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Wired's LOTR III Tech Breakdown
rjjm writes "Interesting little logistics piece in Wired about the technology WETA used for for The Return of the King." Ya know, now that the Matrix hype vanished into nowhere, I'm glad the LotR hype is gearing up. I think this one will earn it.
As a LOTR reader of many, many times, I keep hearing the same problems people have with "what they removed" and "what they changed." And frankly, it's getting old.
From the standpoint of the movies, the Saruman plot is finished, over, and done with. The seven minute scene you refer to is NOT important to the overall plot of the move: getting the ring to Mordor. You can argue all you want, but I remember hearing the same things when people complained about the removal of Tom from the Fellowship. But that hardly ruined the film.
While I agree that the extended editions are much, much better than the theatrical release, ROTK will still be a really damn good movie.
As Fran says in the TT extended edition DVD, this is one group of fants interpretation of the LotR. I never expected a blow by blow account of the retelling. Indeed, one of the scenes I missed (the one with Radagast) was never even brought up!
Put another way, if the books had never been written, and LotR had been simply a movie without a book, would that make a difference. Yes, it would. So rather than judge the movie for what they had to leave out, but rather, for what they put into the movie.
Jason Lotito
there was a /. article where weta pledged to open source its maya to renderman gate called "liquid".
it's been quite a while ago, and i still don't find it anywhere. did they lie?
Actually, well, no. No they're not.
I suspect this is a clever troll, but I'll bite anyways. IHBT, IHL, IWHAND.
1. There's a lot of stuff you don't "hear" about in the First Age. Big deal.
2. You never see Galadriel and the Nazgul together either. So what?
3. The 'there' in Tom's comment was in reference to the pond from whence he retrieved the water lilies for Goldberry. In furtherance of this, according to the timeline, the Nazgul were not yet aware that Frodo had left the Shire at the time he met Bombadil.
4. Just because they knew who the real ring owner was intended to be does not mean they would not have been effected by it.
5. All the Nazgul could see him. Glorfindel could see him. Big deal. Does that make Glorfindel the Witch-King, or Tom Bombadil?
6. Now this is just getting silly. Any number of denizens of Arda could probably have done the same thing.
None of your points prove much of anything, except that the Nazgul and Bombadil were not in the same place at the same tim in LOTR.
A stronger case could be made, I think, that Bombadil was actually a subdued manifestation of Iluvitar (or one of the Valar). In Tolkien's world good and evil are rigidly defined (as they are in all mythologies) and I find it hard to believe that he would intend something this preposterous, when in no other case do you see a being that is both extremely evil and extremely benevolent in LOTR.
Anyhow.. IHBT.
you can take the road that takes you to the stars...
There's the old saying, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
I once heard an interesting tweak on that, and perhaps more true than the original. "Power attracts the corruptible."
Perhaps Faramir really IS as pure as all that. Perhaps he never sought any greatness or position, only to do his best for his people. In that case, any station he has would be purely as a result of people under him pushing him up. Perhaps those of higher station yet were either born to it, or sought it, the latter implying that they are likely corruptible.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Plus, saints who can do no wrong and can shrug off any temptation make pretty dull characters.
If you watch the extended edition of Two Towers, it outlines the tragedy of both Boromir and Faramir very poignantly -- Denethor puts all his faith in Boromir, and shuns Faramir as a failure and a weakling. Faramir desperately wants to "prove his quality" to his father, but doesn't have the opportunity.
Then Boromir goes off and fails, and dies -- and no doubt we will see Denethor saying his lines "why couldn't it have been Faramir?" somewhere in Return of the King.
So now Faramir finds the Ring coming into his possession, and finally has a chance to finish what his brother has started, redeem himself in the eyes of his father, and perhaps save all Gondor and Middle-Earth while he's at it (so he thinks anyway).
No slight intended to the great Professor Tolkien, but I found this much more interesting as a plot than goody-two-shoes Faramir who sits the hobbits down, has a nice chat, and then lets them go. It paints both Boromir and Faramir as wonderfully tragic characters, where in the books I found Boromir a tad unsympathetic and Faramir a trifle dull.