.net. It's in real player format. A new trailer with higher quality will be up tonight, midnight ET. This new piece of film is awesome. (the song at the end of the trailer isn't from the TTT soundtrack, it's from the movie Requiem for a Dream)" xTK-421x points to more links: "Now available is the new 3 minute trailer for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Available here in MOV and here in RM. Reported first at Aint It Cool News."

Comments

holy bandwidth, batman

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

that MOV link from AOL came in at 400 Kbps. fastest download from a slashdot-linked site, ever?

Re:holy bandwidth, batman

[garcia]

it was fast but mplayer wouldn't play it. Told me to check the codecs.conf. Other mov files have played for me before :(

Re:holy bandwidth, batman

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

And I thought all *.aol.com addresses were banned...

Re:holy bandwidth, batman

[Warmth Is Life]

Now downloading at 1.33 k/s.

Re:holy bandwidth, batman

[gid]

mplayer doesn't play the latest sorensen encoded stuff, but it does play some earlier sorensen stuff thru emulation now. I was able to play it with quicktime 5 via the crossover plugin just fine (although a bit choppy even on a 1.33 ghz athlon and gf2 gts).

Re:holy bandwidth, batman

[chamenos]

(although a bit choppy even on a 1.33 ghz athlon and gf2 gts)

the trailer was encoded at a low bitrate, and has nothing to do with your computer's setup; its choppy on my 1.33ghz athlon too, and i've seen my computer handle quicktime movies that have a much higher resolution and bitrate before.

not so impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

considering that the full-length film of "return of the king" can now be downloaded.

Re:not so impressive

[JR]

I highly doubt that "Return of the King" can be downloaded since it isn't finished as of yet.

Just as with the upcoming "The Two Towers", there is more work (largely effects and editing) to be completed on "Return of the King" before its late 2003 release.

Re:not so impressive

[Emperor Palpatine]

pretty sure he was joking there, JR. :)

Re:not so impressive

[RabidOverYou]

> by JR

Gasp! It's Tolkein himself, posting from the grave!

Re:not so impressive

[stanmann]

Well, there was the animated BOMB. And I have seen it available for download.

Re:not so impressive

[Archfeld]

OH Please Glen Yarbough deserves death for that heretical animated pyle of crap. The only good part was the orc whip song...

Re:not so impressive

[gblues]

I highly doubt that "Return of the King" can be downloaded since it isn't finished as of yet.

Who says he's talking about the Peter Jackson version of Return of the King? ;)

* Starts humming 'Frodo of the nine fingers, and the ring of dooooom....'

Nathan

Re:not so impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but can you really compare a 50's Elvis flick to the LOTR trilogy??

This *would be* exciting

[FortKnox]

This would be exciting if I didn't already know what is going to happen.
This isn't like Signs or some other movie I'm anticipating without knowing the full story. Its just a very good interpretation of a book I've read.

Mind you, I'll be seeing it opening night, but the trailers just don't excite me like movies where I DON'T know the full plot.

Re:This *would be* exciting

[gatoresque]

Ok, then...

Explain all the Elrond stuff. He is not in TTT (book) much as you might remember. A siege of Rivendell? That would be a big addition & change!

Re:This *would be* exciting

[Atlantix]

In Tolkien's notes in the appendices and other writings, he explains that the events of the Lord of the Rings are not the only events going on in Middle Earth. Sauron sent attack forces against many strongholds in addition to Minas Tirith in Gondor. For example, to prevent the dwarves and elves of the Greenwood (also called Mirkwood) from coming to the aid of Gondor, he laid siege to the Lonely Mountain (the one from the Hobbit). Also, the elves of Rivendell and Lothlorien feared an assault and believed they could not successfully defend both locations so Elrond and company joined Galadriel in Lothlorien. Therefore my explanation for Elrond's appearance in TTT (the movie) is that Peter Jackson is showing the full scale of the war in Middle Earth and not just the events of LOTR (the book).

--Atlantix

Re:This *would be* exciting

[i0lanthe]

This would be exciting if I didn't already know what is going to happen.

There's the excitement (if you can call it that) of "what are they going to change to fix up the changes that they made for the first movie". Like, a butterfly flapped its wings when they were reforging Narsil, and therefore we will end up with an Eowyn/Arwen catfight. Bug or feature? You decide :)

Re:This *would be* exciting

[DThorne]

Ummm, yeah. Trivial little plot points. This movie ain't gonna end like "The Usual Suspects", my friend.

Unless Sauron is....KEISER SOZYE!!!!!!

Cheers,

DT

Re:This *would be* exciting

[Sinistar2k]

I still find the trailers exciting, if for no other reason than to see how characters and scenes are being realized. The short flash of Treebeard's bottom half intrigued me in this one - I can't wait to see a higher resolution version.

Re:This *would be* exciting

[Misao]

No books on me but I don't believe Elrond left Imladris until he brought Arwen to Gondor.

I'll have to check but I'm fairly sure on this one.

Misao

Re:This *would be* exciting

[gatoresque]

Agreed.

I just meant to point out that the trailer *does* hint at new exposition of stuff that isn't directly written into the book. There is stuff to get excited about here, even if you've read the books a bazillion times.

Yippeee!

[DeadEye]

I work at Stormfront Studios in San Rafael, CA and I'd also like to note here that our game based on the first and second movies comes out on October 22nd in North America. I only mention here because this is the first game for me and I am very proud of our team. It is published by EA and will be available for the PS2. We're all fiending to see the second movie as we've gotten to see only bits and pieces along the way and are dying to see the finished product! I've been a Slashdot lurker for quite a few years now and finally have something worth posting! Congrats to the whole team.

Re:Yippeee!

[startled]

Congrats! Sounds very exciting.

Now, about getting ME a job in the industry.... :)

Re:Yippeee!

[Dark Paladin]

As long as it's not Legend of Alon Dar, we'll all be fine.

Seriously - from the screenshots I've seen, it looks like Stormfront has done a decent job. Best of luck on the game's release.

I dunno

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't see the first one, since I'm always disappointed if I see a movie after reading the book. The reviews I hear from people who have also read the book are 50/50 loved it/hated it. Can a movie really ever replicate the visions of Gandalf, Frodo et al the reader creates for him/herself? And how can a movie really show the internal struggles that, for example, Boromir went through or Sam went through after Frodo went down for the count?

Re:I dunno

[King_TJ]

Well, frankly, I didn't go see the first one in the theater either. (Hey, money's been very tight lately. There's not much I will pay to see right now.)

I did, however, watch it now that it's out on DVD. Honestly, it just didn't do much for me. Before I get slammed by people for saying that, let me qualify:

It was a very well put-together production. Perfectly good acting, special effects, and the whole nine yards. Like the book, there are great lessons taught in the film. (Certainly, the whole theme of "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" runs throughout.)

I just generally dislike the "fantasy" genre, because we're forced to suspend all rational belief through the whole thing. Unlike sci-fi, where it's easy to say "Well, all of this simply happened on another planet we haven't discovered yet." - they have us believe that this world existed on *our own planet*, yet humans never realized it was there.

Somehow, this ruins some of the enjoyment for me, whether it's in book form or a movie. (It's sort of like the stereotypical "action movie" where the hero does so many unbelievable stunts that after 30 minutes, it makes the whole movie "cheesy" - no matter what else is good about it.)

I don't think you should ever ask the reader, or audience, to "swallow" excessive amounts of impossibility. Instead of insulting our intelligence, create a background for the tale that gives our minds a way to justify its existance.

Dragons and gargoyles are cool-looking creatures, and make good children's stories, but beyond that - you just need a little more "substance" to keep us believing in them.

Re:I dunno

[Bandman]

I don't know how everyone else feels, but...
while I was reading the books, I always got the impression that Tolkien wanted us to immerse ourselves in the belief that this was a "forgotten" prehistory. That maybe a long time ago, before our current history was written, this was the way that things were, and that we are the eventual outcome of everything happening. "The time of elves is gone, it is to men that we now give our hope". Him talking about an Oliphant as a gargantuan trunked creature whose relatives still live today was plain enough. For fun, I've tried to matchup the map he drew of his world and ours, and tried to place it. The closest I've come has been maybe someplace in northern/western africa.

Re:I dunno

[thefogger]

... they have us believe that this world existed on *our own planet*, yet humans never realized it was there.

Now _where_ from LOTR do you get that from? Earth and Arda are NOT the same. Our universe doesn't even exist in Tolkin's story and never has or will.

Re:I dunno

[dirty]

I think you missed the point of fantasy. If it makes you feel any better keep in mind that the story happens in "middle earth", arguably a different place from our little world. But really, just because a story can't happen, why should that completely kill it? I don't believe in wizzards or hobbits, but they still make for an interesting tale. Oh well, I'll be enjoying the two towers, you won't, different strokes.

Re:I dunno

[Dirtside]

Dragons and gargoyles are cool-looking creatures, and make good children's stories, but beyond that - you just need a little more "substance" to keep us believing in them.

I think that's a typo. What you meant to say was,

I just need a little more 'substance' to keep us believing in them.

Don't project your inability to suspend disbelief onto the rest of us, who have no problem with doing so.

Re:I dunno

[protohiro1]

I was always irritated by the feudal values of the book. Aragorn is king by right, everyone owes him there alliegence. People who don't blindly accept this Johnny-Come-Lately king who's only qualification is birthright are just portrayed as jerks.

And poor Sam, the servant. He is such model character because of his loyalty and subservience. I suppose that is the world that Tolkein created, but I don't have to approve. I think we should all be glad that the feudal value system is mostly gone.

Re:I dunno

[Planesdragon]

I just generally dislike the "fantasy" genre, because we're forced to suspend all rational belief through the whole thing. Unlike sci-fi, where it's easy to say "Well, all of this simply happened on another planet we haven't discovered yet." - they have us believe that this world existed on *our own planet*, yet humans never realized it was there.

You're familiar with the concept of multiple realities, yes?

Most good fantasies take place in realms that can only be alternate realities--as far away from Earth as the worlds of Star Wars. The rules are different, but there are rules, and it's fairly simple to say "all of this is happening in a reality very different from our own" if you must.

Two rules that should be legally enforced for fantasy: (1) Do not set it on Earth unless it's really set on a well-researched Earth. (2) set your rules, abide by them, and never let "it's magic!" or "it's just fantasy" form in your thoughts.

Dragons and gargoyles are cool-looking creatures, and make good children's stories, but beyond that - you just need a little more "substance" to keep us believing in them.

Are you a fan of science fiction? I've seen some things (2001, Contact, etc.) that are far less believeable than even most bad fantasy.

Re:I dunno

[erpbridge]

In Letters from Tolkien, he hints very strongly to the Shire being based on England, and at some point (I don't remember where exactly) says "if fiction were to be dropped, the Shire would be someplace around Northwestern Europe".

Now, looking at the Middle Earth maps, and trying to figure out the scale, would that put Lonely Mountain soewhere near Berlin, and Mt Doom somewhere around Belgrade?

