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Interview with Peter Jackson on LoTR Bloopers
erth writes "Newsweek has an interview with Peter Jackson asking him what he thinks about some of the most famous and/or obvious bloopers in the LoTR series. Moviemistakes.com has more Fellowhip of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King bloopers as well for your snickering pleasure." I just wanted to give my props to Jackson and all- we took off early yesterday to see the final film. It was everything I hoped for... except for the bits that I expect I'll have to wait for the extended edition DVD to see. And I was to busy grinning ear to ear to notice any serious bloopers.
No blooper is as big as PJ being denied an Oscar these last 2 years.
If he doesn't get it this year the Oscars will become irrelevant. It's just that obvious.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
This has been one of the best book to movie conversions I have seen. Especially considering that this is an incredibly difficult work to start with. The things that were removed wihtout shame (poetry), combined (multitudes of side characters) and left out intentionally, but with a sidelong glance (Tom Bombadill alone causes endless arguments because not enough detail is in the *books* to make a case for what he is supposed to represent. However, one of his poems does sneak into the second movie, although recited by Treebeard) show the dedication put into this movie. It would have been so easy to coast on the later movies (production costs were recovered from the first movie alone), but these are not the products of coasting, but of true affection for the grand story - the story that launched a thousand imitating "great arc fantasy" novels.
Sig under construction since 1998.
I'm not sure if you're trolling or just completely clueless. I'll assume it's the latter.
1.) LOTR is not set upon this earth. It is set in a world similar to ours in many ways. Nonetheless, the telltale absence of well... pretty much everything in LOTR except Humans would be an excelent indication that Tolkin intended his world to be seperate from ours in its history.
2.) The Gandalf/Eagle comment is almost below responding to, but here ya go. Three reasons, first because Mordor is infested with all kinds of creapy crawlies, some of them capable of flight (did you watch the 2nd movie?). This would hamper matters. Secondly, because Gandalf would be corrupted by the ring. Thirdly because this would remove one of the fundamental points of the book/movie. To paralell, why couldn't the Rebels simply carpet nuke the death star into scrap? What... they have light speed travel but no nuclear weapons?
You're basicly objecting to plot holes present in what is universaly reguarded as one of the greatest peices of literature created in the modern age. Perhaps you should lower your standards just a little.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Especially since they were wearing ARMOUR. Fine, their armour may be useless for stopping any sort of sword, knife, arrow, or axe, but it should at least absorb some of the impact of a hand-thrown rock
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
He says "CUT" the actors take their positions again, he fines the one that moved and they re-shoot it. You know, the stuff that directors do. Or are you saying that directors have no controll over what goes onto the film? That they just setup the camera and then a bunch of stuff happens?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
You and the other 10 art majors of the world can hate the movie. It looks like the rest of us that watch movies for enjoyment really liked the movies.
As for this not being award material, do you think movies like Cold Mountain and Mystic River are?
That would only be a flaw if Gandalf had an alternative option that wasn't "fundamentally dangerous". Sometimes, you just have to go with the least bad of the available options.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
And by the time they can get together an execution, Theoden has been reawakened by Gandalf. What are you expecting here? That a death sentence means everyone with a sword is supposed to jump at Eomer on sight, risking immediate death themselves rather pause to get organized and risk letting him live another 15 minutes? That a King has less power to commute the sentence his servant passed than a modern day president? That no one in Rohan has noticed that this death sentence didn't come from the king but that slimy guy who's been pushing everyone around, and from what they know of Eomer, he's a stand-up guy?
Who is John Cabal?
..a few years ago, I got too annoyed at seeing stupid things posted that half the time weren't even mistakes in the movie, just things that the submitter thought was a mistake.
Plus in some instances it reduced my enjoyment of the film to have the stuff pointed out, where I might not have noticed it otherwise.
So just a small warning.
Fucking mods, somebody says something funny but you have to call it a troll because he hurt your precious slashdot. Retarded zealots
Whether you hold it on a stick, slip it on your pocket, or hang it on a chain around your neck, you still possess it. The ring is not a sci-fi device which corrupts you physically by physical contact. It's a mystical device which corrupts you spiritually. The more you think of it as your own, the more you will belong to it. This is why gollum's mind continued to be poisoned by it for all those years after Bilbo took it away from him.
