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First Review Of Return Of The King
dipfan writes "Newsweek has a first review of the third instalment of LOTR - and gives it two thumbs up: "Judging from a recent Newsweek screening in New Zealand, The Return Of The King is a sure contender for best picture. More than that, it could be the first franchise ever that didn't, at the end of the day, let audiences down--either because of laziness, pretension, greed or other phantom menaces. This is an especially poignant possibility at a time when we can all still smell the smoke from the wreckage of The Matrix." Fingers crossed. There's also an entertaining piece on LOTR gaffes with comments from Peter Jackson (such as 'Well, it's too late to fire anyone,' and 'We didn't think Elijah looked very good with pus')."
I can't help, but say that LOTR is definitely in a position to be one of the best trilogies ever created -- bar none. It's not just because of amazing acting, or directing, but primarly because this book created an environment that is literally, unbeatable. (no pun intended).
Tolkien spent such a huge portion of his life designing one of the best fantasy books ever created, and it's only right that he be rewarded with the respect that a movie created in his books name will be the best ever.
Star Wars (now a trilogy * 2) is still good, but I hate to say it -- the world that LOTR represents, immerses me more into something amazing than Star Wars could ever hope to do. I will be proud to walk in and out of that movie knowing that I spent my 7.50 USD well.
So, my 0.02 USD tells me: LOTR is poised to be the best trilogy ever.
IMHO reviews are not worth the time and effort to read. Go see the film yourself and decide. That's the only way.
... it was a crappy movie.
People didn't dislike the movie because it ended with "peace" between the machines and a handful of humans.
I'm tired of fanatic movie fans who just can't accept it when others don't like their movies. I didn't like the movie because I felt it didn't live up to the first one, and the 2 sequels added little if anything to what was an amazing story with a lot of potential.
Lots of popular movies end with a peaceful resolution at the end, or even a happy ending.
- sigs are for wimps.
Well just about at Middle Earth.
I am in Wellington, New Zealand and the whole city is getting ready for the World Premiere here next week. There is Lord of the Rings images, statues, effects all over the pace. An unknowing visitor at the airport would get a hell of a sock at the warriars and dragons etc. leering down at them.
Surely the first two films were evidence enough the Jackson can be trusted to transform the Return of the King into an excellent film. Like a lot of die-hard Tolkein fans I found some scenes in the first two movies a little disappointing, but these disappointments were completely overshadowed by the splendour of what are overall two fantastic movies. If you doubt Jackson at all then go and buy the special edition DVD and watch the behind the scenes footage where you see the passion and dedication that has gone into the making of these films.
The smoke [from the exhaust] and dust wasn't so bad because there was already lots of it around, but the bloody windshield was reflecting the sun back into the camera lens. So we erased it for the DVD.
I call shennanigans! I haven't seen the FOTR:extended edition commentary, but I remember them saying, "We don't know what people are talking about...there's no car in this scene." So he's now admitting that they not only removed the car, but they lied about doing so in the commentary track.
Shennanigans all around. :)
P.S. I need to check, but I think they even removed the car in the Oscar screener. Or at least in the Hong Kong version of it. :)
I thought it sucked. Not because it was cool to say so, but, in point of fact, because it sucked.
I recommended to many people that they not pay full price and go see a matinee instead.
But, hey, at least there weren't any Ewoks in it.
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
I know people are tired of hearing about this... but if the movie is going to be so huge, and so successful, and make such enormous bank for the studio and for Jackson, then please just put in Christopher Lee's seven minutes of Saruman footage.
It's not going to break the damn film one way or the other. Christopher Lee is a screen legend and reads Lord of the Rings every year. This is the culmination of a lifelong dream for him, and frankly, the man does not have a wealth of years left to him. So many fans want to see it, and if Peter Jackson idolizes Christopher Lee so much he should do him the courtesy and the honor of letting him appear in what may well be the last great film he will appear in.
I am not confident that he will, but I really hope Jackson changes his mind on this at the last minute. Seven minutes out of three hours, out of nine or twelve plus hours of movie total -- what in the hell could it possibly hurt at this point?
Sorry to belabor this point, but reading the review led me to read some other Return of the King news, and how Christopher Lee will not be attending the premiere of Return of the King because he is so upset. After all that talk on the commentaries and documentary about what a close-knit bunch of friends they are, this seems like a cruel and unecessary snub to Mr. Lee.
Sorry, but I heard all about how *awful* Matrix 3 was. I went seeing it waiting for the worst.
