The Energon Pub

Here, let me surmize and save you all about 7 hours of your life...

First Movie: Cursed ring is found, main charcters goes on hike. Hiking continues for the next 2 hours.

Second Movie: Main character continues hiking trek, with minor infractions by some little monster. Monster tries to get ring, little hairy creatures argue. Hiking continues for another hour.

Third Movie: Another hour and half... Adventures come to end, small infracture between main character and himself. Ring is destroyed. Most ANTICLIMATIC ending to any movie ever. Worst end battle, period. Nothing happens during fight of any note. Movie continues to end for another 45min.

Transfaner wrote:Second Movie: Main character continues hiking trek, with minor infractions by some little monster. Monster tries to get ring, little hairy creatures argue. Hiking continues for another hour.

Third Movie: Another hour and half... Adventures come to end, small infracture between main character and himself. Ring is destroyed. Most ANTICLIMATIC ending to any movie ever. Worst end battle, period. Nothing happens during fight of any note. Movie continues to end for another 45min.

I think there was 2 epic battles in those two movies, but it may be you speak about different movies, because combined the theater versions take about 9 hours, and the extended versions more than 10,5 - and a smaller, but significant part at the end was taken out that was in the book.

The Frodo-line could be boring, but the great battles make it worth watching.

All things together, the LotR trilogy is one of the "must see" trilogies in my opinion.

Hey, your opinion is perfectly valid - Have you watched Clerks 2? Randall gives a pretty accurate and hilarious critique of the Trilogy.

Personally, I loved the books from a very early age and re-read them every few years - The films were utterly perfect for a long-time fan like me. I don't know how I'd feel about them going in cold.

Yeah, I was at the video store getting ready to rent that movie, gave that same speech, rented clerks 2 and he said almost the exact same thing. I thought it was funny and helped validate my point, but then the jackass made fun of transformers. Although that other kid didn't help the cause much.

Transfaner wrote:Here, let me surmize and save you all about 7 hours of your life...

First Movie: Cursed ring is found, main charcters goes on hike. Hiking continues for the next 2 hours.

Hiking stops, major character is killed by a massive fire-demon in the dwarven mines, just after they had killed a cave troll used by the massive orc horde. main character is intimidated by no less than two hero characters into giving up said cursed ring, the second of which is killed by a second orc horde.

Transfaner wrote:Second Movie: Main character continues hiking trek, with minor infractions by some little monster. Monster tries to get ring, little hairy creatures argue. Hiking continues for another hour.

While several other characters are forced to fight off an army at the Battle of Helm's Deep, as well as the fifteen-foot-tall tree people taking out an enemy encampment.

Transfaner wrote:Third Movie: Another hour and half... Adventures come to end, small infracture between main character and himself. Ring is destroyed. Most ANTICLIMATIC ending to any movie ever. Worst end battle, period. Nothing happens during fight of any note. Movie continues to end for another 45min.

While, again, the Battle of Gondor and the Battle of Mordor occur. Mian character destroys ring, causing the volcano he's sitting in to explode. Also, an army of ghosts is in there. And a giant spider. After another twenty minutes or so after the ring is destroyed, the movies ends just as the book does, minus an important plot point or two.

So did you actually watch the movies, or just read a short synopsis and add that to some over-used arguments against them? Because your description doesn't include half the trilogy.

I don't hate them, I just think they're overrated and boring.

For me, perhaps, hate is a bit too strong a word. I don't mean this in some sort of David Carradine (can you believe it's been a year since his death?) Kung Fu pseudo-philosophy kind of way. More in that, huh, I just don't get what all the frenzy is about kind of way.

I'm an avid fantasy reader, but I could not make it through those books. Hell, I read James Joyce's _Finnegan's Wake_ (don't ask me what it means, though) but couldn't make it past _The Hobbit_. So even before it went movie, I was not in the Cool List.

The movies, in theory, I like because any movie that does fantasy *right* (big sweeping dramatic detailed, etc) deserves some special place in my heart. I grew up with Cheez Fantasy like _Conan_, and to see fantasy done big and sprawling makes my heart happy. But still. Personally, I just couldn't get into it.

HK, But I"m old. I can't get into this _Twilight_ stuff, either.

I started reading that trilogy in 1998, I got to the part just outside the creepy living forest, and that took me a year and a half to read that much! I figured "Hey, I"ll read this book cos I hear they're a making a movie". Now I have my peepers fixed I'll probably start again.

As for the movies, I love them, but I think most of that is based on me saying "ooh, I know where hill is!!"

Blurrz wrote:Hellkitty.. be a dear and do not place LotR and Twilight in the same bloody category. That's just disrespectful to LotR.

