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Lord Of The Rings - Oscars, We Loves Them
Suhas writes "The New Zealand Herald and many others such as Yahoo/AP are reporting that Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King has swept the Oscars by winning in all the 11 categories it was nominated in. Good to see Peter Jackson finally got the Best Director award! The official Oscar site has a full list of the winners."
to rule them all!
This is great to see a fantasy film get the recognition it deserves...a masterful film, even if I actually didn't care for it :)
This is the first time a Fantasy movie wins the Best Picture award ... yeha!!!!!
...
Of course, we may see now a lot of crappy fantasy movies just riding the wave
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Peter Jackson got what he deserved. I was literally waiting with bated breath to see him get the best director award. LOTR is not just a movie, it is an epic.
With 11 Oscars, RotK ties with Ben Hur, and Titanic as the only movies to have won 11 Oscars. So it was a double victory for PJ and crew.
Jason Lotito
LoTR tied for most Oscar's all time with Ben Hurr and Titanic. I guess the academy decided to wait for the finish of the series to give the props that they so deserved.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Good to see Peter Jackson finally got the Best Director award!
I don't always agree with the Oscars on who should receive it, but IMHO Return of the King deserved each and everyone of them! Kudos to the jury for finally giving Peter Jackson the recognition he rightfully earned after creating (again IMHO) one of the most memorable film projects ever!
No doubt many of these awards are symbolic awards for the efforts in creating the entire trilogy, not just RotK. I have my doubts if the third LotR movie was that good, especially given some of the films it was up against, but the trilogy as a whole merits siginificant recognition and I think that was given tonight.
Bohoo ...... Why wasnt it nominated for best cinematography ??? I havnt seen better cinematography before.
We loves our precious
No, they won in all eleven. Even Steven Spielberg said "It's a clean sweep!", and they tied Titanic and Ben-Hur for movie with the most Oscars at 11.
libertarianswag.com
It is interesting to see a movie that contains a leat one digital artifact in every shot or sequence simply overwhelm the awards. When will we see the effects groups have a category?
Oh yes, Bill Murray should have one for best actor. No doubt.
Peter Jackson: Hopefully fantasy is an f-word that won't get bleeped by the 5 second delay.
That made me laugh, and it's sad but true, it literally took one of the greatest achievements in film making to get the movie industry to recognize the fantasy genre as a valid medium of film making, not just a bunch of movies for fanboys in costume.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
not everyone did... Check out this list of deviations.
Ian McKellen deserved an Oscar for his performance, not only because he was consistently great in all three movies, but his acting didn't overshadow and it easily could have. It's a pity he was nominated this year.
I feel a great disturbance in the force...as if thousands of fantasy geeks suddenly cried out...
Great job, PJ & Crew!
Ryan
Sam: What we need is a little bit of recognition.
Gollum: What's recognishin, precious? What's recognishin, eh?
Sam: Rec-og-ni-tion. Honors, awards, critics in a stew. Lovely big golden awards with a nice nameplate on the bottom.
Sam: Even you couldn't say no to that.
Gollum: Oh yes, we could. Spoilin' nice shinies. Give it to us raw and unfinished. You keep nasty awards.
Sam: You're hopeless.
I for one cannot wait to hear that Peter Jackson has untangled the legal web surrounding the rights to The Hobbit. As a child I enjoyed it much more than the trilogy. It's the perfect 3 hour film. Massive battle at the end. The dwarves! The eagles! Smaug! Mirkwood, the elves en masse - PJ, please get King Kong out of the way and give us The Hobbit in 2007 or 2008!
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
They should have been nominated for best foreign film. I mean, there were at least 3 different languages besides English that they spoke in it! I'm sure there is a country out their who's population speaks Elvish or whatever it is people from Mordor speak!
He sure wasn't nominated this year:
Alec Baldwin, The Cooler
Benicio Del Toro, 21 Grams
Djimon Hounsou, In America
Tim Robbins, Mystic River
Ken Watanabe, The Last Samurai.
Yes! I know he was mad at the Academy for overlooking Meet the Feebles and Dead Alive!
Someone had to say it.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
It's best Foriegn Language Film. The Canadian film was in French. That said, there was enough non-english spoken for me :).
