-The Lord of the Rings 411-

[terra]

Arwen really didn't appear overly much in the book. They definitely upgraded her position in the movies, although it made a little more sense that way because in the book when she comes out of the blue in the end and [spoiler]marries Aragorn[/spoiler] it makes a little less sense. There's a lot more of the background in the appendix, but I didn't read that until much later so it was just a little puzzling.

One critic of the books said that Tolkien's penchant for presenting women in the book either as figures of extreme good (Galadriel) or extreme evil (Shelob) revealed his secret hatred of them, or something. I think that's complete BS, by the way.

[Dragon Warrior]

Oookkkaaayyy XD Tolkien is sexist. I dunno, that doesn't sound like the dude. But I do remember seeing that Peter Jackson decided to add Arwen in more because she had too little of a part. Liv Tyler (played Arwen) only had to show up on set rarely now and then and often was found helping out in the Weta Workshop instead of doing scenes because Arwen has so little to do. Liv Tyler didn't even to the scene where she's riding on horseback being chased by Ring Wraiths. Wait... sorry... that's not fair to say. She rode on a barrel cloaked in fake horse skin in the back of a truck for five days XD

But yeah, P.J. had to extend her part just to get her in more.

[eleanor]

[color=firebrick] I feel like I'm getting shot down here. I'm saying CONSIDERING the time period he wrote it in, the female characters are pretty strong. Now that we live in a world where women are treated the same, it might seem dull and not that great. I'm just saying...>_> Don't kill me here.

I definately don't think Tolkien is sexist. I mean. Just, no. :/ The explanation of Shelob is largely thought of to be based on Tolkien's past, when he was bitten by this giant tarantula...or some other big spider. A lot of which what happened in his life is clearly evident in his books, even though Tolkien right out denies it.[/color]

[Dragon Warrior]

That's true. Tolkien was in the first WW (I dunno if he was in WW2 or not) and he wrote a lot of stuff on Middle-Earth during that time, even while he was in the battle. Much of his ideas for Sarumon and the orcs are relevent to the world wars and even Hitler's rise to power. His buddies who died in the war had somewhat of an inspiration for his stories in his book "The Book of Lost Tales." I'd have to say almost every writer gets inspiration from their own life happenings--no! All writers do :3

[terra]

[quote name='maladjusted][color=firebrick'] I feel like I'm getting shot down here. I'm saying CONSIDERING the time period he wrote it in, the female characters are pretty strong.[/color][/quote]
Hehe, sorry, maladjusted. I didn't mean to "shoot you down," honestly -- I was just bringing up some other opinions on that subject, and they happened to be differing ones :p. Personally, I don't feel like the women in his books are particularly strong, nor do I think they're too weak. I think he portrays them accurately, but not too differently from men ... I mean, I don't think he portrays all men as incredibly brave and bold, so it makes sense to me that very few women (Eowyn) are brave and bold enough to defy the standards of their world and go to battle. Uh, I hope that made sense.

[Dagger]

Speaking of Eowyn...

If I recall correctly, Tolkien added her to the story solely at the behest of his young daughter(s?). I've always found that immensely amusing.

In response to DW's comments on the previous page: While Galadriel doesn't have a huge role in the films or even in the original trilogy, she's still a frighteningly powerful character with some heavy responsibilities. I'd rather mess with Eowyn than with her, heh.

~Dagger~

[Vash IDK]

[QUOTE=Dragon Warrior]Oookkkaaayyy XD Tolkien is sexist. I dunno, that doesn't sound like the dude. But I do remember seeing that Peter Jackson decided to add Arwen in more because she had too little of a part. Liv Tyler (played Arwen) only had to show up on set rarely now and then and often was found helping out in the Weta Workshop instead of doing scenes because Arwen has so little to do. Liv Tyler didn't even to the scene where she's riding on horseback being chased by Ring Wraiths. Wait... sorry... that's not fair to say. She rode on a barrel cloaked in fake horse skin in the back of a truck for five days XD

But yeah, P.J. had to extend her part just to get her in more.[/QUOTE]


Well I'd have to disagree with that as well. Just because someone's main characters are men, doesn't mean this person had anything against women. A person who is sexist is one who one, admits to it, and says so in an indignant way. To assume one is sexist would to be prejudging without substantial facts. We would be assuming that was his [i]intent.[/i]

I honestly think it was all a matter of war. Back then, the women were not encouraged to go to war (as in Eowyn's case) So really, Tolkein had to keep to the storyline.

