LOTR - Fellowship of the Ring - Screencap Thingie

Pettytyrant101 wrote:the film moved it to "the slopes of Mount Doom".- Eldo

This has always annoyed me, apart from it being too well lit for the slopes of Mt Doom, what really bugs me is there is no tie in to the Dead Marshes any more- even though they still have Smeagol reference the battle when they are in the Dead Marshes as if it did happen there in the film Did they forget they had changed it? Did they just not care it didn't actually make sense or tie together any more? 

That is a very good point that like Eldo I've never actually noticed before ...maybe Jackson got confused/forgot and assumed that the dusty, rock encrusted slops of a colossal active volcano could later magically transform into endless acres of marshland

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Um remove the line of dialogue 'on the slopes of Mt Doom' and set the battle on the Dagorland and set the bit where Sauron comes forth at the siege on the Black Gates with Mt Doom blazing in the background- exact same screen time and one less line of dialogue. So easily really.

I can understand why they condensed the battle and the seven year siege and Sauron's last desperate sortie, but thinking about it now, I wonder if they set it on Mount Doom just so they could have the scene with Elrond and Isildur in the Crack of Doom. 'Course that raised the question of why Elrond didn't just push him over, but...

malickfan wrote:1. I hadn't read the books at the time (didn't read LOTR all the way through until 2007) so I had no pre-conceived notions, (as a fan of Warhammer 40k as a kid orcs to me were big green Hulky dudes with machine guns) but I liked the designs, though they come across as generic  bad guy minion creatures rather than fallen Elves (still better than Bakshi's hairy gits wearing pillowcases orcs tho...), I doubt I picked on on the pointy ears link with the elves at the time...are pointy ears elves canon to the books? I don't actually remember reading this anywhere in LOTR

High five for WH40K. The pointy Elvish ears though ... *shudders* That was a topic of intense controversy back in the day. The Tolkien Society's FAQ comes down on the yes side, but it's far from perfect (especially their take on the Eagle question, though I'm a little biased there ). The Tolkien Meta-FAQ, created by users of the two major Tolkien newsgroups, takes a neutral stance on the issue. Tolkien scholar Michael Martinez goes the agnostic route but picks apart a lot of pro-pointiness arguments. You can find countless more perspectives via Google.

http://www.tolkiensociety.org/author/faq/#ears
http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/Ears.html
http://middle-earth.xenite.org/2011/09/21/do-tolkiens-elves-have-pointy-ears/

1. I appreciate the ideas behind the designs of the Elves-lots of curved angles and crosscutting armour, gives of a sense of nature and age, but I'm not entirely sure whether curved katana like swords, and neck-high longbows would be that practical in a battle...maybe the designs are a bit too finessed? Interesting to note the designs for Haldir's woodelves in TT are fairly similar suggesting that the Elves (of all kindreds) had reached a cultural/techincal peak in warfare or had stagnated into a holding pattern of sorts.

This has actually always bothered me about the Elves at Helm's Deep, in some ways even moreso than their appearance at the battle in the first place. I suspect it might be down to the ambiguity about where the Elves came from. I mean, obviously Haldir is established as a Galadhrim, but he "bears tidings from Elrond" and originally Arwen was supposed to be there so I wouldn't be surprised if those Elves were originally conceived of and designed as Rivendellers. Regardless, the idea of the Galadhrim as a heavy infantry power is just utterly at odds with everything about how they're presented, both in the books and in the first film.

Again, I do understand the complaint that the scene might be brightyl lit...but it's probably not something most viewers would have noticed, at the time 12 yr old me was too busy staring in wide eyed awe at the screen to nitpick anything.

Generally speaking I don't really get bothered about unrealistic lighting. Moria was way too bright for "the black pit", but it's nice to be able to see what's going on so I can't complain. The one instance that does sometimes bug me is how bright the Siege of Gondor is even though the movie went out of its way to draw attention to the "broil of fume" Sauron is using to blot out the sun over Minas Tirith. If you wanted to have a daylight battle, then don't include the volcanic cloud thing.

I never thought of the battle of Gondor as feeling like night - more like an overcast day with extra murk thrown in.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it should have been like night, but I think the book implied a much heavier overcast than we got in the films. Though I did rewatch a couple scenes just now and they do keep the smoke and clouds in the sky whenever it's visible.

