LOTR Movie Nits and Quibbles

two · Post by **two** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 7:16 pm

Just saw it a second time. Obviously the movie is far better than anyone had a reason to expect, but a few things struck me as unfortunate this time round. They bothered me some first time, and bothered me more second time. There won't be a third.

a) Orcs from hell. And I mean hades, hell, somewhere down below where it's very wet and drippy. The movie orcs borrow heavily from Predator/Aliens/etc. genre of "gross" visually impared monsters. It's just too much, over the top. You can be evil without sporting snaggle-teeth and hirsute moles! Tolkien's orcs were fallen elves, ugly and somewhat stupid but not quite THAT bad. After all, in the Two Towers, Sam and Frodo overhear a few orcs talking, and they sound like rather typical lower-class army grunts. The movie orcs by comparison speak in insane howls and moans. And how in the world will Sam and Frodo, as they near Mt. Doom, ever impersonate Orcs successfully (as they manage to do in the book)? That will be quite a visual trick. The movie should have made orcs more human, less immediately offensive; after all, human-scale evil is even more scary than otherwordly evil (we can, after all, relate to the human version).

b) Horror movie influence. A lot of the cinematic tricks used in the movie borrow heavily from horror movies. Just think of the dark horsemen, maggots squirming out of the ground, backlit capes swirling; or when the lurker in the lake comes in tentacles whirling, the build-up shot is from the water, monster POV, a standard horror trick. There were countless suspense-building reaction shots, etc. These are generally effective, but if you watch the movie again with horror film tropes in mind you will probably see a few hundred familier images/situations fly by. Perhaps this is only distracting if you are hyper-aware; I'm not sure.

Any other little nits?

ThorinOakensfield · Post by **ThorinOakensfield** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 8:18 pm

I agree with your 'orcs from hell' bit. I thought the orcs would look more like the Uruk Hai. They were a bit to slimy. Like the bit in Moria when Legolas fired an arrow through the orc's head. It almost seemed they were made of nothing.

And like in the book the orcs talked. THe Mordor orcs and mountain orcs started to argue.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 11:50 pm

@thorin: It's not that they "were made of nothing" as you put it. An arrow would basically penetrate anyone's scull when fired, especially at close range.

Also, Two, are you sure that in Two Towers, they didn't overhear Uruk-Hai? I honestly can't remember that one that well.

scully1 · Post by **scully1** » Mon Dec 31, 2001 1:06 am

Well, that was weird. A double post, but...backwards

[ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: loner72 ]

scully1 · Post by **scully1** » Mon Dec 31, 2001 1:09 am

Originally posted by two:
Tolkien's orcs were fallen elves, ugly and somewhat stupid but not quite THAT bad.

Well, it depends on how you visualize them. When reading a book, people get their own mental images of what's going on. Tolkien, for all his detail in other ways, left quite a bit to the imagination. He didn't go into great detail on what the orcs looked like. So really, we're free to picture them in all kinds of gruesome ways

Orcs being a perversion of the natural order, I think they should look as horrifying as possible, because the perversion of nature is a horrifying thing. That's one of the things Tolkien was trying to get at, especially in "The Scouring of the Shire."

After all, in the Two Towers, Sam and Frodo overhear a few orcs talking, and they sound like rather typical lower-class army grunts. The movie orcs by comparison speak in insane howls and moans.

Consider the necessities of book-to-film transition. Monsters speaking like guys down the street: It works well in the book, but in a movie it could very easily come across as comical. That simply wouldn't work in the overall context of the film(s). There's a trend to making the "bad guys" funny these days, but I don't think that's what Jackson was after in this film. It's just a matter of how things come across when read, versus when seen.

And how in the world will Sam and Frodo, as they near Mt. Doom, ever impersonate Orcs successfully (as they manage to do in the book)? That will be quite a visual trick.

That whole thing might not even happen. Again, the transition to film changes a lot of things. It has to, in order to work and be effective in its own medium.

