[rescue] replacing an Ultra2

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 @ 02:42 -0400, der Mouse said:

> > I'm pretty happy with the second one, even with the compromises.
> 
> I'm mostly OK with it, but it did two things which to me border on
> unforgiveable.  One is the hash they made of Faramir's character,
> completely destroying the contrast between Boromir and Faramir (which
> to me at least was most of the point of them).  

That was a matter of time. Same with Gandalf's travels. There was too
much to put in, something had to be removed.

Lot's of things were removed, and I really can't see how they could have
put it in:

	- Aragorn walking the party through huge forests, explaining the
	  history of each location and the people as they went.  Major part
	  of the book.
	- Tom Bombadil
	- the bridge scene in Moria was longer in the book
	- the cave troll scene was actually shorter in the book, but was
	  used to help make up for some of the parts that had been cut out.
	- The trip to Rivendell was greatly shortened.
	- Several of Gandalf's journies were removed.
	- Northern battles were totally removed.
	- Information about the uruk-hai was reduced greatly.
	- Gandalf's fight with Sauruman was shortened and turned into a
	  physical kung-fu thing, and Sauruman was made a pawn of Sauron in
	  the movie, but in the book it was more of a compulsion he could
	  not resist.  In the movie he was a willing ally.

Lot's of things were removed or compromised.

Personally, I don't see any other way it could have been made.  Timing
is another issue which I forgive because there just wasn't enough of it.

The DVD version is a lot smoother because it adds several hours back in,
and reportedly Jackson had quite a few more, but the business felt that
the DVD version is about as long as anyone could stand already.

Personally, I disagree... I'd watch it if it were 12 hours per volume.
It would just take me awhile... :)

> The other is turning Gimli into a comic-relief character.

Actually, dwarves were funny in Tolkien's work.  It wasn't out of
character.  It comes across as more humor than it should have partly
because Davies couldn't get enough screen time.

John Rhrys Davies developed excema while filming and wasn't able to do a
lot of what he was supposed to do. He was alergic to the Gimli costume,
especially around his eyes.

There was supposed to have been more material there.

It helps if you remember that in the book Gimli was arrogant and blind
to the reality of Moria.  Everyone else knew something must have been
wrong or they'd have heard from his cousin years ago, but Gimli refused
to believe anything could have happened to them.

-- 
shannon                      | javalin: 
                             | an unwieldy programming weapon used to stab a 
                             | software project through the heart until dead