I thought the whole idea of including Andy Serkis in the live-action flashback scene to Smeagol vs. Deagol was to make him eligible for the Best Supporting Actor oscar. I thought he would have at least deserved consideration for his work in LotR: The Two Towers, but apparently actors cannot receive that oscar if their character is computer animated.
Shoot, he was the best actor in the lot of them, with the possible exception of Ian McKellan.
Don't bother.
Thanks,
The Mgmt.
Maybe Peter Jackson will have some encouragement (not to mention financial backing) to do the Hobbit now. Given what they pulled off with Gollum, I'd like to see what Smaug would look like...that would be awesome.
Guess we won't have to witness the Nerd Riots after all. And I had my D20 prepared and everything.
Never had more fun watching the Oscars. That said, by the end, I almost felt sad that so many other films weren't winning. Oh well, I'm sure it was an honor just to be nominated.
The previous record for a film winning all its nominations was nine, set by "Gigi" (1958) and "The Last Emperor" (1988).
"Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King" tied both "Ben-Hur" (1959) and "Titanic" (1997) with its 11 awards, the record for most Oscars in a single year.
"Rings" is also the first fantasy film to win the top award.
Aside from best picture, the awards "Return of the King" won were: director (Peter Jackson), adapted screenplay (Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens), song ("Into the West"), score (Howard Shore), visual effects, art direction, costume design, makeup, sound mixing and film editing.
A victory for geeky fantasy culture, some might say. But I think if it really is that, it can only be because high fantasy of this sort just isn't specifically geek anymore at all. Some people still persist in categorising fantasy mythoi and this kind of thing as nerdy, geeky stuff, but I think the term is losing its usefulness. Geek seems to imply something freakish or countercultural, and this just isn't. This is as maintstream as culture gets. It's popular with everyone. Certainly, there's greater attention to it among self-identifying geeks, but the fact is that News For Nerds is in cases like this now really just News For Everyone. There's no meaningful distinction. Being very seriously interested in high fantasy really no longer means anything regarding one's status in society. The pen and paper D&D generation grew up and now are urban professionals. And furthermore, high fantasy is on the screen as possibly the most famously beloved movie of our generation.
Whither geek?
As happy as I am that this year's Oscar sweep didn't go to a movie that sucked, I still don't think Tolkien would be happy with the state of things, were he around to see it. In his famous essay On Fairy Stories, he explains why he believes Fantasy is best left to words, and that Fantasy and Drama are inherently different and incompatible:
"In human art Fantasy is a thing best left to words, to true literature. In painting, for instance, the visible presentation of the fantastic image is technically too easy; the hand tends to outrun the mind, even to overthrow it. Silliness or morbidity are frequent results. It is a misfortune that Drama, an art fundamentally distinct from Literature, should so commonly be considered together with it, or as a branch of it. Among these misfortunes we may reckon the depreciation of Fantasy. For in part at least this depreciation is due to the natural desire of critics to cry up the forms of literature or "imagination" that they themselves, innately or by training, prefer. And criticism in a country that has produced so great a Drama, and possesses the works of William Shakespeare, tends to be far too dramatic. But Drama is naturally hostile to Fantasy. Fantasy, even of the simplest kind, hardly ever succeeds in Drama, when that is presented as it should be, visibly and audibly acted. Fantastic forms are not to be counterfeited. Men dressed up as talking animals may achieve buffoonery or mimicry, but they do not achieve Fantasy."
Reading the series has forever been on my "to do" list but I never have. I enthusiastically sat through the first two movies, but half way through the third I thought to myself "something just isn't clicking here." Upon rewatching the first two movies, I have to say, now that the "oh wow" factor of big monsters fighting on beautiful scenery has worn off, I really didn't like these films.
And I think the reason is this: the characters do not interact with each other, and are for the most part not interesting. There's a tedious romance encountered entirely via flashback and voiceover. There's an INCREADIBLY obvious and overstated (again and again and again) little rivalry with Sam and Gollum for Frodo's attention. Aside from that the characters really have no relation to one another, they just wander together, and by the end we learn (but never really see) that they've all become the best of pals. Even more eggregious, the bad guys have no direct connection to the good guys. No character has a personal stake in what he's working toward. They're just bad, and the fellowship is working against them because they're the heroes. No further explanation is really provided.