Of course, after I wrote all this, I did a simple search, and came up with this map, which centers Hobbiton on Oxford, England. It indeed places Mt Doom near Belgrade, but puts Mt Doom somewhere in Western Poland.

http://people.wiesbaden.netsurf.de/~lalaith/Tolkie n/Grid.html

Of course, I've seen some other pages where they skew distances a bit further, and try to place Lonely Mountain near Moscow, and Mount Doom near Jerusalem.... and another page with someone even saying that Mt Doom, accounting for millenia of continental drift, is near modern day Baghdad.

I prefer the theory of the page I linked to....

Re:I dunno

[erpbridge]

FYI: Link points correctly... stupid Slashdot rendering of typed text however displays a space between the e and n of Tolkien, so if you're copy pasting, take note.

Re:I dunno

[nzhavok]

it's not stupid rendering, it renders correctly.

It was however a stupid fix to the long-line-trolls problem

Re:I dunno

[LadyLucky]

Now, looking at the Middle Earth maps, and trying to figure out the scale, would that put Lonely Mountain soewhere near Berlin, and Mt Doom somewhere around Belgrade?

Those of us in New Zealand know perfectly well that Mt Doom is Mt. Ngauruhoe. :-)

Re:I dunno

[Abreu]

There's things I liked (Boromir in general, the scenery, the orc makeup), and things I didnt like (Galadriel's temptation, the wizard's duel)

However in the balance of things I think its a better movie than what anybody else could have done

Re:I dunno

[King_TJ]

Sorry, next time, I'll be sure only to speak for myself when making such statements as "dragons and gargoyles don't really exist".

Re:I dunno

[Dirtside]

Ok, if you're going to be like that, then I'll pick at you a bit more.

I just generally dislike the "fantasy" genre, because we're forced to suspend all rational belief through the whole thing. Unlike sci-fi, where it's easy to say "Well, all of this simply happened on another planet we haven't discovered yet." - they have us believe that this world existed on *our own planet*, yet humans never realized it was there.

No. The creators of fiction do not actually think that these things really happened, nor do they want or expect us to believe that these things really happened. They, like us (except you) understand that it's a story. People like stories. Normal people also understand that stories are usually just for entertainment purposes (although they can also be social commentary, educational, etc.). Now I'm not saying you have to be just like everyone else, but the way you're acting -- that it's some big mystery how anyone could ever like fiction -- makes you look like you're being intentionally dense. We know you're really not that dense, so please think about what you're really trying to say here.

Hi-Res Trailer

[smoondog]

Does anyone have a higher res version?

-Sean

Re:Hi-Res Trailer

[Chaltek]

There's supposed to be a hi-res version coming out tonight (9/30) at midnight.

Re:Hi-Res Trailer

[smoondog]

Flamebait? Whatever....

-Sean

Re:Hi-Res Trailer

[Bagelbreath]

Apple has the QT version as a download now: http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/the_two_towe rs/

Slashdotting is so much fun!

[Mika_Lindman]

Let's /. those bastards for not providing deacent videoformats like .mpeg or divx.

music

[k2enemy]

the song is by clint mansell, who also did the music for pi.

Re:music

[samael]

Naah, the music for Requiem for a Dream was Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet. Clint did the beepy bits, the Quartet did the cello bits. The bit in the trailer is definitely a string instrument.

Re:music

[jonbrewer]

the song is by clint mansell [clintatthecontrols.com], who also did the music for pi.

I'm a fan of both Mansell and Kronos, and used to listen to the soundtrack to "Requiem for a Dream" quite a bit. That is, until I actually saw the movie. Powerful bit of film, that was. I can't listen to the music anymore. It sits on the shelf.

What format

[johnburton]

Bah, it's in RM and MOV formats....!
After the amount of junk the players for both of those installed on my machine last time I tried them I won't have them on my machine.

Anyone know any software for windows that will play either of those formats without installing a whole load of junk as well?

Re:What format

[miracle69]

Linux
VM Ware
Then have as many virtual Windows sessions as you like, crap be-gone.

Or...

Linux
Crossweavers

Or...
Linux
Real Media on a temporary account.

Or...

Wait, you don't have options in the Winders werld...

Re:What format

[Reality Master 101]

Wait, you don't have options in the Winders werld...

Good Lord! You're right! There are no options to emulate Windows under Windows!!

Another example of where the advantages of Linux know no bounds. Alert the press! This is the "killer advantage" we've all been waiting for.

Re:What format

[sfraggle]

Actually, Wine has been ported to Windows already.

Re:What format

[stanmann]

VMware Runs under windows. There are other Virtual machine programs available.

Re:What format

[Erik Fish]

Screw those formats. Anybody have a DIVX, XVID or even just plain-jane MPEG copy of this trailer??

Re:What format

[moofmoofmoof]

Jerk.
Did he ask that? No, but of course there's no need to provide a real answer if you can just be a funny enough ass.

Thanks for proselytizing,
MMM

Re:What format

[sirinek]

I've seen a growing trend on slashdot for people to do things such as call the person they're replying to "jerk", "ass", "jackass", "dumbass", etc.

In parallel with that trend are the number of posters who feel its a good idea to tell another poster to "shut the hell up".

Such bold-faced flaming is simply out of line.

Lets play nice.

Re:What format

[Refrag]

What the hell does QuickTime install other than the player?

Two Towers: Now In Convenient Book Form!

[Shuh]

If you just can't stand not knowing what's coming up in the next movie, rumor has it the 2nd book (and even the 3rd and final book) are out now! ;c)

Really? No Quicktime?

[ciryon]

What's this? One of the largest trailer releases of the year, and it's not there as Quicktime? We've just recently seen the appearance of Quicktime 6. A pity.

But, well, I suppose this is better since it can reach more platforms. Have never liked Real, for some reason though.

Ciryon

Re:Really? No Quicktime?

[LMCBoy]

MOV == Quicktime

you're welcome :)

Frame by Frame

[Grip3n]

For us LotR addicts, a frame by frame analysis is available at:

http://www.theonering.net/movie/preview/ttt_093002 _01.html

Additionally there is official frame by frame footage available at Lordoftherings.net

As most of you know...

[eggstasy]

...the full movie has been out on KaZaA for about 6 months now ;)

Re:As most of you know...

[nitefallz]

funny since weta hasn't finished the gollum renderings to film yet, well not as of 2 months ago anyway.

Re:As most of you know...

[handsomepete]

Joke? Troll? Serious? Hard to tell sometimes.

Just to set the record straight, this was totally proven false a hundred times over, most notably by Ain't it Cool News (I would provide a direct link to the article, but their site is refusing connections right now). This was a result of some media idiot claiming it was on Kazaa or some such thing only because he or one of his aides saw it on a listing (i.e. didn't check to see if it was actually the movie). Besides, as others have said, watching a movie on a shitty monitor is a waste of time.

On the bright side, searching for 'two towers' on p2p brings up some substantially interesting pr0n.

Re:As most of you know...

[eggstasy]

It was supposed to be a joke, but I guess no one thought it was funny. I assumed the ";)" moniker would render it unambiguous but apparently it didn't. I apologize for confusing you guys.

What was wrong with the old trailer?

[raehl]

And what kind of horsepower do you need to pull two towers anyway?

Seems like it would just be easier to just screw the trailer and leave the towers in the same spot.

Re:What was wrong with the old trailer?

[Skyshadow]

And what kind of horsepower do you need to pull two towers anyway? It's not about horsepower. For that sort of job you need good low-end torque. Watch a Ford commercial sometime.

Re:What was wrong with the old trailer?

[Loligo]

>And what kind of horsepower do you need to pull
>two towers anyway?

It's all about having the proper henchman.

-l

Trailer? Pffh!

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

Trailer? Pffh!

Everyone else and I have had all 4 DVD-rip SVCDs already for a month!

I got them here!

The First glimpses...

[cOdEgUru]

Of Gandalf's final fight with the Demon

Of Gandalf's new kickass horse

Of how Gollum compares to the hobbits in size (he is smaller)

Of Treebeard

Even the eye looks slightly different this time.

Re:The First glimpses...

[waspleg]

gollum is a hobbit

the warg riding orcs are bad ass and so was the half second clip of hte elephant, i'm already impressed (never ever ever happens by a trailer) and for hte first time in a long time i'm actually looking forward to seeing a movie

it's about fucking time good old school fantasy gets made into quality movies

Re:The First glimpses...

[Moridineas]

Gollum isn't a hobbit!! The books never say he's a hobbit. They may say he's a hobbit like creature, but from all we know he's been around longer than the hobbits have been.

Re:The First glimpses...

[i0lanthe]

Gandalf says (when giving backstory in the books) that he believes that The Artist Formerly Known As Smeagol was of hobbit-kind. Make of that phrase what you will. Various usenet threads (recent example) have discussed this to death.

Re:The First glimpses...

[SquadBoy]

In the books it is established that Gollum is of a race that is related to Hobbits. And you left out the Ent. :)

Re:The First glimpses...

[ceejayoz]

Gollum is a hobbit formerly named Smeagol. Time for you to re-read the books!

Re:The First glimpses...

[wwest4]

I hope gollum is somewhat smaller - he is supposed to be atrophied and sinewy thanks to a few hundred years spent brooding underground... but he seems roughly the same size skeletally; which also makes sense since Gollum is a Hobbit.

bw

Re:The First glimpses...

[rppp01]

While Tolkien doesn't come right out and say it, he pretty much makes it clear that Gollum was of some sort of creature related to the hobbit. Gandalf speaks of this during the Fellowship, I believe. And in The Two Towers, while he is watching Gollum sleep, Sam Frodo thinks of how hobbit-like the creature looks.

So....guess we don't know, but there are clues, iirc, that he probably was one, at one time.

Re:The First glimpses...

[Moridineas]

ok, well give me a page reference where it says he's a hobbit and not a hobbit like creature or a hobbit related creature. Ok?

My personal feeling is that smeagol is some kind of proto-Hobbit.

Re:The First glimpses...

[Flamerule]

Look at The Encylopedia of Arda's page on Gollum.

Relevant quote is from Gandalf, in LotR I 2 The Shadow of the Past: "I guess they were of hobbit-kind, akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors". Gollum's only about 600 years old; not old enough to be merely "hobbit-like" instead of "hobbit".

Page numbers would be silly; everyone has a different edition.

Re:The First glimpses...

[BrianH]

Can't give you a page number because each printing is different, but I'll add my 2 cents here and confirm that he is indeed a hobbit. Smeagol is the hobbit that found the One Ring on the bottom of the river where it had fallen from Isildur's dead hand (also alluded to in the beginning of the movie). He and a friend (another hobbit) stumbled across the ring in the river, and Smeagol fled into the caves after murdering his friend for the ownership of the ring. The evil power of the ring twisted his form over the centuries and created the shrunken, evil thing later known as Gollum.

I could be off (it's been a while since I read it myself), but I seem to remember that it's in the first book somewhere.

Re:The First glimpses...

