[Phalanges]

(Original post by Annora)
I know.. it makes sense to alter the heights of hobbits. But Lilly is 5'5'' and playing an elf who is more like 6'. What are they gonna do use forced perspective? lol

So it makes sense to alter the size of some actors that are playing a short race, but it doesn't make sense for a tall race? I'm not sure I follow the logic there...

As for what they're going to do, there's plenty of tricks they can use. Have you never noticed that Tom Cruise never looks tiny in his films?

(Original post by Hylean)
splitting it into two movies just to get more money.

I think that's a little harsh. I doubt they've made the decision just to increase revenue.

[emmanottinghil]

(Original post by Hylean)
I wonder if Jackson will stay true to the Elves as portrayed in The Hobbit or how they are portrayed in The Lord of the Rings.

I don't. I trust him to make a good movie, but I don't trust him to stay as true as possible to the source material or do a service to the fans. He's already have Bilbo stay awake for the Battle of the Five Armies. He was notoriously bad in The Return of the King for his messing about with the source material and he often put his own interpretations of the material in as if it were official.

If he weren't doing this just for the money, he wouldn't feel the need to separate the book into two movies. All in all, I am utterly on the fence about this movie, leaning towards the nervous side, and nothing I've seen or heard so far has really made me sway from there.

I got negged about 3 times for saying exactly this earlier in the thread. The problem with Peter Jackson as director is that it's frustrating, because he's so brilliant and so masterful in creating scenes and all sorts of detail in both character and visualisation. Then he goes and spoils it by doing really odd distortions of the plot that have no value to the film and are *worse* in every way than the original book. So for example, why on earth did he not show, even in the extended version, the truly great moment when Gandalf is seen at the gate and will not allow the Witch King to pass - witnessed by the terrified, prostrated hobbit - a scene that burned into my memory when i first read it.

To be fair, the Hobbit does have lots of "gaps" where Tolkien says "after two days riding they arrived" or whatever and when i read it first aged 11 i kind of "filled those gaps in" with imaginings, along with imagining what Dol Goldur might have been like or what other parts of Mirkwood had in them and so on. I also remember trying to picture female dwarves and female elves and i suppose an element of supposition in these areas by Jackson and his writers is not completely out of order. The question is, will he just make it worse?

[Brotherhood]

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2011...ideo-number-2/

[Hylean]

(Original post by Phalanges)
I think that's a little harsh. I doubt they've made the decision just to increase revenue.

They easily made LotR into three movies, but somehow feel the need to make a book 1/3 of the size into two movies? Oh yes, we have to accommodate all the extra stuff he's adding into the movie which isn't in the book, to get big name actors in there, to increase revenue.

The splitting is all about money and nothing about faithfulness to the book. Especially when you consider the second movie will only contain 5 whole chapters of the book. More interestingly, is he going to follow the first edition of The Hobbit or later editions?

Don't get me wrong, I can understand the motivations behind it, the non-monetary ones, but I disagree with them.

[Phalanges]

(Original post by Hylean)
They easily made LotR into three movies, but somehow feel the need to make a book 1/3 of the size into two movies? Oh yes, we have to accommodate all the extra stuff he's adding into the movie which isn't in the book, to get big name actors in there, to increase revenue.

The splitting is all about money and nothing about faithfulness to the book. Especially when you consider the second movie will only contain 5 whole chapters of the book. More interestingly, is he going to follow the first edition of The Hobbit or later editions?

Don't get me wrong, I can understand the motivations behind it, the non-monetary ones, but I disagree with them.

To be quite honest, I don't think faithfulness to the book should be his first priority. The Lord of the Rings films were excellent because Peter Jackson and his team had the confidence to sacrifice elements that were superfluous or would compromise the movie.

I don't think that he would make such a decision as to split the book into two films unless he thought it would make for better films because of it. This is a director who cast a relative unknown as the lead actor in a trilogy that cost almost $300m to make. He doesn't put people into his films just so that he can advertise their placement, and it's very insulting to suggest that.

[emmanottinghil]

(Original post by Phalanges)
To be quite honest, I don't think faithfulness to the book should be his first priority. The Lord of the Rings films were excellent because Peter Jackson and his team had the confidence to sacrifice elements that were superfluous or would compromise the movie.

I don't think that he would make such a decision as to split the book into two films unless he thought it would make for better films because of it. This is a director who cast a relative unknown as the lead actor in a trilogy that cost almost $300m to make. He doesn't put people into his films just so that he can advertise their placement, and it's very insulting to suggest that.

