Fellowship of the Ring Film: Thoughts?

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Gambit37
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Fellowship of the Ring Film: Thoughts?

Post by Gambit37 »

How many of you have seen it? I just saw it last night and thought it was excellent. I've always been a fan of the book, and feel that the film version - while abridged - is a worthy adaptation of the classic fantasy novel.

Clearly for daramatic reasons, many things have been changed. Tolkien was extremely descriptive in his prose but this made the book very long and it's unnecessary in the film. The whole initial part is quite different, favouring a chance meeting with Pippin and Merry rather than the organised house moving from the book. Tom Bombadil and the capture by the trees is missed out (arguably it doesn't add anything to the film), and Frodo's rescue by Arwen is pure poetic license. I guess this is to introduce the Arwen/Aragorn romance earlier than in the book. There's some extra stuff in the film too with Saruman and his building of the orc army.

Some parts of the film were exactly as I imagined them, especially the Mines of Moria, although the battle with the Cave Troll is added in the film - it's a Great Orc in the book. Gripping stuff though....

On the whole a fab film. While it doesn't reflect the book exactly, it's action adventure at its best and I can't wait to go and see it again.

Anyone else?
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beowuuf
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Mixed feelings really

Post by beowuuf »

I am definitely looking forward to the next two films (especially as this trilogy, unlike most others, doesn't have a self contained first part!).

I agree, I didn't mind any alterations or abridgements as it still felt like the same story. But the problem was that I felt the only reason I was grounded in most parts of it was because I knew the books, the film itself seemed to breeze through just a bit too much so lots of the dramatics were lost. Oh, they are being chased? Eh, there's not anymore, ho hum...etc.

I reeally want to see it again though.

There was alot right with this film, the casting on the whole was good (I actually liked Sam's character, whereas he always annoyed me by the end of the books!), the set peices were very good (the mines of moria for example was fantastic) and the whole look was definitely epic (one of the films you really want to see in the cinema just to get that immenseness of scale).

I think though, if it wasn't LOTR, then I would have just liked it as a good blockbuster for the year, but I don't know if it would have stood out in my mind beyond that.
Like I say, wanna see it again first : )
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From the edge of the world

Post by Zyx »

I have to wait till january 17th to have the opportunity to see it!
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cowsmanaut
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Post by cowsmanaut »

when I saw it I had expected it to be good and was hoping it wouldn't flop.. I was in no way dissapointed. I think though that because it has been such a looooong time since I read the books It's still a bit foggy in my mind.. I don't remember everything right away untill it happens. So as such, I don't have preconceptions of what should happen next.. I just wait an see.

I went and saw it with a friend who had read the books much more recently and even he agreed that this was a great adaptation. I think it's much better than the animated one I own.. that one often is a good way to catch a few winks..
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Post by ChristopheF »

I have never read the books, but indeed this was a very good epic movie.
I found it is a bit too long, there are some slow moments. But friends of mine who read the books told me this was part of the good adaptation, because they also found the books to be too long
Definitely, this is the kind of movie that should be seen on a big screen. I hope the DVD will be as good!

Christophe
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Post by Zyx »

the movie is out in my country, so I will at last be able to watch it. Comments will follow soon...
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Comments, joys and rants

Post by Zyx »

I finally saw the Lord of the Rings (in february 2002!), and yes I liked it.
I'm impressed by the sum of work invested in the scenes. No wonder it took 3 years to
film the first part! The wilderness shots really gave me the desire to go to camp. This
is the first time I see my both passions reunited: the fantasy and the wilderness.
Changes from the book seem justified, mostly in order to gain time. (ie, Bombadil)
Gandalf is more human and I found him very well interpreted, Aragorn feels less noble, Saruman is more manicheic, Boromir is
more transparent. Hobbits seem more alive and joyful than I remember. Frodo is well performed,
Legolas also was very convincing. The influence of the rings on the characters is well
transmitted.
The only doubtful changes are the cave troll (shouldn't he turn to stone when hitting the
sunbeam on the dwarf tomb?). Maybe more impressive, but some of the greatness of the fights
in Tolkien was that the warriors were struggling against peers, against warriors of equal
strength. The fight against so huge things, however, make us forget the human dimension
about it. It becomes too fantastic to find an echo in ourselves. Or maybe, put in other
words, the fight against orcs is the fight of man against himself. The fight against trolls
and dragons is the fight against Nature. The Goblins climbing the walls didn't felt right
either. And the part of the bridge, when Frodo and Aragorn direct the crumbling masonnery
by leaning their bodies, it felt a little childish.
I wonder if people who didn't read the book have found the movie very coherent. There are
several details quite ununderstandable, like Legolas walking over the snow: it just looked
as if he chosed to walk the easy path while the other prefered the hard one...
All in all, at last I saw a movie of the kind I'd like to see more often!

I'd like to make a free rant here...

