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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2017 4:44:52 GMT
That would be because they made Theoden into too much of a chump, made Eowyn too weepy, and basically jettisoned Eomer out of too much of the film, and neutered poor Captain Hama.Hey, WR. I also think Captain Hama could have used a bit more introduction or screen time, like Haldir in the Fellowship. That way the audience could have gotten to know him better and empathized with his story a bit more. I agree that more of Éomer would have worked as well; some people I know who watched the movie just once (and never read the books) couldn't recall who he was afterward. Another thing I've thought is that some parts of the movie - both the Theatrical Version and EE - were a bit too cartoonish or juvenile (or over-stated in a few dramatic moments). While they kept this out of the Fellowship and thus made that film more concise, elegant, intimate, reverent and "visceral", I found the inclusion of too much slapstick took away from the TT's (and parts of ROTK's) potency and sense of awed grandeur. I'm thinking of some of the comically exaggerated orcs who kidnapped Merry & Pip (unlike the more brooding menacing versions in the Fellowship), Gimli's belches (vs. the relatively more respectable Gimli in the Fellowship), etc. Though the first movie had humor, it was never too over the top, and the drama wasn't over-stated either. Agreed. Captain Hama could have been formally introduced when Eomer brought Theodred home and we see him interact with both the king's nephew and niece. Then when Eomer is banished, he secretly promises his friend to keep an eye on Eowyn for him. That would put him in the scene when she discovers Theodred has died in the middle of the night. Wormtongue walks in and feigns sympathy. Hama stiffens angrily and snaps around, glaring at the icky man. Wormtongue requests privacy, and Hama seemingly obeys. However, a quick camera shot would display Hama no further away than right outside the door the whole time Grima tries to seduce Eowyn. I would also have made the boy who are sent on horseback to Edoras by his mother be Haleth, his son. Making the mother Hama's wife, obviously. Yes, she would still show up at Helm's Deep and we would get a full reunion of the family of three. Then Hama would be with Theoden and Gandalf at the royal tomb after Theodred's funeral. He'd turn around to give Theoden some semblance of privacy when the old king finally breaks down into tears and that's when he sees a very familiar-looking horse bearing a very familiar-looking blonde child. He rushes over and picks his son, Haleth. Hama: "Haleth? HALETH!" Haleth: (exhausted, but slowly opens his eyes) "...Father?" Cut to next scene. Hama would be present at the following scene in Theoden's throne room, mostly attending to his exhausted son and getting him to tell all that's happened back in the village. Everything else would mostly play out exactly the same with everyone trying to convince Theoden to go to war, including Hama himself. However, you know the drill. They all set out for Helm's Deep, but it is Hama who reports to Theoden instead of Gamling and it's him to who gets told "This is not a defeat. We'll return." Then later when he and Gamling scout the area and get attacked by wargs, I'd just throw in a couple of red shirt Rohirrin and let them get chomped, instead. He survives the fight and is reunited with his wife at Helm's Deep. However, 10,000 Urak-Hai are coming and everything's sad and dire until Eomer and his men show up, having been informed by Gandalf that they're needed. So Eomer and Hama are restored to their proper roles in the story and the Battles takes place with Hama pretty much just playing Haldir's role as an officer who dies during the retreat. It's sad, there's slow-mo, it's Eomer who runs up and grabs him just as the life leaves him instead of Aragorn. Then Eomer goes out and helps fend off the Uraks at the Gate with Aragorn and Gimli. Everyone gets cornered in the caverns while the baddies ram the door down, but charge them on horseback just as it opens. Gandalf shows up with the elves, led by Haldir, and we get the final mowing down of bad guys. And Haldir goes on to the play the role Arwen's brothers and the rangers did in Return of the King and Jackson and co still don't have to introduce anybody new.
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Post by kjnics on Feb 24, 2017 19:36:00 GMT
PM makes a good observation about Faramir's men kicking Gollum. While I think this was effective to make the viewer feel more compassion for Gollum, it did rest from making Faramir's men seem too wise. One final thing that would have made the Two Towers stand out more potently for me was a different use of colors and lighting. For me, bolder, vivid colors like those used in the Fellowship or Return of the King would have worked better than the grey, pale shades predominantly used in the second movie. This might have worked for some viewers, but for me, it dulled the movie's atmosphere (and made my attention wander a bit). Even Moria, dark as it was, had a finer, sharper look (due to the colors, lighting, type of film used, etc.) The travails and trials of the different characters, whether in Fangorn, Itihilien or Rohan would have actually been more potent for me with sharper, more vigorous colors. (I remember when Return of the King came out how impressed I was by the return of fresh, strong colors, and how I was able to appreciate Fangorn, Ithilien and Rohan, along with the characters, better). In the following article, Andrew Lesnie, the director of photography, explained his reasons for using this style of color and lighting for the second movie (according to him, in order to make it grittier). I think the grittiness might have been more effective without so much pale greyness and a sharper use of colors (even sharper greys, in the scenes where grey colors dominated, like the Emyn Muil or the entrance to the Black Gate, contrasting to other sharp colors). www.theasc.com/magazine/dec02/two/
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Post by fangirl1975 on Feb 24, 2017 19:53:50 GMT
Not a dang thing. The films worked just fine. No need to make them a replica of the books as they are two different media.
