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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')."
This is an especially poignant possibility at a time when we can all still smell the smoke from the wreckage of The Matrix"
I love it when the cool thing to do is bash popular movies, this dude will probably be the first person in line to say RotK sucks, whether it does or not.
There's the hobbit blade Sting and, right next to it, two versions of the kingly sword known as Anduril, one shattered, one whole Frodo, you dont have to put up a red light, I'll send an S.O.S to the Shire, I'll send an S.O.S to the shire I hope that someone gets my, I hope that someone gets my, message in a bottle.....
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
We don't need a good review to know that this film is going to be good. The first two of this trilogy were so good that non-fantasy lovers are now buying Dragon Lance books. I mean, cmon.
the earliest I may get to see this is Christmas morning. I even had a date, with my wife's blessing, for the all day long showing on the 16th, but the tickets sold out.
Secrets of 'The King'. Can't break this hobbit: Will Frodo destroy the ring? Will Aragorn wear the crown?
Yes, those are well kept secrets.
Tolkien wrote his works for a narrow literate audience, wrote it alone based on his personal experiences, and the fact it wouldn't fit in just one book made it a trilogy.
The LOTR movie is based on that book. The others were based on merchandising.
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.
Who is NOT going to the midnight showing?
"Just my personnal opinion, but the problem people have with The Matrix ending is peace. War is so much more glamour these days..."
Actually, the problem a lot of people had with The Matrix ending is that it sucked, much like the rest of the movie.
Let's not act like the W. brothers got very daring at the end, and didn't end it with a battle. The final hour was full of battles. The ending was nothing profound or gutsy, it was just lifeless, like the rest of the movie. The ending wasn't bad because they chose to have peace break out, it was bad because they decided that dialogue and characters wre unimportant.
IMHO reviews are not worth the time and effort to read. Go see the film yourself and decide. That's the only way.
My problem with it isn't peace... the 'both sides win' was a pretty ballsy move.
What I didn't like was (to paraphrase a great post I read here) that the last 2 movies used vaguesness to simulate depth, and did it poorly.
I enjoyed the action, but the constant allusions to some deeper meaning, which is rarely delivered, got old quick.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
What is the point of reading a review before watching a movie? Watch the movie first, form your OWN opinion (this way it won't be influenced by anyone else's), thats what i have decided anyway.
>Just my personnal opinion, but the problem people have with The Matrix ending is peace. War is so much more glamour these days..
Actually, my problem is more with formulaic overwrought feature-length advertisements for video games. But I probably missed the point of Revolutions. Certainly others liked it, including people I like.
LOTR, on the other hand, is something I'm really looking forward to. It helps that it started as a real live book with a plot and characters and everything. Actually, more than just a book, but the classic that is the ancestor of nearly every fantasy novel around.
After getting Peter Jackson's comments on around ten different blunders in the movies, Jackson says "[ Pause ] You've got pages and pages there. And those are all mistakes they've spotted?"
Mr. Jackson, you must be new around here.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
... 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.
it could be the first franchise ever that didn't, at the end of the day, let audiences down
My momma didn't raise no dummies.. I dug her rap.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
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.
Well the Rugby World Cup escaped us. And that was a big blow to the country's psyche.
But every Kiwi I know derives huge pride in the work Peter Jackson has done. For creating a great triology of movies, for putting our scenery on the big screen, and generally raising the profile of this land of the long white cloud. And he seems to have somehow avoided coming down with tall poppy syndrone.
I'm still laughing...
Cheers, mate.
RimuHosting: Proudly NZ Owned and Operated Linux VPS Hosting
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 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.
Movie reviews are traditionally done for the purpose of letting people decide if a movie is worth seeing. That obviously has to be done before you see the movie to not be pointless.
If you've already decided to see a movie, I agree with you.
Just my personnal opinion, but the problem people have with The Matrix ending is peace.
Oh, its a peace of something alright...a peace of krap.
++me
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
I read TTT and RoTK right after seeing the TTT film, and quickly realized that they had WAY too much left to film to fit in one film. I wish they'd turn it into a 4 part series.
I mean, how can you cut the confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman? Without this, do we cut the entire palantir subplot? Without the palantir, we don't see where Aragorn stares down Sauron.
I also wonder how much of 'The Scouring of the Shire' made it in. How much screen time would we need for the Saruman / Wormtongue confrontation?
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
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
BEWARE - SPOILER!
I don't like that there won't be (even on DVDs) Scouring of Shire. That's why I find LOTR so great - it's so bitter-sweet end that war has got consequences even in such an idylic places like Shire.
I have to agree with twistedcubic here - though I did see it after three weeks' worth of people telling me how hardcore it sucked. I dunno, maybe I was set up for a disappointment even worse than reality, so when I finally did see it, it was actually pretty good.
Yeah, they did leave a helluvalotta loose ends, and reality was nowhere near as intricate as my imagination made it after seeing Matrix 1 and 2, but (with the exception of some plot gratuity offered by the Merovingian) I had no real complaints walking out of there.
Okay, I take that back - I would much rather have seen them make the MCP be a giant spinning cylinder.
As for the review here, it wasn't so much a review of the movie as it was an inside look at some of the people who made Jackson's trilogy work (and, to be quite honest, I hope those people are like that IRL). Still, I can't believe that Jackson said he didn't like the Scouring of the Shire in RotK. I always thought it was the most important part of the trilogy.
More than that, it could be the first franchise ever that didn't, at the end of the day, let audiences down--.
Actually, I think the Debbie Does Dallas franchise did a pretty decent job of keeping its audience up.
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.
> What I didn't like was (to paraphrase a great post I read here) that the last 2 movies used vaguesness to simulate depth, and did it poorly.
Significance by obscurity?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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?
I agree with you, and I am glad he's putting the scenes back in the extended edition, I just think that as an actor Christopher Lee does not deserve to be cut from the theatrical release. Not everyone is going to buy the extended edition.
I think the Matrix Trilogy had too many layers to be internally consistant. With the "plot" being essentially rooted in reality, a subtext based in philosophy, and a underlying allegory being religious, something had to give. In the end, the plot is where it kind of lost it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
<bitterness>
"from the they-like-it dept." indeed - next Slashdot will be telling us Gollum doesn't get the girl.
</bitterness>
</irony>
-- "Peace in Ireland is an issue Goodbye bombs, we're gonna miss ya" - Electronic
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Yea thats right, mod me down as a troll for being the voice of reason and suggesting that LOTR might not be the best thing ever.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Elijah Wood will switch between his two vastly different facial expressions (wide-eyed shock and wide-eyed fear), Gimli (too lazy to find out how the actor's name is spelled) will endure three hours of short jokes, Liv Tyler will stand still and move her lips to dialogue generated by a totally unconvincing speech synthesizer, and the entire thing will reach a climax of sorts with a CGI-overloaded battle scene filled with lots of quick cutting and handheld camerawork so you'll know it's edgy and modern while at the same time making it next to impossible to determine exactly where the combatants are in relation to one another. THE FILMMAKING ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MILLENNIUM!!!!!!! The New Zealand Tourist Commission sure got their money's worth.
Anyways, long story short: The Lord of the Rings movies is a franchise that proved to be a let down from the beginning. To say anything else, in my opinion, is to confuse the franchise of the books with that of the movies.
Ah personal opinion, don't you just love it when people trot it out as some sort of fact. Thats what gets me about this whole discussion, it is all about perception.
I think the worst mistake people can make when seeing LOTR is to constantly be comparing the films to the book. Take each as a seperate entity, and enjoy or hate it as such.
ROT13'd spoiler:
Fuvc penfurf urnqsvefg vagb znpuvar pvgl. Gevavgl raqf hc sylvat onpxjneqf bagb funec cbvagl guvatf. Pyrne ivbyngvba bs Arjgbavna culfvpf. Cyhf, ure qrngu jnf zrnavatyrff. "Trr, Gevavgl pna'g tb vagb gur znpuvar pvgl 'pnhfr Arb unf gb qb vg nybar. Bu, jr'yy xvyy ure ng gur ynfg zbzrag fbzrubj.".
My opinion is, if they hadn't followed the first Matrix, they would have been pretty good movies on their own merits.
Chip H.
> First franchise not to let fans down?
Great movie, but he was talking about franchises. When we see TMWWBK VII we can revisit this issue.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Some of his published letters describe his feelings on the possibility of a movie. He didn't like the idea for the same reason that many of the die-hard fans don't -- it's impossible to translate everything onto the screen.
But he wasn't dead-set against the idea. He gave his reluctant permission. (Then got really disgusted at the screenplays.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Yeah, but if you're still "up" at the *end* of a Debbie movie it didn't do its job.
