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LOTR Internet-Only Trailer 102

Posted by timothy from the precious-my-precious dept.
fjordboy writes: "The Lord of the Rings.net official movie site has an Internet-only teaser available tonight on their Web site and on their Real Channel. Go to the Web site to see the film, (or you can go to see the movie Thirteen Days in theaters to view the first theatrical release of the LOTR teaser)." If you're still awake in California (or in sympathy) and have power, guess you have first dibs.
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LOTR Internet-Only Trailer More

LOTR Internet-Only Trailer

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  • we shall all suffer the consequences of the crack in the prevailing group think.
    I think you might be suffering the consequences of the crack. Are you moderating today by any chance?

  • California (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19, 2001 @01:37AM (#496797)
    It is 6:00 am. Your alarm is going off. Your first class is at 8:30.

    >get up
    It is 6:10 am. You have turned off your alarm.

    >take shower
    Halfway through your shower, Block B [scebiz.com] of Edison's interruptible load is taken offline.
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

    >grab towel
    You are in the shower, holding a somewhat wet towel. The shower is no longer hot but is still warm. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

    >turn off shower
    You are in the shower, holding a somewhat wet towel. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

    >dry off
    You dry off as quickly as you can using the wet towel.
    As soon as you finish, you are eaten by a group of racketeers of underregulated electricity.
  • You mean, the fight between Gandalf and the Balrog. The little 'fight' between Gandalf and Saruman happens real-time in the book as well, but not the fight with the Balrog.

    I really look forward to seeing how they render the Balrog...
  • ...but is it just me or did the hobbits not look very small in the scene with the company walking through the pass on the hill? After hearing about all of the special techniques they were using to get away from the cheesy actor stands on soundstage looking up at imaginary person, footage later montaged onto the shot of the actor on location looking down at imaginary person look, I was really anticipating more.

    Gimli looks passable, as he looks very broad, but the hobbits didn't look at all short enough to be "halflings".
  • The choir part of the music reminds of some other work, I just cant remember the name or who wrote it. Can anybody help me out, I know that I'm shooting in the dark here, but I'm trying to find this work...

  • Bingo! (Score:1)

    by jonr ( 1130 )
    Thanks, there is always somebody on slashdot that knows :)

  • You'll breeze through Eddings. I hadn't read Tolkien for years before I got into the two (well, 4, but break it into the 12-book set and the 6-book set) Eddings series. On a good reading night, I'd easily get through an Eddings book, mostly because the writing style is not complex, the characters are sufficiently different from each other, and that he repeats the major plot points enough times that by the end of the series, we know that "Heck, yes, Belgarath is freaking old!".

    Tolkien is much more challenging to read, and when I picked up the Ring trilogy to read about 2 years ago, it took me a good 3 weeks of before-bed reading to finish one book out of it.

    (And on a curiosity note, I find it ironic that several fantasy series all are based on "boy meets strange people, discovers he's got special/magical powers, goes on to save the world" type of ideas, including the Ring triology, Edding's series, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, as well as the Sword of Shanadara (sp) series -- add to it Harry Potter, as well as Ender's Game -- I wonder why it always seems to come back to this theme, and nearly always from the POV of the 'boy' in question.

  • 2. I didn't know, but it's a trilogy! Three movies, each to be released at Christmas a year apart. The Fellowship of the Ring 2001, The Two Towers 2002, The Return of the King 2003. Enough screen time to do the story right? Maybe... I hope so!

    Go to the Rinkworks (www.rinkworks.com) site, and look for the Bad Bad Bad Movie review page, and find the animated LotR movie entry (this is NOT the one done by Rankin/Bass who also did the Hobbit as a movie). I can't remember when the above movie came out (I think early 70s), but it was advertizes as the whole The Lord of the Rings. When people saw it, they found out it was only part 1 of 2 that they got; thankfully, based on the quality that the comments include above, part 2 was never made.

  • You'll be really pissed when the females strip down into studded leather bikinis, and rapid-fire from wrist-mounted fully-automatic crossbows, incendiary bolts, into an oncoming war cart (shaped like a corvette: credit to Lou Reed - This is the age of Video Violence) loaded with foaming-at-the-mouth, mohawked, tatooed, nipple-pierced Orcs.
  • The books are fantastic (Note for Merkins: That's a "pun") but films never measure up to the book so it's *bound* to be a disappointment. Who wants to go to the cinema to be disappointed?

    I think I might just get the books out and re-read them.