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Post by filmfan95 on Feb 24, 2017 20:13:40 GMT
Not a dang thing. The films worked just fine. No need to make them a replica of the books as they are two different media. While I do agree that an adaptation shouldn't be an exact replica of the book, there needs to be a place where we draw the line. There are some adaptations out there that are barely recognizable as the same story that they're based on, and that's usually not a good thing, with few exceptions.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2017 20:34:10 GMT
Bull and shit, fangirl1975. There were plenty of times the films should have been closer to the books and would have been all the better for it!
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Post by bb15 on Feb 25, 2017 0:08:52 GMT
The third thing that I would've changed in the Lord of the Rings movies has to do with why Arwen was dying. - In The Return of the King movie it is said by Elrond that there is some kind of strange connection between the life of Frodo and Arwen. So, as Frodo got weaker walking to Mount Doom, Arwen got weaker. I never thought that this idea worked very well and it doesn't come from Tolkien.
* Instead I would've preferred that Arwen was losing the will to live because of her worry about Aragorn. Aragorn's march to the black gate could have been foreseen by farsighted Elves like Elrond and Arwen could feel that if Aragorn died, that she no longer wanted to be in this world.
This is simpler and it's also something that Tolkien believed that Elves could do such as with the mother of Feanor (from the Silmarillion).
Imo at least, BB ;-)
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2017 0:10:57 GMT
I never got that impression from the films. I always took it mean Arwen had lost the ability to pass over to The Gray Havens, so she'd perish with all other non-orc life in Middle-earth if Sauron won.
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Post by bb15 on Feb 25, 2017 2:32:06 GMT
I never got that impression from the films. I always took it mean Arwen had lost the ability to pass over to The Gray Havens, so she'd perish with all other non-orc life in Middle-earth if Sauron won. WR; there is a scene in ROTK where Elrond is talking to Aragorn in a tent (right before Aragon goes to the Paths of the Dead). Elrond gives Aragorn the reforged sword of Isildur and Elrond also tells Aragorn that Arwen is dying. (She is seen in an edit lying down at Rivendel wasting away.) Elrond tells Aragorn at that moment about Arwen being bound to Frodo in some way. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Return_of_the_KingImo at least, BB ;-)
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Post by kjnics on Feb 27, 2017 6:42:33 GMT
To the Two Towers' credit, however, I realize how much effort they did put into making it, and why it was somewhat lacking compared to the other two. Upon doing a little more research regarding how it was made, I found the following in Wikipedia: The screenwriters did not originally script The Two Towers as its own film: instead, parts of it were the conclusion to The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of two planned films under Miramax. However, as the two films became a trilogy under New Line, Jackson, Walsh and Boyens shuffled their scripts. The Two Towers was the most difficult of the Rings films to make, having neither a clear beginning nor end to focus the script. Nonetheless, they had a clear decision with making the Battle of Helm's Deep the climax, a decision affecting the whole story's moods and style.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Two_Towers#Comparison_to_the_source_material
Helm's Deep was definitely the strongest part of the movie for me (particularly "Forth Eorlingas", which gives me chills), along with the simultaneous destruction of Isengard (though there were other fine parts of the movie too - Gandalf's return, Théodred's death, Aragorn encouraging Éowyn, most of Gollum's scenes, Faramir's memories, etc.) Some of the time it took getting to the movie's climax always seemed rather tedious to me, but seeing why it was (the filmmakers having to re-structure so much) puts it into perspective. Once the climax arrived, it certainly paid off.