That's because the Hobbit and LOTR are two entirely different genre. LOTR is an epic myth. The Hobbit is more of a traditional fairy tale.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
This isn't an RPG - there isn't a %15 evil resistance in hobbits or something like that. You could say it's their way of life that might give them all an advantage, but it's Frodo's strength of heart that allows him to carry the Ring so far. That's a very individual trait. Smeagol was already a shady character, if you read the books closely, when the Ring took him over Deagol.
Gandalf might have been able to take the Ring for a while - certainly he has his own will to contend with. The price of failure, though, would have been far far worse, with Gandalf's powers at the Ring's beck and call. Would have been much the same case had Galadriel taken the Ring from Frodo.
Why do you think Smeagol was a hobbit?
As far as I remember Smeagol was one of the "river folk" which were "not so different from hobbits".
However, it does seem weird that it corrupted Smeagol so fast. There was an implication that the corrupting effects were stronger when Frodo carried it because Sauron was returning. Bilbo was not corrupted though he had it for decades, but it took under 13 months for Frodo to become corrupted.
ok.. you wear an iron helmet with no padding... i will throw a rock at your head.
then when you wake up you can tell me how effective the armour is against rocks.
In the Hobbit, even the elves provide comic relief, complete with silly songs and a who-gives-a-fuck attitude. And Bilbo is certainly anything but serious. The trilogy also had a lighter attitude than the movies, with corny songs every 50 pages or so. The Hobbit began as a series of bedtime stories for Tolkien's children. The trilogy reflected Tolkien's belief that society and its machines were polluting the earth and destroying its culture. The reason the trilogy became so popular was that this theme fit perfectly in the 60s.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Sauron - his finger was cut off
Isildur - killed
Deagol - killed
Smeagol - would have never left it, if it didn't leave him
Bilbo - exceptional, he passed it on to Frodo
Frodo - like Sauron, he only parted with the ring at the same time as his finger
Other than Bilbo, everybody held on dearly. Even Frodo couldn't complete his task! Tolkien says in the end, both Frodo and Gollum failed. I wonder if the movie does a good enough job describing the nature of the ring. Isildur, Smeagol/Gollum, and Bilbo also described it as precious. I guess in the end, I can only say if someone held it on the end of a stick, they would be a nervous wreck, expecting it to fall off or be stolen. They probably feel that way even when holding it. Hope that helps.
Its a big trilogy
To my understanding (from the extended DVDs), so big, that it took three completely separate locations for filming (aside from the studio sets), combining to stretch out over 14 months. For a single person to (follow me here), direct this massive undertaking, and painstakingly boil it down the the parts that matter requires great directing skills.
It has very nice CG
For which the pencil-to-paper decision making goes all the way back to 1997. Again, Jackson was the goto guy that approved this stuff. For someone to put together a team (Weta) that brought about the Ents (prior to which, few artists were able to render to any likeable levels), and the unbelievably detailed Lothlorien, again, takes great directing skills.
Theme music is great
Well, it didn't come off of a CD. Again, much time was spent by (of all people) Jackson, in choosing the music and directing its specifics with RE to the movie.
But is this worthy of a "Best Director" award?
I can't think of a single movie made in the last decade that is as massive an undertaking as LOTR was. Jackson was the man that directed all of it. Even if you don't appreciate things like its character development, or the music, for one person to be the nexus for this creation, IMO (and clearly, many other lowbrow movie fans), certainly demands recognition.
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
Other obvious events that showed the power of the Ring:
The Ring drew the Nazgul to it.
The Ring caused the Council to argue and fight until Frodo spoke up.
The Ring corrupted Boromor without him ever touching it.
Saruman's research into the Rings of Power and his desire for the One ultimately corrupted him. Granted the Palantir didn't help any but by then he was already on his way down.
Even Gandalf said that if the Ring were to buried under Minis Tirith not used, it would corrupt Gondor and the Ring would burn itself in the mind of Denethor and drive him mad.
Just thinking of the Ring brings its corruptive powers into play. Carrying it around on a stick is about effective as carrying it on a chain.
The final ending with Sam going home was there because it was the ENDING of the series. The last paragraph of The Return of the King, sans appedi is "He drew a deep breather. 'Well, I'm back,' he said."
Wouldn't make much sense for Sam to say that at the docks.
