went and saw FOTR movie
Phil Fraering
I went and saw the Fellowship Of The Ring movie today.
My general opinion is that the technical execution was
excellent, but the script was weak.
In a word (or two words), the script lacked self discipline.
Granted, you would have to cut some stuff to get it to fit
into the time alloted, but Jackson and company were inventing
totally unnecessary subplots involving manufactured orcs and
whatnot.
(Not to mention, what's threatening about an orc that was born
last week, even if it is adult size? He won't _really_ know
anything about how to really fight.)
Cutting important parts of the story while creating more
story out of whole cloth, which _isn't_ essential to moving
the story along, is bad moviemaking.
Phil
--
Phil Fraering
p...@globalreach.net
Ross TenEyck
>I went and saw the Fellowship Of The Ring movie today.
>My general opinion is that the technical execution was
>excellent, but the script was weak.
>In a word (or two words), the script lacked self discipline.
>Granted, you would have to cut some stuff to get it to fit
>into the time alloted, but Jackson and company were inventing
>totally unnecessary subplots involving manufactured orcs and
>whatnot.
It wasn't really invented -- Saruman did breed a new type of
Orc by crossbreeding in Men, creating the Uruk-Hai. The movie
just compressed the process a bit.
It was interesting that they implied that Saruman was tasked
with creating the bulk of Sauron's army; when in the book, of
course, Orthanc was just a pallid imitation of Mordor.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Chris Camfield
wrote:
[snip]
>It was interesting that they implied that Saruman was tasked
>with creating the bulk of Sauron's army; when in the book, of
>course, Orthanc was just a pallid imitation of Mordor.
I try not to be a Tolkien fanatic, but the change just felt wrong to
me. Changing Saruman from one aggressively trying to get the ring
himself to a toady of Sauron's made him a weaker character, in my
opinion.
Chris
Liz Broadwell
: On 2 Jan 2002 08:20:13 GMT, ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck)
Although I'll give the filmmakers that trying to show Saruman playing
both ends against the middle, particularly when your prime villain is
named Sauron and the meat of the story is in a journey taking place
hundreds of miles off, would be a tough project in a Visual Dramatic
Medium (TM) with time constraints. What I'm wondering is how this
change is going to affect the scene where everyone comes to the steps of
Orthanc in TTT. I'm hoping that Christopher Lee will be given a chance
to deliver Saruman's specious rhetoric in something approaching its full
glory, because I think he'd do a good job, but the tendency in the first
film to value spectacle over drama (like other people, I was cutting
seconds out of the action sequences to give back to Lothlorien) doesn't
encourage me.
Mind you, I liked the film a lot and would enthusiastically nominate Ian
McKellen for an Oscar if a were a voting member of the Academy.
Peace,
Liz
--
Elizabeth Broadwell | "The true servants of the Merciful are
(ebro...@dept.english.upenn.edu) | those who walk humbly on the earth and
Department of English | say, 'Peace!' to the ignorant who
at the University of Pennsylvania | accost them." -- Qu'ran (tr. Dawood)
Mark Hanson
news:ud5u0a...@127.0.0.1...
>
> Cutting important parts of the story while creating more
> story out of whole cloth, which _isn't_ essential to moving
> the story along, is bad moviemaking.
>
books overlong Tom Bombadil/lost in the forest/lost in the fog part. That
was a fairly long and boring section of the book, and would have had people
falling asleep in the theater. You have to cut something out, and those
scenes were all prime candidates.
Mark
Sean O'Hara
>
> I went and saw the Fellowship Of The Ring movie today.
>
> My general opinion is that the technical execution was
> excellent, but the script was weak.
>
> In a word (or two words), the script lacked self discipline.
>
> Granted, you would have to cut some stuff to get it to fit
> into the time alloted, but Jackson and company were inventing
> totally unnecessary subplots involving manufactured orcs and
> whatnot.
>
Tolkien had Saruman breeding orc-human hybrids, but didn't reveal
that until TTT. Jackson probably wanted to forshadow events in
the next movie by showing Saruman's orcs, and having them knock
over trees.
> Cutting important parts of the story while creating more
> story out of whole cloth, which _isn't_ essential to moving
> the story along, is bad moviemaking.
>
As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
And the scenes do move the overall story along.
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
the Ring himself should the moment come. We saw this in the fact
that he sent his forces to capture the Ring for himself.
Consider this passage from "The Hunt for the Ring" in "Unfinished
Tales":
"Two days after Gandalf had departed from Orthanc, the Lord of
Morgul halted before the Gate of Isengard. Then Saruman, already
with wrath and fear for the escape of Gandalf, perceived teh peril
standing between enemies, a known traitor to both. His dread was
great, for his hope of deceiving Sauron, or at least of receiving
favor in victory was utterly lost."
It's quite clear that Saruman had been playing at being Sauron's
servant, but after Gandalf's escape, the truth came out. This
isn't too far from what's presented in the movie.
--
Sean O'Hara
Brenda W. Clough
Sean O'Hara wrote:
> >
> But the only thing PJ invented was the orcs popping out of pods.
> Tolkien had Saruman breeding orc-human hybrids, but didn't reveal
> that until TTT.
There's also the demands of a visual medium. You have to throw the
audience a bone! To see the icky orc creation process is reasonably
cool and far better than hearing Gandalf or Elrond mention it in
passing.
Brenda
--
What do you do with a secret?
Whisper it in a desert at high noon.
Lock it up and bury the key.
Tell the nation on prime-time TV.
Choose a door . . .
Doors of Death and Life
by Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda
Tor Books
ISBN 0-312-87064-7
Michael S. Schiffer
<3C3363FA...@erols.com>:
>...
>There's also the demands of a visual medium. You have to throw the
>audience a bone! To see the icky orc creation process is reasonably
>cool and far better than hearing Gandalf or Elrond mention it in
>passing.
And showing the icky orc creation process implied in the books would
have cost the movie its PG-13 rating.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
ms...@mail.com
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Jason Mulligan
> As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
> And the scenes do move the overall story along.
Elrond and Gandalf at Rivendell.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
O'Hara <soh...@gmu.edu> said
<snip>
>But the only thing PJ invented was the orcs popping out of pods.
>Tolkien had Saruman breeding orc-human hybrids, but didn't reveal
>that until TTT. Jackson probably wanted to forshadow events in
>the next movie by showing Saruman's orcs, and having them knock
>over trees.
But he's gonna have a bit of a problem in TTT when Saruman's 'New
Improved white hand horrors' are supposed to have a falling out with
Sauron's 'Genuine original brand Red Eye Yrchs', since Sauron's lot
don't seem to have been invited to the party in this particular movie.
>> Cutting important parts of the story while creating more
>> story out of whole cloth, which _isn't_ essential to moving
>> the story along, is bad moviemaking.
>>
>As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
>And the scenes do move the overall story along.
Depends what you mean by 'invent' and 'whole cloth'. Like the scene
where Frodo tells Aragorn he is off on his own to Mordor .. Gandalf and
Saruman fighting atop Orthanc ... the teeter-totter steps in Moria (and
the Orcs fleeing when the Balrog came) .. quite a bit of invention going
on there, imo.
As someone else remarked, I personally would have preferred it if he'd
move the 'adventure / action' slider down a bit and the 'ethereal /
poetic / mystical' slider up a bit .. less Indiana Jones, more
Lothlorien / Imladris / Durin's Pool / etc.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Mark Hanson <mpha...@erols.com> said
He did say 'important parts of the story'. The old forest ain't it.
However (imo) losing the reason Boromir (and the others) came to
Rivendell, ('seek for the sword that was broken'. Gollum having escaped
the Mirkwood elves, etc), not having Gollum spotted on the Anduin river
section of the trek, not having Gandalf disguise Bilbo's birthday party
disappearance with a flash/bang (thus advertising Bilbo's ability to
silently vanish) were either (imo) important bits, or else small enough
not to be worth cutting/changing.
fwiw, some people are probably still wondering why Pippin/Merry went
along at all, since it all seemed pretty accidental (in the film).
Rick
news:E7G6hVGy...@clara.net...
> As someone else remarked, I personally would have preferred it if he'd
> move the 'adventure / action' slider down a bit and the 'ethereal /
> poetic / mystical' slider up a bit .. less Indiana Jones, more
> Lothlorien / Imladris / Durin's Pool / etc.
Well, then he would have had you and perhaps a half dozen other people see
the movie.
Rick
> However (imo) losing the reason Boromir (and the others) came to
> Rivendell, ('seek for the sword that was broken'. Gollum having escaped
> the Mirkwood elves, etc), not having Gollum spotted on the Anduin river
> section of the trek, not having Gandalf disguise Bilbo's birthday party
> disappearance with a flash/bang (thus advertising Bilbo's ability to
> silently vanish) were either (imo) important bits, or else small enough
> not to be worth cutting/changing.
>
Totally disagree. You put the flash/bang in the birthday party
disappearance and you confuse the hell out of the average movie-goer..."Did
he put the ring on or did Gandalf make him disappear? What happened there
anyway?"
Eric San Juan
news:P%LY7.818$7z1.4...@paloalto-snr1.gtei.net...
I doubt that. The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans and
non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on action scenes
and did not spend enough time slowing down and exploring the characters.
The film was so jammed with action, ten full minutes of action could
have been cut and/or been used to more effectively develop the
characters.
Brenda W. Clough
Eric San Juan wrote:
>
> I doubt that. The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans and
> non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on action scenes
> and did not spend enough time slowing down and exploring the characters.
> The film was so jammed with action, ten full minutes of action could
> have been cut and/or been used to more effectively develop the
> characters.
I view this as insurance against failure. Action plus some icky Orc
creation helps to hold the invaluable male audience. Having hooked
everybody, the director can gear down the action a tad in the next movie if
necessary.
Geoduck
wrote:
The one I wonder about is the inclusion of the failed attempt to go
over Cahdras(sp?) in the snow. After snipping TB et al, that would
have been second on *my* list of things that could be cut without
seriously harming the story. I personally would have axed that whole
segment, had them go straight to Moria, and then spend the extra
minutes on the 'leaving Lorian/getting gifts' scenes.
But apart from that, I was very happy with the film. It was probably
about as good an adaptation of the original as could be done under the
present financial conditions.
--
Geoduck
http://www.olywa.net/cook
Konrad Gaertner
Not if they give Gandalf a line where he explains what he did and why
to Bilbo. And Gee, that's actually in the books.
--KG
Eric San Juan
news:3C33969E...@erols.com...
