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Chopkinsca

who else is with me?

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The Reverend Julian, you seem to find flaws in things I'm not too much of an expert on... animation/filming, which, in relation to my expectations was very cool, particularly since many of the effects used on the Ents and Gollum (glowing, movements, etc.) had parallels in the books. By the way, magic in Tolkien is very subtle, so I am not sure what you mean by magic, since in the first movie one thing I saw as a little flaw was the battle beteween Saruman and Gandalf, which was cool per se and didn't really bother me that much, but it was more of a thing you would find in an RPG than in Tolkien; the same happened when the elf chick (her name I forget) appeared on horseback and saved Frodo and summoned the river... In addition, the second book is not about suspense, and Gollum is barely detected until he suddenly falls on the hobbits, bared to them completely. Gollums charater actually surprised me, since I hadn't imagined him so well when reading. One of the things the movie does to some characters, the better charaters, is make the richer than they were originally in some respects.

You know, even by your own description you're implying that he disregarded the CG, and not putting together the actors and the movie as a whole, which sounds odd. And it can't be said the movie is really disappointing unless one is trying deliberately to be critical, especially when comparing it to other movies of the same gerne. The second movie isn't any less "philosophical" than the first, of that I'm sure.

Maybe then I'm glad I'm not really a fan of/expert on computer animated graphic design, as that may have made me look at that aspect a wee bit too much more than it's worth, this makes me think. Also and anyway, meh, comparing the animation and effects of the LotR movies with most other movies with CG I don't doubt they are great... maybe I'm clueless.

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Myk, I see you take great pleasure in argument deviation and stuff like that... and you point out trolling? :P

You don't need to be an expert to, at least, feel the flaws in the direction. Of course, nowadays movies does not make it easy since direction flaws or effects demonstrations are used as a feature. The public is so used to it that no one can imagine a film without a single CG shot or loads of inexpressive and pointless wide-shots.

You don't need to be an expert to tell CG animation is still not ready for face animations for instance. Don't tell me you found Gollum's expressions convincing. Don't get me wrong, I liked the character but I really, really disliked how Jackson tried to impress his audience (and ironically he happened to). And comparing LOTR to other movies is pointless. In 2 years, another film will hit the theatres with far better CGI. It's always been like this and I don't see it changing for at least a decade. Judging a film from its CG would be stupid. As is relying on CG to make a good movie.

When I say magic, I do hope you don't take it literally. "Children of a Lesser God" has magic imo. You won't see any wizard there tho.

I never read the books and, honestly, I don't really care whether the movies are true to them or not. I do however care when a director makes a special edition DVD and makes references in the 2nd movie to scenes that were not in the theatre version of the 1st one. I do however care when one of the main character (Gimli) is only used for comic relief... which is, again, a common flaw in nowadays films. I do care when the supposedly most frightening creatures in Middle-Earth (the Nazguls) makes two quick (and solo) appearances and get distracted from their duty because of a single arrow (in FOTR, the raging battle Aragorn gets with them is quite memorable and worth 3 Helm's Deep battles imo).

Well, in short, I do mind when a director screws up a sequel.
Of course, a lot of people will find it great and more easy to follow than the first one. But simplification, action orientation and CG demonstration are not the keys for a good movie... only for a successful one.

And before you argue about my elitist way of thinking, please observ I've liked a lot of very commercial Hollywood movies, even the most calibrated ones. But that's definitly not what was to be expected from the LOTR trilogy: calibration.

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Julian: most of the 'flaws' you mentioned exist in the books. If Jackson had 'fixed' them, the extremist fans of the books would have been in an even bigger uproar than they already are.

BTW, Gimli is NOT only used for comic relief, especially in FOTR.

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NiGHTMARE said:
BTW, Gimli is NOT only used for comic relief, especially in FOTR.

Heh, I was talking about TTT obviously ;)

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Heh. I only said that about trolling because I sincerely could not understand your position. Nor do I do so now, but you have fleshed it out a bit, which makes it more real somehow. Your intitial comment could very well have been a prank. (Your agreement with Lüt, I mean.) I don't really see those "flaws" as clearly as you seem to point them out. As for how Gollum was animated and portrayed, rest assured it has enchanted me, same with the Ents, and many other scenes using CG animation. They were effective, unlike in other similar movies, such as E1 and E2 of the Star Wars saga (with it's cardboard-like effects.)

what I meant is exactly that, that...

