Spoiler filled post ahead, YAR!
Jan. 2nd, 2004 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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plaidder, because I figure, I'm slightly bored and full of procrastination. Here's the
I. ON THE MERITS
For the movie all on its own, without comparison to the novels, I give you
The Good:
Best Film in the Series The Two Towers, because I am such a middle movie whore. Really, Empire was the best one, and so was The Temple of Doom It's got Merry and Pippin together without Frodinator, and it isn't so trite or poorly edited.
Best Battle Scene Helm's Deep/Hornburg. Can you say, "night battles are the most terrifying thing in the universe?" Been there, done that, shit my pants.
Best Death The Cave Troll, when Harry and Ron shove their wands up its nose and then Frodo uses Wingardium Leviosa to repeatedly bash it over the head with Gandalf's staff. Actually, as far as deaths go, you cannot beat the Boromir, what with the FIVE FUCKING ARROWS as big as my thumb sticking OUT OF HIS CHEST.
Best One-Liner Pippin: Great. Where are we going? (FotR)
Best City The Shire. I know that we didn't get to see a great deal of it, but it was so cute, with all the little Hobbit sized shit, and the little round doors! Tianyu says that we are going to build our house, which means we get to add designs to it. First order: turrets with arrow slits. Second order: a round golden hobbit door. Yeah.
Best Special Effect Technically, it was Gollum. For the sheer bad-assedness of it all though, that Massive program they wrote for the battles was amazing, and then the panning shots they did of the Orc army scared the living shit out of me. It was a night battle, see…
Hottest (Male) You know, no matter how you answer this question, you come off sounding like a fangirl. If I say Boromir, then you'll be all like, "oh! she loves Sean!" or if I say Orli, you'll all roll your eyes and say something about my shallowness. So I just come right out and say that the Super Sloth that was commanding the Orc Army on the fields of Pelennor is one hott man. Uh huh. Bring me that horribly disfigured-from-a-peanut-oil-allergic-reaction face anytime. (God help me, I really think Frodo was hot…)
Hottest (Female) Oh, you mean out of the THREE I have to choose from? Oh, let me roll my eyes and foam at the mouth for the sheer variety of wenches in this film. Just to be contrary, I'll say Rosie, because she had the curly hair.
Best Actor Toss up. Sean Astin, I think, and despite my better judgement, because he was just SO SAM. And for the crying factor that I mentioned in my first review of the third film. HOWEVER, Elijah Wood is also very very wet, and just horribly stoner-looking in the third film, so I might have to go with him. But what the hey, we all know that Ian is the superior actor, and he was consistently wonderful through the whole trilogy, so go him. Yay!
Best Actress Because SHE had the most screen time, I'll give that to Miranda Otto.
Best Accent Billy Boyd. I dunno if that's an accent or what, but damn, it makes me very very happy. I expect to see him running through Farmer Maggot's field while Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" plays overhead.
Moment of Greatest Suspense I think waiting for that army of Goblins and Orcs after the bucket dropped in Moria was pretty damn bad, because you knew it was coming. Also noteworthy was the waiting for the attack command for the start of Helm's Deep. It was like molasses being poured over a midget. Who is on fire.
Moment of Greatest Angst For me? The Horse and the Rider.
Moment of Greatest Elation When the Ents totally 0wnz0rd Saruman. Especially when that one Ent is one fire and then he runs around like a tard, and then when they free the river, he runs to dunk his head in it. Hee hee, that totally gets me, because his head is on fire, see?
Moment At Which You Wept Saltiest Tears The "Faramir's Dumbass Suicide For Daddy Attack/Billy Boyd Makes Me Want To Jump Him" scene. I fully expect to see that as the scene's title on the EE.
The Bad:
Worst Film in the Series RotK. Too jumpy, too shallow, too focusy on Arwen and her cunttedy cuntness. Needed More character dialogue, less crap. I can only imagine that we'll get more character stuff in the EE, because I figure PJ cut as much as he could to make the film theatre watchable, but one couldn't cut battle scenes, so…
Most Gratuitous Action Stunt Legolas. He's just one big, blonde action stunt, because honey, he ain't there for the dialogue.
Least Funny Punch Line Gimli: "Toss me." (TTT) Really, when did Gimli become R2D2?
