xhonzi

...who is not my kitchen.

Right now.

CP3S said:

generalfrevious said:

Plus, Nolan's films have a reputation for being too talky and more based on ideas instaead of visuals. In a visual medium like film, that's not really encouraged.

Exactly! That is why Christopher Nolan sucks as a director, and Michael Bay may well be one of the greatest directors we see in our lifetime. The man has the visuals down! BOOOM! KABASH! BAAAM! So many exploOSIANS! Such a good director!

Nolan is crap because he makes a different movie every time and goes with unique ideas nobody else is doing. Who really wants that! I don't want to be confused by seeing a movie that has a plot I haven't encountered in every other action movie made! Grrrrr! Inception hurt my brain. Momento almost put me in a coma. Who can wrap their heads around stuff like that?! Seriously! Nolan's movies have way too much talking in them, modern audiences don't want to hear talking! We want explosions and lingering closeup shots of women in tight clothing and witty one liners we've already heard from other movies.

Thank god for directors like Michael Bay! In twenty years he'll be remembered for his greatness. Nolan, he'll just be remembered... well, he won't be. Old people will still watch the boring twenty year old Batman movies maybe, and a few of them might know Nolan made them, but nobody will care. A better director will make newer more action oriented Batman films with lots of explosions and lingering female ass shots and moderner technology, because that is what people want. Just hopefully they are made by a real filmmaker this time. Ug.

zombie84 said:

Was Titanic Super 35? I forgot he was into that. In a weird way, it helped keep his movies very visceral because of the grain. I think it was Xhonzi that said in the Last Movie thread he was glad that Cameron kept T2 rough around the edges to match the first film. I disagree with that,

 No sir!

It was captainsolo.  All I'm guilty of is a man-crush on Michael Biehn.

I thought he was pretty good in The League of Extraordinay Gentlemen but I didn't really think he deserved his own musical.

AND NOW THERE ARE BOOKS?!?!

Audiobooks are great, and do help me get through the books I'd like to read, but not badly enough to prioritize my time in a way that would actually let me read them... and they make me actually enjoy my ~1.5 hours in the car each day. 

But they're not the same as actually reading the darn thing.

In the case of the Thursday Next books (highly recommended) the first three are very well read by the reader and probably actually make the audio version superior to the print one.  However, they change readers in book 4 and it all goes to heck.

RE: Scoundrels.  The reader does a wide range of voices for the characters and I'm not sure it's enhancing my enjoyment of the book.  Sometimes, after a line reading by the reader, I reinterpret the line in my head and decide that I would have been more impressed had the line been read a different way. 

Also RE: Scoundrels- There's a prequel reference AND a special edition reference in chapter 2.  Minus 1 star. 

I think most know that this book "takes place" betwixt ANH and ESB and that it also features Lando... which sort of casts long shadows on their meet-up in ESB.  Also, I was under the impression from the start of ESB that Han had stuck with the Rebels from Yavin to Hoth, so this sort of flies in the face of that too.

But it's sort of fun.  I think the real payoffs will come later, so I'll be patient for those... I guess it's a good companion piece to Splinter of the Mind's Eye where you can see what Han got up to whilst Luke and Leia and Vader had a romantic weekend without him, in the world where ESB was never made.

Oh, HttE is on there, but is also commercially available on CD.  Or at the library.  As far as I can tell, the only place you can get the Unabridged audio for the other 2 is Audible.com

You can also get the 'Behind the Scenes' book at Audible, which I think is Zahn reading the margin notes that are in the 20th Anny printing of HttE.

As far as the legality of the above- I don't see any problem with it.  I did pay for the credits that were used to download the books.  Even if I did it through my account, I wouldn't have liked the idea that those books were tied to the audible.com mothership and if, heaven forbid, the site ever went Tango Uniform, so goes my purchased audiobooks.

Maybe this doesn't warrant its own thread... but I know Iwould have missed it had it been in one of the General threads.

You might be able to get one of these as a free book joining audible.  My Dad buys audible credits by the doubledozen, so each one for him is $10.  I convinced him to sell me 2 credits to download these for me since the old tape abridgments are so aweful.

It's a bit of a trick to get them off of audible, but I made it work.  I found some instructions online which said to use Nero 8,9, or 10 (later versions don't work) and to use it to 'burn' an Audible audiobook.  Then change the burner to a virtual burner and you get 15 or so isos.  Then mount the isos one at a time and rip with your favorite ripping software. 

You could do the same with 15 or so real discs for each book, but why when you can do it this way.