>
> Eric San Juan wrote:
>
> > I doubt that. The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans
and
> > non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on action
scenes
> > and did not spend enough time slowing down and exploring the
characters.
> > The film was so jammed with action, ten full minutes of action could
> > have been cut and/or been used to more effectively develop the
> > characters.
>
> I view this as insurance against failure. Action plus some icky Orc
> creation helps to hold the invaluable male audience. Having hooked
> everybody, the director can gear down the action a tad in the next
movie if
> necessary.
I sincerely hope this turns out to be the case. The Two Towers does
features the simply epic battle at Helm's Deep, of course, but at the
same time it is far less "episodic" than The Fellowship of the Ring and
should therefore be easier to translate to film in a three-hour period.
Frodo and Sam see virtually no action at all out side of being
spectators and encountering Shelob, though the rest of the Fellowship
gets into the thick of things here and there,
Fellowship is probably the hardest to bring to film, which may bode well
for the next two films. There are scores of scenes to fit in with
Fellowship, many (most?) involving introducing new people and explaining
various things about Middle Earth and such. Tough to cram into three
hours. Hell, a full six hours of the 13-hour BBC adaptation was spent on
Fellowship, almost half the entire work! That should say something.
Anyway, yeah, I hope the next two films are more thoughtful in nature
while still retaining the epic scope and feel of the first.
Brenda W. Clough
Eric San Juan wrote:
>
> Fellowship is probably the hardest to bring to film, which may bode well
> for the next two films. There are scores of scenes to fit in with
> Fellowship, many (most?) involving introducing new people and explaining
> various things about Middle Earth and such. Tough to cram into three
> hours. Hell, a full six hours of the 13-hour BBC adaptation was spent on
> Fellowship, almost half the entire work! That should say something.
In fact it's the -second- movie (as with the second book in trilogies) that
can be the fatal weak spot, both artistically and financially. People can
be usually lured in to see or buy #1; but those on the bubble will let #2
slide. If the hard-core fans aren't enough for #2 to make money, this
endangers the appearance of #3.
From the creative point of view, the first part of a work nearly always has
a good deal of zip, and since the last part should involve major payoffs it
usually trucks along well too. It's the middle that can sag. To get around
this I foresee a vast inflation of the importance of the battle of Helm's
Deep. Lots of CGI orcs and ents...
Rick
news:3C33A018...@worldnet.att.net...
> Rick wrote:
> >
> > Totally disagree. You put the flash/bang in the birthday party
> > disappearance and you confuse the hell out of the average
movie-goer..."Did
> > he put the ring on or did Gandalf make him disappear? What happened
there
> > anyway?"
>
> Not if they give Gandalf a line where he explains what he did and why
> to Bilbo. And Gee, that's actually in the books.
And would add even MORE extraneous material to a THREE HOUR LONG movie...
Rick
news:vyMY7.312381$ez.44...@news1.rdc1.nj.home.com...
> see
> > the movie.
>
> I doubt that. The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans and
> non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on action scenes
> and did not spend enough time slowing down and exploring the characters.
> The film was so jammed with action, ten full minutes of action could
> have been cut and/or been used to more effectively develop the
> characters.
>
I have not heard that complaint from anyone I have talked to locally.
Frankly, I doubt your doubts.
David Eppstein
"Rick" <sf.w...@verizon.net> wrote:
> The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans and
> > non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on action scenes
> > and did not spend enough time slowing down and exploring the characters.
> > The film was so jammed with action, ten full minutes of action could
> > have been cut and/or been used to more effectively develop the
> > characters.
> >
>
> I have not heard that complaint from anyone I have talked to locally.
The most widespread complaint I know of (meaning that I've seen it here, a
friend said it, and I thought it myself) is that the Balrog isn't menacing
enough.
--
David Eppstein UC Irvine Dept. of Information & Computer Science
epps...@ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Sea Wasp
>
> "Brenda W. Clough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in
> <3C3363FA...@erols.com>:
> >...
> >There's also the demands of a visual medium. You have to throw the
> >audience a bone! To see the icky orc creation process is reasonably
> >cool and far better than hearing Gandalf or Elrond mention it in
> >passing.
>
> And showing the icky orc creation process implied in the books would
> have cost the movie its PG-13 rating.
And would have had the audience voluntarily blinding themselves.
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.htm
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
Rick
news:eppstein-33B525...@news.service.uci.edu...
> In article <9ZNY7.1213$7z1.5...@paloalto-snr1.gtei.net>,
>
> The most widespread complaint I know of (meaning that I've seen it here, a
> friend said it, and I thought it myself) is that the Balrog isn't menacing
> enough.
I've heard everything under the sun on the Balrog on this ng and
others...from "it was overdone" to "it was underdone" to "it was too fuzzy"
to "it wasn't fuzzy enough."
Frankly, you can't please everyone.
Sea Wasp
The wizard's duel was GOOD, actually. Though I would have preferred
that the Palantir not be revealed until later.
Why do I say it was good? Because the way it reads in the book, it
sounds almost like Gandalf says "Well, I'll be going now", Sauruman says
"Sorry, old chap, can't have you doing that", and Gandalf says, "Gosh
diggity darn. All right, then, I suppose I'd better toddle up this tower
and wait until you let me go."
I much preferred seeing that Gandalf tried to kick some before being
locked away.
Eric San Juan
That's very nice.
Why don't you try dipping into the pool of opinion outside that of
"locally?" You know, that crazy Internet thing? Were you to read what
people are saying, maybe then you'd *know* what people are saying.
Crazy, I know. I'm not surprised you didn't think of that, crazy as it
is.
> Frankly, I doubt your doubts.
That's very nice.
Rick
> Why don't you try dipping into the pool of opinion outside that of
> "locally?" You know, that crazy Internet thing? Were you to read what
> people are saying, maybe then you'd *know* what people are saying.
I've heard almost every opinion under the sun on every part of the movie on
this and other ng's. Given that people who post to ng's are a rather
specialized category, I would rather go by personal contacts.
Ian Galbraith
:On 2 Jan 2002 08:20:13 GMT, ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck)
:wrote:
:>It was interesting that they implied that Saruman was tasked
:>with creating the bulk of Sauron's army; when in the book, of
:>course, Orthanc was just a pallid imitation of Mordor.
:I try not to be a Tolkien fanatic, but the change just felt wrong to
:me. Changing Saruman from one aggressively trying to get the ring
:himself to a toady of Sauron's made him a weaker character, in my
:opinion.
He was clearly trying to get the ring for himself in the movie. His
dialogue to Lurtz confirmed this.
--
Ian Galbraith
Email: igalb...@ozonline.com.au ICQ#: 7849631
"Being cool requires no work. Mostly it requires detachment.
You can be cool and not care about being cool. Being hip
requires both style and effort. You can't be hip without
working at it." - The A.I. War by Daniel Keys Moran
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
:I sincerely hope this turns out to be the case. The Two Towers does
:features the simply epic battle at Helm's Deep, of course, but at the
:same time it is far less "episodic" than The Fellowship of the Ring and
:should therefore be easier to translate to film in a three-hour period.
Except for the fact that the film will have to constantly cut between
all the events going on rather than dividing the film in 2 as the book
is.
[snip]
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
:Depends what you mean by 'invent' and 'whole cloth'. Like the scene
:where Frodo tells Aragorn he is off on his own to Mordor .. Gandalf and
:Saruman fighting atop Orthanc ... the teeter-totter steps in Moria (and
:the Orcs fleeing when the Balrog came) .. quite a bit of invention going
:on there, imo.
He showed some scenes that were merely described in the book, and he
added some scenes to flesh out the background. Almost all were necessary
for a movie version.
:As someone else remarked, I personally would have preferred it if he'd
:move the 'adventure / action' slider down a bit and the 'ethereal /
:poetic / mystical' slider up a bit .. less Indiana Jones, more
:Lothlorien / Imladris / Durin's Pool / etc.
I personally think there should have been more in the Rivendell and
Lothlorien sequences, but liked it fine as is, and the bits missing from
these sequences are reportedly going to be included on the DVD.
Jim Cambias
<G...@quik.clara.co.uk> wrote:
Let me point out here that the ethereal-mystical-poetical stuff was,
frankly, NOT the strong point of the film. Mostly we get people glowing
white and choruses going "aaaaaah" faintly in the background. This is
hardly a unique failing of Peter Jackson and FotR, by the way: I can't
honestly think of a movie attempting to depict something mystical and
ethereal which didn't wind up with a mess of fog machines and kleig lights
and high-pitched singing. Mysticism simply _isn't_ a visual phenomenon.
Movies can show better than they tell, and it's hard to _show_ something
numinous or spiritual.
Cambias
Phil Fraering
>Phil Fraering <p...@globalreach.net> writes:
>>I went and saw the Fellowship Of The Ring movie today.
>>My general opinion is that the technical execution was
>>excellent, but the script was weak.
>>In a word (or two words), the script lacked self discipline.
>>Granted, you would have to cut some stuff to get it to fit
>>into the time alloted, but Jackson and company were inventing
>>totally unnecessary subplots involving manufactured orcs and
>>whatnot.
>It wasn't really invented -- Saruman did breed a new type of
>Orc by crossbreeding in Men, creating the Uruk-Hai. The movie
>just compressed the process a bit.
Well, they didn't need to show us the process, which wasn't the
process in the book. That orc was hatched.
Phil
--
Phil Fraering
p...@globalreach.net
Phil Fraering
>But the only thing PJ invented was the orcs popping out of pods.
>Tolkien had Saruman breeding orc-human hybrids, but didn't reveal
>that until TTT. Jackson probably wanted to forshadow events in
>the next movie by showing Saruman's orcs, and having them knock
>over trees.
And he seems to have spent a lot of screen time on it.
>> Cutting important parts of the story while creating more
>> story out of whole cloth, which _isn't_ essential to moving
>> the story along, is bad moviemaking.
>As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
>And the scenes do move the overall story along.
Where it didn't need the help.
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Jason Mulligan wrote:
> >
> > In article <3C333FB8...@gmu.edu>, soh...@gmu.edu says...
> > > As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
> > > And the scenes do move the overall story along.
> >
> > Well, there was the wizards duel. And that horrid convsersation between
> > Elrond and Gandalf at Rivendell.
>
> The wizard's duel was GOOD, actually. Though I would have preferred
> that the Palantir not be revealed until later.
>
> Why do I say it was good? Because the way it reads in the book, it
> sounds almost like Gandalf says "Well, I'll be going now", Sauruman says
> "Sorry, old chap, can't have you doing that", and Gandalf says, "Gosh
> diggity darn. All right, then, I suppose I'd better toddle up this tower
> and wait until you let me go."