Upon watching the third movie I realized that maybe Aragorn was reclaiming some sort of birthright or something, but why this is a really big deal (aside from the movie's vauge assertion that kings are better than other forms of leadership) is beyond me. The rest of the characters either literally wandered onto the screen with no real explanation (in the case of 3 out of 4 hobbits) and stuck with the quest just because they were nice guys, or showed up already billed as heroes around a table. I never knew who Legolas was and I never really cared.
Boromeir was pretty interesting, and the rivalry/respect he had going with Frodo and Aragorn was the only conflict between individuals that was the least bit interesting in the whole trilogy. Every other time individuals clashed with each other it was the result of an evil mage or something, and there was no ambiguity whatsoever to what was going to happen.
I voiced all of this to a friend of mine and he said that if I read the books, people's motivations would be a little more fleshed out. Sorry, but that just doesn't cut it. I'm watching these movies as movies, and they're too long and don't really make much sense.
They're certainly better than most sci fi blockbusters, I just don't think ROTK was Oscar worthy. They beat the entire Alien series hands- down. They're more consistently entertaining than the old Star Wars and way better than the new one. The first Matrix was a better movie, but the sequels were a mess of "cool" with no logic. Perhaps the fantasy / sci-fi action genre isn't for me, but the movies seem universally poorly written. I don't see why it's so hard to have interesting, believable people interacting with each other inside a fantastic environment.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
This post is from August 25th of 1998, more than five years ago. It's the first mention of the movies being made that I could find on Slashdot. No comments, but it's interesting to realize that tonight's awards ceremony has been the the culmination of a story we've all been following here for more than half a decade.
I want the fire back.
Good to see Peter Jackson finally got the Best Director award!
Why? Did you see the other nominated films? By what metric do you determine the 'best director'? If you feel he has been snubbed in the past, that's too bad. The nomination was for this film. (Yes, the voters have frequently righted past wrongs or close calls). A body of work award is typically rewarded specially, and much later in the career.
It's not as if Jackson is particularly old, either. So what is the reasoning behind the 'finally' comment? I just don't see it. There were plenty of good contenders. Nope, it boils down to plain old nerdish fanboyism.
And while I'm burning karma, perhaps the voters were actually thinking of G. Lucas when voting for Jackson. Sure, Jackson pumped out a couple of great movies, did wonders for product management, but Lucas helped define a genre and a generation, both in the insular world of Hollywood and in US culture in general. Yet he's never been 'blessed' by AMPAS, as space opera was too kiddyish. Here's the chance to correct that mistake.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Anyone else here not give a crap about self-congratulatory multi-hour commercials? Lord of the Rings was a great movie ... as were a number of others that came out this year. I've just got no interest in what a select group of voters thinks about a film.
It's a bit circular, the logic. The Oscars are a valued commodity, whether or not we personally think they mean anything. Because they're valued, we want to see the folks we're interested in receive them. Because we care that the folks we're interested in receive them, they're a valued commodity.
Having said that, I didn't watch the Oscars. But, again, I did wish to see Peter Jackson and LoTR receive them, as Peter Jackson lives in a world where they are valued.
Ok, I just erased the page long rant about how those something something Canadians and New Zealanders are stealing jobs from such great people as, oh MYSELF, my FRIENDS, and the rest of us who are dedicated to the film industry here in lovely Hollywood.
How can the Canadians and New Zealanders be *stealing* jobs, when it's Hollywood itself that's paying the star actors and actresses upwards of 20 percent of the budget of the film?
Besides, shipping entertainment jobs overseas isn't new - we lost pretty much all the local TV animator jobs back in the 80's. You think you were the first ones to have to train your replacements?
Rant aside, I think it's a good thing for the WHOLE INDUSTRY when movies like the Lord of the Rings trilogy are made. Success means more money for similar films, and more money in this category mean more work for everybody, both overseas and locally. Besides, there were Americans working on that production as well - you going to piss all over their efforts just because they went to NZ to work?