[Moridineas]

So do stoors count as hobbits (and the quote is saying that he's not even a Stoor). I still believe that he's a proto-Hobbit, and not a hobbit akin to Bilbo and the Shire residents, but ultimately I suppose this argument is silly. Thanks for the link.

Re:The First glimpses...

[Moridineas]

I'll refer to what was posted in another reply to my message and quote the following link:

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

I guess ultimately how you interpret that determines if he is a Hobbit or not, I personally believe that seeing as Stoors as the ancestors of Hobbits (bulkier for instance than "modern" hobbits) and that Smeagol is much older than the Stoors even, that he is a proto-Hobbit, like Homo Erectus is to us, and not a Hobbit in the sense of of being the same as Sam or Bilbo or friends. thanks

Re:The First glimpses...

[tmlrv]

Hobbit or not, Smeagol did not find the ring. His friend did. But since it was Smeagol's birthday, he thought he deserved it, and so he killed his friend and took it. Hence Gollum's references to his "birthday present".

Re:The First glimpses...

[ozbird]

"If 600 years old you be, look like a hobbit you will not." ;-)

Re:The First glimpses...

[Eimi Metamorphoumai]

Of course. "Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits ahd already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides...The Stoors were broader, heaveir in build; their feet and hands were larger, and they preferred flat lands and riversides." (Prologue, Concerning Hobbits)

Re:The First glimpses...

[ceejayoz]

conclusive proof that Gollum/Smeagol == hobbit

Re:The First glimpses...

[SimonKeogh]

A Stoor is just a family. Like Brandybuck, or Baggins, they are still the same species! Just older, older families.

Re:The First glimpses...

[quecojones]

"If 600 years old you be, look like a hobbit you will not." ;-)

Just remember that the reason he/it (I'm still not convinced that he's a true hobbit) is ~600 years old is because he's been wearing the ring for a while... IIRC, it's supposed to give the wearer/bearer(?) obcenely long life.

The music is Paul Oakenfold

[Sanity]

It is from a track called "Zoo York", one of the best tracks on an excellent album "Bunkka".

It was indeed used in Requiem.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[XyouthX]

No, the track is called Lux Aeterna, composed by Clint Mansell who wrote the entire score for RFAD.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[tbmaddux]

Are you sure? "Requiem for a Dream" credits Clint Mansell with the soundtrack composition, the song in question being "Lux Aeterna," and it was performed by the Kronos Quartet in that film.

AFAIK Oakenfold's work is a remix.

Many previews use old soundtracks ("Bishop's Countdown" being the best example) that aren't in the final film, but this one sounded to me like an orchestra performance and not the Kronos original.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[foxtrot]

It is from a track called "Zoo York", one of the best tracks on an excellent album "Bunkka".

It is pretty common for movie houses to temporarily score films with off-the-shelf music (how many trailers have you seen using music from Carmina Burana, for example...) until the real score is ready, since it's tough to score a film without having it mostly editted so the score follows the action on the screen. Trailers will often use this temporary score, or use some other piece of off-the-shelf music.

Useless trivia: The score in 2001: A Space Odyssey is supposedly this temporary score. They'd hired a composer to do an original score for the movie, and the composer annoyed Kubrick, so they decided to stick with the classical pieces they'd chosen for the temporary score.

I can't begin to imagine the monolith without "Also Sprach Zarathustra"...

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[fahrvergnugen]

Paul Oakenfold owes a debt then to Clint Mansell (former Pop Will Eat Itself frontman) and the Kronos Quartet, who originally composed and performed all of the themes used in Requiem for a Dream. Oakenfold used their music, they didn't use his.

In fact, there's a remix album for Requiem For A Dream's soundtrack coming out this October, which features a track by Oakenfold.

As an aside: The original promotional website for Requiem for a Dream is one of the best flash sites ever produced, and it's still up as of this writing.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[Triv]

This sort of thing, reusing a soundtrack, happens all the time. Usually, when a trailer needs to be released to promote a new flick, the soundtrack for the movie hasn't been finalized yet. Whatever music you hear in a trailer is just filler (there's gotta be something there) - I just saw a preview (I can't remember what for - the trailer was before "Secretary")that used the "American Beauty Theme". It's a solid bet that "Lux Aeterna" won't appear anywhere in the finished movie.

Triv

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[Peyna]

Zoo York makes good skateboards.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[ceejayoz]

That's the most bizzare flash site I've ever seen...

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[blincoln]

I'd estimate that at least 2/3 of the trailers for films with any kind of action in them use either that bit from the Aliens score (Which I assume is "Bishop's Countdown," it's been awhile since I dusted off my copy of that disc) or "O Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi" by Orff.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[rudiger]

omg ot:

and the site is also archived on the dvd, for those of us who really loved that movie and spent the cash on it.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[Brad Wilson]

And it's a very common way to "acknowledge" the better compositions that artists do, by using them in trailers. After Crimson Tide came out, it seemed like just about every action movie was using pieces of that soundtrack. In fact, I still occasionally hear pieces of it used.

Hans Zimmer is a god, after all.

Re:The music is Paul Oakenfold

[Dale Dunn]

They'd better not use Lux Aeterana in the movie. We'll all be having 2001: A Space Odyssey flashbacks.

Ents kick ass

[zer0vector]

I haven't read the book in a long time, but weren't the Ents introduced in this one, I think they showed one in the preview. On a loosely related topic, and forgive me if I'm an idiot, but are they the one's who destroy Saruman's tower? I'm too lazy to check out the book and read it again.

Re:Ents kick ass

[lokki]

The Ents, as roused by Treebeard, don't actually destroy Isengard. They do a major number on tearing down everything else around it, but the best they can manage is to flood the dell the tower sits in. When they tried to tear down Orthanc itself they 'bruised their fingers'.

Spoilers

[Skiboo]

I'm aware that most people who care have read the novel (I know I have)... but this trailer spoils almost every major plot point in the thing!

*SPOILER WARNING*
It's got the group meeting Gandalf again, Gandalf talking with the king, the city evacuating and going to war at helm's deep, it's got gollum attacking frodo and slam, then eventually leading them to mordor. and more.
*END SPOILER*

I mean, way to lone gunmen are dead the thing.

Re:Spoilers

[AyeFly]

The Lone Gunmen are DEAD!????

Re:Spoilers

[junkgrep]

Yeah: fucking idiotic of them. It wouldn't have been THAT hard to conceal Gandalf's return, but in the trailer they not only show him, but even pretty much what's been happening with him up till now!

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[Phoenix]

The whole of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (and the Hobbit and other books in the series) were written many years ago.

The Hobbit (or as it was also titled as "There and Back Again) was written in 1937

The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were written in 1954 and Return of the King was in 1955.

So no, the name has nothing to do with 9/11. The two towers are referring to the two towers mentioned in the whole of the LotR trilogy.

All this information and more is available from www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biblio_frame.html

You people aren't doing your jobs.

[Phoenix]

What the hell is going on here? I was actually able to go to the link and actually see the content of the article. Hell I was even able to see the trailer.

You people are slacking! That site should have been /.'ed 30 comments ago. What are you people doing for heaven sake? Working?

Re:You people aren't doing your jobs.

[buswolley]

Is this place slashdotable??? I don't think so.

Ring of Sustain + z, where z=slashdot effect.

Re:You people aren't doing your jobs.

[mbourgon]

It's been fixed now... sites are unreachable. Have a nice day. Please drive through.

Re:You people aren't doing your jobs.

[dfj225]

We should try to slashdot slashdot. That would be something. Wonder what it would take to do it?

Re:You people aren't doing your jobs.

[Soulslayer]

It happened last wednesday/thursday when /. posted the story regarding Stallman's FAQ about why Linux should be called GNU/Linux. There were so many posts occurring that /. went into overload mode and started only serving out static pages until the traffic died down. /. has /.ed itself many times in its history. Though before the Stallman article it had been a while.

Re:You people aren't doing your jobs.

[dfj225]

Very interesting.....someone should also do an experiment where /. is converted to PHP code, just to see which runs better. Obviously this would be a large project, but there is already Slashnot which is coded in PHP, and with a little more work it would be up to par with the real slashdot.

Few mirrors

[Mika_Lindman]

I quess it's the same trailer I downloaded earlier today.

http://koti.mbnet.fi/~morrigu/lotr_ttt_trailer.mov

http://ameba.lpt.fi/~lindmmik/lotr_ttt_trailer.mov

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[Em Emalb]

this is modded flamebait currently, but I for one agree with it. It is just a trailer. About the 5th one on /. too.

Moderators,

If you disagree with something, but it is a valid point, respond, don't moderate flame-bait because you disagree.

thanks

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[daeley]

Seriously. I'm amazed at the excitement generated by an advertisement. Hey Look! Nike has a new commercial out, it is SO awesome!

Deserves excitment! I daresay this trailer does. Many that are geeks deserve excitement. And some that are sarcastic deserve being treated as a naysayer. Can you not give it a rest? Do not be too eager to deal out sarcasm in judgment. For even the very wise sometimes cannot "get it."

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[tcc]

Well a movie that is worth going out to the theatre to watch is a big event in itself. The MPAA keep blaming piracy and P2P for their lower revenues, but they fail to take into account that every good movie made generated a buttload of cash (spiderman, monsters inc, LOTR I, etc).

Theatres wouldn't be dying off slowly if they would have more QUALITY content making the trip worth to see and making good use of "the big screen". I used to go to the movies every week before, now it's about once per 3 months. The quality dropped, so had my support for the movie industry.

LOTR II will be a movie that not only I'll go see, but I'll do like I did for monsters inc, shreck and LOTR I, I'll organise an office group to go watch it altogether and have a beer before or after. At least I'm sure I won't have people bitching that I made them lose a night with that movie ;)

Good thing too

[Kevbo]

Since they give away a lot in the trailer that would be a spoiler if most everyone (on /.) hadn't read the books already.
I'm telling people not to watch it if they haven't seen the movie, since it spoils some surprises.

K

Re:Good thing too

[gfxguy]

I agree...

I had people asking me, afterwards, "Gandalf isn't really dead, is he?!?"

To which I replied "You saw him fall into a giant cavern after a giant fiery balrog...what do you think? Does everything have to have a happy ending?"

Then they'll see this...

Re:Good thing too

[wraithgar]

I was in a theater watching the first trailer for this. There was a lady next to me who I overheard say "He's not dead!?!" once they showed Gandalf alive.
I was instantly very upset that they showed that. That's the kind of scene that's best left to be experienced when you're watching the actual movie.

Re:Good thing too

[pediddle]

Frodo isn't really dead either, right??

I mean, um, oops....

Bah!

[Myrke]

I don't know what that other person saw, but LOTR1 was a fantastic movie. You could feel all 3 hours, though, (since so much happens it feels like you've been there forever) but the special effects make it worth it. I don't know how you could NOT like the movie unless you're a Tolkien stickler. If that's the case, woe is you.

Re:Bah!

