Movie Aesthetics

Props wise I like the majority, in particular the Rohan stuff is excellent. The dwarves look the part too, in retrospect with TH dwarves now shown they were very good. Elves lloked like elves too and their props also were suitable.
I dind't like the Shire- I always envisioned it pretty much like the scenery around where Kafria is, rolling English countryside, fields and hedgerows, thicets and little woods and forests, thats not what it looks like in the film.
And I do dislike Lothlorien, Rivendell I like however, and my main gripe with Lothlorien is not really prop releated just how PJ handles the whole place in mood and making it all starlight and moonlight- the exact opposite of what is in the book.

Well do you thnk it's sunny 24/7 there? Only at night was it starry. It was light and sunny when the first entered and when they left.

What came first for you, Lorient, the movie or the book?

Movie, thats not why I keep defending it though.

He did a great job with it, he deserves more respect. As I said in another thread I try to think of the book and the movie seperately, though I do imagine the movies aesthetics for all of the characters, places, etc when I invision the book in my mind. I can get pretty frusterated with PJ when I do think about the faults in the movie though.

"Well do you thnk it's sunny 24/7 there? Only at night was it starry. It was light and sunny when the first entered and when they left."- Lorient

I assume you are referring to the film here Lorient. In which case it is not sunny when they arrive. Theres a sunny long shot but as soon as the fim cuts to them ascending the mallorn to meet Galdriel it is all starlight. The conversations between Company members on the Lawn is in moonlight, only the departure scene is in daylight it seems to be early morning.
However in the book Tolkien makes th epointof highlighting that Lothlorien is not startlight and moonlight but bright sunshine, a permant (o at least slow moving) spring and summer as a consequence of the Elven Ring Galdriel wears and uses to create her own mini UNdying Lands. A point PJ opts to ignore.

As an aside: there were seasons in Lorien, including Winter. And time itself wasn't slowed (nor in Aman), but the Three protected against the unwanted effects of time from an Elvish perspective.

Tolkien played with actual time change in the drafts for The Lord of the Rings, but abandoned this.

Upon leaving Lothlorien does Sam not get confused because the moon is out of phase?- prompting Frodo into a rymne about the Lady of lorien, time and the Elven Ring for which Aragorn admonishes him?

edit add- ' Sam sat tapping the hilt of his sword as if he were counting on his fingers, and looking up at the sky. 'It's very strange,' he murmered. 'The Moon's the same in the Shire and in Wilderland, or it ought to be. But either it's out of it's runnning, or I'm all wrong in my reckoning. You'll remember Mr Frodo, the Moon was waning as we lay on the flet up in that tree: a week from the full, I reckon. And we've been a week on the way last night, when up pops a New Moon as thin as a nail-pairing, as if we had never stayed no time in the Elvish country. Well, I can remember three nights there for certain, and I seem to remember several more, but I would take my oath it was never a whole month. Anyone would think that time did not count there!'
....'In that land,' said Frodo, 'maybe, we were in a time that has elsewhere gone by......'
...'Nay, time does not tarry ever,' said Legolas, 'but change and growth is not in all thngs and places alike. For the elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all fleets by; it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last.'
"But the wearing is slow in Lorien,' said Frodo. 'The power of the Lady is on it. Rich are the hours, though short they seem, in Caras Galadhon, where Gaaldriel wields the Elven-Ring.'
"That should not have been said outside Lorien, not even to me," said Aragorn. "Speak no more of it! But so it is Sam; in that land you lost your count. There time flowed swiftly by us, as for the Elves. The old moon passed, and a new moon waxed and waned in the world outside, while we tarried there."

Not entirely sure that clears up exactly what is going on with time and Lorien but clearly something is going on!

Yes Sam is confused, but note Legolas (an Elf) corrects things, and Frodo then adds: but the wearing is slow (effects in my opinion), and Aragorn, who had been in Lorien before, confirms that the old moon passed and that Sam lost his count. Aragorn notes that time flowed swiftly 'as for the Elves', relating, I think, to Legolas' description just before, about how the Elves can perceive time.

Also, Tolkien's notes are interesting here:

Tolkien now also introduced the Shire Reckoning, and reached the chronology of The Tale of Years: the Company cross the Silverlode on 16 January 1419, and leave on 16 February. Marquette MSS 4/2/17, headed 'New Time Table allowing 30 days sojourn in Lothlórien' with an added note 'which seems less long than it is (in traditional way)' includes an entry:

'The Coy. [Company] stays in Lórien for many days. They cannot count the time, for they do not age in that time, but outside in fact 30 days goes by.' In Scheme a similar note says:' They cannot count the time, for they themselves do not age or only very slowly. Outside in fact about 30 days passes.'

This was one of the effects of the Elven ring worn by Galadriel. Bilbo had commented on a similar inability to reckon time in Rivendell, where Elrond also wore an Elven ring.'