I say, congrats to Peter Jackson, and may he and his crew make bigger successes!
Lets go for something a little less kiddie than Eddings. If a director could get the main character right, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever by Donaldson would be good. Although I'll be happy with damn near anything that doesn't go the Xena/Hercules route.
Hmmm. Hard to think of too many. Many fantasy series are so long its not doable in a single movie, and I don't see too many more multi-parts in the near future.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Doesn't the author's son's opinion count in your minds?
No, especially since Christopher Tolkien has explicitly stated he holds no ill-will toward the filmmakers or the films.
He didn't disown his son, he removed him from any control over the Tolkien Estate over the fact that his son wanted official involvement with the movies.
Next time you regurgitate rumor memes, research them a little. Hell, J.R.R. Tolkien himself is the one who signed over the movie rights and even suggested in one of his letters cutting Helm's Deep. He said it was "unnecessary."
As things like that illustrate, the amusing thing about Tolkien purists is that their beloved god Tolkien was more liberal about changes then they are.
They should not have won eleven awards.
No one will see this seeing as I'm not registered, but RotK should not have even been nominated for editing. While I'm sure the extended edition of the film will flow better, there were some very bad glitches in the editing.
Take, for example, the moment in front of the Gates of Mordor. The group rides out, then back. The speech is missing, as is the Mouth of Sauron. These will be included (or so I have heard) in the extended edition, but it came off foolishly in the film itself.
During the battle at Minas Tirith, there were a few moments that were somewhat skittish with Eowyn and Eomer, and comments about Corsairs that made no sense to those who hadn't read the books simply because of omissions from the film.
Further, I don't know whether the Palantir of Denethor will be included in the final film, but I was very surprised to not see it given how many comments along the lines of "I have seen" and the sort were made. Denethor has no REASON to go mad the way the films were edited with no Palantir, and to those who didn't know he had it, that was very poor editing.
For my own thoughts, I would have given Director to Clint Eastwood simply because Mystic River was a very solid package in and of itself, but if they wanted RotK to sweep and give it the other 10, so be it. But the video editing was, while admirable considering the scope of what all they had to cut, not glossy enough to recieve an Oscar.
I guess Sam and Frodo holding each other at the "end of all things" wasn't enough interaction. Nor was Gandalf's soothing speech about the afterlife (literally...after all the suspense, suddenly he calms things with a few lines, go Ian) to Pip. Nor Merry and Pippin's interactions with Treebeard and the Ents, leading them to battle. Nor the dynamics between Eowyn and Aragorn, or Denethor's horrible disdain for Faramir...ah, who am I kidding? You'll never like the films. Aragorn's quest for kingship was about shedding self-doubt and accepting fate. I don't get people who don't like these movies. So many universal themes touched on.
You're right about Tolkien signing over the movie rights.
You're wrong about how C.Tolkien feels about the movies: I was quoting a story on CNN's "Paul Zahn" show 3 days ago with a Bio on Michael Tolkien. They said there was bad blood and C.Tolkien did not like the movies.
But Tolkien did sell the rights, in the late 60s. He thought it was impossible to make them.
I'm not that much a purist: I would like to see in 20 years an all photorealistic CGI version made in 6 movies, one for each "Book" (each volume is two books), and a more faithful one.
Part of the joy of Tolkien's work is knowing that this river is 20 miles from that hill. Those who have read the books hundreds of times know it that well. (And it has been emboddied in the Tolkien MUCK.) They missed the boat on the magic.
Actually, geek movies have certainly ruled the box office for quite a while (Check the top grossing films here).
Top 10 grossing films:
1. Titanic (okay... not so geeky... well, maybe a little geekish)
2.Star Wars, Episode 4 (geek enough?)
3. E.T. ('nuff said)
4.Star Wars, Episode 1 (see #2)
5. Spider-Man (See #3)
6. LOTR, RoTK (Classic geekdom)
7.Jurassic Park (geek-o-saurs)
8.LOTR, TT (Classic geekdom, redux)
9.Finding Nemo (Geek fish?)