[junkgrep]

Woe is me. I thought there were too many just plain movie cliches that sucked the life out of the story. Gandalf simply falls, instead of being pulled down by the whip? Five minutes of Sam drowning in slow motion after an already exhausting few hours? Cutting out the cloak of many colors discussion in favor of a bunch of goofy orc training montages and a wizard battle? Arwen bursting into tears and reading Halmark card dialogue over someone she's never even met before? If it was any other film than LOTR, I'd STILL think those were just plain stupid.

Re:Bah!

[Myrke]

Sure, pieces here and there were definitely Hollywoodish, but for the person to say "The movie wasnt very good" is rather harsh. I didn't like them adding/removing/changing parts (re:Arwen) either but compared to other book-to-movies that Hollywood trudges forth this didn't turn out as badly as some thought it could. The next one will probably have more instances like you mention but overall I'm betting it will be stunning, especially will all those battle scenes lined up.

Re:Bah!

[junkgrep]

No, it wasn't awful. I think there are a lot of things to praise in it: it was an action movie in which the characters definately seemed to feel geniune emotion about each other. But the clowning Merry and Pippin, the awful council of Elrond: it just felt like the people who did the script had no feel for the material, or ANY material. Stilted dialogue, poorly timed... bah. There shouldn't be stuff that could have been so easily corrected with a little thought.

Re:Bah!

[Myrke]

Yeah, I'll agree that such things should've been corrected and more thought out. I suppose that's the movie 'go go go' business and their worry of short attention spans for ya. Unfortunately due to all three being made at once such oversights won't be considered for review. :/ Let's hope for the best...

.mov mirror

[yack0]

.mov mirror of the 6 meg or so in size file

click

Paul Oakenfold?

[DiveX]

The name sounds like it could have almost been the name of a character in LOTR. Thanks for the information. Has anyone found a source of the music on the early trailer for the first movie. I beleive it was 'Gothic Power' but never could find it.

Before they get to that... (new domain name)

[Tsar]

why on earth hasn't hollywood suggested, and gotten a .movie (.mov) or .film (.flm) suffix for all movie websites? I'm REALLY sick of seeing advertizements with urls attached like "reallylongmoviename_themovie.net" and such.

I'd rather see them not even use domain names at all, and instead follow Sony Pictures' example of placing all their movie sites under the studio's domain.

Instead, I'd like to see them add a domain ".dum" for all stupid websites.

Let me say, though, that I think your post was quite on-topic, insofar as the original post was of interest to /.'ers. (Personally, I think the most amazing thing about this story is that these links appear, so far, to be unslashdottable.) but does anyone know how "OT" came into use as shorthand for "off-topic?" What's the shorthand for "on-topic?"

Re:Before they get to that... (new domain name)

[EggMan2000]

I agree. Just put it under the studio web site. Much easier to administer that way.

BTW: I know that somebody (I didn't) saw FEAR.COM. I got a real cick out of the movie commercials where they listed the url as feardotcom.com ----I mean what the hell is that?

the music of the rings

[dTaylorSingletary]

Now, if only the score /was/ composed by the Kronos Quartet.. or anyone besides the composer of the first movie. If I had one movie I'd nominate for worst musical score last year, it would have been the Lord of the Rings. Typical, manipulative quasi-classical James Horner crap.

What? The audience is to feel panic and relief within a few frames? Let's swell the strings, let everybody know that things are going to be ok.

Peter Jackson should have known better. He's used the best in the past (Danny Elfman, The Frighteners), and I can't understand why he'd settle for such blandness in the present.

d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician
music

Re:the music of the rings

[dTaylorSingletary]

and nor was it said that the soundtrack was James Horner. I did liken it to that crap though.

Looking forward to this one!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

I'm for once loooking forward to a couple of sci-fi flicks. Oddly(?), they are both sequels. LOTR/FOTR and Matrix both gave us acting (or casting, in Keanu Reeve's case), storyline and character development. I hope the Sci-fi community notices that the stakes are higher now. We are developing a taste for quality beyond expensive effects.

The fact that the plots in both movies were without gaping holes also contributed to a good experience.

Re:Looking forward to this one!

[ccgr]

I plan on seeing it. If only I can get myself to read the books. Either case I am sure it's better than Star Wars. What a waste. Altough Yoda fighting was cool, the rest of the movie was dull.

Re:Looking forward to this one!

[nagora]

LOTR/FOTR and Matrix both gave us acting (or casting, in Keanu Reeve's case), storyline and character development.

I don't remember any character development in FotR. Was it during one of the fight scenes?

TWW

Re:Looking forward to this one!

[SQL Error]

I don't remember any shortage of gaping holes in the plot of The Matrix for that matter.

The best part was playing "spot the building", since I live in Sydney.

Re:Looking forward to this one!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Nitpicking with dissenters is bad form, but screw it.

Frodo certainly grew as a person from he left the shire until he faced Gondor. He left the Shire quite naïve but with a strong sense of duty, and got progressively smarter about people and dealing with danger as the adventure progressed. The rest of the crew also learned some lessons, but I am not compulsive enough to remember them, much less to list them.

Re:Looking forward to this one!

[nagora]

Frodo certainly grew as a person from he left the shire until he faced Gondor.

That was in the book. Not much relation between that and the load of old crap that Jackson put on film.

TWW

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[daeley]

Somebody forgot their medication this morning. Chill out, dude, you've unwittingly managed to prove the corollary to the original poster's point: don't get so worked up, it's not that big of a deal.

And Three Seconds Later...

[Rayonic]

It was on all the P2P networks, mis-named to "LOTR:The Two Towers.Yes.This.Is.Real.And.Not.A.Trailer.DivX.avi "

Let's call it T3...

[trynis]

TTT? Let's call it T3, just to confuse everybody.

Not interested in trailers, thanks...

[Token]

I'm excited about these movies mainly because of the spectacle and look of the things...not because I don't know how the movie turns out. I'm starting to really _hate_ trailers that show all the groovy bits of a movie before their opening day...to the point where I deliberately look away and don't watch them when they appear in the theatre or on TV. In some cases, I've attended movies that gave very little more than the trailers did...one of my fave comments to the wife now is 'I guess we don't have to see _that_ movie now...'...and we don't!

I want my first sight of a great movie to actually be _in_ the movie theatre when it starts to roll. Am I weird?

Re:Not interested in trailers, thanks...

[BigBir3d]

even better is when the kickin' bits in the trailer end up not making it into the movie.

Re:Not interested in trailers, thanks...

[Crossplatform]

I disagree I think that in this case I want to see the trailer becuase.... I know whats going to happen already but in most cases I would agree. The perfect trailer for me is the first of the "Hulk" trailers. doesn't divolge anything but still tasty

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were written in 1954 and Return of the King was in 1955.

So no, the name has nothing to do with 9/11.

Ye gads! But 1954 => 19(5+4) => 1/99 => 9/11, and 5+5 = 10 which means 1955 => 1910 => (1+10)9 => 119 => 9/11 !!!

Re:ents?

[yack0]

>What's the word on the ents? I heard they were
> going to leave out the ents.

Actually, Gimli chops them all up and burns them all to roast fresh orc for dinner.

> Also, rumors abound regarding other aspects of
> the movie.

> Is it true that Merry and Pippin are going to be
> portrayed smoking "Shire leaf" out of some
> sort of a water pipe?

Actually, in the end of Return of the King, they actually return to their jobs as hemp farmers and Pippin does not, in fact, become Thain.

> Will Legolas be killed, his death avenged by an
> enraged Gimli?

No, they both die together at Helms deep, shortly after the orc eating scene above.

> Will there really be a love scene between
> Samwise and Mr. Frodo?

Actually, they cancelled the Arwen - Aragorn marriage and are replacing it with a Frodo - Samwise "domestic partnership agreement".

> Thanks for any clues.

Hope that clears some things up. Hope there weren't any real bad spoilers for you.

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[Alex Thorpe]

LOL! Nice paraphrasing of Gandalf's comments about Gollum and the death penalty.

See the whole movie using your computer!

[BMonger]

Go to the bookstore. Buy the book "The Two Towers". Turn all the lights in your computer room to off. Turn the brightness on your monitor way up and make sure energy saving features and screen savers are turned off. Turn the book so the text is facing the monitor. RTFB. When you come to a part you want to visualize, stop reading, close your eyes, and pretend.

Re:Two Towers: Now In Convenient Book Form!

[Alex Thorpe]

As a side topic, my brother just got the trilogy of books for his birthday, but he says he's going to watch the movies before each book; as in, read FotR now, TTT in December after watching the movie, and RotK a year after that. Silly boy.

Re:Evil MPAA?

[glwtta]

Or you can do what I do and just not watch the silly piece of crap.

Re:Evil MPAA?

[(trb001)]

Or is the MPAA only evil on days that are not December 18?

You forgot May 25th, 2005. They're okay then too.

--trb

Re:Trailers suck!

[chef_raekwon]

far be it for me to raspond to AC's,
but this warrants it:

When the masses watch the trailer, it generates interest in the movie. This generates $$'s for the company making the film.

In light of those who have heard of the movie, they will see the plot, and expect it while watching the movie, --subconsciously.

Re:Two Towers: Now In Convenient Book Form!

[Peyna]

I saw the first movie before reading the books, so I plan on watching all 3 movies and then reading all 3 books. I think it would be too complicated to mingle different flavours of it together by watching and reading out of order. This way I can enjoy one view of the story at a time and compare them separately.

That or I am just too lazy to read the books right now.

Elvis? I think not...

[fmaxwell]

Elvis is coming back man, Elvis.

No, Elves are coming back!

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....Nope

[Peyna]

While the people posting these comments are obviously trolls, I should point out that the World Trade Center was proposed in 1960 or so. That would probably be the earliest anyone would have known about the possible existence of those towers, and that date is after Tolkein wrote the book.

Trrooooollllll....

[Mulletproof]

Gee, how many times are we gonna ask this question? ~sigh~ If you actually are serious, pick up THE BOOK and check out the original publication date....1954. And anybody who is so mired in sensitive political correctness as to think the name ought be changed can suck my ass.

Re:Two Towers: Now In Convenient Book Form!

[masterkool]

I'd have to agree that if you have not read the books yet, to watch the movie first. I read the books first and found myself finding all sorts of little errors and differences between the movie and the books. Ultimately, this made the movie a bit less enjoyable and for lack of better words, good. However, the movies are good and the books are excellent, so dont discredit either.

Re:Clint Mansell

[m3000]

And I second that. The soundtrack to Requiem is incredible (as is the movie).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Why not MPEG? (Re:What format)

[simonfunk]

Agreed! Essentially all the players (real, quicktime, you name it) play MPEGs, so why do the sites publish in a smattering of proprietary formats when they could just stick one MPEG out there?

(So, in the meanwhile can anyone recommend a player for Linux that I can watch this damned thing on?)

Re:Why not MPEG? (Re:What format)

[protohiro1]

mpeg-4....sorenson 3....mmmm.

Re:Why not MPEG? (Re:What format)

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Agreed! Essentially all the players (real, quicktime, you name it) play MPEGs, so why do the sites publish in a smattering of proprietary formats when they could just stick one MPEG out there?"

