03-09-2003 05:24									#31
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I liked both and intend to get the DVDs. Actually read The Hobbit, LOTR trilogy, and Simmarillion after seeing TTT. Also downloaded and played Fav Flight's Civ2 scenarios based on Fellowship, Moria, and ROTK, which have the best Civ2 graphics I've yet seen (well worth downloading and playing!).

My only beef is when Saruman ses, "Release your wainriders," and then you see of bunch of orcs on what are probably supposed to be worgs. Like the scriptwriters couldn't bother to open a dictionary to fing out what a "wain" is (wagon, fyi). Sloppy.

	03-09-2003 05:28									#32
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I liked both Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers. I was, of course, irritated at the omissions in both videos, but I could live with those.

It was when the movies were in total contradiction to the books, that I was really displeased. For example, the entire Faramir fiasco - what was that about? What a waste of 10 minutes.

I wish they were closer to the books, but they are still fantastic. Return of the King will be of similar caliber, although this talk of a 200,000 orc army makes me mildly upset.

	03-09-2003 05:35									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Theben My only beef is when Saruman ses, "Release your wainriders," and then you see of bunch of orcs on what are probably supposed to be worgs. Like the scriptwriters couldn't bother to open a dictionary to fing out what a "wain" is (wagon, fyi). Sloppy.

I thought he said "Warg-riders". AFAIK the Wainriders are/were from Rhun, which Saruman has no control over.

	03-09-2003 06:00									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Immortal Wombat I thought he said "Warg-riders". AFAIK the Wainriders are/were from Rhun, which Saruman has no control over.

They were. And I'm pretty sure he said wainriders, although I've only seen it once. Have to see it again to be sure.

That said, the whole scene didn't occur in the books, and Saruman didn't even use worg-riders (vs. Rohan, anyway). Probably thrown in so Aragorn had an "error" thrown in his path.

As far as the 200,000 orc thing, in the books they mention the army of Sauron being "10 times as great" as the army of Gondor & Rohan, which was just shy of 10,000. After a point tens of thousands of orcs is equal to tens and tens of thousands.

	03-09-2003 06:06									#35
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Just downloaded it. Looks okay. The Eowyn vs the Witch-King clip looked to be quite ominous, that scene should be amazing.

	03-09-2003 06:11									#36
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quote: Originally posted by MrFun However, by now, the types of races and cultures that Tolkein created are cliche -- if you use them, or create groups that so similar to those of Tolkein's creation, you're really going to be seen as an unoriginal, cliched author.

First I want to say that I haven't read a lot of fantasy writers so don't confuse me with an expert on the topic But if a book or movie is cliche it's because the writer has not taken the time to actually construct his or her own unique story. There is a lot of crap out there in which some writer has just taken a bunch of characters, changed names, and called it their own. I think the problem is that a lot of the crap comes from people that crank out books like they are on an assembly line. From what I have read about Tolkein, LOTR is but a small snapshot into a much larger world that he had created. I got that feeling from watching the movie and I expect it from the books as well. But again, I think a good writer can take just about any subject and make it their own if they take the time and let their imagination run.

But in the real world I guess you have editors calling you on the phone every day wondering when the next pages will be in.

	03-09-2003 06:21									#37
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The only bad thing about TTT is the character assassination of Faramir. Otherwise, it's a better movie than FotR.

	03-09-2003 07:29									#38
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I was fine with Faramir. My problem were the Aragorn hallucinations and the fact that the Battle of Helm's Deep was just so unsatisfying.

I saw Gangs of New York not long afterwards and that did a much better job of portraying large fights in a satisfying way.

	03-09-2003 08:06									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Sprayber First I want to say that I haven't read a lot of fantasy writers so don't confuse me with an expert on the topic But if a book or movie is cliche it's because the writer has not taken the time to actually construct his or her own unique story. There is a lot of crap out there in which some writer has just taken a bunch of characters, changed names, and called it their own. I think the problem is that a lot of the crap comes from people that crank out books like they are on an assembly line. From what I have read about Tolkein, LOTR is but a small snapshot into a much larger world that he had created. I got that feeling from watching the movie and I expect it from the books as well. But again, I think a good writer can take just about any subject and make it their own if they take the time and let their imagination run. But in the real world I guess you have editors calling you on the phone every day wondering when the next pages will be in.

LOTR is great in my opinion -- but I'm just saying that by now, the elf, orc, demon races are just cliched beyond hope.

The really great fantasy writers of today are much more original than recreating what Tolkein created.

	03-09-2003 09:45									#40
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin They scewed up two towers royally.

The movie had better pacing than the book IMHO.

	03-09-2003 10:01									#41
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Yep, Aragorn falling off the cliff just sucked royally!

	03-09-2003 11:57									#42
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Seeing as this thread has sorta turned into a "TTT has issues" thread, I'd like to say that my biggest beef with TTT was the flooding of Isengard. It was so obvious that it was just water running through minitures! Can't they come up with CGI to do flooding?

