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Lord of the Rings and Hype 267

Posted by Hemos from the beliee-or-don't-believe-the-hype dept.
tenchiken writes "Lord of the Rings finished principle shooting this last week - trailer is online . It is supposed to be be shown in theatres in two weeks before Thirteen Days, which starts Jan 12th. By most reports, PJ's (Peter Jackson) direction of Tolkien's masterpiece should truly be amazing. Also, Tolkien recently won the Amazon.com's "Best of the Millennium" award. (Which I have to admit is a crock, given every single book in the top ten was writen this century). The online trailer has already blown away TPM's records for most downloads. It seems to be getting a fair amount of international press as well. USAToday recently ran a good report on it Here. ."
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Lord of the Rings and Hype

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  • What about the Blair Witch Project? Wasn't the inital vibe about that music almost totally Internet community based?

    If I recall- most of what I heard about the movie- I heard about from the Net. Wasn't it until the movie had gotten such a "hip" buzz to it from the net that the traditional media started covering it? As I recall- that was the P.R. strategy of the production company- build online buzz- reap profit.

    Though admittedly I never saw the movie... no LOTR will be like a religious experience for me so I might be more than a little predjudiced.

  • The Bible's a lot older than that, so

    Is it? I know the Torah goes back 4k years in it's original form, but I thought that the New Testament, and the majority of the translations only popped up in the past 1k years or so.


    ---
  • HE DIDN'T WRITE BOOKS!

    So he scribed his plays on the backs of sheep or bananas? Of course he wrote books you idgit! ;-)

    If you mean "novels", they've been around since 1st century AD (Satyricon by Petronius).


    ---
  • TE was only a part of the problem, but a big one. It wasn't about merchandising. In fact, they were actually set to make money and had been making a profit lately. But the buildup of it all and the aggressive pushing by TE caused an overnight stumble that they couldn't possibly recover from. If TE had laid off, they would have moved forward and began a very profitable season with the redesign of both of their major systems which were starting to really sell well just before "the fall".

    Ah, the good 'ol days.
  • Not to mention... the selections were done by vote of Amazon customers. How many modern americans have read L'Morte d'Arthur(spelling?)? How many have read any Mark Twain outside of school? Not many. Now, if this had been a board of academics from multiple institutions that came up with the same choices it would be dumb, especially Harry Potter.

    I definitely agree with your view... for different reasons, though your reasons are valid.

    I hope, despite the fact that I am very happily NOT christian, that the reason for the Bible not being there was that all the people realized the individual books were written well before the current millenium. But with the harry potter in there, I'd have to say its probably because they simply dont' care. Like it or not, no single book has had more influence on human history than the Bible. Despite its origins in the first millenium AD and prior, it probably should qualify for most influential book in the world for this millenium, as it didn't gain its truly unreal level of cultural momentum until this millenium.
  • They had more downloads only because you couldn't save their trailer to HDD, you had to download it every time you wanted to watch it.

    I have seen the TPM trailer million times and have never downloaded it from www.starwars.com (or apple.com or whatever).

    -jfedor
  • I find it hard to believe that this movie would gain mass appeal if not for the increased importance of the love story side.

    Yes, the story is universal and loved by many but in today's society, USA atleast, the played down roles of women would have been attacked, most likely. By giving Arwen a bigger role the producers can appeal to more people but hopefully stay true to story.

    The part I love is that they brought in language experts to teach the actors Tolkien Elvish! There are even rumors of subtitles being used. Considering this was one of the main reasons that Tolkien began the books I find it amazing and heartening that the movies are truly attempting to stick with the story and world so closely.

  • overemphasizing Aragorn and Arwen's love story).

    Be ready for it. W/o a romantic slant, there's no real chick-appeal to it (except for all the SCA chicks that will see it b/c they are by default cooler than the Titanic-loving girliegirls). However, the end of TheRetOfTheKing drags on forever (IMO), so maybe they just shoehorned in a liv story, er, love story for completeness.

    I swear, if they manage to invent a Jar Jar character, heads will roll.

    What I fear most is the impending onslaught of Taco Bell Cups, Burger King Watches, McDonalds glasses, Target POS displays, and all the action figures and shit we're going to have to endure for the next 5 years.

    Then there will be the "Collectors Edition" rerleases of all things Tolkein. And lets not forget the Platinum series DVDs which will arrive just in time for Christmas 2004, and then the rerelease of this trilogy again in 2014.

    Marketing frightens me.


    ---

  • You can't expect a child of today to waste hours and hours of their life plodding through a book.

    Reading a book, even those of relatively low quality, almost always is superior to watching someone else's interpretation of a book on screen. Reading requires more imagination, thought, and focus than watching most films. Reading is seldom, if ever, a "waste."

    ... other quality work like Piers Anthony and the Dragon Lance stuff ...

    I own more than a dozen Piers Anthony books (Incarnations of Immortality, Xanth, Cluster, Bio of a Space Tyrant, and other series), and have read at least a dozen others. But great literature, they ain't. Furthermore, I can't imagine that any filmmaker would do a quality job of producing many, if any, of the Piers Anthony works -- they'd play up the sex and violence and play down the social satire, puns, and curious mix of liberal and conservative political philosophy that make his work so much fun to read.

