LOTR - Fellowship of the Ring - Screencap Thingie

Mrs Figg wrote:got bored waiting, so heres the next.  



A. Did you connect these men with the Ringwraiths at the time or afterwards?

B. Do you think it portrays men in a positive or negative light? literally and figuratively.

C. Do you think the composition of the shot has any meaning beyond the aesthetics?

D. any other questions.

A. I watched the film before reading the book so I was introduced to the ringwraiths in the course of the story, so no I didn't connect the two at first...you would have to be pretty thick to not connect the two afterwards!

B/C (my thoughts are linked) Portrays the kings of men as cold and negative (instead of focusing on Sauron's betrayal and horror, he spends most of LOTR hammering home the message that men are destined to be greedy and weak willed, much more so than the book, largely to give Aragorn more of a character arc as he 'earns the right' to become King) the lighting and camera shot of this scene makes the men feel much more aloof and untrustworthy than the Elves.

D. Something about this scene strikes me as a little odd with the nine kings (who are all unnamed and look very similar...Nine Kings of what exactly? Rhun? Harad? Rhovanion? It's never explained in the book as far as I can remember...) standing in a perfect V shape equal distance from each other staring directly at the camera, just seems a bit over the top

It's a good point that the elves and dwarves are presented rather naturalistically in comparison. I think the frame would become crowded with 9 unless they were posed, so that's what they went with.

Yeah, it's always been somewhat annoying that Tolkien only gave names and backstory to 2 of the 9. And even those were pretty sketchy.

Forest Shepherd wrote:

A. What do you think of the physical appearance of Sauron in the prologue? 

B. Why is Sauron reaching toward Isildur? Did this question occur to you while watching?

C. Would you have preferred to be able to see beneath the armour? To see the form that Sauron takes before he is defeated?

Bonus: What was your reaction to the way that Sauron seems to literally explode after having the ring cut off of his fingers?

Relevant quote from the Silmarillion: 
"But at the last the siege was so strait that Sauron himself came forth; and he wrestled with Gil-galad and Elendil, and they both were slain, and the sword of Elendil broke under him as he fell. But Sauron also was thrown down, and with the hilt-shard of Narsil Isildur cut the Ruling Ring from the hand of Sauron and took it for his own. Then Sauron was for that time vanquished, and he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and hid in waste places; and he took no visible shape again for many years."

A. The suit of armour looks pretty cool (though it also looks very heavy and spiky, probably not the easiest to fight in) but I never felt Sauron's design was very threatening, you don't really get much of a sense of his personality, and his size makes him seem a bit too big to take seriously

B. Actually, I think Sauron was originally reaching towards Gil-galad (the Elvish King with the spear), in the books he picks him up and destroys him with the sheer heat of his hands, they definitely shot more footage of Gil-galad than what we saw in the film, and as the prologue (according to the commentary at least) was one of the last things to be completed in the edit, they probably just edited it down and switched around the purpose....or I may be wrong, either way it foes look kinda stupid since Islidur is holding a sword...

C. No, I think it may have 'ruined the magic' a little, we know Sauron has a body in the books but we never see it in the flesh (or described in great detail at least) and I'm not sure I'd just Jackson to come up with something beautiful/terrfying rather than grotesque or silly.

Bonus. I think my intial reaction was It was a cool effect to be sure...but in retrospect looks a bit...silly? You would have thought a huge explosion like that would have killed or hurt a fair few of the men/elves standing nearby...

Correct me if I'm wrong...but in the book isn't Sauron 'killed' first, then the ring is cut from his Body? I don't recall a passage like:

'And then Isildur gazed upon Sauron in utter confusion as his corpse went nuclear and exploded for some reason (accompanied by a final futile shout of 'Bugger!')...'Well that was weird' was Isildur's sole comment as he picked himself up from the floor moments later, miraculously unharmed despite standing in the epicentre of the explosion 'Ooh look a shiny ring, at least I'll have a souvenir!'

halfwise wrote:It's a good point that the elves and dwarves are presented rather naturalistically in comparison.  I think the frame would become crowded with 9 unless they were posed, so that's what they went with.

That's a good point about the frame being crowded, something else strikes me about this, the costumes, beards etc of the Kings all look very similar (from memory, I think the same is true for the seven Dwarve lords in their scene) I think if LOTR were made after TH with a similarly inflated budget PJ and co would make more effort to differentiate them.

LOTR only had a budget of around $94 million each (not taking into account inflation), which is far from a tiny budget, but nowhere near the level of many blockbusters today...

malickfan wrote:

Radaghast wrote:That dude in the middle looks a bit too long in the tooth for an elf.

"As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save that his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said 'All is now ready.'"

http://thainsbook.net/cirdan.html

Fair enough but...

"As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save that his eyes were keen as stars; and he looked at them and bowed, and said 'All is now ready.'"

To be fair he had thousands of years yet to grow that beard.

Fair enough. I'm not sure how old Círdan (or how aged he looked) was at the time Nenya was given to him so I won't belabor the point.

That's a pretty unimpressive Gil-Galad, though.

I agree about Gil-Galad not being impressive enough. I would have liked someone more like Thranduil or similar but with dark hair.

If Jackson were truly faithful to Tolkien he should have given Gil-galad dark hair with blonde highlights, to represent the confusion of Gil-galad's heritage.

But no, not Mr. Hollywood, not "Action Jackson", he would rather simplify things and give us a Gil-galad with only one hair colour. Thus the conclusion is inescapable: I would have made a "more" faithful film based on this matter alone!

Yeessh!

plus the grass in Hobbiton, like Petty says... I mean how hard is it to film grass?