	03-09-2003 15:07									#43
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The only thing I don't like about TTT is the silly Aragorn/Arwen dream sequences. I can appreciate why they were added into the movie, but I don't have to like it.

The pacing of the film was a problem I thought - one too many simultaneous plot-lines - but that's totally unavoidable when converting this particular book. They did as good a job with it as was likely IMHO.

I'd just like to say that Gollum is simply totally awesome in every way. A perfect performance, both physically and in the dialogue, by Andy Circus (sp?) and some excellent CG. Now THAT'S how you put a computer-generated character into a movie. I wonder if George Lucas was taking notes.....

Last edited by FrustratedPoet on 03-09-2003 at 15:14

	03-09-2003 15:09									#44
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Oh and the scene with the Wargs, and the Elves turning up at the battle, were good additions IMHO (although we could have lived without Aragorn falling off the cliff).

	03-09-2003 18:21									#45
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quote: Originally posted by Sprayber But if a book or movie is cliche it's because the writer has not taken the time to actually construct his or her own unique story.

There are virtual copies of LOTR out there. I know (and own) two rip-off's The sword of Shannara and one other (I'm not at home so I dont have the name t'hand).

	03-09-2003 18:26									#46
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Hey, I like the Sword of Shannara. I don't really consider it a copy of LOTR either.

	03-09-2003 18:28									#47
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quote: Originally posted by FrustratedPoet Oh and the scene with the Wargs, and the Elves turning up at the battle, were good additions IMHO (although we could have lived without Aragorn falling off the cliff).

One of the main themes throughout the books is that the elves will no longer take active part in the affairs of mankind. Yet, we see a scene of them leaving from Rivendell for the west (too early) and then (suprise-suprise) a few hundred "elf-robot" archers turn up at Helms-Deep. Merde!

	03-09-2003 18:31									#48
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quote: Originally posted by Drake Tungsten Hey, I like the Sword of Shannara. I don't really consider it a copy of LOTR either.

I only read it once when it first came out (cos it was so disappointing after the pre-publication hype), but I do remember that it even has a scene with one of the characters being "eaten" by a tree a-la the willow and Tom Bambodil.

	03-09-2003 18:34									#49
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That's what you're basing your opinion on? The two scenes are completely different if you look beyond the superficial "deadly tree" connection.

	03-09-2003 18:45									#50
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There are more similarities but since I havent read the Sword of Shannara in close to 30 years I cant remember every detail. As I recall there is a group consisting of various races including an elf, a crusty dwarf, a wizard, that travel on a mission to defeat a dark lord character. Isnt there a scene much like where frodo is stabbed with the sword on the hill-fort? etc etc. If it came out today it might be forgivable, but when the Sword of Shannara came out, there wasnt as many fantasy authors and books as there is today. The book was massively hyped as contender to LOTR. When I read it, I found that the plot-plagarism was obvious and I've never read another of his books.

	03-09-2003 18:51									#51
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quote: Isnt there a scene much like where frodo is stabbed with the sword on the hill-fort?

Not really. Shea gets poisoned by a giant scorpion thingie, if that's what you're thinking of.

quote: As I recall there is a group consisting of various races including an elf, a crusty dwarf, a wizard, that travel on a mission to defeat a dark lord character.

Doesn't every fantasy novel have that? The details are what make the two different. The Shannara books take place in a post-nuclear holocaust world and all the different races sprung up because of that event (except for the elves). Very different from the historical land of Middle Earth that Tolkien set his books in.

	03-09-2003 19:30									#52
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quote: It was when the movies were in total contradiction to the books, that I was really displeased. For example, the entire Faramir fiasco - what was that about? What a waste of 10 minutes.

quote: The only bad thing about TTT is the character assassination of Faramir. Otherwise, it's a better movie than FotR.

Yep. That pissed me off. Otherwise, it was solid. I'm ok with the other changes, because they were pretty minor. But I saw no reason for destroying one of my favorite characters.

-Arrian

	03-09-2003 19:35									#53
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quote: Originally posted by Drake Tungsten Doesn't every fantasy novel have that? The details are what make the two different. The Shannara books take place in a post-nuclear holocaust world and all the different races sprung up because of that event (except for the elves). Very different from the historical land of Middle Earth that Tolkien set his books in.

No.

Perhaps the difference is that I read the LOTR soon after its 're-discovery' in the early to mid 70's and the sword of shanara in 77. The other fantasy authors that I read at that time were REH, Moorcock, Norton, etc that are completely different from Tolkien. In the context of a publishing market that wanted to take advantage of the LOTR phenomenon at that time, the similarities between LOTR and SoS were very clear to me. I viewed (and still view) SoS as a poor rip-off of the LOTR and as I said it wasnt the only one (it was just the most hyped). I've heard that his other books in the series are more novel, but I wouldn't know since I havent read them.