LOTR- The Two Towers

First, sorry Jenni about the mistaken identity...I knew you weren't Beret but typed it in anyways.

Second, I agree wholeheartedly with Kylash and Mauler. I can also, however, be annoyed with people who can't see the forest for the trees...but that is me. The original SW trilogy will always have a special place in my heart and interest but why can't that same place have LOTR?

In hindsight, I have to say that my change of opinion comes from my dissatisfaction with the SW prequels. And, annoying to some, I know ROTK will be better than E3 if FOTR/TTT are any indication. Unfortunate but true...if not, however, I will be greatly surprised and will admit I was wrong.

Jeff, instead of a lynching, how about a duel with swords and let fate decide???

Anyways, if we all had the same opinion, this world would be more peaceful but, oh, so boring, now wouldn't it??? Besides, remember the 1st Amendment? I will defend your right to your opinion as long as you defend my right to my opinion.

 

We can all be friends Heheh

 

I'll agree with Mauler_II & Leia_YT1300 on the part of not meaning to sound like I'm bashing anything. Leia_YT1300 and I have both had our excitement enjoying other movies and getting into them in the past while always remaining first and foremost Star Wars fans:
? Brahm Stoeker's Dracula (LeiaYT1300 & Skywalker1138)
? Star Trek: Next Generation (LeiaYT1300)
? The Secret Garden (Skywalker1138)
? The Neverending Story (Skywalker1138)
? E.T. (Skywalker1138)
? Superman I (Skywalker1138)
? Labyrinth (Skywalker1138)
? Moulin Rouge (Skywalker1138)
? Indiana Jones (LeiaYT1300)
? The Mummy (LeiaYT1300)
? Apollo XIII (Skywalker1138)
? Amadeus (Skywalker1138)
? Gladiator (LeiaYT1300)
? LOTR Trilogy (Skywalker1138)
...etc.

And so, LOTR is the next movie I'm just obsessing about because it's the next greatest thing I've seen! Sometimes we get into making clothes, collecting their merchandise, using the soundtracks for our own adventures, etc. She's more into the adventure stories. I'm more into the fantastical stories. We both get into some of the love stories. I don't convert easily, and have never. I'm just very excited about LOTR. It's an epic mythological tale.

 

I guess for me LOTR is just another thing to suck money out of my bank account that should be used for food and gas.

The Original pre-special edition SW will always be the best trilogy in my mind. I'm delaying judgement on the new SW trilogy until I see all of it. So far though, I would say LOTR is rating above the new SW trilogy. It feels wrong to say that after being a SW fan for about 15 years, but that's how I really feel.

 

I think it's less of me converting to LOTr than me getting more interested in LOTR at the moment. Im making more LOTR props, reading about more, checking out more LOTR news than SW. Star Wars will always be a big part of my interest because it has for so long, the Original Trilogy is completely engrained in my head, but that's the past. The present, to me, is LOTR, not the Prequels. Yeah...that makes more sense.

 

Well, after having seen TTT again today,(I love this movie and can't wait to see it again. If I didn't have kids, I'd have seen it at least 5 times by now)I agree with Leslie & Jenni and Catie too. So, I'm not going to be redundate. I am very interested in learning more about the history of LOTR and the whereabouts of places and where charaters come from as well as looking forward to what happens next. I'm not switching camps either. I love SW, Original and Prequels(although, as everyone has said, Original is still favored more). They are two very different movies and of two different genres. SW we know is fiction, while the events and principles of LOTR have more plausiblity to our lives than just the good versus evil.

EDIT:I am a warrior elf...HA!!! I knew it!!
Also, I love the scene just before the battle begins at Helm's Deep where lighting flashes and the look on Legolas' face, his eyes just flash with the lighting...that's just so cool!!

 

First of all, only half the Wampas thought somewhat poorly of Golum. I liked him, I just didn't like the audience reaction to him. Golum has always creeped me out, ever since the cartoon. The only two things I remember from the cartoon were the song "where there's a whip, there's a way" and Golum's creepy voice. It still haunts me.

Also, in no way am I comparing the Star Wars books to the Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is the reason we have Dungeons and Dragons, Dragon Lance, Magic the Gathering and the RA Salvatore books about Drizzt (which I thoroughly enjoy). The Star Wars novels won't last on into the next century like the Lord of the Rings series likely will.