Freedom: "I won't!"
why? his role is done so long as the point of the movie is concerned - getting the one ring to mt. doom.
and i'm sure you'll have more than enough "evil forces" with sauron, the witch-king of angmar and the haradrim, etc...
It might look like I'm standing motionless, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away
Before responding, I just read every one of the posts in this thread from various who responded to anyone admitting they liked the Matrix Trilogy, and I noticed a trend that keeps showing up on this subject. Starting sentences that read like: "I didn't like it cause it sucked", "I didn't like it cause it was lame", etc. Sure some people offered valid criticisms, such as claiming that the films pretend to explore philosophical depths that they don't really want to delve into beyond the shallows. But so many of the posts start off, in effect, with a null-semantic content opening; "I didn't like it cause I didn't like it".
I'm sorry people, but anyone who starts off an opinion piece with a remark like that for an opening sentence is effectively holding up a big, flashing neon sign saying "I am ignorant and my opinion deserves to be ignored". Several of you go on to make points that show you deserve better than that. Sorry, but you're committing the equivalent of attending a fancy dress party with dog-poop on your high tops and bragging about how you're going to marry your cousin soon as she turns 15, and wondering why people can't get past the first impression. If I hadn't had some extra slack time, I would have never bothered to read past that first sentence, and I guarentee you are being marginalized by it.
Freuddot is doubtless generalizing too broadly in his post. I'm sure different people have different problems with the Matrix series ending. But he held my attention long enough to express his opinion, and I bet 95% or better of people who started his post finished it and a lot of those actually considered his opinion. My post is long, and a lot of people will drop out on the way, but I'll still bet better than half that start read the whole thing. The "It just is" posts are losing half their readers ten words into the post.
Who is John Cabal?
I was absolutely blown-away by how much better the extended edition of FOTR was compared to the already excellent theatrical version...the extra scenes added so much depth to the movie. In fact, I wasn't really all that excited when TTT came out in theaters. I will be watching the extended DVD of TTT with my geeky family this Thanksgiving holiday, for sure. In reading about the stuff that got cut, I'm already pretty pumped for the ROTK extended edition.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
Did you ever stop to think that The Matrix IS deep, and that perhaps you just didn't understand it?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Comment removed based on user account deletion
the problem with LOTR is that each movie is made with a sequel in mind. I mean, walking out of the theater after fellowship of the ring, you knew they would make a sequel. Just like the loud mouth sitting behind me said at the end " man, they so set that one up for a sequel". Same thing with part 2. Heck, im sure that part 3 will be end like tht too. Part 4 will probaby be something like "Battle for the Shire" then they will want to milk the cow even more and come out with a prequel like star wars. Probably call it "The Hobbit" or something like that.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
To make the movie even more enjoyable, everyone should try to act as described in this LOTR Survival Guide. You may even manage to get a Darwin Award!
Open Source Alternatives
Umm, you quoted me as qualifying my statement with "in my opinion" and then pretended like it was stated as fact and specifically not an opinion. That's laughable.
I definitely agree that it is a mistake to compare the books to the film. Which is why I said that books aren't directly translatable to film. That's not to say that Lord of the Rings suffers from anything it has or has not inherited from the book; it just says that they're different beast, and so you should treat them that way.
Joseph Elwell.
"In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder."
(It's from the Poochie episode of the Simpsons, for anyone who didn't get it immediately.)
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"
I was a bit lost in the middle of FOTR because Glorfindel got replaced by some chick (AFAIK, we weren't told she was Arwen until later). It then bothered me when Elrond, the most enlightened dude in Middle Earth frowned when Merry & Pippin intruded on the Council.
This was minor compared to Treebeard being easily tricked and Faramir being yet another selfish man.
I recovered in the first film, but I didn't REALLY enjoy TTT until the DVD came out.
Some of the changes are forgiveable. If there are any similar bloopers, I'd like to know about them ahead of time, so that I can be prepared.
Having said that, the films are still incredibly good and Peter Jackson deserves an Oscar.
Starting sentences that read like: "I didn't like it cause it sucked", "I didn't like it cause it was lame", etc ... "I didn't like it cause I didn't like it".
I'm sorry people, but anyone who starts off an opinion piece with a remark like that for an opening sentence is effectively holding up a big, flashing neon sign saying "I am ignorant and my opinion deserves to be ignored"
When people simply say that the movie "sucked", it means just that, that they didn't like it. I have noticed that with a lot of Matrix fans in particular, expressing dislike for these movies is anathema, and that they treat it like a religion.
If you want people to explained to you why the movie "sucked" to them, you can politely ask. But to say that they are ignorant or sound ignorant is idiotic. Art is subjective, and sometimes, there are no clear ways to express why one dislikes a piece of art. In this case, the reasons are numerous, but why repeat them over and over. Saying "it sucks" it's enough, it communicates to you, that the writer didn't like the movie.
The defenses for this movie are just beyound ridiculous, the typical one is the "ignorant" and you "didn't get it" elitist charges, which are so pathetic, because you get the feeling that fans of these movies feel intellectually superior for a piece of work that pretends to be intellectual. It's amazing, what's so intellectual about leather clad people wacking each other like they're in a comic book, and pretending to regurgitate phylosophy 101 that doesn't advance the plot?
The original poster here has an even more amazing defense, people don't like the movie, because today they're INTO WAR!. Amazing, the insult is that if you don't like the movie, you must be some blood thristy war monger that can't appreaciate this sophisticated work.
Get a grip folks, and learn to respect other people's opinions. So you liked the movie, CLAP CLAP, good for you. But don't insult other people's intelligence because they don't share your same taste (or lack of it).
Enough.
- sigs are for wimps.
Thanks
XML causes global warming.
"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."
Perhaps that was a less than subtle hint that the submitter is disappointed with the Star Wars prequel trilogy?
...squeel with geekish delight upon seeing this?
The next Star Wars movie is going to eat dick just like the last two have.
It could be 90 minutes of George Lucas taking a giant dump and fans would still flock to see it. which incidentally is quite a funny coincidence.
The sequals were very bad films. Volumes could be written about how poor they are. In most circles simply mentioning the sequals is paramount to discussing the nature of feces. "The movie sucked" saves us the untold man hours it would take to convince the average mindless matrix fantatic that they're beloved films do indeed "suck".
(Entering lit-crit mode, SPOILERS AHEAD :)
Hmm... I guess I never bought the idea of Neo as a messiah, or at least not as an allegory for Christ. The narrative arc of the Matrix movies actually reminds me in some senses more of the Lord of the Rings than the Bible. Perhaps it is because I saw Neo as dying at the end of Reloaded (in the physical world), and as *not* dying specifically when he was subsumed into Smith but remaining separate. I can see where it comes from, I guess, I just never assumed the right things that would make me draw those conclusions. If Neo remains separate from Smith even though his physical form has been changed, we don't have the death-and-resurrection theme *there*, and if Neo dies a physical death at the end, there is no resurrection either, which is essential to the Christian worldview.
Actually, I saw more parallels with Cowboy Bebop, both in the overall plot structure and specifically in "The Real Folk Blues." I know the Wachowskis were influenced by anime -- anybody got a definitive word on that? Or if it's a common anime theme?
> his masterpeace hollywoodized for the consumption of the illiterate masses.
If LoTR was produced by the usual Hollywood crowd...
- Hobbit "Merry" would be a faggot with a penchant for saying things that made everyone else in the movie think he was "Gay", though the audience would know better.
- The ringwraiths would be top-secret robotic soldiers with lasers on their heads, taken over by a "hacker" (Sauron).
- The flight from the Shire to Rivendell would be a car chase.
- The barrow wights would be drug dealers, angry because the car chase crashed through the warehouse right when their big deal was going down.
- Strider would be a 6'1" Brazilian lesbian who wore a chainmail bikini and prefered kickboxing to broadswords. The camera would linger lovingly at the appropriate places, and she would give Arwen a hot kiss in the trailer.
- When the Hobbits first met Strider at Bree, there would be a pole dancer in the background while they talked.
- After the skirmish at weathertop, Elven paratroopers would drop in to rescue the heros just after they had driven off the ringwraiths and didn't need help anymore.
- At the Ford of Isen, the flash flood would be caused because one of the Bad Guys' Henchmen set off the charge and blew the dam a few seconds too late. The cars washed down the river by the flood would go over a waterfall and explode in mid air.
- There would be an enemy mole in the Fellowship, motivated by jealousy over somebody or another.
