> Very disappointed here. I have no idea how many times the Professor
is
> turning in his grave.
I disagree. It surpassed my expectations.
The key ingredient for a movie that is based on a book is capturing
its spirit, not a slavish and literal interpretation of the text.
You only need to look at the Harry Potter movie to see a perfect
example. It was closely supervised by the author...and it somehow
managed to be both literally faithful and to utterly fail to capture
the magic in the books.
I disagree. It surpassed my expectations.
The main themes were beautifully presented. This is in many ways
a somber movie that reflects some of the ethos of the Norse myths
that inspired Tolkien in the first place. The subtle corruption
spread by the ring, for example. The dark forges of Isengard and
the vast hordes of the Orcs. It is filled with elegant touches,
such as the intricate brooches on the elven cloaks or the
foreshadowing of the troubles that the trees will cause Saruman
in the second flick
My personal favorite: Inserting the chapter titles into Gandalf's dialogue. I caught it half a dozen times, I'm going to have to list the chapter titles and see if they do it every time :-). Seeing it for third time tonight.
>
> I will start with the good things: Gandalf. The Balrog. Boromir and
Frodo.
> Many of the action scenes. The Balrog
All of the scenery. The shire. Minas Morgul. Minas Tirith. Rivendel. Amon Sul, but ESPECIALLY Isengard and Moria. The characters may not have been all that I expected in all cases, but the background was wonderful. (Actually, come to think of it, I felt similar about Harry Potter).
>
> Now the bad things
> 1) The dialogue. They changed all the epic lines in the book with
> Scwartzeneger-type quotes. Another friend
of
> mine told me that she hasn't read the books but the dialogue in the
books
> is 'difficult' so it is better that they made it 'easier' for the
film...
> Nothing to add here
I saw it with my girlfriend. She said the dialogue was too stilted and they should have used colloquial spoken (by which I also suspect she meant American) english. She also predicted T-shirts and bumper stickers reading "lets hunt some orc". I shudder as I consider that she may be right on the second part.
>
> 2) The world. OK, I admit that my first and foremost griping is with
the
> elves, all elves. Why so arrogant and cold?Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I thought they
captured the elves perfectly. They work for the forces of good,
but they are not saints. Galadriel does good things...but she is
powerful and intimidating. You see the features that allowed her
to cause so much grief in the Silmarillion.
And the family resemblance to her father and brothers.
My big complaint, letting Aragorn and the other members know before Frodo slipped off to mordor. This bothered me more than Glorfindel in a dress (who would have thought he was a cross dresser?) or the removal of Gildor and Tom B. I don't care how much you respect someone's decisions, letting 2 hobbits carry the fate of the world into Mordor without a guide is rediculous. As I recall, in the books, the rescue team didn't know which hobbits had been captured by the orcs, or whether they had the ring. That made vastly more sense to me in terms of character motivation.
Winn
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