10. Forrest Gump (Geek is as geek does)
The top 10 certainly is dominated by the science fiction/fantasy/comic book genres which are, natch, close to any geek's heart (including this one's).
And so the great Nerd Riots of 2004 were prevented, and Peter Jackson took the Oscar into the West.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
And yet Tolkien was the one who signed away the movie rights, and even suggested editing changes, such as removing Helm's Deep because it was "unnecessary" to the story. Read his letters sometime.
If Peter Jackson had suggested cutting Helm's Deep, how many of the purists would be saying things like "Tokien would be turning in his grave!" Meanwhile, Tolkien suggested it!
Amusingly, Tolkien was much more liberal about Lord of the Rings than his own fans--he was editing and changing his mythologies up until the very end of his life. He stated several times he would have done things differently had he the chance to write the book over again.
People who quibble because someone said something that someone else said in the books, or the Ents didn't decide to go to war and instead had to be convinced, etc., are UPTIGHT.
There's a new Mel Gibson movie everyone's talking about (does mythology count?).
BTW, Peter Jackson just said on live TV (E! Network) that New Line has the rights to film The Hobbit, but MGM/UA has the rights to distribute it. Lots of lawyers have lots of negotiating ahead of them to clear the way for a film adaptation of the book. He also said he'd want Ian McKellen back as Gandalf and to make it feel like it was part of the same story as LOTR.
Lousy minor setbacks! This world sucks! -- Homer Simpson
Any chance we can talk Peter Jackson's team into making the Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, so that they don't suck?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
ROTK winning best adapted screenplay is a joke! But then I can say the same for most of the Oscars. I'll cede best direction, best score, best fireworks, etc, to ROTK, but do any of you realize how many people are writing how many screenplays? Just because people go "Oooooooooo" and "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh" at the pretty ROTK doesn't mean it HAPPENS to have the best writing in the world too. It was mediocre writing at best, with decent acting and very good presentation. American Splendor or even City of God were MUCH more deserving for the best adapted screenplay award.
Just to put things into perspective, don't you think it's quite the coincidence that Francis Coppola's (director of Godfather) precious little daughter happens to have written the best original screenplay? Oh, what that little monarchial actors' clique does to make little Sofia happy.
I mean.. Jeez! I understand that people like things that are bad. Like candy bars, for instance. You may also like the music for LOTR, but it was still bad. Boring themes, tired arrangements, incredibly monotonous, embarrassing use of wood flute. Film scoring 101, basically. The Triplets of Belleville, among others, had much much better scores.
Doesn't anybody realize this? I found this particular award insulting to all musicians who actually have an original voice.
To be fair, it's a hard job to score three 3.5 hour movies. Still, that doesn't make the music better. Just adequate at best.
Oh, well. You can't win them all.
- Lebofsky
You guys are idiots: you are +5 informativing a liar. Here is Simon Tolkien's own website:
i le .html
http://www.simontolkien.com/final%20review/prof
"I haven't spoken to my father, except in an annual business-meeting context, for the past four years," he says, as matter-of-factly as possible. "My father is very angry with me - angry to the point that he never wishes to have anything to do with me again.
"He communicates with me now through his lawyer, so I have to live on the basis that he will never speak to me again as long as he lives. He will never see my children. He will never have anything to do with me." He pauses. "And I grew up thinking this was such a wonderful person."
I'm no fanboy of the series, but I did see one of the documentaries that said that Jackson had something like 9 different film crews shooting scenes at the same time, around 15000 extras, and 3 separate movies being filmed concurrently... If doing that for over 3 years straight and coming up with the eye candy and enthralling films that make the LOTR doesn't earn the right to "Best Director", then I guess I'm not clear on what does...
I don't see where Lucas even enters in that line of thinking.
In the Portland, Ore area and like card games? Check out: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlandgames/
It was a joke, not a message. After checking his camera, he found the One Ring in his Crackerjack box, put it on, and was teleported into a bunch of movies. The highlight was probably seeing Michael Moore squashed by one of the Mumakil. Later he cracked a joke about Johnny Depp's "slightly gay pirate" in Pirates of the Caribbean being Jack Valenti's worst nightmare.
It is kind of OT, but I can't help noticing that even Hollywood outsorces A LOT of production.
