Basher Sanctuary Episode 4: A New Forum

An Aragorn vs. Sauron swordfight would have sucked--hard.

In the Third Age, Sauron did not have physical form. He was a mere shadow. His physical form was slain at the end of the Second Age (as seen at the beginning of the LOTR movie).

 

Have you never heard of shadow boxing, Binary? Imagine Sauron in a battle of epic proportions with Aragorns shadow. It would have been the greatest shadow duel in literature not to mention the big screen. Picture that shot in the old Eryl Flynn Robin Hood movie where as they duel we see their shadows cast upon the wall, slashing and parrying. Now imagine that as a 20 minute sequence. George Lucas needs to get the rights to LOTR and remake the movies with a CGI shadow sword fight between Sauron and Aragorn.

-----signature-----
"Rabid Balding Ewok, you make me sick.
If there was an enemies list, you'd be on mine."


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::/000{{{{www}}}}\:: Ewoks Will Eat You!

 

Yah the Aragorn vs. Sauron fight was a horrid horrid idea. I have to admit I am a little scared that they even went so far as to film it. *shudder*

 

If I had the smallest hope that Episode III would be any good, the last batch of spoilers have stamped it out. This isn't what I wanted for Christmas.

 

DotF,

Good morning! I can't log onto the new & improved DLC 'cause I forgot my password and the e-mail with the new one hasn't arrived yet! Can you help me?

Thanks!

 

I'm only a mod there, but I'll see what I can do.

 

Thanks! Even a mod can still get in and find out if the e-mails are going out. I pm'd amberstarbright, but she's not on-line right now.

Thanks a million!

 

Quix: Where was that thread? I still have access to the old DL forums.

 

Some random thoughts about ROTK:EE...

THE MOVIE

I liked "The Voice of Saruman" overall (my favorite chapter from the books!), but the fall from the tower was not neccesary. He could have just been knocked down and died, and all would have been well, says me. (I'm leaving aside the whole issue of killing him then and cutting the Scouring, which is a separate argument entirely -- here I'm judging the scene on its own terms.)
It was kind of funny, though -- the tower is so tall Saruman and Wormtongue are so far up from the guys, yet they're not yelling particularly loudly at each other. If that was a real situation no one could hear each other and would just shout "what?!" "what!" for minutes on end. Funny what we'll accept in movies.

I think my favorite additions were the Faramir bits, particularly his chat alone with Denethor. I felt he was mistreated in T2T, but he seemed to have found his way more by this point.

I liked Mouth of Sauron too.

In general, I liked the brand-new stuff... the extensions of pre-existing scenes (e.g. "and now, more battle footage") didn't do much for me.

THE EXTRAS (OF THOSE I'VE POKED AROUND ON)

Miranda Otto. Good God, she's beautiful. Heck, she might actually be her prettiest on the interviews. I'm beginning to realize why they didn't bother making a big deal over the whole Dernhelm thing, no one would believe she was a man. , I say, once again.

I was disappointed to hear of the way they were originally thinking of cutting the Mount Doom scene, I hate how they did it and I liked their old idea better.

I found the whole "what they did with the Aragorn/Sauron footage after the fact" stuff very interesting. Pictures really are made in the cutting room!

My favorite bit though might have been the big push of getting things done toward the end and trying to meet the post-production deadline, I like it when DVD documentaries aren't afraid to show the unpleasant side of filmmaking and how people ultimately work through them, rather than simply show the happiness and "oh it was a wonderful experience etc. etc.". Honesty works on me just fine.
(It also brought back some amusing memories of assistant-editing a short and being in the damn Avid room less than a day before the premiere... rrrr)



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

strilo-

The Announcements forum, I believe. Probably not on page one, however.

 

LOL, Rabid Balding Ewok!

 

We're only about 3 months away from the official release of the ROTS script on April 2nd. That will be an interesting day. I'm going to read it the day it's released, and I'm going to subject it to some serious analysis.

 

Binary_Sunset - The scripts for all the PT films are better than the films themselves having always included scenes and dialogue either never finished for the final film or cut out completely. I see no reason that the ROTS script will be any diferent, personally I always read the novelisation, it's always a pretty good read and more informative than the actual films themselves.