The answer is simple: Copy restriction. I've downloaded Quicktime trailers before, only to find that I couldn't even take a [i]screenshot[/i] from them. Pity. One of the movies was fimled next door to my house. I wanted to show my friends that, but thanks to QT's copy protection, I was unable to do that. (bye bye fair use...)

Is it right? No. But you have your answer. They think that the release of the trailer will spell death to the industry if people *gasp* can open it in Premiere.

Re:Why not MPEG? (Re:What format)

[Doppler00]

An interesting thing about the Quicktime player is that it will save a copy of the movie you stream directly to your harddrive but it will not allow you to copy that to another location. The only way I discoved to retrieve the contents of the "temporary" file was to hit the power switch on my computer, turn the computer back on, and rename the file. Of course, they do just want you to buy the full version. It's interesting that Windows has such a weird file locking mechanism that it won't let you copy a file!

Re:Why not MPEG? (Re:What format)

[Anonvmous Coward]

It's good news for open source, iddn't it? If one can't use their fair use rights on the closed source format, it gives open sourcers a goal to work towards.

Re:Why not MPEG? (Re:What format)

[Cromac]

StreamboxVCR will save a copy to your drive and let you do whatever you want with it. It's just a local file at that point.

Asking too much...

[mblase]

Anyone know any software for windows that will play either of those formats without installing a whole load of junk as well?

I've never heard of Windows software that will do anything without installing a whole load of additional junk.

Re:Evil MPAA?

[AntiNorm]

Or is the MPAA only evil on days that are not December 18?

Today is a Monday. The MPAA isn't evil on Mondays.

Re:Good old school fantasy made into good movies.

[Azghoul]

Oh man, thanks for that visualization. I think I just wet myself. Please, Moorcock, please! Give us Stormbringer! (uh, just not as a Fox / WB / UPN series, heheh)

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[geekopus]

LOL!

You're a fucking idiot. This is a sarcastic paraphrasing from the book, knucklehead. He was being funny.

Idiot.

streaming soundtrack

[mshiltonj]

In case you didn't know, the site also streams the movie soundtrack around the clock. Nice. Click Here to listen.

Re:streaming soundtrack

[wkiri]

As far as I can tell, it only streams approximately the first half of the soundtrack, and not in order, either. Darn!

Don't give the copyright industry any money.

[Lonath]

They'll just use the money you spend on this movie to try to take away computers. Have a little self-respect for goodness' sake.

Re:Don't give the copyright industry any money.

[foobar104]

They'll just use the money you spend on this movie to try to take away computers.

I'll happily donate my $7.50 if I can be assured that your computer will be among the first to go.

Nitwit.

Re:Don't give the copyright industry any money.

[Lonath]

You really don't believe this, huh. Wanna bet money? What do you think the odds are that they'll try to take away computers? This means they will try to make it illegal for any old person to have a machine capable of sending, receiving, copying and altering arbitrary data. This is roughly what the SSSCA or CBPDTA was going to do. I'm not saying that they will succeed, but they are trying and if they can get away with it, they will. You're helping them if you're giving them money.

Re:Clint Mansell

[Elbereth]

Ummm. My life has been enriched for having read this comment. Thank you, moderators, for marking it as insightful. I don't know what I would have done had I not seen it.

Hey, this music is from another movie!

[eatenn]

&nbsp

Just watched the trailer, looks really awesome. Can't wait.

Did anyone else notice that the trailer used the same music (originally performed by The Kronos Quartet) as the movie Requiem For A Dream ? I'm not complaining, it gave me chills :)

Or am I just nuts?

Re:Good old school fantasy made into good movies.

[grytpype]

Now THAT is a good idea. Even for a first-run syndicated series, it would kick ass. It has all the creepy gothiness that kids like today, it's got a lineage, there's plenty of material to work with, it's a great idea man.

Gandalf the White

[Biffer4810]

I guess it's not spoiling anything any more...

Was anyone else suprised that they "gave away" the fact that Gandalf comes back... and comes back different none the less?

I first read the trilogy about 4-5 years ago, and loved it. Gandalf's return was a pleasant suprise.

Now, everyone will be sitting in the theatre, just waiting for that piece of film to roll... without much of a suprise element.

I think that these movies were done very well... I was pleasantly suprised after seeing FOTR, but to me it seems like a poor choice to give away this part of the plot with a trailer! I don't think that there's anyone out there right now saying "No, I'm not going to spend $9 to see -- Wait... Gandalf comes back???? Mark the calendar!"

Re:Gandalf the White

[happyclam]

I think it's not at all unusual for the entertainment industry to do this. If a favorite character is coming back, more people are likely to come watch if they know about it and if they're curious about how it happens.

Re:Gandalf the White

[Lord Azrael]

I think it's not at all unusual for the entertainment industry to do this. If a favorite character is coming back, more people are likely to come watch if they know about it and if they're curious about how it happens.

of course you are right, and i guess they will do it at the end of the two towers in a similar way also with frodo. in the book you believe he is dead at the end of book 2. i doubt that they will let the audience in this belief, too .....

Re:Gandalf the White

[Biffer4810]

they showed him in the first trailer for the two towers that was released a while ago

I noticed this as well...

So maybe the idea is that "The favorite character is coming back", but I don't know... Don't get me wrong, Gandalf was done VERY well... the acting, the casting, the costume, the lines... great job, but he's not the reason that I enjoyed the movies... I personally enjoyed the movies because ALL of the characters were done equally well... and I believe that if I were a movie-goer that had not read the books, I'd go back to see more of the story unfold, not just because I could see more of Gandalf.

I don't know, maybe I'm bitter. Maybe I think that people should read the books before seeing the movie, but I feel more like a fun suprise has been ruined for a lot of people. I know I'm not alone in thinking this, but I'd like to know if there are others in the community that would either back me up or shut me up.

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[zerocool^]

Also, note to film makers:

The two towers were Orthanc and Minas Morgoul. I don't have the book with me to check spelling, but they are NOT, repeat NOT Orthanc and Barad-dur, as a previous trailer had stated.

The events of the 3rd and 4th books in the 2nd volume in the six book long novel entitled the lord of the rings deal with the dealings with sarumon the white, his orcs, his seige of Helm's Deep, Gandalf's confrontation with him, and the recovering of mary and pippen (3rd book) and the trials of Frodo and Sam as they pass into the land of mordor, via the pass of Cirith Ungol, in the tower of Minas Morgual, which used to be minas anor? I believe, which is one of the two remaining strongholds of the city of Osgalith, the other (directly across the river, with osgalith in between) being Minas Tirith (4th book).

Silly movie.

Re:Actually..

[Clock Nova]

Interesting. The Balrog looked exactly as I imagined it would. In fact, much of the movie looked as it did in my imagination, especially Hobbiton; that was dead on, as was Bag end.

Of course, much of my imagination was influenced by the Lee illustrations, which were a major influence on the design of the movie, so there is a reason for the similarities.

Still, there were plenty of things that did not come from the illustrations that still fit my imagination pretty closely.

I couldn't even read through your whole post . . .

[IndependentVik]

I'm sure this is just a sign of my own immaturity, but I read "Please, Moorcock, please!" and just about collapsed in a fit of laughter :)

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[Flamerule]

Since we're nitpicking...

[...] in the tower of Minas Morgual, which used to be minas anor?

Minas Morgul is the tower to the east of Osgiliath; it was Minas Ithil before it fell into darkness. Minas Tirith is the tower (city) to the west of Osgiliath; it was originally Minas Anor.

Ents are a go.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ents are in. Jackson was pleased with what the special effects boys churned up. However, ents will be decidedly absent from the trailers, much like the Balrog was from those for FOTR. Personally, I like the idea of saving the best for the big screen. Too many movies these days are summed up in their trailers.

http://filmforce.ign.com/lotr/articles/367/36769 4p 1.html

Two Towers & 9-11

[peter303]

The rings website reported there was some consideration by Peter Jackson of renaming the middle movie. e.g. "War of the Rings", because of connotations to the World Trade Center "Twin Towers". But I'd guess the anniversary media saturation has been cathartic to many and they can move on.
For a while there it was hard to watch movies like Independence Day or Star Wars and not think of 9-11.

Re:Two Towers & 9-11

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the feeling, I cannot watch TV news without being reminded that our democracy is is turning into a corporate facist state.

Re: don't blow you wad, it's just a trailer

[Crossplatform]

Buzz Kill. Perhaps if you comment had more to do with social commentary about how we as a society react to advertisement that would be defferent. But reacting to pop culture with condemnation or sarcasim is the cheapest and weakest form of self gratifying humor. If you want to masturbate don't include the rest of us Keep you post to relivent humor and insite not just sarcasm because you can't think of any thing else to post

Re:Evil MPAA?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I thought it was Tuesdays.

Re:Look at where he claims to work.

[DeadEye]

Stormfront.com Is where I work. Please don't flamebait like that. Details on the game can be found here.

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[Silverhammer]

Lighten up -- Peter Jackson has simply taken a bit of poetic license. Since the climb past Minas Morgul and the encounter with Shelob have all been moved to the third movie, it just didn't make much narrative sense to have Minas Morgul be the second tower.

Spoiler Spoiler!!

[Tsugumi]

Okay, so I guess most people woill have read the books already. But it's at least 1/3rd of the way through till Gandalf the White makes his appearence - giving it away in the trailer is a little unfair (think of the kids! think of the kids! ;-)

And you consider yourself LOTR geeks!

[noewun]

And no one has mentioned the lack of Tom Bombadil yet? My favorite hippy-freakout character excised from the movie. I was planning to laugh my ass off.

Of course, this may have been discussed in one of the previous umpteen LOTR threads I have completely ignored.

Re:And you consider yourself LOTR geeks!

[SgtChaireBourne]

He was sorely lacking from the first movie. Among other things, the hobbits' visit to his place helps set the extreme age and power of Middle Earth and some of its entities.

He needs to be introduced somehow by the finish.

Re:And you consider yourself LOTR geeks!

[ynohoo]

Nah, I didn't miss him. Some fruit running around the woods singing god-awful songs? *Shudder*

Re:And you consider yourself LOTR geeks!

[216pi]

be happy that there are signs that at least the ents will appear. According to earlier romurs, Peter wanted to remove even these...

Re:I can't wait to see....

[h0ss]

For me, TTT was the most boring book in the trilogy too. The first time. When I learned the story, though, and started really grooving on middle earth, it rose quickly in my estimation. TTT has a lot of character development, as Aragorn finally wises up to the fact that not only is he King, but he'd damn well better start acting like it, or as Gimli and Legolas begin to look past their racial hatreds and know each other as friends, or as Merry and Pippin start to realize that there's a big world outside the shire, and that they're in the thick of things, and that what they do actually matters. Now, my absolute favorite bits are in RotK, that's for sure. Sam becoming the true hero of the book, Aragorn being recognized as King, and the scouring of the shire and its healing. But for my nickel, FotR is the snoozefest of them all. Which means that the best is just starting to arrive.

