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December 19th, 2002
07:33 pm - Saw LOTR movie, again
Have just been to see The Two Towers with the folks, before all the schools break up and the cinemas start to overflow. The nice thing about it is that I can now go back and read all the TTT spoiling posts, and then add my brief but spoiler-laden TTT thoughts.
Suspect I didn't like the movie quite as much as most, though that's not to say that I particularly disliked it more. Certainly the parts deliberately there for comic relief (Aragorn skateboards down stone steps on his shield, the Ents talk very very slowly indeed, anything to do with Gimli being short) grated, though I suspect that they will have tried most people's patiences. While I appreciate the decision to make Gollum dislikeably ugly, I really did not enjoy being able to see his spine from the outside of his skin or the fact that it was frequently so curved.
The cinematography was excellent, particularly for the much-vaunted battle scenes that live up to their high reputation. Some of the computer-generated characters weren't quite up to the mark of close inspection, particularly Gollum and Treebeard. The script made a very good job of telling a complicated story, making only the King Theoden arc of the story less clear than it might have been. Stunt work: lovely. Other special effects: also fantastic.
The human actors were generally very good, but the scenes with Ian McKellen's Gandalf and Christopher Lee's Saruman stood out particularly positively. The Sam/Frodo love was portrayed tenderly, though I'm yet to be convinced that it was erotic rather than philial. Oh, and Orlando Bloom was almost head-turningly handsome as Legolas. (I am reminded of the wittiest thing that I have ever seen  addedentry write, when considering a comparison the Rowling and Tolkein traditions: "house-elves are to elves as house music is to music".)
Recommended viewing, inevitably, but neither easy (it's so long!) nor comfortable. Somehow I'm not really in a rush to see the movie a second time, which I wasn't expecting.
Now, to be absolutely fair, there were some extenuating factors which meant that I wasn't in the best of moods before going to see the film which may have inadvertently detracted from the experience: I hadn't had as much sleep the night beforehand as would have been ideal, the parental company isn't the most conducive to entertainment, the reclining chairs at the Teesside Showcase cinema seem to recline rather less smoothly than they used to and I could definitely live without them having shown the Jackass: the movie trailer beforehand. Shouldn't fault the movie for any of these, so I mention this only because I might inadvertently have done.
Current Mood:  excited
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Karen saw it yesterday afternoon. (Of course, keep in mind she's between semesters right now and a bit at loose ends -- she called me at 11 a.m. today to announce she's bored.) She liked it a lot, but doesn't need to see it again until it's out on DVD. (And this time I will forbid her from buying the two-disc set, then requesting the four-disc three months later. She can rent it.)
I would not go see The Two Towers; the first movie was excruciating enough. (I am not a fan of fantasy/sf; four years of working on Tor Books proved that.) she called me at 11 a.m. today to announce she's bored
I declare this sweet. :-)
Now are the two of you going to buy the two-disc edition and rent the four-disc one or vice versa? She bought the two-disc set not long after it released, but asked (begged) for the four-disc set as a Christmas present (which I dutifully bought her -- I didn't want to give it to one of the relatives, thinking they might buy another two-disc set).
I suspect a lot of people are doing (or will do) the same thing, and you'll see a lot of two-disc sets being dumped on eBay or Half.com. |
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