Petty's Purist LotR Edits [3]

I can understand that I'm not surprised to see other edits popping up, DOS was a disaster. It sounds like they've got some issues making it all flow and actually work as a film, though. That's one of the things that have impressed me with your edits - how they work on their own and stay coherent. Apparently it's something not everyone can do, so kudos to you  

Making films I could enjoy in some fashion was important to me when doing them. Them being to cut up and jumping about to enjoy still as film would be just as bad as leaving them as they are. It would defeat the purpose.
It meant keeping bits that otherwise would be crabbit reducing but trying to recut them in such a way that they were sort of bent back a bit more to Tolkien.

The best example of that is the Aragorn Arwen story line.

I had two choices here- the obvious one for a purist edit is the last you see of her is when Aragorn leaves Rivendell until the wedding at the end.
But that means, because there is no reluctant Aragorn, there are no scenes at Rivendell beyond the bridge scene and the departure scene you can keep. There are no flashback scenes in TT you can use either as they no longer serve a strictly purist cut.
So in fact the entire meaningful appearance of Arwen would be from the Ford to before the Council. And that's it.

But I thought she was too important to Aragonrs story in a film version to not cover.
So I subverted what there was to make it like Tolkien.
I kept the scene with Aragorn and Elrond where Elrond tells him he will not leave Arwen here, and then  rewrote the subtitles to further a storyline where Aragorn tells her she must go because Elrond has been like a father to him and he cannot be the one who is responsible for splitting him form er- this is not purist, but its closer to he spirit.
I further that cause with the Galadriel/ Aragorn conversation at Lorien where there was the opportunity to have Galadriel lay out Elronds terms in the book- that they will not let her stay for any man less than King of both Gondor and Arnor.

And I follow that right through their story until the ending using the elf stone in a different way as the connecting thread.

Its not canon, but it is closer and the bits that can be made to have more basis in the book give it some validity the same scene lacked in PJ's.
And it helps the edits still feel like a proper film.

For those people who think I hate everything about PJ's films  my edits should be proof I dont.

The weird thing about PJ's films are not that he wrote a terrible script, he did, but he nearly wrote a half decent one within the blockbuster format.
It can sort of, with some changes, be brought back to something that is still a coherent film, but with a story closer to the books, with characters doing things for reasons closer to the books.
That's kind of the tragedy of those films for me, they could have done it, because they do it in bursts where they trust the source material, but they came to trust themselves far more and to distrust Tolkien less and less.

Rewriting the subtitles was brilliant, and it works very well. Are you still planning to give you edits an "overhaul"? It's been a long while since I watched them, but if you're changing them I'd rather wait. I've watched LotR too many times already

Yeas but it wont be any time to soon I dont think. Probably after summer.

#lothlorienshouldbeblue

That sounds really interesting, Petty. :DI wouldn't have thought to re-write the subtitles, but I never even tried to learn Sindarin so it would work for me as a viewer.  Did you do the same thing for Aragorn's flashback to Arwen in TTT?  It seems a shame to lose Arwen's only appearance in that film (and the costume she was wearing in it  ).

Mrs Figg wrote:#lothlorienshouldbeblue

#itseasiertoreadwhatpeoplewritewhentheyinsertspacesinbetweenthewords

Did you do the same thing for Aragorn's flashback to Arwen in TTT? It seems a shame to lose Arwen's only appearance in that film (and the costume she was wearing in it - Eldo

It was in earlier versions of the edit, but after suggestions from others and an objective look at it there is nothing in it which furthers anything.
All it actually did was slow up the Rivendell bit, which was already longer in my version having added Gandalfs recap of Orthanc, the reforging of Narsil, and the scene between Aragorn and Arwen just before the Company sets out (from TT).

But I actually wish there was more elvish in the scenes featuring, I could have done more.

But they dont seem to trust an audience will read more than a few lines of subtitles. And they make those short sentences too. And then they switch back into English mid conversation every time, its effective in creating the impression there is more elvish spoken in the film than their actually is, as you tend to forget most of the conversation you are remembering were in fact in english.

The whole switching in and out of Elvish thing always bugged me.  You see similar stuff in most movies with instances of subtitles, at least American movies.  I'm willing to overlook characters speaking in English for no reason, but I think you're right that they use fragments to make it seem like there's more than there is.

I actually thought that the flashbacks to Rivendell in TTT worked rather well, helping to give Arwen more of a presence in the story without messing up the timeline or having her actually travel to Rohan.  My only real reservation with the scene is that it's not very clear as to whether it's a flashback, hallucination, or what (I'm talking mainly the "this is a dream" scene here).

I still have her in TT but less than PJ and for different reasons.

But does this mean you might actually watch the bloody things Eldo?

mebbeh

bungobaggins wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:#lothlorienshouldbeblue

#itseasiertoreadwhatpeoplewritewhentheyinsertspacesinbetweenthewords

#cheekyyoungmensometimesgetaslap

#cheekyolderhobbitsneedspanking

#whereyoubinhidingorwell?

mebbeh- Eldo

Is that a definite maybe?   

It's a definite mebbeh.

It may be definite.

Mrs Figg wrote:#whereyoubinhidingorwell?

#layingplansforthependingapocalypse

 


which one? there seems to be quite a few knocking about.   

It may be definite- Eldo

And I may well kick your arse if you dont bloody well get on with it (and before they get pulled and I have to go through the tedium of reuploading the parts, AGAIN   )

so THATS the apocalypse Orwell was going on about    savage neep pulling!

 #butwilleldosarsebethelast?

#youlineemupiwillkickem

#thecrabbitolypse!  

Just to give a heads up there will be a new version of Book 1 up in the next few days, which of course means deleting the one thats currently there to make room for it.

No huge changes, so far, some tidying up, the shadow of the past sequence has been re-jigged and is smoother and shorter, and I sorted the scene order out after they leave Bree so that it makes sense, and I split the journey to Weathertop into two days by adding in an extra nights camp before Midge Water.

Got some tweaks to the Weathertop scene still to make but I think that's it for book 1 once thats done.

If anyone can think of anything they wished was different or felt didn't work right in book 1- let me know before I finish it and render it out.