    We also need the second half of both Watership Down and the Neverending Story to be finished.

    I've also read the original English-language translation of The Neverending Story in hardback (red and green -- not black -- ink!). While I agree that The Neverending Story is an amazing book -- one of my all-time favorites -- the movie sucked. The sequels sucked worse (I've got kids, so I've seen 'em, too). The second half? You've got to be kidding.

  • Although the book is about a man's erection, and there is plenty of sex, the only thing that comes close to 69 is when Slothrop nose fucks that 12 year old.
  • That would be like saying a particular copy of Trachiniae is eligible for best book of the decade because it was translated from a manuscript discovered in 1991!

    Besides, The Bible is only a revised edition of the Torah; It hasn't been eligible for best book of the last thousand years since man invented bronze.
  • Um....dude... it was the Best 10 of the Millenium.

    The Bible's a lot older than that, so most people (except you, evidentally) would not consider it to be eligible for the list.

    I guess you're also mad because "Abbey Road" and "Dark Side of the Moon" weren't included in everyone's "Best of the 90's" lists, eh? :)

    http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]
  • Admittedly, TE is a gang of thug^H^H^H^Hlawyers, but the principle cause for ICE's demise was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The game market shifted, causing ICE to file BK, just as TE realized that LoTR:TM would be a huge moneymaker. If ICE had been profitable those couple of years, they would still have the LoTR gaming rights.

    But overall this may be a Good Thing(tm). MERP != LoTR. It's not even close. The way it was going, MERP was tarnishing the image of LoTR...

    1) Much of MERP is at complete odds with LoTR. For example, Tolkien magic is very rare and performed only by immortals. But MERP magic is quite common, and more than one module has had magic using hobbits.

    2) The ICE vision of Middle Earth was becoming too detailed. Where Tolkien painted with a broad brush, ICE ironed out every detail right down to what color socks the Dunlending wore. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but all too many people were starting to view ICE's particular version of Middle Earth as the only correct one.

  • LoTR which "just" revitilized modern fantasy?
    (And even then, you can argue that Baum and
    Lewis were also critical to that).

    Actually, William Morris (most famous for his
    founding of the Arts and Crafts movement and,
    oddly, his Socialism) probably invented epic
    high fantasy as we know it today, with The
    Well at the World's End    .

    Chris Mattern
  • First non-English (origin, at least) book is 26th? What about War and Peace (#18)?

  • Re:Ya gotta cut something... (Score:3)

    by Sebastopol ( 189276 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @11:55AM (#1422829) Homepage
    If they went page-by-page, the movie would run approximately 32.4 hours!

    And what, exactly, would be the problem with that? ;-)

    Steven King has had numerous mini-series that have exceeded 12 hours of crap (Tommyknockers, It, and the awful version of The Stand), and all we get is six hours out of the ultimate fantasy story?


    ---
  • Some of the translations are more recent than 1,000 years, but the original greek is older. And the Old testament is much older than 1,000 years. The dead sea scrolls, which were only copies of the original documents, written on leather and descovered in 1947, are over 2,000 years old.
    ----

  • Re:Best 10 of Millennium happen to be in 20th Cent (Score:3)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @11:55AM (#1422831)
    > Actually, William Morris ... probably invented epic high fantasy as we know it today, with The Well at the World's End.

    FYI, you can read it on the Web via Project Gutenberg (use a search engine).

    A couple of other influential pre-Tolkien books (though not so early as Morris's 1896) are -
    • Lord Dunsany's[*], The King of Elfland's Daughter, 1924, didn't like it.
    • E.R.Edison's The Worm Ouroboros, 1926, one of my all-time favorites, though somewhat twisted for common tastes.
    And then there's Tolkien's direct influences, the Norse myths and sagas, some of which come across as very simarillionesque. I just finished Hrolf's Saga Kraki, and though parts of it bordered on the lame, parts were quite charming, and not unlike modern fantasy (a sword that could only be drawn thrice, etc.). The Lay of Volund in the Poetic Edda is well worth looking up, abeit somewhat grim (somehow reminiscent of Tolkien's Unfinished Tales -- a very good book itself, BTW).

    Beyond that there's always the Illiad and Odyssey, the latter being more accessible to the modern reader, and very much like a modern fantasy in some regards.

    But if you want to sup with the gods, you have to read something rather newer, Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy (The Green Pearl, volume II, being my all-time favorite book). You can wash the trilogy down with some rip-roaring tales from his two books about Cugel, which have just been re-released in a thick paperback with the early & influential The Dying Earth and the rather erratic Rhialto the Marvellous. It's worth picking up just for the two Cugel books included in it. I believe the volume is called Tales of the Dying Earth, and is in the stores now.

    [*] His actual name was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett.

    --
  • Ok, I know it's kinda' pointless but WTF:

    Aragorn: Liam Neeson

    Arwen: Kate Winslet

    Theoden: Sean Connery

    Denethor: Patrick Stewart

    Elrond: Peter O'Tool

    Galadrial: Ursula Andrews (back in '70)

    Legolas: ?