- The tentacled thingy outside the Gates of Moria would drag the mole to his death. Papers found on his body afterward would tip the Fellowship off that he had been a mole.
- The orcs in Moria would be more drug dealers, angry because the Fellowship interrupted another big deal. Or maybe terrorists planning an attack on the Shire, angry at being discovered before carrying out the plot. The Fellowship would kill about 900 in hand-to-hand combat before they had to flee.
- 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.
- Lots of explosions in the Moria fight, even though everyone was fighting with knives and crowbars.
- Everyone would get laid at the visit to Galadriel's haven. (Except for Merry, who would spend the evening putting off the advances of a Gay Elven Warrior who came out of the closet due to Merry's charms.) Frodo and Strider would rate a threesome with Galadriel herself.
- Lembas would give the heros Amazing Powers, which would fade just when they needed it most.
- Boromir would break up the Fellowship by making a pass at Merry, never previously having a queer urge in his life. Merry's dignity would be saved by a timely Orc raid.
- ...
Somone else can take it from there...Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
peace
Yeah, I had a big problem when Trinity kept talking with those big peaces of metal sticking out of her...
Sheesh. Just die already!
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
My apologies, I didn't see that part of the post. I blame lack of sleep.
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
What's wrong with Liv Tyler standing doing anything? I could watch her all day and fuck her all night.
Let's not even go there. Hot grits and petrification lay in that direction.
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
'Star Wars and The Matrix [...] cater[] to a broad audience.' You don't think LOTR caters to a large audience? Have you seen the box office figures for these films?!? Or is it that you (eroneously) believe that the LOTR films were conceived as some sort of small art-house films?
... you know, books come in all shapes and sizes: there isn't a physical standard format size that a literary oeuvre must 'fit' into or else risk being truncated (shrink to fit into one) or drawn out (enlarged to fill several).
'Tolkien wrote his works for a narrow literate audience[.]' I don't know whether I would agree with this statement and irrespective of whether it's true or not the book(s) certainly sold way above the confines of such a 'narrow' audience. (I would, however, agree that its audience would be 'literate' -- it's a bit hard to read if one isn't.)
'[...] based on his personal experiences' -- I seriously doubt that Tolkien, who really seems to have been a rather level-headed sort of chap, had any 'personal experiences' with elfs and ents and wizards.
' [...] the fact it wouldn't fit in just one book made it a trilogy.' Errr
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Funny- but, you know what? Good story-telling means that knowing the ending doesn't matter.
Case and point- when Gandalf fell at the end of the first movie- you could have heard a pin drop in the theater, and I found it to be a very, very powerful scene. Nearly everyone in the audience knew damn well he was fine and would return -but the power of the imagery of the comrades loosing their leader and friend just grips you to the point that, even though you know otherwise(and if you were smart, you'd realize it takes more to bump off Gandalf)- you really feel like he just died.
I think the difference is that too many movies substitute "what's gonna happen next? Find out!" for a good story. That is, however, not to say that all mysteries are bad- quite the opposite, I love mysteries/suspense(not the slasher kind though). If you want a good example, pick up one of Le Carre's spy novels; I strongly recommend reading from the first, especially if you're reading any of his first half dozen books or so- some of them -are- chronologically important.
Another good example is, believe it or not- Marathon. That game came at a time when Doom was "the" game- you ran around blowing up monsters and that was pretty much it. In Marathon, you had a non-linear play, you could suddenly find yourself on any one of three sides(even mid-level, if I remember right!); you had to do a lot of searching and pay close attention to details. It was the best FPS plot-wise I've ever played. You can currently play the demo on any modern OS- search for Aleph One. You can get the demo files from bungie's site, and if you have the original CDs, you can play the entire game. I'm replaying the thing from scratch right now, as a matter of fact.
Please help metamoderate.
The scouring of the shire will not be in the films, this is widely known.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
If the sequels had come out independently, no relation to the first film, they would have been OK Hollywood movies. The Matrix was not a brilliant film because of the philosophy, or because of the plot, it was successful because a lot of great actors put in a lot of really good performances, and, after 5 years of storyboarding, the filmmakers shot some amazing and affecting scenes.
The two later movies are thrown together by comparison. More actors with less talent basically do less. The background actors in the first movie stayed in the background and looked cool. The background actors in the sequels have to do stuff so the video game makes sense even though it detracts from the movie.
More to the point Laurence Fishburne is an amazing actor with great presence and delivery, and he made the first movie great. He was not allowed to make the sequels great, and Keanu, though good at looking lost and out of place, does not have the presence to play lead (Ted yes, pre-One Neo, yes, The ONE, no).
I don't think that there can be enough emphasis on how much the 5 years of feuding with the studios improved the original. The Wachowskis had to explain every scene dozens of times, get them drawn on paper, re-edit... They just weren't forced to make the same effort for the sequels. Limitations, like Keanu's injuries (limited the fight scenes), the cast's lack of martial art training (ditto), studio antipathy (forced them to work), and delays (gave them time to get it right) contributed to the greatness of the first film. Too much money, too much fame, too much power, too little thought, too much hubris dragged down the sequels.
Again, without the first movies the sequels would have been OK Hollywood movies, they just look real bad by comparison. I can watch scenes from the first movie over and over because they work, they have emotional impact, they look cool. I have no desire to see the other movies again because even the fight scenes are dull and go on too long. The first movie would probably have had long, limp fight scenes too, if Keanu had been healthy, and if Moss, Fishburne, Reeves et al really knew Kung fu. Limitations and suffering, not freedom and happiness, make art.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
The Wachowskis are refering to various religious and philosophical themes throughout the movie, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. The movie is not, however, Christian per-se, though it does refer to Christianity both subtly and obliquely throughout, as it does other themes. I think the constant biblical references are intended to be used as a roadmap, rather than to suggest a biblical agenda.
As I said in my summary, I think the layering is where the movie falls apart. They're trying so hard to make the allegory make sense that the plot ceases to. The strong point, for me, was the philosophy, when it could break out and when it worked.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I was hoping for three...
When directors make Shakespearian films, while they may play around with scenery and do weird things like setting Richard III in 1930's England, or Hamlet in 20th century America, they know enough not to touch the characters or dialog. Tolkien deserves the same sort of respect. Instead Jackson treated it the same way crappy source material from Stephen King or Tom Clancy is treated by directors -- that is as something where fidelity to the source is of no great matter.
You've not seen Scotland, PA, have you?
And even Richard III messed around with dialog - and scene ordering.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I did. I took a couple of weeks thinking about it, and I think I'm right. Now, it IS possible that I just missed it, but obviously I doubt it.
:)
I actually think it might be one of those movies that was killed in the editing room. For example, I recall an actor from Alien 3 (much reviled as a stinker) say "well, we SHOT a good movie... but the studio destroyed it". Maybe that's the case here.
Oh, sorry. I didn't bite on that shiny hook
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Newsweek gave it 'Two Thumbs up'?
Did two people write the article?
Was one of them Roger Ebert?
-n
http://www.remix.net/
look below at my sig.
They borrowed the name of the movie from Carrie Ann Moss too.
Remember these guys are in hiding.
Newline is already screwing the actors - they seem to think they movie didn't really make any money so they can't give them any bonuses.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
look below at my sig.
I was really diassapointed with Peter Jackson's decision to change Faramir. The entire signifigance of Faramir in the book is that he is not Boromir. Where Boromir is unable to resist the pull of the ring, Faramir is unwilling to even consider taking the ring. "Not if I found this thing on the road would I take it up." Instead, his character is rolled in with every other power-grabber in the film, negating his only signifigant characterization in the narrative. He becomes irrelevant. There are too many important deviations to really go into, but the other one is the idea of Arwen giving Aragorn his sword. The whole trilogy is distorted by having a woman deliver Aragorn's power to him. He should have left Rivendell with it reforged, and should have been fighting with it all the way through the Trilogy, as in the books. Essentially, Arwen delivers Aragorn's manhood to him, when the whole point of the broken sword is his choice to eventuallu face his destiny and take his masculine role for himself. There was no need to change what they did, relating to the sword, other than to make women central to a narrative that is really intended to be about men, and not about women. Tolkien clearly did not intend Arwen to have control over Aragorn's masculinity.
This is The Man Who Would Be King that Gandalf wrote and directed, yes?
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
While it was no "Nitpicker's Guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation," they did manage to find a few neat errors in FotR.
But for TTT, there are hardly any mistakes recorded. And the ones that are there are pretty pathetic, the lamest of the bunch being...
Blunder No. 3: "When Saruman is talking to Sauron through the palantir, his lips aren't moving."