>
> I much preferred seeing that Gandalf tried to kick some before being
> locked away.
Instead we got them wrestling on the ground. They are supposed to be
angels (though fallible ones). I really wish they had done that by
the book, including Radagast's scene (which is the first example of
one of the major themes: evil harming itself).
--KG
Paul Austin
"Brenda W. Clough" wrote
> Eric San Juan wrote:
>
>
> In fact it's the -second- movie (as with the second book in trilogies)
that
> can be the fatal weak spot, both artistically and financially. People can
> be usually lured in to see or buy #1; but those on the bubble will let #2
> slide. If the hard-core fans aren't enough for #2 to make money, this
> endangers the appearance of #3.
>
> From the creative point of view, the first part of a work nearly always
has
> a good deal of zip, and since the last part should involve major payoffs
it
> usually trucks along well too. It's the middle that can sag. To get
around
> this I foresee a vast inflation of the importance of the battle of Helm's
> Deep. Lots of CGI orcs and ents...
The sequence that Jackson _really_ needs to add to TTT is Gandalf's battle
with the Balrog.
--
"I don't wonder that so many men are wicked.
I do wonder that so many are unashamed"
Paul F Austin
pau...@digital.net
Andrew Wheeler
>
> Bitstring <a0vegd$4n4$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>, from the wonderful person
> Mark Hanson <mpha...@erols.com> said
> >"Phil Fraering" <p...@globalreach.net> wrote in message
> >news:ud5u0a...@127.0.0.1...
> >>
> >> Cutting important parts of the story while creating more
> >> story out of whole cloth, which _isn't_ essential to
> >> moving the story along, is bad moviemaking.
> >>
> >Not necessarily. It was good judgment of the moviemakers to
> >snip out the books overlong Tom Bombadil/lost in the forest/
> >lost in the fog part. That was a fairly long and boring
> >section of the book, and would have had people falling
> >asleep in the theater. You have to cut something out, and
> >those scenes were all prime candidates.
>
> He did say 'important parts of the story'. The old forest
> ain't it.
Something I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere (and which really hit me,
having seen the movie yesterday and starting to re-read _Fellowship_
immediately afterward) is that Peter Jackson cut *17 years* out of the
story. (And this was a *very* good thing.)
In the book, Bilbo disappears at his party, Gandalf sits down and has
a longish and intermittently interesting conversation with Frodo, and
then wanders off. Frodo then putters about five pages, which takes him
to the age of fifty, thinking that he really should leave the Shire
and have himself one of them thar "adventures" one of these days.
Gandalf returns, explains the whole plot, and tells Frodo he really
ought to get going one of these years, seeing as how he has the most
powerful and evil magical thingy in Middle-Earth in his pocket, then
wanders off again. Frodo mopes around for another few months (he wants
to spend one last Summer in the Shire, the text touchingly tells us),
and then finally gets on the road.
I know people always say that "it starts slow," but I never ceases to
amaze me just *how* slow it really does start. Tolkien spins his
wheels for nearly a hundred pages in my edition before anything much
happens at all. Jackson did us all a great favor by compressing that
particular timeline.
(And I won't even talk about the Black Riders stopping to, more or
less politely, ask directions to Hobbiton of various rustic hobbits...)
--
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SF Book Club (USA) -- speaking only for myself
No Ideas But In Things!
Matt Ruff
>
> The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans and
> non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on
> action scenes and did not spend enough time slowing down and
> exploring the characters.
I also think it needed more full-frontal nudity.
-- M. Ruff
Phil Fraering
>Let me point out here that the ethereal-mystical-poetical stuff was,
>frankly, NOT the strong point of the film. Mostly we get people glowing
>white and choruses going "aaaaaah" faintly in the background.
I agree that it was a failing.
I suspect that Jackson saw Legend one too many times at an impressionable
age.
>This is
>hardly a unique failing of Peter Jackson and FotR, by the way: I can't
>honestly think of a movie attempting to depict something mystical and
>ethereal which didn't wind up with a mess of fog machines and kleig lights
>and high-pitched singing. Mysticism simply _isn't_ a visual phenomenon.
>Movies can show better than they tell, and it's hard to _show_ something
>numinous or spiritual.
Yes.
I also could have done without the cheesy Dr. Who style "Galadriel
transforms when tempted" special effects.
(What was the name of that episode? I can't remember... you know,
the one with the vampire megaliths and the justice machines?)
--
Phil Fraering
p...@globalreach.net
Michael S. Schiffer
>Sea Wasp wrote:
>...
>>I much preferred seeing that Gandalf tried to kick some before being
>> locked away.
>Instead we got them wrestling on the ground. They are supposed to
>be angels (though fallible ones).
I'm not a big fan of the wizard's duel, but I'm compelled to note that
an angel getting into a wrestling match (and losing) is not exactly
unheard of traditionally. (There's a modern nation-state named after
the guy who won just such a contest.)
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
ms...@mail.com
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Michael S. Schiffer
>Michael S. Schiffer wrote:
>>
>> "Brenda W. Clough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote in
>> <3C3363FA...@erols.com>:
>> >...
>> >There's also the demands of a visual medium. You have to throw
>> >the audience a bone! To see the icky orc creation process is
>> >reasonably cool and far better than hearing Gandalf or Elrond
>> >mention it in passing.
>> And showing the icky orc creation process implied in the books
>> would have cost the movie its PG-13 rating.
> And would have had the audience voluntarily blinding
> themselves.
Yah.
More seriously, Jackson may have been uncomfortable at the way the
original evoked inherent horror at the idea of miscegenation. It's one
thing for orcs to be Elves who were somehow messed up, but the idea that
mixing them with normal Men would necessarily create something worse
than either has some unfortunate associations. (It might have been
counterbalanced if Elrond's mixed status and the story of Beren and
Luthien had been played up, but they weren't.)
Michael S. Schiffer
>
>
>Eric San Juan wrote:
>
>>
>> Fellowship is probably the hardest to bring to film, which may
>> bode well for the next two films. There are scores of scenes to
>> fit in with Fellowship, many (most?) involving introducing new
>> people and explaining various things about Middle Earth and such.
>> Tough to cram into three hours. Hell, a full six hours of the
>> 13-hour BBC adaptation was spent on Fellowship, almost half the
>> entire work! That should say something.
>In fact it's the -second- movie (as with the second book in
>trilogies) that can be the fatal weak spot, both artistically and
>financially. People can be usually lured in to see or buy #1; but
>those on the bubble will let #2 slide. If the hard-core fans aren't
>enough for #2 to make money, this endangers the appearance of #3.
I think this is less of an issue given the fact that the film is already
in the can for the next two movies. All the costs save promotion are
already sunk, so even if it were a money-losing proposition (which,
happily, seems unlikely) you might as well get the movie into theaters
and offset the expenses. Even if "Fellowship" had bombed at the box
office, they'd pretty much have to do *something* with the other two
movies. (Granted, worst-case could have been a direct-to-video release,
which would have been pretty bad for something so dependent on big
impressive visuals.)
>From the creative point of view, the first part of a work nearly
>always has a good deal of zip, and since the last part should
>involve major payoffs it usually trucks along well too. It's the
>middle that can sag. To get around this I foresee a vast inflation
>of the importance of the battle of Helm's Deep. Lots of CGI orcs
>and ents...
I'm expecting a big blow-out battle of Helm's Deep, but mostly because
that fits the style set in the first movie. Still, if they're going to
follow Frodo and Sam at all, there's going to have to be some quiet bits
with them. I suspect that the characterization of the Rohirrim is going
to get somewhat flattened, though. In the book, we already had an
initial picture of Theoden and his court by this point. The fact that
the first movie spent so much time with Saruman while not noticeably
mentioning who that army he's building is supposed to fight suggests to
me that we can't expect a lot of development in that direction.
Michael S. Schiffer
<3C33C672...@optonline.com>:
>...
>Something I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere (and which really hit
>me, having seen the movie yesterday and starting to re-read
>_Fellowship_ immediately afterward) is that Peter Jackson cut *17
>years* out of the story. (And this was a *very* good thing.)
>In the book, Bilbo disappears at his party, Gandalf sits down and
>has a longish and intermittently interesting conversation with
>Frodo, and then wanders off. Frodo then putters about five pages,
>which takes him to the age of fifty, thinking that he really should
>leave the Shire and have himself one of them thar "adventures" one
>of these days. Gandalf returns, explains the whole plot, and tells
>Frodo he really ought to get going one of these years, seeing as how
>he has the most powerful and evil magical thingy in Middle-Earth in
>his pocket, then wanders off again. Frodo mopes around for another
>few months (he wants to spend one last Summer in the Shire, the text
>touchingly tells us), and then finally gets on the road.
>I know people always say that "it starts slow," but I never ceases
>to amaze me just *how* slow it really does start. Tolkien spins his
>wheels for nearly a hundred pages in my edition before anything much
>happens at all. Jackson did us all a great favor by compressing that
>particular timeline.
I'm not sure what difference the seventeen years make to the speed of
the story, though, since we don't see them. The reason it's slow is
mostly the time it takes for Frodo to get from Bag End to Rivendell. I
agree that could stand speeding up (and I don't miss Tom Bombadil),
though I found it too compressed and frenetic as it was. (I don't know
what could have been done, though. The movie couldn't reasonably have
been made any longer, certainly.)
In story terms, the seventeen years is the time it takes for Gandalf to
do his research (including tracking down Gollum). Till then, if the
ring might just be one of the lesser magic rings, what good would it do
for Frodo to run away from home? On a character level, the time also
makes Frodo a mature adult at the time of the journey rather than a
teenager/young adult, and I frankly prefer that. That could have been
accomplished with slight makeup or casting changes and a title reading
"Seventeen Years Later", with no changes to the script at all.
>(And I won't even talk about the Black Riders stopping to, more or
>less politely, ask directions to Hobbiton of various rustic
>hobbits...)
This is a fair point. The Riders' capabilities in the first book
doesn't justify the sense of menace they inspire not just in the
hobbits, but in people like Aragorn and Glorfindel. A bunch of
snuffling figures who are half-blind in daylight and can be driven away
on a moonlit night by one man with torches just aren't that much of a
threat.
Rick
"Konrad Gaertner" <kgae...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:3C33C2D8...@worldnet.att.net...
>
> Instead we got them wrestling on the ground
Nooo...we saw them smiting each other with magic. Did you perhaps watch a
WWF pay-per-view by accident?