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Post by OmegaWolf747 on Mar 11, 2017 0:02:15 GMT
I would've changed the final battle so it didn't end with Aragorn being stepped on by a cave troll and would've died if the Ring hadn't fallen into the lava just then. He's the warrior king! That's not supposed to happen to him!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2017 2:48:43 GMT
Make no mistake, Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is a lyrical triumph in filmmaking. Of course, it's not perfect as nothing is. So what would you have changed? Most of the changes I'd make involve the divisive middle chapter, The Two Towers. 1. Faramir himself is able to resist the lure of the Ring, but who is to say that Denethur wouldn't have loyalists in his ranks and they enact a coup. Jackson still gets to increase the tension without obliterating Faramir's character. 2. Let Eomer arrive at Helm's Deep before the battle and have elves show up with Gandalf at the end. Eomer just seems so pointless being jettisoned out of most of The Two Towers. They might as well have just cut him from the story if they weren't going to give him his dues. 3. Treebeard himself wants to fight Saruman, but its the OTHER Ents who decide its not their problem. After Treebeard concocts a plan to get the other Ents involved with Merry and Pippin. There, now Treebeard isn't a total moron. 4. Captain Hama gets to keep his original, more integral role from the book and dies at Helm's Deep. Pretty much the need to make every character need an arc. I was on board for it with Aragorn, but it was really annoying with Farimir and the Ents....
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Post by bb15 on Mar 11, 2017 9:07:33 GMT
I would've changed the final battle so it didn't end with Aragorn being stepped on by a cave troll and would've died if the Ring hadn't fallen into the lava just then. He's the warrior king! That's not supposed to happen to him! That troll fight was a late change (with editing and special effects). As explained in the Extended Edition extras, Aragorn was originally fighting Sauron! That was Jackson's ideas because he wanted a physical main villain. But cowriters, Boyens and Walsh, convinced Peter to not have Sauron show up in human form (to stay closer to the book). Still the shooting of the sequence had been done with Viggo. So, a CGI troll was put in the fight instead. Imo at least, BB ;-)
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Post by Morgana on Apr 1, 2017 20:32:48 GMT
Make no mistake, Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is a lyrical triumph in filmmaking. Of course, it's not perfect as nothing is. So what would you have changed? Most of the changes I'd make involve the divisive middle chapter, The Two Towers. 1. Faramir himself is able to resist the lure of the Ring, but who is to say that Denethur wouldn't have loyalists in his ranks and they enact a coup. Jackson still gets to increase the tension without obliterating Faramir's character. 2. Let Eomer arrive at Helm's Deep before the battle and have elves show up with Gandalf at the end. Eomer just seems so pointless being jettisoned out of most of The Two Towers. They might as well have just cut him from the story if they weren't going to give him his dues. 3. Treebeard himself wants to fight Saruman, but its the OTHER Ents who decide its not their problem. After Treebeard concocts a plan to get the other Ents involved with Merry and Pippin. There, now Treebeard isn't a total moron. 4. Captain Hama gets to keep his original, more integral role from the book and dies at Helm's Deep. I would have liked Jackson to have shown Faramir and Eowyn in The Houses of Healing, and their budding friendship then love.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2017 22:39:02 GMT
I would have liked Jackson to have shown Faramir and Eowyn in The Houses of Healing, and their budding friendship then love. That is shown briefly in the Extended Edition.
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Post by Morgana on Apr 2, 2017 9:02:00 GMT
I would have liked Jackson to have shown Faramir and Eowyn in The Houses of Healing, and their budding friendship then love. That is shown briefly in the Extended Edition. I haven't seen the extended edition. I'll have to look for it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2017 13:20:02 GMT
I haven't seen the extended edition. I'll have to look for it. The scene is brief, but it at least gives a hint as to what is to come for them whereas the theatrical version does nothing....
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Post by Morgana on Apr 2, 2017 16:16:24 GMT
I haven't seen the extended edition. I'll have to look for it. The scene is brief, but it at least gives a hint as to what is to come for them whereas the theatrical version does nothing.... Thank you.
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Post by bb15 on Apr 3, 2017 0:48:57 GMT
That is shown briefly in the Extended Edition. I haven't seen the extended edition. I'll have to look for it. I definitely recommend the EEs for all the LOTR movies for a fan of the book. Imo at least, BB ;-)
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Post by PreachCaleb on Apr 11, 2017 18:24:31 GMT
I would've wanted to see more of the regal, kingly side of Aragon. We got to see the ranger plenty, but not the king.
I certainly wouldn't have had him decapitate The Mouth of Sauron. A king should know better than to kill the messenger. Even an evil one.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 20:19:30 GMT
I would've wanted to see more of the regal, kingly side of Aragon. We got to see the ranger plenty, but not the king. I certainly wouldn't have had him decapitate The Mouth of Sauron. A king should know better than to kill the messenger. Even an evil one. Sadly, I don't think the casting allowed for it. They needed Liam Neeson to be Aragorn. He's kingly just by being, so no amount of "ranger" oriented writing would have stopped him from giving us the kingly Aragorn.
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