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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')."
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.
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.
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?!
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.
Obviously the happy medium is to read the review *while* seeing the movie. People always bitch at me for bringing in that reading lamp, though.
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.
Tolkien sold the movie rights himself for 100K to settle a tax bill.
The first attempt to make it into a movie was a disaster, it was a disney style cartoon. I would have walked out if I hadn't been the projectionist.
Even if they read it later, the experience will have been forever ruined for them.
Oh please save us the sanctimonious claptrap. There are several hundred thousand books published each year and of those no more than two on average will be made into a big budget film. There is plenty of Tolkein left in its pristine unfilmed state, the Silymarilyn, book of lost tales that were found behind the dresser, etc.
Of course the only way those works are ever going to make it to a wider audience is if they are turned into films because Tolkein's attempt to immitate nordic sagas leads to tedious prose.
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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?
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
"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?"
> 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
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.
Sashdlot - news for Dysgraphics. Tsuff that satterm.
*shrug*
I liked the cartoon. Sure, there's a terminal case of 70s hair, and they probably couldn't have bought a 70s Toyota with the budget they had to work with, but it could've been worse. Gollum kicked ass, anyway. If you're going to get all pissy about little things like the Balrog looking like an epileptic Cowardly Lion with a tent stapled to his back, then you'll never be happy.
The Silmarillion isn't that tedious, really. Some of the other stuff that doesn't have the LotR references to string you along can be bad, but my 10 year old nephew did Silmarillion without much trouble.