We were sucked in by the power of the One Ring last night! I want a Sean Astin. Can I have one? Some pretty spoiler-free comments follow.
We were discussing, after the movie, that we’d like for Peter Jackson to do The Hobbit, which made Shaun say if Jackson did The Hobbit, that Shaun wouldn’t be able to buy the DVDs until the Complete Definitive Swear To God This Time We Really Mean It End All and Be All Super-Duper Extra-Special Nifty Whoo Boy You Couldn’t Wait For This, Could You? Packaged With Your Very Own Real Live Sean Astin, Every 100th Comes With Legolas version of the DVDs came out.
I’d put in the Sean Astin bit and Ted or Shaun said the Legolas bit, and then I wanted to upgrade. Although I’d rather have Aragorn, but y’know. :)
In other news … there is no other news. :)
1. If Sean Astin doesn’t get a Best Supporting Actor out of this trilogy, I’m going to hurt something. Just like the first movie, I enjoyed it all, but my *God* I *believe* Samwise.
2. Gollum rocked. Oh my god. And again: oh my God.
3. The Ents were pretty good, although I thought they were better in concept than in actual practice. They looked like stop-motion animation to me, and I don’t _like_ stop-motion animation, and there was too much bluescreen stuff with Pippin and Merry riding around on Treebeard. None-the-less, storming Sauromon’s tower was pretty awesome.
4. Ted told me Aragorn actually ends up with Arwen (I haven’t read the books). I was stunned. I was sure he’d end up with the human chick. *boggle* I guess True Love Conquers All!
5. This movie had no beginning or end. I mean, it really didn’t. This is clearly a movie for people who have seen the first one. It is also clearly a movie which is going to be finished later. Very much a Middle Part. Ted says it ended differently than the book — earlier than the book — but it would’ve taken another 45 minutes to get to where the book ends, and it was already 3 hours long.
6. Legolas swinging himself onto a horse is very nifty. Elfs is cool.
7. Gimli is funny. :)
8. Sean Astin rocks.
It still boggles my mind that you’ve never actually made it through the books.
I gave up on the books somewhere in the middle of Two Towers, when the ten thousandth blade of grass on the plains of Rohan had been lovingly described in intimate detail as Aragorn ran across them. I couldn’t stand it any more.
I have this vague thought of trying again after all three of the movies are out. I don’t know if I will, though. :)
The books are cultural icons. Like all such, they’re a bit painful. But I still think it’s important to be exposed to them. If it makes you feel better, the last book isn’t as bad that way…of course, first you have to get to it.
Yes, and children should be exposed to chicken pox, but they’re not going to *enjoy* it. I can pretty much live with never reading LotR. I listened to the abridged version and that was very good! :)
I’ve been using the movies as impetus to get through the books. I tried to read them in HS and they were just so boring! But with the movies to look back on I know that something will happen eventually. I just have to get through the boring bits. :)
Sometimes, it’s just worth it to buy something NOW than to wait just in case there’s a better version later. In my oh-so-not-humble opinion, LOTR is such a cinematic feat. Like waiting for all the Harry Potter books before getting them all at once.
I agree with the difficulty of reading the trilogy. I made it through them, which wasn’t quite as painful as making it through Dune but ’twasn’t easy, and I didn’t get anything out of it that I didn’t get out of the Hobbit. Alas alak.
If they put everything into Two Towers that was in the book, there’d be next to nothing for the third movie. :) Instead of another installment of three hours, we’d have seen a four or five hour installment for movie two and an hour, hour and half for movie three. :)
My brother’s wife saw TTT without seeing FotR first, and loved it, somewhat to my surprise. Peter Jackson is more of a geniue than we knew.