Re: OT: Two Towers movie

At 03:34 AM 8/30/03 +0400, you wrote:
>I agree with most of the comments! Good to know I'm not the only one to
>think so ;-)
Glad to know that my husband and I aren't the only ones sharing these opinions.

> > Well, Aragorn falling over a cliff is not one of the best ideas in the
> > movie.
>
>Neither is kissing with the horse.
Neither is kissing with Arwen.  My kids hate those scenes, and so do I.  I
understand why they put them in, but, in all honesty, I have a very hard
time imagining Aragorn and Arwen kissing on the lips before they were
married; it just doesn't seem to fit my image of their relationship and the
culture they lived in.

> > And the wargs don't look a bit like any picture of a
> > wolf that I've ever seen.  (My daughter says they look like
> > a cross between a pig and a sheep and a bull.)
>
>They look more like a badly rendered cross of hyenas and bears IMO.
That's interesting to hear you say that.  You're very perceptive.  I just
finished watching the extras that come with the movie, and there is a
featurette on "The Creatures of Middle Earth."  In the section on the
wargs, someone from Weta says that they "are very closely aligned to a
bear, wolf, hyena hybrid."  And I agree with you on "badly rendered."

> > (The Last Alliance of Elves and Men really was the last
> > alliance, and the two races have mostly gone their separate
> > ways in the millenia since.)
>
>Good point. Especially applies to the Rohirrim, with their distrust to
>everything Elvish.
And I am further aggravated that King Theoden explicitly refuses to call
for help from Gondor, saying, in essence that they wouldn't help
him.  Anyone who has read Tolkein enough knows that, if the Rohirrim had
called for help, the only thing that would have ever kept Gondor from
sending assistance is if Gondor had been under attack and truly had no men
to spare from it's own defense (which did happen once.)  In any case, the
whole thing is sort of a moot point, since they are talking about calling
for help with the enemy already bearing down on them.  There was no time to
send for help.  Theoden's lack of trust in Gondor is completely out of
character.

> > The Rohirrim have to be completely believable as a
> > brave and heroic people.
>
>I have to admit they are, to me.
My overall impression was that they were, but that was largely the effect
of Eomer and his eored, and also Theoden at certain moments.  (But at other
moments, he seemed to give something of the opposite impression.)  Threre
seem to be two characterizations of the Rohirrim going on simultaneously
and fighting with each other.  One is the correct characterization of them
as heroic warriors.  The other is the impression you get when you see the
young boys and the old men arming for the coming battle with fear or
despair in their faces; the impression you get when either Legolas or
Aragorn characterizes them as farmers.  My impression of the Rohirrim was
that every man and boy knew how to ride and fight as well as to farm.  I
don't mind the shots of 12-15 year old boys being armed for battle, because
that is probably truthful.  In such an emergency, they would have fought to
the best of their ability.  But I am not convinced that there would have
been fear in their faces.

> > (I do not, however, forgive them
> > for staging a
> > large cavalry charge down an *incredibly* steep incline.  It
> > just isn't believable.
>
>Agrred. No calculations can make me believe that.
Is that an intentional misspelling of "agreed", or did your keys just
stick? :-)

I believe that Shadofax could do it.  (And in the book, it was Shadowfax
and 1000 men on foot.)

> > I also really disliked the way that they had Gandalf
> > "exorcize" Saruman from Theoden.
>
>Oooh... :-( No words can describe my wrath at that
It was completely unbelievable.  Tolkein did it better (of course), and
they should have stuck to their source material.

Another nit to pick: once Theoden was un-aged, he was too young -- by a
couple decades.  King Theoden was around 70 at the time of his
death.  Here's an idea: of course Cristopher Lee makes the perfect Saruman,
but I think that he would have also made an excellent Theoden.  (My two
cents worth.  Not that I think they cast him wrong; they didn't.)

> > There had to have been a better way of handling the Entmoot.
> > The movie
> > totally reversed the decision of the ents and Pipin had to
> > trick Treebeard into changing his mind.
>
>Well, in FotR, the fools were Merry and Pippin. Now Gimli was the fool
>(and a very bad one at that),
Don't get my husband started on that one.  He hates using Gimli as comic
relief.  The only time where I though that this was somewhat appropriate
was where Gimli is telling Eowyn about Dwarf women.  The material was
basically straight out of the Appendices.

>  and they just had to do some job -
>especially since it's rumoured that the Scouring of the Shire is not
>about to be in the film!
I suppose that's one way of looking at it: that they had to have something
to do.  We've also heard the rumors that the Scouring of the Shire will not
be in the movie.  And it makes sense to leave it out; LOTR has just about
the longest denoument of any book that I know.