Jackson: Well, that's because he's engaged in a psychic session. That was deliberate.
Duh. Almost everyone I know has seen TTT and nobody has ever thought that to be an error. It's completely obvious.
Why did they ever bother mentioning the second film? Why not just say, "Hey Pete, great work! You stumped us!"
The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
No one would want to film one of those...
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
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.
Haven't seen it but let's recount some of this years movies:
* American Splendor
* City of God
* Lost in Translation
* Northfork
* Mystic River
* The Human Stain
* Whale Rider
A wide swath of interesting, compelling, accessible and memorable movies. Hell, most aren't even obscure art films. Got names like Clint Eastwood, Nicole Kidman, and Sophia Coppola on there. Other than being a welldone adaptation of a good book, RotK probably won't add anything to the catalogue of movies. I'd suggest any of the above to anyone. Seriously, there's som good stuff out there that doesn't involve 2 hours of gynormous fight scenes and CG.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have been reading the Tolkien stuff for 30 years (I'm 42). Though I don't think the LOTR Trilogy is perfect (I missed Tom Bombadil...) it to me is obviously made with love for the story and characters and to me, true to the spirit of the story that I have spent so many hours in my life reading and imaginging! I have a three year old girl that I'm looking forward to reading the story to, and then watching the movie.
It is a tremendous achivement that Peter was able to make all three at once and the director's cuts of 1 & 2 are also tremendous. Thank you for bringing such a favorite story of mine to life! If only someone could do it with Dune...
I hope Peter Jackson is able to make The Hobbit with the same love and care as LOTR. I would love to see Smaug and the gold as seen by Peter and Co. Bring it on!!!
Bod
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
You forgot the scene where they very nearly do shoot The Hulk in the head with a RPG... except Mr Dumbass has it backwards and kills himself and merely angers The Hulk further ^^
Anyway, that's the *only* complaint you had?
I mean, the military obviously *didn't* want to kill him because he was a valuable genetic resource; they had a very complicated setup where they tried to unlock his genetic cache... but of course he got pissed off and destroyed their military base!
GPL Deconstructed
Gandalf is powerful because he doesn't flaunt his true powers like SOME KIND OF FUCKING FAIRY.
(j/k, but only slightly)
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Mythic films are meant to be read allegorically. The whole point of The Hero as a plot element is that he can't be defeated. It is outside of his power to lose in the long run. If he lost, he wouldn't be the hero. Look at the pattern: Hulk, John Wayne, Superman, Neo, Spiderman, James Bond, many others. Heroes win. That is their power, by whatever specific explanation. Today we are asked to believe that every single cop on the street or every fireman or soldier is a hero. They aren't. Real people aren't heroes. Real people are people, and should not be mythologized. Myths, on the other hand, lose their value when we read them as we would real life. This is a major problem for our culture; the substitution of fantasy for reality. Each has its value, but should not be confused with the other.
Read Joseph Campbell's "The Hero With A Thousand Faces". It is a great work on reading myths of all ages.
Ahhhh, now I understand what happened to The Godfather III.
While we're speculating, would the world have been better or worse if Hitler had been killed in WW I?
The first thought is that it would be better, but imagine a Nazi party that manages to get to power with a different, sane and competant, leader...
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Learn to swim.
There is a lot more out there than you can see.
try this
... hi bingo
>> Newsweek has a first review of the third instalment of LOTR - and gives it two thumbs up
#1. That was not a review. It was a promotional
article for the movie. Although the person writing the article appears to have seen the movie, he does not present his opinion about its quality.
#2. No where is the phrase "two thumbs up" used, this being something only done by Ebert & The Other Guy, who are not newsweek columnists.
#3. The word 'installment' has two Ls.
But so many of the posts start off, in effect, with a null-semantic content opening; "I didn't like it cause I didn't like it".
;)
That's how it is with all people. You either like it or don't like it - and then you find reasons to support the emotion. Clever people realize that, the rest deny it
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Treebeard is not a tree. He is an ent, which is a race created by one of the Valar (Gods) to protect the trees of Middle Earth at the start of the First Age. It is hinted that Treebeard is really, really old, even by Elrond's standards (who is about 6500 years old). Fangorn Forest is actually named after Treebeard.
Now if ents really were as stupid as Jackson suggests, why weren't they destroyed or perverted in all those 7000+ years of existence?
While the parent is extremely racist and unappreciated, I agree with his point that the movie is about White, Western European heritage, and that an African would be out of place.
The power of Christ compiles you.
A Random Blog
I disagree. It could have ended many different ways as long as there was a point to it. Personally, I would have preferred the ending being that Neo wakes up from an "outer Matrix" into the real world, perhaps to find out he is a machine in a human constructed Matrix. Now wouldn't that have been interesting?
That would have been too cheap. It's been done a million times, the "It was all a dream" ending.
- sigs are for wimps.
A wizard did it.
In the simpsons when Lucy Lawless (Xena) was in the comic book store, she started getting pestered with those "mistake" questions. Her answer "whenever you see something like that, a wizard did it."
"how about in the espisode."
"Wizard"
I thought it was funny..
I investigated this: 1) "Matrix" is not a terribly uncommon word, and works well for the movie 2) NONE of the "evidence" that Sofia/Sophia whats-her-name even REMOTELY looks like the Matrix script. What's really funny is that some of the "conceptual" imagery people have posted is FROM MATRIX COMICS that have been published recently. Her "script" is actually an extended conceptual essay that reads more like she wanted to make some sort of "Book of Relevation" type movie, vs. a sci-fi/fantasy/action movie. Even when she EXPLICITLY POINTS OUT WHAT SHE SAYS IS DIRECT THEFT, there's no similarity, even between characters. So yeah, Moss was in an ill-fated TV series called "Matrix". Years later she was in a movie series by the same name that wasn't the same plotline. I guess that's enough for some people to see a conspiracy.
That is interesting. I know there are many references and allusions to all things spiritual in the movie. That said, allusions are not enough to make for a decent plot.
:)
Deciding ehether or not the viewer should need a primer/have a strong history background to 'get' the main thrust of the movie is left as an exercise for the reader...
(hint: no)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I know. ::sigh:: ::flies away::
There is no use fighting dittoheads. You could do it all day long.
I guess this means that all RotK items are going to rehash The Matrix Re: sequels until RotK is released?
I mean, didn't the last RotK item also quickly degenerate into a debate on the merits of The Matrix sequels.
--
Power to the Peaceful
Starting sentences that read like: "I didn't like it cause it sucked", "I didn't like it cause it was lame", etc.
not only that, but these are the same comments that get modded up. i guess this tells a but about the moderators here on slashdot. now it's see this post getting modded down....
people please, if anyone are here to bash the films, provide some valid arguments to justify that they actually thought about it. obviously, for this reason, the next poster sees the comment's stupidity and ignorance, and posts the typical followup like "you dont like the film because you're too dumb to understand it".
my blog
I can't wait either, and really wish I didn't have to as I fear the new things that have been added to the flick now that the production company is flush with cash.
I think the reason for the disappointment with a lot of sequels to popular flix is that they were filmed with more cash and star power. The producers would feel an expectation to be more in every way...which disappoints the audience that loved subtle nuances of the first films. The other extreme, of course, is for the film to become campy.
The main thing I am hoping for with LoTR III is continuity. As all three parts of the series were filmed at the same time; So, I think there is a good chance that they will stick with the same flavor and pace.
But they did have a year and a great deal of money. It is possible to a great deal of harm when you have a lot of money.
BTW, I read the book...and am still trying to figure out how this whole thing with Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Gollum is going to end up with thirteen dwarves fighting a dragon over a treasure.
The real problem with this film is in the writing. Anything not uttered by Agent Smith was a bore. Particularly bad dialogue envelops entire scenes, such as Trinity's death, the Bane/Smith and Neo confrontation, and Mifune's dying speech.
Pretty much all the characters, and the work that went in to them over the course of the last two films are wasted wholesale in this movie: Morpheus is now a glorified grunt, Trinity becomes a crutch for Neo and then is killed off pointlessly and artlessly, the Merovingian gets to lose...again.
Crucial plot threads are ignored or harshly reshaped. Freeing mankind from living underground or trapped in the Matrix becomes saving the bits of Zion that haven't been obliterated yet. Neo's status as The One, you know, the guy that can basically solve everything, lead mankind to freedom and perhaps forge a peace with the Machines changes to that of a really good hacker who can fix a really bad recent glitch that he caused in the first place.