And, Matrix 3 turned out to be *awesome*. It was exciting, action-packed, full of emotion, and romance. What is wrong with a trilogy that has alot of action, and ends in peace?
I didn't walk out of the theatre wondering if my car was really there, but I was very happy to have paid $15 to see a movie that was much better than average.
Wait - I think I know!
Matrix is, at the end, a love story. Families, lovers, and the like. And isn't slashdot largely populated by lonely, single geeks without a date? Geeks that wouldn't *understand* how deep the feelings of true love can really be?
Don't say I didn't mention this possibility...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I reckon reviews are useful to help guide prior expectations, rather than final opinions.
I glanced at quite a few reviews for Matrix Revolutions before I went and saw it; the first time that I've ever read a review beforehand. Since the reviews were mostly negative, I was a lot less disappointed than the other people I went to see it with, and could enjoy it as a merely mediocre movie.
Many have read the Hobbit, the Lord of The Rings and the Silmarillion numerous times. There is an expectation to live up to that does not exist with other movies. I re-read the LOTR within the last year, I'm wondering how much time will be spent after the destruction of the one ring (oops I gave it away) and the Hobbits return to the Shire. This was actually a significant portion of the last book. Of course it could be paraphrased just as the history of Sauron, and the book the Hobbit was in the beginning of LOTR>
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I can't put my finger on how the Wachowskis screwed up. I know they did, because Reloaded was a major disappointment. Reading some of the better analysises of the film (the better sites discussing things like the allegory with genuine intelligence) I get the feeling the Wachowskis were trying to do too much with a single film. Every bloody aspect of the films means something on several levels. Neo is Christ, and refers to six different figures including a Christ, and his love interest is Trinity, who is also Neo, who... and the Matrix is a computer game, and a simulation, and Heaven, and and...
And the result, to some extent, while it works in the sense that anyone who watches all three who doesn't end up asking a lot of decent questions about the world we live in is, well, they've missed something, it also fails to be internally consistant when viewed as just a story. So much effort is put into making reality and simulation key issues, with so much effort made to make these apparently scientifically credible, that when the series is apparently inconsistant or suggests something scientifically impossible, it grates. The film is supposed to be an allegory, yet we're expected, to some extent, to believe that the messiah figure - the figure who is representing the messiah at the end of the film actually is the messiah. That's not allegorical.
Still, as I say in my journal, I really enjoyed Revolutions, and I loved the fact it left some questions unanswered. The more I've looked at it since though, the more unnecessarily loose ends it appears to have, and that's disappointing.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Lots of popular movies end with a peaceful resolution at the end, or even a happy ending.
Yes, but these movies also end exactly how you expect them too. I think a lot of people were taken aback by the awkward ending in the Matrix -- the two main characters die, and neither side wins (humans vs machines). I don't care what anyone says, I swear this is why a lot of people don't like it, although I know 99% of them would never admit to such a thing. At first, I was like WTF? But then after thinking about it and seeing it again, I ended up really liking it.
Most movies are predictable, or at least have some sort of happy ending where everything is good and the guy gets the ho. This didn't have that and hence Joe Public didn't like it.
There's also the fact that this is the mvoie that everyone wanted to hate, because of Reloaded. I'll admit the second one was a bit of a disaster, until I saw the last one and realized how it all fit together. (Even then, the second was a bit long winded and had too much action and not enough plot).
Overall I can say I am very satisfied with the Matrix trilogy, something most people would never admit.
Joseph?
None of the Scouring of the Shire made it. Jackson has stated that he doesn't like that section, so it was never considered for inclusion in the films.
I'll admit right here, I think the films are decent, but I don't think they're a great adaptation of the books. They seem to focus more on the action scenes than the actual story.
Anyways, I think leaving out the Scouring is even more of a disappointment than leaving out Tom Bombadil. But that's just me.
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
Reading a review after seeing a movie can be helpful in clarifying one's own thoughts* about a film, or answering specific questions one might have had. They can also be useful for learning about influences on the given film, and its larger place in the history of the medium.
Yes, other people's ideas can be useful! Even for brilliant people who know everything already.
* This assumes that one watches movies that require thought/are worth thinking about.
Matrix was made from scratch. Not only was visual and cinematic talent required but also literary talent and philisophical skill on top of that.
Jackson already had the full script available from the start. Very little creative talent in the story area required.
We can forgive the Wachowski bros for not knowing interesting answers to the interesting questions. It'd be a little harder to forgive Jackson for messing up the plot of a movie when all he had to do was NOT change the given story.
