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Shibawanko posted:They're not visually boring because of a lack of effort but because they're cliched. They look too much like fantasy videogames and the Aragorn fight looks a bit like it should have quick time prompts. I feel like you are taking modern cliches and judging a movie made in 1998 by things that became cliche after the movies came out. What video games were the movies copying in 1997 when it was being designed? What cliches are we discussing? Orcs, elves, and dwarves were not common knowledge at that time unless you were a fantasy fan. And even then properties like Warhammer were using Tolkien derived illustrations as inspiration for decades so it is not a surprise there was overlap in things like the design of the dwarven armor and buildings. I get all the complaints about the various story decisions that were made over the course of the movies. I'm not a fan of all of them either, especially the treatment of Faramir. And I'm not going to die on the hill of defending the fight choreography, there are a lot of silly things like dudes in full plate armor getting slashed open by lovely swords. Believe me I can nerd out about weapons and armor in movies for hours, and about the typical Hollywood cliches regarding them, which Lord of the Rings used constantly. However I think they are perfectly passable and the large battle set pieces are fun as hell.
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Feb 23, 2019 17:15
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Attaching the clip so we are discussing the same thing. As the audience, I can say that it's not impressive. The size isn't revealed gradually, it's revealed when they're both shown, as does what they're being scaled against. First they're scaled against the cliffs at close, then the boats at a distance, then the cliffs at a distance, then the boats closer up, and then against mountains. The odd thing is that there's a moment in the movie that already shows how to establish scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whF2na8AIbw&t=130s. There's a fakeout where the audience is shown a tower that's seems as tall as a mountain because it's set against Mount Doom, and they assume that it's the top of a massive fortress. Then the camera pulls back to reveal that the great tower is just a small part of a titanic citadel. It's like they forgot how to make things look proper big midway through the movie. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Feb 23, 2019 |
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Feb 23, 2019 17:16
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Guys don’t engage with BravestoftheLamps he argues in bad faith and always moves the goalposts. Put him on ignore and don’t quote him so other folks don’t have to see him either.
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Feb 23, 2019 17:24
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That shot of Barad-dûr is very nearly ruined by the VO of Gollum saying Shire and Baggins like those are LITERALLY the only two words he said under torture, as opposed to being the only two intelligible names in a string of useless gibbering as was pretty clearly described in the books *sits silently for an hour until the torturer begins breaking my fingers* BASEMENT UNDER STEVE'S DINER
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Feb 23, 2019 17:34
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He’s right that the Argonath aren’t made to look enormously impressive compared to Barad-dur but I don’t know that they should. The Argonath sure are big statues and they do impress and awe the characters, but Tolkien describes Barad-dur as something impossibly huge, almost impossible to visualize. Even from a considerable distance, Sam’s description of it is of multifarious parts, as if he’s unable to grasp the whole thing. That “fakeout” is a good shot that somewhat conveys the same idea and I’ve never really thought about it before. Anyway I’m not saying all the fight scenes in Jackson’s movies are gratuitous or badly shot, but the one with the boss uruk is. They already added a big old fight scene into the end of Fellowship to give it an action packed climax, but that’s not enough, Aragorn’s got to brawl with a campy sexually ambiguous orc too. All part of Jackson’s cunning plan to assassinate Ugluk’s character, no doubt about it.
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Feb 23, 2019 17:36
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skasion posted:, Aragorn’s got to brawl with a campy sexually ambiguous orc too. how much baggage are you bringing up this hill
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Feb 23, 2019 20:56
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WoodrowSkillson posted:I feel like you are taking modern cliches and judging a movie made in 1998 by things that became cliche after the movies came out. What video games were the movies copying in 1997 when it was being designed? What cliches are we discussing? Orcs, elves, and dwarves were not common knowledge at that time unless you were a fantasy fan. And even then properties like Warhammer were using Tolkien derived illustrations as inspiration for decades so it is not a surprise there was overlap in things like the design of the dwarven armor and buildings. I dunno, as far as I remember those things were already cliche even back then. As far as the visuals go the movies aren't over the top bad or anything, but they aren't very creative either. The books give very little information on what the characters actually look like so they could have tried all sorts of unusual designs, instead it all looks kind of bland imo. And a few things are just plain ridiculous, like Galadriel freaking out like she's a videogame character.
