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Really should post in here, shouldn't I. First off, I've got a Christmas Card up on my site at http://home.earthlink.net/~kayshapero/ccard02.htm (moved - current site is http://www.kayshapero.net and no card up at the moment KS - 2017) which I should probably have mentioned earlier than Christmas Eve but what the heck.
Next, just got through looking at the Norad Tracks Santa site ( http://www.noradsanta.org/ ) which is silly as usual. The Jolly Old Elf was passing over Cheyenne Mountain at the time, Rudolph's nose gleaming brightly. :->
I went to see The Two Towers the other day and found it lived up to the first part of the series. (And as usual left out a lot of what was in the book but then after all there is an AWFUL lot in that book. ) Here's what I wrote in the spoilers discussion board Debbie Ohi pointed to from the "Waiting for Frodo" series.
(I was going to edit this first, but who has the time, so I'm posting it as is.)
First, my overall reaction to the movie. Good! Great! Wonderful! (I have to wait an entire year for the rest? Bummer...)
Details...
One of the big reasons I'd always hoped someone would do this story on screen was the Ents. Treebeard is great! I'd never really been able to visualize Ents properly but they did a great job here. And I'd always wanted to watch the Ents stomp Isengard flat and lo and behold, it was lovely. The look on Saruman's face... :->
As usual, the locales were stunning. I not only cheered Shane when his name came up on the credits, I also gave one to the location scout. And the effects people. And... Helm's Deep didn't really match what I'd envisioned - a bit too obviously built for cinematics, not for true defense, but twas still spectacular. And they could have stuck to the original plot enough to have the folk of Eddoras head up into the hills instead of piling into Helm's Deep with the others. Whatever else he is, I don't see Theodden as being quite that dumb.
Legolas invents the snowboard (ok, so it was on stairs but what the heck?)
The Towers of the Teeth... wow....
Gollum - manifestly, someone out there has got to be a Peter Lorre fan. Some of those expressions were very familiar. I'm impressed by the handling of Gollum, especially those internal debates between his two natures. Also that discussion between Sam and Frodo, where Frodo says he needs to believe Smeagol can recover, especially since it's pretty clear to everybody but Sam why this is the case. Poor Frodo.
I would rather like to ask Peter Jackson "Who is this and what have you done with the real Faramir?" Yes, he caught on eventually but the original caught on at once and would have no more tried to drag that thing home to Minas Tirith than he'd have brought in a plague. If the moviemaker wanted to show that everybody was apt to be tempted it wouldn't have been that hard to show it call to him as it did to Aragorn, and to have him reject it just like Aragorn did.
There are a few other things I would personally have done differently (Elrond's argument to Arwen runs a bit thin when you remember that any of his children who did not go overseas when he did would become mortal), but then I'm not making the movie, am I? On the whole this is a worthy effort, and I'm looking forward to the third movie.
Enough for now - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Next, just got through looking at the Norad Tracks Santa site ( http://www.noradsanta.org/ ) which is silly as usual. The Jolly Old Elf was passing over Cheyenne Mountain at the time, Rudolph's nose gleaming brightly. :->
I went to see The Two Towers the other day and found it lived up to the first part of the series. (And as usual left out a lot of what was in the book but then after all there is an AWFUL lot in that book. ) Here's what I wrote in the spoilers discussion board Debbie Ohi pointed to from the "Waiting for Frodo" series.
(I was going to edit this first, but who has the time, so I'm posting it as is.)
First, my overall reaction to the movie. Good! Great! Wonderful! (I have to wait an entire year for the rest? Bummer...)
Details...
One of the big reasons I'd always hoped someone would do this story on screen was the Ents. Treebeard is great! I'd never really been able to visualize Ents properly but they did a great job here. And I'd always wanted to watch the Ents stomp Isengard flat and lo and behold, it was lovely. The look on Saruman's face... :->
As usual, the locales were stunning. I not only cheered Shane when his name came up on the credits, I also gave one to the location scout. And the effects people. And... Helm's Deep didn't really match what I'd envisioned - a bit too obviously built for cinematics, not for true defense, but twas still spectacular. And they could have stuck to the original plot enough to have the folk of Eddoras head up into the hills instead of piling into Helm's Deep with the others. Whatever else he is, I don't see Theodden as being quite that dumb.
Legolas invents the snowboard (ok, so it was on stairs but what the heck?)
The Towers of the Teeth... wow....
Gollum - manifestly, someone out there has got to be a Peter Lorre fan. Some of those expressions were very familiar. I'm impressed by the handling of Gollum, especially those internal debates between his two natures. Also that discussion between Sam and Frodo, where Frodo says he needs to believe Smeagol can recover, especially since it's pretty clear to everybody but Sam why this is the case. Poor Frodo.
I would rather like to ask Peter Jackson "Who is this and what have you done with the real Faramir?" Yes, he caught on eventually but the original caught on at once and would have no more tried to drag that thing home to Minas Tirith than he'd have brought in a plague. If the moviemaker wanted to show that everybody was apt to be tempted it wouldn't have been that hard to show it call to him as it did to Aragorn, and to have him reject it just like Aragorn did.
There are a few other things I would personally have done differently (Elrond's argument to Arwen runs a bit thin when you remember that any of his children who did not go overseas when he did would become mortal), but then I'm not making the movie, am I? On the whole this is a worthy effort, and I'm looking forward to the third movie.
Enough for now - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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