Google| Subject | Re: I've seen LOTR |
| From | Rimrunner |
| Date | 01/21/2002 06:55 (01/21/2002 05:55) |
| Message-ID | <slrna4nbbf.h3g.rimrun@drizzle.com> |
| Client | |
| Newsgroups | rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc |
| Follows | ObeeKris |
| Followups | Oliver J. Hanau (5d, 5h & 54m) > Rimrunner |
On 20 Jan 2002 16:01:20 -0800, ObeeKris <obeekris@hotmail.com>wrote:
ObeeKrisVerklempt, c'est moi.
Bill Anderson <billanderson601@yahoo.com>wrote:Bill AndersonObeeKris
C'Pi wrote:C'Pi
Pleasurable to see. Entertaining to watch. All the emotional depth of a wet Kleenex.
I'll have you know that I've known some wet Kleenexes (Kleenexi?) that can get very emotional. Of course, some of them have a tendency to post here. :)
I cried at least twice the first time I saw the dang movie, and you know what? I don't care that y'all know that, now.
That would sorta defeat the purpose...ObeeKrisC'Pi
I hope they do The Hobbit. Give me Gandalf and Bilbo and forget everybody else.
Including the dozen dwarfs they go running around with?
I'll take 'im.Bill AndersonObeeKris
and lovers in the moonlight,
I envy Viggo Mortenson.
I love the introduction. The voice-over does a wonderful job setting up and explaining things. Cate Blanchett was a great choice to do it.I thought she did a great job overall--the Lothlorien sequence suffered from some serious editing and a leetle too much SPFX, but Blanchett was great. Her delivery on the prologue was good, too.
Ian Mckellan as Gandalf. I really hope The Hobbit gets made, because I want to see him in the role again. (Yes, I realize there are still 2 more movies to go.)*bounce*
I figured going in that even if the rest of the movie sucked, he'd be good. Big, big fan of his.
Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn. I thought he did a wonderful job with him, making him even cooler than in the book. I envy him for the kiss with Liv Tyler.Hee hee. Me, I just, uh, drooled a lot. Or something. I do think he did a very good job. The finale with the orcs was fabulous. (I thought Lawrence Makaore was good too, and *he* had several inches of latex to act through. And not much in the way of lines, either, aside from the growling.)
No Tom Bombadil.Thank god.
The music was very well done too, though kind of overpowering at times.The score is melodramatic, overdone, and laden with choruses. In other words, it's just right.
The giant stone trolls in the background.That was great. I also liked the use of maps and so forth right out of the books.
I think the costumes were very well done. Normally the costumes don't stand out unless they're designed to (Amidala in TPM comes to mind), but they were excellent here. Gandalf really looked like the architypal wizard that he is. The Hobbits rustic, farmer type clothes. Boromir's outfit for the almost royalty that he is. Aragorn's weather-beaten and lived-in clothes. (I understand the Viggo did most of that himself, even going so far as to sew it up himself if it were ripped.)I've read some stuff about the costuming that indicates just how much thought and work went into it. The hobbits' clothes, for instance, were designed to emphasize their height, and the fabrics chosen were those that a rustic, isolated population would actually be able to make (looks like mostly wool).
And Gandalf's hat.
The dislikes (A much shorter list): The way the Hobbits leave the Shire. I think they could have done it just as shown in the book, with a few judiciously used captions.Mm, I keep going back and forth on that. A little more detail would've been nice...on the other hand, the movie's running time stands at 2:58 and a great deal was cut. I've heard varying lengths for the director's cut; the one I hear most often is 4:30. Dunno what else they could remove to make room for more exposition on the hobbits leaving the shire.
When Frodo and Sam leave at the end. In the book, they sneak off and nobody knows about it. In the movie, everybody just kinda waves and says "See ya later." I especially think it betrays the character of Aragorn. It betrays the oath he made to Frodo in Rivendell: "If by my life or death I can serve you" etc. It goes against how protective he is of Frodo through out the entire movie.See, here I disagree. In fact, though it's heresy to say so, I think I like the way it was done in the movie better. Frodo is warned by Galadriel: one by one, his friends will succumb to the Ring. We even see a bit of Aragorn's vulnerability; in that scene, where he lets Frodo leave, the Ring very clearly whispers Aragorn's name.
Even if you don't buy that, it's very clear that Aragorn is respecting Frodo's decision to go alone. Whether that's the wisest course or not, what we see here is Frodo gradually taking responsibility for what he's got to do. Over the course of the movie his attempts to foist the Ring off onto someone else and leave the decisions up to other members of the party become less urgent.
It's also a pretty decent way to bring Boromir's death and the events surrounding it forward a bit, so that instead of following the books exactly--which would have made the ending of FotR totally anticlimactic--we instead get everything tied together.
Save for Gandalf, he knows best what dangers S&F are facing on the road to Mordor. "Their destiny lies along a different path." Well dammit, walk the path with them.You could make that argument for how the book ends too, though. Aragorn decides to follow Merry and Pippin because the orcs leave a trail a blind rabbit could detect. "I must follow those whose trail I am sure of." Um, this *Ranger* isn't capable of tracking Frodo and Sam into Emyn Muil? Uh-huh. Methinks Tolkien just decided the group had to split up there, one way or the other.
Other random stuff: In the battle at the beginning, why the heck wasn't Elrond wearing a helmet of some sort? *Everybody* else is except for him.Star Power. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Uh, maybe so he could be heard more clearly?)
Frodo, slight tip for ya: you've got a sword, use it. The only time I saw him swing Sting at anything is when he's facing the cave troll. The rest of the time he's either falling down or looking helpless. Which brings us to... With as much as Frodo is falling down and getting injured and whatnot, it's absolutely amazing that he and Sam make it to Mordor and actually destroy the ring. It shows exactly how incredibly lucky they were.Well, in a way that's kind of the point. A fighter Frodo ain't. We don't see him fight much in the rest of the trilogy either--there's the bit with Shelob, which he loses, and that's it. *Sam* is fiercer than Frodo, mostly out of protectiveness.
I'm looking forward to the return of Gandalf. I can't wait to see some reactions about it. One of the people here at work has never read the books. She went and saw the movie and we were discussing it one day. She made a comment about how she couldn't believe that Gandalf died. It was all I could do to keep from giggling and going "Guess what? Wanna know something? He's not dead, he's coming back." I can't wait to see her reaction when she finds that out.That *will* be fun. The last showing I attended (a packed house at Seattle's Cinerama), the number of gasps Gandalf's and Boromir's deaths elicited (yeah, I know Gandalf doesn't really die, shut up a minute) seemed like a pretty good indicator that this film's popularity has moved beyond its core audience. Which is, of course, quite cool.
I think they should have done something to indicate that the movie is going to be continued in "The Two Towers." At least a comment or something right after the shot of Sam and Frodo, but right before the credits. Because I have heard a couple of comments along the lines of "That's it? What happens next?" They should have done something for those who aren't aware that it's the first part of a trilogy.At least one of the trailers out there makes it clear that a trilogy is to be expected. But yeah, a "To be continued" or something would've been nice.
I don't want to wait another 11 months for "The Two Towers."Me either.
-g, more, please -- WORDS FOR SALE: http://www.drizzle.com/~rimrun/words.html "An artist's expression is his soul made apparent." -- Bruce Lee
01/20/2002-
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