    Gimli: ?

    Eowyn: Lucy Lawless ? (blond, of course)

    Eomir: Cary Elwes

    Faramir: Kenneth Branagh

    Boromir: Mandy Patinkin

    Hobbits: ?

    Saruman: Nigel Terry (Merlin in Excalibur)

    Gandalf: Alec Guinness (one can dream, can't they?)

  • Here [apple.com]

  • the low-browing of culture makes me absolutely want to vomit sometimes.

    Highbrow culture makes me want to vomit even more. There's nothing worse than using elitism to show how much better one is than his/her peers.

  • Some of those books on the list were

    TRANSLATIONS

    of foreign books.

    But I completely agree with you.

    Than again, why should Amazon target foreigners? They don't spend nearly as much money on stupid impulse items. I didn't think foreigners needed to be told what to buy (via Top10 lists) like Americans. Be glad that foriegn works aren't there, it would just cheapen them.


    ---
  • there is no doubt lord of the rings is going to kick ass.. look at the trailer..

    however.. yeah the amazon award for best book is sortof bunk. its top ten doesnt reflect its milleniumal decision
    the perfect world is a world without lag. a world without lag is a world without people
  • Mein Kampf had little real effect. A fake autobiography of Adolph Hitler, which never saw any real dissemination outside of the Fascist ranks until the 1960's really had little effect on governments..

    Perhaps 'Das Kapital' or 'The Communist Manifesto' would be better choices..
  • They cut Tom Bombadil. I also have certain reservations about some of the casting, but I do have to applaud the choice of director. Plus Christopher Lee should be in 7th heaven playing Saruman (let's hope he doesn't overdo it).

  • Actually, I saw the Dead Sea scrolls in SanFran a long time ago and they weren't about the old testament. They were a similar god-like story that could fit most religions of the time.
    ---
  • It'd remain true to parody form if they did a Bored of the Rings movie shortly after LotR comes out. Sounds like a Steve Martin project...

  • As much as I love LoTR (and I do), you are trying to tell me that certain books (the bible for instance) have not had a greater impact on world civilization then LoTR which "just" revitilized modern fantasy?

    No. I'm trying to tell you that if someone pulls 10 random titles out of their ass (and that's pretty much what an Amazon poll is, isn't it?), those titles are likely to be 20th Century. And it's not due to 20th Century bias; it's due to 20th Century being many times more prolific.

    Sorry, this offends my sensibilities a bit. What about books of chivilary, or UIncle tom's cabin?

    They are outnumbered by an avalache of authors who, due to technology, have more idle/leisure time in which to write, and tools that help them write. For every 19th century person who had time to write a book, there's a thousand of us today who can compete with them.


    ---
  • Fortunately, Peter Jackson and his production company have almost completely severed ties with the Hollywood hype jugernaut. This has allowed him to film at a pace to create 3 beautiful films, without a bunch of execs screaming at him every day because they accidentally started promo work two years early.

    But from friends in the PR industry, there are advertising campaigns lined up for a push starting in June, then a big ramp up about September. There are going to be a lot of tie-ins with book sellers, to give people a some time to buy the books, read them, and form some ideas about the scope of the 3 movies.

    the AC
  • As much as I like... or even more... love, this book, I think it is going to be hard to make a movie that satisfies everybody.
    It is not a book that translates very well to the movie language.
    Tolkien's books immerses the reader in a world of imagination, magic and fantasy... all those in its mind. The problem of the movie is that they have to show the directors point view... so there is less room for the viewer's imagination.
    Also, in the LOTR Tolkien states Aragorn-Arwen relationship in a paragraph. And that's it... In literature, specially if its epic, you can get away with : "Their love was eternal and pure... move on"
    In a movie that is not going to work. If Aragorn's love is an important feature of his personality they have to develop it in a convincing way. And it is obvious it is. Aragorn's love for Arwen (at least the way I interpret the book) is the one of Aragorn's main motivations to fulfill his destiny (become a king, and therefore be able to marry her)...
    Emphasizing the love story can be a good resource to tell this story. I'd wait and see.

  • OK, I may be wrong, I'm not a huge LotR fan myself, that's what I read somewhere.

    Maybe it wasn't available for download some time ago and now it is.

    (Of course I do realize that you have to be able to download it to watch it and it's the client that doesn't let you save it.)

    -jfedor
  • I could get that trailer in some Industry Standard (tm) format... Like MPEG?

    I'm trying ot check for myself, but it seems all 12 million other slashdot users have beaten me to the punch.

  • Supposedly it will be attached to the Cuban missile crisis film "Thirteen Days in October" with Kevin Costner - I don't have a link handy, but the rumor has been on a bunch of different web sites such as theonering.net and darkhorizons.
  • the Illiad, the Oddessy

    It's amazing how some people just don't get the "Millenium" part of the "Best Books of the Millenium" thing.