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Arwens appearance

[Lord Azrael]

ok, i admit a few years have passed since i read the book, but i really cannot recollect where Arwen appeared in The two towers?

can anybody - who knows where to find that passage in the book - give me a hint? we got to know her in the first book, but then i thought she then again appeared only at the end of the 3rd book in minas tirith......

Re:Arwens appearance

[ADRenalyn]

Arwen was not mentioned ONCE in the Two Towers.

However, if you noticed in the movie version of the Fellowship, P.J. has decided to incorporate many elements from different areas of the story, such as appendices and other writings. I think this is a phenominal effort to make the movie a distinct piece of art, rather than another re-make of a classic tale. This way, you DON'T already know what's going to happen... I mean sure, the plot is very closely following the book for obvious reasons, but it's exciting to see some new content and ideas to freshen up the story. One thing that the movie is adding into the story that the novels were lacking is a love story. Sure, there's one brief section that describes a love affair (Eowyn's) at the end of RotK, but for the most part, there is barely a hint of a love story between Aragorn and Arwen. It looks as if Peter Jackson has taken all the details of this relationship he could find and brought them together to develop a romance within the movie. Even if you are not a fan of romance and love stories, it is admittedly cool to see some content that is "new", yet fits perfectly within the story without changing Tolkiens original vision.

Movies and books are 2 completely different medias, and each has advantages and disadvantages. Tolkien created a story so rich and detailed that there is no way it could be converted exactly to a movie that would succeed with the larger portion of todays audience. For that very reason, I appreciate his ability to convey many aspects of the story in a condensed time frame and still hold true to the original concept.

Re:Arwens appearance

[Lord Azrael]

thanks ADRenalyn for that nice explanation. from that point of view you are showing it would really be a remarkable thought of P.J. And please do not get me wrong: I am not complaining about this, infact in a way it is quite understandable to show a little bit more re arwen & aragorn for people not having read tolkiens books.

Tolkien created a story so rich and detailed that there is no way it could be converted exactly to a movie that would succeed with the larger portion of todays audience

absolutely correct, having read the books i think they did a remarkable job in the FotR, as you say 100% correct, "there is no way it could be converted exactly to a movie "

thanks again for your posting

Re:Speaking of trailer music..

[junkgrep]

It's from some Joan of Arc movie with that chic the Fifth Element. I forget theexact name, but you should be able to find it from that description.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Evil MPAA?

[DrVxD]

> I thought it was Tuesdays.
Nope. Tuesday's gone (with the wind).


o
O
(Thinks: No-one on /. will get an obscure)
(Lynyrd Skynrd reference like that. Sigh )

Re:not a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

If you keep modding it down, people who are in the dark will not find out the answer, and they will keep asking forever.

Re:Uh, NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, sorry, you are totally wrong. Gandalf explains that they (Smeagol and his people) are related to the Stoors - one of the branches of the hobbit family tree. They lived in an area formerly inhabited by hobbits, before they migrated north and west into what was to become the Shire. There is only a 500 year difference between Smeagol's finding of the ring, and Bilbo's finding of the ring, after all. Not much time for the two groups to diverge, at all.

Theoden

[CaptainCarrot]

He's far too young-looking. Even if he's only supposed to be in his 60s according to the chronology of the books, he was prematurely aged by the power of Saruman working through Wormtongue. The vigor he displays in leading his people after his healing by Gandalf ought to be contrasted to his appearance. Here he looks positively energetic in his first appearance compared to how he ought to be presented.

Gandalf in the Trailer?

[bleckywelcky]

Is anyone else horribly dissappointed at further appearances of Gandalf in the trailers? The first one I saw showed him for a split second and then focused on the other characters in astonishment to see Gandalf. It left some suspicion as to what was actually happening with Gandalf, although it revealed more than I would have preferred (for other people, since I already know what happens). I was unhappy to see that in the preview, but figured that perhaps not all was lost. However, this trailer clearly shows that Gandalf has indeed returned, after seemingly falling/fighting to his death. It seems like it is a huge spoiler for anyone who hasn't read the books yet, and although it might bring in just a few more ticket sales, the experience that could have been felt at seeing Gandalf return has now been lost. I am extremely dissappointed to see this in the trailer, anyone else have any thoughts on this?

On another note that people have been discussing thus far, I am happy with the story taking place in the movie versus the story taking place in the book. I was discussing this with the group of friends that I went to see the 12:01 showing of FOTR with - that the story that the movie tells doesn't necessarily need to mirror the story told in the book. We came to this conclusion because the gist of the LOTR as well as other stories of similar-type eras is relatively constant. There is good and evil, heroes and villains, battling, love stories, history (of conflict, of development) etc. What then makes a good story is how you tell your particular interpretation of a particular set of events of the era (or of a particular setting - ie think of multiple copies of the same universe, taking on different courses of events to conclude on different worlds with different races, towns, events, goods, evils, etc but still with the same themes at heart as the other worlds). So, the fact that Peter Jackson hasn't mirrored the exact events, settings, and dialogues of the actual LOTR book is not a problem, because although he is basing his interpretation on the sum whole of events in the LOTR book, he is actually making mild interpretations of the world at hand, but still working the same main themes, just with a slight Peter Jackson touch. The movies are not necessarily supposed to be Tolkein's LOTR on screen, they are supposed to be the LOTR story told on screen by Peter Jackson based on Tolkein's interpretation of LOTR ideas and events (since, really, the LOTR story is not Tolkein's, he just provided his grand interpretation and visualization of events that so many people have thought about). Not that I'm knocking Tolkein down or anything, I think he did a great job, I just think that comments on the movie like "he missed this" or "the book wasn't like that" are fruitless - pointless, even. Anyone else want to comment?

Re:Gandalf in the Trailer?

[Galahad2]

You mean to tell me they've made books already?!

Re:Gandalf in the Trailer?

[G27 Radio]

I agree with both points but at the same time it sucks when there's a part that you like a lot that is left out. I liked the meeting with Aragorn better in the book (and the original LOTR animated movie) much better than in the new version.

There was a long silence. At last Frodo spoke with hesitation. 'I thought that you were a friend before the letter came,' he said, 'or at least I wished to. You have frightened me several times tonight, but never the way that servants of the Enemy would, or so I imagine. I think one of his spies would -- well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.'

'I see,' laughed Strider. 'I look foul and feel fair. Is that it? All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.'

That part really stuck with me for some reason and I was disappointed that it was changed in the movie.

Re:Gandalf in the Trailer?

[Storm Damage]

Regarding Spoilers:

There is a significantly different approach to revealing spoilers about plot hooks in a movie with a "fresh" script, and one based on a novel that's over 60 years old. Just too many people have read this story already. It's part of our culture. I'm not just talking about Geeks and slashdotters here, but literally tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people have read LotR.

There's no real secret that this trilogy of films has been crafted by lovers of Tolkein's writing FOR lovers of Tolkein's writing. It's safely assumed that most viewers of the movie, and people slavering for advance looks at the trailers and film footage, are already enthusiasts who know what's coming, and are (generally) interested in glimpses of the world, creatures, and artistic vision, not the plot, which is familiar to them.

Re:Gandalf in the Trailer?

[jafac]

(sarcasm)
I find, that in general, when they do the movie first, and then the book (like the Star Trek movies, etc.) - the story in the movie more closely mirrors what's in the book. I don't know why, it' just seems that way.
Maybe they should have made the LOTR movies first, and THEN written the books?
(/sarcasm)

Re:Gandalf in the Trailer?

[scrimmer]

I agree. I remember when reading FOTR for the first time I became terribly disappointed in Gandalf's death. I couldn't recall, at that point in time, reading any other book where such a cool character was offed so early in the story. Upon reading The Two Towers, I was overjoyed with Gandalf's return.

It's too bad that people unfamiliar with the novel will see the preview and not be able to experience the excitement and awe of Gandalf's return in the actual movie.

Re:There are rumours surrounding the movie

[WhtDaUWant]

Inside info - the Ents are not cut out

This is not the case...

[Leviathant]

While it's true that Clint cannot play a violin (well), he can handle a sequencer and/or keyboard better than even I. All the music for Requiem for a Dream was composed by Clint Mansell - the string bits were simply performed by the Kronos Quartet.

What we hear in the trailer is in fact a full blown orchestral take at the Requiem theme, and it translates very well from such a minimalistic piece. Kudos to Clint, now if only they'd figure a way to get that RfaD remix CD out.

"Two Towers" Trailer Dialogue ... A Little Coy?

[WCityMike]

We all know that television pundits aren't going to be able to help themselves from making the inevitable comparison (even though the linked petition was actually a joke by a Slashdot member).

But this trailer has some phrases in it that make me wonder if someone in New Line's marketing department is trying to be a little coy about that comparison. "They were unarmed; they had no warning" was the first line that caught my ear. Then, upon replaying it, I caught:

• "I will not risk open war."
• "Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not."
• "This is but a taste of the terror that Saruman will unleash."
• "It is an army bred for a single purpose -- to destroy the world of men."
• "By order of the king, this city must empty."

I admit, this post is more along the lines of those old "Top 10 Sexually Tilted Lines" for the Star Wars trilogy, in that I am purposefully reading something into lines in a way that they were not meant for. But, still, a bit "huh"-provoking, I suppose.

P.S. Gollum looks like Nobby. Or vice-versa.

Hold on Bucko

[doublem]

Star Wars?

Star Wars?

You know, there are just some people who WANT to be reminded, and any excuse to be reminded will do it for them.

When you lose someone you care about, everything reminds you of them, even things that make absolutely no sense as something to trigger the memory.

Personally, I would have taken as an insult to Americans and the human race if he had changed the title of The Two Towers. Why? Simple, it would have been claiming we can't heal. It would be announcing to the world that Jackson didn't think Americans could recover from tragedy.

You know what? In the grand scheme of things, 9-11 was NOT that massive a disaster. True, it killed thousands of people, and yes it changed the country, but worse things happen all over the world, and the rest of the planet recovers. The people learn to live life without the people they lost. Did you hear about the recent bout of floods in China? How about the starvation that's ravaging Africa? Hell, what about AIDS in Africa. Yes, losing over 3,000 people in one day is terrible, but it happens all over the world. Americans are just too ethnocentric to see the rest of the planet as anything other than the Disney / Hollywood sanitized tourist attraction on TV. Terrorism is nothing new, it's as old as human conflict. Human conflict has been going on since the dawn of the species itself. From the moment our ancestors first picked up a weapon in the Fertile Crescent, we've been killing each other.

Clearchannel releasing a list of songs that might offend, people being chastised for speaking out against the ongoing war and every other patronizing thing that's been going on disgusts me.

People don't heal or recover from emotional trauma if they don't face reality. Those who retreat into a shell where all traumatic stimulus is hidden wither and die.