;-) diminishes, and who can't protect their turf against invaders (not that they are orks and goblins or evil).
LOTR was made in NZ; most of movies and shows that depict Seattle are actually made in Vancouver, BC (for example, Highlander the series). Some others are made in the other parts of Canada.
I do also know from a struggling animator friend about outsorcing of the cartoon making to South Korea etc.
American creative workers look more and more like the elves whose power (technological edge
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Yeah, right. You're one of those pretentious "movie soundtrack" guys.
I heard people humming the Fellowship theme as we came out of the theaters. Same thing happened with the Rohan theme coming out of Two Towers, and the Gondor theme from Return of the King. You're smoking crack. From the Charge of the Rohirrim to the rising crescendo of the lighting of Gondor's beacons to the creeping thing of Gollum, the soundtracks were genius.
Tell us what exactly was wrong about the "embarrassing use of wood flute?" How pretentious.
As things like that illustrate, the amusing thing about Tolkien purists is that their beloved god Tolkien was more liberal about changes then they are.
The original creator of a story is not always the best one to edit it. I mean, have you never seen anyone create a revised edition of a story that was worse that their original?
(Lucas?)
Well i'd be happy with anything that wasn't The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I managed to drag myself all the way through the first trilogy and definitely wasn't impressed, but i gave up half-way through the first book of the second trilogy when it became aparent that it was going to be as lackluster as the first trilogy. Covenant was too whiney and annoying to be a good hero, and too pathetic to be a good anti-hero. Of course the fact that the first thing he does is rape a girl because he can't restrain his "manly urges" didn't really endear him to me.
Mirror of Her Dreams on the other hand was very good, wouldn't mind seeing a movie of that one, although there are other books i would nominate first.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
is how it wasn't even nominated for the category of Documentary Feature I mean just look at the amazing footage they got of all the major figures and major events in the quest to destroy the ring. And how they convinced a camera crew to go along with Sam and Frodo on the trek to Mount Doom incredible. How they can ignore this stunning documentary of one of the most crutial events in the history of Middle Earth and...
why is everyone looking at me?
I stole this Sig
I've seen all the nominated films.
Mystic River and American Splendor were clearly better adaptations than Return. And the Annie Lennox song was crap, and worse, not relevant to the film. The Mighty Wind song, sung on the show in character, was cute, but the Triplets of Belleville theme was the best.
Master and Commander, Lost in Translation, and Mystic River were all better films than Return. Only Seabiscuit was inferior. Of course the wins for Return were for the whole trilogy. Rings as a whole deserves high praise. Master and Commander is a better action/adventure film than Return. It's also far better than Gladiator, the other Crowe genre film that won Best Picture.
As an emsemble film, Return neither received nor deserved any acting nominations.
I'm in complete agreement with the technical awards. Return probably would have won Cinematography if it had been nominated, over the more deserving M&C.
Thomas Covenant was the worst. I hated the character but I couldn't stop reading the books. I kept buying these books centered around a character that I loathed. I was so glad when he died. I could finally stop reading those books. Everytime you thought Thomas could go no lower, he would find a way. I felt like a spouse being beaten and always winding up going back for more. I am starting to feel sad for myself again. Gotta stop. Maybe read some more Thomas Covenant to take my mind off of it.
Sorry my bullshit sensor overloaded.
What is it about that article that suggests that quantum entanglement can be used for FTL communication? All it is really saying is that the experiment has provided more evidence that entanglement is maintained over longer distances.
The way I read it is thus: Photon A has a known engergy level. It is then split into photons B and C, each with an unknown energy level. But, due to the law of conservation of energy, we know that B's energy plus C's energy equals A's original energy. Therefore, B and C are entangled -- if you measure one's energy level and subtract it from A's, then you have determined the other's energy. The trick is, you have determined it instantaneously over a significant distance. That is "spooky action at a distance".
In order for this to be usable for communication, you would have to be able to somehow force B's measurement to a desired result and have that result thereby influence C's result at a distance. And that (as a certain South Park attorney might say) does not make sense.
(quick cut to an army of ghosts flying out of a brown cube)
Only the select few heroes dare to tread in such dangerous grounds.