  • Try: http://members.tripod.com/khazad_dum0/ [tripod.com]
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • As a note of dissent, while I thought the rotoscoping in Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings" was profoundly annoying, it seems a lot of people concentrate on that to the exclusion of things like, oh, the script--which, at least in my dim recollection, was pretty first-rate. It was adapted for the screen by Peter Beagle, the author of "The Last Unicorn" and an amazing writer in his own right--as well as the guy who wrote the introduction to the first American publication of LotR. Ironically, "The Last Unicorn" was made into an animated movie produced by Rankin/Bass. (The actual animation house that did 'Unicorn' was a Japanese studio whose animators later became the core of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli.)
  • Right here. [chadsdomain.com] please mirror
  • See it in QuickTime format. [chadsdomain.com]
  • The reason why the Century 25 at Union Landing BETTER be good is the fact it's probably the first cinema complex I personally know of where EVERY SCREEN has full THX certification. Given that THX certification requires both quality sound levels AND quality picture projection, it's the only movie complex (other than the new Century complex at the Great Mall of the Bay Area, whose screens are also THX-certified) I'm willing to go see a movie, even at US$8.50 to US$9.00 evening prices.

    I can't wait to see a lot of upcoming good movies this year, after a crappy 2000. HANNIBAL, PEARL HARBOR, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE, MONSTERS, INC., FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, A.I. and several other really good movies arriving this year bodes well for movie theater owners in 2001.
  • I wouldn't be too worried about Peter Jackson over-mangling the story.

    The reason is simple: PJ darn well knows that the movie(s) will literally be nitpicked to death. He has to stick to the book pretty closely for accuracy reasons or Tolkien fans will read the riot act to him on the scale of an Orc invasion. :-)
  • The lack of stadium-style seating and THX-quality sound are two of the reasons I don't GO to the Century 16 Mountain View.

    The other reason is that traffic and parking around that theater is horrible, especially in evening hours. I'd rather go to the Century 25 in Union Landing and Century 20 at Great Mall, where parking IS very plentiful and the sound system is obvious top-notch. :-)
  • That was the Ralph Bashki (of "Wizards" fame) animated version. An incredible disappointment, never mind the fact that it was only half the story. Much of the "animation" was live action film sequences that had been drawn over. Orcs were actors in rags with their eyes made to glow with animation tricks, and little else to fit them into the scene. I saw this as a kid, and it was horrible.
  • Do you have java, javascript enabled? Do you have flash downloaded and installed in your .netscape/plugins directory? Do you have realplayer 8 installed?
  • I hope they do a good job. It would really suck if these movies sucked like most fantasy films.
  • Maybe it's the fact that I'm unemployed, my dot com folded, and today for the first time in what seems like years I got up at 6 AM so I could make it to an 8AM interview at a consulting firm. Maybe it's that I just finished reading The Lord of the Rings from my hardback Houghton Mifflin Co collectors edition [amazon.com] I got for Christmas a year ago. Maybe I'm just a sappy, sentimental fool who has read The Lord of the Rings at least once a year ever since he discovered "The Hobbit" in his elementary school library in third grade. Whatever the case may be, I drag my techie butt out of bed to drink a Dew and check /. before I shower and sell my soul to corporate America, and what do I find? The Lord of the Rings trailer has been released. I watch in awe, thanking my maker for DSL.

    And tears well up in my eyes... it's like the first time I heard Yes play The Revealing Science of God [amazon.com] live...

    This has got to be the most anticipated movie of my lifetime. Of course it will never live up to my expectations. As literature so often points out, it's the longing to have something that is the best experience. I don't know if thats true, but if it is Peter Jackson has just given me 11 months of bliss.

  • direct link to the mpeg download: here [tripod.com]. Slow as hell, but at least it's wgettable...
  • > 1) There will be no Tom Bombadil in the movie, that part of the plot will be left out.

    Thank Eru Ilúvatar! That weird section has kept me from re-reading the books for lo, these many years.

    > 2) Arwen's character will be expanded. I'm not sure the implications of this, but some have said Arwen will be more like Xena: Warrior Princess.

    Eru Ilúvatar, I hope like Angband not! Should we just stay home and watch Xena instead?


    --
  • I was also happy with the fact that they didn't try to show the whole damn movie in 2 minutes, which seems to be the standard for most trailers these days.

    That's because this is only a teaser. They'll have the two-minute "ruin the whole movie" version out later this year

    like we don't know the story already anyway :-)
  • Also, having read LOTR over and over again since I was a child, as well as The Silmarillion and other works so many times I can almost recite major passages, I am fairly certain that Arwen never rolls around on a bed of rose petals, eyes closed and smiling dreamily. Or if she did, Tolkien never told anyone. Except for maybe his wife.

    Unsure about that one, but the best I can come up with: it's a fantasy sequence designed to get around some of the huge narration involving her effect on the characters. Hey! just like in American Beauty! ;-)

    a stretch to be sure, but in this case I'm trusting Mr. Jackson until he give's me reason not to.
  • And most probably the best thing is that all three movies are about done and could be released at once

    not technically correct. Principal photography has been wrapped on all three (I think, if not it will be soon). but post production for each movie will take about 8-12 months due to the CGI effects involved.

    It's a great way to make a series of movies as the actors won't appear to age 15 years from beginning to end (as in our other favorite trilogy) but it requires the commitment of big bucks up front. $365 million? If the first one flops there will be some very unhappy investors.
  • Personally I prefer Robert Jordan to Eddings. Both write in the same "fantasy/soap opera" style. Edding is the worst though, the logical errors in his books (The Belgariad and the Mallorion(sp?) are the only ones I've read.) are large enough to fly a gigant eagle through.

