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What Have You Watched Recently?


Susano

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Lord of the Rings is a great fantasy movie trilogy. It is not Lord of the Rings so much as fanfic brought to life. If I try to compare the movies to the books, I get really ticked off. The whole Aragorn being an anti-Gondor freak, the fact that Gandalf did not want to go through Moria. Those two motivations were directly contrary to the books and they didn't need to be. In Aragorn's case, he wanted, longed to go back to Gondor and take up the good fight. It was only his perceived need with the Fellowship that kept him from doing so. Gandalf wanted to go through Moria, not knowing that the Balrog had taken up residence. I'm not sure it would have mattered if he did know. The need for haste was just too strong in his motivation, especially after the failed attempt to go over the mountains.

 

Instead we get this whole reluctant hero crap from Aragorn and fear of the Balrog from Gandalf. Where was the need to change that part of the story because I saw absolutely no reason that the original motivations could not have stayed.

 

And those are just two of the many reasons that the movies can never truly be the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings that do the books justice. They are wonderful films to watch, but in the end, they are simply too different at the fundamental things to truly represent the books. And no, I don't need Tom Bombadil in the movie either. :)

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Lord of the Rings is a great fantasy movie trilogy. It is not Lord of the Rings so much as fanfic brought to life. If I try to compare the movies to the books, I get really ticked off. The whole Aragorn being an anti-Gondor freak, the fact that Gandalf did not want to go through Moria. Those two motivations were directly contrary to the books and they didn't need to be. In Aragorn's case, he wanted, longed to go back to Gondor and take up the good fight. It was only his perceived need with the Fellowship that kept him from doing so. Gandalf wanted to go through Moria, not knowing that the Balrog had taken up residence. I'm not sure it would have mattered if he did know. The need for haste was just too strong in his motivation, especially after the failed attempt to go over the mountains.

 

Instead we get this whole reluctant hero crap from Aragorn and fear of the Balrog from Gandalf. Where was the need to change that part of the story because I saw absolutely no reason that the original motivations could not have stayed.

 

And those are just two of the many reasons that the movies can never truly be the film adaptation of Lord of the Rings that do the books justice. They are wonderful films to watch, but in the end, they are simply too different at the fundamental things to truly represent the books. And no, I don't need Tom Bombadil in the movie either. :)

 

While I agree that the films doesn't represent the film of the book, they aren't bad as a film series in there own right. There area few things I wish hadn't been changed or added (elves at Helms Deep for one), I also agree with the assessment made in the behind the scenes -- as written, LOTR is unfilmable. Any attempt to remake the LOTR series will have to take this into account. For example, the Council of Elrond is 50k words of people talking. And if filmed as written, you'd end up watching not only The Hobbit, but everything that had happened in Fellowship all over again!

 

I will also say that reading Band of Brothers, then watching it, was a real eye-opener as to how someone might adapt a written work to film and what has to be done to go from telling to showing. So my frustrations with LOTR the films have been somewhat abated.

 

PS: However, nothing excuses Gimli being the comic relief or Legolas surfing on a shield. Or having the Ents initially refuse to fight Saruman.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

While I agree that the films doesn't represent the film of the book' date=' they aren't bad as a film series in there own right. There area few things I wish hadn't been changed or added (elves at Helms Deep for one), I also agree with the assessment made in the behind the scenes -- as written, LOTR is unfilmable. Any attempt to remake the LOTR series will have to take this into account. For example, the Council of Elrond is 50k words of people talking. And if filmed [i']as written[/i], you'd end up watching not only The Hobbit, but everything that had happened in Fellowship all over again!
I think we are agreeing more than not. I would never believe that the Lord of the Rings would be easily translated to film. My complaints lie with the portrayal of the essentials. I brought up Aragorn and Gandalf, Nevelon brought up Faramir, you brought up Legolas, Gimli, and the Ents. I really don't understand why the base motivations would change. The extended cut, where Aragorn told Boromir that he would not take the ring within a 100 leagues of Gondor could have just as easily been more of the "I'd like to go with you, but this is the more important quest." speech. Faramir could have been less of the "Daddy Issue" and more heroic. The movie could have played out almost the same, but it would have made the characters more noble and more true to the story. Instead, they had to burden all of the characters with unnecessary pathos.

