DOS theatrical on DVD, Blu-ray, streaming

now I know why his garden is full of poppies.   

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I dont think there is anything wrong with not liking the original stories, but I do feel an actor should have a feel and ideally some appreciation for the writing and the style in order to be able to perform it properly, or they should think twice about taking the role.
Otherwise you end with Mel Gibson's Hamlet.

I may have to watch it again, but I actually preferred Mel Gibson's (actually Zeffireli's) Hamlet to Kenneth Branagh's, which is strange because I'm a big fan of everything else Branagh has done. I was only bothered by Helena Bonham Carter's Ophelia, and in some places the set felt too small and gritty.

I felt like I was watching someone at work, who wasn't in the right field of work.
He struggles quite badly in some places with the rhythms and gives me the impression not that the words are coming from an inner position of understanding and then projection, but more like watching someone who cant play piano but has been taught how to play one tune on it.
Yes they can play the tune, but it lacks the grace, the naturality that a musician would bring to the piece.
Gibson doing Shakespeare felt like that to me. Like he has been taught how to say the lines and told what they mean.

And its not because he is American either, though Shakespeare in a US accent can seem odd to UK ears, but Brannagh's Much Ado About Nothing has plenty US actors and its one of my favourites, I'm also a big fan of Pacino in Merchant of Venice (and I was pretty damn sceptical on that one before seeing it).
So I have to put it down to the performance for why I dislike that version more than most- that and the weird overplaying of a close to incestuous relationship with his mother.

He's Australian. No, you can't compare Gibson to Branagh, I just felt the overall feeling of the Zeferelli version made more sense. I kept wondering if I was in some strange dream watching the Branagh version. It put me to sleep. Branagh never puts me to sleep, but somehow he managed in Hamlet.

Yeah of course, he's an Ozzy, he just doesn't use the aussie accent that much, and he certaily doesnt sound in Hamlet, and its definetly not an english accent either, so I am going with him using his American on eit.

I am not a fan of Brannaghs Hamlet either, my least favourite of his Shakespeare films.
Having said that I am not sure that opinion might might not change if I saw it in the format it was meant for, which is one of those ridiculous superwide cinema formats that really do look like peering through a letterbox when put on a widescreen tv. For that reason all the versions I've seen of it are unfortunately not in the original format but have the sides of frame chopped off to make it 16:9 ratio.   

I did enjoy David Tennants take on it, but its less a film and more a filmed play-



He also made a good documentary about playing Hamlet-

I hadn't seen that Tennant version, and really appreciate the long pauses he inserts. Very different from the usually hyperkinetic Tennant. It seems the earlier you go in time the more actors try to rush that speech: recordings of actors in the 40's make me cringe.

I've seen the Shakespeare uncovered. Note it's a PBS production!

Note it's a PBS production!- Halfy

That makes me   I nearly put on the last post about that doc that I thought it was a good introduction to Hamlet for non Shakespeare liking folk becuase I assumed it was aimed at students. But PBS- that explains it.   

But here you go- Tennants Hamlet (also has excellent supporting cast including Patrick Stewart)- oh and Yorick's skull- real person who donated their head and gets a listing in the cast, it was his ambition to play Yorick!

Very interesting word count chart Chris.
I note that Smaug has almost as much dialogue as Bilbo- I wonder what percentage of Bilbo's dialogue in DOS is all in the scene with Smaug.

Not encouraging either when a character like Bard who is only in the second half of the film has almost as much to say as the lead character.

Pretty clear who the real lead character is though and why they should just have called it The Dwarf.

How the fook did they keep a straight face while applying that god awful hideous wig on Beorn ??? & to say about looking like a man etc ??? are you fooking nuts ???!!! Ive seen hair do's on greasy workmen in car scrap yards that are better than that waste of poor horsey hair ! AND their mops were full of diesel, petrol, & engine oil. Not only has Peejers brain washed or hypnotized himself but, he's mind fooked the entire staff & crew !!    

To be fair on the word count thing, Bilbo had a much more prominent role in AUJ, though I suspect the largest chunk of his dialogue came before the departure from Bag End.  After that he started to get shunted aside more and more, especially in the TEs.

I think it's also telling how fewer total words there were in DOS than AUJ. They definitely upped the amount of action here.

Pretty impressive too that even with splitting it into three films they still managed to give Frodo more dialogue than Dori, Oin, Ori,Gloin, Nori, and Bombur who doesn't even make the list.

I fail to understand the rationale behind making each dwarf completely distinct if you are not going to distinguish them as characters in any other way.
If you are going to leave them the amorphous group they are in the book then go along with the joke and make them all look like similar dwarves, short, stocky and with long beards.
Given the lack of characterisation coloured hoods would have served as well (in fact better) tha all that silly spiky hairdo nonsense and axes in heads and no beards worth the name.   

Long was this Doom Foretold.   

I love saying that and stick it in whenever I can, but this time I mean it. how the freaking heck can Bard have nearly as much dialogue as Bilbo??   

Mrs Figg wrote:Long was this Doom Foretold.   

I love saying that and stick it in whenever I can, but this time I mean it. how the freaking heck can Bard have nearly as much dialogue as Bilbo??   

I couldn't tell you who had the most dialogue in the film, I was too busy trying to stay awake to pay attention.

They probably figured if the added in more close ups of Thorin's hair the audience would be to entranced to pay much attention to the script...

Yeah, a "Hair Fest", Thorin,bidding for the L'oreal crown,  Legolas,(never gonna give it up ).  Flick O'the wrist Thandy-stride-me-pants, Ballsed-up-Beorn,sporting this years Spyro hairdo with extra lockn'load,  Tweaking-freaking Tauriel, Even the wolves things had brushable locks, Gandalf had the "old man of the woods" look down to a fine art, Rhadagast was splendiferous with his hair & hedgehog attachments, Saruman borrowed Galadriel's hair straighteners, (not just for the hair, eyebrows to) who have I left out ??

Elrond's pretty hair knots!

Thankyou Tin !      

gotta love Elronds girlie braids   

Have you SEEN what theyve done to Thorins  hair ! oh my ! As I was saying to Elrond only yesterday.......you know he washes his hair in dew ! mmm mmm, OOOh, the texture, got me running my fingers thru it ALL day, & as for Aragorn ? well,Id like to tame HIS unruly locks ! Mmm mm,  No! he dont ! Sleeps with his horse you say ?! Oh dear, saddle breath !

  Yeah both Viggo and Sean Bean's wigs looked pretty nasty after effort. Especially after Boromir tried to take the ring. He all those leaves in his hair and I was like gurllllllll get a brush!

so basically. everything.   

This is from the theatrical edition, so I'm assuming they have to put in Bombur's fall into the river in the EE. Also, they come to a point where the path is a dead end at a gorge. Maybe that's the river???

Oh I hope so! I seem to remember some early production shots of Bombur being carried on a litter, so we know they filmed the scene. Now if it only contained some Tolkien-enspired dialog it would give Petty something to work with! (Especially if Bilbo's keen night vision is how they discover the boat, establishing his worth without killing things. But I suppose that would be too much to expect...  )