    What year were the Illiad and the Oddyesy written it? It's funny how you're bashing the Amazon voters for their lack of knowledge/taste, but they apparently know a key fact about the Homer's works and other ancient works that you don't. Either that or they're just better at math. :)
    http://www.bootyproject.org [bootyproject.org]

  • it's a movie (or set thereof) (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    okay look folks. it's a movie. it's not going to be nearly as thorough as the book, this should be obvious to anyone. things must be changed even if only slightly so that there isn't an hour of dialog and marching. while this doesn't appear to have been targetted at a specific market (ie elemetary school kids), it will be targetted specifically at the majority of the population, which has the attention span of a tack.

    i've always enjoyed discussing interpretations of certain events within the books with other people, and this will be a great oppurtunity to see someone elses highly budgeted interpretation. i don't expect it to be entirely accurate. i do however expect to shiver in my seat atleast once from the roar of the music and detail combined with cinematography in certain battles. i expect to be wowed by the amount of detail and time someone has spent to make their interpretation come true.

    i see it not so much as a "translation" or different work, but like a painting of the book. the artist may not remember all of the scenes and characters. he likely won't paint a scene from one of the more passive areas in the book. it will instead be used to enhance portions of the book by some people. others will obviously prefer the original without the added interpretation. i will enjoy the extra detail, but reserve the right to criticize differences in interpretation. i won't, however, be disappointed as Tolkien had nothing to do with this work, it is nothing more than an interpretation. they don't have Carl Sagan to fax drawings and ideas to like for the movie Contact (atleast the portion he was alive for).

    expect differences. however, instead of slamming it or being disappointed, use it to enhance the sections where Tolkiens detail is lacking, so long as the interpretations are similar to your own. the detail on the houses or the hobbit holes and possibly even the accents. it's like your best friend, who happens to be a painter, painting scenes from it and taking certain liberties in the interpreations for the sake of his artwork and target audience.
  • All i can see is that people are complaining that there aint this and that author on the Amazon list. Well quess what. We (finns and many many nations too that matter too) dont read Dickens or Shakespeare or anything like that in school and you know why ? Main audience for those authors are english speaking people because of their fancy language and how they use it. Now, when you compare this to the author like Tolkien, his work is totally independent from the language itself where the actual story is more important.

    While keeping this in mind its much more easier to understand why international userbase of amazon has voted Tolkien to the top10 list, agreed ?
    --

  • Harry, unfortunately, seemed to have come down with a case of "greek freak." Gone go any helpful or constructive criticisms. Or indeed any real look into some serious issues most fans have about certain rumored and established revisions (lots of corny dialouge, Xen-Arwen, the death of Saruman before he has a chance to play his quite important part in the Scouring of the Shire- one of the most important elements of the entire story). Maybe we'll get a more nuanced look later, but I found his ejaculations a little irritating from someone who claims to be a sophisticated movie buff. Oh, and besides the Matrix NOT being a blank slate (it's based on a previous comic series), I can hardly see how it qualifies as the greatest movie of all time. Yeah, it's a fun little flick, but people who take it too seriously really scare me.
  • Except that no serious person these days thinks they were written by Moses, or even written immediately indirectly from him.
  • What about Malory's "La Morte D' Arthur" which was the first popular Sword And Sorcery novel, ever? That certainly predates LoTR.


    ---- Hey Grrl Geeks! Your very own geek news site has arrived!

  • Ain't It Cool News coverage (Score:3)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <{ajs} {at} {ajs.com}> on Friday December 29, 2000 @10:57AM (#1422889) Homepage Journal
    AICN has a great piece covering Harry's trip to the set in New Zealand [aint-it-cool-news.com]. This link is to the index, which has a conclusion, and then a link to each of the ten other articles that he wrote.

    To summarize, he lavishes praise on the director, costumers, actors, effects people, etc. and says that the only down side was a bit of bad food that he got one day. This is Harry, and he's prone to hyperbole (espcially when he wants to like something), but he's very specific in these artciles, and I'm at least impressed with the apparent attention to detail for Gandolf (the Gray/White).

    Here's hoping, but of course, there's no way I can be as pleased with it as I was with The Matrix. Not because The Matrix was a better film (we'll see), but because that was the one movie that was furthest from my expectations. No matter what happens, the best Jackson can do is bring The Lord of the Rings as I've already read it, to life. That's a tall order, but in general I'm more impressed when someone starts with a blank slate and suprises me.

    Anyway. Go read, download the trailer and start your countdown timers!
  • a pretty large part of the story is based upon the Good Guys STEALING
    The only people who ever accuse the "good guys" of stealing are the "bad guys" - Gollum/Smeagol, for instance. Remember that the Ring seemed to have a will of its own, going where and to whom it chose.

    Then what about all the bloodshed and killing
    Remember where the Ten Commandments come from? Yeah, it's that really bloody part of the Bible known to some of us as "The Old Testament". Really, it should be translated "you shall not murder," because God obviously sanctioned killing during wars.