I haven't listened to them yet, but I will soon.

I... er*... got the audiobook and started listening to it today.

*Denotes embarrasment at getting the audiobook instead of reading it, not that I got it illegaly.

The movie is different than the play is different than the book.

I have seen the play and I went to the movie to see something new, and I have mixed feelings about what I saw... but I'm not concerned simply because it was different.

There is a new song that doesn't sound like the rest of the songs (you know that sound I'm talking about) so I don't know if it really "fits", but I liked it well enough.

Old songs have been changed.

You will hear these songs sung in a way you most likely haven't heard before.  Not necessarily better, just different than they are usually sung (emphassis and the like).

Da Ali G is in it.

I was hoping the movie would be (for me) the hands down best version of the play I had ever seen.  Some parts were, specifically "I Dreamed a Dream" and other parts weren't (specifically all of Russel Croon).  Given the chance to see the movie or the play again, at equal cost and inconvenience, I would see the play.  However, movies are convenient.

I'm surprised no one has talked yet about the way the songs were filmed, with the actual singing performances being done on set, in costume instead of in the studio beforehand- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cDVdg7gVdg

I love Michael Biehn, and I forget how much I enjoy his Kyle Reese.  Everytime I watch  The Termintator, I am floored by his performance.

And I agree that Young John Connor does stand out.  But probably not the way you meant it.  He's too shrill for my tastes.

SilverWook said:

Are there any IMAX prints of The Hobbit out there in the wild? I know some were made for The Dark Knight Rises.

Erm... I saw the 48fps 3D Hobbit in "IMAX". 

Did you, mayhap, mean prints as in "prints" as in "not digital"?

TV's Frink said:

darth_ender said:

I suggest a thread where Frink approves or denies whatever new threads we want to start, but then we spitefully laugh and start such threads anyway. Mwahaha!

 

I HATE YOU!!!!

Yes, this is catching on!  Though I would have preferred the picture of Anakin when he says that his Jedi powers only work on Senators...

Wait, when did Nanner come back?

;)

CP3S said:

Interestingly, I went to see The Hobbit is 24fps yesterday, it felt painfully blurry and I could swear all the tracking shots and other quick motion shots looked like they were skipping. I wonder if I would have noticed that if I hadn't first seen it in 48fps?

 

Well... a film shot in 24fps would have the appropriate amount of motion blur for 24fps display.  A film shot in 48fps and downconverted to 24fps would need to have motion blur artificially added to have the appropriate amount of motion blur for 24fps display.  It's not like they can delete every other frame and call it a night.

I am quite curious about this process.  Back when I did 3D animation, the motion blur algorithms were new and didn't quite have the right look.  But heaven forbid you rendered without motion blur.  Even 30fps looked quite jumpy without it.  Also- Looney Tunes and other old school animation was drawn at 12fps, with every frame doubled to get to 24.  So they had to hand draw a lot of motion blur in, and they were pioneers in the art.

Akwat Kbrana said:

Evidently, there will be a theatrical release with an additional 20-25 minutes of footage. I presume the same will apply to the following two installments, as well.

I think you're reading that too fast.  (or half fast)  The only mention of a theatrical release I see is the standard one at 2:40.

But an extended edition on the way.  Yay?  I can't say I'm excited about it being longer... but perhaps it will have more goodness, and I can always make room for more goodness.

I HATE YOU!!!!

darth_ender said:

I keep misunderstanding you!

 Why is that?

By the way, you really ought to try reading the books.





Don't shoot, don't shoot!!!

*bang*

Akwat Kbrana said:

xhonzi said:

An aside- was the shot of Bilbo looking at old-and-busted Narsil in the trailer but not in the film?

Yup. I kept an eye out for that sequence in the theatre, but it never materialized. Here's hoping it shows up in the extended edition...

Is there any buzz about extended versions of the new films?  I think that the decision to go to three would have meant they could fit any 'extended' material into the theatrical release.

darth_ender said:

The matter of ring ownership is pretty well understood, I thought. I think the movies conveyed it exactly as Tolkein had spelled out in his books.

 Precisely why I listed it as a change I wish they had made.

An aside- was the shot of Bilbo looking at old-and-busted Narsil in the trailer but not in the film?

