(OT And Years Too Late) LoTR II

I'd resisted watching the second and third films of the trilogy, because
I've read the book roughly eighteen or nineteen times now (albeit not
for the last five years at least), and I recall being pissed off that
the first one had Arwen on a horse at the Crossing of the Ford. Arwen
was in Rivendale when the Fellowship crossed the Ford, and it was
Glorfindel who raised the waters of the Bruinen.

On a whim a couple of weeks back, I bought the second film on Amazon
MarketPlace, and have just watched it. So what's all this shite about
Faramir taking Frodo and Sam to Gondor? I mean FFS, the One Ring was
_never_ in Gondor! That was the main reason that Boromir died at the
end of the first book, as he had tried to take the Ring from Frodo, and
was killed by Orcs. He'd even spoken about this at the Council of
Elrond. The Ring was _never_ anywhere near Gondor.

WTF did Peter Jackson go and put in such a whopping departure from the
book for ? The special effects are cool, Eowen is very fuckable, and
the language is close to that used in the books, but ...WTF???

D.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_adaptation

 

You don't expect me to read all that, do you?

D.

 

rivendell

 

Only if you want the answer.

 

I think it's because LoTR is the novel-cum-film that I know the best,
and I'm less tolerant of the departures from the plot. Small glitches I
could have handled, but taking the fucking Ring to Gondor??

BTW, you're the French bloke, aren't you, or is that another 'antyone'?
Cos as I'm sitting watching the film, there are workies doing stuff on
scaffolding across the street, and I couldn't hear the dialogue. So I
switch on the subtitles (only French available), and imagine my surprise
when on at least five different occasions, the subtitles were not
translated correctly. Not just small errors, but ****-ups that changed
the whole meaning of the dialogue ! I'll watch the film again and
're-activate' this thread when I note them down.

D.

 

I fucking _knew_ I should have googled it.

D.

 

On 24 May, 18:03,
(des_just_passing_through) wrote:

imagine my surprise

You haven't seen many sub-titled films, then?

They all do that sir.

No, don't. Just don't. It's fucking boring and nobody GAF about yet
another anal obsession of yours.

 

Don't you love me anymore, TOG?

D.

 

Well, duh.

If the film is in French or English, I don't need subtitles, and if it's
in another language, I'm not competent to comment on the quality of the
fucking subtitles, am I ?

D.

 

Saves a massive backtrack that would probably have been hard to do
kinemegraticcaly as it were.

Always the same in the woods, one wrong turn and it's Gingerbread
cottages and Gondor.

 

ISTR an interview with Jackson when this question was asked, and he said
he thought modern audiences would not accept Faramir's 'I'd rather cut
my own cock off than touch that ring' attitude that he has in the book.
Something like that anyway.

I never got very far with the LotR book(s) because I thought it was
shite. I liked the films a lot though.

HTH.

--
Joe

XV1900 Stratoliner (with added sparkle)
http://www.pikeyjoe.kinghell.com/MyStrat.jpg
PikeyJoe
kinghell.com

 

YTC#1 says...

I'm so glad I read the whole thread before replying

--
Lozzo
Triumph Daytona 955i SE (Black with added black bits)
Suzuki SV650 K3
Suzuki GSX-R750L
Yamaha 250 Flat-tracker
I ride way too fast to worry about cholestorol.

 

You and me both.

D.

 

Try watching 'Cyrano de Bergerac' with English subtitles by Anthony Burgess.
They are a work of genius, having little to do with the dialogue.
The puzzling thing about that film is why the director thought that
Gerard Depardieu needed a false nose to play the part.

 

'Cyrano de Bergerac' was one of the DVDs available in the wee
second-hand place on the ave St-Ouen where I bought 'Aliens' the other
day, and I did consider buying it (that, and 'Germinal', if for no other
reason than to reminisce about Lyon in 1992). I might go back up there
tomorrow, 'cos it's on the way to the school (classes are out for
Shavuot as I mentioned, but I get all my Amazon stuff delivered there,
cos I wouldn't trust the transvestite pikeys in my building as far as I
could throw them). I'm taking the piss now, the number of DVDs that I'm
squandering my money on (the 'Matrix' trilogy, 'Spiderman' I and II,
'Aliens', 'Betty Blue', Season 1 of 'The Wire' (fucking *shit*-hot),
'Les Enfants Terribles', 'Yol', 'Superman Returns', 'Richard II', 'La
Leçon du Piano', 'History of Violence', 'In The Realm of the Senses',
'Trop Belle Pour Toi', 'Merci pour le Chocolat', 'Le Batteur', 'Match
Point', 'Lost in Translation' ... ). Most of them are from the period
when I was living hand-to-mouth, and could barely afford to buy a packet
of pasta, let alone a DVD.

Have you seen 'Bruce Almighty' with Jim Carey? Right at the end, you
have the 'bum' standing with the pancart, I can't recall what's written
on it, but it's like _nothing_ resembling what the subtitle says. I
mean, why do they hire people to do subtitles, who aren't completely
fluent in both languages? It sort of worries me when I'm watching a
film where I speak neither of the languages (and my modern Hebrew is
nowhere near good enough to pick up that sort of ****-up in Israeli
movies), you're like asking yourself, 'is that what he/she _really_
said??'

Anyway, I'm off to watch 'Aliens' now.

D.

 

I've read Richard II probably as many times, and seen the play four
times for real, and maybe ten times on DVD (mainly 'cos it was a
prescribed text for the teacher-training exams), and have read _News_
_From Nowhere_ by William Morris at least seven or eight times (for the
same reason). Yet as I write these words, do not ask me to name
Richard's 'favourites', or the name of the narrator in _News_.

D.

 

Can I sort ot, try to 'fit in' now, and say, 'FOYRNB' ?

D.

 

That was the whole point of that scene in the book, IMHO. Faramir was
Boromir's brother, and men of Gondor were renowned for their honour and
integrity. Boromir tried to take the Ring, and paid for it with his
life, and to re-affirm Frodo's faith in the Men of Gondor, Faramir _had_
to resist the pull of the Ring.

I liked the first film cos Liv whats'er-name is shaggeable, but had
decided not to watch the others. Why? When you read a novel as often
as I have LoTR, you sort of 'create' your own faces for the characters.
Ian Mcwhatsit is probably a great Gandalf, but he doesn't look
_anything_ like the 'Gandalf' I had in my mind's eye. Ditto for
Aragorn. Then I'm like watching the second film, and I see Eowyn, and
I'm like, 'who the **** is _that_ ??' I thought it was Blanchett
whaddyacallher, but she was in the first one, and she didn't look like
that. Give Miranda Otto dark hair, and she looks like my SO (cf.
Isabelle, 'The One').

So I'm like, well I've moved on since then, and maybe who knows, I'm
going to read the novel once or twice more before I go to join my
father, and so why not?

I've just ordered the third film from Amazon.

D.

 

The first I read the books, in hardback , was about 43 years ago.
If it hadn't blown my(our) mind(s) away you lot would never have it
recommenced to you. Never.

Apparently I asked for it for Christmas later on when it was popular and
read it again. That was 26 years ago.

I have dipped back into it on odd occasions since then but I know the
plot now and there is nothing else in it to keep my attention and the
names and addresses of all the characters is certainly not on that list,
so it is not fresh anymore.

I dunno if the paperback version is different though, sometimes it seems
like it.


Cracking good yarn but.


The films were crap. Well shot and all that, 9.9 from the nerds for
technical excellence but they didn't have the same soul that I found in
the book.