The Reverend Julian said:

Judging a film from its CG would be stupid. As is relying on CG to make a good movie.


Precisely, I believe he used the CG quite well. As for movies coming out with better CG, sure, but that is nothing, only the good use of resources, whatever technical resources are chosen, makes a good movie.

As for what you meant by "magic" I had to ask, since to me the effects and their use where pretty enchanting, so I wondered what you meant by a lack of magic.

I don't see it as simpler than the first one, at all... it's pretty much on the same level as the other one. and as for those "flaws" you found... well, I could point out as many in the first movie, I already pointed out some... and I could go on if I felt inclined to, I suppose.

It sounds hollow to me to think that the second movie is so different than the first in these respects you point out... maybe in some way, subtly, but by no means could someone say "wow" when seeng the first one and then that the second one went downhill clearly enough. Actually, the second one, as I implied in my first post, improved my view of the series by being more vibrant and fleshed out than the first... you could say the series "warmed up" in the second movie, whereas in the 1st it was already good but needed to get the hang of a few things yet.

Oh, and Gimli is fine in the movie!

The second movie has a lot of power in transmitting the Middle-Earth it is portaying, more so than the first, not that they can really be separated, the three movies (well lets say the two for now) are one.

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Personally I just don't see how anyone couldn't like a film which has both Brian Blessed AND his stand-in, John Rhys-Davies :)

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I'v seen the movies thought they were excellent I'd like to know though how they always seem to kick the orcs/ the fuckin built dudes asses over and over again without gettin a scratch????..

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Oh, there's lots of scratches on Aragorn after his fight with Lurtz ... and Boromir does die, after all. Another thing you have to keep in mind is that the warriors of the Fellowship are among the very best Middle Earth has, period.

That the hobbits are more or less unwounded up to now is unsurprising as well, given that Saruman has instructed his forces to not harm so much as a hair of the halflings.

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Myk, I doubt we could find any way to discuss the matter. I have the feeling we simply do not agree about what a movie should be. It appears to me TTT is what you expect from a movie and obviously that's not what I expect.
We could go on with arguments but if I read correctly we're just confronting tastes here. So I'll leave this discussion here and let others state their opinions.
Rest assure I respect your point of view and this final comment is not in anyway judgmental. It's just that I find our discussion rather pointless and I'm quite sure you do agree.
Cya in the forums for another silly confrontation ;)

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Meh.

I was expecting way more screentime for Saruman, seeing as how he's basically the cause of everything that happens in this movie (as well as one of my all-time favorite villains), but he got maybe 2 minutes total. There were hardly any good shots of Orthanc either :(

Gollum was surprisingly good for a CG character, but still didn't "look right" or interact with the environment properly. He basically ended up as the LOTR Jar-Jar: amusing at times, but mostly made it into a silly kids movie. A young kid or midget in costume would have worked a lot better.

Barring King Theoden, character development of all the new characters came nowhere near to the first movie, and even the returning characters just seemed "distant", likely as a result of no extended focus on any of them:

The overall film seemed too broken up - endlessly switching between all the subplots in rapid succession. This is typically OK in small amounts or when going over day-per-day events, but even my attention span could take more of one subplot at a time than they gave. I think this is what kept me from caring about what major events happened, as well as caring about what happened to any specific characters. The movie just feels like a dress-reheasal historical documentary instead of a real movie. This plot-swapping was most irritating during Helm's Deep: that entire fight got interrupted at least 3 times to switch to another part of the movie.

Speaking of Help's Deep, the battle there was hardly the epic fight everybody hyped it up to be. Other than the fact that the number of Orcs and Uruk-hai was incredibly large, the whole thing was hardly special in any way as far as medieval-based battles go. It consisted of pounding down wooden barricaded doors with big logs, ballistas firing shots at the (incredibly typical) fortress, enemy ladders going up the stone walls which had lots of archers on top firing arrows down at dudes below... seen it all before.