1. Do you think this gives the Elves a sense of strength? In the prologue men are very often seen lying on the ground such as Isildur and his father. Do you think their resilience is shown here? you know, men are flattened but the wind of power just musses their hair do's.

2. Do you like the image itself, the swirling banners and hair? do you think its an ethereal almost romantic image?

3. The scene before is the destruction of Sauron in a ball of light, which is strange for a villain, surely bad characters are not associated with the Light?

1. Do you think this gives the Elves a sense of strength? In the prologue men are very often seen lying on the ground such as Isildur and his father. Do you think their resilience is shown here? you know, men are flattened but the wind of power just musses their hair do's.

Not sure its deliberate to show their resilience- as in the wide shot of when Sauron 'explodes' the shockwave or whatever it is knocks elves over too- its only in the close ups we see them standing all blowing hair. Looks like a pantene ad to me.
I said before I have never really understood what exploding Sauron was all about save 'oh cool effect'. So its hard to see any greater meaning to it.

2. Do you like the image itself, the swirling banners and hair? do you think its an ethereal almost romantic image?

The close up shots are better than the wide ones- which to my eye look more silly than anything else- its nice enough done, the colouring is nice, the effect of the way their hair pulls back to the explosion looks nice- as usual the production team pull off what they have been asked too- just not sure still why they were asked to do this particular thing, but well enough done in terms of quality and workmanship.

3. The scene before is the destruction of Sauron in a ball of light, which is strange for a villain, surely bad characters are not associated with the Light?

Hard for me as I said to read much into this as I thin there wasn't a huge amount of thought put into why things happen so much as how cool will these things happening look on screen. I think PJ was more concerned with capturing the attention-deficit generation with an explosion than anything else.

Do you think this gives the Elves a sense of strength? In the prologue men are very often seen lying on the ground such as Isildur and his father. Do you think their resilience is shown here? you know, men are flattened but the wind of power just musses their hair do's.
I think more Elves would have fallen & the outer ones would have remained standing ? Wouldnt the force be greater nearer the center of the "explosion" ? I think being bereft of their helmets & seeing their pale slender faces with luxurious golden hair is immediately steriotyping how the Elves are meant to look as opposed to the dark, rugged stoutness of Men
2. Do you like the image itself, the swirling banners and hair? do you think its an ethereal almost romantic image?
Flowing hair will imply a fierce wind, good reason to carry a hair band in yer pocket

3. The scene before is the destruction of Sauron in a ball of light, which is strange for a villain, surely bad characters are not associated with the Light?
Dunno ? Light sabers used in Star Wars are pretty bright, & if you want to incapacitate your opponent blindness will do it. Isnt the name "Satan" to do with light ?

That must have been a very quick image. I don't even remember it, so can't put it in context. But yeah, the elves always look great. All the costuming looks great.

For the most part the look of the movies are beyond reproach (despite forgetting things like making the Pelenor fields actual farmland), and things like the lighting for the siege of Mina Tirith may be due more to a desire to not confuse the audience with whether it's day or night. The gloom from Mordor has an edge, indicating it was directed specifically towards the City.

If memory serves Halfy it goes- Sauron explodes- wide shot of a 'shockwave' from epicentre, knocks most folk over- then that close up where the explosion seems to turn into an implosion and their hair is pulled by the wind back towards the epicentre.

But like I say, cool effect, but never understood what it was supposed to be representing or the point of it, nothing I suspect beyond the effect as an attention grabber.

The air being sucked in comes before Sauron's explosion. He starts to glow as a cyclone seems to form around him, giving us this shot, and then the light/shockwave explodes out and the camera moves to a much more distant wide shot.

Edit: see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj139dE7tFI#t=3m36s

Mrs Figg wrote:

1. Do you think this gives the Elves a sense of strength? In the prologue men are very often seen lying on the ground such as Isildur and his father. Do you think their resilience is shown here? you know, men are flattened but the wind of power just musses their hair do's.

2. Do you like the image itself, the swirling banners and hair? do you think its an ethereal almost romantic image?

3. The scene before is the destruction of Sauron in a ball of light, which is strange for a villain, surely bad characters are not associated with the Light?