Though the Sauron vs Aragorn fight wouldn't have been true to the book, I thinkit would have made the end sequence vastly more dramtaical and in terms of cinematic spectacle, a more effective end to the last battle, at least for those not concerned with adapting events from the book to the letter.

I know Sauron lost the ability to hold shape just as he lost the ability to hold fair form after the events of the Akalabeth, but I can also see why PJ and the crew woould have wanted to relax the lore to allow for a more effective film. I guess in the end it would have caused too many problems with dissapointed fans if they steered too far from the source so no harm done in the end, but I guess i stand alone as one who wouldn't have minded them going ahead with the reappearance of Sauron for the last battle. I think it would have bookshelved the opeing events of the Last Alliance to great cinematic effect, even if utterly wrong. In the end of the day i still beleive filmamkers should stay as true to the spirit of the source and include the originatorss of that material in production where possible. In the case of Tolkien the best you can do is try to honour the spirit of his tale.

Well it's X-Mas over here so I'm gonna wish everyone a very merry christmas on the Bashers Sanctuary, love you all and hope the season brings you joy, joy, joy!

May the midichlorianless Force be with you!

 

In the spirit of tradition...

For a little bit of holiday cheer, it's time for our traditional recital of the classic Xmas tale, "Twas the Night Before Quixmas".

Now shaddup and listen.

Twas the night before Quixmas, when all through the boards
Not a poster was stirring, not even Dark Lords;
The spammers were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Quixolas soon would be there;

The newbies were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of mod colors danced in their heads;
And Daught in her 'kerchief, and Stryphe in his cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,

When there in the boards there arose such a clatter,
Stryphe sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to TF.N Stryphe flew like a bee,
Before he recalled to turn on his PC.

The light of the screen was from three-day-old porn,
And he found his keyboard in his bowl of creamed corn.
When, what to his wondering eyes should appear,
But a long-haired white Persian, and Dark Lords with beer,

The little old kitty, so lively and quick,
Stryphe knew in a moment it must be St. Quix.
More rapid than eagles his Dark Lords they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

Now, Mind Trick! now, Tabee! now, s-j and Queenie!
On, Malthus! on Empress!... Hey, slavegirl's on Stevie!
To the top of the boards! to the top of them all!
Now post away! post away! post away all!

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an IP ban, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the Dark Lords they flew,
With the sleigh full of bans, and St. Quixolas too.

And then, in a twinkling, Stryphe read on the boards
The posting and dancing of each of the Lords.
As Stryphe drew in his hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Quixolas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his whiskers were tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of bans he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his whiskers how merry!
His cheeks were like goose down, his nose like a cherry!
His cruel little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And his face like his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a flamer he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a wide and strong back,
That flexed when he dolled out long bans from his sack.

He was furry and lithe, more cat than an elf,
And Stryphe laughed when he saw him, in spite of himself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Let Stryphe know that the trolls were all dead;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And banned all the spammers; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his paw on the side of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But Stryphe heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
HAPPY QUIXMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

Happy Holidays, everyone. Go out and enjoy some pagan bacchanalia!

 

*** applauds ultra-ceremoniously in fine spirits *** and Lucas sucks.

Merry Christmas...

 

Would Jackson be getting bashed as much for ruining a basic premise of LOTR, while in comparison Lucas really has no reason to be criticized, since it is his own story. Not an adaptation....Just a bit of curiosity

 

Just because it's his own story doesn't mean he's exempt from being criticized, once you make something for the purpose of entertaining joe-public thenit's automatically up for review and critique. Lucas gets bashed mainly for ruining the potential of SW, something he put very little into developing to its full potential after the strains of making TESB. The value of the production that has gone into the PT shows more a man motivated towards trying to milk a franchise for what he can get as opposed to someone who has a story to tell and wants to do their very best in doing so. Quite simply if Lucas wanted to tell the story of SW then he would have writtenthe story 25 years ago but he didn't and he never bothers to even fully work on the scripts to a point where they could become decent stories at least. If he wanted to make the best out of the PT then he'd have written all three stories and we wouldn't have had the likes of Dooku turning up in AOTC when he obviously should have been around for TPM if only GL had bothered to think that far ahead.