Hammond and Scull, The Lord of the Rings, A Reader's Companion

There's another notable note in the drafts, but here I'll just repeat that Tolkien did experiment with actual time differences in draft writing, and if I recall correctly (!) Sam's confusion was originally based on an actual time disparity.

Lorient Avandi wrote:As I said in another thread I try to think of the book and the movie seperately, though I do imagine the movies aesthetics for all of the characters, places, etc when I invision the book in my mind. I can get pretty frusterated with PJ when I do think about the faults in the movie though.

Why should we think about the books and movies separately? Each movie has "Based on the book by J. R. R. Tolkien" featured prominently in the credits, and RotK even won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. PJ and his co-writers are fond of bragging about what a good job they did adapting the books, and PJ would never have gotten the funding to make the movies - much less seen them become a financial success - if not for the strength of the book's fandom whixh he built off of. The movies are intimately related to the books, and I think that trying to separate them out is disingeuous, and is just an excuse for changes. After all, in this very thread even, you have not hesitated to compare the books and movies when it reflects positively on Jackson's faithfulness.

Thus is not, of course, to say that the movies should have been "100% faithful" or anything like that, or that they were bad films. I quite like them myself. However, I have no problem recognizing their shortcomings, and one of those shortcomings is being a fairly poor adaptation of Tolkien's characters and themes. You can enjoy the films and still acknowledge their flaws; I think the only double standard is when you try to ignore certain things (such as the books) only when they cast a poor image on PJ.

I am not trying to do that. But what you just said there is pretty much how I feel about them. They are my all time favorite movies, but when I think of them in relation to the book, I can acknowledge a lot of their flaws.

Just watching Icelandic Walks with Julie Bradbury (got a bit of a crush there truth be told! ) on the BBC. And there is bit when they arrive at an area that was once a glaciar and has lava vents above it and steam pouring out of cracks in the ground and as they drove towards it her narration was; "Its like I've arrived at the Gates of Mordor.' And you know what she wasnt wrong what a location that would have been for the Black Gate. Such a shame PJ decded to use Tokien as a holiday brochure for his homeland instead. How amazing it could have looked if it had been a global production.

Iceland's amazing, got a bit of Icelandic blood in me, and my last name's Icelandic. That would have been much better had it been a global production. Don't get me wrong, new zealand was very good for several locations such as Gondor, or Rohan. But they could have found much better places for Lorien, Amon hen, dagorlad and Morannon. There Are so many places on earth better for middle earth than New Zealand.

Agreed. NZ is fine for some places. But the Shire should have been shot in the countryside Tolkien was actually describing in England. Rohan should have been filmed elsehwere too as NZ has no grass plains. Iceland as mentioned would have been perfect for Mordor. And I'd still like to have seen the Minas Tirith stuff shot in the Mediterranean region for the lighting as its roughly at the right latitude for Minas Tirith.

Lorient Avandi wrote:I am not trying to do that. But what you just said there is pretty much how I feel about them. They are my all time favorite movies, but when I think of them in relation to the book, I can acknowledge a lot of their flaws.

Fair enough. I have to more or less agree, then.

Sorry in advance but...

Pettytyrant101 wrote: And I'd still like to have seen the Minas Tirith stuff shot in the Mediterranean region for the lighting as its roughly at the right latitude for Minas Tirith.

On what do you base that assumption, we have no knowledge of the latitudes, and if this is meant to be a prehistory, when the continents were one... Pangea, then the landscape of the whole thing would have been very different, no nice green shire gentely rolling along!

(yeah, science teacher, sorry!)

Exactly where the quote is I'm not one hundred percent certain Kafria- I think its from Letters- perhaps one of the lore masters will know it more readily, but in it Tolkien puts Hobbiton at roughly the latitude of middle-England so I was extrapolating from that.
And Minas Tirith reminds me of the High Mediterrean cultures with white walled cities and a naval fleet. It seems to fit.

I can see the logic, but have never visualised it that way myself. Still thinking northern climes and big moutainous regions I guess!

Need a Lore check here but I seem to remember, very roughly, the distance south from Hobbiton to Minas Tirith is about the same as the distance between England and the Meditterean.

Climate does change! ice age /warm period etc........

(yeah I'm being a pain for the sake of it.... what you gonna do about it?)

Well yes, but odd then that the Shire- postioned roughly where Tolkien grew up was just the same back in the Third Age as in the 1900's!

Yes well maybe going 'into the wild' meant you went through so wormholes to another planet with a different climate!!!
(And no... I promise I have not touched the buckie tonight!)

Are you sure? Besides I'm afraid one thing Tolkien was clear on ME is this planet at an unknown point in the past. And anyay even given movement of continents and ice ages the equator region remains the equator doesn't it?- except when the earth takes a roll of course- if it does.

humbug!

Here to spread the crabbit as always!