For what the Wachowski bros had available they did quite a good job on their series. For what Jackson has available he's also doing a fantastic job.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
the first matrix movie, everyone was expecting a kung fu flick, and got a quasi-religious experience
the second and third matrix movies, everyone was expecting a quasi-religious experience, and got a kung fu flick
those are the matrix movies in a nutshell
none of the 3 matrix movies are especially great or awful, it's just a matter of audience expectations being exceeded or underwhelmed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ms. Strider would wrestle the balrog while the others fled, losing her top duing the fight but having it CGBra'd back on to preserve the film's rating.
.... they censor the strangest things over there...
Actually, there is a point in The Two Towers, where we see an orcs head on a stick - Peter Jackson said that WETA has CGI'ed a helmet to cover this - apparently this is needed for american TV
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I think you hit it. They got a chance to do things with a budget so huge that they'd almost certaintly never get it again, and they did a mind dump. Every idea the two of them had over the past decade went in and collided in a big mess somewhere in the middle.
There's an allegory about coming out of a cave, there's a machine taking a heroic journey, there's a Christ allegory, there's the yin-yang dealy, Kaballah crap up the ass... They tried to write a Grand Unified Theology, and it turned out more Standard Model than Relativity. Nice idea, but it makes a crappy movie.
Maybe they could've just added an hour or two to everything and made it all work out, but I doubt it. There was just too much to keep track of to make it fun. What they needed were about a dozen Animatrixes instead.
Not to mention the Indiana Jones franchise (although Indy 4 might be a bit dubious), or X-Men (so far).
And in the eyes of many, the original Star Wars trilogy still stands as a frnachise in it's own right. By this I mean that even though the new films are crap, it hasn't caused people to sour from the whole franchise. We still love the original films, and will still play the video games, hell - we even think that Darth Maul is one of the coolest villains ever (even if he only has about 3 lines - he just looked damn cool). My point being, the new films haven't soured the whole franchise the way the latter two Matrix films did with their series. They haven't, at the end of the day, caused the whole franchise to let fans/audiences down.
And we srill maintain hope for a SW4:ANH DVD where Han Solo shoots first.
IT'S AUTUMN of 2001, at WETA Workshop, in Wellington, New Zealand. Jackson is about to release "The Fellowship of the Ring,"
Southern hemisphere ... seasons reversed ... it would have been spring 2001 in NZ when FOTR was about to be released. At least the writer had the grace to say "autumn" and not "fall" :)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
greed or other phantom menaces.
Freudian slip, intentiontional illusion, or sad irony? I pick all three. Damn Lucas to hell for his lack of faith.
As far as the final (pfah, yeah right. they'll likely make a second trilogy, because people will watch it! bastards) Matrix is concerned, I have no interest in seeing it after the second one fucked things up so severely. They completely abandoned any coherrence of plot or storytelling and replaced it with a shitload of jungfoo and bullshit special effects. From what I hear, that's what they did with the third as well.
Hollywood needs more directors like Jackson. Most directors seem to think that by cutting corners, they'll lower production costs, and thus have a higher return - which, naturally, will promise them further contracts with the studio. This is bullshit.
For example, look at LotR. It's not popular just because it's based off of Tolkien's world - it's popular because it's an awesome film, and stands on its own. I know of people that have watched the first two films, and have loved them - and they aren't fantasy fans in the least, and haven't even read the books.
Unfortunately, there simply aren't that many visionaries in Hollywood that are also good at managing people and directing well (which includes getting a good script, etc.). There are a few around nowadays: Quentin Tarantino, Peter Jackson, Sam Raimi, (possibly, given time) Troy Duffy, David Fincher (when he gets a decent script), and a couple others. Of course, there are other contributing factors to good film (good composers, actors, editors, and writers/storyboarders, mainly), and every director has his shortcomings and bad eggs, but these are some of the better ones out there, IMO. Anyone else have any directing favorites that I couldn't pull off the top?
I would have included Steven Spielberg and Lucas, but Spielburg seems a bit past his prime, at least in terms of quality film, and Lucas hasn't really done a damned thing of quality except for Star Wars - and it's debateable how much of that is really his, and how much of it is simply him falling into the seat of opportunity.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
...try time-travelling Elves.
We all know the inscription on the Doors of Durin: " blah blah blah, Lord of Moria, blah blah blah". And yes, it really does say "Moria," that's not just editorializing by Gandalf to entertain the Fellowship. The rest of the inscription says that the Doors were made by a famous Dwarf, and the inscription carved by a famous Elf, because the races got along okay at the time.