Jon Ivars
Well, at www.rottentomatoes.com they have a critics barometer. An
unprecedented 95% of professional critics thought it was a good to
great film. The remainder thought it was an average film. I have only
come across two people who thought it sucked and their problem seemed
to be an inability to comprehend what was going on (besides, I suspect
one of them was trolling for reactions). Really, this is a film that
is almost guaranteed to thrill and entertain you.
--
Jon Ivars Visit my webpages at http://www.abo.fi/~jivars/
"When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he
is wrong. So we were often angry at each other." De Gaulle
Rick
news:Pine.LNX.4.33.020103...@tuxedo.abo.fi...
> Well, at www.rottentomatoes.com they have a critics barometer. An
> unprecedented 95% of professional critics thought it was a good to
> great film. The remainder thought it was an average film. I have only
> come across two people who thought it sucked and their problem seemed
> to be an inability to comprehend what was going on (besides, I suspect
> one of them was trolling for reactions). Really, this is a film that
> is almost guaranteed to thrill and entertain you.
I totally agree.
GSV Three Minds in a Can
wonderful person Rick <sf.w...@verizon.net> said
>"GSV Three Minds in a Can" <G...@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
>news:E7G6hVGy...@clara.net...
>
>> As someone else remarked, I personally would have preferred it if he'd
>> move the 'adventure / action' slider down a bit and the 'ethereal /
>> poetic / mystical' slider up a bit .. less Indiana Jones, more
>> Lothlorien / Imladris / Durin's Pool / etc.
>
>the movie.
I sort of doubt that - it would have been equally well hyped, and just
as many folks would have seen it. Whether the 9 year old kids would have
gone 'Cool!', and whether anyone would have come back for Episode 2
(apart from me, and this other half dozen) we could debate.
--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
>"GSV Three Minds in a Can" <G...@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
>> However (imo) losing the reason Boromir (and the others) came to
>> Rivendell, ('seek for the sword that was broken'. Gollum having escaped
>> the Mirkwood elves, etc), not having Gollum spotted on the Anduin river
>> section of the trek, not having Gandalf disguise Bilbo's birthday party
>> disappearance with a flash/bang (thus advertising Bilbo's ability to
>> silently vanish) were either (imo) important bits, or else small enough
>> not to be worth cutting/changing.
>>
>
>Totally disagree. You put the flash/bang in the birthday party
>disappearance and you confuse the hell out of the average movie-goer..."Did
>he put the ring on or did Gandalf make him disappear? What happened there
>anyway?"
So, as in the book, you have Bilbo say to Gandalf 'so what did you do
the flash/bang for, scared me half to death', and Gandalf says 'nobody
should know about your vanishing ability'. Takes 30 seconds, tops.
Jon Ivars
> Bitstring <3C333FB8...@gmu.edu>, from the wonderful person Sean
> O'Hara <soh...@gmu.edu> said
> <snip>
> >But the only thing PJ invented was the orcs popping out of pods.
> >Tolkien had Saruman breeding orc-human hybrids, but didn't reveal
> >that until TTT. Jackson probably wanted to forshadow events in
> >the next movie by showing Saruman's orcs, and having them knock
> >over trees.
>
> But he's gonna have a bit of a problem in TTT when Saruman's 'New
> Improved white hand horrors' are supposed to have a falling out with
> Sauron's 'Genuine original brand Red Eye Yrchs', since Sauron's lot
> don't seem to have been invited to the party in this particular movie.
I don't think Jackson will bother with that scene. He does tend to cut out
many non-essential scenes and the above could be classed as such. To be
honest I found the depiction of the chase in LotR somewhat contradictory.
When did the Red Eye Yrchs develop tolerance to the sun? They should have
been left far behind the Uruk-Hais during the chase.
> Depends what you mean by 'invent' and 'whole cloth'. Like the scene
> where Frodo tells Aragorn he is off on his own to Mordor .. Gandalf and
> Saruman fighting atop Orthanc ... the teeter-totter steps in Moria (and
> the Orcs fleeing when the Balrog came) .. quite a bit of invention going
> on there, imo.
Actually, the whole part about the orcs surrounding the party in the big
hall in Moria was a made up scene and didn't seem to have much value
beyond looking cool. Well, ok, the Balrog comes out as a real humdinger
because they flee but I think that could have been done in some other way.
> As someone else remarked, I personally would have preferred it if he'd
> move the 'adventure / action' slider down a bit and the 'ethereal /
> poetic / mystical' slider up a bit .. less Indiana Jones, more
> Lothlorien / Imladris / Durin's Pool / etc.
Yeppers.
Ian McDowell
Juan" <shoeg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>I doubt that. The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans and
>non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on action scenes
>and did not spend enough time slowing down and exploring the characters.
>The film was so jammed with action, ten full minutes of action could
>have been cut and/or been used to more effectively develop the
>characters.
There seems to have been an almost equal number of people complaining that
it was too slow, that the stuff between the battles was dull, and not all
of these were action fans. The reviewer in the local paper complained
about the "tedious" scenes of tiny characters being dwarfed by the huge
landscapes they were slogging through, and wished they'd just get there
already. He blamed this on Jackson working too hard to "please Tolkien
fans on the internet."
Marduk
> move the 'adventure / action' slider down a bit and the 'ethereal /
> poetic / mystical' slider up a bit .. less Indiana Jones, more
> Lothlorien / Imladris / Durin's Pool / etc.
Totally agree.
But what I would do, isn't cutting the action scenes, but rather
adding 'ethereal / poetic / mystical' scenes (as you put it) , and
prolong the existing ones.
Imo the movie was *too short*. It easily should have been made into at
least 3.5 hours. But than again, I understand the constrains that
Jackson had. Surely there is some kind of a red line in holywood, for
lenght of a movie, because of commercial reasons. (Movie which seems
to be very long, will probably put off some people, from going to see
it).
I would love to see more screen minutes of their voyage. For example,
the minute they enter Mirkwood, they face elfs, and seconds after they
are already in Lothlorien. It was just too compact.
By the way, I felt that the brighness bar was too high in the movie,
and there was not enough contrast. Have anyone felt this way too? Do
you think its local problem (projector for example)?
Marduk
sas...@gmx.xxx.net
>"Brenda W. Clough" <clo...@erols.com> wrote:
>>If the hard-core fans aren't
>>enough for #2 to make money, this endangers the appearance of #3.
>
>I think this is less of an issue given the fact that the film is already
>in the can for the next two movies. All the costs save promotion are
>already sunk, so even if it were a money-losing proposition (which,
>happily, seems unlikely) you might as well get the movie into theaters
>and offset the expenses.
Parts 2 and 3 are indeed filmed and edited but you forget about the post
production. At Weta (Peter Jackson's SFX house) they're still working on the
CGI characters and FX for the sequels. I read in an online article that the
Gollum CGI character was only recently finished and it would take most of a
year to finish the scenes where he appears, so I don't think #2 and #3 are
really ready.
Groetjes,
Saskia
Nyrath the nearly wise
> I also think it needed more full-frontal nudity.
Ick, no. The movie came far too close to that
in the scene where the first Uruk-Hai was spawned. <grin>
Jouni Karhu
What role would you have cast Harvey Keitel in?
// JJ
Michael S. Schiffer
<atp83ukqlsgpro4q9...@4ax.com>:
Fair enough. Still, I wonder how badly the first movie would have to
do to completely write off the sunk costs of 2 and 3 rather than
finish and release it in some form. (Fortunately, it seems that this
issue won't arise.
Heather Garvey
>> >
>> > Totally disagree. You put the flash/bang in the birthday party
>> > disappearance and you confuse the hell out of the average movie-goer...
>> > "Did he put the ring on or did Gandalf make him disappear? What happened
>> > there anyway?"
>>
>> to Bilbo. And Gee, that's actually in the books.
>
>And would add even MORE extraneous material to a THREE HOUR LONG movie...
One throwaway line would not have added more than a few seconds,
which could easily be countered by whacking a few seconds off of any
of the scenes in which someone stares dramatically off into space for
an overly long time.
--
"Shut your noisetube, Taco Human!" Heather Garvey / Raven
-- Invader ZIM ra...@xnet.com
http://www.spinnoff.com/swhc/
Taki Kogoma
<i...@ianmontgomerie.com>, to rec.arts.sf.written decree...
>On Wed, 02 Jan 2002 23:32:37 GMT, geo...@webave.com (Geoduck) wrote:
>>The one I wonder about is the inclusion of the failed attempt to go
>>over Cahdras(sp?) in the snow. After snipping TB et al, that would
>>have been second on *my* list of things that could be cut without
>>seriously harming the story. I personally would have axed that whole
>>segment, had them go straight to Moria, and then spend the extra
>>minutes on the 'leaving Lorian/getting gifts' scenes.
>
>I think that part serves several important functions. First, it's
>important to show the audience _why_ the Fellowship has to go through
>Moria. A forgettable twenty-second bit of dialog, say, wouldn't cut
>it in keeping the audience from thinking "so wait a minute, if they
>are basically on this big overland journey, why the heck are they
>going under the friggin mountain, surely there are easier ways".
However, PJ did reverse the dynamic of the decision.
In the book. Aragorn wants to try Caradhras and Gandalf wants to do
Moria. At no point is the Gap of Rohan considered except by Boromir.
Instead in the film, the first notion is to try the Gap (Erm, Gandalf...
emember that little involuntary rest stop you only got out of by the aid
of Gwaihir?), then the Pass. Aragorn wants to try Moria, but Gandalf is
affraid.
Gym "Okay. I'll admit it. One of the lines I miss is 'If you enter the
gates of Moria, beware.'" Quirk
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
mstemper - emis . com
>cam...@SPAHMTRAP.heliograph.com (Jim Cambias) writes:
>>This is
>>hardly a unique failing of Peter Jackson and FotR, by the way: I can't
>>honestly think of a movie attempting to depict something mystical and
>>ethereal which didn't wind up with a mess of fog machines and kleig lights
>>and high-pitched singing. Mysticism simply _isn't_ a visual phenomenon.
>>Movies can show better than they tell, and it's hard to _show_ something
>>numinous or spiritual.
>
>I also could have done without the cheesy Dr. Who style "Galadriel
>transforms when tempted" special effects.
>
>(What was the name of that episode? I can't remember... you know,
>the one with the vampire megaliths and the justice machines?)
"The Stones of Blood"
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
If it's "tourist season", where do I get my license?
Sean O'Hara
>
> ten...@alumnae.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) writes:
>
> >It wasn't really invented -- Saruman did breed a new type of
> >Orc by crossbreeding in Men, creating the Uruk-Hai. The movie
> >just compressed the process a bit.
