Topic: One of My favorite Movies...

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

Combine great actors, a great director, and a great musical score you get a classic....

In this scene, a movie I saw at a dingy theater for 2 bucks with a good screen and a decent sound system, you see a masterfull finale to a great adaptation to an american novel.  The ebb and flow between the conflict of good of vs evil is just, well, watch it...

enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV1VOIaukrQ[/youtube]

[Bonk]

I liked the cinematography except for at 3:09, at a critical point in the fight you cannot see what happens. How was the guy in green defeated? Where did that blow hit? How did it get through? Good scenery, but a little weak on the fight shots. Perhaps I'm spoiled by martial arts films though?

[Corbomite]

That is one of the most beautifuly shot movies ever. I could watch it with the sound off.

[knightstorm]

I read the book first, and was disappointed by the film.

[Corbomite]

I read the book first, and was disappointed by the film.

This is just about always the case.

[TAnimaL]

wait, James Fennimore Cooper's book?? Or the "Classics Illustrated" version? 'Cause, the man's writing style... and I'm not talking about it being almost 200 years old... because a lot of things hold up well from back then...

I guess I share Mark Twain's opinion of Cooper's writing 

As I repeat ad naseum to my kids and students - a book is a book, a film is a film. You don't compare breakfast to desert or a painting to a sculpture... You certainly can prefer one to the other. When I hear my 12 years-old friends say, "The book of Harry Potter 5 was better than the movie," I tell them they weren't really watching the movie.

(Sorry, a touchy subject for me)

I absolutely love this movie, it being based more on the 1936 movie than Coooper's book. The cinematography is amazing, North Carolina serving as a beautiful substitute for the Hudson Valley, and I found the fight choreography to be "tastefully discrete." 

And while I agree that it's beautiful enough to watch without sound, the soundtrack by Trevor Jones is spectacular. I'm soaking in it now...

(hmm, I've been replacing the music in OP with other stuff... some of this would work very nicely...)

[knightstorm]

Most film adaptations differ from the books in that they have to cut scenes to run in the time allotted.  What bothered me about this film was how badly they garbled the plot.  Characters who are supposed to live die, and vice versa.  While I do concede that the music and scenery are excellent, I can't watch this film without thinking "they've killed the wrong sister!" as well as other plot complaints.

[Corbomite]

Most film adaptations differ from the books in that they have to cut scenes to run in the time allotted.  What bothered me about this film was how badly they garbled the plot.  Characters who are supposed to live die, and vice versa.  While I do concede that the music and scenery are excellent, I can't watch this film without thinking "they've killed the wrong sister!" as well as other plot complaints.

Hollywood demands at least some sort of an upbeat ending.

[knightstorm]

Hollywood demands at least some sort of an upbeat ending.

More main characters die in the film than in the book.  How is that ending more upbeat?

[Corbomite]

Hollywood demands at least some sort of an upbeat ending.

More main characters die in the film than in the book.  How is that ending more upbeat?

True love prevailed.

[TAnimaL]

Again, Michael Mann's "Mohican" = 1936 Hollywood version, not the 1826 book.

[Father Ted]

I read the book first, and was disappointed by the film.

This is just about always the case.

One of the rare exceptions was "Patriot Games", which actually turned out to be a much better story than Clancy's book. For the most part, however, you're right. If you gave me enough time, I could come up with a few more, but I'll have to dwell on it.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

wait, James Fennimore Cooper's book?? Or the "Classics Illustrated" version? 'Cause, the man's writing style... and I'm not talking about it being almost 200 years old... because a lot of things hold up well from back then...

I guess I share Mark Twain's opinion of Cooper's writing 

As I repeat ad naseum to my kids and students - a book is a book, a film is a film. You don't compare breakfast to desert or a painting to a sculpture... You certainly can prefer one to the other. When I hear my 12 years-old friends say, "The book of Harry Potter 5 was better than the movie," I tell them they weren't really watching the movie.

(Sorry, a touchy subject for me)

I absolutely love this movie, it being based more on the 1936 movie than Coooper's book. The cinematography is amazing, North Carolina serving as a beautiful substitute for the Hudson Valley, and I found the fight choreography to be "tastefully discrete." 

And while I agree that it's beautiful enough to watch without sound, the soundtrack by Trevor Jones is spectacular. I'm soaking in it now...

(hmm, I've been replacing the music in OP with other stuff... some of this would work very nicely...)

Very well spoke.  Movies stand on their own.  The movie media is just too different.  Updating the Last of the Mohicans in the style it was done brought the whole concept back into contemporary times. 

But what movies do best is actually what books do best in another way ... if they are really good they transfix you.  Like a book you can't put down a great scene from a movie leaves you mouth breathing.  The best of these scenese are about life and death and usually against odds.

I didn't like this movie the first time it came out.  Criticized it heavily from because of departures from the book and use of "composite characters", characters that combine one two or more in the book like Arwen and Glorfindel (an elf noble (or lord) who actually saves Frodo at the Ford of Bruinen) to move the plot forward.