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Feb 23, 2019 21:39
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Duodecimal posted:how much baggage are you bringing up this hill You implying he's not fabulous?
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Feb 23, 2019 22:32
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The elves are depicted badly and Legolas is a big part of the reason why I don't like those movies but the other elves kind of suck too. Which is a shame since the elves in the book are cool.
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Feb 24, 2019 00:10
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The age of men is threatened when brave Boromir is penetrated repeatedly by Lurtz (and friends) who is undoubtedly a figure straddling male and female sexuality (ponytail, pouty lips, long elegant fingernails), and who derives strength from devouring manflesh (rather than it being an act of shame). There's birthing scenes, blood-drinking etc. PJ's one step away from filming the Uruk Hai worshipping the moon. Shelob is the other major man-eater in the trilogy. Similar penetration imagery utilised.
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Feb 24, 2019 00:21
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This is going back to a conversation several cycles ago, about The Hobbit, but I started reading The History of the Hobbit (never having realized it existed when I was reading HME a decade or more ago) and Rateliff makes a very compelling case that The Hobbit was always intended to be set in the same world as his other stories (Gondolin and Beren and Luthien and such, since calling it The Silmarillion would be anachronistic). Thror's map, one of the first works produced for The Hobbit, matches up quite nicely with being just off the eastern edge of the maps he was using for his first age stories at the time. And the necromancer was always Sauron--in an early draft Gandalf (then called Bladorthin) says that Beren and Luthien broke the necromancer's power after he met Thror in his dungeons. Most of the connections ended up removed (except for Gondolin) but the situation seems to be (and Tolkien admits as much in one of his letters cited in History of the Hobbit) that his legendarium used up such a large portion of his creative mind that he had to consciously try, with great effort, to not accidentally put his works into it if he wanted them to be separate. So maybe it's more accurate to say, rather than intending everything he wrote to be in the same universe, he couldn't help himself referencing the world most important to him, and avoided outright contradictions because he wanted to keep everything in order--which, to the reader, is practically the same thing.
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Feb 24, 2019 01:19
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cheetah7071 posted:This is going back to a conversation several cycles ago, about The Hobbit, but I started reading The History of the Hobbit (never having realized it existed when I was reading HME a decade or more ago) and Rateliff makes a very compelling case that The Hobbit was always intended to be set in the same world as his other stories (Gondolin and Beren and Luthien and such, since calling it The Silmarillion would be anachronistic). Thror's map, one of the first works produced for The Hobbit, matches up quite nicely with being just off the eastern edge of the maps he was using for his first age stories at the time. And the necromancer was always Sauron--in an early draft Gandalf (then called Bladorthin) says that Beren and Luthien broke the necromancer's power after he met Thror in his dungeons. Thanks, this was a really good post, and interesting. The more I learn about Tolkien the more confident I'm feeling with my "the only things separating Tolkien and Henry Darger were a couple hundred IQ points and an Oxford education." theory. The Lord of the Rings is a great work but there's an element of mania at the core of it. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Feb 24, 2019 |
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Feb 24, 2019 01:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Thanks, this was a really good post, and interesting. Hmm! That's a very worthwhile link. Your theory has definite merit. Sort of reminds me of how amateur Tolkien's illustrations are, and yet they really work, somehow. sassassin posted:The age of men is threatened when brave Boromir is penetrated repeatedly by Lurtz (and friends) who is undoubtedly a figure straddling male and female sexuality (ponytail, pouty lips, long elegant fingernails), and who derives strength from devouring manflesh (rather than it being an act of shame). There's birthing scenes, blood-drinking etc. PJ's one step away from filming the Uruk Hai worshipping the moon. I was going to write that this is a ridiculous comment, BUT THEN AGAIN, years later, I can still remember the sound one of my friends made at the knife-licking scene...