Camelot Memorial 'It's Only A Model' Award I wish I could understand what this means. You me, models that look fake, or models that make you have to remind yourself that it's just a model? Because the former I'd say I couldn't really name one. For the latter I would have to say the Halls of Moria. Oh, I guess since this is under the Bad section, I'll have to say none.
Least Convincing Special Effect Gollum falling into the lava. God was that retarded. I half expected him to raise his hand in farewell, and we'd cut to a strung out Eddie Furlong crying up on top of Mt. Doom.
Chewed Most Sceneryyonmei is right. Huh?
Moment of Greatest Cheesiness The stew scene from EE. Retarded! Just…retarded! Also, I'm going to reveal my moron memory here, but was there outright admittance that Eowyn had a thing for Aragorn? Because I really don't remember it. If Jackson made that shit up, that is possibly the LAMEST thing since the other ass fucking he did of the only other female character. Galadriel doesn't count as a female character since I am assured that she was played by a mop wearing a bucket.
Moment At Which You Felt The Greatest Desire to MST3K Totally did it already.
Most Egregious Violation of the Laws of Physics. Okay, now I know that Legolas is supposed to be all badass and elvish with the fighting, and I could even buy the cool oliphant thing. But in FotR? When we stab an Orc in the face with an arrow and then pull it out and use it in the bow? Nope. Nada. Nyet. Try again. Whoever thought of that has never used an arrowhead, a hunting one like the kind Legolas has. I can't even get my own arrows OUT, let alone thrust one straight in and then pull it out straight away. There are so many problems with that I scream every time I see it.
Least Convincing Character Denethor. What the hell with that man?
The Ugly:
Scariest Creature Uh.. Probably the Balrog, simply for the huge fire-constitution-hellpit-birthplace factor. Yeah.
Nastiest Wound By the look of it in the film? I dunno, there wasn't a lot of showing that. I would guess that Frodo's hurt a lot, but they were just stabbing wounds. So I'm going to go for the time the SAS guys shot Alucard so full of holes you saw his spine fly apart.
Thing You Most Couldn't Stand To Watch The oliphants crushing the horses. It's a personal thing. Also, when Gollum twists the conies in TTT? I hate rabbit crunching noises.
Grossest Gollum Moment The magical loincloth that never seemed to budge, even when he was climbing at a severe down angle. Not that I WANTS to see it, but what the hell is under there that makes it stay in place? When I realized in the movie that I was thinking of that was the grossest moment for me: he'd made me go there.
Worst Table Manners Did we put this in for Denethor alone? Because that was narsty. But my vote goes to Uruk Hai (sp) number 45564, who had his birth sack ripped from him and then proceeded to eat the Orc who had helped clear it off.
II. THE MOVIES vs. THE BOOKS
For those who prefer to endlessly debate the merits of the adaptation:
I'm notoriously bad at this, because I usually let movies and books stand alone in their own canon-ness.
Thing You're Most Glad Jackson Left Out The Barrow wight thing, because I TOTALLY couldn't bet that guy in the fucking PS2 game. Oh and Goldberry, because she has a dumb name.
Thing You're Most Pissed Off Jackson Left Out The Scouring of the Shire, and the part where Gimli and Aragorn have that arm wrestling fight to see who gets to bang Legolas.
Change That Did the Most Good Cutting the Faramir scenes from TTT, except for the Steward of Gondor scene. I could have done with less Faramir in the books, and I'm glad I did.
Change You're Most Pissed Off About Arrrrrwen, and the poor ring! Fucking bitch should have died, and would have, if Frodo had just hung onto it for another day or so. Grrrrrrr.
Character You Like Better In The Film(s) Samwise Gamgee. Just so lovely in the films. Say what you want about Astin, but I love it when he's the loveable doof (Goonies, Rudy, etc).
Character You Like Better in the Novel(s) Legolas. Never before I saw Orlando try to do his best with that part did I realize that he really had…nuthin'. It's not Orli's fault, really. Legolas is a tool.
Book That Suffered The Most In Translation TTT, because it's such a transition book. While it is still the best film in the series, it's just so hard to get the flavah of.
Book That Suffered The Least In Translation FotR, because well, it's the most straightforward storytelling, chronologically, plus they managed to get necessary Hobbit stuff in there as well.
Thing You Would Definitely Have Done Differently I would have eliminated the Arwen ring thing. It was trite, and I don't think the movie needed a love plot that badly that we had to fuck with her part.