Except... moria is an insulting name. It means "Abyss" or (literally) "Black Pit." Nobody would have called the Kingdom of Khazad-Dum an abyss when it was at the height of its splendor. The name "Moria" was only earned long years later, after they woke the Balrog and abandoned the kingdom.
In any case, the Dwarves certainly wouldn't have let the Elves carve such an insulting name on the west entrance, and the Elves wouldn't have wanted to.
Oops. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Eeew. If only they'd buy Tolkien; or Michael Moorcock, or Le Guin, Fritz Leiber, even Robert E Howard and ER Burroughs. It's sad the recycled pap that populates the fantasy book racks now.
How many would-be Tolkiens/Einsteins did we lose to war without knowing?
How many Hitlers?
He was an inspired visionary, he had to be to create such a following. It's hard to be that on the outside and entirely rational on the inside. (Though Castro seems to have his head screwed on fairly well and realised and lived within his limitations.) For all that he could have gone far further if he hadn't been so paranoid and destroyed the best people in his country, and particularly army, out of mostly irrational fears; and then his obsession with "bolshevism" lead him to attack Russia with no hope of success. Stalin and Mao did much the same thing, just kept their ambitions mostly within their borders. Unfortunately they both stayed in power longer and did a lot more damage than Hitler did.
While I can't say I hated any of teh previous two LoTR movies, I certainly don't subscribe to the hype that everyone else seems to think they are the best thing since sliced bread.
Personally I loved the last Matrix movie. I don't exactly know what was so disapointing to *everyone*. The story was good, the dialog was above average, the action was amazingly intense. I think perhaps the loss of the actress that played the oracle was felt because the replacement didn't 'grab you' the same way the orginal one did, in terms of making you care.
Beyond that I left the Matrix movie happy and impressed. When I left the LoTR movies my butt hurt and I was just happy to be finnaly getting out of there.
-- "The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so.
What happend to the rest of enslaved humanity? Find out in "Matrix Online, coming soon in 2004 and providing subscription service to an immersive massive multiplayer experience that picks up right after the event in Revolutions".
- sigs are for wimps.
Informative.
Thanks, Ender.
Although I think the analysis misses a couple of points:
I don't believe the Oracle was "upgrading" Neo every time she gave him something to eat.
Neo would have figured that out because he could "see" the effects the orgasm-cake had on the girl. Same with how he could see Seraph's code.
Neo doesn't need upgrades, he's already got free-will.
That's the reason that the machines NEED humans:
Machines can make choices, yes, because that is built into their programming, but they still don't have free-will, which is something only humans have. The choices the machines make are only the results they have deterministically calculated through their programming.
Free-will on the other hand, you can call it a spark of the divine, or God's gift to us, but it is the thing which transcends programming.
That's why Morpheus said "Everything begins with a choice" at one point. It's also the reason for Smith's insanity.
Being a machine he CAN'T comprehend free-will.
So Smith's choice is oblivion. He wants to destroy everything, humans, machines, the whole earth if he can, just to remove that irritating reminder that he just CAN'T understand free-will.
That's why he's so obsessed with "purpose", because to him causality (programming, really) is the order of the universe, and Neo's free-will is a contradiction which he feels he must eradicate (along with everything else) to set things right.
The Oracle on the other hand recognizes this, and even admits to Neo that he has "surprised her" and "made a believer of her".
So the Oracle realizes that for the machines to evolve, they NEED humans, who have this amazing gift. And I think that she realizes that this evolution should take place in an atmosphere of peace and not war.
That's also why a lot of people drag quantum physics into their analysis of The Matrix:
Observations have led a number of physicists to claim that causality breaks down at the sub-atomic level.
Almost as if God is not only playing dice, but even He has no idea of the outcome of a throw.
Of course, all that rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and a few have even dedicated their life to proving it wrong.
I find it's the most beautiful thing I've ever contemplated:
If there is NO break with causality, then the entire universe is deterministic, and the outcome was a foregone conclusion the instant the big bang happened, which is sad really...
But if there IS something like true choice (or free-will, or indeterminacy) then I have to say that God is one MIGHTY Architect/Engineer to have created the universe in such a way that freedom pervades it like that, and by my (human) rationalization, he must love us very much to let us determine our own destinies instead of being puppets playing back a script.
Although I have to admit that I couldn't really guess what his reasons are, what with my being a mere mortal and all that...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Actually I believe that this distinction remains in the hands of Hannibal, killing 50,000 Romans in a single day. Battle of Cannae.