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Feb 24, 2019 02:15
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cheetah7071 posted:This is going back to a conversation several cycles ago, about The Hobbit, but I started reading The History of the Hobbit (never having realized it existed when I was reading HME a decade or more ago) and Rateliff makes a very compelling case that The Hobbit was always intended to be set in the same world as his other stories (Gondolin and Beren and Luthien and such, since calling it The Silmarillion would be anachronistic). Thror's map, one of the first works produced for The Hobbit, matches up quite nicely with being just off the eastern edge of the maps he was using for his first age stories at the time. And the necromancer was always Sauron--in an early draft Gandalf (then called Bladorthin) says that Beren and Luthien broke the necromancer's power after he met Thror in his dungeons. Right I got about that far and got into the weeds with the gondolin reference. It appears that gondolin was part of the hobbit world but the hobbit world wasn’t the end of the third age, well thought out version we have after LOTR is published. It’s ambiguous to me in the end whether the swords are from gondolin.
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Feb 24, 2019 02:22
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:the specious idea that you're supposed to empathize with characters in fiction. skasion posted:a campy sexually ambiguous orc euphronius posted:It’s ambiguous to me in the end whether the swords are from gondolin.  to all of these
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Feb 24, 2019 02:36
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cheetah7071 posted:This is going back to a conversation several cycles ago, about The Hobbit, but I started reading The History of the Hobbit (never having realized it existed when I was reading HME a decade or more ago) and Rateliff makes a very compelling case that The Hobbit was always intended to be set in the same world as his other stories (Gondolin and Beren and Luthien and such, since calling it The Silmarillion would be anachronistic). Thror's map, one of the first works produced for The Hobbit, matches up quite nicely with being just off the eastern edge of the maps he was using for his first age stories at the time. And the necromancer was always Sauron--in an early draft Gandalf (then called Bladorthin) says that Beren and Luthien broke the necromancer's power after he met Thror in his dungeons. I think it may be more that his legendarium was his default, so he casually swiped cool names and setup details from it while he was writing The Hobbit*, then tried to shift it away from his "serious" stuff more in the later prepublication drafts and revisions. And then ended up dumping it right back in when he was writing the "Hobbit sequel", just a few thousand years later. (*Rateliff mentions other examples of stories crossreferencing each other, like the Smaug cave painting in the Father Christmas Letters.) I do kind of regret that Bilbo and co aren't running around Doriath soon after Tol-in-Gaurhoth's collapse getting imprisoned by grumpy Thingol, just because the tonal dissonance amuses me so much, but it's no doubt best that got changed.
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Feb 24, 2019 13:58
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The Amazon LOTR page updated their map with the next line from the poem. Nine for mortal men doomed to die. https://www.amazon.com/adlp/lotronprime?fbclid=IwAR3QSgt5348BWjnha-seKDDgaQq3xfyIkExSCOaVLH6ND6Egc2ZDcQb83Mo It fills in the names of the coastal regions between the rivers. And probably most interestingly, refers to Lothlorien as Laurelindórenan, "Valley of Singing Gold". This probably further hints that this will take place well before the end of the Third Age.
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Feb 25, 2019 15:29
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Mahoning posted:The Amazon LOTR page updated their map with the next line from the poem. Nine for mortal men doomed to die. Maybe set in the second age during the Numenorean invasion?
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Feb 25, 2019 15:35
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Shibawanko posted:
1st season: forging of the Rings, death of Celebrimbor, war of the elves and sauron; season ends with founding of Rivendell and closure of the gates of Moria 2nd season : Numenor lands, takes Sauron captive, takes him back to Numenor; Akallabêth 3rd season: War of the Last Alliance That's my prediction anyway. You could probably stretch each of those arcs over more seasons if you wanted.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:04
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The Orgy of the Last Alliance
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Feb 25, 2019 16:09
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Anyone expecting the grand events of Tolkien's timeline to be shown on screen are going to be disappointed.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:17
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Man, just not having The Young Aragorn Chronicles is a giant win in my book, and i'm going to let myself get my hopes up now for them to be dashed to pieces
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Feb 25, 2019 16:22
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:1st season: forging of the Rings, death of Celebrimbor, war of the elves and sauron; season ends with founding of Rivendell and closure of the gates of Moria It's going to be tough to do this because these events stretch over a few hundred years or something as I recall. Probably the most TV-friendly way is to do like the series Rome did and focus on one or two main characters stumbling through a compressed version of historical events, I'm guessing that's what they will do here. They could maybe use the unfinished story of Tal-Elmar as a starting point. I have little doubt that it will suck though.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:22
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yeah it’s a cool 1800 years from the forging of the ring to the Akallabeth. And that’s after Celebrimbor worked on the rings for a century.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:29
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What's wrong with depicting a TV show taking place over the course of 1800 years when most of the characters don't age?
