Yet another Sunday night post
Dec. 21st, 2003 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
learnedaxLots of stuff on my mind, but the only thing that wants to be a post right now is some additional thoughts on RotK after last night's second viewing.
By and large my opinion is the same as after the first viewing. I noticed a few places where I thought it could have been tightened (do we have to cut to Gandalf's concerned face in slow motion quite so many times?) but by and large it's still a pretty solid film. So, that said, here are minor quibbles I found with it.
I was wrong, Merry and Pippin haven't really gotten better since the first film. What they got was a more impressive list of accomplishments. Unfortunately they grate on me almost every time they appear, and most of their great moments try to be cute, and thus just irritate me.
The Palantír (hey, PJ, it's not a Palántir!) is nice to see in there and all, but not only does the scene last too long, Aragorn of all people shouldn't act like he's being electrocuted by it. And since when does Legolas have Sauron-detecting powers?
The mûmakil are actually not as bad as I thought on first glance, although they still remind of AT-ATs, somehow. They're too large, but for film I can see why.
What is Gandalf talking about with dying and going to the white shores and green meadows? Is he saying everyone gets to go to the undying lands? Is he just lying to make Pippin feel better? Huh? And "death is a path we all must take" only if we exclude elves. And wizards, for that matter.
Middle-earth seems far too small. Minas Morgul can be easily seen from Minas Tirith, Mordor seems to take about 2 hours to cross, and Faramir seemingly rides out to Osgiliath before Denethor even finishes his dinner. At the same time, it takes about 12 signal fires to light the way from Rohan to Gondor, when it's only a three-day ride. Dramatic, but silly.
Oh, and as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tpau pointed out where did Frodo get his clothes back from, since they change out of Orc gear halfway up Mount Doom? Maybe this is explained in the extended edition. Maybe not.
By and large my opinion is the same as after the first viewing. I noticed a few places where I thought it could have been tightened (do we have to cut to Gandalf's concerned face in slow motion quite so many times?) but by and large it's still a pretty solid film. So, that said, here are minor quibbles I found with it.
I was wrong, Merry and Pippin haven't really gotten better since the first film. What they got was a more impressive list of accomplishments. Unfortunately they grate on me almost every time they appear, and most of their great moments try to be cute, and thus just irritate me.
The Palantír (hey, PJ, it's not a Palántir!) is nice to see in there and all, but not only does the scene last too long, Aragorn of all people shouldn't act like he's being electrocuted by it. And since when does Legolas have Sauron-detecting powers?
The mûmakil are actually not as bad as I thought on first glance, although they still remind of AT-ATs, somehow. They're too large, but for film I can see why.
What is Gandalf talking about with dying and going to the white shores and green meadows? Is he saying everyone gets to go to the undying lands? Is he just lying to make Pippin feel better? Huh? And "death is a path we all must take" only if we exclude elves. And wizards, for that matter.
Middle-earth seems far too small. Minas Morgul can be easily seen from Minas Tirith, Mordor seems to take about 2 hours to cross, and Faramir seemingly rides out to Osgiliath before Denethor even finishes his dinner. At the same time, it takes about 12 signal fires to light the way from Rohan to Gondor, when it's only a three-day ride. Dramatic, but silly.
Oh, and as
tpau pointed out where did Frodo get his clothes back from, since they change out of Orc gear halfway up Mount Doom? Maybe this is explained in the extended edition. Maybe not.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-21 09:13 pm (UTC)They reminded you of AT-ATs because they FOUGHT them just like AT-ATs ... a lot of those sequences seemed very Lucas-inspired. .... (good early "Empire" Lucas, not the crappy stuff)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-21 09:14 pm (UTC)also, i really liek Legolas. really i do, he is wicked cool. BUT. He jsut shoudl not have that moment of contemplative smirk, while looking at what ammounts to be a hobbit orgy on a bed. Gimli and Aragorn shoudl not hav ethat look either. in fact, why are we having a short person's orgy in there at all? and why is gandalf lookign on like an evil pervy old man? oye.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-21 09:26 pm (UTC)The spelling palantír has mislead many, making them think that this word is to be accented on "tír". Here is something Ian McKellen, playing Gandalf in the Peter Jackson LotR movie trilogy, wrote as the film was being shot:
...I have to learn a new pronunciation. All this time we have being
saying "palanTÍR" instead of the Old English stress on the first syllable.