The only thing I'm saying is that time affects everything. For one thing, my experiences and age taint the way I view things now. Never again will I have the sense of awe that I did as a child. I remember my brother saying that since the movies were over, Threepio and Artoo were working in a post office. And I believed it. I've seen the films I don't know how many times, and still enjoy them. I haven't had that distance from LotR yet. I haven't had time to let it age. It's a lot like music. I love Simon and Garfunkle, I've listened to many of the songs countless times, but right now I'm in a Jimmy Eats World fix, and before that, a John Mayer fix. I listened to those albums a lot and didn't really listen to S & G, but I'd never say that I liked those groups more, because I've liked Simon and Garfunkle since high school. That music has stood the test of time with me. Jimmy Eats World and John Mayer haven't yet.

Yes, a big flaming eye is spooky, but to me, it lacks personality. It's the Exar Kun versus Emperor Palpatine debate. My friend loves Exar Kun because he's so powerful, even more so than the Emperor, but he couldn't explain Exar Kun's personality other than "evil." I prefer the Emperor because, even before the prequels, I thought the Emperor had personality. He was manipulative, sick and demented. I like that. It's the Superman versus Spiderman debate. I'd rather have Spiderman's powers, but I'd rather have lunch with Spiderman. I don't think a big flaming eye has that sense of appeal. Quite frankly, neither did Sauraman. To be fair, compare Sauraman to Dooku. Same actor, so you cancel out acting ability. I think Dooku had more charm and was more fun to watch. Maul was cooler looking, fought better, but I'd rather watch Dooku.

In no way am I arguing against Two Towers, or telling people not to like it. I think it's an excellent film, and I think that LotR will be a brilliant trilogy. I'm just not sure I can compare it to the original trilogy. After all, I'm on a board devoted to Star Wars two decades after the OT ended. Will I be on a board twenty years from now called Boards.thering.net? I can't say.

Compared to the prequels, I'd have to say that so far LotR is a better set of films. However, I'd also have to say that I think Fellowship was the better of the two. It had more drama for me. I'll admit that I saw Two Towers after a long, crappy day and that I went in knowing that I had a final at 10am the next day and so in some ways I wanted it to end... I also admit that I was looking forward to the battle at Helm's Deep after hearing about it for so long. I loved every minute of Fellowship, including the expanded versus (with the exception of the gas joke), but I did not love every minute of Two Towers. I really think they turned Gimli into a joke rather than a proud warrior. I can't remember one thing he said that wasn't supposed to be funny, meanwhile in Fellowship we have his anger at the elves, his vengeance for his fallen kin, his change of heart about elves. We see his sadness at the failure of the fellowship. I missed that about Gimli in Two Towers.

And as great as John Ryes Davies did at the voice of Treebeard, I think they should have picked someone else, someone not in the film. It's like having James Earl Jones be the voice of Vader, and playing Jabba the Hutt. It's a distinctive voice.

I think it would have been

 

An opinion cannot be right or wrong. It is what it is. It is not a statement of a tangeable fact. So we're all okay!

 

BTW, please don't refer to SW as science fiction because it isn't...it is science fantasy - Asimov is science fiction.

So, comparing LOTR and SW is not comparing apples to oranges because it's the aspects of each (not the genre) that you should compare: story/plot, characters/their development, action, CGI, cinematography, editing, etc etc etc. Do the characters make you feel for them? Do they grow? Does the story hold you or is it so full of holes you could drop a semitruck through it? Is the action believable? Does it make you sit on the edge of your seat? Was the CGI real to you? etc etc etc. That is how I compare films and how I determine whether it is first-rate or crap...then I use my own emotion-o-meter and decide on how it affected me emotionally. With the SW prequels, my emotions were flat throughout most of the films but with LOTR I was on a emotional roller coaster the whole time with both films.

Also, having been an adult when I first saw SW:ANH, I didn't have that wide-eyed child's fascination...I looked at it as a completely different type of film and something that had never, ever been done before but that doesn't mean I have blinders on and not be able to say some other film is better. SW will always be first in that it was so new, refreshing and different than the decade of boring films before it. Recent fantasy films, on the whole, have been crap so when LOTR hit the screens it was, well, like someone finally knew how to do a fantasy film correctly! It gave me a sense of what it was like seeing ANH for the first time.