1. Goes back to the point others were making-Jackson seemed determined to make the Elves superhuman ninjas wherever possible

2. I do like the imagery/cinematography and I get the romance interpretation, but the swirly hair gets a tad annoying after a while, I swear on TH they employed someone to follow Armitage round with a hairdryer or fan

3. I guess Jackson just wanted Sauron to go in a massive, nuclear fashion, in this case almost literally, I suppose you could interpret it as the 'light' of his maia soul breaking thorough his armour as he explodes, but that comes across as a little too close to Harry Potter horcruxes for my liking...

thanks Eldo. that Elf pulls a very funny face. But I guess you would under the circumstances.

Bad guys:
1. This was my first exposure to the orcs, and I had never read the books. I was taken aback at the scale of things, and how amazing the battlefield looked in comparison to, say, Braveheart which was probably my standard for big battle scenes at the time. 

2a. The orcs here were really scary when I first watched it. The yellow eyes especially sell the fear factor a la Frankenstein's monster. As the series progressed, I grew older, and the orcs were given lines of dialogue and some rather silly designs ("Gothmog" with his elephantiasis, the one with really big ears, and that one orc that looked liked the Jim Carry Grinch. This reduced the fear factor, so that I was most impressed when I first saw the orcs in this scene. (I wonder that Jackson never repeated the yellow-irises; they really sold the orcs for me).

2b. As for The Hobbit... well, the move to CGI sucked balls, of course, and making the orcs into cliche'd villains was idiotic. 

Good guys:
1. Well the armour looks amazing, of course. In terms of how "realistic" it is from a historical or effective viewpoint, I can't say, but I enjoyed the elves appearance quite a lot. I did find it strange that it seemed as though Elrond was shouting out "Loose!" commands, but his line delivery does not match up with the actual flight of arrows that whistles by his head (that was rather silly, having the arrows shoot by so close). 

2. In terms of the front-line clashing in a wave pattern, I don't find that this stands out as particularly unusual. What I got out of this sequence was that the elves were indeed very strictly trained, while the orcs were sloppy and ran in like a barbarian horde. While this does present elves as a little too mechanized, I think the cinematic effect is well worth the logical trade-off. 
I mean, it doesn't really make sense that the same up-swinging attack would be the best combat maneuver to deploy against all of the charging orcs, but the visuals here are very cool. I suppose this is the first rumour of the terrible elven crap that we got in The Hobbit, wherein the elves act like robots.

3. I have nothing but praise for how Mordor looks. It has beautiful lighting and amazing visuals. Jackson and Co. clearly blew quite a lot of the first film's digital budget on these sequences, and to good effect too. It is a masterfully rendered sequence. Unlike most blockbuster battle sequences, I just want the scene to go on and on when I watch it. I think that one shot of the orc with yellow eyes is my favourite shot of any orc in the trilogy. It is not obviously someone with a lot of makeup on (ahem, Uruk-hai) nor is it crossing over to monster-film status as the orc with large eyes in Moria is.

1. Do you think this gives the Elves a sense of strength? In the prologue men are very often seen lying on the ground such as Isildur and his father. Do you think their resilience is shown here? you know, men are flattened but the wind of power just musses their hair do's.

Once the explosion goes off the close-up only shows the Elves ducking, but in the wide shot it kinda looks like everyone falls over.

2. Do you like the image itself, the swirling banners and hair? do you think its an ethereal almost romantic image?

I can't say I'd necessarily thought of it that way. Speaking of hair though, I have a tangential point. The elf in the middle, whose face is obscured by hair in this specific frame, has always looked female to me. But I don't think there are any other female Elven soldiers in the films (Arwen notwithstanding) so I'm not 100% sure of it. Anyone else ever thought about this?

3. The scene before is the destruction of Sauron in a ball of light, which is strange for a villain, surely bad characters are not associated with the Light

It's kinda like Bellatrix and Voldemort's death scenes in the final Harry Potter film. I dunno why directors want to have their villains die in such weird ways. Maybe it's to help get the PG-13 rating; is it seen as less brutal than a body just hitting the floor? I dunno.

Eldorion wrote:.  

