Just wanted to mention that I think they made an excellent choice for Aragorn.
“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”
Oops…I meant in the casting for the film.
Also, unlike Mr. Rilch and others, I don’t object to Liv Tyler playing Arwen. Give her some credit.
The only thing I object about this movie is that I can’t seem to download the friggin’ trailer, as the servers are so darn overloaded, and unlike 90% of the US, I have a 56k connection that costs me money if I overuse it.
Ahem. Outside of that, I am looking forward to this movie series second only to the continuing Star Wars saga.
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Shadow of the Pigeon -
Weirdo of the Night
Well, it will be interesting to see how much if any of the constructed languages that Tolkien created are used in the movie.
I would have cast most of the roles older than Peter Jackson has. A 22-year-old Arwen? A 30-year-old Galadriel? I was thinking of some bombshell 50-ish actress for Galadriel - Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve, or Francesca Annis, perhaps.
Well, golly, GuanoLad, you were born in New Zealand. Go home for vacation and visit the set.
I downloaded the trailer yesterday. Looks pretty cool I guess; can’t really do much about it from this end.
Liv Tyler is a completely horrible choice to play Arwen. To me she seems neither particularly talented nor attractive and owes her career to gravy-training off her dad. What’s worse are the rumors that they are expanding her role in LOTR because the Hollywood chuckleheads deceided that there aren’t enough girls in LOTR! (How PC can you get?) I hope these rumors are false, though she was photographed armed and armored at the filming of the “Helm’s Deep” scene which in my opinion is just flat-out wrong and a sacrilege. Fooling with the details of the story to make it more palatable (in some head-up-the-ass, theoretical sense) to audiences is the gravest risk LOTR faces from this film treatment.
I agree with Wendell in that many of the roles have been cast too young. The bony-macaroni Cate Blanchett is not nearly pretty enough to play Galadriel. Could be worse I guess, they could have cast - no! I can’t say it.
The guy they got to play Frodo is also a little on the too-young side, but I can appreciate how very hard it is these days to find a young actor in Hollywood with a reasonably enlightened head on his shoulders. So that’s fine with me. The other hobbits look fine, though I personally might have cast that Irish “O’Brien” fellow from “Star Trek” as Samwise. (Folks wanting to see a picture of the hobbits - not shrunk by CGI - should check this month’s Vanity Fair.)
The casting for Gandalf and Saruman and Bilbo and Gimli are totally perfect. The Legolas is some Euro nobody who doesn’t look quite right for the part if you ask me … I am willing to give the Aragorn a fair chance, though I have a very, very hard time shaking the image of him as the SEAL drill-sergeant in G.I. Jane.
The “Eye of Sauron” they designed looks thoroughly terrifying! And the Orcs look fierce and violent and pretty cool. What I saw of their Nazgul reminded me (unfortunately) of the “Knights who say Nee” but I think I can get past that.
What really makes me so sad is to think that within 15 years, kids will be saying “‘Lord of the Rings’? Oh yeah, I saw that movie …”
How on Earth do they expect to tinker with perfection and come out with something better?
I sold my soul to Satan for a dollar. I got it in the mail.
They were probably inspired by the successes of previous epic novels, replete with entirely fabricated cultures(including languages) such as Dune, when translated to the silver screen.
Profanity is the crutch of the inarticulate mother-fucker.
I am personally a little worried about how bad they are going to chop up the whole series. Anytime you see a movie based on a book they take out all the good parts, and then change things to fit the director’s whim.
But on a more positive note, I can not wait to see what they did for Fangorn and the Ents. I am very curious to see how they conceptulized (sp?) them and their involvment in Isengard. Does anyone know who is playing Sauraman?
-N
ps. sorry for the horrible spelling, I couldn’t quite remember how some of the names were spelled.
I’m staying the hell away from this movie.
If Jesus H. Christ and the Heavenly Host of Angels were to appear and bless this movie, then I’d go see it. Otherwise, there’s no effing way Hollywood is going to get it right.
– Sylence
I don’t have an evil side. Just a really, really apathetic one.
Is that sarcasm in reference to the success of dune?
Christopher Lee (yes, that Christopher Lee).
Well, nice to see the usual crop of people pre-judging the movie based on rumour, speculation, assumption, and the claim of ‘perfection can’t be improved upon’. :rolleyes:
It is an adaptation, folks! PJ is trying really hard to make an entertaining movie, to make it as accurate as he can while still needing to make it work as a movie, which is not the same as a book, and needs to be rearranged, trimmed, expanded, etc, to make it work.
He knows there’ll be die-hard Tolkien fans who will be upset by some of the changes he has needed to make. There’s a faction already totally incensed by the move to cut out the Tom Bombadil scenes.
But go see it, folks. Watch it as an entertaining adaptation of the books, being fully aware that it’s just a movie, and not something to get too upset about if it doesn’t quite fulfil your personal imaginings (because it never will).
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Shadow of the Pigeon -
Weirdo of the Night
Well said, GL.
Anyway, it can’t possibly be as bad as the animated version. Does anyone have a link to the site that shreds it?
“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”
I’ve not really kept up on this, but is this four book in one movie or will it be separate ones? I can’t imagine they could fit four wonderful books with such detail and description into one tiny, tiny movie. And I just can’t see Liv Tyler as Arwen either. She doesn’t seem, well, regal enough. I always pictured Arwen as regal and Liv Tyler just doesn’t strike that image in me.
I rode Omni in Springfield, IL
It will be three movies; they’re not doing The Hobbit. Fellowship, Two Towers and King will all be separate films. That was the back-breaking straw for a lot of people with the animated version (i.e., the people who hadn’t already walked out): they continue on into Two Towers until Helm’s Deep, and then stop! I just don’t understand producers and screenwriters changing stories to make them more “marketable”. I understand changing elements to make them work in film, but if the story was a salable book, why mess with it?
“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”
Originally posted by PauloPaulo:
Actually, it was sarcasm in reference to the failure of Dune. But very close, good job.
Profanity is the crutch of the inarticulate mother-fucker.
Never mind, I found it. I just took a quick look at it; I’d forgotten about Saruman and his fire-throwing abilities. “There are those who call me…Timmmmmmm…”
Rilcham - and for the rest of us bow fodder, that link would be…?
Semi-hijack, does anyone else remember the album based on LoTR by Bo Hansen? I always found it extraordinarily evocative of the book. I think of ents and get the thrumming footfalls in my head. Or does the fact that I heard it in the early 70’s mean my memory is clouded?
(makes peace sign, drifts backwards through beaded curtain, wearing a caftan, placing thread gently where I found it)
Sure I’ll see the movie, I have a major Tolkien addiction to support. But I think the major hassle with movie adaptions of well loved books is not so much the visuals as the voices. Read a book, hear the characters voices in your head.
Don’t you find if you know someone by phone and meet them, they never look as you expected, but you adapt 'cos the voice is the same? But have a visual image with the wrong voice it never settles into place?
Good God am I out of the loop, I hadn’t heard a word that they finally went ahead and cast the juggernaut! I’m off to find a link so I can grumble/praise with some semblence of knowledge too.
All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people.