So, again, we all have different opinions for different reasons. Mine? I just think LOTR is better than the SW prequels and, yes, in many ways in MY opinion, better than the originals but that doesn't mean I have replaced SW with LOTR....they co-exist side by side but have different places in my heart and mind.

I look at the prequels and, while I do enjoy them for my own personal reasons, I can easily say that they are so full of flaws in the areas I use to compare films to each other. This includes some awful acting: Christian Hayden and Natalie Portman are so bland that I feel I'm on a hospital diet for an ulcer. There is no sense, for me, of absolute true emotion from either of them - even when Padme finally admits her love for Anakin just before being carted out into the arena...it was so flat and unbelievable. This is just another reason I find the prequels so disappointing and dissatisfying. Anyways, I digress....

So, again, opinions are just that - opinions - and no one can stop each of us from having them.

Happy New Year everyone!

 

"That's just my opinion, I could be wrong," is how Dennis Miller ended his nightly rant on his show. I think it was his way of disarming people's anger, or pointing out that you can disagree with him and it's okay. Besides, I can't quote the original way he ended his rants, it was "<engage in coitus with> it, who wants pie." And that would get me banned.

Dwayne

 

Ah. Thanks for the 'splaination. Not a big Dennis Miller fan, myself. Whomever picked him to be on Monday Night Football should be beaten with a stupid stick for months.

 

Ok to each his own

Anyway, I was really taken back by this: http://www.geocities.com/sammienblue/lotrinfo/livesandloves.html

...I just bummped into it while being linked to many Orlando Bloom newsgroups. I shouldn't care but I do. Argh!

 

I would love to share a house with the lead guys of LOTR for a week. I really think that would be a fun adventure.

 

I would have thought the same thing but on the LoTR game when Viggo Mortenson speaks it's pure mumble..can't understand a word he's saying. So it would be like this:

Me: Hey Viggo, what was it like playing Aragorn?

Viggo: Shumph murf huph muff hrump.

Me: ...


M

 

The Two Towers will be playing later this afternoon at 2:15 on the Ultrascreen. If any are interested, please let us know!


M&D

 

Well shucks, you beat me to it.

I'm in. I'm pretty sure Cally will be in, too. And her friend. Who is black. Just to warn you all.

 

Okay, I'm in.

Jeff

 

Me too!

 

A black person!? I won't have anything to do with it!












(Of course I'm kidding.)

 

Last night, instead of partying with my parents and their friends, my best friend and I went go see Two Towers at AMC. Best New Years Eve I ever spent.

Anyone else notice that Arwen's dress in the dream sequence is a little...er, see-through?

 

...well, I /wanted/ to go see it again...


m

 

I'm willing to go one more time.

 

Well, it was our intention to see it again today at the Ultrascreen however, all of us misjudged the holiday season movie crowd and it was sold out. So instead I assaulted some elderly folk at a Perkins and we annoyed waitstaff.. however, I am going to see the movie this evening in like 25 minutes. I'm hoping that a second viewing when I'm not feeling crappy will change some of my opinions of the film.


M

 

I learned from various sources, that there will be a new song called "Arwen's Song" and that Liv Tyler may even be singing it--and since it didn't appear in the two movies already out, to expect it in the next film! More wedding music -- Yippee!

Re: "Also, I love the scene just before the battle begins at Helm's Deep where lighting flashes and the look on Legolas' face, his eyes just flash with the lighting...that's just so cool!!"

A: TOTALLY AGREED!

Re: "Me: Hey Viggo, what was it like playing Aragorn?
Viggo: Shumph murf huph muff hrump.
Me: ... "

A: LOL!!!!!!!! . You know though, he was so into his character, that when they weren't filming, he was riding Aaragon's horse. Liv Tyler also went into the creature shop extra just so the sculptures could use her as a live model too, and again Viggo insisted that he get a sharpening stone for his blades even though he wouldn't actually use them.

 

I took my husband and mother in law to see TTT on Sun. and they both really liked it. I want to see it again!! That was the third time for me. It just seems toget better with each showing...well, I should say, the movie itself does, the film on the otherhand keeps getting more and more gliches and black spots in it. And the theatre I went to the last 2 times has a small tear in the screen, so that was annoying. But the movie, ROCKS!!! Can't wait to see ROTK!!