Jackson however even though he made an adaption, managed to both stay true to the spirit of the source despite not making it page for page and word for word; and also managed to invoke such a high quality of workmanship and love surrounding the production that the quality of it shows onscreen with every film. Fans can nit-pick about LOTR but essentially he managed to do something nobody has ever done before and a majority in the business thought was impossible and not only that but he did it bloody well. No such level of love, thought and creativity is evident in the PT films, even the DVD's are strung with endless featurettes about FX and technology, the actors do not recite any treasured memories of interesting stories about the production nr do they even bother revisiting the picture for a commentary. The films are sterile experiments made to showcase the capabilities of ILM's FX devision riding the back of the OT that people loved and revered. If those PT films had to be made today without the benefit of the OT in existense, they would have been made a whole lot better with the same attention given towards the narative as is given towards the use of the digital technology involved.

 

Peter Jackson is like the college student facing three HUGE finals in finals week. He studied his *** off, and earned an A on each of them. Not an A+, but an A. He got a few things wrong, but so does everybody else. What's important is that his movies are awesome, and he put everything he had into them.

Lucas, on the other hand, is also like a college student facing three HUGE finals. But instead of studying, he kicks around and drinks beer. He's taken two finals so far, and has gotten an F on each of them. Pretty soon he will take his last final.

CeeJay is right. If Lucas gave a rip, he would have had three complete scripts in his hands before he even started casting, much less shooting. The whole way he's treating the prequels shows he doesn't care. All he cares about is playing his little games with the technology. Too bad he's ruining SW in the process.

If I were Lucas, here's what I would have done, in order:

1. Release the O-OT on DVD.

2. Make a list from the OT of everything that had to happen in the prequels.

3. Write out one-page synopses of each prequel.

4. Hire the best script-writers in the business to turn the synopses into stellar scripts.

5. Hire the best producer and director money can buy. I'll swallow my pride and call Kurtz and Kershner and offer them the jobs. Remember ESB?

6. Do some real casting. Not this "Sam Jackson said on the Tonight Show that he'd like to be in SW, so I think I'll make him a Jedi master" crap. Not the Jake Lloyd crap. Not the "I'll hire Natalie Portman because I like to stare at her" crap. Etc.

7. Send scouts all over, and I mean all over, the world looking for actual locations in which to shoot the movies. Laugh in the face of every computer geek who wanted to design CG sets.

8. Hire Ralph McQuarrie to do the designs. Laugh in the face of every young geek who wanted the job.

9. Sit back and be Mr. Moneybags. Let the team assembled do their work of making all three movies at the same time. Do nothing more than occasionally peak over their shoulders and write them checks.

10. When the movies are completely shot and edited, then let John Williams score them. Don't do any editing AT ALL after they are scored.

11. Release them one year apart in three consecutive Mays.

Of course, all the above would means Lucas actually cares. What did we get instead? Lucas hired a bunch of young, geeky nobodies and said, "Make up all kinds of stuff." Then he'd waddle in and casually say, "I like this one," then wander off to make life hell for the CGI guys: "Why don't you change the angle of Yoda's ear in this shot?" Etc.

 

What's notable about these latest spoilers isn't how terrible they are but how easily we accept them. There was a time when we'd outright dismiss such material as fanboy hogwash. These days, however, just about anything is frighteningly plausible.

The biggest question in my mind at this point is what will be the most ridiculous part of the movie. Will it be Si-da-man's Crone Fu? General CGievous and his CG-88 bodyguards? Or perhaps the CGievous Mobile: the most hilariously impractical vehicle EVER conceived[!]? Well, my interest is waning so rapidly that I'm doubtful I'll ever find out.

Anyway, I can just imagine the kind of review snippets LFL will be using to promote Episode III...

Roger Halfcocked of the Skywalker Ranch Daily Dispatch ventilates: "A religious experience! Bigger than Jesus!"

"Scared ILM Employee" gushes: "PLEASE see this movie!! Lucas is going to sell my children to Honduras for slave labor!!"

Jet Lucas of the Lucas Family Consortium raves: "Big explosions are cool!"

Mousy McCallum of Hyperbolists Anonymous swoons: "HAYDEN'S FREAKIN' DREAMY!!"