ChangesI liked in PJ's LotR:

• Prologue (had something like this been in the book, I probably would have read FotR on my first try instead of my fifth)
• No Tom B.
• No songs
• Less history (of the, "I know you're about to do something awesome, but let me tell you where this town came from" kind
• etc... (I'm having a hard time recalling specific examples, but most of the stuff that was left out I thought deserved to be left out)

Changes I'm mixed on:

• Elves at Helm's Deep - I like that the Elves make one last stand with the humans, but it does seem to deflate the 'we're all alone' element of it
• Scourging of the Shire  - As everyone else already said, it's a wonderful epilogue that shows how much the Hobbits have grown on their adventures, but I just can't see how it would play in the movie
• Death of Saruman - Though the EE versions of the movies are the only ones I care about, I thought it was odd that he didn't die in TTT, since his death was going to feature in RotK, but then it didn't until the EE.  Ah, well...

Changes I didn't care for:

• Pelennor fields - Man's victory at Helm's Deep was already slightly stolen, I think it was a bad decision to not let Man triumph more clearly at this battle.  As I recall from the book, this is when armies of men took stewardship of Middle Earth seriously and proved that they could shoulder the responsibility going into the 4th age.  I think the movie really shortchanges this.  Especially to the degree that the ghosts just take everything out, but more about them later.
• Hmmm... I think there were others, but that is the big one, I guess...

Changes I wish they would have made:

• The deus-ghost ex montes.  I really think it's cheating that these guys aren't mentioned until the (literal) 11th hour.  And since the prologue was added, it seems the perfect time to mention that Elendil & Isildur were ticked that a large army that promised their support chickened out and ran at the last moment.  Any kind of foreshadowing would have helped.  Otherwise, just pull out a satellite weapons platform and nuke the evil armies from space, whydonchya.
• I like stories that aren't too confined.  I wish the ring were actually lost for more of the third age.  Apparenty, it only had a handfull (pun?  I can't quite tell) of owners over the thousands of years.  Sauron -> Isildur -> Smeagol/Gollum -> Bilbo -> Frodo -> Lava.  I'd prefer to think that its history was not so well known.  A minor quibble.
• They could have made the whole Eagles vs Eye of Sauron thing clearer so that people wouldn't pat themselves so hard on the back for that whole "Why don't they just fly the whole way to Mt Doom" quip.

Well, that's the best I can do in a single sitting several years after I last watched the movies.

CP3S said:

I knew you did, because I am pretty sure we've talked about them before. I just followed Ender's lead without thinking, then right after making my post, I read yours saying you have, realized of course you have, and edited my post. Must have missed my edit.

*AHEM* I made my post at 4:00 XDT.  You made your edit at 4:02 XDT.*

I think your comments on having just learned The Hobbit underwent major revisions struck us an something that would come from someone who was not yet a Tolkien initiate. Must be one of those guys who skips all the forwards and other pages at the beginning of a book and skip right to Chapter One, otherwise you would have read Tolkien's in universe explanation of the true events that took place in The Hobbit and Bilbo's lies that were found in the book and found yourself scratching your head because the true events were what you read in the book.

1. I probably did skip the forward.  As stupid as this may sound, I usually only read the forwards of a book once I've finished the proper portion of it and I want to read more about it.  Especially if the forward is more than a couple of pages.  Yes, it's like having appetizers after the meal... but what are you going to do?

2. I learned about the revised chapter many years ago, perhaps on this very forum.  What I didn't realize until the other day was that it was part of a larger rewrite effort that went unpublished.  I see Tolkienites mention often the revised chapter, but I've not read about the total rewrite before.

3. I'm not a Tolkienite.  I consider myself a casual LotR fan... probably know more about it than the average bear, but not compared to actual Tolkienites.  But it doesn't mean I haven't read teh books, seen the movies, bought some action figures, etc...

 

In other words,

C3PS said

"I encourage you to read the forward to the book, xhonzi." 

Fixed.

Oh yeah, and the appendices are fun too.

And then, and only then, I will be a Jedi Knight?  Okay, I guess I'll go home and read the forward.  Then I can be a cool kid again.

RE: Ocs and Goblins

I don't know where I picked this up, because it's apparently not in the movies or the books, but I thought the same thing about orcs and goblics- that orcs were slightly larger, tougher, and could be in daylight, and goblins lived underground.  If it doesn't have a tail, it's not a monkey, and if it doesn't have a tail- it's an ape, kind of thing.  I was always a bit confused what Azog and... Sloth were.  They plainly aren't regular orcs/goblins and they're not uruks...

WRONG PHOTO!

CP3S said: 

I encourage you to read the books, xhonzi.

Seconded. Very good stuff

I'VE READ TEH BOOKS!

I'll post other thoughts later.