    Jordan is a bit better, the characters are bitchy and should be slapped. But the world is more complete.

    But for the good stuff jump directly to Tad Williams or Robin Hobbs. (To mention two.)
  • but i guess that the LOTR guys can't seem to find it in their busy schedule to take 5 minutes with Cleaner 5 and make a desently compressed video. it physically looked horrible... bad pixelation, no blacks, runny colors... QuickTime and Sorenson might be NURV products, but at least they look good. At least Lucas thought so.
  • I'm using Netscape 4.76 on RH7, and nothing but the main lordoftherings.net page works for me. All I get are a bunch of javascript errors and a white page.

    Wouldn't expect less though -- I used to work for the company that was contracted for the original lordoftherings.net site. (The site that got slashdotted with 8Mbps of traffic after the first trailer was released..) From my point of view at the time, it seemed the folks at New Line Cinema were complete retards when it came to anything that wasn't flash and wasn't mainstream.

    So go figure..

  • I hope they don't mangle the story. (Score:3)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Friday January 19, 2001 @02:38AM (#496826) Homepage
    They need not mangle the story at all. The story is perfect as it is. However, hollywood has a tendancy to try to "improve" a good story by adding in more modern elements in an attempt to draw a larger audience. This is the ultimate failing in a great many movies that are based upon a book. I can see many possible "modifications" that they might attempt to make to the trilogy. First of all, the characters in the books are predominantly male. Certainly, there are female characters, but they don't have much "screen time" as compared to the male characters. This is not all together a bad thing. There is an underlying moral to be gained from this as in Return of the King it is a female (one who was ordered to remain behind for her safety) who ends up slaying the King of the Nazgul. This makes several powerful, if somewhat subliminal statements.

    However, someone will probably tamper with the script to add larger roles for female characters and this will ultimately serve to undermine the underlying themes. And this is only one example. I can think of many other ways they could screw it up.

    In addition, a big problem with the other LOTR movie was the fact that too much time was spent on scenes that should have been fast and furious (the end of book 1 where Frodo is being chased toward the Ford by all 9 riders). This is a 3 minute scene in the movie, but I can read the entire sequence in the book in less time. Other scenes which explain the history and background of the entire legend that the story is about, will be quickly skimmed over, leaving out a great deal of information which is useful to digest the rest of the story with (the council meeting).

    I DO believe a good movie can be made though. I just don't know if hollywood is capable of making it.

    -Restil
  • "And tears well up in my eyes... it's like the first time I heard Yes play The Revealing Science of God live..."

    (defying the wrath of the gods)

    Me too.

    A.

  • LOTR parody (Score:3)

    by shadrax ( 50923 ) on Friday January 19, 2001 @01:24PM (#496828) Homepage
    Here [modernhumorist.com] is an amusing parody of the trailer. Best line: "One shiny ring to rule them all."


  • I actually preferred the older teaser-trailer to this one. (I too saw it in the theaters.) There was more homage paid to the story in the previous trailer.

    This trailer didn't mention Tolkien's name at all, aloud or on the screen.

    Also, having read LOTR over and over again since I was a child, as well as The Silmarillion and other works so many times I can almost recite major passages, I am fairly certain that Arwen never rolls around on a bed of rose petals, eyes closed and smiling dreamily. Or if she did, Tolkien never told anyone. Except for maybe his wife.

  • Yes, thats my point, thank you. Sorry I offended the other poster by not remembering the damn names. It's been 20 years since I read the f*cking things. Wow, I'm old.
    "Why, I was a fightin' Orcs in 19 and 82, when you was sucking your mama's teet, boy."

  • Maybe. My point wasn't that there were no women in the books. I remember there were several female characters, but they were minor, in most cases very minor.

    I was saying this in reference to watching the film preview that this story is about. It seemed to show women in the story a lot more female presence than there were, and I was concerned about the Hollywoodification of the books by sticking pretty women in where they have nothing to do with the story.

    My best example is Schindler's List. It was supposed to be a serious movie about a guy saving Jews from the Nazi's, yet they had to put in a beautiful girl in a wet nightgown scene. That had no purpose in the movie except to titilate. Did the Nazis have sex with some of the pretty concentration camp women? I am sure they did. Is the best way to represent this is to show a close up of water pooring over an erect nipple under a see through nighty? I find it insulting to the situation and my intelligence. "Look, a titty. Giggle, giggle."
    If I want to see T & A I know where to find it, I'm don't want to see it in Schindlers List. Or LOTR for that matter.

