Telescope in Lord Of The Rings: ROTK!

"Jackie" wrote in message
news:cauEb.425431$275.1301997@attbi_s53...

"Stephen Paul" wrote in message
...

I am taking the next two weeks off from work. The first thing on my list
of
things to do when nobody is looking, is to sneak off and see this movie
as
a
weekday matinee.

I saw the first two of this series of movies and I must admit that I don't
get the hype... should I have read the books first?? I know they've been
out
since before I was born, but I have to admit that I was not familiar with
the characters or names until the movies came out. Am I missing something
by
seeing the movies without having read the books first? The movies have
great
special effects, but the whole experience of viewing them left me flat in
just about every other way.

After 45 minutes... I just walked out on the third movie. It followed the
second one right down the crapper.

-Stephen

In article cauEb.425431$275.1301997@attbi_s53, Jackie wrote:

"Stephen Paul" wrote in message
...

I am taking the next two weeks off from work. The first thing on my list
of
things to do when nobody is looking, is to sneak off and see this movie as
a
weekday matinee.

I saw the first two of this series of movies and I must admit that I don't
get the hype... should I have read the books first?? I know they've been out
since before I was born, but I have to admit that I was not familiar with
the characters or names until the movies came out. Am I missing something by
seeing the movies without having read the books first? The movies have great
special effects, but the whole experience of viewing them left me flat in
just about every other way.

Jackie

Hey Jackie and all,

As a longtime Tolkien fan, I have a mixed review of the movies.
They're visually wonderful (I love the elephants! and Gollum!).
But I'd like to throw some brickbats at the screenwriters. It often
seemed that they kept lines from the original text just so that fans could
latch onto them, even where they didn't make much sense out of context.
Having Legolas recognize Shadowfax as one of the Mearas, for example --
so what? Or the bit about the dead going to "a land under a swift sunrise".

They've kept a lot of the books' action, and cut it in sensible ways
as if they cared about the integrity of the battle scenes, but warped
the characters; Tolkien's strong sense of the difference between
good and evil has mostly evaporated. Tolkien's good guys are marked
by the oaths they keep and the respect they grant others: imposing
their will by having Gandalf/Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli muscling into
Theoden's court, as in the 2nd film, just didn't fit.
And Sam's temptation by the Ring, where he's offered "a garden swollen
to the size of a realm", which he rejects out of his native homebound
good sense -- I was sorry to see that dropped in favor of a brief game
of keepaway with Frodo. And, of the three strong women
in the original novels (Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn), only Galadriel
seems to have kept her dignity and strength consistently here.

Still I was impressed by *some* of the innovations they made in the story,
and the scenery, real and synthetic, is magnificent. Minas Tirith
looks perfect, better than I'd imagined it.

That funny telescope *was* cool even if we only got to see it briefly.
[See, this message isn't completely off-topic after all.]
They did clearly pay tremendous attention to detail.
And as an epic, you don't go to see it for its psychological
character development.

I'll see it again for more of those details, even with regret.
But if Middle-earth isn't a familiar world, I'm not sure what the
movies will do for you except being a high-powered action film and an
impressive demonstration of computer graphics.

Stuart Levy

In article cauEb.425431$275.1301997@attbi_s53, Jackie wrote:

"Stephen Paul" wrote in message
...

I am taking the next two weeks off from work. The first thing on my list
of
things to do when nobody is looking, is to sneak off and see this movie as
a
weekday matinee.

I saw the first two of this series of movies and I must admit that I don't
get the hype... should I have read the books first?? I know they've been out
since before I was born, but I have to admit that I was not familiar with
the characters or names until the movies came out. Am I missing something by
seeing the movies without having read the books first? The movies have great
special effects, but the whole experience of viewing them left me flat in
just about every other way.

Jackie

Hey Jackie and all,

As a longtime Tolkien fan, I have a mixed review of the movies.
They're visually wonderful (I love the elephants! and Gollum!).
But I'd like to throw some brickbats at the screenwriters. It often
seemed that they kept lines from the original text just so that fans could
latch onto them, even where they didn't make much sense out of context.
Having Legolas recognize Shadowfax as one of the Mearas, for example --
so what? Or the bit about the dead going to "a land under a swift sunrise".