The movie should have made orcs more human, less immediately offensive; after all, human-scale evil is even more scary than otherwordly evil (we can, after all, relate to the human version).

But then the film would really be trashing Tolkien's entire vision. The whole point is that orcs AREN'T human

Besides, we have Saruman (not human technically speaking, but human-like), and Boromir's fall into the evil grip of the Ring. And besides that, and perhaps more importantly -- Tolkien hated allegory, and always stated flatly that Rings was not an allegory for anything. He himself would not have claimed that any of his particular monsters represented human evil. The film therefore does a good job of staying true to the book in this aspect. Orcs and humans (/elves, etc.) are supposed to be two radically seperate things.

I had some problems with the film as well. I wrote most of them in the "Review" thread. So the only one I'll repeat here is the film's portrayal of Frodo. What was that all about??? In the book he takes a stand against the Nazgul TWICE -- once on Weathertop (he attacks the Witch King and gets wounded), and once at the Ford of Bruinen ("You shall have neither the Ring nor me!") He also lunges at the cave troll in Moria and stabs its foot, causing it to retreat. These are things that show us Frodo's courage and strength of will. But in the movie he cowers in the corner and tries to run away every time a fight comes on. Makes him look really pasty

[ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: loner72 ]

average joe · Post by **average joe** » Mon Dec 31, 2001 10:24 am

I totally agree...when i saw the movie the first time, some guy was being totally obnoxious and making loud comments. One of them was he made fun of frodo for continually getting stabbed. I remember thinking I kinda agreed with him. The wimpering frail Frodo elijah wood portrayed is not the Frodo i pictured. Whatever though.

humanflyz · Post by **humanflyz** » Mon Dec 31, 2001 11:00 am

The only thing that I am fairly disappointed at is the CGI for the Balrog. I thought it was completely unoriginal and not very creative. The Balrog looked like Diablo.

Did anyone find the CGI for Gollum in the beginning of the movie where he's sitting on a rock caressing the ring makes Gollum looks like Mr. Burns.

[ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: humanflyz ]

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Mon Dec 31, 2001 11:13 am

Originally posted by two:
b) Horror movie influence. A lot of the cinematic tricks used in the movie borrow heavily from horror movies. Just think of the dark horsemen, maggots squirming out of the ground, backlit capes swirling; or when the lurker in the lake comes in tentacles whirling, the build-up shot is from the water, monster POV, a standard horror trick. There were countless suspense-building reaction shots, etc. These are generally effective, but if you watch the movie again with horror film tropes in mind you will probably see a few hundred familier images/situations fly by. Perhaps this is only distracting if you are hyper-aware; I'm not sure.

Not surprising though, when you consider some of Peter Jackson's earlier movies

In fact, Braindead was on TV last week...

I have to say the most horror-movie moment I noticed was Boromir's death - I mean, if he had got up again one more time...

Most of my nitpicking is in the reviews thread, so I won't repeat it all here

[ 12-31-2001: Message edited by: Georgi ]

TheDude · Post by **TheDude** » Mon Dec 31, 2001 12:03 pm

i liked the movie really i did.
but there were things that should be cut out or better explained.
but just like Georgi i already told that in my review and it should be there on the 4th page

Kayless · Post by **Kayless** » Tue Jan 01, 2002 1:56 pm

Originally posted by two:
The movie should have made orcs more human, less immediately offensive; after all, human-scale evil is even more scary than otherwordly evil (we can, after all, relate to the human version).

Personally I would have hated it had the orcs been "more human". I always imagined them as the sort of viscerally frightening monsters that you thought were under your bed as a kid. Besides, human evil doesn’t move me quite like the more primordial type. Personally I find the idea of being eaten by, say a shark, scarier then being eaten by Hannibal Lector. You can’t reason with a shark, it's just doing what comes naturally. Orcs should be the same way. They're the type of inhuman evil that goes bump in the night and lurks under your bed. (And isn't it creepy the way they can climb walls like spiders?)