III. JACKSON'S TRILOGY vs. LUCAS'S SHOULD-HAVE-QUIT-WHILE-IT-WAS-A-TRILOGY
Give the victory to Jackson or Lucas on the following:
Creatures Lucas. He has more variety.
Cityscape/Landscapes Lucas. Coruscant is a city of planet. Dude.
Hand-To-Hand Combat Jackson. But that's because I'm familiar with that kind of fighting, as opposed to the lightsaber, which I would use to kill myself by accident minutes after I turned it on.
Giant Pitched Battles Jackson. I think I said something about the Massive program before, and that still stands.
Computer-Generated Crowd Scenes Jackson. They had more depth than ILM's.
Performances Lucas. Hammil and Ford are always super. And I like C3PO and R2D2 when they were in space, not fighting Orcs.
Script On the strength of the dialogue? That's a toss up in so many ways, I dunno if I should make a chart. It would have to be illustrated and have pie graphs.
Female Characters This is SO not a question. Lucas. Because he had that Twilek slave dancer.
Androids (just to give George a fighting chance) Jackson. Legolas was perfect. Just perfect.
Oh no! Tianyu has started the Firefly marathon without me! Gah!
plaidder, because I figure, I'm slightly bored and full of procrastination. Here's the I. ON THE MERITS
For the movie all on its own, without comparison to the novels, I give you
The Good:
Best Film in the Series The Two Towers, because I am such a middle movie whore. Really, Empire was the best one, and so was The Temple of Doom It's got Merry and Pippin together without Frodinator, and it isn't so trite or poorly edited.
Best Battle Scene Helm's Deep/Hornburg. Can you say, "night battles are the most terrifying thing in the universe?" Been there, done that, shit my pants.
Best Death The Cave Troll, when Harry and Ron shove their wands up its nose and then Frodo uses Wingardium Leviosa to repeatedly bash it over the head with Gandalf's staff. Actually, as far as deaths go, you cannot beat the Boromir, what with the FIVE FUCKING ARROWS as big as my thumb sticking OUT OF HIS CHEST.
Best One-Liner Pippin: Great. Where are we going? (FotR)
Best City The Shire. I know that we didn't get to see a great deal of it, but it was so cute, with all the little Hobbit sized shit, and the little round doors! Tianyu says that we are going to build our house, which means we get to add designs to it. First order: turrets with arrow slits. Second order: a round golden hobbit door. Yeah.
Best Special Effect Technically, it was Gollum. For the sheer bad-assedness of it all though, that Massive program they wrote for the battles was amazing, and then the panning shots they did of the Orc army scared the living shit out of me. It was a night battle, see…
Hottest (Male) You know, no matter how you answer this question, you come off sounding like a fangirl. If I say Boromir, then you'll be all like, "oh! she loves Sean!" or if I say Orli, you'll all roll your eyes and say something about my shallowness. So I just come right out and say that the Super Sloth that was commanding the Orc Army on the fields of Pelennor is one hott man. Uh huh. Bring me that horribly disfigured-from-a-peanut-oil-allergic-reaction face anytime. (God help me, I really think Frodo was hot…)
Hottest (Female) Oh, you mean out of the THREE I have to choose from? Oh, let me roll my eyes and foam at the mouth for the sheer variety of wenches in this film. Just to be contrary, I'll say Rosie, because she had the curly hair.
Best Actor Toss up. Sean Astin, I think, and despite my better judgement, because he was just SO SAM. And for the crying factor that I mentioned in my first review of the third film. HOWEVER, Elijah Wood is also very very wet, and just horribly stoner-looking in the third film, so I might have to go with him. But what the hey, we all know that Ian is the superior actor, and he was consistently wonderful through the whole trilogy, so go him. Yay!
Best Actress Because SHE had the most screen time, I'll give that to Miranda Otto.
Best Accent Billy Boyd. I dunno if that's an accent or what, but damn, it makes me very very happy. I expect to see him running through Farmer Maggot's field while Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" plays overhead.
Moment of Greatest Suspense I think waiting for that army of Goblins and Orcs after the bucket dropped in Moria was pretty damn bad, because you knew it was coming. Also noteworthy was the waiting for the attack command for the start of Helm's Deep. It was like molasses being poured over a midget. Who is on fire.