    If I were to cut down LOTR to short synopsis, no female characters would merit mention, yet they are prominent in the preview. I wanted to know if someone else was familiar with the script they used to know whether this was the case in or not.
  • Not to complain about hot babes, but I don't recall any women having anything more than very minor parts in the books. You know, they meet a fairy princess in the woods for 10 pages.
    My gripe is there seemed to be a few hot chicks walking around in that clip. Did they decide the books needed help and Frodo needs a love interest?
    Does anyone have any idea how faithfull it is to the books? I defended the movie in a previous discussion saying that for times sake, they couldn't put every line in the book in the movie or it would be 34 hours long. However, if they start throwing a bunch of Hollywood shit in there, I'm going to be pissed. Maybe they go visit Castle Anthrax and give out good spankings.
  • From the website's list of cast:
    Widely regarded as one of the most gifted actors of his generation, Elijah Wood continues to challenge himself with roles in films spanning the spectrum of style and genre.
    --CUT--
    Wood's impressive list of film credits include Alan Shapiro's "Flipper" with Paul Hogan

    Please. Flipper? I made a vow never to watch another dolphin movie after that one.
  • Oops I meant Frodo Baggins. I wish /. would let me edit old postings. Oh well.

  • +5 Free Karma! (Score:3)

    by Mike Connell ( 81274 ) on Friday January 19, 2001 @01:29AM (#496835) Homepage
    To the first person to remove the "internet only" part so we can just download the damn thing!

    Mike.
  • QuickTime and Sorenson might be NURV products, but at least they look good.

    Yep, especially the Sorenson codec that's included in Quicktime 5 (still in beta [apple.com]). The thing that impresses me most about it is that older trailers and clips that I have sitting around on my HD look so much better with the new decoder, even though they're exactly the same data! I always thought the real burden for video quality was on the encoder, but in the case of Sorenson at least, a new & improved decoder can make a big difference, too.

  • Agreed, it looks very nice, especially the final shot. Something about it just grabs me. I really like the way it's photographed. I was also happy with the fact that they didn't try to show the whole damn movie in 2 minutes, which seems to be the standard for most trailers these days.

    Slightly off-topic: the Metreon sucks in my opinion. Great sound, but crappy picture quality. If you want to see the best theater in the Bay Area, try the Century 25 [centurytheaters.com]. It may be a long drive for you, but it's worth it. It's just about the only theater around here that I've seen which actually meets SMPTE recommended brightness levels. Most theater owners have gotten so cheap these days that they are unwilling to buy high enough powered lamps to adequately light their screens. Once you see a movie projected at proper brightness, you'll be saying to yourself, "You mean movies are supposed to be that bright?" You won't want to go back to seeing movies on underlit screens anymore.

    Also of note is the fact that Century generally has no advertising before the movie, other than previews. They also take very good care of their film prints. I went to see "Gladiator" at the Century 25 last year a full two and a half months after it was first released, and their print was still in mint condition. No scratches, no dirt. A rare thing these days.

  • Hmm, works for me. (I got the link from TheOneRing.net [theonering.net] originally.)
  • Improved post processing to plaster over compression artifacts I assume.

    Most likely. That's fine with me, since I hate compression artifacts.

    <sarcasm>
    I can't wait until film in theaters gets replaced by compressed digital video beamed in by satellite, in which case no matter where I watch a movie, on DVD, in theaters, anywhere -- I'll get to see those lovely compression artifacts all the time. Joy!
    </sarcasm>

    Obviously you got it somehow.

    Well, I have it because I work at Apple, and the internal builds of MacOS X all come with QT5. ;v) I haven't bothered trying to get it from the external website yet. If there's a problem, try e-mailing the webmaster. I'll try it myself, and if it doesn't work for me, I'll find somebody to gripe to...

  • I think the best thing Peter Jackson has is a feel for colour.

    I noticed somebody complaining about the lighting of that final shot on the message board at TheOneRing's SFX page [theonering.net]. It's obviously artificial lighting, and not filmed outdoors (the background's been added in), but I think that just contributes to the "fantasy" feel. I wouldn't want it to look like a nature documentary.

    He's also a nice guy, I had dinner with him in Wellington a few years ago...

    Really? Wow, do you work in the movie industry?

  • I agree, I really wish they would show that earlier "internet preview [apple.com]" in theaters at some point. Not only for the mention of Tolkien, but also because it just looks like it was meant to be shown on a big screen, especially the part where it expands from a TV-sized image to the full widescreen "scope" image!

    Maybe they figure audiences in theaters will be turned off if they mention books.

  • Well, the Sony Metreon in SF is also all-THX certified, and their picture quality sucks great big donkey balls.

    I've complained to THX a whole bunch of times, but to no avail. Apparently, as long as Sony pays their fee for using the THX name, Lucasfilm is happy. I think Century does a good job because they want to, not because THX makes them.

    The new Century 20 at the so-called "Great Mall" is pretty nice, but the auditoriums are a lot smaller than the ones at the Century 25 at Union City. I hate it when the screen is below a certain size, because then the little perforations in the screen's surface become objectionable. Still, I'd rather go the the Century Great Mall than most other places.

    Also of note is the Century 16 on Shoreline Blvd. in Mountain View (your town!). True, they don't have stadium seating or THX, but they still do a very good job. And unlike the Union City or Great Mall theaters, their screens are "maxed out" for a 2.39:1 image, rather than a 1.85:1 image. That is, they use masking on the sides for 1.85 movies instead of masking on the top for 2.39 movies. That's the way it should be in all theaters.