Speaking of which, everything's so irritably vague. It's never been properly established exactly how Smith is a threat to the Machine World - until Neo mentions it to the Source, I thought Smith was just bollixing up the Matrix real well. And how does Neo defeat it him? I've made some guesses, but I'm still pretty stumped. Not to mention his powers outside of the Matrix - the best we get is that he can do it. Swell.
One last thing, courtesy of Scott Kurtz. If EMP weapons work so well against the machines, how come they haven't delevoped the hell out of that technology? Why not place EMP generators willy-nilly along their line of retreat? Why not lob a few at the machine city/powerplant/whatever? All that farting about in the Matrix when they could be unleashing some serious firepower. Just a thought.
Basically, what it boils down to is that, philosophically, yeah, Revolutions is pretty sound. But technically? Coulda used a couple of rewrites.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
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.
some of the stuff they posted is stupid like from the matrix comic book and a movie review that says nothing about copyright but...there are similarities like the character descriptions and names.
I or you shouldn't put script theft past WarnerBrothers or the Wachowskis since they aren't exactly a know commodity.
The movie may just be a patchwork of ideas taken (borrowed) from many sources . Does that make it right ? I don't know. Up to a court i guess.
Lets not forget that she called the FBI which was brilliant. If records are true about witnesses then this will make them look very bad.
All 3 Matrix Movies: AWESOME
I'm getting sick of the Matrix bashing going on. Finally went and saw Revolutions this last weekend and guess what?
It rocked.
And just to stay on topic (regardless of the story poster troll), ROTK will be awesome too. I'm sure of it. Can't wait.
I'm sure we can think of lots more though. I mean to tack on something else (pardon the pun on your words):
Jurassic Park.
Hell, "The Lost World" wasn't even WRITTEN by Crichton until everyone saw how well Jurassic Park did at the box office, and even then it catered to people who saw the movie... I mean didn't Hammond and Ian both die on the island in the original book? I the Lost World, they are miracously there.
Heck, that is even a perfect example of a great book being turned into a pretty good movie which in turn fuels the source for both a horrible sequel that is both a movie and a book. Sounds confusing!
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
Further: didn't he, at least in part, set out to write his 'Hobbit books' with the intention of providing England/Britain (in particular) with a 'new' mythology (as he thought society had lost too much or all of its original sagas and myths due to industrialism and its consequences and that this, in turn, created a mythological void that needed to be filled)? And wouldn't that at least imply that he wished/desired people to read and appreciate his books? Surely you would agree that a myth isn't just some esoteric little yarn known by a chosen few?!
I admit the 'personal experience' comment was a cheap shot I couldn't resist. However (in descending order of generality):
I think there exists, in general, a really misconceived notion of reading 'personal experience' and autobiographical details (and their meaning) of the author into works of fiction: works of fiction should primarily be seen works of fiction not works of self-analysis and metaphorical gossip; if we're lucky a work of fiction may provide enjoyment as well as insight into human nature and the human condition, but whether that insight is based on the author's personal experience or not is completely irrelevant: Othello isn't necessarily a worse play just because Shakespeare wasn't a Moor and hadn't strangled his wife;
I also think that people are prone to read far more into, in particular, LOTR than is actually there and even more than Tolkien might have wanted them to (cf. for instance, his saying that he didn't want people running around speaking elvish with people running around speaking elvish while arguing that they are the true keepers of the Tolkien heritage -- or at least they did in this SBS documentary which seemed just so sad); and
My argument concerned the LOTR trilogy, not Silmarillion nor unfinished works. (Which I have read so I really wouldn't know anything about them: I have tried to read Silmarillion, I really have, but I have failed. Miserably. It is just unreadable. Really.)
Finally and parenthetically: being a spell-check nazi and all, I will take this opportunity to cry mea culpa: I blush at my typos in the original post: I know fully well how to spell 'erroneously' and 'elves'. Really I do. OR at least my computer does.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
Can you say Gladiator? For all your antipathy, you seem to forget the epic that was so acclaimed only a couple years ago. It had many of the same elements that RotK has ("gynormous fight scenes and CG"). However, RotK, like Gladiator, has a compelling story more meaningful than just hack-and-slash.
*begin rant*
I don't know about the rest of y'all giddy bastards drooling all over these movies, but I'm very disappointed with how the trillogy is turning out thus far. I liked the first movie lots, even though it should have had a few less shots of the scenerey and some more character development, but there was trouble even there. What the trouble was? Arwen/Liv Tyler. I'm as horny as the next guy and can appreciate the reasons for including at least one hottie actress in what was otherwise an all-boys show, but it shouldn't have happened, and it was only the sign of things to come.
Enter the second movie. Not only were there often substantial plot changes, but characters were fundamentally altered, which pissed me off. Faramir turned into a greedy asshole, Eowyn became a sighing wench, the hobbits got preachy and the Ents were cowards. The battle of Helm's Deep was ridiculous, and not just because of the mysterious arrival of the Elves or the fact that Rohan somehow spawned an army on horseback in the throneroom (Microsoft really ought to have patched that exploit) - watch the battle at the end of Army of Darkness and then watch Helm's Deep and you'll get a new appreciation for the silliness. I couldn't stand to watch it the second time around on DVD and I'm not looking forward to the third movie; if the trend continues, it will deviate even further from the books that I love (they are classics for a reason, eh?).
*Insert joke about harnessing the rotational energy of Tolkien's grave.*
The source material was as good as can get and was combined with some very good casting and awesome special effects, but Peter Jackson/Frances Walsh (did the screenplay) couldn't leave it well enough alone, could they? Bastards. If I wasn't so damn lazy or terrified of prison, I'd eat their children.
*end rant*
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
...the MPAA will sue you if you don't download!!!!
As long as >nobody does any of these things</a> the movie should be an enjoyable experience. I particularly am amused by #7 for some reason...
7. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"
Is there any real supporting evidence out there? A bunch of scanned documents are great, but I'm still a bit sceptical that they are even real.
I live in a giant bucket.
...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)
I liked the first Matrix because it brought comics into live action like nothing before it. I don't like or care about religious references, be it christianity or other. Religions and religious people are dangerous and quite possibly insane but that movie was so good otherwise I tolerated it's psychophiloreligious babble.
These sequels then... pfft. Same action stuff and more philorelig shit.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
If you were to sit down tonight and write a completely original script that wound up being a blockbuster, I practically guarantee you'd get sued by someone over it. And the vast majority of such suits get tossed out as quickly as they're filed, because they're almost invariably completely worthless on their merits. Maybe there's something to this one over the Matrix, but the track record for these sorts of things is pretty dismal.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
"Just some friendly words of advice so you don't go putting your foot in your mouth again."
Actually, that should be "putting your foot INTO your mouth again."
Thanks
I am not left-handed, either!
With Lord of the Rings everything they needed was handed to them on a silver plater storywise.
Matrix had to get from point A to point B with (apparently) no clue where point B was. And that's why it kinda sucked. After the first movie, they had absolutly no direction.
Jackson had to get from point A to point B given exactly what those points were. There was no point where Jackson wasn't told what the next waypoint was and how the characters get there in an interesting way. He just had to decide how to describe it in the alloted time.
My point is, yes it takes talent to get from point A to point B in X hours instead of thousands of pages. But it takes more talent to get a great story with a point A and point B with nothing to work off of.
It's far easier and more expected to fall flat on your face when you don't know the path. Jackson knew the road he was travelling. He just had to make a reader's digest account of the journey that was already fully logged and proven a solid story.
If the bros had spent a decade or two getting familiar with philosophy and working out details on the story like Tolkien had with his, I think they could have had a full classic.
It's the same with the Harry Potter series. I don't expect any of the movies to suck because the author is right there to get the screenwriters from point A to point B in the alloted time in the best possible way.
Simply put, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have a crutch that the Wacowski brothers didn't. The Matrix was an epic tale that needed a lot more time before it was ready to be told.
I think they deserve some credit for pulling it off as well as they did with what they had. I wouldn't be surprised if down the road someone took the ideas in the Matrix and made a solid set of movies out of them.
Jackson should get tons of credit for not blowing the trilogy the second time around. I don't expect another remake of that story for the theatre any time soon.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
>> IMHO reviews are not worth the time and effort to read. Go see the film yourself and decide. That's the only way.
So what did you think of Gigli?
Those weren't reviews, those were obituaries.
Sting is NOT a Hobbit blade... I guess the
reviewer didn't pay attention to the movie,
or bother to read the book. Oh well...
that's super cool of you. my turn to be running on no sleep coming up soon enough.
joe.