I also remember when PJ was saying he wanted to do more with Arwen because she had such a small role. In fact, he was going to have her at the battle of Helms Deep, fighting side by side with Aragorn, but later changed his mind. But his reasoning was because he found it "unreasonable" that the two (Arwen and Aragorn) could go on loving each other when they were so far a part, for so long. That's why he inserted a lot of flashbacks between the two. :)

[Dragon Warrior]

Yeah, the flashbacks also helped portray that they still loved one another and still thought of each other. Like the dream where Aragorn is back in the bed and Arwen shows up. It's the big romance in the story aside from Sam wanting that hobbit chick XD Tee hee.

I did like that future look on how Arwen would still be living even after Aragorn died and she stands by his dead body, then it fades to the stone statue of him. Cool stuff :)

[terra]

I liked the future look too, but I did not appreciate that stuff about Arwen coming to Aragorn in his dreams and being all, "Waaaake uuuuuupppppp ..." That was just too ... stupid for me. Plus while the future stuff was in the appendix, whereas some of the other stuff they just made up.

I also found the part where Arwen [spoiler]sees a vision of her and Aragorn having children and then going to Elrond all indignant being like, "You didn't tell me there were kids! I'm staying!!"[/spoiler] stupid.

[Dragon Warrior]

Haha. I dunno if that whole children thing was in the books, but it just added more to her reasons of staying. Silly Aragorn babies :) But yeah, those scenes with Arwen and Aragorn are the most boring of the films' scenes. They seem to crawl and I don't care if Aragorn's gonna get any after the war XD Oy...

But I do like how Peter Jackson's miniatures were called big-atures and we're usually taller than a human being! That's sweet. It's like a life-size house or something, but then it's not big enough to fit in :)

[Calaya]

Ah, The Lord of the Rings. Not going to go into it as you all have already. But it didn't bother me some of the things they cut out. As you say, the Aragorn/Arwen scenes were bad enough, can you imagine the full Council of Elrond :sleep: It's be 3 hours long itself.
Lookin forward to the Hobbit I must say. Although it's a childs book (cough) I hope it isn't a childish film, and I doubt it will be.

[Sui Generis]

[COLOR=Indigo]Holy cow so I'm not the only person in the world who is still interested in Lord of the Rings....there is a god.


I dun't know I really doubt they will make The Hobbit that kiddish. I mean I think if that happened everyone in the movie would be slaughtered including the director and everything. They have a huge reputation to handel and I doubt they'd let it slip out of their hands by making a film kiddish.

The Lord of the Rings was popular because it appealed to every age group (well relativly I'm no so sure on the whole 70's+ but you know what I mean) and if the Hobbit just does the same thing it should be a good movie.

Will it be as good as the trilogy? I doubt it.[/COLOR]

[natetron46]

[QUOTE=Lalaith Ril][COLOR=Indigo]
Will it be as good as the trilogy? I doubt it.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]
I agree, I would see it, and by all means it will be a good movie, if they can do a fraction of what the LOTR trilogy did, but it cant surpass that, its imposible

[Dragon Warrior]

I actually found the Hobbit (the only Tolkien book I read) more interesting than the LOTR saga for numerous reasons. Take a gun and shoot me down for saying it, but it just seems that way. Maybe because LOTR was so long and the Hobbit wraps up in a comfy one book storyline :3

Plus, I'd so like to see the scene where [spoiler]the trolls turn to stone. Sweeeeet. XD[/spoiler]

But the Hobbit won't be just yet. Peter Jackson is too busy with his King Kong remake (starring jack Black. Can we say "AWESOME!"?).