And finally, there just happen to be these living trees in a forest (where Merry and Pip just happen to escape their captors), and these living trees just happen to get upset about Saruman tearing down other trees (of all possible things to be upset with him about) and decide to storm Isengard, and there just happens to be a massive dam atop a nearby mountain, just waiting to be kicked open by one of these walking trees and flood Isengard entirely...

...uh, yeah...

That quite possibly qualifies as the most desperate plot twist I've ever heard.

Overall, the film seemed both way too rushed and way too long, as well as way too random. The fact that some of the main characters survived what they did is just laughable: "I need these guys alive, no matter what logic and chances are defied, or else the story can't continue".

On that note, the use of improbable chances in TTT is all too overwhelming. There were a few in FotR, but they were excusable on the grand scale of events. Now, after seeing TTT, they're all too apparent in FotR and it makes that appear on the same level of TTT. Amon Hen comes to mind. The entire scene was just laughable, the way each person [destined to survive] in the fellowship manages to take on 50 orcs and uruk-hai simultaneously without getting a single scratch, and Boromir's death scene had me trying to keep from busting out laughing when I first saw it in the theatre.

I didn't originally pay much attention to that scene since the rest of the movie was so good, but after TTT the abuse of the chance factor just gets ridiculous. Too many "it can only happen in the movies/stories" chances, most notably King Theoden and the rest of the fellowship riding out of Helm's Deep straight through hundreds and hundreds of uruk-hai and not getting a single scratch (not to mention the CG was awful there)... Gandalf's perfectly-timed arrival the moment they escape... Gimli jumping into a crowd of 50+ uruk-hai after the fortress wall is blown up and not getting hurt... blah. You kinda stop caring what situations the characters get into once you know they're "invincible" because they're needed later in the story.

Also, the ending was even more incomplete than The Matrix.

Storyline aside, it looked good, and although I certainly don't hold Peter Jackson responsible for the plot lamities, I certainly think he shouldn't be afraid to remove those parts from the books and rework the plot accordingly (especially those silly trees).

Anyway, I'll be waiting for the extended DVD to see this one again. If the difference between FotR's theatrical release and its extended release is any hint of what the extended TTT will be like, I'm sure I'll like it considerably more.

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The Reverend Julian said:

Myk, I doubt we could find any way to discuss the matter. I have the feeling we simply do not agree about what a movie should be. It appears to me TTT is what you expect from a movie and obviously that's not what I expect.
We could go on with arguments but if I read correctly we're just confronting tastes here. So I'll leave this discussion here and let others state their opinions.
Rest assure I respect your point of view and this final comment is not in anyway judgmental. It's just that I find our discussion rather pointless and I'm quite sure you do agree.
Cya in the forums for another silly confrontation ;)

My respect for this man grows and grows... some of the most mature words ever seen on these forums.
However, my curiosity asks what movies are you satisfied with? :)

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The Reverend Julian said:

Myk, I doubt we could find any way to discuss the matter. I have the feeling we simply do not agree about what a movie should be. It appears to me TTT is what you expect from a movie and obviously that's not what I expect.
We could go on with arguments but if I read correctly we're just confronting tastes here. So I'll leave this discussion here and let others state their opinions.


It isn't what I expect of a movie, though, it's a movie I like... I don't see it so much as part of me as to be "expecting." It's precisely what I don't expect that I like, like when I said some of the characters felt better than I had imagined them before.

The Reverend Julian said:

Rest assure I respect your point of view and this final comment is not in anyway judgmental. It's just that I find our discussion rather pointless and I'm quite sure you do agree.
Cya in the forums for another silly confrontation ;)


* myk polishes his shield and sharpens his blade for the next time

It's pointless though, ey? Ah well, doesn't seem so from this side... In any case, what we can do in these situations is see shades of what another sees differently, more than reach conclusions. Generally I tend to get questioning if I see someone has a very different viewpoint than me and it isn't obvious to me what leads this person to see things in another light.

Lüt, hmm, hoom, I doubt the core idea behind those changes you suggest could in any way be applied to a LotR movie... it just wouldn't even be The Lord of the rings anymore... I mean the "rationalistic" bent you'd prefer. It's totally oppsed to the basics of what Tolkien wrote... It really surprises me how these things can affect people so differently. As if our brains had different chemicals in them.

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