Which itself owes a great deal to Ralph Bakshi’s vision. I was stunned when I saw Jackson’s Fellowship at how closely the visuals mirrored the animated film (which was really Fellowship and The Two Towers rolled into one movie).
Those clown shoes were even MORE terrifying in CGI, if that is possible.
Clown shoes? Clown Shoes?!
Those were fuzzy slippers. Everyone knows she was woken from her nap.
Clown Shoes indeed! Hmmpf!
Thanks
The Jackson movies compressed the timeline quite a bit from the books, didn’t they? This fan film (which looks pretty cool, I think) could even be set before Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party and departure from the Shire.
The Balrog, and especially the Watcher in the Water outside Moria.
Yes, I mistyped Estates when I should have said Enterprises. Glad we got that straight.
NPR’s article on the film.
From the article:
Umm, no he didn’t. At least, if he did, it isn’t very original. I’ve read about Aragorn’s hunt for Gollum before somewhere. Unfinished Tales, maybe.
Well, the original version had fewer car chases.
If Gollum shoots first, I’ll slit my wrists.
‘I know what you’re thinking: “Can he kill me with just the hilt-shard of a broken sword?” Well, to tell you the truth I’m a little fuzzy on that myself. But seeing as how this is Elendil’s sword Narsil, the most famous blade in Middle-Earth, that cut Sauron’s Ring-finger clean off… You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do you… punk?’
That’s EXACTLY what I thought as I watched the trailer!
I thought there was this “story” in the apendix to Lord of the rings, actually.
OK, it’s up now. Did anyone watch it? I thought it was good. The only part that I didn’t like was Arwen. The makeup was bad and she was just… not Arwen-y enough for me. The rest of it was pretty entertaining.
I’d love it if they did The Scouring.
I watched it yesterday. Very, very well done. It’s clearly not even a shoestring budget, but for all that, it is gorgeous!
The long-distance scenery (the Misty Mountains, Mordor) are all CGI, but it looks very plausible, much like the Jackson vision. The close-ups were done in Epping Forest in England, and look not unlike the part of the Two Towers where Gollum is leading Frodo and Sam through Ithillian.
The sub-poverty row budget shows mostly in the extremely limited cast. Much of the movie consists of Aragorn (excellently played, by the way) wandering alone through the wilderness. He meets another Ranger and they talk for a bit, and then he’s back on his own.
Gollum appears only in long shots. Aragorn eventually catches him in a trap which conveniently bags him in a burlap sack - where he spends virtually all of the rest of the movie. Gandalf (also excellently cast) interrogates Gollum off-screen, and reports back to Aragorn in a two-shot. We are treated to one close-up of Gollum’s face, and that’s it.
There is an on-screen battle between Aragorn and a troop of Orcs. The Orc makeup and costumes are limited, but passable.
Despite these limitations, the movie absolutely looks and sounds fantastic.
This is the second fan-made movie I have seen recently (the other was The Call of Cthuhlu). Both, while clearly limited by their tiny budgets, show just what is possible given today’s technology. The major studios have to be asking themselves why they are spending tens or hundreds of millions when people can get these results out of mere thousands.
Yeah Ive watched about a quarter of the hunt for Gollum. The acting is much better than any other fanmade thing I have ever seen. The only things comes close is the three part fan made star trek movie entitled of Gods and Men. (Most other star trek fanmade things have horrible acting, though they might have nice special effects like Star Trek: New Voyages / Phase II)