--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Isidora Zamora <isidora@Z...> wrote:
> At 03:34 AM 8/30/03 +0400, you wrote:
> 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.
Well, Númenorean blood or not, Aragorn is only a man, and
no man could resist those lips. ;-))) Also, what's the use
of ethereal beauty if you only get to look? I certainly
expect them to have abstained from sex (seeing how Elrond has
his doubts about Aragorn's worthiness at first, and having no
contraceptives available and all...), but some romantic
kissing doesn't spoil the picture IMHO.
> > > 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.
I like the movie wargs a lot. The do look a lot like hyenas,
but the Text does seem to suggest that they're not just
plain vanilla wolves. It gives them a fitting air of blood-
thirst and barely constrained savageness.
> > > The Rohirrim have to be completely believable as a
> > > brave and heroic people.
> >
> >I have to admit they are, to me.
Same here.
> 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.
An armed teenager facing a battle against a ten times more
numerous enemy is either afraid or just terribly stupid.
> > > 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.
I found it cheesy, but not terribly so.
> >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.
Aw, come on. I thought they had made him funny without
trampling his dignity. His kill race with Legolas gives him
all the due respect. "Keep breathing... that's the key..."
or the remarks about dwarves being natural sprinters...
that's just hilarious. =P
> 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.
Yes, it was more or less the single truly beautiful thing in
all these gruels of the siege. I can't imagine them leaving
it away, seeing how much attention the Arwen/Aragorn romance
is getting.
> 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.
Remember, he is only half-elven... but also half-orc, one
could think. ;-)
> > > 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.
The very first pictures I saw of her disappointed me, since I
had imagined her more spectacular. But seeing her in the movie
totally convinced me. She's probably one of the most plausible
characters, not counting the un-freaking-believably perfect
casting of Sam.
> 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's just the Elves' creation myth. I though Arda was
supposed to be some prehistoric Earth.
-- Christian Thalmann