They've kept a lot of the books' action, and cut it in sensible ways
as if they cared about the integrity of the battle scenes, but warped
the characters; Tolkien's strong sense of the difference between
good and evil has mostly evaporated. Tolkien's good guys are marked
by the oaths they keep and the respect they grant others: imposing
their will by having Gandalf/Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli muscling into
Theoden's court, as in the 2nd film, just didn't fit.
And Sam's temptation by the Ring, where he's offered "a garden swollen
to the size of a realm", which he rejects out of his native homebound
good sense -- I was sorry to see that dropped in favor of a brief game
of keepaway with Frodo. And, of the three strong women
in the original novels (Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn), only Galadriel
seems to have kept her dignity and strength consistently here.

Still I was impressed by *some* of the innovations they made in the story,
and the scenery, real and synthetic, is magnificent. Minas Tirith
looks perfect, better than I'd imagined it.

That funny telescope *was* cool even if we only got to see it briefly.
[See, this message isn't completely off-topic after all.]
They did clearly pay tremendous attention to detail.
And as an epic, you don't go to see it for its psychological
character development.

I'll see it again for more of those details, even with regret.
But if Middle-earth isn't a familiar world, I'm not sure what the
movies will do for you except being a high-powered action film and an
impressive demonstration of computer graphics.

Stuart Levy

In article cauEb.425431$275.1301997@attbi_s53, Jackie wrote:

"Stephen Paul" wrote in message
...

I am taking the next two weeks off from work. The first thing on my list
of
things to do when nobody is looking, is to sneak off and see this movie as
a
weekday matinee.

I saw the first two of this series of movies and I must admit that I don't
get the hype... should I have read the books first?? I know they've been out
since before I was born, but I have to admit that I was not familiar with
the characters or names until the movies came out. Am I missing something by
seeing the movies without having read the books first? The movies have great
special effects, but the whole experience of viewing them left me flat in
just about every other way.

Jackie

Hey Jackie and all,

As a longtime Tolkien fan, I have a mixed review of the movies.
They're visually wonderful (I love the elephants! and Gollum!).
But I'd like to throw some brickbats at the screenwriters. It often
seemed that they kept lines from the original text just so that fans could
latch onto them, even where they didn't make much sense out of context.
Having Legolas recognize Shadowfax as one of the Mearas, for example --
so what? Or the bit about the dead going to "a land under a swift sunrise".

They've kept a lot of the books' action, and cut it in sensible ways
as if they cared about the integrity of the battle scenes, but warped
the characters; Tolkien's strong sense of the difference between
good and evil has mostly evaporated. Tolkien's good guys are marked
by the oaths they keep and the respect they grant others: imposing
their will by having Gandalf/Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli muscling into
Theoden's court, as in the 2nd film, just didn't fit.
And Sam's temptation by the Ring, where he's offered "a garden swollen
to the size of a realm", which he rejects out of his native homebound
good sense -- I was sorry to see that dropped in favor of a brief game
of keepaway with Frodo. And, of the three strong women
in the original novels (Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn), only Galadriel
seems to have kept her dignity and strength consistently here.

Still I was impressed by *some* of the innovations they made in the story,
and the scenery, real and synthetic, is magnificent. Minas Tirith
looks perfect, better than I'd imagined it.

That funny telescope *was* cool even if we only got to see it briefly.
[See, this message isn't completely off-topic after all.]
They did clearly pay tremendous attention to detail.
And as an epic, you don't go to see it for its psychological
character development.

I'll see it again for more of those details, even with regret.
But if Middle-earth isn't a familiar world, I'm not sure what the
movies will do for you except being a high-powered action film and an
impressive demonstration of computer graphics.

Stuart Levy

In article ,
Michael McCulloch wrote:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 00:39:49 +0000 (UTC), (Brian Tung)
wrote:

[...]but as I understand it, there *is* one person who agrees with the purists,
and he is the one who matters the most: Christopher Tolkien. Apparently,
he is sufficiently upset with PJ's interpretation of LOTR that he does not
plan to let Jackson do the Hobbit.

Perhaps, but other Tolkien descendants have guest appearances in the
RotK

Cool -- who? I hadn't heard that.

and don't display the same disdain for the films. Perhaps it is
just a case of sour grapes since J.R.R. Tolkien himself sold the film
rights for LotR in 1969 for £10,000.