[Boba Fett]

[color=green]Not sure if this has been mentioned before but there's an [URL=http://lotr.ugo.com/animation/hobbit/]animated version of [u]The Hobbit[/u][/URL] that's been out for a while now. It's rather condensed, but it does a rather good job of following the plotline and staying true to the book.

A [URL=www.google.com]Google[/URL] search revealed that a company called [URL=http://rankinbass.com/]Rankin-Bass[/URL] Studios produced the movie, but despite images relating to LOTR on their site, I can find no other mention of the movie there.[/color]

[Dragon Warrior]

The animated movie is quite old as far as I know, but I heard it was decent. The animation is your typical old fashion looking kind and I'm not too fond of how they made Bilbo look, but ye know. How long is it? I imagine not too long since it's a cartoon, but then again, there's a lot of book to cover there.

[Juu]

[color=deeppink][size=1]I didn't mind the animated version of [b]The Hobbit[/b] so much, but the animated version of [b]FotR[/b] REALLY irked me, lol. Complete waste of $4.50 renting it, but at least I laughed a lot watching it. ^-^

As for live action [b]The Hobbit[/b], I'm not exactly sure how much I'm looking forward to it. At least, not as a PG-13 movie.

But erm, yeah. I've got the extended DVDs for FotR and TT, and a normal RotK DVD. I was SO upset with the bonus features on the RotK one, though. I enjoyed the bit about Tolkien and such, but the interviews were pretty much the same. So I'm REALLY looking forward to the extended version of RotK- especially if they've got a gag reel and such. ~.~;

And yes- I totally love watching the commentaries. Hilarious.

But on the extended version of RotK, I reeeeaaally hope we get to see the Houses of Healing. Does anyone know how long it's going to be? I've heard a ton of different rumours, soo... *just asking*

*snuggles Leggy plushie*[/color][/size]

[Dragon Warrior]

No clue how long it'll be. For the movie in a whole, I'm sure the same as one of the LOTR movies. Peter won't hold back now.

And please, no more Legolas fans. My God XD

As for the extended DvD of ROTK, oh yeah. Can't wait. End of this year, it's gonna be in my possession and I'll be watching it non-stop through all the behind the scenes junk >:^D

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]I absolutely despised the Animated version of Lord of the Rings, it was just plain awful. [spoiler]Did Aragorn even wear trousers in that film, because it sure didn't look like it.[/spoiler] I can accept that the film may be a good number of years old and it can't compete with Jackson's multi-million dollar in terms of optical presentation of the book but there were still many, many thing that made it suck if we look at it straight from a story point of view.

- The film ends at the end of The Two Towers never even going on the The Return of the King.
- Aragorn does not wear pants. (He should be called Long[i]johns[/i] not Long[i]shanks[/i])
- We never meet half the characters due to it ending without finishing the story.
- They bypass several parts of FoTR and TT to save space, I can't remember exacty where they skipped but I know they did.
- We never meet the Ents if memory serves.

I rented it the first time (I accidently rented about a year later) just after seeing FotR and thought "[I]Great now I can see what happens in the rest of them without having to wait for another 4 years.[/I]" Quickly I saw it's faults and returned it that night wasting ?3.00 of my own money. I agree with Juuthena here completely except for the fact that I didn't laugh once during that piece of animated garbage.[/SIZE]

[Dragon Warrior]

Well, I don't usually not go to see movies just because I hear a few bad reviews, but after you told me what the animated short contains, I'm unsure I want to see it anyways. But I might just to get kicks. I usually giggle at crappy animation that's old or the dialogue that tends to suck in those films. I never said I'd give it good rating, but I must say that it intrigues me even more now that you have all dissed on it so XD

[Delta]

They didn't even do justice to my Boromir... :crying:
Ah well. Good thing they made him say: "...I would have followed you, my captain, my king." (or something like that.)

Quenya did show up! Oh happy day! Even in Enya's song we hear Elven-speech!