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Feb 25, 2019 16:32
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The series will have a narrow focus on the important journey of a small group of adventurers from all corners of middle earth society. There will be much walking, and much talking, some dodgy looking fights with plastic props, and if they've got the balls a musical number every episode as Tolkien intended.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:33
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seems inevitable it will be more Game of Thrones style big epic focusing on noble lords and heroes. the source material doesn't give much in the way of "common folk's perspective" until the Hobbits start being important anyway. Rome pulled it off because Caesar, Augustus, Cleopatra, Antony are almost mythical historical figures from a time we know quite a bit about the life of a common soldier. I can't see it working as well to follow some random elf who has family struggles at home and crosses paths with Celebrimbor occasionally. would like to be wrong, theres plenty of room for interesting stories not explicitly spelled out in Tolkien's writings.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:35
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Since it's called "Lord of the Rings", it would actually be interesting if it just followed Sauron in the Second Age and the forces against him. If you manage to cast Sauron correctly as someone insanely handsome but can also be super scary/creepy, it could work.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:38
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From Ar-Pharazon capturing Sauron to the end of the war of the Last Alliance is only about 200 years, which is basically one Numenorean lifespan. With a little compression you could have a first episode that recaps the creation of the rings, then do the adventures of Elendil and sons.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:39
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Mahoning posted:Since it's called "Lord of the Rings", it would actually be interesting if it just followed Sauron in the Second Age and the forces against him. If you manage to cast Sauron correctly as someone insanely handsome but can also be super scary/creepy, it could work. This seems like a strong call. We're gonna see Sauron's dick, aren't we. 
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Feb 25, 2019 16:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This seems like a strong call. As long as it's before the downfall...
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Feb 25, 2019 16:47
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Ynglaur posted:What video game before 2001 had quick time? WoodrowSkillson posted:I feel like you are taking modern cliches and judging a movie made in 1998 by things that became cliche after the movies came out. What video games were the movies copying in 1997 when it was being designed? Die Hard Arcade (1996) would have been the obvious frontrunner, and you could make a case for Dragon's Lair/Space Ace and other 1980s laserdisc games before it. I'm not sure the QTE had turned to "cliche" yet, but it was well-established by then at least.
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Feb 25, 2019 16:52
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Rome was artificially truncated and telescoped as they were canceled early.
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Feb 25, 2019 17:27
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This seems like a strong call. You bet your rear end. Galadriel's tits, too. Possibly even in the same scene. 
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Feb 25, 2019 18:37
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This seems like a strong call. Please it’s Annatar
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Feb 25, 2019 18:40
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Runcible Cat posted:You bet your rear end. lets get weird
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Feb 25, 2019 19:02
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Something something Mouth of Sauron.
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Feb 25, 2019 19:04
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Another interesting tidbit of the connection between The Hobbit and the larger Legendarium: I had believed that The Hobbit was the first appearance of Elrond, who later got backfit into the larger world. This is not the case. His first appearance was a few years earlier in the Sketch of the Mythology, already in his final form as the son of Earendil and Elwing.
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Feb 25, 2019 19:05
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the Handjob of Sauron
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Feb 25, 2019 22:20
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euphronius posted:Rome was artificially truncated and telescoped as they were canceled early. Yeah Vorenus and Pullo were supposed to end up in Judea in the final season during the crucifiction. That would have been pretty cool really.
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Feb 25, 2019 22:27
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