    Really, the main characters in LOTR are quite virtuous by anyone's standards. Sam is the only person in the group who really wants Smeagol dead, and even he doesn't have the heart to kill him, although he "deserved" it. Gandalf refuses to take the Ring for himself, even as a freely given gift. Aragorn won't even marry Arwen without her father's consent. And as for killing, come on now, who among you wouldn't stick a dagger in the throat of a blood-crazed orc?
  • Agreed. I see a lot of disappointment among "internet fans" when this film does "okay" at the box office, a far cry away from the cultural phenom they predict. I expect "Spiderman" to do a lot better...
    --
    DigitalContent PAC [weblogs.com]
  • How could a corporately manufactured piece of shit like the Beatles be considered for anything other than the greatest marketing scheme pushed on pre-pubescent females.

    Oh. Whoops.

    --
    DigitalContent PAC [weblogs.com]

  • Which I have to admit is a crock, given every single book in the top ten was writen this century

    I'm sure much more has been written this century than all previous centuries combined. If you take a random sample of ten written works, from all the written works to date, they will likely have been written in the 20th Century. We had typewriters and computers back then.

    So, whether you agree with their choices or not, it's not necessarily a crock that their favorite 10 of the millennium are all from a single century.


    ---
  • What about Dianetics? Surely one of the great bestsellers of all time!
  • Culture is *not* being lowbrowed in any way.

    In my opinion, probably the mean person is probably exposed to and seeks a higher quality of entertainment in the present era than in ancient times (Circus Maximus anyone?).

    And just because some bookseller is hyping titles that are currently in the market's mind, readily sellable, currently in publication, DOES NOT MEAN FUCKING SQUAT. What Amazon says about literature means no more than a yellow and red suited clown expounding the virtues of sliced potatoes delicately cooked in a vat of boiling vegetable oil.

    It's marketing. Grow up. The more you take them seriously, the more you encourage them.
  • I like the artwork of Howe and Lee because they do a better job of coming closer to what I feel is the "look" I've always imagined about these characters. That's why their artwork graced the last few Tolkien calendars. ;-)

    Be very glad that the artwork of Tim and Greg Hildebrandt weren't the basis for the costume design! :-)
  • I am pretty much a story purist, but there are some things that can never make the jump to live-action. I think most of the LOTR qualifies, but Tom Bombadil is at the top of the list. I don't think there is a director or a technology that could present those scenes in a way that wouldn't just come off hokey. So I am OK with that cut.

    It's other MEDDLING with the story that has me angry. Word is there is some big Elven army at the battle of Helm's Deep. That wasn't in the books. If true, it's infuriating. Cut what you have to -- but don't alter what's left for the sake of a better action sequence!

    I fully expect these movies to suck like a bucket of ticks.
  • What rollmaster needed, in my opinion, was a computer program to keep track of all the accounting, tables, and endless rolling and modifiers.

    If you had a nice 486 sitting in the corner crunching numbers, you could have more time to spend actually role playing (not roll playing).
  • Kind of like MTV showing the 'top 10 videos of the Millennium' last newyear's eve.

    Yeah, that made a lot of sense... none of those videos made in the 1600's even compared to 'lucky star'!
  • IMDB [imdb.com], where there's good cast info, as there're outstanding character descriptions here. [theonering.net]

    I'm fairly disapointed, tho', that Arwen (Liv Tyler) is being given such a big part--she's even on the promo logo. I don't think they have to go with traditional 'pop' themes to make this film successful. (ie, overemphasizing Aragorn and Arwen's love story).

  • english is fancy? I had no idea.
  • Democracy in American 1850ish (don't rmeember exact year), Uncle Tom's cabin (about the same), The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1900s) all had huge effects on governments.

    What about the federalist papers? Mein Kampf....

    The problem is, that people definition of "best of the millinium" is limited by their own life.

  • Re:Yes, but... (Score:3)

    by Swinging Man ( 149468 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @09:32AM (#1422935) Homepage
    Leaving out Tom Bombadil shows a grave misunderstanding of the story.

  • I hope I'm not the only one who remembers this. Blair Witch had a huge underground following with a very well orchestrated campaign that had a lot of people wondering if it was real, or at least reading about the 'details' of the Blair Witch in eager anticipation of the movie.

    There were very little movie trailers/previews used before the movie became such a box office hit. Just their website, and the newspaper clippings and short video clips that were posted to it under the guise of news. That has to be one of the best cases of "Internet Hype" used to its full extent.

  • Any minute of her standard pouty-lips, sad-eyes schtick is a minute too much, IMO...

  • Now, while I am apt to agree with some of the choices on that list, there are obvious omissions. Not a single ancient work appears on that list (the Illiad, the Oddessy, Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, for samplers).

    Although those are all wonderful works, I should point out that none of those were written in the last 1000 years. Or the last 2000 for that matter.

    ObJectBridge [sourceforge.net] (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.

  • As much as I love LoTR (and I do), you are trying to tell me that certain books (the bible for instance) have not had a greater impact on world civilization then LoTR which "just" revitilized modern fantasy? (And even then, you can argue that Baum and Lewis were also critical to that).

    Sorry, this offends my sensibilities a bit. What about books of chivilary, or UIncle tom's cabin?

