Pics of places that look like places from the films, or are just nice. [2]

I personally think of this as high fells for example,- Mrs Figg

Yes, thats more what I have in mind too Figg.   

bit of Ithilien?

Maybe a bit of Minas Tirith?

yeah, I can see Gondorian soldiers in their lovely winged helmets striding round, protecting the place  

Thats the beauty of Italy, it has a wealth of Renaissance dreamscapes to play with,  

 

Yes, nice pictures Figg.   As well as those you put in the Tales of Home thread.

Somehow it reminds me a whole lot more of Minas Tirit and Ithilien than what they came up with in the movies.

Those crenelations are all wrong!   

Forest Shepherd wrote:Those crenelations are all wrong!    

that depends on whether you are Guelph or Ghibelline   

Bluebottle wrote:Yes, nice pictures Figg.   As well as those you put in the Tales of Home thread.

Somehow it reminds me a whole lot more of Minas Tirit and Ithilien than what they came up with in the movies.

Really? I thought if there was anything the movies got right, it was Minas Tirith.

For me they only go the city right (sort of- the circles were too narrow)- the land it sits in was all wrong though.
Should have been a warmer southern med vibe- orchards and vineyards on hillsides and plantations, homesteads dotted about the Pellanor with tended fields.
Way the film had it it was a barren, inhospitable looking place of greys and browns and the Pellanor was just a huge dusty plain.   

I never got a southern med vibe from reading the books. Northern Italian perhaps. I also got the feeling that the tended fields were pretty far out from the city, else the horses couldn't easily go charging around. In the movie they should have put in some farmland, definitely - just not too close or it would have been unmanageable.

Narrowness between the walls was perhaps a little too much, but I can't see it being more than double. The only scene where they seem too narrow is the shot of Gandalf riding up; once shot on set they seemed exactly as I imagined.

I will need to double check but pretty sure Tolkien does mention the lushness of the land there and the orchards ect.
And even more so when you go further south into Gondor, and the regions around Dol Amroth.
Tobacco also grows wild there and its described as warm.

Taking that into account and that if you transpose a map of Europe onto ME using the Shire and England as your markers, then Gondor is basically Mediterranean so I think that sort of scenery and lighting and type of vegetation best represents it.

halfwise wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:Yes, nice pictures Figg.   As well as those you put in the Tales of Home thread.

Somehow it reminds me a whole lot more of Minas Tirit and Ithilien than what they came up with in the movies.

Really?  I thought if there was anything the movies got right, it was Minas Tirith.

I agree. Minas Tirith was breathtakingly beautiful, whether totally accurate or not.  

THE EAGLES ARE COMING!!!



I put this story here because it kind of reminds me of a real life Eagle saving story. The Pope releases White Doves of peace every Sunday after Angelus, the Doves were immediately attacked by a Crow and a Gull, symbolically the Gull is associated with Greed and the Crow with various nefarious negative attributes. I find it a fascinating and symbolic story because the very first time the new Pope did this, he being against the old corruption and a new beginning for the Church. Anyway the Pope has had trained falcons out patrolling the sky to protect the Doves and ward off the predators. weird huh?

My objections would be the same as Pettys.   

Too small, too cramped, Pellenor fields looking like some kind of steppe and Mordor looking like it's a 10 minute ride away.

I don't mind the overall look that much.

Of all the illustrations I've seen of Minas Tirith, the movie version was the only one that really captured it for me. Oddly enough Tolkien's own illustrations don't do it for me (except the Byzantine interior of the white tower).

Apart from it being too narrow I liked the general design, the architecture,, Court of the Kings ect were all good.
But the location, the lighting, the lack of any farm land or orchards ect was all wrong for me.
I didnt like the Pelannor being just a big flat nothing and I didn't like that Gondor seemed to consist of just one city and nothing else.

The flat open plain gave the landscape more grandeur, it made Minas Tirith look like it was the last lonely outpost, the emptyness added to this feeling. I thought it was brilliant. It felt like there was literally nothing in between Mordor and Gondor. Small details like habitation on Pelenor fields is not needed and besides the point, its just added stuff that doesnt add anything meaningful imo you dont have time to register that kind of detail when you are watching the film.

I had time to not only register it, but get crabbit about it.

And if the aim is to portray Minas Titirth as a drab dull place that's entirely and implausibly on its own in the entire realm of Gondor then I suppose it succeeds.

I would rather have seen the capital city of a realm myself.
And I would rather have seen the desperate sort of house to blazing house fighting the book describes out on the Pelannor- I think that would have driven home the brutally of what was going on and the individual cost of it fighting in the glow of destroyed homesteads.

I would rather PJ and the Coven had not opted for the nonsense of Minas Tirith being alone as you describe, amongst other problems it gives us a Denethor who is clearly insane and unfit to rule being nevertheless unchallenged by anyone, and makes it look like he runs the entire place on his own.

If a thing can be dumbed down too far, you can be sure PJ will find a way to do it.

But even you liked the general look of the city, Petty.

Let's call that progress.   

unbelievable nit picking in the face of undeniable brilliance.

I do deny the brilliance and nor do I think it is nitpicking.

As you said Figg by making Minas Tirith a place alone in the middle of nowhere PJ conveys a certain sense, a mood he creates.
Likewise had they made the place more like the book, and had they included a scene where the reinforcements all come in the city walls- it would give a different mood and feel. One of a once mighty kingdom gathering its remaining strength for a fight it knows it cant win.
If the other Captains and Prince had also been included this in turn changes the feel of events again, makes Denethor seem less crazy and less isolationist, less one dimensional than PJ presents him and more like an actual leader.

So these are in my view some pretty big and fundamental changes to what we got, so I dont think it can be called nit picking.
Nit picking would be saying I didnt like Minas Trirth because they got a crenellation on a wall wrong!

Are we missing the fact that we finally found something about the films you guys agree on here?