No other scifi thriller has come anywhere close to doing what the Matrix has done
This must be a generational thing or something. Because all of my friends agree with me. The last two Matrix movies sucked. And the first one was far from stupendous. Boil the first one down to its essentials, and it's merely an action flick with some predictable cyberpunk. It was entertaining but it won't make my top ten list, or even my top 100.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Tolkien admitted one big problem in Lord of the Rings. He couldn't find a way to work the whole Aragorn/Arwen love story into the main narrative, so it is left as an appendix.
But he always said that the love story was an integral part of the whole story.
That scenes allows the love story to become part of the narrative and also allows the desperation of the defenders of Helm's Deep to become part of the story by introducing antiicpation rather than a guard knocking on Theoden's Door saying "Scuse me guv, 10,000 Uruk-Hai to see you, should I show them in?"
In Soviet Russia the lord rings you!
karma capped
RealDoll are still operating, aren't they?
Please don't respond to the white-garbage racists posting on this blog.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
I think J.K. Rowlings has the patent.
Sorry to lower the tone but the combination ofsword, manhood, delivery and control evoke some Freudian comparisons.
Are you reading too much into this? Jackson allowed Aragorn's sweetheart to give him his sword. Very nice of her but Aragorn was no less of a man without the sword. By taking the sword from Arwen he's still a man grasping his destiny (or rather Arwen grasping his for him... COUGH, sorry, had to add that)
I agree with the Faramir comment though. My take on Faramir was that he was an Aragorn twin but born to the man holding Aragorn's birthright and brother to a man flawed like Isildur.
The real reason is that when you have a war somewhere, there are side effects elsewhere. This is the point that Tolkein was making. Even though LOTR is not about WW2, it does reflect some experiences - you return from war as a victor to find much of what you were fighting to protect has been damaged, some of it even destroyed.
So put it down to political correctness. Someone does not want to show the true cost of warfare.
In reality, I agree. More minutes of Christopher Lee would be great, but this is an integral part of the story and is even foretold. Yes, Frodo and Sam triumph in the end but the shire has been badly damaged.
See my journal, I write things there
I mean didn't Hammond and Ian both die on the island in the original book? I the Lost World, they are miracously there.
Yeah, they both died in the original book. However, Hammond stayed dead in The Lost World book. Ian Malcolm was miraculously alive, although somewhat crippled.
-5 Jim Crowe Segregationist
If a 3.5-hour film is considered to be too long, they could always have an interval, so don't tell me run-time is the reason for chopping the cinematic version.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
That ending would have left us with one major question...
WHO SHOT JR?!?!?!?!?
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Yes, you are The One.
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
See, I don't really get this. I kept hearing about how everyone thought it sucked, then I went to see it. It wasn't really that bad. OK, so it was a little too commercial -- too long battle/fight and love scenes and too little plot. It also leaves some open questions that are important to the plot, like how Neo can "see" things and exactly what is it that he's seeing.
But overall it wasn't that bad. It fulfilled all the expected events forshadowed in the previous movies (e.g., battle for Zion, Neo saves the day, ultimate fight between Neo and Smith, etc.) There were even a few "cool" ideas thrown in (don't want to give away too much, so I won't mention any).
It might not have been all I hoped for, but I wouldn't say it sucked by any stretch.
Well, in all fairness, they did manage to misplace their wives...
-H
"If there's anything more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now." -- Z. Beeblebrox
vaguesness to simulate depth - bingo. I must'a missed that post. 2 things: The sequels are spiritually bankrupt and you can't help but feel that humanity lost in the end. Too much machinery. LOTR is all about humanity and beating the odds... Also, the language is common waffle. LOTR is full of proper English that doesn't stress people any more than they need to be.
I think too many people say they're dissapointed because of the loose ends this movie has. Because not all was explained in the end and W bros didn't go "beyond the shallows" with the philosophycal/religious/numerology/etc stuff... Please remember this is a movie, not a technical Matrix runbook or a manpage. Plus not always a movie or a book tells a straight-out story. Sometimes the purpouse is just to get your mind going into a certain direction. And for sure, no matter you liked Revolutions or not, your life is not going to be the same from this day forward. The matrix has you =) The general idea of the movie is nothing new, and the computers vs. humans subject has been a motive for many books and movies, but The Matrix simply sayz : "OK. You really want something on this ?! Including ssh, guns, religious stuff, XXI century effects and all ?! There you go !". And i really don't think that matrix being said is going to be any more films on this subject anytime soon. Pretty much all was said and done. So haters/fanboys have a nice day.
Frodo actually fails in his quest. When the moment of truth arrives, he's unable to cast the ring into the fire. Technically, he fails. Luckily, Gollum is there to save the day, so to speak.
I can't put my finger on how the Wachowskis screwed up.
Isn't it possible that their vision was only good enough to sustain a single movie?
It's like Star Trek; maybe there's only ten seasons or so worth of episodes in the vision, which is remarkable in itself. But after the well is dry the producers must either create dry repetitions of the early episodes or have to tamper with the vision.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yes,, It's a deep pit of jibberish!!
In later editions of LOTR there's an amusing introduction concerning the trials Tolkien had with proofreaders and editors who helpfully corrected things like "dwarves" to "dwarfs" and "elven" to "elfin" (not to mention the scrambled names and such due to transcription errors -- remember back in the dim distant 1950s manuscripts were (often) handwritten; and were copied and recopied several times before being set in type -- these days publishers take advantage of DTP to dispense with most of their editors and send the author's typos directly to the press). He quite deliberately made these and other non-standard spellings.
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.
There is no hook.
(no spoon either)
You see, today, most people will take a look at something, and if they don't "get it" right away, they'll dismiss it, usually with a comment like "that's bad" and then proceed to trash it in every public forum they have access to, because that's easier than admitting that they can't see what the artist put into the creation.
So the brothers W come along and make a movie - here I'm quoting them "about the dangers of living an unexamined life"
Predictably, the majority of the public don't understand it and feel threatened by their own shallowness, so they have to jump on it and try to trash it.
To be fair though, if editing destroys a movie, well, you can't become an apologist for the film makers and excuse them, because you DO have to judge the movie on its own.
Thing is, I thought it was great, and I don't feel the editing wrecked it, so here we differ.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Yeah. The Matrix movies won't be everyone's cup of tea. And Reloaded and Revolutions won't necessarily appeal to all fans of the first film. But for so many people to keep describing it so negatively is just annoying.
Then again, many people didn't go to see M2 and M3 for the films that they were, they went to see them for the films they hoped they'd be. And if they didn't live up to their expectations then they sequels were (obviously) dreadful.
At least RoTK will be exempt from this exact "flavour" of hype. The trilogy almost has to end the way people expect it - as in this case the expectations are from the books which spawned the story.
True, there'll always be the "but it didn't happen that way in the book" problem, but films will never please everybody.
Tiggs - enjoyed the Matrix Trilogy
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
Ahem.
Perhaps you missed the fact that Peter Jackson omitted Tolkien's references to all of the 'dark men' from the South/Harad ( i.e., Africa ) who joined forces with Sauron. I don't know what Tolkien's original intent was, but I don't think making legions of the bad guys Africans as they are described in the book is a good idea...and Jackson hasn't done that yet. So maybe jackson is attempting to stay true to the story and characters of the book without getting too attached to an exact representation of the novels.
The standard operating procedure for Hollywood is that, when you have a successful movie, all the other studios rush off a copy-cat movie (or several or a TV show) to try to ride the wave of success. But this doesn't seem to have happened in this case (or maybe I'm forgetting some movies, all I can think of is the upcoming Illiad adaptation).
1) Pippin's head wound moves from one side of his face to the other, then back.
;-)
2) Merry's hands are tied, but then when he rolls under the horse they're untied, and then a minute later they're tied again.
-jls
Techno-pagan
The problem with comparing The Matrix to LOTR is that they were written with different purposes in mind.
The Matrix was written to be a fast paced piece of entertainment. The fact that the W Brothers decided to season it with a little philosophy and mysticism only added to the interest. But the deep meaning part was over in the first movie. It's not a life-changing experience. It's entertainment. Looking for the elements of serious literature (or film making) like theme, character development, and deeper meaning, is like requesting the nutritional information on a candy bar.
The LOTR was a three (actually more) volume literary masterpiece long before it was a movie. The fact that the LOTR folks stayed true to the original books enhanced the quality of the movie as a serious work of art. Is it entertaining? Absolutely. But can you also look for all of the serious literary elements and enjoy it on different levels. LOTR has more depth to it because it was written with more depth to begin with.
One is macaroni and cheese. The other is a steak dinner. Enjoy them both, but recognize them for what they are.
Sigs are for lusers. Hey! wait a second...
