Watching LOTR for the first time in four years

so don't drink wine!- Tinuviel

But surely you need the wine, preferably buckie and a hammer for the really bad bits, so you can obliterate from memory what you've just seen as soon as possible after seeing it?

A friend suggested ROTK one night for our ritual movie nights, so from there we just worked backward.

And honestly the bad bits turned funny, particularly the Frodo Jizz face bits. Poor Elijah. So young.

That's one of my favorite gifs ever.

  .... wait...   oh God!!     Really??

This is one of those situations where I don't know whether I, or the person I'm talking to, has a dirtier mind.

Oh, the dirty meaning in that GIF is fully intended, so it's not just you.

yucksville

Eldorion wrote:I was participating in a thread on another forum about emotional highlights from LOTR and it made me think about this thread, which I just re-read.  I was definitely riding an emotional high after finishing FOTR, and I think that might the crash after that might have been why I was more down on TTT and ROTK than I have at some points in the past (though the main reason is probably changing tastes as I grow and change).  But it's still ludicrous just how many emotional high points the trilogy has.  There are plenty of films that get to me but none as frequently or reliably as LOTR does.  I think the Ride of the Rohirrim is still my favorite but right now what I'm thinking of most is the Breaking of the Fellowship.  What a fucking way to close out a movie.  You just don't see storytelling like this in action-adventure movies.  It's not something that happens.  It's crazy how well PJ and co. pulled it off.





Howard Shore puts in hella work as well; I don't think his score will ever be topped for me.  And the visuals?  It's almost embarrassing how much went right with Fellowship.

{{{Feels good to get to fanboy over the film again. }}}

anyway moving swiftly along.
As regards the filming at the riverside at the breaking of the Fellowship, it always amazes me and struck me the colour palette and textures they use in particular with Aragorn and the green background, its just like a Pre-raphaelite painting. I will try to find examples of what I mean. its a symphony of grey green and steely blue.

You just don't see storytelling like this in action-adventure movies.  It's not something that happens.  It's crazy how well PJ and co. pulled it off.- Eldo

Empire strikes Back- good guys lose, big revelation on who Vader is, Luke defeated and has a hand cut off, Han captured and frozen in carbonite.

If Pj had any balls, or sense (or script writing ability) he would have kept TT book ending- which is a total downer but great cliffhanger stuff.

I dont even like dog drool let alone what Frodo is up to !

Pettytyrant101 wrote:You just don't see storytelling like this in action-adventure movies.  It's not something that happens.  It's crazy how well PJ and co. pulled it off.- Eldo

Empire strikes Back- good guys lose, big revelation on who Vader is, Luke defeated and has a hand cut off, Han captured and frozen in carbonite.

If Pj had any balls, or sense (or script writing ability) he would have kept TT book ending- which is a total downer but great cliffhanger stuff.

Empire Strikes Back is not a good example. you could argue that about any and all blockbusters. All blockbusters have the same formula of good guy vs bad guy, big revelation etc etc. What is exceptional about LOTR is the sheer depth and quiet intensity of the storytelling. Very few blockbusters have quiet moments of deep emotion as well acted as LOTR has. Most blockbusters are high octane from the word go, that's what they are called blockbusters for. When you do have the quieter moments in Star Wars to take an example, its to fill it with a load of exposition and explaining, its never just people standing around crying because someone they loved has just 'died' because LOTR gives us more than just headlong action, its way deeper than 99.9% of any blockbuster I have ever watched, bar Doctor Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia and great films like that.

Jaws is full of quiet character moments. Oddly enough so is the original rocky and Rambo: First Blood. Close Encounters of the Third Kind had plenty of scenes that were just folk standing about. The Shining.2001. Same. All blockbusters.

I just think Eldo overstated the case a bit when he said it was something you never see in blockbusters- shitty modern ones yes, but its not something unique in blockbusters to have quiet reflective entirely character driven moments.

well ok in the last 10 years then.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Jaws is full of quiet character moments. Oddly enough so is the original rocky and Rambo: First Blood. Close Encounters of the Third Kind had plenty of scenes that were just folk standing about. The Shining.2001. Same. All blockbusters.

I'm not sure we have the same definition of blockbuster.  Generally the blockbuster era is considered to have begun with Jaws and the original Star Wars.  Like most genres and similar classification there is plenty of disagreement about what counts and not, but you don't usually see it applied to box office hits of earlier eras.  So while 2001 was a major success, it's in a different category IMO.  And even with more recent movies it's not purely about box office, as the word has acquired connotations that suggest big-budget movies trying to become hits by imitating previous successes even if they don't do phenomenally well themselves.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I just think Eldo overstated the case a bit when he said it was something you never see in blockbusters- shitty modern ones yes, but its not something unique in blockbusters to have quiet reflective entirely character driven moments.

It was a touch of rhetorical hyperbole when talking about how rare this sort of thing is, not meant to be taken literally.  I thought this should be obvious, as at face value that statement would have precluded the existence of the LOTR films themselves.  Anyway, yes, The Empire Strikes Back is also up there in the pop cultural canon as one of the greatest blockbusters ever made.  I might like LOTR more, but you should know that I of all people am not going to disagree about Star Wars being great.

My personal ranking of blockbusters would go 1. LOTR, 2. Star Wars, and then a big gap before anything else (Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean would be in this next tier, along with other films that might be objectively better than most of HP/POTC but that I don't have the same nostalgic attachment to).

Mrs Figg wrote:As regards the filming at the riverside at the breaking of the Fellowship, it always amazes me and struck me the colour palette and textures they use in particular with Aragorn and the green background, its just like a Pre-raphaelite painting. I will try to find examples of what I mean. its a symphony of grey green and steely blue.

I don't really know anything about art history but it's always interesting to hear you take on the visual side of things. Thanks Mrs Figg.

I went to a pre-raph show in New York once. Ten dollars for a plate of spaghetti at the Met cafeteria?

Our waitress had pre-raph hair!

I'm not sure we have the same definition of blockbuster.- Eldo

Mine was to google 'top 100 blockbusters' as being very drunk it was easier than trying to remember any

cheers Eldo.

Hard to believe the kida who sung this was only 11 or 12 at the time...

I'd never really thought about who was singing on that track. Kid must be what, 25 or 26 now?

malickfan wrote:

Hard to believe the kida who sung this was only 11 or 12 at the time...

There's something so soothing & calming about a child singing choral fashion

*sigh*

The music makes me appreciate the detail that went into making LOTRs. I know weve chewed the fat over whats wrong & whats ok with the films, Im gonna drop that for now but, beautiful thought out music didnt just fall out the sky. And then I think of the attention to detail in the wardrobe dept, the sets, look at Edoras. the Armour, even the saddlery ! Now compare all that to The Gobshit. what a let down ! The Hobbit really was, is & forever more be no more than a computer game & not a very good one at that !

Yeah, except for 'over misty mountains cold' the music for the Hobbit was not memorable. I think Howard Shore must have been as rushed as PJ, with similar results. The music for LotR was timeless.

It was a lazy score I think, bits of Lord of The Rings Music was snatched & included in the Hobbit to tie it in with LOTRs when it really should have had its own theme. The Misty Mountains song is nice, it would be nice sung by a Welsh mens Choir.