They are..... The Four Playable Characters!!
(Demi Moore, as the Valkyrie, holds a dying elven Richard Gere on the cold stone floor of Level 17...)
Gere: "green... elf... needs fo-od bad..ly....."
(random fast-cut action scenes, with a horn crescendo buildup....... duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUUU --
COMING SUMMER 2005 -- DUN!!
I know it's a bit late into the thread to be posting, but I'll share for those interested an interesting experience I had when watching ROTK in theatres (which I just watched again today, wow!) I feel that this experience is interesting enough to be worth sharing, so read on if you have a moment :)
Last semester at Cornell University, i was the lead of the Computer Science subgroup of a small team of engineers attempting to design and build a snakelike robotic arm. The C.S. team had gotten everything we needed for our demonstration done (it was the end of the semester) so I decided to take the team out to see ROTK. The head of the team didn't care for this, as the other two subgroups (EE and MechE) were not nearly done getting the prototype ready to be demonstrated, and had expected us to help pick up slack.
Before the movie I spent a lot of time on the phone explaining to them why their feedback control system would never work (they had 2 DOF for feedback and acceptable operation, but 3 degrees that had to be independently controlled, lest the robot break). I was very pessimistic and was just happy to be done with my part of the project (perhaps not the best attitude to have).
So we went in and watched the movie. I was simply blown away by the movie and its underlying themes. I laughed, cried, and even sat in shock as the Riders of Rohan swept down the field of battle, as Eyowin killed the Witch-King, and as Gandolf and Frodo left the fellowship. I even didn't mind sitting an extra hour to watch all the loose ends tied up, to see the new stories that had just begun.
After the movie it was past midnight, however the film had given me such a deep sense of hope and courage... it was as if seeing what epic struggles ordinary people went through on the screen made me realize that I too didn't have to give up, even if the problem seemed to be impossible.
Filled with an intense sense of strength and optimism, our group took my car down to the lab where the rest of the group had been working in our absence. When I got there, they were all just sitting there looking unhappy - the microcontroller board was fried. The movie, however, had changed how I felt about things so much that I went from thinking the task was impossible with a microcontroller, to thinking it just might work if we did a few things right. Using various tricks I'd learned in my electronics class, I quickly announced that we could do everything we wanted provided we could get a few parts. I drew up on the board a quick schematic of a parallel-port controlled robot, and got the team to work. I felt like Steve Jobs, promising the impossible and yet somehow managing to get people to go along with it... Objections of "that's impossible" became excited assertions of "we can do this!"
It was an amazing feeling, driving a team all through the night on an impossible quest... We ended up getting a lot done that night but not quite enough to get it to work. We did make some kick-butt digital to analog converters from some resistors we'd managed to "borrow" from sources undisclosed, among other things.
The point of this post isn't the project I worked on, but rather the tremendous power that stories have. I thank Tolkien and Jackson and all those who made this experience possible. This story sounds ridiculous, but none of it is exaggerated.
After the film, my roommate who was on the team asked me "Do you think anyone will ever have adventures like that?" It's not the kind of thing he'd usually say, but it's hard to think anyone could come out of the theatre unimpressed with the epic nature of the stories. It is my sincere hope that the courage, honor, bravery that was shown in the film will be shown by real people in my lifetime. The movies are great at showing the weaknesses of mankind, but it is the strengths in spite of those weaknesses that give me hope even though times seem to be getting dimmer each day.
People can and will debate which of
the kind with boobies
the kind with exhaust pipes
11 to the New Zealanders, who above all else, desire tourism.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Some visual effects for The Two Toweres were done with Maya running on KDE (Linux?). Screehshots are here.
(2004-03-01) -- Oscar-sweeping director Peter Jackson this morning said he would team up with Pixar Studios, which last night won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, to produce a rollicking adventure tentatively titled "Finding Smeagol." Read the rest...
Oh come on, did you check out the way Frodo's sword glowed? A blatant light-sabre ripoff, to be sure.
I'm just glad that Jackson cut out the fighting Ewok-Hai at the last minute, that would have been way too obvious...
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Someone should make a book out of it.