2. Do you like the image itself, the swirling banners and hair? do you think its an ethereal almost romantic image?

I can't say I'd necessarily thought of it that way.  Speaking of hair though, I have a tangential point.  The elf in the middle, whose face is obscured by hair in this specific frame, has always looked female to me.  But I don't think there are any other female Elven soldiers in the films (Arwen notwithstanding) so I'm not 100% sure of it.  Anyone else ever thought about this?

Yeah I'd noticed that as well, maybe they just ran out of male extras/stunt doubles? He/she is obscured by the hair in the shot (is this the only close up of the Elves before Sauron blows up?) so few people would pick up on it

Most of the Riders of Rohan in TT were actually women wearing fake beards, and I remember in one of TH video blogs there were a couple of asian stunt people doubling as Mrikwood Elves, presumably Jackson was just using them to fill out the crowds and was going to daigitally paint over there faces later...

I was taken aback at the scale of things, and how amazing the battlefield looked in comparison to, say, Braveheart which was probably my standard for big battle scenes at the time. - Forest

Oddly enough for me the battles in these films were never that impressive beyond the technically wizardly.

I grew up watching stuff precgi- so an epic onscreen battle was literally thousands of extras- this not also gave it the epic feel, but it feels more real than the battles in PJ's because all the people really are there.

Heres a good example from the film 'Waterloo' from 1970. Its technically not as well shot, largely down to camera and optical equipment being primitive by modern standards- but epic, fuck yeah, its that all right. And in a way PJ's over the top, cartoony battles cant ever hope to match.

Have to admit those are impressive. And knowing there's no CGI makes it even more so.

er.. one is supposed to be you know..actual history.. and the other is set in a mythical land. I think a fantasy film should be allowed to have some actual fantasy style battle scenes. you cant compare the two. you have to compare with other fantasy films..oh wait..there aren't any.

There's plenty of fantasy films with battle scenes, just none of epic scale.

I think a fantasy film should be allowed to have some actual fantasy style battle scenes.- Figg

I disagree when its Tolkien who not only fought in real battles but who as author goes out of his way to make his 'fantasy' battles as realistic as possible in terms of unit movements and tactics. Unlike the mess PJ presented us with in the Battle of Pelannor, you can actually plot out on a map the troop movements and advances and retreats described in the book.

I for one would much rather have seen the Battle of the Pelennor in terms of realism reflect Warterloo much more than it does PJ's cartoony version.

At the risk of producing a 3 page reply, I didn't see the Battle of the Pelennor as a big mess. There were some clear things to get across (siege engine work, charge of Rohan, attack of the gate, Mumakil charge) and we got them.

The messiness was in what happened in the city, not outside.

On a side note, Isildur is exactly how I imagine Faramir to look.

At the risk of producing a 3 page reply, I didn't see the Battle of the Pelennor as a big mess.- Halfy

As I am tired and feeling unwell still can we assume I have written a 3 page reply pointing out exactly why it is a mess using sources from the text and save me the time?

'There were some clear things to get across (siege engine work, charge of Rohan, attack of the gate, Mumakil charge) and we got them.'

short answer- the siege engine stuff is okayish, the charge of the rohan is a beautiful bit of cinema but in the end pointless as all they do is cut into the ranks and stop until the Mumakil charge, the charge in the film is of no strategic value. The attack on the gate is terrible- Grond is fine but without the WitchKing riding in to confront a lone Gandalf as its finale its a complete waste of time in my view- like setting up a joke then deciding to do without the punchline. And the Mumakil charge is spectacular action cinema which has no place whatsoever in an adaptation of the battle as Tolkien records it.

'he messiness was in what happened in the city, not outside.'

I'd rephrase to that to saying its even messier (and even more stupid) inside.

'Isildur is exactly how I imagine Faramir to look. '- Figg

Yeah I would have bought that- although I thought the guy they got was actually quite good- it was the script was the issue more than anything.

malickfan wrote:Yeah I'd noticed that as well, maybe they just ran out of male extras/stunt doubles? He/she is obscured by the hair in the shot (is this the only close up of the Elves before Sauron blows up?) so few people would pick up on it

You can see their face if you pause at just the right time, but unfortunately it's not a very flattering expression what with the strong winds and all...