Lord of the Rings

[Ajax]

Does anyone have any juicy gossip (or facts) on the upcoming films The Two Towers and the Return of the King? I hear that they cut quite a lot of movie time from the final film. I hope it goes back into the DVD.

[SpiralDragon]

not me ... i am living on an owaisis with no means of comunication ... and it wont get here till late january

[Ajax]

Originally posted by SpiralDragon
not me ... i am living on an owaisis with no means of comunication ... and it wont get here till late january

I feel sorry for you, I have been waiting for this film for a long time...

[knirfie]

The films sucked in comparison to the book, well, part 1 did at least.

[Byock]

Originally posted by knirfie
The films sucked in comparison to the book, well, part 1 did at least.

I have to disagree. I think they did a very good job, considering how hard it is to make a book into a movie. It is a given that the book will be better. But, this one is the closest to following the book I have seen.

Just my .02

Besides, who listens to a chicken??

[knirfie]

closest to following the book? what was the same? hobbit gets a ring, has to go on an adventure. that's about all that was the same between movie and book.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Yeah! The movie sucked! They should have taken the book contents and put it on screen verbatim! Where's Tom Bombadil? Where's the Barrow Wrights? Where are the hours of mind-numbing elven music describing the ancient history of Middle Earth? Where are the other hours of scenes showing Frodo living in the Shire, putting up with annoying relatives before he finally gets off his butt and leaves? I can't believe the movie was only three hours long, it should have been at least 20!

[BuddMan]

Originally posted by knirfie
closest to following the book? what was the same? hobbit gets a ring, has to go on an adventure. that's about all that was the same between movie and book.

The extended version follows a lot more closely to the book, but besides that I think even the orginal follows pretty closely considering how Hollywood usually stretches things. I can't wait for The Two Towers.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

IMO the books are better than the movie. they are probably one of the best fantasy novel set written in the 20th century... the language are marvellous too...

[Wombat]

Oh yeah, the books are definitely better, nobody could expect otherwise. However, the movies so far seem to have hit a much higher mark than I was expecting from Hollywood.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

yup... usually movies just ruin the books for the sake of the intelligence of "average joes" (okie no offense intended).

[thop]

i hear there will be a ring.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

ALL YOUR RINGS ARE BELONG TO US

[rugger]

no way they could make a movie that lasts long enough to fully represent the book

Making one of these films would go somewhat like this:

1) Large sections of the book get scrapped.
2) The story doesn't fit together anymore, so they add some extra planks of wood and putty to fix it up.
3) They realize half the remaining scenes don't work well as a movie, so they get the putty out again, and smash with a hammer and putty it up again until it works as a movie.
4) They film and put together this contraption, and then test screen it to closed door audiences. They leave their feedback, and they get the hammer and putty out again to fix some of the complaints.
5) They realize the result is still far too long (4 hours or more) and again start dropping bits and peices on the floor, using more putty to fill in the gaps.
6) Finally, the finished movie is released, which quite rightly, is a fair bit removed from the book.
7) Then the makers get flamed into oblivion by the book's diehard addicts for not including every little detail that they thought was important.

I beleive the first LOTR movie was pretty good (I should read the book too one day) when you:
1) don't spend all day cross analyizing it with the book. Yep, its not the same as the book, get over it
2) realize that this was only the first part of 3, and that this was about character and story development.

Now, if you want me, I'll just be hiding from those die hard LOTR fanatics under this rock

[Gurm]

Ajax,

Final running time, like the first movie, is 179 minutes. Just under three hours - the magic number for a theatrical release nowadays. *shrug*

The total amount of film for this movie is, like the first one, about 4.5 hours, give or take. The total amount of film likely to make it into the "extended version" will, similarly to the first, likely be 3:30 or 3:40.

Knirfie,

Look, Jackson did an AMAZING job of translating this to film.

Let's get a few things straight:

Tom Bombadil:

SERVES NO PURPOSE IN THE NARRATIVE. NONE. Tolkien himself admitted that it just muddied up the story and made people ask stupid questions about a being that was put in as a bit of fun for his kids (Tom Bombadil was a silly doll that his kids used to play with, and he made up stories about the fellow...). Ask the real Tolkien geeks (for example the crew over at The Green Books (see end of post for link), and they'll tell you that he is utterly unimportant to the story. In fact it was a total devolution in terms of storytelling style. The ONLY important thing about the entire Tom sequence is the barrows, and even then only because they get the swords there.

Changes:

How, on film, are we supposed to show 50-year expanses of time? I mean COME ON. You HAVE to change stuff, in order to get it on film. In the book, Tolkien can get away with "and seasons came and went and when Frodo was 50..." but you can't DO that in a movie.

Jackson did an excellent job of keeping the FEEL of the book true in the film. Additionally, every single scene was EXACTLY the way I imagined it whilst reading the books. I got ****ing CHILLS when I saw the Argonath, because I had seen them in a dream after reading the book the first time and it looked EXACTLY LIKE THAT.

Of course, the fact that he had Lee and Howe doing art and sets doesn't hurt at all.

So... gimme a good example. Gimme a scene that was in the movie that was SUBSTANTIALLY different from the books, and I'll either give you a good reason why or explain why you're remembering the books wrong.

Can you tell I really like LOTR?

- Gurm

P.S.

The Green Books are available at TheOneRing...

http://www.theonering.net