From: "Chad Cooper" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > From: Doug Pensinger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > It's been almost a year since I've seen it, so I can't remember > everything, but several things stuck in my mind. The Warg > battle was not > in the book, not necessary to develop the story and didn't > add anything to > it other than another action sequence. Likewise with Aragorn > falling in > the river. Gimli as comic relief didn't work for me at all. > I thought > that the Ents were going to be cool when Pipin and Merry > first met up with > Treebeard, but the Entmoot was poorly done (were there more > than six Ents > in attendance?)
And it took more than a few hours as portrayed.
Best part about the Ent scenes: -they looked fantastic.
Worst parts:
- They used John Rhys-Davies for Treebeard's voice. I'm thinking "Hey - it's Tree-Gimli!" Surely they could have found some other top voice talent who didn't already have a major role in the movie.
- The change to make Merry & Pippin "trick" Treebeard into going to Isengard, getting mad, and attacking. How would Pippin know that Isengard had pillaged all the surrounding trees, when obviously even the Ents didn't?
>and the result was contrary (and far inferior) to the > book.
I'll interject here and say I was disappointed in the way they portrayed the
search party finding Gandalf in the forest.
That didn't bug me. I didn't miss the stuff about them seeing Saruman earlier
and the spooked horses, etc. at all.
> Eomer's story was inexplicably altered for the worse. > Theodin's > awakening was overdone as was his reaction to his son's death at the > funeral mounds. All the stuff with Elrond and Arwen was overdone and > stupid.
True.. All one really has to know is that Arwen gave up immortality for
Aragon, and Elrond was pissed. They could have illustrated why Aragon
wandered for 20+ years as a Ranger. This is more interesting to me. However,
these facts were in the appendixes of the book, and not part of the story
directly. It does not add much to the story.
I don't really mind the Arwen/Aragorn changes, for the most part. LOTR is
rather short on female roles. I remember when my mom (not a fantasy buff)
read it, her first comment was "There are almost no women in these books".
I don't blame Peter Jackson for wanting to broaden the movie appeal beoynd
the geek base some by expanding the small bits of romance that are in the
novels. Fortunately Liv Tyler couldn't handle swordplay, so they canned their
plans to stick Arwen in assorted battles.
> The best part of the movie was the Frodo/Sam/Gollum thread, but they > managed to screw that up at the end by changing the story again. The > ending was in the wrong place and completely ruined the story > for me. If > the movie was too long to end it in the right place, they > should have just > gotten rid of all the crap they made up and ended it in the > right place.
True, they spend far too much time building up the drama of the impending
Helm's deep war. The whole scene with Aragon and the young boy was stupid.
The place to end is that Frodo is dead, Sam is lost, orcs everywhere, and
Gollem on the loose. I mean, what a cliffhanger! Instead, Frodo will be dead
for only a few minutes screen time in the final movie.
That would have definitely been a better ending. I think the reason they saved
Shelob for ROTK is that there is very little story left for Sam and Frodo after
Shelob. (Mostly the dreary march through the desert, and the goofy
part of the book where Sam and Frodo are mistaken for Orcs and march along
with them.)
> The frustrating thing is that all the elements were there to > make a great > movie - the Orcs, Orthanic, Helms Deep, Edoras, Minas Turith, > the Gates of > Mordor, the Marshes of the Dead, Fangorn, etc. etc., and the > actors were > all excellent.
What about the ending of the Helm's deep conflict. Gandalf arrives, they rush down the hill and the orcs lose. Why deviate from the real story? I would have rather seen the interpetation of the Ent's nighttime wholesale killing of the Orc army, piling up the bodies and lighting them on fire....
Well, they drive the Orcs into the mystery huorn "Orc Motel - Orcs check in -
but the don't check out" forest. Or was that only in the extended edition?
Instead, one gets the feeling that orcs are easily defeated if you take them
by a surprise flanking attack, instead of everyone thinking, damn, if it
wasn't for a bunch of pissed off trees, the humans would be all be dead
already. God help the humans when they meet up with the orcs again!
I never quite had that feeling from the book. IIRC, when Gandalf shows up,
the tide starts to turn, and the Ents are the coup de grace, rather than sole
saviors of humanity.
> All they had to do was tell the story, but > they f**ked it > up. It was that much more disappointing after how well they > followed the > story in TFotR.
I agree. I left the theater mad. There was no real good reason for any of the changes they made. The story is so much better than what they did portray.
Some things bugged me, but they did a lot more things right than they did wrong. I've read a bunch about PJ's justifications for why he changed what he did, and while I often agree, I can understand why he did many of them. Relatively few seem arbitrary.
> Now they've got to spend a good bit of time finishing book > two in movie > three and I'm sure they'll have to axe a bunch of stuff out > of that to > make it short enough. No Scouring of the Shire, I'll bet, or if it's > there it will be severely truncated.
If you didn't read my last post: The Saruman palantir scene is now cut out, and the scouring of the shire was never filmed.
I feel there is just too much in the last book to do in 120 minutes, especially since they have the last part of Two Towers to complete. While critics are praising the movie already, I suspect I will be disappointed.
Well, it'll be *at least* 180 minutes. I heard rumors that it will be more like
210! That's plenty of time for the remaining material.
I'm trying to think what will need to be covered, given what we know is missing:
- Reuniting of Merry/Pippin with Aragorn & co, then splitting Merry/Pippin up
- Paths of the dead
- Theoden's ride to Gondor (& "Dernhelm" stuff)
- Frodo killed by Shelob & Sam's subsequent rescue. (I suspect this is going
to be an extended bit of the movie covering this)
- Frodo & Sam's dreary march through Mordor
- Frodo & Sam march with the Orcs
- Honkin-big battle at Gondor, with Aragorn and Theoden arriving,
- Witchking/Eowyn battle, Theoden death scene
- Denethor's despair, Faramir on the pyre
- Faramir/Eowyn house healing stuff (IIRC, I saw a rumor this is cut out)
- Aragorn's march to challenge (distract) Sauron, and the battle at the Black
Gate.
- Frodo/Sam/Gollum at Mount Doom, deus ex eagles
- Aragorn's coronation and presumable marriage to Arwen
I think that's doable in 3 - 3.5 hours without shortchanging things or making any
other cuts. Overall, I'm expecting that it will be a great movie.
-Bryon
_________________________________________________________________
From the hottest toys to tips on keeping fit this winter, you�ll find arange of helpful holiday info here. http://special.msn.com/network/happyholidays.armx
_______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