At the beginning of times, going to the movies was a good alternative
to suicide. Now there is an ugly aspect in it - uglier than reality. I
mean, the commercial part.
Once upon a time the benefits of a movie were a lucky consequence,
more or less directly related to the quality of the movie. People would
mostly make a movie because they were passionned, they were mad, and they wanted
to share. It was an experimental art. Now it looks like people in the
movie industry are passioned by money, they're very pragmatical and want
to sell. It's a commercial technology.
The hollywoodian art is dominated by recipes, protocoles,
contract clauses, merchandizing studies, and they're ready to sacrifice
anything from the story (coherence, depth, poetry, historical facts)
as long as it will increase the sellings. Actors from this milieu are
stereotyped. Indeed, they're paid to act as their own person once they're
famous. Look at Sean Connery or Antonio Banderas for example. I'm tired
of the old gentleman knight and the latino, sensual macho.
So, should I commit suicide or go to the mocie? Or maybe going to
the movie has become some sort of suicide?
As a child, when I read Tolkien's books, nobody knew about him.
One person out of one hundred had heard of an elf or a hobbit. It was an
underground culture. People wrote "Frodo lives!" in the subway walls of
London! It was some kind of rebellion against a society of poor values
and poetry.
Now the "Tolkien products" are well knon and well sold, the Tolkien
industry has produced hundreds of games (any worthy?), the once inspired
artists are now full time selling artists, the kids of Tolkien have grown
up into some hideous scavengers. Soon I probably have to "think different,
think Tolkien" if I don't want to be a moron.
I was afraid that the movie LoR part I would be a good "rewrite as
best seller" of the book. News were they would cut off those embarassing
descriptions, replace the poems with the Spice Girls, add "true love" and
action, exagerate a little more an already very manicheic vision of the world,
and they found a slogan Tolkien would be soooo proud of: "let's go party,
or else adventure will find you". A 5 years old child would do better.
I'm glad Peter Jackson could resist the pressure.
The movie itself is a jool of aesthetic of course, a masterpiece
of artwork. But it could have been just like another hundred of movies
ashamed of filming a real light with a real sound with a shaky camera
with real characters in real life problems
(I'm not talking about fantasy here but the artificiality).
So what is left in those movies? Nothing but good images and music and
two hours of Voidness (anyone remember the theme of the Neverending Story?).
No depth at all, no real beauty, nothing ever convincing, nothing to be reminded of -
maybe it's calculated so you have to go back to watch it again?
Again, thanks to Peter Jackson for reversing the tendance!
Well, thanks for the rant space. It felt good
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Just got hold of the early cartoon film

Post by beowuuf »

I forgot how cartoony it was in places (Gandalf especially!)
Funnily, I saw it when I was very, very young, so by the time I started to read the books the memories of the cartoon were the faces I had for the book, but I remembered them slightly differently.
And Sam annoys the hell out of me in the cartoon : )
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Post by cowsmanaut »

I own it too.. it's a good way to fall asleep. I do nearly everytime I watch it. :P

It was so much more wonderfull though when I first saw it as a kid.. I wonder what changes in us that we are lessing willing to accept crappy work as we get older. (shrug)
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Who knows...snobbery I guess : )

Post by beowuuf »

Yeah, seeing that film when i was...however young meant I was eager to read the hobbit when my dad got hold of it, and then made me jump on a 20p...20p!...copy of the entire trilogy in primary 6-7 in a jumble sale.

Then again, I haven't read the books recently...I wonder if i'd find them as good now either...
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rotoscopy

Post by cowsmanaut »

well, the thing is the cartoon movie was made by using a method called rotoscopy. They hired some really bad actors to act out these scenes on stages then the photocopied the individual frames to paper and then created cels from those. So they weren't really animated so much as traced.

So that along with the fact that Tolkiens dialogue was less interesting that his description of the world around them and the descriptions of their emotions and thoughts. It just made it doomed to failure since the interesting stuff came from the part they slacked on.

I mean for me the world was the most interesting to me than what they were talking about. Which makes sense if you consider the fact the Tolkein was more or less obsessed with maps and details like that.

(shrug)

I think that had they spent more time to make it beautifull, and had developed the dialogue a bit more as they have in the new movies then it would have been much more worthwhile.
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Post by Zyx »

I remember liking the Gollum character from the toon...
Am I wrong or was it worth it?
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Post by cowsmanaut »

yeah he was in the Hobbit.. made by the same people.. but I think that one was much more worthwhile.

They had planned to do all of the books but they lost support after lord of the rings.. Gee.. I wonder why. I think the hobbit was the best one. Too hard to find though these days.

Then again my memories of that one could also be distorted due to my youthfullness at the time.
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didn't know there was a hobbit film!

Post by beowuuf »

The hobbit story is much more suited to a cartoony feel, anyway
Hmm, time to check imdb : )
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