Placing Twilight and All Hail Megatron in the same category would be disrespectful to AHM, nothing deserves to be shoved into one category with Twilight, not even AHM no matter how much I hate it.

When it comes to LotR, it's Legendary to me on a personal level. There's great meaning to the story, and heck it's not the most entertaining of reads, but when you can get into it it's still fantastic. And holy moly the movies were f-ing awesome.

As they say... to each his own.

I'm with you on this the books are awesome, although I've only read The Hobbit so far while with LOTR I listened to the audio-books produced a long time ago by I think the BBC.
But I did decide that since I'm currently kind of ill that I'll start reading them proper since they are generally excepted as being the books you simply have to read once in your life.

Most of my family have read them by now, which means I can choose between multiple special editions.

But I can't get some people that just over doe it and seem to want to live it or well do live it, there's a line between liking something and well, being weird.

Shadowman wrote:

Transfaner wrote:Here, let me surmize and save you all about 7 hours of your life...

First Movie: Cursed ring is found, main charcters goes on hike. Hiking continues for the next 2 hours.

Hiking stops, major character is killed by a massive fire-demon in the dwarven mines, just after they had killed a cave troll used by the massive orc horde. main character is intimidated by no less than two hero characters into giving up said cursed ring, the second of which is killed by a second orc horde.

Transfaner wrote:Second Movie: Main character continues hiking trek, with minor infractions by some little monster. Monster tries to get ring, little hairy creatures argue. Hiking continues for another hour.

While several other characters are forced to fight off an army at the Battle of Helm's Deep, as well as the fifteen-foot-tall tree people taking out an enemy encampment.

Transfaner wrote:Third Movie: Another hour and half... Adventures come to end, small infracture between main character and himself. Ring is destroyed. Most ANTICLIMATIC ending to any movie ever. Worst end battle, period. Nothing happens during fight of any note. Movie continues to end for another 45min.

While, again, the Battle of Gondor and the Battle of Mordor occur. Mian character destroys ring, causing the volcano he's sitting in to explode. Also, an army of ghosts is in there. And a giant spider. After another twenty minutes or so after the ring is destroyed, the movies ends just as the book does, minus an important plot point or two.

So did you actually watch the movies, or just read a short synopsis and add that to some over-used arguments against them? Because your description doesn't include half the trilogy.

Yes. I watched them, even the ungodly extended edition. I left those parts out bec ause they were pointless. I could not have more bored. Plus, I hate elves. Always have. All my RP characters are racists towards their class. You should have seen my WoW dwarf...

Twilight is better than LOTR.

No no no, Twilight isn't better than anything. The dog turd on the side walk outside my dorm is more entertaining than Twilight.

Transfaner wrote:Twilight is better than LOTR.

*Takes knife and sacrifices Transfaner to Cyric*

Transfaner wrote:Plus, I hate elves. Always have.

Well, we hate you back, gosh darn it!

While I wouldn't sum up the LotR movies as Transfaner did, I definitely can see the criticisms of the movies and books being usually valid in most cases.

With respect to the movies, I think that the main groups of people who will enjoy them the most are diehard fans of LotR and people who generally like the fantasy genre and do not mind watching significantly lengthy films.

A lot does happen in the movies but a lot doesn't happen as well as there are periods when one can think "Isn't there a better way to do this?".

As a fan of Tolkien, my main criticism of the movie adaptation is that the displays of magic were too over-the-top. I prefer a more purist approach to Tolkien's use of magic, which was more low key and magic was truly "magical" in that it was rare and not to be trifled with.

With respect to the books, they are not easy reading but they aren't difficult. I think that it is indeed an acquired taste. Tolkien uses third person omniscient narrative. While it is definitely suitable for an epic or a saga, it can be against the reader when you look at the amount of story in the LotR Trilogy.

When we read about what is happening for such a lengthy period, it can distance the reader whereas the first person narrative can help draw the reader into a more intimate perspective while reading by being able to view the inner thoughts of a character. However, throughout LotR, we are reading about what is happening and the surface details of how someone is feeling about a situation but there's no significant contact to the inner workings of a character. Much of what a reader "knows" is gathered through the narrative simply telling the reader "this is what this is, this is how she feels" or from deduction through points of detail throughout the story.

The reader's attention is also divided up amongst the cast of protagonists so there is the tendency to lose focus at times. It is a more "realistic" approach when you consider that the group has to split up to accomplish their goals but it also makes it more difficult for the reader to maintain interest when momentum is reset with a change of attention from one group of characters to another.

The movies offer a more intimate look at the characters, the script allows for more expression and characterization than what was found in the books. To me, the movies and the books are definitely "apples and oranges". They're in two different mediums and work well in their own ways and both are not works that are easily consumed by the audience like most contemporary pieces of entertainment in the mainstream environment.