Moment of Greatest Angst For me? The Horse and the Rider.
Moment of Greatest Elation When the Ents totally 0wnz0rd Saruman. Especially when that one Ent is one fire and then he runs around like a tard, and then when they free the river, he runs to dunk his head in it. Hee hee, that totally gets me, because his head is on fire, see?
Moment At Which You Wept Saltiest Tears The "Faramir's Dumbass Suicide For Daddy Attack/Billy Boyd Makes Me Want To Jump Him" scene. I fully expect to see that as the scene's title on the EE.
The Bad:
Worst Film in the Series RotK. Too jumpy, too shallow, too focusy on Arwen and her cunttedy cuntness. Needed More character dialogue, less crap. I can only imagine that we'll get more character stuff in the EE, because I figure PJ cut as much as he could to make the film theatre watchable, but one couldn't cut battle scenes, so…
Most Gratuitous Action Stunt Legolas. He's just one big, blonde action stunt, because honey, he ain't there for the dialogue.
Least Funny Punch Line Gimli: "Toss me." (TTT) Really, when did Gimli become R2D2?
Camelot Memorial 'It's Only A Model' Award I wish I could understand what this means. You me, models that look fake, or models that make you have to remind yourself that it's just a model? Because the former I'd say I couldn't really name one. For the latter I would have to say the Halls of Moria. Oh, I guess since this is under the Bad section, I'll have to say none.
Least Convincing Special Effect Gollum falling into the lava. God was that retarded. I half expected him to raise his hand in farewell, and we'd cut to a strung out Eddie Furlong crying up on top of Mt. Doom.
Chewed Most Scenery
yonmei is right. Huh?Moment of Greatest Cheesiness The stew scene from EE. Retarded! Just…retarded! Also, I'm going to reveal my moron memory here, but was there outright admittance that Eowyn had a thing for Aragorn? Because I really don't remember it. If Jackson made that shit up, that is possibly the LAMEST thing since the other ass fucking he did of the only other female character. Galadriel doesn't count as a female character since I am assured that she was played by a mop wearing a bucket.
Moment At Which You Felt The Greatest Desire to MST3K Totally did it already.
Most Egregious Violation of the Laws of Physics. Okay, now I know that Legolas is supposed to be all badass and elvish with the fighting, and I could even buy the cool oliphant thing. But in FotR? When we stab an Orc in the face with an arrow and then pull it out and use it in the bow? Nope. Nada. Nyet. Try again. Whoever thought of that has never used an arrowhead, a hunting one like the kind Legolas has. I can't even get my own arrows OUT, let alone thrust one straight in and then pull it out straight away. There are so many problems with that I scream every time I see it.
Least Convincing Character Denethor. What the hell with that man?
The Ugly:
Scariest Creature Uh.. Probably the Balrog, simply for the huge fire-constitution-hellpit-birthplace factor. Yeah.
Nastiest Wound By the look of it in the film? I dunno, there wasn't a lot of showing that. I would guess that Frodo's hurt a lot, but they were just stabbing wounds. So I'm going to go for the time the SAS guys shot Alucard so full of holes you saw his spine fly apart.
Thing You Most Couldn't Stand To Watch The oliphants crushing the horses. It's a personal thing. Also, when Gollum twists the conies in TTT? I hate rabbit crunching noises.
Grossest Gollum Moment The magical loincloth that never seemed to budge, even when he was climbing at a severe down angle. Not that I WANTS to see it, but what the hell is under there that makes it stay in place? When I realized in the movie that I was thinking of that was the grossest moment for me: he'd made me go there.
Worst Table Manners Did we put this in for Denethor alone? Because that was narsty. But my vote goes to Uruk Hai (sp) number 45564, who had his birth sack ripped from him and then proceeded to eat the Orc who had helped clear it off.
II. THE MOVIES vs. THE BOOKS
For those who prefer to endlessly debate the merits of the adaptation:
I'm notoriously bad at this, because I usually let movies and books stand alone in their own canon-ness.
Thing You're Most Glad Jackson Left Out The Barrow wight thing, because I TOTALLY couldn't bet that guy in the fucking PS2 game. Oh and Goldberry, because she has a dumb name.
Thing You're Most Pissed Off Jackson Left Out The Scouring of the Shire, and the part where Gimli and Aragorn have that arm wrestling fight to see who gets to bang Legolas.