  • "Internet" Hype (Score:3)

    by BRock97 ( 17460 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @09:36AM (#1422965) Homepage
    Yes, I will agree with the amount of press. When your local ISP puts a copy of the first trailer on a local server for users to download, yeah, it's getting around. But, talk to someone not on the I'net. They know very little to nothing about what looks to be a fantastic movie. One of the things about the Internet that I have found amazing is its ability to generate its own hype. All a production company has to do is put out one trailer here, one press release there, and it spreads like a wild fire. Free publicity. I guess it is a little early to be building up a movie for those who are disconnected from the digital world, but when they decide to start doing it, the hype will never reach the level it is experiencing now on the I'net. What's my beef? When you comment about the hype surrounding a movie, it should not be classified as I'net hype, or paper hype. Just like the Amazon thing, purely I'net hype.

    Bryan R.
  • The real book of the millenium must be Don Quixote by Miquel de Cervantes.
  • That is correct! ;-)

    JRRT wrote the stories that became THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL well before he started LoTR.

    Other than a few references in later chapters of LoTR, Bombadil could be left out with no problems, except my concerns about how does Mr. Jackson handle Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin leaving Crickhollow back to the Old East Road west of Bree.
  • Or, just be nice to one of the people working at the theatre, and they'll usually let you watch the trailers before a movie starts (assuming you are there to see another movie.) That's how I see most cool trailers attached to crappy movies...that and quicktime!

  • Who are you kidding? If the networks could get away with broadcasting a live Gladatorial combat to the death or a Lion eating some poor criminal they would do it like a shot - and they would find a ready audience too. Right now there is tremedous interest in so-called "real life events" and shows such as Cops have a strong audience.

    I don't think our tastes are any more refined than that of the ancient Romans - its just that we are more restrained in what we permit the entertainment industry to broadcast.

  • I think he meant the trailer, not the movie.

  • AFAIK, most of the Greek/Roman epics to which you refer would have been pre year 1000. I can't think of any that where that late. Please inform me if I'm wrong. But you are right about the money thing. This is people voting for what they have read and since people don't read the classics anymore they are not there. The real crime here is not have Shakespeare (in the original Klingon of course) or the greats of the 19th century at all.

  • Anonymous Coward writes: "So what if I played a little d&d as a teenager, does that make me unsuitable for a mate?"

    Yes.

    Next question?

    -- WhiskeyJack

  • Wow, one can really tell what your authoritarian government-of-choice is. Mein Kampf, ridiculous and silly as it is, was something of a best-seller in its time. The man was mad, but people read his drivel anyway.

    How about Adam Smith's work? Now there's a work of genius. And he was correct, unlike Marx, Engels, Hitler, Lenin, Keynes, Roosevelt or any of the rest of that lot.

  • If they went page-by-page, the movie would run approximately 32.4 hours! Tom's a swell guy (and probably rolls a mean doobie), but decisions have to be made. Does anybody know if Ghan-buri-ghan (sp) is still in?
  • Oh, and besides the Matrix NOT being a blank slate (it's based on a previous comic series), I can hardly see how it qualifies as the greatest movie of all time.
    I'm confused. I never said either of those things. I said that the Matrix was the movie that ended up being the farthest (in a positive direction) from my expectations. I liked it a lot, and mostly because I walked in with my personal expectations being a blank slate. I expected to see mindless SFX candy, and instead I got SFX candy with a plot!

    The Matrix was a good film with some serious limitations. It was clearly a film that was a little too enamoured with its own special effects, and its ending was a little too deus ex machina for me. But, I still liked it a lot, and use it often as an example of a film where not having high expectations can result in a much deeper enjoyment of a film.

    Harry, unfortunately, seemed to have come down with a case of "greek freak."
    Harry is very consistent. He is either a huge fan, a harsh critic or absolutely neutral. His rubber stamp on a movie usually means that some passion went into the making of it, but may not indicate that you'll like it. You harp on some detail points in the story, but I hoe you'll understand that three 2-hour movies will never BE Lord of the Rings. The best it can be is a good set of action films that capture some of the power of those stories.
    a little irritating from someone who claims to be a sophisticated movie buff
    When has Harry ever claimed that? I'm confused. He's refered to himself as a geek and a fan, but never "a sophisticated movie buff". Harry is very honest, but hardly ever impartial. Take all critics with a grain of salt, but Harry seems to have caught a number of good films I would have otherwise missed.

  • Re:Glad this is becomming a movie (Score:3)

    by RayChuang ( 10181 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @03:00PM (#1422990)
    Trevor Goodchild wrote:

    "I really don't have a problem with kids not reading so much as I have a problem with not enough good old books being brought to the silver screen. You can't expect a child of today to waste hours and hours of their life plodding through a book. It was great for me 20 years ago, but it can't compete with a PS2, nor should it have to. We have evolved."

    You MUST be kidding. Care to wonder why Joanne Kathleen Rowling's HARRY POTTER books are selling at an incredible clip that makes the sales of Lord of the Rings during its heyday in the 1960's seem like a minor incident? And more impressively doing it in HARDCOVER? Explain why the 5.3 million initial print run of HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE sold out in less than a week after publication.

    Look, if you have the right story that resonates effectively with readers, people will put down their videogames and start reading. I think if Peter Jackson can get the "gist" of the LoTR trilogy correct in the movies, expect a big bump-up in the sales of Tolkien's novels in very short order.