There were times in the last year where I saw the entire country morphing into Ms. Havisham from Great Expectations. Unable to deal with the groom running away on her wedding day, she locks herself in her room and never emerges. She withers and dies in her wedding gown. The windows are shut and the curtains sealed to prevent light from entering. She froze herself and her memories at a time just before her loss, when she was still filled with the promise of marriage and a family.

Erasing the WTC from photos and movies, pretending it didn't exist, is no different than what Ms. Havisham did. It's hiding from reality, letting the wounds fester. We've been bitten by a rattlesnake and are refusing to drain the poison. Refusing to think about what has happened, the poison works its way into our blood and kills us.

We have to face reality, and that means picking up the things we enjoyed before the disaster and enjoying them again. If a man loses his wife, he can't shut himself up forever and never see the sun again.

Yes, changing the name of a movie is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but it is one step on a road we must not take.

The saying "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" is more true than people realize. Physically, most the country is unharmed, but if we crawl into holes and let our liberties be drained away and our lives become a mass of traumatic material that must be avoided, we will wither and die. The events will not have made us stronger. We will have died inside.

Re:The music ... and the Movie Industry

[DEBEDb]

Ah, the movie studios have their own little
P2P network, eh?

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[PythonOrRuby]

I could believe this. The Two Towers could refer to any number of combinations of locations.

The "tower" of the Misty Mountains where Gandalf was reborn and strove with the Dark Tower, and Barad-dur. Or...

Barad-dur and Orthanc, and the collaboration and rivalry between Sauron and Saruman. Or...

The two watch towers overlooking the Black Gate.

The tower of Minas Tirith and Orthanc. Or...

It could involve the watch tower that guards the pass of Cirith Ungol, where Frodo was taken, which is not Minas Morgul.

It could mean a lot of things.

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[PythonOrRuby]

Given that Sam is shown covering a very pale Frodo, I think we can assume Shelob will be present in TTT.

Re:JOAN OF ARC

[junkgrep]

But... it did have the musical score that the original poster was interested in.

The history of St. Joan is conflicted, not simple. It's something that could benefit from multiple interpretations, and I don't see why the interpretation of the Messenger is a bad thing. It may have been a lousy movie (I didn't see it), but that doesn't make the concept lousy, or even historically inaccurate.

Re:Uh, NO!

[ceejayoz]

conclusive proof that Gollum/Smeagol == hobbit

Its midnight.. do you know where your hobbits are?

[halo8]

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/the_two_towe rs/

Full Screen PPL

Hey! Were you...

[shogusumi]

... looking for for these?

Have shame, people

[ilyag]

You are spoiling for everybody the fact that the clip is a spoiler... Think of those who still believe in entertainment industry. Have SHAME, people...

Over-reactions to 9-11

[Duds]

The BBC in the UK skipped "the people of new york vs homer simpson" during the latest Simpsons run.

They offered no explanation and never responded to my email.

Are we now not allowed to see any media that might slightly reference new york or anything tall?

It's the name of an old, OLD book. If someone builds a bible towers and then it falls over will they ban the bible?

Re:Over-reactions to 9-11

[Duds]

Yeah, September ain't a good move to be a couple of towers :)

Why Real format

[CheeseCow]

Every single time I see a movie preivew it is in .rm or .mov format. I _hate_ real player. I don't know what's wrong with all the other codecs, but if you movie guys e-mail me about it, I'll see if I find something better for you mmmkay?

Re:Why Real format

[Smid]

Well, you've got to see theres some stupidity there...

The .mov format is a 7 meg download, so download it once and watch it many times...

The .rm format is streamed and protected from real servers. Yep. Just in case we want to copy it. Want to watch it again? 7 Meg again.

Maybe they think we can build our own Two Towers move from the trailer. But only in the ".ram" format.

Elmer fudd

[SgtChaireBourne]

I dunno I kind of thought with his size, speech impediment and all that maybe Gollum was Elmer Fudd. We haven't seen him around lately and even back then he seemed ready to go around the bend.

A recent interview didn't really give too many clues. It could be him or maybe not.

To the moderators of this thread:

[smileyy]

Fucking sheep.

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[gosand]

LOL! You're a fucking idiot. This is a sarcastic paraphrasing from the book, knucklehead. He was being funny.

Gee, you think so? That was my point. That was WHY the post was lame.

Let me try to explain - the original poster said that it is just a movie trailer, that you shouldn't get all excited about it. Only die-hard LOTR dorks would. Then some dufus replies with a paraphrase from the book. (acting as a pseudo-flame, the same way reniassance fair people do. They think they are being clever, but the rest of the world laughs at them because they are so friggin stupid) You ever see the episode of Jackass where they go to the ren fair, and that one dumbass gets in their face talking about smiting them and all that gibberish? You probably thought that was cool, didn't you?

I DID get the idea of the response, and I stand by my assertion that it was totally lame and stupid, not funny. Wow, the moderators modded it up as funny - big surprise. But you aren't in your little world where you can talk like raving idiots and get pats on the backs because you have l337 70lk13n 5k1lz.

Go ahead, flame me some more, and by all means, quote LOTR (or any of the Star Trek movies, or some anime movie, or a video game). You can pretend all you want that I don't get it, but I do in fact get it, I just see it for what it is - stupid, weak, pseudo-social delusions.

OT: the usual suspects

[Abreu]

A friend of mine, her husband and I sat down to see "The usual suspects" one night, she just couldnt take the movie seriously because apparently Keiser Soyze (sp?) means "Imperial sauce or soup" in german...

Which of course makes complete sense once you see the ending, but it was pretty much a spoiler for her

Re:Don't blow your wad, it's just a trailer

[slide-rule]

Must say I agree. I similarly go to the theater less and less these days to see movies: for the effort, increasing prices, increasing ambient noise levels (general rude-ness and cell-phones), bad pop-corn... well, it takes a really good movie for me to want to bother, and so I become quite selective. But it isn't just the environmental issues. Maybe I'm just getting old[er] and [more] crotchety, but the overall quality of films that purport to appeal to my demographic have really gone into the crapper the past few years (rare, notable exceptions are present), and since they don't do too well in the theater, they come out in the rental stores a bit more quickly, so then there's even less reason to go spend $20+ (me and the misses) when I/we can otherwise rent it for $3, drive through $fast_food_place for $10, possibly see it many times, (plus bonus DVD footage not in the theater) and quite decidely fast-fwd through the commercials. Bleh.

Timeline...

[Maledictus]

Teh *book* actually has two very different timelines in it. Frodo and Sam's story in The Two Towers takes longer than the story of Aragorn, Gandalf, and the rest of the gang. When you read the book, you don't really notice this because it has the distinct misfortune of being written in two separate tracks. (Personally, when I re-read TTT, I read a chapter or two of the first part, a chapter or two of the second part so that it's intercut.) I believe the Aragorn, et al story ends somewhere along the same time that Frodo and Sam are with Faramir, there are probably better fanatic...er scholars...than I who could correct me on that.

The movie will very likely be intercut as well. And since the two time lines don't match up, Shelob isn't going to be in this movie. At least that's what I've heard.

I can't imagine Jackson completely leaving her out of the entire story, though. So I imagine she'll be around in RoTK. I mean, who'd leave out a giant spider? That's just ripe for some truly awe-inspiring CGI.

Or maybe that's just me. Shelob is the all-time scariest creature in Middle Earth to me. I'm anxious to see her on screen as well.

*shudder*

Re: our own planet?

[King_TJ]

Well, there's a line in the movie (near the beginning, where the wizard is riding into town on the wagon), where he makes a comment about "the humans not often interacting with the hobbits, which is probably just as well".

That would certainly lead me to believe that this is supposed to be taking place somewhere on our planet, at the same time humans are alive.

A higher quality quicktime version now available

[sc00p18]

at lordoftherings.net

one simple question...

[EngMedic]

just one simple question. why are there significant hints in the trailer of an arwen-aragonrn-eowyn love triangle? Is hollywood that desperate? in TTT, Aragorn laughs eowyn off, pretty much, then goes off to raise the dead (literally). Why the need for romantic tension that doesn't exist? Arwen gives up her immortality to be with her man- isn't that tragic/sentimental/makes me cry enough?? Why spoil it... especially with Elrond -"goodbye, mr. anderson"- the Elf apparently trying to 'save' his daughter from death and screw Aragorn over. which also doesn't happen in the book.

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[King_TJ]

I don't know if there's anything to say here that will help you understand my complaint? Obviously, you feel that fiction of any type is perfectly fine, whether it has any grain of "believability" in it or not.

I, on the other hand, have a view that's shared by many other people I know. I think that one of the biggest creative challenges of good fiction is coming up with credible explanations for the technologies, events and places depicted in the story.

EG. We all know there is no such thing as a "warp drive", a la "Star Trek", and we know we can't currently teleport people from point A to B. We also know we don't have phaser guns that can "stun" or kill, depending on their setting, and certainly not the level of medical know-how illustrated on the series. Nonetheless, Star Trek stood out, above many other sci-fi shows, precisely because the effort was made to explain it all. If the "science" wasn't there to give something legitimacy, it didn't go into the TV show or movie.

The "Fantasy genre", on the other hand, seems to discount any of this as relevant at all - and wants its readers to disregard reality completely. Some people are bothered less by this than others. (Perhaps parallels could be drawn between those who blindly accept religious beliefs "on faith" and those who choose not to believe in a "god" without better evidence?)

In any case, I see no reason why a fantasy novel couldn't be written that still preserves some "credibility". It might take a little more forethought and knowledge of science and history, but what's wrong with asking for that?

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[17028]

If you based a fantasy story on science, it would become science fiction. Fantasy stories are an extension of myth and fairy tales. If you can't enjoy it, I'm sorry for you.

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[King_TJ]

Even most fairy tales and myths make sure not to give enough detail as to the "where" and "when" so you feel as though you're struggling with a contradiction with reality.

That, or they dealt with the "unprovable"... concepts similar to ghosts or ancient gods/deities. There's not really any way to disprove their existance, so why not write stories about them?

All I'm saying is I don't care for fantasy novels that make claims that "lock them into a particular place and time in history". LOTR would have been improved, IMHO, if it was made clear that it took place on another world. Tying it in to the human race starts the reader/viewer asking lots of questions that the author would have been better off not getting involved with.

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[Dirtside]

...and wants its readers to disregard reality completely. Some people are bothered less by this than others.

Indeed. The overwhelming majority is not bothered by this at all. Only you and "many other people [you] know" seem to be bothered by it. (For the record, I have come across those with your opinion a few times in my life... but only a very few.)

(Perhaps parallels could be drawn between those who blindly accept religious beliefs "on faith" and those who choose not to believe in a "god" without better evidence?)

There's a capital-O-Obvious distinction between fiction intended for entertainment, and religious beliefs that are claimed to represent the real state of the world. Sane people do not confuse the two.

In any case, I see no reason why a fantasy novel couldn't be written that still preserves some "credibility". It might take a little more forethought and knowledge of science and history, but what's wrong with asking for that?