>
> Well, they didn't need to show us the process, which wasn't the
> process in the book. That orc was hatched.
>
Would you prefer that when Gandalf enters Isengard there aren't
any orcs around, then there are ten minutes later? Hatching takes
less time than showing the full process.
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
>
> Bitstring <3C333FB8...@gmu.edu>, from the wonderful person Sean
> O'Hara <soh...@gmu.edu> said
> <snip>
> >But the only thing PJ invented was the orcs popping out of pods.
> >Tolkien had Saruman breeding orc-human hybrids, but didn't reveal
> >that until TTT. Jackson probably wanted to forshadow events in
> >the next movie by showing Saruman's orcs, and having them knock
> >over trees.
>
> But he's gonna have a bit of a problem in TTT when Saruman's 'New
> Improved white hand horrors' are supposed to have a falling out with
> Sauron's 'Genuine original brand Red Eye Yrchs', since Sauron's lot
> don't seem to have been invited to the party in this particular movie.
>
specifically mentioned that the far shore would be teeming with
orcs.
> >As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
> >And the scenes do move the overall story along.
>
> Depends what you mean by 'invent' and 'whole cloth'. Like the scene
> where Frodo tells Aragorn he is off on his own to Mordor ..
That's about the biggest invention in the movie, and even that
substitutes for the Sherlock Strider scene at the start of TTT,
when Aragorn deduces everything than happened and decides not to
follow Frodo.
> Gandalf and
> Saruman fighting atop Orthanc ...
An expansion of what Gandalf says at the Council.
> the teeter-totter steps in Moria
There were chasms in the stairs and floors of Moria which the
Fellowship had to leap across. They're mentioned somewhere
before Balin's tomb. The movie moved them later, and extrapolated an
action scene out of it.
> (and
> the Orcs fleeing when the Balrog came)
Uh, that's in the book.
> .. quite a bit of invention going
> on there, imo.
>
I'd say most of it is an expansion on things Tolkien mentioned in
passing in the book.
> As someone else remarked, I personally would have preferred it if he'd
> move the 'adventure / action' slider down a bit and the 'ethereal /
> poetic / mystical' slider up a bit .. less Indiana Jones, more
> Lothlorien / Imladris / Durin's Pool / etc.
>
There wasn't enough of Lothlorien, but I thought we saw enough of
the rest.
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
>
> Well, at www.rottentomatoes.com they have a critics barometer. An
> unprecedented 95% of professional critics thought it was a good to
> great film. The remainder thought it was an average film. I have only
> come across two people who thought it sucked and their problem seemed
> to be an inability to comprehend what was going on (besides, I suspect
> one of them was trolling for reactions). Really, this is a film that
> is almost guaranteed to thrill and entertain you.
>
over there will say a movie sucks if it achieves even a modicum of
success or critical acclaim. (Actually the anti-LotR group over
there is nothing compared to the "Shrek"-is-a-piece-of-shite clique.)
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
>
> I also think it needed more full-frontal nudity.
>
but I've never seen her in a movie where she doesn't appear naked.
Or go see "Monster's Ball" with Halle Barry. The only drawback there
is that she's naked with Billy Bob Thorton.
--
Sean O'Hara
Sean O'Hara
> I can't
> honestly think of a movie attempting to depict something mystical and
> ethereal which didn't wind up with a mess of fog machines and kleig lights
> and high-pitched singing. Mysticism simply _isn't_ a visual phenomenon.
> Movies can show better than they tell, and it's hard to _show_ something
> numinous or spiritual.
>
but Spielberg definitely had the klieg lights out for that one :-)
"Jacob's Ladder" showed the mystical, but it was a very different
kind of mystical from what we normally mean.
In purely visual terms, I think "What Dreams May Come" did a good
job, and the heaven sequences do match my image of Valinor.
And of course, let's not forget "Monty Python and the Meaning of
Life" which captured the purely mystical with lots of breasts.
--
Sean O'Hara
Jancie
>
> I sincerely hope this turns out to be the case. The Two Towers does
> features the simply epic battle at Helm's Deep, of course, but at the
> same time it is far less "episodic" than The Fellowship of the Ring and
> should therefore be easier to translate to film in a three-hour period.
I just finished re-reading that part of the trilogy, and frankly, I
can't wait to see the battle at Helm's Deep, especially if they do a
good job with Theoden leading the charge out at dawn.
I *do* hope they don't mess up the Ents though...
jancie in GA
harpnfiddle.at.yahoo.com
Sea Wasp
>
> Jim Cambias wrote:
> > I can't
> > honestly think of a movie attempting to depict something mystical and
> > ethereal which didn't wind up with a mess of fog machines and kleig lights
> > and high-pitched singing. Mysticism simply _isn't_ a visual phenomenon.
> > Movies can show better than they tell, and it's hard to _show_ something
> > numinous or spiritual.
> >
> I'd say "2001" achieved it.
Odd, I don't think of "dull as ditchwater" as equating to "spiritual".
>"Close Encounters ..." almost got it,
CE3K DID get it. Damn-all perfect Sense Of Wonder in that one.
> but Spielberg definitely had the klieg lights out for that one :-)
> "Jacob's Ladder" showed the mystical, but it was a very different
> kind of mystical from what we normally mean.
Again, an odd redefinition of "spiritual" to something like "dirty,
confusing, drug-trip-influenced moviemaking". JLadder I would have
walked out on if one person in our group hadn't been enjoying it and me
being the transportation...
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.htm
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
The Great Gray Skwid
> Eric San Juan wrote:
> > The most widespread complaint among both Tolkien fans and
> > non-Tolkien fans is that the film relied far too much on
> > action scenes and did not spend enough time slowing down and
> > exploring the characters.
Only by Arwen and Galadriel.
Well, OK, maybe Rosie, too.
--
| | |\ | | | ) Theudegisklos "Skwid" Sweinbrothar
|/| |\ |/ | |X| ( SKWID, Vulture V4 pilot ( The Humblest Mollusc
| | | | | | | ) Evan "Skwid" Langlinais ) on the Net
"I'm in the SCA. We have more duct-tape than God"
Jason Mulligan
harpn...@yahoo.com says...
Hmmmm...yeah. Although given John Howe and Alan Lee are conceptual
designers it should turn out OK.
I am dreading how Jackson will butcher the parley with Saruman (which is
one of my fave scenes in TTT).
David Tate
> Phil Fraering wrote:
> >
> > Cutting important parts of the story while creating more
> > story out of whole cloth, which _isn't_ essential to moving
> > the story along, is bad moviemaking.
> >
> As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
Hmm. I think I have to disagree.
While the cheesy chop-socky leafblower battle between Gandalf and
Saruman (and of course the orc pods, and the Harmonically Oscillating
Chunk of Bridge, and the "dwarf tossing" joke) are the obvious ones, I
was most bothered by a lot of fundamental changes to places,
characters and motivations, not all of which helped move the story
along.
Examples:
1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
haven where Big Folk and Little live together in harmony and the
innkeeper is a personal friend of Gandalf's, to being a biker bar
where the innkeeper doesn't recognize the name "Gandalf". The
subsequent attack of the Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that
point.
2. Aragorn the Tireless, who has been working incessantly for 100
years now toward his goal of recovering his kingdom, re-establishing
its glory, and defeating its foes, is replaced by Aragorn the
Conflicted, who has been hiding from his heritage off in the North
somewhere because he is afraid that Isildur's bad blood will make him
do icky things.
3. Merry and Pippin, funloving young squires of Buckland and
Tuckborough, are replaced by Bill and Ted, funloving dudes being
excellent to each other. I still have hopes for how this might turn
out, but the beginning was awful.
4. Frodo's loyal family retainer and gardener, Sam, is replaced by
Frodo's chubby friend, Sam, who accompanies Frodo because... why was
it again? How are they going to deal with the various points later on
where it becomes important that Sam was a gardener?
5. Saruman, the master of ring-lore who eventually became so obsessed
with finding The One and using it himself that he dared to use the
palantir, and was snared by Sauron, is replaced by Saruman, who seems
to be working for Mordor for no readily apparent reason. And breeding
armies for him -- or for himself -- or both, it isn't clear.
6. In the books, the company travels down the river because it
postpones the decision over whether to go east, with Frodo to Mordor,
or west, to Minas Tirith with Boromir. In the movie, there is no hint
that this is coming, and no indication that Aragorn sees it as a real
dilemma -- up to that point, the clear focus of the party is to
accompany Frodo to Orodruin, and any suggestion to the contrary has to
be seen as evil or misguided.
7. Bill, Sam's beloved pet pony, should have been cut. Instead, we
get one gratuitous and meaningless scene of him, completely out of
context.
8. Jackson took great care to set up the Gimli/Galadriel thing... then
cut it, while leaving in the foreshadowing. (I wanted blindfolds,
dammit.)
9. Jackson kept in Frodo's coat of mithril rings, but never bothered
to include the kicker -- that the coat was worth more than everything
else in the Shire combined. At least this gives me hope that Saruman
will end... properly.
Now, just to prove I'm not a complete literalist who thinks that it's
possible to somehow transfer book to film by xerography or
something...
Changes that WERE necessary or helpful:
1. The handling of Boromir's character, fall, and death. Bravo.
2. Using Arwen in place of Glorfindel. Great idea; too bad Liv Tyler
couldn't act her way out of a soap bubble with a rake.
3. Compressing the long trek from the Shire to Rivendell into one
direct flight.
4. Compressing the long trek through Hollin into a couple of quick
helicopter shots.
5. Getting rid of the hobbits' innate fear of water and boats.
David Tate
David Tate
> The wizard's duel was GOOD, actually.
I will admit that the idea of showing an actual conflict, rather than
having Gandalf agree to be imprisoned, was a good one.
However, having two old men duel with atomic leafblowers / tractor
beams for 10 minutes was preposterous. People *laughed*. That's the
wrong sentiment to be engendering at that point in the story. And 5
of those 10 minutes could have given us back Gimli and Galadriel, or
the blindfold scene, or both.
David Tate
Bryan Derksen
wrote:
>I also could have done without the cheesy Dr. Who style "Galadriel
>transforms when tempted" special effects.
>
>(What was the name of that episode? I can't remember... you know,
>the one with the vampire megaliths and the justice machines?)
"Stones of Blood," I believe.
Bryan Derksen
<kgae...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Sea Wasp wrote:
>> Jason Mulligan wrote:
>> >> I much preferred seeing that Gandalf tried to kick some before being
>> locked away.