  • Hey you f**king stupid moderator! That's not a troll! What I said about spherical vs. anamorphic lenses is a common issue in movies made in the widescreen format (that's 2.39:1 aspect ratio according to the SMPTE standards, not 2.35:1 -- the backs of DVD packages are wrong). Some movies of that aspect ratio are made in Super-35 (spherical lenses), and others are made in "scope" (anamorphic lenses). The two types of lenses produce different flares when shooting on set, and the SFX people have to make sure any stuff they add matches or it will look funny. I noticed that it didn't match in the LOTR trailer, and I commented on it. How on Earth is that a troll?!

    Just because you're too damned stupid to know what I'm talking about does not make me a troll!!

  • So you work at WETA? I have to ask -- why did you make all the CG lens flares in that trailer oval shaped as though they were from anamorphic lenses, when you know bloody well that the movie is being filmed in Super-35 with spherical lenses? Please tell me you're not making that mistake all throughout the movie!

  • Also... (Score:4)

    by Apotsy ( 84148 ) on Friday January 19, 2001 @01:18AM (#496845)
    If Real is not your preferred format, you can get a version of it which was taped off TV's "Extra!" here [tripod.com], in a variety of formats (including MPEG).

    BTW, did anyone else find it strange that even though the movie is being shot with spherical lenses, all the computer-generated lens flares in the trailer are oval-shaped (like those produced by anamorphic lenses)? A minor detail, but it's a tad sloppy. I would have expected them to be more careful about little things like that...

  • Eddings writing style is more chatty and reveals more of the ole' internal dialog. His characters are generally all very likeable and he follows them through book after book after book. I really liked Eddings a lot when I was younger, but I think I'd find his writing to be a bit too clumsy now that I'm more well exposed to non-sci-fi books. I don't stand by that though, I should probably read some of it again. What's clear is that Eddings, for some, is just about the most "immersive" fantasy author. In other words, don't start reading unless you are going to finish. I can't tell you how many times as a teen I started reading an Eddings book on Friday night and had to finish by Sunday. Couldn't put the damned thing down.

  • Or living ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD, like for instance London, where its 10am here now...

    Note to slashdot editors.. Like it on not, you run an international, 24x7 website.

    Not posting anonymously, cause i stand by my statments.

  • Unfortunately, Tripod allows users to pick names which contain underscores [lycos.com], and then uses them as labels within the DNS; this is in contravention of RFC 1034 [landfield.com] sec 3.5, which states:

    The labels must follow the rules for ARPANET host names. They must start with a letter, end with a letter or digit, and
    have as interior characters only letters, digits, and hyphen. (my emphasis)

    This doesn't often cause much of a problem for most people, since most systems are properly "liberal in what they accept, and conservative in what they send" [faqs.org]; however, in my experience, some systems have problems with the broken names, notably some firewall software.

    I suppose somebody should point this out to Tripod, really.

    M

  • Notes on the trailer (Score:4)

    by steveha ( 103154 ) on Friday January 19, 2001 @01:39AM (#496849) Homepage
    0. It's in RealPlayer format. When you go to watch it, the trailer is in this tiny window surrounded by junk. Click on "CLICK TO ENLARGE VIDEO" and it doesn't actually enlarge the video, but it does get rid of the extra junk; then you can use the zoom command to enlarge the video. (Why did they think the extra junk was a good idea? Why make it harder to see it zoomed?)

    1. Looks nice. Seamless effects, has that "big-budget" look. As long as they don't mangle the story, this could be great.

    2. I didn't know, but it's a trilogy! Three movies, each to be released at Christmas a year apart. The Fellowship of the Ring 2001, The Two Towers 2002, The Return of the King 2003. Enough screen time to do the story right? Maybe... I hope so!

    3. There is a review [aint-it-cool-news.com] of this trailer on Ain't It Cool News [aint-it-cool-news.com].

    4. It made me want to pull the books out and read them again!

    steveha

  • carmina burana by carl orff is probably what you are looking for.
  • The reason Real and Quicktime can get by with their proprietary formats is because people will go through the trouble to install them and use them. Look at all the trouble you went through. It's also easier for those who think the web should be full of full-motion video and Flash pages everywhere. If they have to right-click|Save as for IE or right-click|Save Location As for Netscape or Shift|Right-click if it doesn't work, that's more trouble for the site (well, not really, but keeping it simple for even the biggest dolts is tough. However, AOL seems to manage :) ).

    If you want them not to use Real or Quicktime (Sorenson, in particular) then don't install their player and write to the site maintainers and request the video in an easier-to-deal-with format like MPEG, DivX;-), or AVI. Perhaps they'll blow you off, perhaps they'll think about it (what's 30MB more and less bandwidth wasteage since people can download it only once if they want to see it over and over?). Either way, as long as you'll go through the trouble to use their product, they'll make it and others will use it.

