Slashdot Mirror
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')."
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.
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.
"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.
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.
>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.
...
This dude is the Newsweek reviewer, and he said incredibly positive things about ROTK. OF course, don't let that get in the way of your point
I even had a date, with my wife's blessing
Where can I get a wife like that?!
Surely the first two films were evidence enough the Jackson can be trusted to transform the Return of the King into an excellent film. Like a lot of die-hard Tolkein fans I found some scenes in the first two movies a little disappointing, but these disappointments were completely overshadowed by the splendour of what are overall two fantastic movies. If you doubt Jackson at all then go and buy the special edition DVD and watch the behind the scenes footage where you see the passion and dedication that has gone into the making of these films.
The smoke [from the exhaust] and dust wasn't so bad because there was already lots of it around, but the bloody windshield was reflecting the sun back into the camera lens. So we erased it for the DVD.
I call shennanigans! I haven't seen the FOTR:extended edition commentary, but I remember them saying, "We don't know what people are talking about...there's no car in this scene." So he's now admitting that they not only removed the car, but they lied about doing so in the commentary track.
Shennanigans all around. :)
P.S. I need to check, but I think they even removed the car in the Oscar screener. Or at least in the Hong Kong version of it. :)
I thought it sucked. Not because it was cool to say so, but, in point of fact, because it sucked.
I recommended to many people that they not pay full price and go see a matinee instead.
But, hey, at least there weren't any Ewoks in it.
I am not a lawyer. This post does not constitute any form of legal advice.
I know people are tired of hearing about this... but if the movie is going to be so huge, and so successful, and make such enormous bank for the studio and for Jackson, then please just put in Christopher Lee's seven minutes of Saruman footage.
It's not going to break the damn film one way or the other. Christopher Lee is a screen legend and reads Lord of the Rings every year. This is the culmination of a lifelong dream for him, and frankly, the man does not have a wealth of years left to him. So many fans want to see it, and if Peter Jackson idolizes Christopher Lee so much he should do him the courtesy and the honor of letting him appear in what may well be the last great film he will appear in.
I am not confident that he will, but I really hope Jackson changes his mind on this at the last minute. Seven minutes out of three hours, out of nine or twelve plus hours of movie total -- what in the hell could it possibly hurt at this point?
Sorry to belabor this point, but reading the review led me to read some other Return of the King news, and how Christopher Lee will not be attending the premiere of Return of the King because he is so upset. After all that talk on the commentaries and documentary about what a close-knit bunch of friends they are, this seems like a cruel and unecessary snub to Mr. Lee.
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.
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.
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?
<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
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.
> 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)
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
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
Well, huh? Did we see the same movie? Romance?
His GF dies in his hands and the guy just says
"bye" and goes on to more ass-kicking... I was
really expecting him to do the Romeo thing and
maybe then have the machines fight Smith and when
they'd both collapse leave humanity be. The scene
where Trinity dies showed clearly that "romance"
was merely a plot device to advance action.
Of course, Keanu couldn't emote love even acting
opposite his real GF, if he got one. The guy can
express emotions (other than surprise) just about
as well as a doorknob so I am not sure where you
saw emotions in that movie. Maybe you have filled
in the blanks because the script certainly calls
for emotions but the final cut leaves a lot to be
desired in that department.
Action was fine, though everyone expected some
imagination and this was basically a rehash of the
first two movies. Zion was essentially a scaled up
version of their ships. So yes this movie was
packed with rather redundant action sequences.
So to recap: the Matrix pretended to be a love story
but needed a different cast to have a hope of
pulling it off. It has predictable script (who
doubted that the ship was gonna make it to Zion?),
it has wooden acting, it has derivative action,
and it has a nice ironic ending. This does not
an *awesome* movie make.
"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.
> 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
If it means not having to hang around 300 rabid Slashdot nerds in a dark theatre, you can add me to that list.
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
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.
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
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/
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
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.
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."
Just take the one you have now and threaten her with 10 hours of the Lord of the Rings for Christmas.
Not to mention the Indiana Jones franchise (although Indy 4 might be a bit dubious), or X-Men (so far).
And in the eyes of many, the original Star Wars trilogy still stands as a frnachise in it's own right. By this I mean that even though the new films are crap, it hasn't caused people to sour from the whole franchise. We still love the original films, and will still play the video games, hell - we even think that Darth Maul is one of the coolest villains ever (even if he only has about 3 lines - he just looked damn cool). My point being, the new films haven't soured the whole franchise the way the latter two Matrix films did with their series. They haven't, at the end of the day, caused the whole franchise to let fans/audiences down.
And we srill maintain hope for a SW4:ANH DVD where Han Solo shoots first.
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.
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?
That would have been too cheap. It's been done a million times, the "It was all a dream" ending.
- sigs are for wimps.
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 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.
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.
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.
*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!
...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)
"Mr. Baggins. It seems you've been leading two lives. On the one hand, you lead a simple, pleasant life. You have furry feet. You even help your uncle Bilbo take out the trash. On the other hand, you carry an evil that breaks every law of nature we have. One of these lives has a future, Mr. Baggins. The other does not."
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
>> 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...
Jackson already had the full script available from the start. Very little creative talent in the story area required.
ROTFLMAO! Have you ever written a screenplay? I thought not...
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.
Where do you guys come from? And why don't you all crawl back to wherever it was? If PJ did not change the given story, the three movies combined would have been at LEAST 48 hours long. You simply cannot film a movie identical to the book without ruining the movie.
To get LOTR down to 9+ hours, you need to do some serious cutting. First thing you do is cut 99% of the poetry. But even that pissed off some of the diehard fans. Next you cut stuff that doesn't progress the story. Like Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs. Piss off more people. You'll have to cut the Scouring of the Shire because you can't tack on an extra hour after the audience has sat through nine already. Piss off more people. You certainly don't have enough time to show the ents carefully and unhastily constructing a dam in order to flood Isengard, so you conveniently have one already built. Piss off more people. Etc, etc, etc.
Peter Jackson has done an admirable job on LOTR. Better than I could have done, that's for sure. I'm not so arrogant that I can't admit that.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Yes, you are The One.
Ade_
/
Big Bubbles (no troubles) - what sucks, who sucks and you suck
He was an inspired visionary, he had to be to create such a following. It's hard to be that on the outside and entirely rational on the inside. (Though Castro seems to have his head screwed on fairly well and realised and lived within his limitations.) For all that he could have gone far further if he hadn't been so paranoid and destroyed the best people in his country, and particularly army, out of mostly irrational fears; and then his obsession with "bolshevism" lead him to attack Russia with no hope of success. Stalin and Mao did much the same thing, just kept their ambitions mostly within their borders. Unfortunately they both stayed in power longer and did a lot more damage than Hitler did.
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....
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
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!"