Peter Jackson does have many fine qualities, including his visualisation abilities, his love of all things Tolkien and his use, as you say, of very good but previously less-known actors. That said, some of the changes he made to the plots and scenes in the movie LOTR were clearly not done to avoid "compromise" of the movie but in some cases at least were designed to heighten either simplistic movie tropes and stereotypes (as with the arrival of Arwen at Rohan - a lover cannot be left out of a film for that long) or for reasons less nice than one might imagine. (as with the removal of Christopher Lee from the theatre version of III - he was simply too good and outshone other actors, not to mention he was getting demanding over money.)

So i for one don't totally buy that the two-movie thing might not be strictly commercial. TBH though even PJ is bound by commercial considerations when making such big-budget movies and i guess he should be praised to the skies for at least getting some really faithful attempt to render these stories onto screen which at many times did not fail us.

[Phalanges]

(Original post by emmanottinghil)
Peter Jackson does have many fine qualities, including his visualisation abilities, his love of all things Tolkien and his use, as you say, of very good but previously less-known actors. That said, some of the changes he made to the plots and scenes in the movie LOTR were clearly not done to avoid "compromise" of the movie but in some cases at least were designed to heighten either simplistic movie tropes and stereotypes (as with the arrival of Arwen at Rohan - a lover cannot be left out of a film for that long) or for reasons less nice than one might imagine. (as with the removal of Christopher Lee from the theatre version of III - he was simply too good and outshone other actors, not to mention he was getting demanding over money.)

So i for one don't totally buy that the two-movie thing might not be strictly commercial. TBH though even PJ is bound by commercial considerations when making such big-budget movies and i guess he should be praised to the skies for at least getting some really faithful attempt to render these stories onto screen which at many times did not fail us.

Come on, suggesting that some scenes from a film were cut because they were too good is a little farcical, no? I don't think anybody other than an actor's agent would ever try and convince people that.

[emmanottinghil]

(Original post by Phalanges)
Come on, suggesting that some scenes from a film were cut because they were too good is a little farcical, no? I don't think anybody other than an actor's agent would ever try and convince people that.

When did i suggest that? Christoper Lee was cut out because he was (a) asking for more money and (b) other actors' agents were uneasy about him outshining their boys, particularly Ian McKellan according to rumour.

[Phalanges]

(Original post by emmanottinghil)
When did i suggest that?

"as with the removal of Christopher Lee from the theatre version of III - he was simply too good and outshone other actors"

[emmanottinghil]

(Original post by Phalanges)
"as with the removal of Christopher Lee from the theatre version of III - he was simply too good and outshone other actors"

Pretty obviously i was refencing the competitiveness of the other actors and his demands for more money - that's a lot different to your implication that i was suggestion PJ is a numpty who deliberately avoids using his best scenes.

That said, in fact, many of the scenes in the extended DVDs are IMO good enough to have replaced other scenes in the cinema releases. Wasn't there something about the commercials for the LOTR movies that DVD release was a primary focus because of the huge fanbase, so they knew the extendeds would sell well enough to justify leaving prime material on them?

[Phalanges]

(Original post by emmanottinghil)
that's a lot different to your implication that i was suggestion PJ is a numpty who deliberately avoids using his best scenes.

Yes it is - you now seem to be implying that Jamie Selkirk, who won awards for his editing of the last film, is a spineless coward who was pressured into cutting great scenes because it might make some actors look bad.

[emmanottinghil]

(Original post by Phalanges)
Yes it is - you now seem to be implying that Jamie Selkirk, who won awards for his editing of the last film, is a spineless coward who was pressured into cutting great scenes because it might make some actors look bad.

I have literally no idea why you are implying that i made any such bizarre accusation. I was implying that the LOTR movies pandered at times to the director's pre-conceptions of audience demands and stereotypes and at other times to commercial pressures. Are you seriously suggesting that your Selkirk chap was acting alone and had total editorial control utterly independent of directorial and commercial issues? That would be ridiculously unlikely.

[Dark Horse]

(Original post by Phalanges)
Yes it is - you now seem to be implying that Jamie Selkirk, who won awards for his editing of the last film, is a spineless coward who was pressured into cutting great scenes because it might make some actors look bad.

They must be a reason for cutting it out. "The Voice of Saruman" was an awesome scene and it was a little strange to cut it out - given that he was the main antagonist in the previous film.

[emmanottinghil]

(Original post by Dark Horse)
They must be a reason for cutting it out. "The Voice of Saruman" was an awesome scene and it was a little strange to cut it out - given that he was the main antagonist in the previous film.