  • Just saw a movie last night, and the trailer was just before it. Showing the trailer almost a year before it will come out in the screens. The cartoons are excellent renditions of the book. I just hope the movie doesn't venture too far from Tolkien's master piece.
  • Improved post processing to plaster over compression artifacts I assume.

    I can't download it, it keeps saying I havn't selected an OS (bloody well did so), I've tried NS and IE, the internet install and the standalone install. All the same.

    Obviously you got it somehow. Anyone else have the same problem?
  • 0. It's in RealPlayer format. When you go to watch it, the trailer is in this tiny window surrounded by junk. Click on "CLICK TO ENLARGE VIDEO" and it doesn't actually enlarge the video, but it does get rid of the extra junk; then you can use the zoom command to enlarge the video. (Why did they think the extra junk was a good idea? Why make it harder to see it zoomed?)

    Remember when Real were the good guys? I just had to reinstall the RealPlayer because my beta had expired. After 5 minutes of downloading, installing, disabling startcenter, disabling automatic desktop icons, unselecting email notification (luckily, sales@real.com was accepted), dumping the 'content panel' (which is the crap that goes around the content), getting rid of the the ad bar, keeping Realplayer (tm) from being the default media player for every fricking type multimedia file, denying the right to set inbc.com or real.com as my home page, and stopping the automatic "welcome to Real" movie, I was sent to a real.com web page.

    When I finally got to the trailer, it luckily wasn't /.ed yet. Don't these companies REALize that if they put their media in non-proprietary formats, it might be cheaper and better for both them and their targeted audience? Too bad there aren't any commonly used, stable, high-quality, free, FREE media formats out there.

  • There is an underlying moral to be gained from this as in Return of the King it is a female (one who was ordered to remain behind for her safety) who ends up slaying the King of the Nazgul

    Some of us hadnt finished the books yet, you dirty, dirty whore.

  • I've actually been to the Century 25 once (or maybe twice). Don't really remember it, but it's immaterial, really, since I live in San Francisco and I have no car. Unless BART pulls up to the front entrance it's pretty much out. :-)

    As for the advertising problem, I solved it by playing video games until 2min before it started.

    What was funny was that they started the previews with half the projector lense blocked and everyone had to yell to get it fixed. Also, the overhead lights didn't dim until the movie itself started, and never turned all the way off.

    Overall, though, my Metreon experiences have always been pretty good, and they're considerably more pleasant than the AMC 24 on Van Ness (dunno why... I do know that the walk is somewhat nicer (that means less scary people)). And once it got going it was perfectly fine.

    Oh oh oh oh oh! I soooo want to see "Enemy at the Gates"!

    --

  • wow (Score:5)

    by vsync64 ( 155958 ) <vsync@quadium.net> on Friday January 19, 2001 @01:29AM (#496857) Homepage
    I just saw Thirteen Days at the Metreon [metreon.com] here in San Francisco. (Getting slightly off-topic here, I'd like to say that Thirteen Days is a very well-done movie. Go watch it, but be prepared to face mortality again. That's what I've been doing since it got out 0.5hrs ago...)

    Anyway, the preview was very nicely done. Starts off showing a ring floating, spinning, et cetera, with the narrator saying the "one ring to..." poem. It had a different tone than I would have imagined, but it was nicely done. Additionally, they did some effects as the ring came to rest in a hand (whose, I don't know). It's hard to describe, but it looks like the magical powers of the Ring will be conveyed quite well.

    They went on to show some epic scenes of the band wandering along. There wasn't much of Gandalf, but there was a quick shot of him slamming down his staff with some resulting lightning flashies. I recognized Legolas, Gimli, and the hobbits, plus a short narration by someone I presumed to be the Lady Galadriel, who seemed to be portrayed quite well (beautiful, poised, etc).

    There were a few quick scenes with the Nazgul, as well as one breathtaking shot of a tremendously large army (of Orcs) swooping over the plains. To be quite honest, the preview itself was rather disappointing, but as the story itself is already known, it didn't matter so much. I'm looking forward to the movie(s) a lot; this did a great job of whetting my appetite.

    --

  • I'm a pathetic Tolkien Fan... one of those people who reads the book 10 times a year.... and I really have been looking forward to the movie and I still haven't seen the trailer (Internet in India is slow) But one thing I do have is the BBC's rendition of LOTR on CD which is great. It' a great way of telling this magnificent story and it also allows you to use your own imagination. Whenever a fantasy or sci fi book is made into a movie people have a tendency to imagine the world as it's shown in the movie and the very essence of fantasy is lost ... everyone then has the same interpretation of the world that has been created. So if any of you haven't read the book or heard the CD's you should do it before the movie releases. But the excitement this movie is generating is amazing. It's surely going to entice more and more people to read the books. All I'd like to say is .. FRODO LIVES !!!
  • /me translates: What this person is saying, is that when we read the LOTR we each get our own personal understanding of the book in our imaginations. Everyone has their own little way of imagining hobbiton and frodo and gandalf and such. Everyone imagines them differently, and as soon as the movie comes out, each of our own perceptions of the books will be gone and we will all be forced to go with the "Group think" on the book. My father tells me that he doesn't want to go see the movie for that reason...once you see the movie, your imaginad LOTR land is partially destroyed.

