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LOTR Director's Cut Reviewed
popala writes "The first review is in on Home Theater Forum. There are a few screenshots from the unseen scenes and the whole thing is reviewed dvd by dvd! Although I don't like the review itself - I think it is a bit dry and not very journalistic, I do think it is still worth a read - even just a glance of the screenshots from cut scenes."
as everyone has probably already heard he doesn't really think this is a Director's Cut but just an extended edition. he goes into his problems with the term "Director's Cut" in one of the videos...
Who cut the normal cut then? Didn't the director have any say in the matter?
I wish hollywood would stop trying to sell us something that we've already got again, on the pretext that it's got extra bits in that the director decided were a bad idea the first time round.
I probably won't be buying this, but I hope someday to have a friend who does (take that, MPAA!) so that I can see the scene where Galadriel dispenses her gifts. Frankly, one of the biggest disapointments of FotR (which, largely, I really enjoyed) was the reduction of Gimli from character to caricature. I'd hope to see in that scene some glimmer of the Gimli that, IMHO, should have been, or have confirmed that Jackson simply had no idea of what to do with a dwarf and decided to settle for Stupid Dwarf Jokes.
...but what about those scenes that are in the movie that aren't true to the book? Personally, I'd rather see the extra length offset a bit by cutting some of the things that are untrue to the book. Like all the Aragorn-Arwen stuff and the things that weren't supposed to be revealed until later. I mean, this edition is meant to appease those that wanted more from the books in the movie, right?
A page is in Google's cache if it got indexed by the same. You find it using the 'site:' parameter combined with the right keywords... AFAIK there is no way to predict the url to the cached google document.
No, the page was not yet indexed/cached. I guess it won't ever, since it's URL contains more than two parameters (s and threadid) and google refuses to index active pages with more than one paramenter.
Well I think it's very interesting, it's the equivalent of a copy of 1984 that I saw (and would have bought if I had the cash at the time), which was basically a copy of the original manuscripts, with the author's and editor's comments scribbled all over them.
When there's really a work of art that fascinates you, don't you feel an urge to know what went into putting it together?
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
You should check out some of the books edited by Tolkien's son Christopher. They don't really go into detail about pencil weights, but they do give a fascinating (YMMV) insight into the processes that went into writing LOTR and the different shapes the narrative took until it was given its final form.
Disclaimer: this is only recommended for the hard-core or those who like a peek (OK, more than a peek; an exhaustive examination) into how a writer performs his craft. To the casual fan the whole project starts to seem like your dry-ceaning analogy.
The sad thing is they have two dual-proc servers with RAID arrays, on round-robin DNS, and it's still getting the living crap hammered out of it.
(I admin their servers...)
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews2/lotrfellows hip4disca.html
Of course, Tom Bombadil did give one of the hobbits the sword that killed Sauron's general in the last book. The only reason the sword killed him was that it was an ancient sword of his enemies that came from those burial mound things.
Well, the Saruman's use of the orb (forgive me, fellow geeks, for I have forgotten its name) which the movie shows pretty quick has corrupted him to Sauron's side.
In the literary version, he decides to pursue his own agenda, but it is basically the same as Sauron's. He's a powerful, megalomaniacal figure, good gone bad with hubris. Sort of what should have happened in AotC, how great a story would it have been to have Count Dooku just a misguided good guy? Over the edge? I digress...
The movie simplifies the story by just putting him under Sauron. He's basically the center of all evil in the world anyway, and everything's his fault. Evil just straight getting lumped together makes for a simpler, less complex story. Could've kept the old story in, frankly, with Saruman's corruption less obvious right away, but hey.
That's the only problem I had with the movie: the demotion of Saruman from an independent third force, trying to play the other sides against each other, to a mere henchman. I suspect that the change was made in order to present the movie-going audience with a clear delineation - this is the "good team" and that is the "bad team" - and thus avoid any potential confusion. Especially since, in the books, a lot of Saruman's treachery towards Sauron occurs off-camera, so to speak. And who knows, maybe in the next movies we'll see some of that.
But I would have loved to have seen Christopher Lee give that recruiting speech to Gandalf. Great stuff.
While I would agree, there is other little things they could've included that would've helped. I got a very differnt impression of Boromir from the movie compared to the book. They completely cut out the scene where they get trapped in the mountains and its the efforts of Boromir with the help of Aragon that they survive. All I got from the movie is he doesn't seem to care about anyone but himself. And then theres the whole issue of where they are going after Gandalf dies, Aragon does NOT say 'we must go on to Mordor', he is filled with indecision, and the movie kind of irked me when they changed that.
Instead Merry (or was it Pippin) got that sword from Aragorn, descended from one of Sauron's ancient enemies.
As I remember, ALL four hobbits got ancient swords from the barrow downs, from their mini-adventure being captured and held in the wight's lair.
(I NEVER liked the Tom Bombadil part of the story - it felt like it didn't fit one bit, but I did wish they would have kept some of the Barrow Downs in there. The Barrow Dows were important for two reasons: 1 - They explain why the swords the hobbits carry the rest of the story are magic, which as you mention becomes very important in the last book. 2 - It's a character development moment for Frodo, who plays the hero for the first time in the book by getting his friends out from the Barrow Downs with the help of the ring. The movie portrayed Frodo as much more of a chicken than he was in the book. In the book his problem was being too heroic and standing up to the bad guys when he was outclassed and really should have been running. In the book, thats' how the Ringwraith stabbed him with the magic blade that nearly killed him - Frodo jumped forward in front of his friends and tried to interpose himself between the wraith and his friends. - attacking it with his newly aquired barrow-down sword. He's a much more likable character in the book - very selfless and brave despite the fact that he isn't very good at fighting. One of the themes of the book is how he has to learn to use the help being provided to him by his friends and not carry the burden all himself.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Peter Jackson has stated numerous times he doesn't want this to be called the director's cut. It's the "extended verion". He's adamant about that because HE is the one that decided what to cut to trim the movie to three hours, so the one released in theaters is ALSO a director's cut. (This is to distinguish from the common practice when the director hands a finished product to the company, who makes FURTHER edits not under the Director's control, hence the difference between the Director's Cut and the one you saw in the theatres. In this case both the shorter theatrical release and the longer new DVD are Director's cuts.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.