And The Hobbit wasn't boring. I reserve that adjective for The Silmarillion. *throws The Silmarillion away only to pick it up later and read the story of Beren and Luthien*

Note on Tolkien's female characters: In the Silmarillion, Luthien (whom they say looked a lot like Arwen) rescued Beren (a guy, mind you) when he was imprisoned in some eveil place. Galadriel also fought alongside Celeborn in some battle to defend Lorien... so they say.

[Dragon Warrior]

Yeah, but that's the Silmarillion. When we talked about girls not getting an even cut, we were speaking of the LOTR trilogy. I'm sure all the females in the books did something amazing, but Tolkien didn't really introduce that factor in the books, IMO. But don't get me wrong, they kick butt. They play important roles, nevertheless (aside from Galadriel. What the heck did she do in the movie? Give them Christmas presents? :P).

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]I agree with Gavynn here, even though they fulfil some very important roles in the books ( such as Eowyn killing the Witch-King), they still do comparatively less than their male counter-parts. Sure a lot of them were great characters but they didn?t really do all that much in retrospect, Galadriel?s phial was one of the more important items in the journey of Sam and Frodo. This is down to Tolkien himself since he was the one who wrote the book and it's characters.[/SIZE]

[quote name='Dragon Warrior']What the heck did she do in the movie? Give them Christmas presents? :P).[/quote]

[SIZE=1]I don't think Elves even celebrate Christmas Gavynn...[/SIZE]

[Jokopoko]

[QUOTE=Juuthena][color=deeppink][size=1]I didn't mind the animated version of [b]The Hobbit[/b] so much, but the animated version of [b]FotR[/b] REALLY irked me, lol. Complete waste of $4.50 renting it, but at least I laughed a lot watching it. ^-^

As for live action [b]The Hobbit[/b], I'm not exactly sure how much I'm looking forward to it. At least, not as a PG-13 movie.

But erm, yeah. I've got the extended DVDs for FotR and TT, and a normal RotK DVD. I was SO upset with the bonus features on the RotK one, though. I enjoyed the bit about Tolkien and such, but the interviews were pretty much the same. So I'm REALLY looking forward to the extended version of RotK- especially if they've got a gag reel and such. ~.~;

And yes- I totally love watching the commentaries. Hilarious.

But on the extended version of RotK, I reeeeaaally hope we get to see the Houses of Healing. Does anyone know how long it's going to be? I've heard a ton of different rumours, soo... *just asking*

*snuggles Leggy plushie*[/color][/size][/QUOTE]

[COLOR=TEAL][SIZE=1]From what I've read on websites the full will have an extra 50 minutes if not more and several important scenes have been put back in:

[SPOILER][list]
[*]Gandalf and Saruman talking at the beginning.
[*]Aragorn talking to Sauron when he is holding the Palantir.
[*]Gandalf Vs The Witch-King.
[*]Pippin searching for Merry on Pelennor now takes a whole day.
[*]Additions are made to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
[*]The Mouth of Sauron confronts Aragorn and Co and the Black Gate and shows them Frodos shirt.
[*]Frodo and Sam being forced to march with the Orcs while disguised.
[*]Faramir and Pippin talking after he becomes a Guard of Minas Tirith.
[*]Faramir and Eowyn in the house of healing.
[*]Extended scene for the Dead Army, from the point Aragorn says "What say you?".
[*]And many more besides.
[/list][/SPOILER]

And the model you get with the gift-set is Minas Tirith that can open up and store things, included with the gift-set is a token for a Minas Morgul model. All in all that is something to look forward to and I've already got mine pre-ordered :D 16 weeks and counting :-p[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Dragon Warrior]

[QUOTE=Kane][SIZE=1]I agree with Gavynn here, even though they fulfil some very important roles in the books ( such as Eowyn killing the Witch-King), they still do comparatively less than their male counter-parts. Sure a lot of them were great characters but they didn’t really do all that much in retrospect, Galadriel’s phial was one of the more important items in the journey of Sam and Frodo. This is down to Tolkien himself since he was the one who wrote the book and it's characters.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=1]I don't think Elves even celebrate Christmas Gavynn...[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

I was kidding. Oy XD

I think I'll actually search for the animated films. They should give me something to enjoy :)