>
>Instead we got them wrestling on the ground. They are supposed to be
>angels (though fallible ones). I really wish they had done that by
>the book, including Radagast's scene (which is the first example of
>one of the major themes: evil harming itself).
Disclaimer: haven't read the books. Didn't care for Tolkein's writing
style, technically.
Anyway, bearing that in mind of course, I thought the wizard's duel
went pretty well; I got the impression that they were fighting mostly
with _pure_ magic, which didn't have flashy visual manifestations like
lightning bolts and whatnot. The fact that it did throw them around a
bit I attributed to the fact that having them simply standing there
glaring at each other until one of them fell over would make for a
dull movie scene. :)
I recall reading that when Gandalf later describes his magical battle
with the Balrog, it is mentioned that most of the flash-bang that was
visible was purely incidental to the actual forces being employed.
Something similar could be said of this wizards' duel. I assume it was
less spectacular also because Gandalf wasn't _expecting_ a fight, and
so wasn't ready to put on a big display of power.
Mark Reichert
news:9d67e55e.02010...@posting.google.com...
> Hmm. I think I have to disagree.
>
> Chunk of Bridge, and the "dwarf tossing" joke) are the obvious ones, I
> was most bothered by a lot of fundamental changes to places,
> characters and motivations, not all of which helped move the story
> along.
>
> Examples:
> 1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
<snip>
> 9. Jackson kept in Frodo's coat of mithril rings, but never bothered
> Now, just to prove I'm not a complete literalist who thinks that it's
> possible to somehow transfer book to film by xerography or
> something...
>
> Changes that WERE necessary or helpful:
> 1. The handling of Boromir's character, fall, and death. Bravo.
<snip>
> 5. Getting rid of the hobbits' innate fear of water and boats.
Thank you for this intelligent post. Those were exactly the sorts of things
that bothered me and the things I liked/accepted.
Jonathan Hendry
> Examples:
> 1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
> haven where Big Folk and Little live together in harmony and the
> innkeeper is a personal friend of Gandalf's, to being a biker bar
> where the innkeeper doesn't recognize the name "Gandalf". The
> subsequent attack of the Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that
> point
At least it wasn't a nudie bar, with Arwen doing a brass pole routine
and lap dances...
Ross TenEyck
Or you could consider the pods to be magical artificial wombs, capable
of accelerated gestation, and Saruman to have been crossbreeding in
vitro instead of in utero. Book-Saruman would probably have been
into that sort of thing if he'd been capable of it -- for Tolkien,
it would have been all in line with the anti-natural character of
technology and industry.
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Ross TenEyck
>"David Tate" <dt...@ida.org> wrote in message
>news:9d67e55e.02010...@posting.google.com...
>> 1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
>> haven where Big Folk and Little live together in harmony and the
>> innkeeper is a personal friend of Gandalf's, to being a biker bar
>> where the innkeeper doesn't recognize the name "Gandalf". The
>> subsequent attack of the Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that
>> point
>At least it wasn't a nudie bar, with Arwen doing a brass pole routine
>and lap dances...
Um. Try as I might, I can't formulate a witty response to that...
What *I* noticed at the Prancing Pony was the apparent rule that
all Men are dirty, whereas Hobbits can come in out of the pouring
rain, after slogging through miles of mud, and be perfectly clean.
Elves also seem to have the clean-face power, while dwarves are
more closely related to Men in this regard.
Del Cotter
Sean O'Hara <soh...@gmu.edu> said:
>Matt Ruff wrote:
>> I also think it needed more full-frontal nudity.
>
>Go rent some Cate Winslet films -- not only is she a great actress,
>but I've never seen her in a movie where she doesn't appear naked.
Boy, did I miss *that* scene in :Sense and Sensibility:...
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. . . . Del Cotter d...@branta.demon.co.uk . . . .
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Thomas Yan
dt...@ida.org (David Tate) wrote:
> Sean O'Hara <soh...@gmu.edu> wrote in message news:<3C333FB8...@gmu.edu>...
> > As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
>
> Hmm. I think I have to disagree.
>
> While the cheesy chop-socky leafblower battle between Gandalf and
> Saruman (and of course the orc pods, and the Harmonically Oscillating
> Chunk of Bridge, and the "dwarf tossing" joke) are the obvious ones, I
> was most bothered by a lot of fundamental changes to places,
> characters and motivations, not all of which helped move the story
> along.
I saw on a sibling newsgroup the suggestion that many of the changes
are so that the characters can undergo development onstage instead of
leaving much of that as back history.
> Examples:
> 1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
> haven where Big Folk and Little live together in harmony and the
> innkeeper is a personal friend of Gandalf's, to being a biker bar
> where the innkeeper doesn't recognize the name "Gandalf". The
> subsequent attack of the Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that
> point.
It would have been nice for it to be explicit, but I think this can be
explained as Gandalf being known by many different names. However, I
didn't notice the Lothlorien elves referring to him as Mithrandir. :(
> 2. Aragorn the Tireless, who has been working incessantly for 100
> years now toward his goal of recovering his kingdom, re-establishing
> its glory, and defeating its foes, is replaced by Aragorn the
> Conflicted, who has been hiding from his heritage off in the North
> somewhere because he is afraid that Isildur's bad blood will make him
> do icky things.
I didn't like this either, but perhaps this is to allow him to acquire
stature, instead of being perfect throughout the tale.
> 3. Merry and Pippin, funloving young squires of Buckland and
> Tuckborough, are replaced by Bill and Ted, funloving dudes being
> excellent to each other. I still have hopes for how this might turn
> out, but the beginning was awful.
I feel we've already seen the payoff for this decision. Their early
silliness (I liked the scene with Boromir teaching them sword-fighting)
made their choice to create a diversion to let Frodo escape all the
more remarkable.
I didn't think the movie did a good job of explaining why they along in
the first place.
> 4. Frodo's loyal family retainer and gardener, Sam, is replaced by
> Frodo's chubby friend, Sam, who accompanies Frodo because... why was
> it again? How are they going to deal with the various points later on
> where it becomes important that Sam was a gardener?
I don't think Sam, the faithful lapdog sleeping at Frodo's feet, would
work well in contemporary America.
> 5. Saruman, the master of ring-lore who eventually became so obsessed
> with finding The One and using it himself that he dared to use the
> palantir, and was snared by Sauron, is replaced by Saruman, who seems
> to be working for Mordor for no readily apparent reason. And breeding
> armies for him -- or for himself -- or both, it isn't clear.
Yeah, the movie is unclear/misleading, but I think it is still possible
for the sequels to return to the true path. For example, when he
instructs Lurch to bring back the Ring (not named as such), he says
*he* wants it.
-snip-
> 7. Bill, Sam's beloved pet pony, should have been cut. Instead, we
> get one gratuitous and meaningless scene of him, completely out of
> context.
Agreed.
> 8. Jackson took great care to set up the Gimli/Galadriel thing... then
> cut it, while leaving in the foreshadowing. (I wanted blindfolds,
> dammit.)
I really wanted blindfolds, too.
> 9. Jackson kept in Frodo's coat of mithril rings, but never bothered
> to include the kicker -- that the coat was worth more than everything
> else in the Shire combined. At least this gives me hope that Saruman
> will end... properly.
This could still be revealed later on.
> Now, just to prove I'm not a complete literalist who thinks that it's
> possible to somehow transfer book to film by xerography or
> something...
I suppose I should say that although I disagreed with much of your
thoughtful analysis, I was a bit disappointed on my first viewing.
I also disliked the way Weaving was directed to play Elrond.
> Changes that WERE necessary or helpful:
> 1. The handling of Boromir's character, fall, and death. Bravo.
Yup.
> 2. Using Arwen in place of Glorfindel. Great idea; too bad Liv Tyler
> couldn't act her way out of a soap bubble with a rake.
She was too obviously scared, but otherwise I wasn't bothered, and
thought her delivery of lines was pretty good; I'm glad she didn't use
her normal speaking voice.
> 3. Compressing the long trek from the Shire to Rivendell into one
> direct flight.
-snip-
Yup. Also, compressing the time between Bilbo's Party and Frodo's
departure.
--
Thomas Yan (ty...@twcny.rr.com) Note: I don't check e-mail often.
Be pro-active. Fight sucky software and learned helplessness.
Apologies for any lack of capitalization; typing hurts my hands.
Progress on next DbS installment: pp1-38 of pp1-181 of _Taltos_
Thomas Yan
wrote:
> Sean O'Hara wrote:
-snip-
> > "Jacob's Ladder" showed the mystical, but it was a very different
> > kind of mystical from what we normally mean.
So different that I'm uneasy calling it mystical.
> Again, an odd redefinition of "spiritual" to something like "dirty,
> confusing, drug-trip-influenced moviemaking". JLadder I would have
> walked out on if one person in our group hadn't been enjoying it and me
> being the transportation...
I liked it until the ending, which was stupid stupid stupid. Normally,
I really really want to see how something ends, but I think in this
case, I retroactively wish I hadn't.
Brenda W. Clough
Thomas Yan wrote:
>
> > 4. Frodo's loyal family retainer and gardener, Sam, is replaced by
> > Frodo's chubby friend, Sam, who accompanies Frodo because... why was
> > it again? How are they going to deal with the various points later on
> > where it becomes important that Sam was a gardener?
>
> I don't think Sam, the faithful lapdog sleeping at Frodo's feet, would
> work well in contemporary America.
>
And the gardening bit -was- mentioned. When Gandalf hauls him in through the window at
Bag End, Sam protests that he's trimming the grass.
Brenda
--
What do you do with a secret?
Whisper it in a desert at high noon.
Lock it up and bury the key.
Tell the nation on prime-time TV.
Choose a door . . .
Doors of Death and Life
by Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda
Tor Books
ISBN 0-312-87064-7
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
:I am dreading how Jackson will butcher the parley with Saruman (which is
:one of my fave scenes in TTT).
Why would you assume he butchers it?
--
Ian Galbraith
Email: igalb...@ozonline.com.au ICQ#: 7849631
"Being cool requires no work. Mostly it requires detachment.
You can be cool and not care about being cool. Being hip
requires both style and effort. You can't be hip without
working at it." - The A.I. War by Daniel Keys Moran
Jason Mulligan
igalb...@ozonline.com.au says...
> On Thu, 03 Jan 2002 21:33:30 GMT, Jason Mulligan wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> :I am dreading how Jackson will butcher the parley with Saruman (which is
> :one of my fave scenes in TTT).
>
> Why would you assume he butchers it?
