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.

Comments

earning it's hype

[lithandie]

probably not. mainly due to the cutting that has happened already. like the loss of the resolution to the sauruman plot.

Most likely ROTK will not live up to the hype until the extended edition comes out.

And I speak from the experience of two extended editions of the other two films that are both superior to the theatrical releases

Re: earning it's hype

[thenextpresident]

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.

Re: earning it's hype

[dark404]

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.

Lord of the Rings is not like other books. The greatness of the book cannot be distilled into a simple plot of ring is found, ring journeys, ring is destroyed. The book is an epic tale with multiple plot lines, and MUST be taken in as an overall story. This book is the progenitor of the fantasy genre, and those of us who loved the book long before the movies were even on the drawing board recognize the overall importance of it in its entirety. If you consider getting the ring to Mordor to be the most important part of LotR, you just don't understand it at all.

Re: earning it's hype

[JPelorat]

It's not the most important part of the book, it's the most important part of the movie.

And no, it doesn't have to be taken in as an overall story. You don't have to have it all in there verbatim. You want that? Go read the book again. It doesn't have to be transcribed scene for scene, word for word, for the *point* of the story to be made.

The greatness of the book is shown in the craftsmanship of the props and sets and everything else on the screen.

Re: earning it's hype

[JPelorat]

They have an excellent reason for Faramir to deviate from his character in the book.

Look, here you have this Ring, this totally evil, corrupting, terrible power, and you go to great lengths to make sure the audience knows about it and that even hobbits can't resist its effects forever (Bilbo). Then along comes this Man, Faramir, brother of corruptible Boromir, whose weakness led to his own death even. Faramir says "Nah, fuck it, I wouldn't even pick it up if it were lying there on the ground"

You've just killed the Ring's power. It's impotent now. Here's this guy who can just shrug it off. He's nothing special, was just introduced. Is *everyone else* in Middle Earth so pants-pissing weak then?

I submit that the Faramir of the book is the flawed character. Surely with all that willpower he would have been greater than he was. Interesting to imagine what might have happened if Faramir *had* been allowed to go to the meeting instead of Boromir, though.

But as for dwarf-tossing, I agree. Toss it. =)

Re: earning it's hype

[meta-monkey]

Exactly...you hit the nail right on the head.

I love the books, I love the movies. but they've GOT to be two different stories. It's just not possible to tell the same story in both print and on screen, because the mediums are so completely different. Imagine The Matrix (the first one, the good one...) as a book. How could you possibly convey the slack-jawed wonder you felt the first time you saw the fight scene with Morpheus and Neo in the dojo with the written word? If it had been a book first, there would have been a lot more pontificating about the nature of reality, and a lot less action, and then when they made the movie, we'd all be here on /. bitching about how they cut out all the important metaphysical concepts from the book to make room for "senseless special effects" in the movie.

That said, the parent poster is right, that the Extended Editions are MUCH better than the theatrical releases. I felt a little disappointed last year after watching The Two Towers in the theatre. Just a few days before, I'd seen the FotR:EE DVD, and TTT just didn't compare. It seemed light on the story and the character development. It was still a good movie, but it didn't seem to hold up to the first one. Flash forward to last week. I bought the Two Towers: EE, and I've already watched it twice. AMAZING. Now, I think it's superior to the first one.

So, that makes me worry a bit for the third movie. I'm sure I'm going to see it in the theatre, think, "it was pretty good," until I get the EE next year, at which time I'll love it. That is, of course, assuming Peter Jackson doesn't completely destroy the ending of the series. First, I'll say that I'm not bashing PJ. I think he's done an amazing job, and it's awfully easy for people to sit on their asses and criticize, but the labor of love that was the making of these films must have required a level of dedication and sacrifice few would understand. However, PJ, PLEASE don't change the end. I don't want a happy hollywood ending. The ending of the books was absolutely fantastic, and there's no reason to change it. Let the world be changed. The elves, the wizards, the ring-bearers, SHOULD go to the West, and leave everyone else behind. It's supposed to be bittersweet. It's supposed to make you realize that when something that horrific happens, things just can't go back to the way they were, and it's not a "there and back again" adventure like the Hobbit.

Oh, and Gimli shouldn't be the comic relief.

Re:technoglogy

[lithandie]

trixie technoglogy, we hates it...

Unless - LOTR - the Slashdot Edition

[Channard]

You could assume that they render multiple frames at a time. With all the frames they have to render, at 12 frames a day that requires a few decades to render.

That sounds like a call for distributed computing and an LOTR rendering client on each PC. One million slashdot readers willing, we *will* render the Scouring of the Shire...

Lots of Raw film

[kongstad]

For those people who think that ROTK is only about F/X.

I can't remember the amounts but around the time #1 came out they talked about the fact that in a normal picture they shoot about twice or three times more material and then cut it down to what you see.

I LOTR they shot about ten times as much. That is for every minute of finished movie they've shot 10 minutes of film.

So sure there is a lot of CGI going on, but there is still plenty of old fashioned moviemaking involved.

But off course with gollum and a giant orc army (what 100.000 orcs?) they have to rely on CGI. /Soren

Re:The Mystery of Tom Bombadil Solved!

[doubleyewdee]

Tom Bombadil and the Witch-king of Angmar are the same person.

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. :)

Here ye, here ye!

[Godeke]

Gather round, for the true reason parts were cut from the book to the movie. You see, I read each book to my son before the movie comes out. At approximately 30 minutes a night, it takes a month plus to read *one* of the three books. That's 15 hours per book. Now I grant that a few pages of "majestic mountain description" can be cut down to a flight over some real ones in the movie, but on the other hand, some of the action takes longer on screen than in text (especially describing the inner state of a character, which in film must be *shown* not spoken).

Personally, I don't have the bladder control for a fifteen hour movie. Yes, now you know the real reason for cutting the film to three hours (four for those in the comfort on their own homes). Bladder control. Simple really.