Yes the end dragged, in the theater I was in people laughed when the fade out went to another scene. But that is how Tolkien wrote it and thus that is how Jackson ended it.
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
Every single one of the things you complain about can have cinematic justifications to give the story more impact.
# Cheap thrills. For example, in Moria, when all the orcs surround them, and then run away. It's just stupid, it doesn't make any sense.
It's tension. They're completely surrounded and about to die, then suddenly, all the Orcs run away, signalling something MUCH more evil and powerful approaching that even they fear. It's just some nice tension to give the appearance of the Balrog more impact. You find it "cheesy" because you're a book purist.
# Cheap action-flick fight scenes. So, there's nine people standing on a narrow staircase out in the middle of nowhere, with thousands of orcs shooting at them, and they all miss. Legolas is shooting at orcs spread out, behind shadows and in cover, and hits every one. Now, orcs aren't as good as elves, but they're not *that* bad.
There weren't "thousands" of Orcs. Looked like a few dozen. Why wouldn't they be poor archers? They're just a bunch of Moria orcs trying to hit some little targets on a distant bridge. Of course Legolas would hit some (it's not shown whether he hits every one), because he's a skilled Elf bowman. You don't like it because you're a book purist.
# Cheesy dramatic scenes. Frodo gets hurt, and all the action stops. Gandalf "dies", and all the action stops. Boromir dies three or four times.
Oh, stop. Borimier dies once. The action stops to give the scenes more impact. My brother who hadn't read the Fellowship, freaked out when Gandalf fell. "I didn't know he died!" In fact, these movies use slow-motion way more tastefully than the two Matrix movies. It gives the death scenes a sense of surrealism.
All in all, you're just a book purist who didn't like the fact that these are movies and have to behave like movies.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I think you're directing these qualms at the wrong person. You do realize that these giant creatures were in the books, correct? Jackson didn't just add these things in. Talk to Tolkien if you want to whine about something meaningless.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
I never thought they we're comic relief.
There were greed and self centered, but never comic relief.
Peter Jackson destroyed the Gimili character.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"First of all...okay, Frodo and Sam are good friends, but could Peter Jackson have made it any more homosexual? The audience where I watched kept laughing every time there was a scene with Frodo and Sam all dewy-eyed staring at each other with sappy music. I swear for a split second everyone thought Frodo was going to kiss Sam on the lips as they said goodbye at the boat."
frodo and sam love each other, nothing 'sexual' about that! frodo is leaving middle earth, never to return, after what they have been through togeather, the content and emotion of that particular scene was justified...maybe somebody i s just feeling a little insecure about there sexuality?
remove NOT from email.
They complain on the site that after Shelob stabbed Frodo, we didn't see a big wound in his chest. Well, if we did, he would be very dead (shelob sting IS poisonous) but I don't remember him taking his mithril chainmail off, so it was just the same as with the troll in Moria...
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Nobody has stated the biggest problem of RotK. Agmar of the Ringwraiths should have been portrayed as a cloaked, hooded wraith like the others, even with his fight with Eowyn. That kick ass helm in the film should have been reserved for the Mouth of Sauron, seeing as it was directly derivative of Sauron's own helm. Riding out to meet Aragorn, Eomer and Gandalf at the Black Gate on something CGI cooked up that looked a little bit like a giant black horse and a dragon combined - he should have been allowed to speak to Aragorn. Why is this important? Because other than hearing a few words from Sauron via the Palantir, you never hear him. You hear him "whisper" the name "Aragorn" on the wind as his eye sees Aragorn through the gate, which is silly IMO. With the Mouth of Sauron, he could speak directly to the main protagonists. He could give that speech he does in the book, or they could edit it slightly. It speaks of Sauron's sense of entitlement. Malkar's flunky is what some other Slashdotter called him, and it's true. He thinks he's somehow entitled to rule Middle Earth and enslave it. I need to go back and re-read RotK and read that passage again, but without the Mouth of Sauron in the film, you never get to hear from the bad guy. And as Milton proved in Paradise Lost, it's very compelling to hear the ultimate bad guy talk. it gives balance to the story. However, I must give PJ credit for the way he filmed the fall of Sauron. You were expecting the nuke effect, but the way he fell, the fire eye looking back and forth, you could see the terror in Sauron's "eye", I was amazed - here was a CGI effect emoting better than many actors can. I still think the Mouth of Sauron was very important.