Its just my impression given how the other long talking scenes have been
treated so far.
Plus, there is the effect of the altered Saruman arc.
Andrew Wheeler
>
> <snip>
> I was most bothered by a lot of fundamental changes to
> places, characters and motivations, not all of which helped
> move the story along.
>
> Examples:
> 1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy,
> apparently safe haven where Big Folk and Little live together
> in harmony and the innkeeper is a personal friend of
> Gandalf's, to being a biker bar where the innkeeper doesn't
> recognize the name "Gandalf". The subsequent attack of the
> Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that point.
True, but (I'm just re-reading _Fellowship_ now) the book-Bree is a
bit too cozy for my liking. Jackson may have gone too far the other
way, but he got a lot of the bones of that segment into the movie
(much of the meeting with Strider, Frodo's accidental ring-wearing,
the slaughter of the bolsters, etc.).
Making Bree un-cozy also goes a long way towards making the Nazgul
(and the outside world in general) threatening, which doesn't happen
until a bit later in the book. (I mentioned the book-Nazgul
practically going door-to-door in the Shire handing out "Have You See
This Hobbit?" flyers in a previous post.)
> 2. Aragorn the Tireless, who has been working incessantly for
> 100 years now toward his goal of recovering his kingdom, re-
> establishing its glory, and defeating its foes, is replaced
> by Aragorn the Conflicted, who has been hiding from his
> heritage off in the North somewhere because he is afraid that
> Isildur's bad blood will make him do icky things.
I liked the movie-Aragorn, but my memories of the book-Aragorn are
rather old now (which is why I'm re-reading).
> 3. Merry and Pippin, funloving young squires of Buckland and
> Tuckborough, are replaced by Bill and Ted, funloving dudes
> being excellent to each other. I still have hopes for how
> this might turn out, but the beginning was awful.
Pippin is clearly an idiot, but I think you're underestimating Merry.
He's in the fireworks-stealing at the beginning, but we also see some
strength in him. He's the one who -- after the first encounter with
the Nazgul -- immediately thinks of the Ford and leads the other three
there. (Which makes sense, since he's a Brandybuck and from that part
of the Shire -- not mentioned in the movie, of course, but we know
it.) And he also seems to rein in Pippin a couple of times; he's the
brains of that outfit.
> 4. Frodo's loyal family retainer and gardener, Sam, is
> replaced by Frodo's chubby friend, Sam, who accompanies Frodo
> because... why was it again? How are they going to deal with
> the various points later on where it becomes important that
> Sam was a gardener?
Jackson is obviously playing down the class issues of Sam and Frodo,
though he'll have to deal with them on some level in _Two Towers_ and
_Return_ -- or else make whole scenes unintelligible. Their
book-relationship is odd and archaic-seeming to many of Tolkien's
readers (especially Americans) to begin with, so I can see why he'd do that.
Sam doesn't "sir" Frodo all the time, but he does seem to be Frodo's
follower, and to see himself as at minimum a follower rather than a
leader. And the movie did set up that he *was* the gardener (though he
also seems to be Frodo's best friend, which doesn't make sense in the
context of the book).
I hope Jackson can finagle the issue and have Sam follow Frodo loyally
without being of "inferior stock."
> 5. Saruman, the master of ring-lore who eventually became so
> obsessed with finding The One and using it himself that he
> dared to use the palantir, and was snared by Sauron, is
> replaced by Saruman, who seems to be working for Mordor for
> no readily apparent reason. And breeding armies for him --
> or for himself -- or both, it isn't clear.
I took it that he was trying to play both ends against the middle --
and that he still thinks that, if he could only get hold of the One
Ring, he could take out Sauron and seize all power for himself (and,
given who the Istari *are*, it's not an unreasonable possibility in
his head at this point of the story).
Saruman will accept being Sauron's right-hand guy (Sauron to his
Melkor) if he has to, since that's better than getting killed. But he
still hopes to win the jackpot.
We do see him with the palantir, and getting orders from Sauron.
Gandalf does mention the dangers of the palantir, but of course it's
much too late at that point (though I thought that scene came off as
"another round in the same old argument," which I liked).
It is true that we have no idea *who* the armies would be attacking --
the only civilizations we see are the Shire (too far away), Bree (too
small), Moria (dead already) and the two homes of the elves. On the
other hand, it's already a three-hour movie, and Boromir does make the
point that his people (about which we know nothing yet from the movie)
have been holding back Sauron for decades.
> 6. In the books, the company travels down the river because
> it postpones the decision over whether to go east, with Frodo
> to Mordor, or west, to Minas Tirith with Boromir. In the
> movie, there is no hint that this is coming, and no
> indication that Aragorn sees it as a real dilemma -- up to
> that point, the clear focus of the party is to accompany
> Frodo to Orodruin, and any suggestion to the contrary has to
> be seen as evil or misguided.
Here I agree with you. One good argument on this topic in the boats
(or even in Lorien) would set up Boromir's attempt to sway Frodo in
the woods much better.
> 7. Bill, Sam's beloved pet pony, should have been cut.
> Instead, we get one gratuitous and meaningless scene of him,
> completely out of context.
AOL.
> 8. Jackson took great care to set up the Gimli/Galadriel
> thing... then cut it, while leaving in the foreshadowing. (I
> wanted blindfolds, dammit.)
Agree.
> 9. Jackson kept in Frodo's coat of mithril rings, but never
> bothered to include the kicker -- that the coat was worth
> more than everything else in the Shire combined. At least
> this gives me hope that Saruman will end... properly.
It's a minor point, and may still come up later. It's not as if
anybody could *buy* it from him (the only people it would fit are
hobbits, after all), so its value is mostly imaginary.
I also agree with your good changes (which is why I snipped tham all).
I thought Liv Tyler wasn't bad, which was all I expected of her (my
favorite counter-example of "actor who stunk up the room every time he
appeared onscreen" is Keanu Reeves in _Much Ado About Nothing_ -- she
was nowhere near that level).
I liked the movie-Boromir quite a lot, and I never remember even
liking the book-Boromir in the least, which was a good trick. I told
my wife his death scene with Aragorn was the best "guy-weepie" movie
moment I'd seen in a long time...
--
Andrew Wheeler
Editor, SF Book Club (USA) -- speaking only for myself
No Ideas But In Things!
David Dyer-Bennet
> As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
The moth. Nothing vaguely like it, nothing performing the same role,
no symbolic use of it, anywhere else in the books. Gratuitously
inserted into the movie for no apparent reason.
--
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Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/
Photos: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/
David Dyer-Bennet
Yep. Every time I look at the extended fight scenes, I ask myself
"What are we missing because of this?" The wizard's duel wasn't worth
the time, there were better things left on the cutting room floor.
Mark Atwood
> 3. Merry and Pippin, funloving young squires of Buckland and
> Tuckborough, are replaced by Bill and Ted, funloving dudes being
> excellent to each other.
I *like* the Bill & Ted movies!
I don't even consider them a "guilty pleasure".
--
Mark Atwood | Well done is better than well said.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
David Eppstein
Andrew Wheeler <acwh...@optonline.com> wrote:
> [in the movie version] Sam doesn't "sir" Frodo all the time, but he does
> seem to be Frodo's follower, and to see himself as at minimum a follower
> rather than a leader.
He does call him "Mr. Frodo", though -- I think this "Mr. Firstname" form
is mainly used nowadays (at least here in California) for lower class
servants addressing higher class employers.
--
David Eppstein UC Irvine Dept. of Information & Computer Science
epps...@ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Phil Fraering
>>I also could have done without the cheesy Dr. Who style "Galadriel
>>transforms when tempted" special effects.
>>(What was the name of that episode? I can't remember... you know,
>>the one with the vampire megaliths and the justice machines?)
>"The Stones of Blood"
That's it!
Phil
--
Phil Fraering
p...@globalreach.net
Phil Fraering
>I'd say "2001" achieved it. "Close Encounters ..." almost got it,
>but Spielberg definitely had the klieg lights out for that one :-)
>"Jacob's Ladder" showed the mystical, but it was a very different
>kind of mystical from what we normally mean.
I really liked that movie. Another one that did "mystic" to good
effect: "The Secret of Roan Inish."
pgf
--
Phil Fraering
p...@globalreach.net
Phil Fraering
>Examples:
>1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
>haven where Big Folk and Little live together in harmony and the
>innkeeper is a personal friend of Gandalf's, to being a biker bar
>where the innkeeper doesn't recognize the name "Gandalf". The
>subsequent attack of the Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that
>point.
Also, what happened to Bill Ferny was kinda tragic.
>2. Aragorn the Tireless, who has been working incessantly for 100
>years now toward his goal of recovering his kingdom, re-establishing
>its glory, and defeating its foes, is replaced by Aragorn the
>Conflicted, who has been hiding from his heritage off in the North
>somewhere because he is afraid that Isildur's bad blood will make him
>do icky things.
I guess they figured he wore dark clothes a lot, so he needed to
be more angsty.
>3. Merry and Pippin, funloving young squires of Buckland and
>Tuckborough, are replaced by Bill and Ted, funloving dudes being
>excellent to each other. I still have hopes for how this might turn
>out, but the beginning was awful.
The thing is, they were incompetent in a lot of ways in the book,
but not _that_ incompetent.
>4. Frodo's loyal family retainer and gardener, Sam, is replaced by
>Frodo's chubby friend, Sam, who accompanies Frodo because... why was
>it again? How are they going to deal with the various points later on
>where it becomes important that Sam was a gardener?
They already cut that part out of the Galadriel's Mirror scene.
>Changes that WERE necessary or helpful:
>1. The handling of Boromir's character, fall, and death. Bravo.
>2. Using Arwen in place of Glorfindel. Great idea; too bad Liv Tyler
>couldn't act her way out of a soap bubble with a rake.
Eeh...
As someone said earlier, Eowyn has enough problems without some immortal
elf chick coming along to steal her thunder.
>3. Compressing the long trek from the Shire to Rivendell into one
>direct flight.
I don't know.
A part of the problem with the film is that they don't understand drama.
How the heck can they build to a climax when they're busy having a
climax every ten minutes in a three hour movie?
>4. Compressing the long trek through Hollin into a couple of quick
>helicopter shots.
>5. Getting rid of the hobbits' innate fear of water and boats.
They didn't. I think there were references to swimming being
"unwholesome" in the beginning.
Anyway, I also noticed a visual "glitch" at the Argonath.
Phil Fraering
>"Jonathan Hendry" <j_he...@whamo.netcom.com> writes:
>>"David Tate" <dt...@ida.org> wrote in message
>>news:9d67e55e.02010...@posting.google.com...