    Personally, i don't care all that much...i like to see what other people imagined in the book, especially if they took 368 million dollars to find what it should look like.

  • Were these ever the good guys??

    I mean yes, they have a player for Linux (a hardly ever updated, propietary player) and yes, they got screwed by Micro$oft, but thats about the only reason I can think you believe they were good guys...

    ------
    C'mon, flame me!

  • Dragonlance???

    Yuck!!!!

    Well, you could be forgiven if you are a teenager... Only at that age you can digest such a soap-opera...

    ------
    C'mon, flame me!

  • I'm fairly certain that the woman in the trailer is Galadriel, elven queen. She's rather important to the story line and rids Frodo of a few doubts he holds.

    Another chick to expect is Eowyn, slayer of the King of Angmar, in Return of the King.

    --
  • story about geek film previews during superbowl [aintitcool.com] including lotr

    *shrug*

    e.
    www.randomdrivel.com [randomdrivel.com] -- All that is NOT fit to link to
  • Well im a ozzie so kiss my arse:P we pis all over everyone, lol.
  • There are people in parts of the world other than Europe and America who read Slashdot. You forgot to insult whole continents full of people.
  • Quote: I didn't know, but it's a trilogy! Three movies, each to be released at Christmas a year apart. The Fellowship of the Ring 2001, The Two Towers 2002, The Return of the King 2003.

    And most probably the best thing is that all three movies are about done and could be released at once. But... well, I just started reading Eddings' Belgariad and it's probably going to be a long time until I finally get back to Tolkien. After all, his work didn't have that enormous immersive effect I'm experiencing now.

    I come to think Tolkien isn't the best fantasy author around and the movie isn't going to improve that. (TrollTrollTroll) To be honest, I'm thinking about not seeing it. The books are great and leave a lot of things to the reader's imagination; I wouldn't want to lose what I made up when I read it (german translation and english - it is a big difference!).

  • When starting off with the first book of the Belgariad, I also thought his style was pretty naïve, but I changed my opinion. It's just somewhat different. Tolkien is pretty much serious about his characters and the epic he recounts while Eddings never seems to take it all too serious. This might be because they have different time contexts. The character development is something I really like about Eddings. Reading his books is like reading a transcript of some freaky, large-scale pen-and-paper roleplay campaign, something Tolkien probably never had a possibility to experience.

    Afer all, don't misunderstand me. I never wanted to say Tolkien did just waste a bunch of paper. His books are still the foundation on "modern" fantasy. It's just a matter of personal preference.

    BTW, I lost about a week's woth of sleep on the first 4 books. I never dared reading LOtR in bed because of fearing missing some important part of the story. I always read during the afternoon while I was still fully awake.

  • Actually we were discussing this last night at work. Does anyone know if there are any plans for any of the Dragonlance books to be made into movies?

  • You're kinda wrong there, bud. Do you remember who defeated the Nazgul Lord? It was Eowyn, the shieldmaiden. Galadriel also played a useful purpose plotwise, and was a strong character as well. It's true that one of them had parts as major as the Felloship members, but they were there.

  • Here's the changes from the book (a little spoily) (Score:5)

    by Tomoshi ( 201049 ) on Friday January 19, 2001 @05:11AM (#496870)
    LOTR fanatics have been spying on the set, hassling PJ, pestering the casting department, and generally making nuisances of themselves. For that effort, they have yielded the following, which is all over the net:

    1) There will be no Tom Bombadil in the movie, that part of the plot will be left out.

    2) Arwen's character will be expanded. I'm not sure the implications of this, but some have said Arwen will be more like Xena: Warrior Princess. This is probably an exagerration. In addition, the relationship between Arwen and Aragorn will be seen more often, and sooner than it surfaces in the books.

    3) Some of the events that are told about (such as the fight between Saruman and Gandalf) will happen real-time in the movies, rather than 'as told by Gandalf'.

    4) a few minor characters will be left out, and a few will be added.

    5) the scouring of the shire will be rather different, though it is not certain how.

    For more stuff like this, there's about a dozen LotR movie fanatic pages, with all sorts of images and details.

  • Hi, can anyone tell me a link to the realaudio version so that I can download it and watch it offline whenever I want to please? I cant seem to figure it out :/ (Yes.. call me dumb :)

    Cheers!

  • Ok, another shameless plug. This version requires Java enabled in I.E. (Netscape works funny). Also it either works funny on the Macintosh or not at all (Mac java emplementation is funny). I feel funny. No sleep. Check it out: http://www.videoclipstream.com/akamai/lotr/lotr.ht ml I encoded it from someone else's QuickTime which looked like it was ripped from the Real version.
  • It's all important, but certain stuff is going to have to be cut in order to fit the whole thing into 3 movies, 2+ hours each. The first things to go are ones that don't have an immediate impact in furthering the plot, and Bombadil is one of these. (Plus, I think he's almost impossible to portray without seeming silly, goofy, or worse. Who would you cast as ole Tom Bombadillo?)
  • Much of the "animation" was live action film sequences that had been drawn over

    That's called "rotoscoping", and it was way overabused in Bakshi's LOTR.