Through the movie's peace we get war among viewers. So, really it balances out to a good conversation piece. However one-sided it is.
Not to mention the fact that it wasn't stolen. They lost it in a war, which was started by them! What would you do? bottom line is that people need to R-E-L-A-X.
That said there is a big difference in Rings v Star Wars (and others). The prequals in SW are a cash in bonanza. Rings is a work of devotion to render the books well (perhaps with some sell out to put more of the women in rather than sticking to the plot, plus the real money is probably made of the multitude of versions that will apear on DVD. So they can afford to be good at the cinema). The Matrix falls somewhere more in the middle. It has something to present but then big films are about making big money. So to get financing you have to sell out I guess.
In fact getting grumpy about it. Music is a sell out for cash, novels are a sell out for cash. What isn't. So much for culture. Even art and sport are all sell outs for cash. Any news story you hear or see almost always adresses how much it will cost or how much it is worth.
Just take the three extended DVDs and rearrange their content for your pleasure. Maybe you can do a better job than Jackson. Star Wars fans have been doing this for years.
If you went to any studio in Hollywood and said we want to make a movie: ... where everyone knows what happens at the end... ... so much so that the name is synonymous with fateful disaster... ... that's three and a half hours long... ... and aim it at the 13-19 year old demographic... ... they'd laugh you out of the office.
You'd have to call it"Titanic" and it'd be the top grossing film of all time by half.
You create drama on the screen from what you have and do it well, and people will pay real money for that and praise your work.
Peter's darn smart. He's doing things right from many angles. When I saw the very first teaser of Fellowship and saw Elijah Wood's face and that ring - it was the very image I'd had in my mind since reading the trilogy+ as our entire sophomore english course in 1974.
I know what happens, and I still want to see it. It's the storyteller's craft involved here, and there's a remarkably tight line between what JRR put on the page and what Peter puts on film.
On the other hand, I prefer to listen to the stories at Lake Woebegon - my imagination is allowed to take the little pieces and make them whole. Disney tried telecasting PHC and it failed miserably after a few weeks. Being at a live broadcast of PHC however is stunning. "Shelob & Gollum Live! On Ice!" would be a disaster. Go figure.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I'm tired of fanatic movie fans who just can't accept it when others don't like their movies
:)
I hear you, brother (sister).
I've faithfully gone to see both LOTR movies so far, and will probably go to ROTK as well, but I have to admit: I just don't get it. For those who read the books, I'm sure it's nice to see it on the big screen. But for those like me who haven't, I honestly just don't see why these movies are being hailed as the second coming.
I didn't mind TTT as much, but it struck me as mostly mindless action. FOTR was a snooze fest. A bunch of action scenes intertwined with precisely what people hate about the Matrix: vagueness disguised as "deepness". The entire Liv Tyler thing went on for far too long, and didn't seem to have a point. The end was just abrupt; I dunno, guess everyone else saw it coming. And yes, I'm aware that "this is one 15 hour movie", or whatever the usual argument it against there being self-contained movies. I think I'm one of the few who honestly believe these movies could have been done at 2 hours each.
Not a troll at all, btw. The visuals were fantastic, except for the Ents looking a bit too CG for my tastes. But as far as movies go, I think I'm the only person on the planet who's been disappointed.
Now watch as your "fanatic movie fans" mod me down into oblivion
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
You left out the major video game marketing ploy. Man, that pissed me off.
What happend to Niobe's ship? Find out in Enter the Matrix, only $29.99 at your favorite video game store.
What did the Oricale say to Niobe? Find out in Enter the Matrix, only $29.99 at your favorite video game store.
They may as well had Niobe give Morphous a copy of the game and say, "Play this game, Morphous, and all your questions will be answered."
Quote from Amazon.com : "Game script written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers' as an integral part of the entire Matrix experience--the movie is incomplete without the game, and the game is incomplete without the movie"
Bastards....
To drive home the ending to Matrix Revolutions again, the Wachowski brothers have influenced Peter Jackson to alter the ending to RotK.
-Aragorn and Sauron fight it on in the rain while millions of Sauron eyes watch intently and rarely blink; the battle peaks with Aragorn seemingly beaten and lying on his back, stands up and hugs Sauron - peace breaks out throughout the land.
-Frodo plays the part of an Oracle and Sam his trusty bodyguard... oh wait, nm.
-Gollum is programmed by the "The One True Ring Matrix" to bring balance to the force...
oh, I'm getting too confused
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
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
The big quesiton I have about the Matrix is;
In the first movie, the kid says something to the effect of: "to deny one's impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human."
Yet later on, they're saying that CHOICE is what differentiates us from the machines.
So what is it that makes us human? Choice? Or Impulse?
bah!
I gave up thinking about it then.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Please see the extended release of TTT. One of the most crucial scenes it adds is background info on Faramir. It completely changes the perspective on Faramir's interaction with the hobbits, the ring and the quest.
The actor portraying Faramir states he understands why his scenes were trimmed in the theatrical release, but he is glad to have the extended release include more of his scenes. You realize he is *not* in fact, lusting after the ring, so much of thinking about his father's approval. This characterization is in the book. Boromir *was* more beloved of his father than Faramir was. Faramir just accepted it gracefully.
Why has a review of RotK turned into yet another Matrix thread? Give it up, there are other movies out there, you know!
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In literary criticism they call the misguided notion that the author's original intention can be fully known by the reader the "intentional fallacy." The bottom line is that whether or not Tolkien meant for LoTR to be taken as an allegory for this or that is irrelevant. The work stands apart from his intention for it and happens to make a very good allegory for a number of depressing aspects of the modern world including industrialization, totalitarianism, the increase of ignorance, overpopulation, etc.
What it "means" is up to each reader, not the author.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
The sole purpose of the Matrix is to extract dollars from middle class young white males, via the film, DVD and video game releases and ancillary marketing of related products. That is it. The entire trilogy is STUPEFYINGLY idiotic. The studios cleaned up on this one though with global sales of over $1 billion USD, so you can expect the trend to continue in a big way.
When someone says he didn,t like a movie for reasons A), B), etc and someone replies:
Stupid audience wants it spelled out for them
THAT is trolling and/or flaimebaiting.
and as for you, topham,
I suspect it is because we actually paid some attention in the other.
I suspect it is because you did not.
I didn't just pay attention to the others, I actually wrote a paper on the Matrix for a university class, you sorta have to watch the movie and takes notes to do that. So stop trolling me and claiming that people who disagree with you MUST be stupid and ignorant, because (and I'll drop to your level a sec here) it takes one to know one.
You can't take the sky from me...
> Gandalf is powerful because he doesn't flaunt his true powers like SOME KIND OF FUCKING FAIRY.
Deep, cleansing breaths, there. Gandalf is powerful because he isn't human, and apparently Istari are rather long-lived, much like that other one who does spend the story flaunting his true powers, because he's pissed about the trouble he's having findng something.
Virg
So, we are to believe that all of a sudden, man/machine decides to just drop everything and live in harmony. Uh huh.
Enough of the conjecture and hearsay already! Tolkien was adamantly anti-racist. He risked forgoing publication of the Hobbit in German to avoid giving credence to the "race-doctrine". The publisher wanted him to pledge that he had no Jewish ancestry. In Tolkien's words, "I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine."
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
And it was not available on all platforms, so the Wachowski's threw a big middle finger out to those who may have liked The Matrix, but are on Mac, Linux, etc....
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
What takes more talent?
Writing a hugely successful epic screenplay from scratch?
Or
Writing a hugely successful epic screenplay from an existing hugely successful epic novel?
Jackson had a model to work by. The Wacowski bros didn't.
"I'm not so arrogant that I can't admit that."
That's amazing. Jesus would be proud.
I'm merely comparing what the Wacowski bros attempted to do with what Jackson has done. I'm just saying the Wacowshi bros attempted something far more difficult. Them failing is therefore more forgivable and understandable than Jackson failing.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Yay, someone else who thinks the ending was ballsy! Personally, I was amazed they remained true to what they were building up to.
Unfortunately, the majority of viewers has a totally different view of the Matrix universe than the W's have. The majority, when you get down to it, want to believe in human sepremacy over the machine. We want happy endings.
If you have tried to examine the Matrix trilogy, and the Animatrix, for deeper meaning, one of the underlying themes is that Humans cannot survive without Machines. There was a very unsubtle scene regarding this in Reloaded. If Neo destroyed the machines (and consequently millions if not billions of coppertops), the remaining humans would, inevitably through their use of technology, recreate the original conflict.
