Off Forum - Lord of the Rings

Will · #1 January 9th, 2002, 05:58 AM

quote:
Originally posted by MegaTrain:
Despite some of these criticisms, I did enjoy the movie very much, and play to see it again soon. I did get to the theater late and miss the first few minutes, though. Was it just a retelling of the story of the Ring? I arrived as they showed Gollum under the mountain and Bilbo finding the Ring. Did I miss much?

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[ 08 January 2002: Message edited by: MegaTrain ]

The first few minutes was Galadriel narrating a little background. There was the whole "The world is changed" introduction, which some people just HAD to ruin by saying "They did that for the terrorist attacks!" (It was in the movie long before that, not everything has to be about suicidal maniacs diving planes into buildings...). Then, it tells of the forging of the Three, Seven, and Nine rings for the Elves, Dwarves, and Men; and the trechery of Sauron in forging the One Ring. Next was a mini battle sequence, showing the Elves and Men marching to Mordor, almost defeating Sauron's armies, then Sauron himself comes out (There's a comment below something to the effect of, "So THAT's what a +200 magic weapon looks like"). Isulder takes a swing at Sauron with the broken sword, cuts off the hand with the Ring, and there's a cool explosion of light that knocks everyone over, and Sauron's empty helmet falls to the ground. After that, it shows a brief sequence of the Orc ambush that killed Isulder and the Ring falling to the bottom of a stream, and it's finding by Gollum. Then you entered the theatre and saw the rest

And to answer the question, no, you didn't really miss much except the cool FX in the mini battle scene. It was mainly an introduction for those poor souls who haven't read the books yet (I have a one-volume of the trilogy, and a boxed set of the trilogy + hobbit; the one-volume, the hobbit, and the fellowship are all lent out, two towers probably will be lent out in a week... I'm doing my part to help those who have lived in the darkness for so long

)

Fyron · #2 January 9th, 2002, 07:40 AM

quote:
Q for the book readers: I don't know if anyone saw the animated Version; my girlfriend showed the Lord of the Rings to me after the movie. Some of the parts were eerily similar (e.g., the ringwraiths standing over the beds)...was the animation an influence on the movie or was Tolkien that accurate in the descriptions that two directors would see it the same way?

Tolkien wrote incredibly detailed descriptions in his books. That's part of what makes his books so great.

zen. · #3 January 9th, 2002, 06:15 PM

Great analysis, Megatrain! A pic of the epic battle scene you missed is at:
http://www.theforce.net/rouser/revie...-fight-big.jpg

For those of you interested in the CG of it, each of the warriors had a primitive AI...within a proprietary program, the agents would "...respond based on rules that use fuzzy values to approximate the way people make decisions", according to Computer Graphics World; "...thousands of warriors that, once set loose on a battlefield, would find an enemy, pick a fight, and fight to the death." They could even tell what type of ground they were standing on and when to strike, like an exposed front when the enemy hefted his weapon overhead, for example.

I had no idea they created the equivalent of a mini-game just for the battle sequences.

zen

jaolhe · #4 January 11th, 2002, 10:58 AM

Written by MegaTrain:

"Glorfindel was the son of Elrond, but plays no other part in the tale."

Where did you get this from? Glorfindel was in no way Elrond's son. He was a very powerful Noldorian prince from the first age. I'm almost sure he was also older than Elrond, most likely more powerful as well.

I'm sorry for this nitpicking...

You had vey good points in your review. I hated the Uruk-hai thing though. It wasn't included in the books nowhere near in the way it was presented in the movie. My opinion is that the whole super-orc thing was meant for stupid and illiterate people who just wanted to have some badass guy to whack head of in the end of the first movie.

Mephisto · #5 January 11th, 2002, 11:14 AM

quote:
Originally posted by jaolhe:
Written by MegaTrain:
You had vey good points in your review. I hated the Uruk-hai thing though. It wasn't included in the books nowhere near in the way it was presented in the movie. My opinion is that the whole super-orc thing was meant for stupid and illiterate people who just wanted to have some badass guy to whack head of in the end of the first movie.

Uh, well, it was in the books. :-)

zen. · #6 January 11th, 2002, 04:51 PM

That was one of my bud's problems with the movie. He was upset that Glorfindel, 'one badass elf', as he described him, wasn't in the movie. Maybe it's a good thing I don't know any better.

zen

MegaTrain · #7 January 11th, 2002, 07:08 PM

jaolhe - I guess you're right. I'll have to look back at the first book to see why I thought Glorfindel was Elrond's son. If I remember right, it was a phrase something like "Glorfindel of the House of Elrond."

Although Glorfindel did mention that Frodo's wound was "beyond my powers of healing", and that the Master of the House of Elrond would have healing powers far greater. I know that healing powers may not be the same as other power, but it seems therefore to me that Elrond was greater, at least in this respect, than Glorfindel.

And they certainly didn't play up the Uruk-Hai
"creation" in the book, but I do remember some discussion about Saruman combining orcs and men so they could run during the day, and the differences between the two Groups of orcs (Saruman's Uruk-hai with the white hand, and the orcs from Mordor) who were hauling away Merry and Pippin.