All of the little changes around the handling of the Palantir and the plots around it are a classic case of wierd distortions of the original book for no apparent reason and sometimes for what you can easily imagine would have been truly great filmicly yet were either not attempted or dropped from final cuts. Why for example did we not see Aragorn wrestling with Sauron, an utterly decisive part of the book plotting and the single act of Aragorn's that most certainly led to Sauron's defeat as it caused his over-reaction. I could go on, but there were many like this.

[The Lyceum]

(Original post by emmanottinghil)
I guess i always found that easier to imagine when reading the book than to see on screen, which is the case with a lot of things from LOTR - i mean, reading it, how many different imaginings we must all have had of Sauron's Eye or the Palantiri or the way Aragorn looked or what a Mithril coat looked like?

Good points. For what it's worth I always imagined mithril to look like any other mail coat and I thought Viggo was good as Aragorn. I remember, years ago, my shock at his being cast since he was this blond haired etc guy and then when the promo shots came out I thought he looked the part.

Gandalf though, McKellen is perfect for the role.

I don't know how I feel about this. As far as Hollywood style movies go LOTR was good yet as you mentioned, it wasn't overly faithful to the source material as it was, I can't help but worry at the idea of Jackson essentially writing another movie...

Sure Jackson is talented, but no way is he on the level of Tolkien. I think he should keep a respectful distance.

On the other hand though I know I'll watch it at the cinema once or twice, purchase the DVD and then the Extended DVD etc....

I'm sure it will be entertaining overall.

[Phalanges]

(Original post by Dark Horse)
They must be a reason for cutting it out. "The Voice of Saruman" was an awesome scene and it was a little strange to cut it out - given that he was the main antagonist in the previous film.

There has to be a reason, however I doubt that it was due to Ian McKellen crying about looking bad. In every film there are great scenes that for whatever reason are excised from the theatrical movie. I'm sure if we were to look on the cutting room floor for these films we'd find some brilliant scenes that didn't even appear in the extended editions.

[Dark Horse]

(Original post by Phalanges)
There has to be a reason, however I doubt that it was due to Ian McKellen crying about looking bad. In every film there are great scenes that for whatever reason are excised from the theatrical movie. I'm sure if we were to look on the cutting room floor for these films we'd find some brilliant scenes that didn't even appear in the extended editions.

The only reason I can think of is time. I'm aware that with movies there's a magical 3 hour barrier, but I think ROTK exceeded this. I'm not too sure.

There were many not-so-brilliant scenes also. Frodo and Sam being taken prisoner and brought to Osgiliath and the general butchering of Faramir's character shouldn't of been in the Two Towers, and this possibly would've made room for the Voice of Saruman scene at the end of it.

[emmanottinghil]

(Original post by Phalanges)
There has to be a reason, however I doubt that it was due to Ian McKellen crying about looking bad. In every film there are great scenes that for whatever reason are excised from the theatrical movie. I'm sure if we were to look on the cutting room floor for these films we'd find some brilliant scenes that didn't even appear in the extended editions.

I think you'll find that the "whatever reason" will nearly always have been financial. I recall Jackson saying in an interview at some point that the decision-making about what to include only on the Extended DVDs was mainly down to how much they needed to do to persuade people to buy them.

My main difficulty with Jackson is that for at least some LOTR fans there seems to be a kind of saintly aura they ascribe to him for at least getting the thing so majestically before us - and it is glorious - but it isn't perfect. Film criticism applies to these movies as well as to others.

[Ape Gone Insane]

(Original post by The Lyceum)
Sure Jackson is talented, but no way is he on the level of Tolkien. I think he should keep a respectful distance.

I don't get this.

Why do you think he's trying to be? Tolkien is not a film director and Jackson is not an author. It's that simple. You can't say a film director is not on the same level as an author, it's completely different from the techniques to the medium.

[Phalanges]

(Original post by Dark Horse)
The only reason I can think of is time. I'm aware that with movies there's a magical 3 hour barrier, but I think ROTK exceeded this. I'm not too sure.

It could have been time, a dislike of the scene, a change in the pacing that they didn't feel was appropriate, extra baggage that they felt wouldn't keep the story tight, any number of contextual reasons really that only the editor, director and producer would probably know.

(Original post by emmanottinghil)
I think you'll find that the "whatever reason" will nearly always have been financial.

Yes, nearly every great scene that has ever been cut from a film has been done so for financial reasons.

You're becoming both increasingly know-it-all (such as the above quote, where you claim to understand the reasoning behind a vast amount of editorial decisions) and ignorant (such as when you called Jamie Selkirk "your Selkirk chap" - forgive me, but I always thought it was good practice to attribute the work of someone to their name) in such a way that it's nigh-on impossible to converse with you, hence why I didn't bother addressing your last quote.