Tolkien wrote:Poor little Bilbo was very nearly left behind again! He just managed to catch hold of Dori's legs, as Dori was born off last of all; and up they went together above the tumult and the burning, Bilbo swinging in the air with his arms nearly breaking.
/.../
Bilbo never forgot that flight, clinging onto Dori's ankles. He moaned "my arms, my arms!"; but Dori groaned "my poor legs, my poor legs!"
And so all the way to the eagle's homes. A hobbit hanging from a dwarf hanging from am eagle hanging in the air
I think PJ can be forgiven for introducing a bit of silliness that is only as silly as the Professor's.
Last edited by Frelga on Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
"What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter."
Grasshopper, you do not reckon with the power of the Pragmatist.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
It tastes like wet gym socks, but it's good for you.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
So I was thumbing through the children's "Hobbit [movie] activity book" at the grocery store, and on one page it said "Dwarves are very proud of their beards. The longer the beard, the more impressive the dwarf!" I don't have a problem with Thorin's beard length, but it made me laugh!
Not directly Hobbit related, but I was watching logs in the fire last night, and one of them had a partial lengthwise split, as they often do as a result of the splitting and drying process. As the fire widened it, an air current developed and tongues of flame started streaming through, and all of the sudden the thing looked for all the world like some monstrous reptilian head with fire pouring out of its mouth. And that is probably where some of the dragon stories come from.
I had problems with assorted characters dropping from great heights, and providentially landing on the eagles' backs.
In RL, the person would either land then slide off, or the impact of landing would cause broken bones for both rescuer and rescuee.
Sorry, but it REALLY bugged me, along with all the nonsense that went on with collapsing bridges in the goblin caves.
And the Great Goblin landing ontop of everyone was more annoying than funny...
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
Sunsilver wrote:I had problems with assorted characters dropping from great heights, and providentially landing on the eagles' backs.
In RL, the person would either land then slide off, or the impact of landing would cause broken bones for both rescuer and rescuee.
Sorry, but it REALLY bugged me, along with all the nonsense that went on with collapsing bridges in the goblin caves.
And the Great Goblin landing ontop of everyone was more annoying than funny...
If we're going down that road...
I just sort of accepted the way everyone survived their falls in Goblintown (I fell 10 or 15 feet with helmet on and looked like hammered ****; Bilbo should've been much more beat up). I accepted it because I had to swallow the whole leaping and sliding and screwing around on a sheer rock face in a rainstorm. Rocks are slippery when wet.
This is what I find so difficult to understand with the approach PJ has taken this time...why should "lighter tone" equal "totally unbelievable stunt action sequences?" *
For me, the difference is nothing to do with LotR being a more serious story, but everything to do with how it succeeded in making fantasy believable.
[* disclaimer - Legolas LotR stunts excepted as it was only him and one can more likely believe in an Elf's supernatural agility ]
There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.
~Diana Cortes
What's annoying is that this kinda thing isn't PJ exclusive by any means. The latest Bond had a bunch of this kinda stuff too, to the detriment of the character and movie, IMO. Action movie directors really need to stop it with this kinda stuff already. It's not needed to make an exciting action sequence and, to me, makes them less exciting by removing the tension that comes from the possibility of real danger.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
yovargas wrote:What's annoying is that this kinda thing isn't PJ exclusive by any means. The latest Bond had a bunch of this kinda stuff too, to the detriment of the character and movie, IMO. Action movie directors really need to stop it with this kinda stuff already. It's not needed to make an exciting action sequence and, to me, makes them less exciting by removing the tension that comes from the possibility of real danger.
Like that scene in Ronin - when they drive the car in the opposite direction in a tunnel. That's real danger and SO exciting.
'You just said "your getting shorter": you've obviously been drinking too much ent-draught and not enough Prim's.' - Jude
The thing that's believable about the dwarves (and a hobbit? I've only seen the trailer) surviving being crushed by the Great Goblin is that after centuries living underground they probably have a resistance to being shmooshed by cave-ins and structural collapses... imo.
Yov, that sort of thing has become the norm for Bond films. The worst CGI moment I can think of: Pierce Brosnan's escape from an Arctic fortress via...wait for it...sailboard. Not only that, he was sailing down a huge tidal wave created by a glacier collapsing. Brosnan said it was all he could keep to do from rolling his eyes while they were filming it. (Well, not those exact words...)
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
Sunsilver wrote:Pierce Brosnan's escape from an Arctic fortress via...wait for it...sailboard. Not only that, he was sailing down a huge tidal wave created by a glacier collapsing.
When you put it that way.....it sounds kinda awesome.
(I haven't seen it but apparently it's become a bit of a running joke how in the last, new Indiana Jones, he saves himself from a nuclear explosion by hiding in a fridge. )
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
Sunsilver wrote:Yov, that sort of thing has become the norm for Bond films. The worst CGI moment I can think of: Pierce Brosnan's escape from an Arctic fortress via...wait for it...sailboard. Not only that, he was sailing down a huge tidal wave created by a glacier collapsing. Brosnan said it was all he could keep to do from rolling his eyes while they were filming it. (Well, not those exact words...)
Casino Royale (which I recently re-watched) is pretty much devoid of this sort of thing (save, perhaps, for the fight on the scaffolding) and it is very strong as a result. I think it's not only one of the best Bond films but a classic in its own right.
The other noteworthy thing about it is that it is devoid of cannon-fodder bad guys. You never get the impression that Bond is a superman compared to the henchmen - he is stronger, better-trained and smarter but they all put up one hell of a fight. This, incidentally, is probably my biggest issue with PJ's fight scenes. The average bad guy is so weak as to be pathetic. They seem to die just by looking at one of the heroes. The escape from the Goblins took this to pretty extreme levels, and it was hard to feel like there was any real danger.
The exception, of course, are the battles where the good guys lose. Those he seems to do pretty well - the attack on Osgilliath in RotK, for example.
While I agree with you in general, I must appeal to Tolkien again, when it comes to Goblins. Good guys slaughter them by the dozen, it's only in their great numbers that they are dangerous. The one exception I can think of is the big Orc in Moria, the one played by the cave troll in the movie.
Back in general, I do wish directors dialed back on CGI stunts. It's no more impressive that Tom springing back into shape after Jerry traps him in an accordion. That's why I love Jackie Chan movies. The plots are silly but the stunts are for real.
"What a place! What a situation! What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter."
It wasn't really referring to CGI stuff so much as the level of believability of the action stuff. A big one that stuck out to me, and really annoyed me, in Skyfall was in the opening sequence where Bond falls badly off a speeding motorcycle onto a speeding train, landing horribly on what seems to be his knees. Humans wouldn't be able to get up from that horrible accident much less go running, which I believe is what he does a couple seconds after. A similiar "you expect me to believe this guy's human??" moment at the end where he falls into a frozen lake for a couple minutes and then gets out, looking quite comfortable and completely oblivious to the fact that he should be freezing to death.
My point being when you essentially tell me that stuff that would seriously injure or kill normal people leaves your heroes totally unphased, then you've sucked all the tension out of your action sequences. Action movies in general fall to this problem but AUJ was especially filled with this kind of "unkillable heroes" nonsense.
I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists
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