  • Bored of the Rings - it's really a book (Score:4)

    by SpiceWare ( 3438 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @09:42AM (#1422993) Homepage
    I read this parody Bored of the Rings [almac.co.uk] back in the early 80s. Hadn't thought about it until I read your post's title! Very funny stuff!
  • Moofie,

    You hit it right on the nose. ;-)

    I LOVE Joanne K. Rowling's works because it has a sense of imagination and wonder that is so seriously missing from most works of literature nowadays. In fact, I think Rowling's works will stand the test of time and will become classics within 30 years.
  • Lede,

    Not to worry.

    Director Peter Jackson -strongly- knows that in bringing Lord of the Rings to movie form, there will be a LOT of nit-picking and people expect VERY high standards of adherence to the book itself. That's why he hired John Howe and Alan Lee--two artists who did illustrations for Tolkien calenders in the last few years--as conceptual artists.

    Besides, I am very impressed from the stills I've seen that Jackson got the depiction of the hobbits CORRECT. It is exactly what I imagine a hobbit looks like.
  • hmm, you're probably right, it was just an example, although a poor one ;-)

  • Re:hype? (Score:3)

    by enrico_suave ( 179651 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @09:47AM (#1423015) Homepage
    can you really base your opinion on the movie on the trailer?

    The Star Wars Phantom Menace trailer look pretty awesome and...

    How many pieces of crap have I seen where the trailer was the best part(s) of the movie. (literally)

    E.
  • And Another... [lordoftherings.net]
  • where the heck is Shapespeare?!?!?

    I'm sorry, but a lot of people, me included, think he's the best writer of all time, yet he didn't make it to the top ten?

    certainly Hamlet IS better than Harry Potter.

    and BTW, i do think that in 1000 years people will be reading or referring to LoTR.
  • So, whether you agree with their choices or not, it's not necessarily a crock that their favorite 10 of the millennium are all from a single century.

    Let's take a look at some other works written in this millenium, but were not written in the past century:

    - War and Peace (1863-69)
    - Les Miserables (1862)
    - Adventures of Huck Finn (1884)
    - Moby Dick (1851)
    - Dante's Divine Comedy, others (early 1300's)
    - A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

    I could go on, but I think you get the point. Whether any of these books deserves to be remembered as a Top10 of the millenium is debatable (they all made Amazon's Top 100 at least), but I guarentee you they deserve to be there more than "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" or "The Stand".
  • If there was ever an arguement for crushing the masses the top 100 list certainly pushes to the forefront.

    MICK FUCKING FOLEY's book makes its way onto the 100 most popular books of the millenium? Ayn Rand... ok... there's plenty of dips who got a jolt out of The Fountainhead. That's fine. But a bloody wrester's book is supposidly one of the 100 most popular books of the past 1000 years.

    *sigh* Nothing like the stupidity of the masses to drive me farther and farther away from any remaining fragment of socialistic leanings.

    But on a more serious level... how are you supposted to get an honest reading of the most popular books of the past 1000 years when there was really weren't any novels written in prose until about 400 years ago. At least in the west. Most literature was poetry until reciently.

    What about Uncle Tom's Cabin? That was fabulously popular, especially if you to a little tweaking to account for literacy rates, the population and such. It sold amazingly well, and no one remembers it these days except as an insult.

  • Hrmmm.... Now, while I am apt to agree with some of the choices on that list, there are obvious omissions. Not a single ancient work appears on that list (the Illiad, the Oddessy, Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, for samplers).

    Bram's Dracula is probably one of the most popular works EVER, yet it doesn't appear on the list. Also missing is ANYTHING by Dickens, Fitzgerald, Defoe, or Stevenson, or Hemingway. But I guess Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (which are required reading in U.S. grade and junior high schools, I believe) just dont rank up there with the "Harry Potter phenomenon."

    No offense inteded to the LOTR, but frankly, it may deserve to be in the top 20, but not in the top 10. As for Tolkien being the greatest author of the Millenium? Well, I should go talk to my H.S. English teacher, and ask her why I had to read all that Shakespeare stuff, when he apparently wasn't even the runner up as the greatest author of all time.

    the low-browing of culture makes me absolutely want to vomit sometimes.

  • So, whether you agree with their choices or not, it's not necessarily a crock that their favorite 10 of the millennium are all from a single century

    Yeah, but it's still a bit suspicious. Have you noticed that all of the CDs and videos were from the 20th century as well?

    As for the complaints about Backstreet Boys et al: these were voted on by amazon customers. Therefore, you knew before reading the list that it'd be dominated, not just by the 1900s, but by the 1990s. There's no such thing as a definitive 'best of' list, and there's definitely no such thing as a definitive 'best of' list in which the public can vote easily.

  • On the one hand, I love the LotR, and have been looking forward to the movie greatly.

    On the other hand, Tolkien Enterprises singlehandedly destroyed Iron Crown Enterprises, who made the MERP and Rolemaster RPG's. They did so by being absolute bastards, refusing any sort of reorganization plans, and doing evil things like calling ICE's bank and bullying them into holding all paychecks (without a court order, from another country!). Every other creditor was willing to play ball, but now we're without RMFRP (or will be very shortly).