Originally posted by humanflyz:
The only thing that I am fairly disappointed at is the CGI for the Balrog. I thought it was completely unoriginal and not very creative. The Balrog looked like Diablo.

Or maybe Diablo looks like the Balrog.

Originally posted by humanflyz:
Did anyone find the CGI for Gollum in the beginning of the movie where he's sitting on a rock caressing the ring makes Gollum looks like Mr. Burns.

Or perhaps Mr. Burns just looks like Gollum.

scully1 · Post by **scully1** » Tue Jan 01, 2002 7:49 pm

Originally posted by average joe:
I totally agree...when i saw the movie the first time, some guy was being totally obnoxious and making loud comments. One of them was he made fun of frodo for continually getting stabbed. I remember thinking I kinda agreed with him. The wimpering frail Frodo elijah wood portrayed is not the Frodo i pictured. Whatever though.

I liked Elijah Wood himself, his acting and everything. It was the direction, the interpretation of the character, that I had a problem with

cheesemage · Post by **cheesemage** » Tue Jan 01, 2002 8:02 pm

Err well Gollum does look like mr.burns indeed, also its seems to me that the action scenes were extended quite a bit.

NeKr0mAnCeR · Post by **NeKr0mAnCeR** » Wed Jan 02, 2002 1:07 am

also Gandalf must be a lvl 1 mage as he doesn't cast any spells during the battles, and he must be very strong, not everyone can have a balrog hanging from your leg and still hold to the brige for like 20 seconds.

and frodo must be Superhalfling. when he gets hit by the troll not even the mithril thingy would save him, he may have not be pierced by it but he would be smashed with a hit like that.

the dwarf has lots of strength too, he jumped like 2,5m with armor and weapons...

and yes the gollum does look like mr. burns

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Wed Jan 02, 2002 3:14 am

My girlfriend thought the orcs looked rather wet and rubbery.

I thought that made them look embryonic or like some kind of genetic experiment - just the way Saruman's "created" orcs should be.

Each to their own.

Regarding allegory, I think people may be right. However, I think that Tolkein was not so much telling a allegory as offering a warning for the future and the movie picked up on it.

Look at the two worlds. Elves and Hobbits are rural and agrarian - peace loving and natural.

The evil guys are mechanical, smoke belching and engineered. They cut down trees, they make machines they pollute the environment.

Humans are caught in the middle.

two · Post by **two** » Wed Jan 02, 2002 4:01 pm

All --

It's not that wet, slimy, and visually painful monsters (in this case, orcs of various breeds) fail to be disgusting or look anything other than "evil," it's that the WAY they look evil is familiar to movie-goers (or to me at least). It's the predator/alien/aliens/etc. slimy glistening gleaming look. And it's a "look," no doubt about it. This is unfortunate, because when I see these orcs I think "eww, gross, nasty, just like X" where X is another movie, another evil creepy thing. I don't want LOTR to make me think of other (mostly bad) Hollywood movies and other (mostly bad) FX.

It would not have been that difficult to come up with an equally repugnant visual representation of an orc that was more original, i.e. didn't make you think of Predator, etc. But this didn't happen. I expected it to happen, becuase most of the rest of the movie was at a very high level, and escaped much of this sort of visual cliche.

For example, why is slimy slick wet skin more nasty than mottled, insect-infected fur? No reason, really. The orcs could have been hairy and nasty just as easily, and I would have respected this representation more since it's not "of a kind."

Oh, anent birthing and embryos, if the orcs looked like that immediately after birth great, but slimy gleaming glistening skin is something we grow out of. The orcs (and wraith horses) seem to have a never-ending supply of oozing liquid. Makes you wonder what sort of insane anti-perspirant they must need; perhaps instead they should stick some maxi-pads under each arm, nestled admist the axillary hairs? On second thought -- eeeeewwwwww!