Joey Joe Joe Shabadoo of the Washington Post boldly proclaims it "not as bad as Gigli."

Marshal Walker of the Boston Globe declares EPISODE III "only marginally offensive."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times exclaims: "What a piece of [genius]!"

 

That's a good point, N/A..I was pondering it myself. There are no boundaries anymore, so any absurd "spoiler" might actually be the real thing. Worse, just because it doesn't show up in the screened film doesn't necessarily mean it won't at some point in some hideous future edition. Behold: the spoilers that never die.

I have now seen the ROTK EE. Awesome. Yes, some of the additions were unnecessary, notably some of the Paths of the Dead pratfalling with Gimli. But the scene with Saruman, while over the top, wasn't terrible. It actually felt a little rushed to me, but it was a fairly precise way to tie off the entire Shire subplot rather than adding another 70 minutes to the film. And the Mouth of Sauron scene was fan-freaking-tastic. Sure, it's different from the book, but it's great in its own way. Life is good.

And as for Lucas, well... a number of my extended family had recently seen the preview for ROTS while going to see other films. Here are, verbatim, their reactions. Please note that these are Star Wars fans in the general sense that they love the old films, but don't regularly follow the profit-driven horror of LFL:

"It actually didn't look half bad."

"I'll probably go see it at some point."

"Maybe Lucas learned something from the first two."

"Could have been a lot worse."

With such glowing endorsements from the general public, it's clear that the glory of Star Wars will shine on forever undimmed. Or something.

 

the tower is so tall Saruman and Wormtongue are so far up from the guys, yet they're not yelling particularly loudly at each other. If that was a real situation no one could hear each other and would just shout "what?!" "what!" for minutes on end. Funny what we'll accept in movies

I must admit I was thinking that too. They could have had Saruman lower down on a balcony, but then I spose PJ wanted the fall to be as far as possible.

Thinking about Aragorn fighting Sauron - It's not really aragorn's job to defeat Sauron, it's his job to bring leadership to men, that's what Sauron fears after all. So his rousing speech to his men is the point where he wins his own battle.

g

 

The main problem with the books is that Sauron is never a feature so as to what he is thinking/doing during the course of events is left up the film-makers to decifer. Sure it works in the book but on screen to have your main bad guy have a total no-show is pretty weak as far as threats go. I think thier idea wasn't a bad one, it was totally logical that Saron would if he could; take form once again and defeat the heir of Isildur as he did Elendil. Though it may not be Aragorns job to defeat Sauron it is his job to create a diversion long enough for the Hobbits to accomplish their task. Therefore it would not only have been more evident if they realized that with Sauron being drawn out in person to meet Aragorns challenge but also a more perilious ending showing Aragorn taking a battering as all seems lost when Frodo keeps the ring for himself.

I still reckon their idea was a good one even if strayed a lot from the book, I'm not utterly sold on the replacement they got for Sauron in the TE with that huge troll beating the crap out of Aragorn instead, it diminished the power of the reforged sword having it fall to a mere larger weapon. If it was Sauron as they first concieved then it would have at least made sense. I reckon they should have either had gone the whole hog about doing the Sauron scenes or forget it, forget the troll replacement and just have Aragorn slicing up lots of Orcs in defense of his friends inthe vein of Borimirs last stand.

 

"It actually didn't look half bad."

"I'll probably go see it at some point."

"Maybe Lucas learned something from the first two."

"Could have been a lot worse."


How the mighty have fallen.

 

Binary, about your little "How to make a good PT in 11 steps";

8. Hire Ralph McQuarrie to do the designs. Laugh in the face of every young geek who wanted the job.
Oh God yes! Young, talented people with jobs! I hate those guys!

9. Sit back and be Mr. Moneybags. Let the team assembled do their work of making all three movies at the same time. Do nothing more than occasionally peak over their shoulders and write them checks.
If GL would've done it like this, would that show that he "cared" for the movies?

11. Release them one year apart in three consecutive Mays.
What for? so that it would be more LOTR like?

I (partly) agree with the other "steps" you mentioned.

LSHB, since when does your family represent the "general public?"

 

Every single person I have talked to about the Trailer was pretty excited...Although I also understand that the 50 or so people I have discussed it with do not represent everyone...