> > What they did to Faramir is just inexcusable -- and so far,
> > inexplicable.
>
>Yes. And his hair was raven! (I just choke with joy as imagine that
>scene of Faramir and Eowyn standing on the wall when Mordor falls, and
>their hair mixing in the wind - raven and gold. *Very* sad to learn it's
>not going to be there. Apparently we're about to get three hours of
>fighting with a happy end...)
Actually, that was just my own conjecture that that relationship would be
dropped from the movie for lack of time.  My husband's conjecture is that
it will be in the movie because they have to resolve the love triangle
between Aragorn, Arwen, and Eowyn.  I've alway's really loved the love
story between Faramir and Eowyn.

And, yes, I did notice that they got his hair color wrong, and there's
simply no excuse for that IMO.  They're all wearing wigs; why not get a wig
of the right color.  (Incidentally, did anyone else imagine the Rohirrim
with more flaxen hair?  Their hair doesn't seem blonde enough in the
movie.  It might just be me, here.)

> > And what is this whole thing with Arwen apparently leaving
> > for Valinor and Aragorn letting her?
>
>I think she'll run away and lead the Grey Company instead of Halbarad.
I don't think that threre's going to be a Grey Company.  I base this on the
preview that I saw last night and this evening of Return of the King.  The
Paths of the Dead are definately going to be in the movie.  I saw the
entrance to them and a shot from inside the Paths.  However, it was only
Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli at the Haunted Door.  There was no Grey Company
with them.  Another point of interest, in the shot from inside the Paths,
Aragorn is walking with a sword drawn -- and that sword is
Narsil/Anduril.  (You can tell by the hilt: the grip is very long and
flares at the end and has a wedge-shaped cut-out in the flared area.)  I
wonder how he gets Anduril, since he let it at home still broken.

>What they did to Elrond was awful - all that stuff about the fate of
>(puny) mortals. In the first movie, his stance was excusable, if not to
>my taste. In the second one, he is verily an Elvish chavinist
Don't get my husband started on that one either.

And I have all respect for Hugo Weaving as an actor; he's an excellent
actor.  Unfortunately, there is really nothing that any makeup department
can do with Hugo Weaving's face to make it look very attractive, and Elves
are suposed to be, well, beautiful.


> > Eowyn, OTOH, was awesome, and so was Gollum.
>
>Eowyn was very good in that she is an excellent actress. It *is* very
>believable. The trouble is that the makeup makes her look much older
>than she is in the book.
I hadn't noticed that before, but I think that you are right.

>  Also, the hints of a relationship between Eowyn
>and Aragorn are far too obvious, and give a very wrong impression of
>Eowyn's (and Aragorn's) feelings
That it does.  It is made worse by the impression given that Arwen is
leaving Middle Earth.  The moment that Aragorn recognized the feelings that
Eowyn had for him, he drew back from her.

>What I loved about the film was Rohan (apart from the exorcism business
>and the minor quibble I worte about in my previous posts). The landscape
>and everything is awesome. But still I think it's, if a good film, a bad
><sw>filmatisering</sw> of Tolkien.
Rohan was wonderful.  (Aside from the grumbles that you mentioned, and the
general lack of grooming.)  The musical themes from Rohan are absolutely my
favorite in the movie.

For your amusement, some cosmological errors that my husband and I have
come up with:

When you see Gandalf lying on the mountain peak and sort of travel in
through his eyes and see the stars...there are gas clouds, nebulae, and
other extraneous materials floating in space.  Those shouldn't be there if
this is Arda.  Varda made the stars, and they are lights in the sky, not
other suns far away.  (My husband noticed this.)

That orc is holding onto the pendant that Arwen gave to Aragorn.  No orc
could hold a piece of Elvish workmanship like that in his hand; it would
burn him.  (My husband noticed this one.)

Gandalf comforts Theoden on the death of his son saying that his spirit was
strong in life and will make its way to the halls of his fathers, or
something like that.  Not in Arda it won't.  The souls of Men do not go to
the Halls of Mandos, but pass westward and depart from Arda.  What happens
then is anybody's guess as far as I have been able to gather from anything
that I have read.  (I noticed this one myself quite recently.)

Well, it is already past 10:30 local time, and I ought to finish writing up
about the funeral rites of one of my constructed cultures before I get too
sleepy to do it.  (And eventually, I need to construct the language for
this and other cultures, but not tonight.)

Isidora

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