I was much better disposed to the second movie and by the third movie, particularily this scene, I realized I was watching a true masterpiece of cinema...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaZI2799SJc&feature=related[/youtube]

* notice again the use of violins in the musical score, an instrument not used much for such scenes in cinema before Last of the Mohicans.  This version of the battle is pretty short as the battle goes on quite a bit but the sound is so good I had to use it.  I was completely won over on this series of movies after this.



 

 

[knightstorm]

Personally, I think combining Arwen with Glorifndel was really to give Liv Tyler a larger part, maybe I'm just being cynical.  One thing that annoyed me was that they cut the battle of the shire from film 3, not for time constraints, but because Jackson didn't like that scene.  However, in my opinion, having the final battle of the war fought not by men, but by hobbits was more in keeping with the theme of the story.

[Corbomite]

There were a lot of things that I didn't like about LOTR, but they got way more right than they got wrong. I was more upset about losing Tom Bombadil than the Scouring of the Shire (lets face it, at almost five hours ROTK is almost unbearable in one sitting so adding more would have required a fourth movie). I hate the things they added more (battle of Osgiliath, Boromir holding the Ring, Aragorn and Arwen etc...) than anything they had to leave out due to time or good movie story telling. And yes, Glorfindel was cut out to make Arwen's part larger, set up the romance story and remove a character we see only once when we have a dozen others to remember.

[knightstorm]

Tom Bombadil was probably removed because general audiences (people who haven't read the books) probably wouldn't have responded well to a character who is constantly singing.  As for the battle of the shire, they could have at least added it to the extended DVD version.  One thing I disliked about the film is that they took away the mystery around Aragorn by stating up front that he was the king.  Personally, my favorite thing about the films was the depiction of the Shire and Bagend.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

There were a lot of things that I didn't like about LOTR, but they got way more right than they got wrong. I was more upset about losing Tom Bombadil than the Scouring of the Shire (lets face it, at almost five hours ROTK is almost unbearable in one sitting so adding more would have required a fourth movie). I hate the things they added more (battle of Osgiliath, Boromir holding the Ring, Aragorn and Arwen etc...) than anything they had to leave out due to time or good movie story telling. And yes, Glorfindel was cut out to make Arwen's part larger, set up the romance story and remove a character we see only once when we have a dozen others to remember.

Agree.

Also books and written media can make and carry transitions cinema cannot due to the “laid back” nature of reading.  “Digressions” can be inserted for changes of pace, background, and  other enjoyments because a book deals in far more details than a movie and plays over a far grater length of time.  We actually do have data comparing the two.  In the early days of silent film Eric von Stroheim filmed “Greed”, a direct paragraph by paragraph scene by scene adaptation of the Frank Norris novel “McTeague”

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/165

went about 24 hours before  they butchered it down to 2 ½ hours.  McTeague is only about a third the length of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Per Ralph Bakshai, whose adaptation of the Fellowship (Part 1 only), also dropped  Bombadil because the character "didn't move the story along."    He was a delightful digression in the novel but might have ruined the movie.

Same thing I think for the Battle of the Shire.   I didn’t show the entire battle of Pelennor Fields simply because the sound mix was so good on this version;  but its long and riveting full of fantastic images and confrontations.  But the Battle of the Shire takes place once the real adventure is over… things are returning to normal (with a difference) and magic is leaving the world. 

"The Skowering of the Shire” is almost an entirely different story conducted in a low magic world.  It’s a great story, an allusion to WWII vets returning home from the “great war” I’d wager but perfectly suitable to reading because you really don’t want to say “goodbye” to this world, middle earth, and Tolkien provides you with a slow transition back to reality and even a wonderful, and tearful goodbye.

But movies aren’t suitable to long goodbyes.  You cant stuff people inot a theater for much more than three hours.  Trying to insert that story probably would have derailed the movie. 

[Corbomite]

I'm glad Peter Jackson got the time to tell the story as well as he could, but I always thought (and still do) that the format should have been one three hour plus movie to do The Hobbit, then two movies each for FOTR, TTT, and ROTK. That way it could all be told without wiping out your audience and they could have raked in even more dough.

[knightstorm]

Originally, he was going to do the entire LOTR in 2 films.  When Miramax tried to force him to compress the entire story into one film, he went to New Line, and they not only agreed to make the films, but also requested it as a trilogy.  While there is a limit, to what Jackson could put in a theatrical release, he did produce an extended dvd version which includes additional scenes from the books.

The reason I am so bent out of shape about the omission of the battle for the shire is because I feel that one scene from ROTK completely encapsulates the theme of the trilogy, with the final battle of the war being fought not by men, but by halflings.

[_Rondo_GE The OutLaw]

Originally, he was going to do the entire LOTR in 2 films.  When Miramax tried to force him to compress the entire story into one film, he went to New Line, and they not only agreed to make the films, but also requested it as a trilogy.  While there is a limit, to what Jackson could put in a theatrical release, he did produce an extended dvd version which includes additional scenes from the books.

The reason I am so bent out of shape about the omission of the battle for the shire is because I feel that one scene from ROTK completely encapsulates the theme of the trilogy, with the final battle of the war being fought not by men, but by halflings.

Hehe maybe they'll one day do a made for TV movie on it.  These actors will be too old soon to reprise or do a part 4.