What is the Revolution of the final movie, anyways? The Machines are hanging on to the humans, letting them continue to exist, for some mysterious reason. Winning humanity some measure of freedom from the Machines is but the first stage of the Oracle's ultimate goal of... what?
Personally, I find the ending of Revolutions to be a happy ending which approaches reality. The millions of Coppertops no longer have to die, but instead will be given a choice of visiting the "real world" -- and most, I expect, will go back. Around the "powerplant" a new city of humans and machines will grow. A few of the children in Revolutions seemed touched by hints of prophecy -- I expect a certain little girl to discover how to cure the sky, and therein lies the next great conflict.
The only thing I really object to, though, is the crucifixion of Neo. It fits, but I still object anyways, Christians have too much stuff anyway! :P
The LOTR films however are without a doubt the greatest fantasy movies made... only to be rivaled by Dino De Laurentius' Conan the Barbarian trilogy ;)
Trilogy? Did I miss one?
Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
The film sounds great, and I have a feeling I'll like it, but even so I'm pretty ticked off that Jackson left of the Scouring of the Shire just because he didn't like it. OK, yeah, it's a bit of a bummer ending, but that could have been handled.
Yes, I know there's only so much time available, they acn't put *everything* in, and so on. I didn't complain when relatively minor things like Tom Bombadil were left out, or when stupid-but-overlookable gaffes made their way in, such as dwarf-tossing or elves at Helm's Deep. But this is a major event.
It's Jackson's job to make the book into a movie, not second-guess Tolkien. If he thinks he's a better writer, he should write his own stuff, not chop up classics. OK, maybe it could have been left out of the theatrical release (since the kiddies don't want to see dead hobbits), but it should at least have been shot and put on the extended DVD.
Actually, there is a point in The Two Towers, where we see an orcs head on a stick
I believe it is an uruk-hai's head
Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
Though I had heard that they cut out the scene where Gandalf confronts Saurman at Orthanc and shatters his staff.
This troubles me because I always saw it as a pivital part of the book.
Hmm, maybe I'm wrong.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Actually I believe that this distinction remains in the hands of Hannibal, killing 50,000 Romans in a single day. Battle of Cannae.
Don't forget Terry Gilliam, Kevin Smith (uneven, but always good, IMNSHO), and the Coen Brothers.
There are others, but there's not enough coffee in the world to wake me up.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
> Wasn't Sting an elvish-blade called "Orc Cleaver" or something like that?
No, you're thinking of Orcrist, the "goblin cleaver", which was Thorin's blade. Sting was a short blade that Bilbo found under the Lonely Mountain (which was forged in the same city as Orcrist). Since it fell into Bilbo's posession for a long time, and was passed to his nephew, it's not incorrect to call it a Hobbit blade, although it wasn't forged by Hobbits.
Virg
Although the article does contain some review-like paragraphs near the end, it is clearly a promotional/puff piece that was done in cooperation with the studio (and its content is
therefore suspect).
Real reviews don't contain extensive interviews with the cast & crew and "behind the scenes" reportage.
The whole trilogy is distorted by having a woman deliver Aragorn's power to him.
Whoa big fella! The elves re-forged the sword. Since Aragorn did not break out his hammer and tongs, *somebody* had to deliver his power to him.
In Tolkien's time and place, nobody would find it odd that women didn't have much to do with important matters because that was mostly how the real world was then. Jackson's interpretation is consistent with the expectations of his audience. In present day civilized nations however, most people have no problem with women taking part in matters of "power." Most people.
Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
Never mind that the sequals don't live up to the first Matrix movie, or that people who scream that religion is crap, but fail to notice that the drive behind religion is philosophy, and the Matrix doesn't drive philosophy at all (assuming one can get past the cultural dictates of religious behaviors - it fundamentally is an exercise in philosophy - why am I here? what should I do? how do I get to know any higher power(s)?).
Keep discussion about your flaming turd of a movie inside discussions of the Matrix, and focus on this discussing LOTR here.
True, it's a scorched earth kind of move, but at least all that would be left would be Zion, and you could get back to the work of rebuilding humanity. This isn't a horrible idea when you consider that Zion is made up of the brightest (able to secede from Matrix) and hardiest (able to survive in shitty underground lair), so you have a fairly good gene pool to work with.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
ROTFLMAO! Hey, is there anyway to mod an AC up?
Who is John Cabal?
Apologies if you have already seen this but it is worth repeating:
LOTR: Return of the King Survival Tips
1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait... where the hell is Harry Potter?"
2. Block the entrance to the theater while screaming: "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."
3. At some point during the movie, stand up and shout: "I must go! Middle Earth needs me!" and run and try to jump into the screen. After bouncing off, return quietly to your seat.
4. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time someone says: "The Ring."
5. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.
6. Ask the nearest ring-nut if he thinks Gandalf went to Hogwarts
7. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mr. Anderson."
8. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"
9. At the end, complain that Gollum was offensive to Ethiopians
10. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off someone's finger and fall down the stairs.
11. When Shelob appears, pinch the guy in front of you on the back of the neck.
12. Dress up as old ladies and reenact "The Battle of Helms Deep" Monty Python style.
13.When Denethor lights the fire, shout "Barbecue!"
14. Ask people around you who they think is the next "Terminator" sent from the Middle Earth of the future to assassinate Frodo Baggins
15. In TTT when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout "RUNFOREST, RUN!"
16. Every time someone kills an Orc, yell: "That's what I'm Tolkien about!" See how long it takes before you get kicked out of the theatre.
17. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Waldo?"
18. Talk loudly about how you heard that there is a single frame of a nude Elf hidden somewhere in the movie.
19. Start an Orc sing-a-long.
20. Come to the premiere dressed as Frankenfurter and wander around looking terribly confused.
First off, lets get the Matrix off of my chest..
;-)-
:D
I think that the first one will always be the best in the trilogy. The whole "new" idea of a computer-controlled world introduced to mainstream culture in a techie/action, but easy- to-follow-for-most sort of way was inspiring.
Reloaded, I'm sorry, but it just made me want to dive into a vat of mercury...Too much action, not enough story/mythology..Though, it was the W's brainchild and it's better than I could do, so I must give it at least some credibility.
Now, regarding the newest installment of that wacky mindjob we call The Matrix, I have to put it out there that I thought Revelations was a refreshing bit of cinema after the Hell that was "Reloaded", even though the ending lacked a bit in dialouge and character follow ups. This may sound a bit odd, but I missed the original Oracle..(anyone else out there?)...Maybe the original's contract was terminated, or it could be deliberate...either way, I think the original was way better at acting and was more familiar (in behavior and in general) to the audience. I also didn't like how they just left Neo dead and that was it...no further story or anything. All-in-all, it was relatively good..
-whew-
Ok, now for the LOTR opinions
FOTOR: Good
TTT:Better
ROTK: Will be the Best
-No, I'm not bashing Tolkien or LOTR in general, because I loved all of them way more than I ever will with The Matrices (Sp?). I just don't see why I need to touch on it when I already know the outcome
ok, i'm done
cheers
nothing.can.stop.me.now
Agreed. Totally.
My original post, the one that started the thread was flamebait, indeed, and it worked. But in this thread came a very insightful comment. (sad I can't moderate)
Better and more concise explanation than I could have come up with for the bad reviews. Thanks.
we are to believe that all of a sudden, man/machine decides to just drop everything and live in harmony
No. First you have to understand that Neo made a deal with The Matrix. But for that you have to get the fact that it was something he, only, could do.
The problem is, to understand this, you need to understand the problem with Agent Smith, and the fact that although Neo died, he didn't really just died, he also killed Smith.
But that also forces you to understand the concept of the Matrix, and what the Oracle and the Architect said. And, pfeuh, that's way too much, considering the average attention span of movie watchers.
Hence, the bad reviews, and your comment.
Plus you could liquify all the dead humans and you wouldn't have to worry about looking for food for a while :-)
>> Now if ents really were as stupid as Jackson suggests, why weren't they destroyed or perverted in all those 7000+ years of existence?
> Well, in all fairness, they did manage to misplace their wives...
I am not sure this is an indication of stupidity.
"The Return of the King" is the third and final chapter in what's likely to be a nearly $3 billion franchise that should, according to sources familiar with Jackson's deal, net the director at least $150 million.
I just want to say, Peter Jackson deserved every penny of it. Bravo.
Ooops, Actually I think I was thinking of "The Sword Of Shanarra" anyway and now I think about it some more I have read some Dragonlance and for a quick read if you time to kill they aren't too bad although I wouldn't go so far as to say they were great, or even especially interesting literature.
Where's the dirty stories gone?