Change That Did the Most Good Cutting the Faramir scenes from TTT, except for the Steward of Gondor scene. I could have done with less Faramir in the books, and I'm glad I did.
Change You're Most Pissed Off About Arrrrrwen, and the poor ring! Fucking bitch should have died, and would have, if Frodo had just hung onto it for another day or so. Grrrrrrr.
Character You Like Better In The Film(s) Samwise Gamgee. Just so lovely in the films. Say what you want about Astin, but I love it when he's the loveable doof (Goonies, Rudy, etc).
Character You Like Better in the Novel(s) Legolas. Never before I saw Orlando try to do his best with that part did I realize that he really had…nuthin'. It's not Orli's fault, really. Legolas is a tool.
Book That Suffered The Most In Translation TTT, because it's such a transition book. While it is still the best film in the series, it's just so hard to get the flavah of.
Book That Suffered The Least In Translation FotR, because well, it's the most straightforward storytelling, chronologically, plus they managed to get necessary Hobbit stuff in there as well.
Thing You Would Definitely Have Done Differently I would have eliminated the Arwen ring thing. It was trite, and I don't think the movie needed a love plot that badly that we had to fuck with her part.
III. JACKSON'S TRILOGY vs. LUCAS'S SHOULD-HAVE-QUIT-WHILE-IT-WAS-A-TRILOGY
Give the victory to Jackson or Lucas on the following:
Creatures Lucas. He has more variety.
Cityscape/Landscapes Lucas. Coruscant is a city of planet. Dude.
Hand-To-Hand Combat Jackson. But that's because I'm familiar with that kind of fighting, as opposed to the lightsaber, which I would use to kill myself by accident minutes after I turned it on.
Giant Pitched Battles Jackson. I think I said something about the Massive program before, and that still stands.
Computer-Generated Crowd Scenes Jackson. They had more depth than ILM's.
Performances Lucas. Hammil and Ford are always super. And I like C3PO and R2D2 when they were in space, not fighting Orcs.
Script On the strength of the dialogue? That's a toss up in so many ways, I dunno if I should make a chart. It would have to be illustrated and have pie graphs.
Female Characters This is SO not a question. Lucas. Because he had that Twilek slave dancer.
Androids (just to give George a fighting chance) Jackson. Legolas was perfect. Just perfect.
Oh no! Tianyu has started the Firefly marathon without me! Gah!
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 05:56 pm (UTC)(b) The Terminator 2 place. I went that place. It didn't help that I had recently seen Terminator 2. I should not have been giggling at that part, but I was.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 09:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 06:13 pm (UTC)The Scouring of the Shire, and the part where Gimli and Aragorn have that arm wrestling fight to see who gets to bang Legolas.
...and then they decide the-hell-with-it and take turns? That was one of my favorite parts. :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 09:14 pm (UTC)So THAT's what chewing scenery means? Oh, in that case, I think we should award that to the tinhats, right? Or do we have to pick actual actors *coughchristopherleecough*?
::turns on peewee herman shouting voice:: TO WAR!! TONIGHT YOU SHALL TASTE MAN FLESH!
Mmmmm, man flesh...
no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 10:49 pm (UTC)I'm thinking that, the night before battle, Elves get their team unity thing going by braiding each other's hair. And, uh, blowjobs, obviously.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 11:58 pm (UTC)That is AWESOME.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-02 11:31 pm (UTC)This just makes me think someone should introduce King Solomon to the LotR universe.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 02:07 am (UTC)(ARAGORN: "I will not share!"
GIMLI lifts axe and chops LEGOLAS in half at his waist.
GIMLI: "Then pick - mouth or arse?")
no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-03 02:31 pm (UTC)Your feet of clay...
Date: 2004-01-02 07:08 pm (UTC)Re: Your feet of clay...
Date: 2004-01-02 09:00 pm (UTC)Funny, not to wank on you, how it makes one feel guilty to actually like something no one else does, even if everyone has good reason for not liking it. I KNOW it's not very good. I still like it the best. Who knows why.
Now, I liked Terminator 2: Judgement Day the best. Does that halp to redeem me? I also hated Back to the Future 2. I think this means that I'm allowed to like one bad movie (or three. The last I checked, Tank Girl and Rocky Horror weren't exactly classic cinema.).