In article ,
Michael McCulloch wrote:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 00:39:49 +0000 (UTC), (Brian Tung)
wrote:

[...]but as I understand it, there *is* one person who agrees with the purists,
and he is the one who matters the most: Christopher Tolkien. Apparently,
he is sufficiently upset with PJ's interpretation of LOTR that he does not
plan to let Jackson do the Hobbit.

Perhaps, but other Tolkien descendants have guest appearances in the
RotK

Cool -- who? I hadn't heard that.

and don't display the same disdain for the films. Perhaps it is
just a case of sour grapes since J.R.R. Tolkien himself sold the film
rights for LotR in 1969 for £10,000.

In article ,
Michael McCulloch wrote:
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 00:39:49 +0000 (UTC), (Brian Tung)
wrote:

[...]but as I understand it, there *is* one person who agrees with the purists,
and he is the one who matters the most: Christopher Tolkien. Apparently,
he is sufficiently upset with PJ's interpretation of LOTR that he does not
plan to let Jackson do the Hobbit.

Perhaps, but other Tolkien descendants have guest appearances in the
RotK

Cool -- who? I hadn't heard that.

and don't display the same disdain for the films. Perhaps it is
just a case of sour grapes since J.R.R. Tolkien himself sold the film
rights for LotR in 1969 for £10,000.

Bob Ames wrote:
"Kevin Rehberg" wrote:

Did anyone else that has seen it catch the crude refractor (it's
basically an objective and a couple other elements held together with
sticks)in the foreground of one of the Rivendel? You can only see it
for a total of about 5 seconds, but it's still nice to see some type of
astronomy equipment in one of the greatest movies of all time.

All of 5 seconds? Doesn't sound like a good movie to me. The last
movie I saw was 'Contact' in 1997. There were many shots of
telescopes, including Arecibo and the VLA for a significant portion
of the movie.

As a film featuring lots of (radio) astronomical equipment,
human struggle, and quirky personalities, I hope you get to see
"The Dish" some day.

A favorite scene is where, after one astronomer has
been filling a blackboard with hand-calculations of the lunar probe's
orbit so they can re-point the Parkes dish at it, the
(arrogant stuffed shirt) visitor points out that, after all,
it is well on its way to the moon and can't be more than a few
degrees from it. The moon is right out there in the sky, so can't
they just pick it up by sweeping? And they do.

Cheers

Stuart

Bob Ames wrote:
"Kevin Rehberg" wrote:

Did anyone else that has seen it catch the crude refractor (it's
basically an objective and a couple other elements held together with
sticks)in the foreground of one of the Rivendel? You can only see it
for a total of about 5 seconds, but it's still nice to see some type of
astronomy equipment in one of the greatest movies of all time.

All of 5 seconds? Doesn't sound like a good movie to me. The last
movie I saw was 'Contact' in 1997. There were many shots of
telescopes, including Arecibo and the VLA for a significant portion
of the movie.

As a film featuring lots of (radio) astronomical equipment,
human struggle, and quirky personalities, I hope you get to see
"The Dish" some day.

A favorite scene is where, after one astronomer has
been filling a blackboard with hand-calculations of the lunar probe's
orbit so they can re-point the Parkes dish at it, the
(arrogant stuffed shirt) visitor points out that, after all,
it is well on its way to the moon and can't be more than a few
degrees from it. The moon is right out there in the sky, so can't
they just pick it up by sweeping? And they do.

Cheers

Stuart

Bob Ames wrote:
"Kevin Rehberg" wrote:

Did anyone else that has seen it catch the crude refractor (it's
basically an objective and a couple other elements held together with
sticks)in the foreground of one of the Rivendel? You can only see it
for a total of about 5 seconds, but it's still nice to see some type of
astronomy equipment in one of the greatest movies of all time.

All of 5 seconds? Doesn't sound like a good movie to me. The last
movie I saw was 'Contact' in 1997. There were many shots of
telescopes, including Arecibo and the VLA for a significant portion
of the movie.

As a film featuring lots of (radio) astronomical equipment,
human struggle, and quirky personalities, I hope you get to see
"The Dish" some day.

A favorite scene is where, after one astronomer has
been filling a blackboard with hand-calculations of the lunar probe's
orbit so they can re-point the Parkes dish at it, the
(arrogant stuffed shirt) visitor points out that, after all,
it is well on its way to the moon and can't be more than a few
degrees from it. The moon is right out there in the sky, so can't
they just pick it up by sweeping? And they do.

Cheers

Stuart