    I'll probably see it, but the thought of any of my admission money going to those bastards makes me nauseous.

  • 1) Companies come out with "Best of" lists because they get people talking. I think they certainly accomplished that objective!

    2) Isn't J.K. Rowling female?

    quibble) The Iliad would be a great pick for the B.C. list, but not a the current Millenial one (unless of course, you're talking about a particular translation).

  • Actually several elven ladies have fallen in love with human man:

    Luthien - Beren

    Arwen - Aragon

    Don't forget Tuor and Idril Celebrindal. She was the daughter of Turgon, king of Gondolin. Their child was Earendil Halfelven who was the father of Elrond and Elros.

    As far as emphasizing the love story between Arwen and Aragorn, I've been bummed that that didn't have a larger part of LOTR. I don't know about the casting, though.

  • Better link. [amazon.com]

    Have to get this one.

  • It's a POLL (Score:3)

    by jonnythan ( 79727 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @09:54AM (#1423038)
    Amazon's list is a POLL of readers, not a list compiled by editors or something.

    These books were produced by a poll of Amazon.com shoppers.

    Take it for what it is and stop bitching about how bad it is.

  • old trailer (Score:3)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Friday December 29, 2000 @09:56AM (#1423042)
    This is the same trailer that was posted earlier this year.

    http://slashdot.org/articles/00/04/07/0757212.sh tm l

    Damn I was hoping for some new scenes.
  • Well it'd be number one on my top 10 list of books of the millenium about hobbits .
  • Thats very true, it is a very multilayered read, and it would be very difficult to get bored of. I suppose what I was grasping for was the feeling you get when you read something *amazing* for the first time as a child. Theres nothing like the first time, and not knowing what is around the next corner. I suppose that when you reread, there isn't quite the same tension or magic as there was the first time, so it is a feeling that is difficult to get back. It annoys me that once I have read something, I will probably never enjoy it quite as much again. Do you know what I mean? I'm not very good at explaining myself I'm afraid ;)
  • that list is a POLL

    And see the other comments.

    Amazon customers aren't quite lit majors ;)
  • The trailer may be finished, but it's by no means online on the Internet for download, yet! It will be out January 12th.
  • and you can find it here. [amazon.com]
  • You can't expect a child of today to waste hours and hours of their life plodding through a book

    Why not?! Why can we not expect children to read? If, as you freely admit, certain books are something to which children need to be expoosed, why do you consider reading the book to be a waste of time, but watching the movie, or playing the game, it not?

    Personally I feel you have it backwards, the PS2 cannot compete with books. Books are superior in every way. You are correct though, the Dragonlance books would make great movies.

    Hooptie

  • Maybe Shakespeare isn't on the list because HE DIDN'T WRITE BOOKS! I'm sure he'd be at the top of many "best theatrical plays of the millenium" lists...
  • Two quick points:

    First, Shakespeare was more appropriately a playwright than an author (as I would define them).

    Second, having not only read the Dickens I was forced to, but having read other books by him, I fail to see why he was so great. Ditto Hemmingway, Salinger, and Faulkner.

  • It is the May trailer (Score:3)

    by dschuetz ( 10924 ) <.gro.tensad. .ta. .divad.> on Friday December 29, 2000 @10:04AM (#1423060)
    I'm watching it now, and it is the same trailer that was out in May. It's still an incredible trailer (even at 25 MB, but that's why we've got multiple T1s at work, right?), and I can't wait to actually see it in a theater.

    Still, I'd like to see a new one, and I'd love to find a movie poster (they *still* don't have one online).

    The best site I've found so far for movie information is www.theonering.net [theonering.net] -- lots of good information, and easy to browse through.
  • He's not in a list of top 10 books because he didn't write any books. Poems, sonnets, scripts, yes... but no books.

    Hamlet was a play, and can't be on the list. The Harry Potter books are novels, and can be on the list (but shouldn't).

    Also, there is a popular theory that he never really existed, and the plays attributed to "Shakespeare" were written under a pseudonym by either the Earl of Oxford, or else by a variety of lesser-known playwrites.

  • Well there's the problem! (Score:3)

    by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <roy&stogners,org> on Friday December 29, 2000 @10:22AM (#1423069) Homepage
    If they want to call it the top ten books of the millenium, they should have been polling a representative sample of readers from the whole millenium! But no, that would take a lot of expensive exhuming, and Amazon just can't bear to get it's hands dirty.
  • I know this is off topic, but read me before you moderate. It is a fucking crime that people voted the Backstreet Boys as being the 3rd greatest musicians the civilized world has ever known! WTF!!!!!!

    How could a corporately manufactured piece of shit like the Backstreet Boys be considered for anything other than the greatest marketing scheme pushed on pre-pubescent females.

    This illustrates the mental capacity of the people who did the voting. They rated Beethoven #10! WTF!

    Moderators
    If you hate the Backstreet Boys like I do please moderate me up! Thanks!

    ----------
    No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
  • The key thing to remember is that these books were voted on... Not selected by amazon people

    Jeremy

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