Just as the word was about to be committed to the soundtrack, a correction came from Andrew Jack, the Dialect Coach; he taught me a Norfolk accent for Restoration, and for LOTR he supervises accents, languages and all things vocal. Palantír, being strictly of elvish origin should follow Tolkien's rule that the syllable before a double consonant should be stressed – "paLANTír" making a sound which is close to "lantern"...
Andrew Jack was right. Palantír cannot be stressed on the final syllable; virtually no polysyllabic Quenya words are accented in such a way [lengthy explanation] So it is indeed "palANTír". (But in the plural form palantíri, where the long í suddenly appears in the second-to-last syllable, it does receive the accent: "palanTÍRi".)
no subject
Date: 2003-12-21 09:42 pm (UTC)Pervy hobbit fancy-ers, the lot of them.
Assume you all have seen http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/diaries/ ... if not, go read, funny as hell.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-21 09:46 pm (UTC)That was my feeling, though I doubt PJ intended me to have it.
...it takes about 12 signal fires to light the way from Rohan to Gondor, when it's only a three-day ride. Dramatic, but silly.
The number of signal fires didn't bother me, but their surroundings did. Yup, these vitally important communications devices, which clearly must be manned 24/7, are placed on top of extremely high, craggy mountains -- with no other structures! Do the people manning them really go a quarter-mile up and down every shift? Not to mention freezing their butts off while they're up there...
no subject
Date: 2003-12-21 09:51 pm (UTC)As to the "orgy" scene, I just kept thinking "Sam will kill *all* of them!
no subject
Date: 2003-12-21 11:11 pm (UTC)Osgiliath is closer, but having Faramir ride to Osgiliath is kind of dumb anyway - let's assault complex terrain on horseback, but first let's ride across an open plain with no shield wall to protect us from bow fire. I mean, hell, we only lost defending the convoluted home terrain with two thousand heavy infantry versus an amphibious assault, we are definitely up to the task of dying horribly here. It's okay, we can get more horses from Rohan if we need to, and we have an endless supply of plate mail, and we really have too many infantry compared to archers anyhow.
If it makes you feel any better, none of that happens in the actual book.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 03:46 am (UTC)Never mind things like Lembas being apparently made from corn meal.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 06:34 am (UTC)Well, Theoden specifies it's a very hard 3-day ride, so let's say 75-100 miles per day. Looking at the map backs this up, with a crow's-flight distance of ~250 miles.
Visibility in perfect conditions is about 50 miles. Those mountains are obviously NOT perfect conditions, with snowy fog, so let's say 10-30 miles. It looked like about 20 miles between signal fires. 250 miles / 20 miles = 12 signal fires. Makes sense to me!
If you look at this map, you can see the probable locations of about half of the fires; it only makes sense to tie them to the outposts of Amon Din, Nardol, Erelas, etc., etc.
Mordor seems to take about 2 hours to cross
This bugged me; I would have like two fewer shots of Frodo going "Oh god, it's heavy!" and two more 4-second-long shots of Frodo and Sam slogging across the plains of Mordor.
I believe Gandalf espouses his views on death, at least as drawn by Peter Jackson, accurately. He seems too at peace with it to be just flat-out lying. Likewise, it ties in with the death-is-a-journey theme of the whole movie (and, in fact, the meta-story of Peter Jackson coming to terms with the end of the series).
Frodo's clothes: I assume they found them, and he wore them *under* the orc gear. Yeah, could have used a 5 second explanatory shot.
The tribute to the AT-ATs I found more amusing than anything else. I was waiting for someone (probably Legolas) to climb up to the underbelly of one and throw a sapper charge in.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 07:44 am (UTC)More slogging. Also more delusions/illusions when Sauron is trying to get at him through the ring. More Sauron in general -- all we got is the Eye on the tower.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 07:58 am (UTC)The AT-AT strategy I expected was roping around the legs. I didn't see anyone do this, and it's not very practical without enormous ropes on hand, but still...
no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 10:04 am (UTC)