Because the entire point of fantasy is to present something which is not real; to present something which is outside of our ordinary, mundane existence. Magic, dragons, orcs, hobbits, wizards... these things are not real. They are fantastic, in the original sense of the word. The majority of people enjoy stories about such things; it doesn't need to integrate with their view of the real world, because they know it's fiction, they know it's made-up, and they know it's just for entertainment. Normal people have no trouble holding two conflicting ideas in their mind at the same time. On its own terms, as long as a work of fiction is internally consistent, how outrageous it is doesn't really matter. If it begins to contradict itself, that's another story, because you (the audience) can't get into a consistent mindset with which to enjoy the story. But the story doesn't have to relate to reality for it to be enjoyable. You're right, there is no reason why a fantasy novel couldn't be written that preserved "credibility," but on the other hand, there is no reason to write a fantasy novel that must mesh with reality. The entire point is that it's not real, but you seem to miss this.

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[Dirtside]

Even most fairy tales and myths make sure not to give enough detail as to the "where" and "when" so you feel as though you're struggling with a contradiction with reality.

There you go with saying "you" when you mean "I" again. The rest of us do not have this problem. It's only you. (And the "many other people" you claim to know who feel the same way.) I've read numerous fantasy stories that purport to show things happening on our actual Earth, but it doesn't bother me, or most other people. Why does it bother you? Nobody knows. Suffice to say that fantasy authors really should not alter their writing style for the sake of a tiny minority who are incapable of enjoying a story unless it's made very explicit on Page 1, preferably in large print, that it is entirely fictional.

All I'm saying is I don't care for fantasy novels that make claims that "lock them into a particular place and time in history". LOTR would have been improved, IMHO, if it was made clear that it took place on another world.

It would be fine if that were indeed all that you were saying -- but you keep writing as if everyone else should feel the same way as you. There is nothing in LOTR that ties it to our actual Earth any more than your average fantasy novel. And almost every fantasy novel ever written features humans as the protagonists. (LOTR has several protagonists, only some of whom are human.) You only get one guess as to why.

Tying it in to the human race starts the reader/viewer asking lots of questions that the author would have been better off not getting involved with.

No... it starts you asking lots of questions. The rest of it enjoy it for what it is (fiction) and then move on with our lives.

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[King_TJ]

I say the proverbial "you" rather than "I" because I happen to know I speak for more people than just myself.

Just because you, in particular, don't care whether an author puts in the extra effort to add a measure of believability to his/her story doesn't mean I'm automatically in a small minority of those who do.

In fact, I had a number of fantasy novels up for sale on eBay last year (all in brand new condition), as well as a collection of science ficiton novels. (My girlfriend ordered a whole bunch of random things from a sci-fi book club one time, and I wanted to get the stuff out of here.) The sci-fi sold without any problems, yet several of the "fantasy" novels never sold at all, and the others sold for only the minimum bid price of about $1.00.

That's just one more shred of evidence that helps back up my claim that there aren't an awful lot of people out there into the fantasy genre. I daresay it's largely because people feel it's a "waste of time" to read hundreds of pages about a mythical fantasy world that not only doesn't exist/never existed, but doesn't even try to leave the reader with any new wisdom/insight or ability to relate to the characters presented.

Note: I'm not claiming *all* fantasy is void of "value" to the reader. That's absurd. As I said in my first post, LOTR teaches several good lessons. Still, I think those same lessons can be better communicated in another fiction genre that roots itself a little deeper in science and/or reality.

If you just want mindless entertainment, you can get plenty of it from TV sitcoms.... No need to read fantasy novels too.

you're an idiot

[dpatters]

AND bunkka is one of the worst fucking albums i've ever heard in my life. i can't believe there are people that enjoy that album.

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[Ironica]

King_TJ (in what fantasy world are you a king, I wonder? And by what credible method?) the basic problem is that you don't understand what suspension of disbelief *is*.

A good story must be consistent with its own world. The bulk of fiction uses our own world; sometimes a different time period, sometimes the present day. I found I enjoyed Deep Impact far more than Armageddon for precisely the reasons you discuss... it simply exercised my suspension of disbelief gland less. But, these were both very near-future stories based off of our current world, so I saw them in that context.

Aside from the fact that Lord of the Rings is not, at any time, set in a particular time period in our history ("Middle Earth" is not Earth, and "The Third Age" doesn't correspond to any period I know of), it belongs to a genre that explicitly does NOT root itself in our world. Therefore, suspension of disbelief is based on the internal consistency of the world, not on whether or not it matches the fossil record. Tolkien was one of the great masters at creating an internally consistent world; Middle Earth's history was completely known to him, he developed the languages of the major (non-human) races, and a dozen other details are apparent in his work that make it a paragon of fantasy literature. LotR is considered a classic fantasy novel (establishing many staples of the genre) specifically because of this amazing internal consistency. As the story unfolds, there isn't anything that reminds you that this world was made up... except for your own hyper-awareness of the world around you.

I, myself, enjoy fantasy much less than science fiction precisely for the same reasons as you... it can't happen. I don't much enjoy science fiction that's poorly executed, either... nor do I enjoy regular fiction books or movies with plot holes and continuity errors. But even a very well-done fantasy piece fails to satisfy me as much as those that *can* happen, because I am also (as you are) a realist.

This isn't the fault of the genre, however. I don't like westerns, either, and that doesn't mean there's something wrong with them. Nor is there something wrong with me; I recognize that I have different tastes from a great many of my friends and *that's fine*. I don't have to find fault with the genre of fantasy literature to justify it.

Neither do you.

Re: fiction and credibility.....

[Dirtside]

I say the proverbial "you" rather than "I" because I happen to know I speak for more people than just myself.

I was being half-facetious about that. Only half, because your tone indicates that not only are these anti-fantasy opinions yours, but they should be everyone else's, too.

Just because you, in particular, don't care whether an author puts in the extra effort to add a measure of believability to his/her story doesn't mean I'm automatically in a small minority of those who do.

You're right, my beliefs do not automatically do anything to you. Regardless of what I believe, you are in that small minority.

In fact, I had a number of fantasy novels up for sale on eBay last year (all in brand new condition), as well as a collection of science ficiton novels. (My girlfriend ordered a whole bunch of random things from a sci-fi book club one time, and I wanted to get the stuff out of here.) The sci-fi sold without any problems, yet several of the "fantasy" novels never sold at all, and the others sold for only the minimum bid price of about $1.00.

Well, I can't really comment on this unless I know which fantasy novels they were. There's some crap you can't even give away, let alone sell for $1.00. Maybe you've just been reading all the badly-written fantasy?

That's just one more shred of evidence that helps back up my claim that there aren't an awful lot of people out there into the fantasy genre.

This is the first time you've made that claim, but I guess that's really just nitpicking. SF is undoubtedly more popular than fantasy, but unless you can provide some statistics, your point is moot. Even if you do manage to provide hard data showing that fantasy is an inconsequential segment of what's read, then why are you spending so much time harping on the fact that it's fictional?

I daresay it's largely because people feel it's a "waste of time" to read hundreds of pages about a mythical fantasy world that not only doesn't exist/never existed, but doesn't even try to leave the reader with any new wisdom/insight or ability to relate to the characters presented.

Yes, poorly written fantasy is not worth reading. Well-written fantasy is as worth reading as any other kind of fiction. I've also read scads of science fiction that wouldn't meet your criteria for believability, mostly because the events depicted took place "in the future" (relative to when the novel was written), but by now, in October 2002, that "future" has passed, and none of those events happened. Does this bother me? No. Fiction isn't about trying to make the work fit into our real world: it's just a way of telling stories. Apparently, fictional things like dragons and elves bother you for some bizarre reason that fictional things like lightsabers and spaceships that fly like aircraft don't.

Note: I'm not claiming *all* fantasy is void of "value" to the reader. That's absurd. As I said in my first post, LOTR teaches several good lessons. Still, I think those same lessons can be better communicated in another fiction genre that roots itself a little deeper in science and/or reality.

That's your own shortcoming. Most of us don't have any trouble learning lessons just because they're couched in things that never could have happened. I'm an atheist, but even I've learned from some of the things Jesus is supposed to have done, even though I don't believe they happened.

If you just want mindless entertainment, you can get plenty of it from TV sitcoms.... No need to read fantasy novels too.

Any genre or medium can be mindless entertainment. Theodore Sturgeon was dead-on when he said that 90% of everything is crap. Just because you have this bizarre quirk doesn't mean that the rest of us aren't going to continue getting value from fantasy, even though you're incapable of it.

Essentially, the problem is that you cannot accept the nature of fantasy, but instead of understanding that this is a problem with you, you insist that it's a problem with fantasy. Manifestly, the majority of people do not have this problem, which is why I conclude that the problem lies with you. Now I don't insist that you start finding the same value in fantasy literature that I do -- if you don't enjoy it, you don't enjoy it, but don't go around pooh-poohing what other people like to read simply because you don't get it. If you're going to keep this up, you're going to have to come up with some kind of actual logic, rather than just, "I don't like it, therefore it sucks and nobody else should like it."

Re:Please excuse my ignorance....

[Silverhammer]

Blockquoth the poster:

I think we can assume Shelob will be present in TTT.

Uh, no. Peter Jackson has already said that Shelob has been moved to third movie, not only to give Sam and Frodo enough to do but also to have the events line up chronologically. Here is the report.

Re: thanks for a very good reply....

[King_TJ]

Ah-hah! Thanks for an excellent reply.

I do find myself in total agreement with you (both on preferences in reading material and movies, and on the comment about it not being the "fault of the genre").

Honestly, as much as anything, I'm partially just trying to be difficult in this discussion, since I was nitpicked over my usage of "you" rather than "I".

If I've managed to find fault in the entire Fantasy genre, that's not quite what I intended to do.

This whole thing originated from the argument over whether or not LoTR was supposed to have taken place on our planet. Some folks seem to be saying "No way. Middle Earth isn't *our* Earth." Others say yes, Tolkien stated before that it was, indeed, supposed to be here on our planet.

Perhaps we're supposed to assume that the human race does/did live on more planets than just Earth? That's a possibility I hadn't really considered until now. All I know is in the movie, the wizard does mutter something about humans and hobbits rarely interacting with each other (and that he thinks it's probably just as well).

Initially, it was exactly that part which bothered me. (Why go to all the effort to write a consistent, epic story about an entire fantasy world, and then nail it down to supposedly happening here? It's just an unnecessary "tie-in" that needlessly strains credibility.)

Re: thanks for a very good reply....

[Ironica]

The name of the planet that Tolkien's LotR world is set on is Arda. It's not Terra (our Earth). The complete history of his world is laid down in the Silmarillion, which covers from the beginning of time, up until something like 1,000 years before the events in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. So, it's fairly clearly established that this is a different world, with a different history.

Now, I didn't really know all that until I started asking my husband (Dirtside ;-) about it, to make this response. But I never did make the assumption that it was supposed to be "our" world. Had you been told that before you saw the movie, or after? How did that information "ruin" it for you?

Last Post!

[alpg]

Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires
you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers
wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly
spring up in the middle of the machine room.

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