    I saw this as a kid, and it was horrible.

    <AOL> ME TOO! </AOL>

  • I can't believe they're leaving out Tom Bombadil. Bombadil is necessary.

    This may sound a bit funny coming from an agnostic semi-Wiccan like myself...But here I go. Tolkien was good buddies with C.S. Lewis, and a very religious Christian. Therefore The Lord of the Rings was written with heavy religious significance. Just like Star Wars it is meant to portray the struggle of good vs. evil. The character of Bombadil shows that there is a greater good; he can see through evil's best attempt at making things suck, if that makes sense.

    I sure hope they decide to put him back.

    Anyway I heard rumors of one more change: right after leaving Lothlorien, instead of merely following the Fellowship, Gollum attacks and attempts to take the ring. Perhaps he succeeds; I can not quite remember the rumor's exact wording.

    Aciel
    aciel@speakeasy.net
  • I am already awake in Europe. So are many others. /. is not USA-only.
  • This is off-topic, but what I'd really like to see is all 7 books of the deathgate cycle by weis and hickman done (one movie per book?). Haplo R00X!
  • I'm using Netscape 4.75 on a Mandrake 7.1, and the site works OK, even the Flash thingies.

  • I guess some compromises will inevitably be made, given the differing natures of the two media, but you may be pleasantly surprised, and perhaps even slightly reassured, as I was, by the answers to "fan questions" given by director Peter Jackson at the video archive [lordoftherings.net] part of the lotr site.

    He specifically addresses some of these points: Council of Elrond is in the movie - though no doubt played for cinematic impact, for example. Also interesting were long and thoughtful answers on the thorny question of racist (and "patriarchal") interpretations of the original work.
    --

  • Don't blame us... blame Newline. Sure we do the effects and the movies, but they converted that!
  • Thats precisely why hollywood AREN'T making it. NEW ZEALAND is.
  • Does anybody remember the old trailer? Take particular notice of the one scene of the orc armies marching. The old version looked incredible, but they've greatly improved the CGI for that shot! It's unbelievable! I can't imagine how good the rest of the film is going to look.

    Maybe they won't botch this like they did the DnD movie. :-)

  • For those who haven't yet seen it (and some others), there's a trailer at:
    This place [slashdot.org]

  • This movie will hopefully be good, at least should be better than the D&D movie.
  • Aside from the obvious 'Read Joseph Campbell' answer, its also because of the essentially fascist world view of fantasy.

    They are generally stories about a small cadre of 'chosen ones' that usually overthrow the corrupt and weak government of their native land, and attempt to restore their race's past glory by leading a war of conquest against a degenerate, evil race of sub-humans.

  • Please. Flipper? I made a vow never to watch another dolphin movie after that one.

    Now THERE'S a solid resolution! (grin) Not like you resolved to give up on porn or scifi flicks.

    You're in trouble when Pam Anderson and Nikki Cox decide to do a lez scene in "Flipper's Revenge: The Tuna Industry Gets Canned" tho

  • Well, inevitably, there are going to be differences between the 'picture' in your head and how it appears on screen, not matter how accurately made. That's why books are neat -- everybody has a slightly different mental picture of sights and sounds.

    Moz.
  • http://khazad_dum0.tripod.com

    Is that URL correct - my proxy complains about
    the underscore. Other attempts to guess the URL
    get me an error redirect from tripod.


    --
  • Yes, it's a firewall. Can somebody mirror/cache the video please (or post a "real" URL)?

    Thanks.

    PS. Posting from Tennenlohe, and I've been awake for _ages_. Miles from California (Hint: it's 13:12 here now)
    --
  • It is clear to me that the more people believe in something, the more real it becomes. Everything all around is is merely symbolic, representations flying through the neural pathways of our brain, and the collective unconscious, according to Jung, defines what reality is. From this we can specualte that, to all intents and purposes, the LoTR is becoming a form of reality just as valid as the many others we participate in.

    The problem is that with so many different representations of the LoTR, its representative reality will become schismed, and we shall all suffer the consequences of the crack in the prevailing group think.

    I call on the film makers to make the film as accurate as possible, and I hope they have, to avoid this most dangerous disaster.

  • Just be glad he didn't do a remake of Gentle Ben.

    (I hear Ben has a talk-show now)

    -- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

  • Yeah.. I think the best thing Peter Jackson has is a feel for colour. Every shot has the right flow. He's also a nice guy, I had dinner with him in Wellington a few years ago with the release of The Frighteners. I fear when Tr0LLs see a picture of him and start making RMS hygiene jokes, though.

    Certainly improved since his braindead days of Tim (Lip)Balm ;)

    -- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

  • Do you work at Weta or something?

    (ahh... what one can gleam from a slashdot history)

    -- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!

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