>>> 1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
>>> haven where Big Folk and Little live together in harmony and the
>>> innkeeper is a personal friend of Gandalf's, to being a biker bar
>>> where the innkeeper doesn't recognize the name "Gandalf". The
>>> subsequent attack of the Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that
>>> point
>>At least it wasn't a nudie bar, with Arwen doing a brass pole routine
>>and lap dances...
>Um. Try as I might, I can't formulate a witty response to that...
Ever read "User Friendly"?
In their LOTR spoof, there was the line "What's a Nazgul like you
doing in a place like this?"
--
Phil Fraering
p...@globalreach.net
Sean O'Hara
>
> Thomas Yan wrote:
> > > How are they going to deal with the various points later on
> > > where it becomes important that Sam was a gardener?
> >
> > I don't think Sam, the faithful lapdog sleeping at Frodo's feet, would
> > work well in contemporary America.
> >
>
> And the gardening bit -was- mentioned. When Gandalf hauls him in through the window at
> Bag End, Sam protests that he's trimming the grass.
>
he was really smoking that weed everyone kept mentioning.
--
Sean O’Hara
Now an unemployed college graduate!
“Lucas and Speilberg are the most financially successful filmmakers
of all time because they're the biggest whores.” – William Goldman
Gary J. Weiner
Del Cotter wrote:
>
> On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, in rec.arts.sf.written,
> Sean O'Hara <soh...@gmu.edu> said:
>
> >Matt Ruff wrote:
> >> I also think it needed more full-frontal nudity.
> >
> >Go rent some Cate Winslet films -- not only is she a great actress,
> >but I've never seen her in a movie where she doesn't appear naked.
>
> Boy, did I miss *that* scene in :Sense and Sensibility:...
You need to get the director's cut.
--
Gary J. Weiner - webm...@hatrack.net
http://www.hatrack.net
HatRack Web Design & Hosting - Hang your web with us
Sean O'Hara
>
> Sean O'Hara <soh...@gmu.edu> writes:
>
> > As I said, the movie didn't actually invent anything wholecloth.
>
> The moth. Nothing vaguely like it, nothing performing the same role,
> no symbolic use of it, anywhere else in the books. Gratuitously
> inserted into the movie for no apparent reason.
IIRC, in the books Radagast contacts Gwaihir by sending an APB
through various animals. The movie cuts the middleman by having
Gandalf send the message via moth.
As for why the change -- PJ didn't want to introduce a third wizard
who never does anything.
Brenda W. Clough
Sean O'Hara wrote:
> "Brenda W. Clough" wrote:
> >
> > Thomas Yan wrote:
> > > > How are they going to deal with the various points later on
> > > > where it becomes important that Sam was a gardener?
> > >
> > > I don't think Sam, the faithful lapdog sleeping at Frodo's feet, would
> > > work well in contemporary America.
> > >
> >
> > And the gardening bit -was- mentioned. When Gandalf hauls him in through the window at
> > Bag End, Sam protests that he's trimming the grass.
> >
> Trimming the grass in the middle of the night? I think it's obvious
> he was really smoking that weed everyone kept mentioning.
It's obvious that this weed is not tobacco. Remember how Saruman suggests that smoking is
fogging not Gandalf's lungs, but his intellect?
Brenda W. Clough
Andrew Wheeler wrote:
>
> > 9. Jackson kept in Frodo's coat of mithril rings, but never
> > bothered to include the kicker -- that the coat was worth
> > more than everything else in the Shire combined. At least
> > this gives me hope that Saruman will end... properly.
>
> It's a minor point, and may still come up later. It's not as if
> anybody could *buy* it from him (the only people it would fit are
> hobbits, after all), so its value is mostly imaginary.
It would not be very difficult to rework the rings into another larger garment
-- you really don't need mail all around the torso. What bothered me about that
shirt was the flowery lace around the neck -- totally inappropriate for metal
work! They were obviously either knitted or crocheted. It should be possible
to make the garment look more like real metal.
Ian McDowell
>1. The Prancing Pony at Bree goes from being a cozy, apparently safe
>haven where Big Folk and Little live together in harmony and the
>innkeeper is a personal friend of Gandalf's, to being a biker bar
>where the innkeeper doesn't recognize the name "Gandalf". The
>subsequent attack of the Black Riders was almost anticlimactic at that
>point.
And a rather good thing, too. There's rather too much cozy tweeness in
the movie's early scenes as it is (true, there's more in the books, but I
consider that a bug rather than a feature).
>2. Aragorn the Tireless, who has been working incessantly for 100
>years now toward his goal of recovering his kingdom, re-establishing
>its glory, and defeating its foes, is replaced by Aragorn the
>Conflicted, who has been hiding from his heritage off in the North
>somewhere because he is afraid that Isildur's bad blood will make him
>do icky things.
In other words, Aragorn is given something resembling character
development. Like Rachel Brown and a few others have said, I consider
Jackson's Aragorn a considerable improvement over Tolkien's, and the
film's Boromir an even bigger one.
>3. Merry and Pippin, funloving young squires of Buckland and
>Tuckborough, are replaced by Bill and Ted, funloving dudes being
>excellent to each other. I still have hopes for how this might turn
>out, but the beginning was awful.
Disagree quite strongly. Jackson's Merry and Pippin have fairly distinct
personalities, whereas Tolkien's seem interchangeable.
>4. Frodo's loyal family retainer and gardener, Sam, is replaced by
>Frodo's chubby friend, Sam, who accompanies Frodo because... why was
>it again? How are they going to deal with the various points later on
>where it becomes important that Sam was a gardener?
I thought Sam's occupation was made apparent in his first substantial
dialogue scene, where Gandalf catches him . . . gardening (well, okay,
he's eavesdropping, but he's _pretending_ to garden).
<snip>
>Changes that WERE necessary or helpful:
>1. The handling of Boromir's character, fall, and death. Bravo.
>2. Using Arwen in place of Glorfindel. Great idea; too bad Liv Tyler
>couldn't act her way out of a soap bubble with a rake.
I didn't expect her to be decent in this film (although I've had no
particular objection to her in contemporary roles, where directors like
Altman and Bertolucci have made good use of her), but she astonished me by
being not just decent but quite good, possessing both grace and gravity.
What really surprised me was how much better I thought she was than Cate
Blanchett. At first I thought Tyler might have been dubbed, a la the
early Bond girls, or at least had her dialogue digitally tinkered with,
but no, apparently the vocal work is all hers.
phil hunt
>
>I'm not a big fan of the wizard's duel, but I'm compelled to note that
>an angel getting into a wrestling match (and losing) is not exactly
>unheard of traditionally. (There's a modern nation-state named after
>the guy who won just such a contest.)
Do we get a prize for guessing which one?
My -- completely uninformed and random -- guess is Mongolia.
--
*** Philip Hunt *** ph...@comuno.freeserve.co.uk ***
Nyrath the nearly wise
> Well, they didn't need to show us the process, which wasn't the
> process in the book. That orc was hatched.
I have a vague memory of the trilogy mentioning
that orcs are "spawned".
Nyrath the nearly wise
> At first I thought Tyler might have been dubbed, a la the
> early Bond girls, or at least had her dialogue digitally tinkered with,
> but no, apparently the vocal work is all hers.
Yes, in one of those many "making of the movie"
TV shows, Ms. Tyler mentioned how much she enjoyed
speaking Elvish, then proceeded to reel off a couple of
Elvish sentences in a most impressive manner.
Roger Christie
> >...
> >Something I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere (and which really hit
> >me, having seen the movie yesterday and starting to re-read
> >_Fellowship_ immediately afterward) is that Peter Jackson cut *17
> >years* out of the story. (And this was a *very* good thing.)
>
> >In the book, Bilbo disappears at his party, Gandalf sits down and
> >has a longish and intermittently interesting conversation with
> >Frodo, and then wanders off. Frodo then putters about five pages,
> >which takes him to the age of fifty, thinking that he really should
> >leave the Shire and have himself one of them thar "adventures" one
> >of these days. Gandalf returns, explains the whole plot, and tells
> >Frodo he really ought to get going one of these years, seeing as how
> >he has the most powerful and evil magical thingy in Middle-Earth in
> >his pocket, then wanders off again. Frodo mopes around for another
> >few months (he wants to spend one last Summer in the Shire, the text
> >touchingly tells us), and then finally gets on the road.
>
> >I know people always say that "it starts slow," but I never ceases
> >to amaze me just *how* slow it really does start. Tolkien spins his
> >wheels for nearly a hundred pages in my edition before anything much
> >happens at all. Jackson did us all a great favor by compressing that
> >particular timeline.
>
> I'm not sure what difference the seventeen years make to the speed of
> the story, though, since we don't see them. The reason it's slow is
> mostly the time it takes for Frodo to get from Bag End to Rivendell. I
> agree that could stand speeding up (and I don't miss Tom Bombadil),
> though I found it too compressed and frenetic as it was. (I don't know
> what could have been done, though. The movie couldn't reasonably have
> been made any longer, certainly.)
Way to frenetic. It seemed more like a three hour trailer for the real
movie.
One of the consequences is that it takes a vast world, in which travel from
one area to another is a /very/ significant undertaking, and compressed it
until it seems smaller than Rhode Island.
I also disagree with the notion that the TB/Old Forest section can be cut
with impunity. Every single piece of this book is carefully and precisely
staged in terms of pacing and demonstrating the growth of the characters.
The TB/Old Forest section is the traveler's /first/ adventure. The trip to
Bree is supposed to /feel/ like a major journey when it concludes. Instead,
it feels like a trip to the corner store.
>
> In story terms, the seventeen years is the time it takes for Gandalf to
> do his research (including tracking down Gollum). Till then, if the
> ring might just be one of the lesser magic rings, what good would it do
> for Frodo to run away from home? On a character level, the time also
> makes Frodo a mature adult at the time of the journey rather than a
> teenager/young adult, and I frankly prefer that. That could have been
> accomplished with slight makeup or casting changes and a title reading
> "Seventeen Years Later", with no changes to the script at all.
>
> >(And I won't even talk about the Black Riders stopping to, more or
> >less politely, ask directions to Hobbiton of various rustic
> >hobbits...)
>
> This is a fair point. The Riders' capabilities in the first book
> doesn't justify the sense of menace they inspire not just in the
> hobbits, but in people like Aragorn and Glorfindel. A bunch of
> snuffling figures who are half-blind in daylight and can be driven away
> on a moonlit night by one man with torches just aren't that much of a
> threat.
>
> Mike