 

PS: However, nothing excuses Gimli being the comic relief or Legolas surfing on a shield. Or having the Ents initially refuse to fight Saruman.
How right you are!
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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Game 4 of the Giants-Braves NLDS. Rookie Madison Bumgarner dueled veteran Derek Lowe (pitching on 3 days rest) and for the most part, held his ground. The Giants broke through when Lowe tired in the 7th and their bullpen held on to a 3-2 lead until Brian Wilson made things dramatic in the 9th, walking two.

 

At the end of it all, may I be the first to wish Braves manager Bobby Cox a happy retirement. His string of successive division wins is pretty much unassailable.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Game 4 of the Giants-Braves NLDS. Rookie Madison Bumgarner dueled veteran Derek Lowe (pitching on 3 days rest) and for the most part' date=' held his ground. The Giants broke through when Lowe tired in the 7th and their bullpen held on to a 3-2 lead until Brian Wilson made things dramatic in the 9th, walking two.[/quote']

 

;) Hmmmm. It LOOKS like English ....

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Beauty and the Beast Diamond Edition on Blu-Ray. It's an absolutely gorgeous transfer of the movie, with a bonus disc of extra features (that actually look interesting), and a DVD of the movie (for all of the other devices in the house). There are multiple viewing modes, including the original theatrical release (what I watched tonight), the extended edition (the last release on DVD), and the rough cut. I'll probably go back and watch the rough cut this weekend. Disney seems to be doing away with the electronic copy. Instead, they offer to sell a discounted streaming library copy for about $6 more. I'm expecting that this is just Disney's way of hedging their bets for future distribution channels.

 

JoeG

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Halloween Moviethon...next up...Rabid, another film by David Cronenberg. Marilyn Chambers(yes the porn star) stars as a woman who is injured in a motorcycle accident and is subjected to an experimental medical procedure to save her life. The process leaves her with an uncontrollable bloodlust that she spreads to others after attacking them with a phallic like appendage that bursts out of her body. The execution is much better than this premise deserves, but even so..it's hard to take this one seriously. Not horrible, but definitely a lesser film in Cronenberg's body of work.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers.

 

:D A classic example of alien stereotyping and unprovoked scare-mongering, as practiced by the movie industry.

 

This may be why aliens won't go anywhere near Earth - they're offended by what they see on our media.

 

(OK, I dunno where that came from. Maybe I need to change my tinfoil hat or something)

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Like Godzilla versus Hedorah or All Monsters Attack. When they did that big boxed set of the original Godzilla movies a few years back' date=' why did they include THAT? :no:[/quote']

 

I'll be honest. I have no idea why people think Final Wars is so great. I think it's awful. It's boring, the script is terrible, the dialogue is atrocious(even subtitled) and the FX work is so shoddy in places that I can realistically say some of it is WORSE than the two films above. Now, Hedorah and Godzilla's Revenge aren't exactly at the top of my list either, but they're certainly more watchable than Final Wars IMO. At least those films didn't hype themselves up to be something they're not. Godzilla's Revenge is a child's fantasy and works fine as such. Final Wars hyped itself to be the Godzilla movie to end all Godzilla movies and ended up as a really boring Matrix/X-men ripoff with lame short monster fights and some god awful SPFX(Kumonga fight anyone). It really doesn't feel like a Godzilla movie at all, unlike the other films you mentioned.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

I got SOAP from netflix. For you young people' date=' it is one of the funniest quazi soap operas of all time. It had a very young Billy Crystal, who played the first openly gay character on tv.[/quote']

 

And he got more women than all the other characters combined. His rivalry with that annoying dummy (the wooden one, not all the flesh-and-blood ones) was entertaining too.

 

And then there was Devil Baby, followed by Space Baby. And the evil cult run by Richard Moll, which brainwashed the one family's son until he got rescued by his lecherous jailbird dad, the screwy detective, the even screwier and racist old general (his grandfather), and Benson, the only sane man in the bunch. "We're the Step Brothers. We're here for the audition." "Audition! Here?" "Here? If you insist!"

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