I think of Gil-Galad as a thoughtful warrior type. Thranduil was just a snotty pretty boy. I would NOT want Gil-Galad to look at all like him.

malickfan wrote:A. The suit of armour looks pretty cool (though it also looks very heavy and spiky, probably not the easiest to fight in) but I never felt Sauron's design was very threatening, you don't really get much of a sense of his personality, and his size makes him seem a bit too big to take seriously

B. Actually, I think Sauron was originally reaching towards Gil-galad (the Elvish King with the spear), in the books he picks him up and destroys him with the sheer heat of his hands, they definitely shot more footage of Gil-galad than what we saw in the film, and as the prologue (according to the commentary at least) was one of the last things to be completed in the edit, they probably just edited it down and switched around the purpose....or I may be wrong, either way it foes look kinda stupid since Islidur is holding a sword...

C. No, I think it may have 'ruined the magic' a little, we know Sauron has a body in the books but we never see it in the flesh (or described in great detail at least) and I'm not sure I'd just Jackson to come up with something beautiful/terrfying rather than grotesque or silly.

Bonus. I think my intial reaction was It was a cool effect to be sure...but in retrospect looks a bit...silly? You would have thought a huge explosion like that would have killed or hurt a fair few of the men/elves standing nearby...

Correct me if I'm wrong...but in the book isn't Sauron 'killed' first, then the ring is cut from his Body? I don't recall a passage like:

'And then Isildur gazed upon Sauron in utter confusion as his corpse went nuclear and exploded for some reason (accompanied by a final futile shout of 'Bugger!')...'Well that was weird' was Isildur's sole comment as he picked himself up from the floor moments later, miraculously unharmed despite standing in the epicentre of the explosion 'Ooh look a shiny ring, at least I'll have a souvenir!'

I agree that the personality does not come across, but I think it's nonsense that the design is not very threatening! Everything about Sauron's physical appearance: from the deer-skull holes in the front of his helmet and the spikes on top, to his imposing size; we are given an image of violent and remorseless evil. The horrified expressions on the faces of the Last Alliance even grant him an aura of dread. 

I also thought it was a visually cool effect, but it is not an effect that makes much sense to me. My sister, for example, believed for many years that the way in which all the elves and men fell to the ground from the blast meant that all of them had just been killed. 

As you saw in the quote from the Silmarillion, Sauron is "thrown down" upon the ground before the ring is cut from his finger, but his spirit is not driven away until the ring is actually cut. I actually like how the ring is cut off in the movies: it's a pretty epic shot and quite satisfying to watch. The one thing that is strange is that the fingers appear to be empty, meaning that Sauron doesn't actually have a body underneath that armour, or that it turns to dust or something once the ring is cut from his body.

I don't think it's a particularly good design. It's trying to hard with the spiky things that it almost comes off as parodic.

halfwise wrote:I think of Gil-Galad as a thoughtful warrior type.  Thranduil was just a snotty pretty boy.  I would NOT want Gil-Galad to look at all like him.

Agreed. But I'd want him to have the same height at least.

[quote="Forest Shepherd"]

A. What do you think of the physical appearance of Sauron in the prologue? 

B. Why is Sauron reaching toward Isildur? Did this question occur to you while watching?

C. Would you have preferred to be able to see beneath the armour? To see the form that Sauron takes before he is defeated?

Bonus: What was your reaction to the way that Sauron seems to literally explode after having the ring cut off of his fingers?

I saw something that was too big, unimpressive & easy to kill. It was a galumfing heavily armoured "thing" that was probably blinkered due to the ridiculous "white witch of Narnia's" crown. I did wonder why this giant was wearing the one ring outside of his glove ? especially as it looked a loose fit.
Why is Sauron reaching for Isildur ? to make a mockery of him I guess, swing him around by the neck in full view before Sauron snaps his head off.
I would have preferred to see a smaller Elf sized fighting warrior with a less lavish Heinz Baked Beans can for armour !
When he had his fingers cut I just thought "serves you right, you wear a big gold ring for all to try & grab, you stick your mitts out unguarded, tough !"

These guys remind me of contrived Victorian photo shoot where you have to stand very still, look at the camera & wait for the flash. After the photo has been taken I can imagine them mumbling & milling about not really knowing what to do next. The expressions on each mans face just says "Ive had enough, can I go home now". ( put slippers on & drink a cup of cocoa ) They certainly dont look regal & if it wasnt for Father Christmas at the front wearing a cheap crown I would have thought they were what was classed as "Rangers"

I wonder which one is supposed ot be Gothmog, the Black Easterling?

The second one from the middle on the right looks kinda like Father Christmas...

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I wonder which one is supposed ot be Gothmog, the Black Easterling?

You mean Khamul, the Black Easterling?

Him too

I think its quite interesting how the men are portrayed as grey and grim, as if they are the ancient kings that Denethor reads about in crumbling manuscripts in his cold tower. They seem deathly cold and spectral there is no vital blood in their bodies, no colour. There they are as barren as the White Tree. Its as if the rebirth of the kings of Gondor and the coming of Aragorn is too late for them, their line has ended. Their body language is both noble and defeated at the same time. Their arms are limp and hanging down to their sides and they hold their Rings not with pride and energy but with reluctance and almost a sense of shame as if they would much rather not show the Rings but hide them. Its as if the Rings have joined their arms in invisible chains dragging them down with the invisible weight of the power.

I agree about the poses Figg- personally I think the visual is deliberately trying to invoke the lines being spoken- "Doomed to die" there is something about the grave and morgue in the colour pallette and the poses to me.

woah! you agree with me?  good thing I was sat down...the shock...

See, it does happen.

You just have to say something sensible first

..just remembered. This is a leap year.

Well youve had your one agreement then.