Transfaner wrote:Yes. I watched them, even the ungodly extended edition. I left those parts out bec ause they were pointless. I could not have more bored.

Okay, I thought you were being serious. The big battle are the boring parts, sure. That was a good one, you really had me going there.

Blurrz wrote:Hellkitty.. be a dear and do not place LotR and Twilight in the same bloody category. That's just disrespectful to LotR.

Correction: don't place Twilight and literature in general in the same category. That's disrespectful towards written word.

Chaoslock wrote:

Transfaner wrote:Twilight is better than LOTR.

*Takes knife and sacrifices Transfaner to Cyric*

Don't, what did that knife or Cyric ever do to you to deserve that?

F**king Twilight is supposed to be better than LOTf**kingRings?
Now I'm starting to think you're a Troll, if you hatted it so much, why did you watch the extended editions of the entire trilogy?

I don't HATE them, but I don't like them. I watched them but can barely remember them a few years later. They didn't make much of an impression on me, but I'm not into fantasy (except Army of Darkness... that's fantasy, right? )

I didn't really like Harry Potter either or Pirates of the Carribean past the first, and I refuse to touch Twilight. No, for me the classic trilogies are probably Star Wars and Back to the Future, not LOTR.

hk- David Carradine died june of this year. 6 months ago, not a year.

and i'm on board with the elf hate. take those f*ckers back to santa and make me some toys.

hobbits are about the only thing i hate more than elves. f*ck hobbits.

LOtR was just too damn long and drawn out. I think clerks 2 summed it up best. I love fantasy, but lotr was too damn long. ANd the old "cartoon" (drawings over live action thing. its weird) was better imho, at least there Aragorn was accurate to his discription (his race is supposed to basically be a native american indian, not a white guy)

Name_Violation wrote:(his race is supposed to basically be a native american indian, not a white guy)

Wrong.

Wikipedia wrote:Tolkien gives a brief but detailed description of Strider in The Fellowship of the Ring: lean, dark and tall, with shaggy dark hair "flecked with grey", grey eyes, and a stern pale face.

The native American look was only in the first animated movie.

Shadowman wrote:The native American look was only in the first animated movie.

and the old pen and paper RPG from the 70's. the drawing of him looks like an Indian. thats what i remembered.

Name_Violation wrote:

Shadowman wrote:The native American look was only in the first animated movie.

and the old pen and paper RPG from the 70's. the drawing of him looks like an Indian. thats what i remembered.

Uh, there WAS no pen-and-paper Middle Earth RPG in the '70s. I did a few searches, and the earliest one I could find was Middle-Earth Role Play, which was published in 1984.

In any case, that image you found would be wrong, because it goes against Tolkien's description of the character.

Shadowman wrote:

Name_Violation wrote:

Shadowman wrote:The native American look was only in the first animated movie.

and the old pen and paper RPG from the 70's. the drawing of him looks like an Indian. thats what i remembered.

Uh, there WAS no pen-and-paper Middle Earth RPG in the '70s. I did a few searches, and the earliest one I could find was Middle-Earth Role Play, which was published in 1984.

In any case, that image you found would be wrong, because it goes against Tolkien's description of the character.

thats the one i was remembering. been years since i looked at it.

time corrupts memory

One thing to keep in mind that Tolkien had a fairly "traditional" approach to the Peoples of Middle Earth. The Race of Men were basically divided into:

a) Good guys have lighter complexion.

b) Bad guys have darker complexion.

There's also the West vs East aspect as well as other details like the implied styles of swords. Tolkien doesn't usually delve into the finer details of weapons and armour but as I recall, the armies of the West/Good used straight bladed swords and the armies of the East/bad guys use curved swords like scimitars. This matches the traditionalist view from the western part of the world where the straight bladed sword, often with a cruciform hilt configuration(ie. the "knightly" sword) is associated with good guys and curved bladed swords, more often than not scimitars, are associated with bad guys(I think largely due to the affects of the Crusades on the shared cultural consciousness of western cultures). An interesting detail is that many sword blades made and employed in what we currently call the Middle East were not curved.

So that being said, Aragorn and the Numenorean people were depicted and/or heavily implied to be caucasian.

Sidebar: There was this girl in class a few years ago who was obsessed--obsessed--with LOTR. I mean... ANNOYINGLY obsessed. Anyway, there was someone doing a presentation on who knows what (can't remember) and he pronounced Tolkien as Tol-kin. Anyway, she got this really pouty mad expression and said "It's TOL-KEY-EN" really arrogantly and gave a sideways glance at him right in the middle of the presentation. You know the tone.

Tell me if I'm wrong, but the funny thing is I think the guy was right.