lots of lord of the rings
13:49 09/01/2004
Ok, I’m going to give in a little to the blog thing for a bit, just because….well I’m bored, and rants require thought, time and effort, strange and paradoxical as that might seem.
A couple of things I wanted to get out of the way or mentioned. Conall finally added me to his links, so my plan to mention his name until he did worked. ;-) Like the “It’s not a blog! It’s not a blog!” bit…because it should be true.
Next, Fourth Year Project, that is RAG’D, is in a sorry state, meaning I’m sorry it doesn’t exist. So need to get cracking on that. Have to say that working on Scrapyard Stacking was useful though, it had been a while since I had used C++ and a couple of things had been forgotten.
Now, to get something written about The Lord of the Rings. For those who know me in any way, should realise that I’m a bit of Tolkien fanatic, not as bad as some and worse than others. For instance, the portrayal of Faramir in The Two Towers movie, infuriated me when I saw it in the cinema, froth was forming in my mouth and my hands clenched the side of the seat. But all in all, I really like the movies, I think Jackson did a fantastic job of bringing Middle-earth to life. I don’t agree with some of the decisions that they made about adapting the story…but then again, I can’t do anything about it. Got The Two Towers Extended Version, (I always get both the theatrical and extended versions), for Christmas and really enjoyed it. It’s always good to have those little bits added in, because they either clear something up, (the horse that picks Aragorn up after he falls from the cliff makes a lot more sense now), or adds something back in that as a fan of the books makes me tingle, (the hourns at Helm’s Deep and Merry and Pippin finding the flotsam and jetsam at Isengard).
As for The Return of the King, really enjoyed it. Was fine with the many missing bits, because I figure there’ll be near enough an extra hour in the extended version. I think that’s really quite possible, considering how rushed the ending was and the absence of numerous storylines. It’s probably the movie that I was most happy with when I went to see it in the cinema, perhaps due to not having read the book so recently, whilst it hadn’t been as long for the other two movies. Though I was still quite disappointed with Sam in the movie. They didn’t make enough of Sam. The Choices of Samwise Gamgee is one of my favourite chapters in the book and enough wasn’t made of it in the book. The fact that Sam became a ringbearer for a time is a very important fact and was almost overlooked in the movie. Also Frodo sending Sam away was a little annoying for me, it takes away from the friendship that is unbreakable in the books. But all in all, it was a great movie, with so many good points that they far out weigh any problems I had, some of which I hope to be eradicated in the extended version. :-)
Actually getting to see it was a bit of an undertaking though, went on the night to the cinema with my booked tickets only to find that the projecter had broken down and so they were showing it in a tiny screen. Had just bought expensive drinks and popcorn so didn’t want to leave, but eventually realised that I wasn’t going to enjoy the movie if I stayed so left my family there to see it and went home. But the tale has a happy ending, got a complimentary ticket to see it on the Saturday, in the biggest screen, middle center row. I was happy. :-)
There was one more thing which I wanted to bring up and meant to do so, when I first heard about it back in November or so, and that was the cutting of Saruman from Return of the King. There was some anger about this, especially from Christopher Lee himself, another fanatic. But all in all, I didn’t mind, Jackson had already done enough damage by not tying up Saruman at the end of The Two Towers. It made more than enough sense, not to have the end of a story at the start of the next movie, which was why it was cut. Guess, we’ll just have to wait for it in the Extended Version.