Watching LOTR for the first time in four years

azriel wrote:I just like Karl Urban !

Theoden, Eowyn, and Eomer were all great. Or, at least, they weren't in the movies long enough for the writers to completely destroy them.

True that..

bungobaggins wrote:Theoden, Eowyn, and Eomer were all great. Or, at least, they weren't in the movies long enough for the writers to completely destroy them.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm confused

Bernard Hill was one of my favourite casting choices in the trilogy, Karl Urban is always fun to watch and Eowyn I never really found that interesting as a character

Denethor on the other hand was barely in the films, and was destroyed as a character within minutes i.m.o

I do like Boromir more in the films, not necessarily because of the way the character is written, Sean Bean is just fantastic in his relatively small amount of screentime

Eowyn's best scene in the movie was playing with the sword in Edoras. It was an insertion but a damn good one.

I agree with the Sean Bean mention. For the time we saw him he played his character well ( in whatever form he character was meant to be ) I don't feel I will ever see a more touching death scene as the one Sean did. That moment redeemed Boromir & earned respect from Aragorn. I especially liked that Aragorn told Boromir what he wanted to hear, forgiveness. He told Boromir that he would not let our people fail

Funny how Boromir became a baddy when he tried to take the ring, but i still shed a tear at his death scene.

Redemption was the whole point of the scene, both in film and books.

azriel wrote:I agree with the Sean Bean mention. For the time we saw him he played his character well ( in whatever form he character was meant to be ) I don't feel I will ever see a more touching death scene as the one Sean did. That moment redeemed Boromir & earned respect from Aragorn. I especially liked that Aragorn told Boromir what he wanted to hear, forgiveness. He told Boromir that he would not let our people fail

On the Directors commentary they stop talking and singled Bean's performance in this scene for special praise, IIRC the death scene was split over both sides of lunch, so Bean must have spent the morning rehearsing and working himself up into a great emotional state, then spent the afternoon pretending to lie dead hoping his lunch wasn't digesting too loudly, Viggo Mortensen came up with the idea that Aragorn takes Boromir's gauntlets and wears them as a tribute afterwards (though it's never directly mentioned in the film).

I always thought it was a bit ironic Aragorn comes from the rural North of Middle Earth (the shire is roughly analogous to the Midllands, and the Bree-Land isn't that far away(
and has a much posher accent and Sean Bean keeps his Northern accent despite Gondor being much further south (equivalent to the Mediterranean I suppose if you were to drop the middle earth map over a map of europe) and Boromir coming from high class.

remember that Aragorn grew up in Rivendell. If that's not posh, nothing is.

One of my favourite Bean Scenes is in Lothlorien with Aragorn, when they are talking about Minas Tirith. It always gets me.

Posting in this thread since we discussed the soundtrack some pages back: The Fellowship of the Ring Complete Recordings will be available again as of March 30!

https://twitter.com/DougAdamsMusic/status/963523906274516992
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079PTDW74

I recently did a LOTR EE marathon with my girlfriend, she hadn't seen the films in many years (and never the extended editions) and for me it had been maybe five or six years since I watched all three in such close proximity to each other. Needless to say I found myself very much enjoyed re-watching the films after so long, even taking into account skateboarding Legolas, some execrable Jacksonims and plot changes (''Go home Sam!'' and the Faramir rewrite still piss me off) and Pippin the genial idiot. Sure they aren't particularly faithful to the spirit or characters of the book, but still very well made and hugely enjoyable fantasy blockbusters for the most part and miles ahead of the prequel trilogy that shall not be named.

Also feel I'm got a newly minted Tolkien geek to bring to the fold, she was engrossed by the films and bombarded me with all sorts of questions or queries about the lore, books and some of Jackson's questionable changes, I directed her to the Tolkien Gateway wiki and have promised to lend her The Hobbit and a few of the other shorter Tolkien works to get an introduction to his writing.

Good, good. Don't load too much crabbit all at once onto her neophyte shoulders though, best to let it grow slowly over time.

In the last couple of weeks I had rewatched all the extended editions films and appendices. They really are well made, and as you say, having grudgingly accepted the crabbit inducing parts you can enjoy the rest.

malickfan wrote:
she was engrossed by the films and bombarded me with all sorts of questions or queries about the lore, books and some of Jackson's questionable changes, I directed her to the Tolkien Gateway wiki and have promised to lend her The Hobbit and a few of the other shorter Tolkien works to get an introduction to his writing.      

That's a keeper, my friend

They really are well made- Halfy

{{Agreed -with caveats!}}

having grudgingly accepted the crabbit inducing parts- Halfy

{{{Never! I'll be seen sober in trousers giving the contents of my sporran away to needy strangers afore I accept them!!!!   }}


you can enjoy the rest.- Halfy

{{agreed, if you watch my edits or alternatively fall asleep during the bits I cut out }}}

Funny to me that when I first watched them, I liked RotK the most and FotR the least. Probably the other way around now with tTT still in the middle.

Still would have preferred to have seen Glorfindel instead of Liv Tyler. All for inclusivitiy and all but we could have probably gotten that with more backstory on Galadriel and a less fawny Eowyn.

Eowyn with her helmet on looks like the Annoying Orange.

It really bothered me as I rewatched the RotK EE tonight.

The Annoying Orange ?

why annoying orange?

I felt her helmet made her look cross-eyed. Why did everyone else's helmet look right but hers looked like grandpa's coat on the grandchild? Was this intentional or did they just miss it?

because everyone else was a big beefy bloke?

I'm convinced a helmet can look perfectly reasonable on a woman impersonating a man. Just like a bad fitting helmet can look ridiculous on a man. I think they wanted her to stand out to the audience and didn't think the rest of the Rohirrim would notice. Silly sods.

I went looking to see if anyone else was bothered by Eowyn's helmet. There's a whole discussion of the death of the Witch King scene and how it didn't quite work, with mentions of the silly looking helmet that unlike the book was only removed at the last moment. Then a certain Arithmancer points out that the book doesn't work either: much of the power of the scene is Merry's surprise to find out Dernhelm is actually Eowyn. But he had spent days riding with her, that he wouldn't have figured this out rather stretches credulity.