LoTR Takes 4 Oscars 636
E1ven writes "The Lord of The Rings: The fellowship of the ring won four awards, including Cinematography, Makeup, Music (Score), and Visual Effects. "
At least they have 2 more chances for Best Picture or Best Director. They
definitely deserved the ones they got.
Perhaps it's in the Plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:LOTR will never get best picture (Score:2, Insightful)
Dude I was there and I don't hope he changes the name. Enough! The towers should still be in Spiderman too.
Re:LOTR will never get best picture (Score:3, Insightful)
Screenplay adaptation?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I'll bet they've got two more chances at this one.
Re:How many do you think Two Towers is going to wi (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, my guess is that Two Towers won't be as impressive as Fellowship, because the ground has already been broken. Everyone now knows what Peter Jackson's Middle Earth looks and feels like. The rest of the trilogy, while I'm sure it will be great and I can't wait to see it, just won't have the same power to overawe the viewer.
Unless the sequels strike off into new territory - better special effects, for example - they will be "just sequels". Which is fine by me ... the source material is one huge book, and I want to eventually watch a 9-hour LOTR marathon and see it as one huge movie ... but not so fine for continued Academy Awards.
Re:How many do you think Two Towers is going to wi (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:LOTR will never get best picture (Score:4, Insightful)
We can't suddenly start censoring reality because something horribly happened. If we did that we are injuring our freedoms as Americans. And if we lose these freedoms then what is left of the country? The power of the United States comes from the incredibly smart men who drafyted the constitution and design our government. They gave us what no other country had, freedom. If that freedom is taken away then all is lost, the initials U-S-A mean nothing, the terrorists will have won.
Why does /. have to concentrate on this film? (Score:4, Insightful)
This will probably get modded down as flamebait or troll, but whatever.
Re:LOTR will never get best picture (Score:3, Insightful)
The politicaly correct are weak willed psuedo-intellectuals that would not know how to hold a book without pictures right side up if the utne reader did not come that way. Those that feel justifed in meeting social problems with expedient political solutions that are far removed from the root causes of the situation should be drove to the sea and forced to crawl back in till they evolve a suitably advanced brain for deductive logic.
not true! (Score:2, Insightful)
QED
I doubt it (Score:2, Insightful)
At least they have 2 more chances for Best Picture or Best Director.
As far as the Academy is concerned the two other movies are just sequels and should not deserve more credit. Face it, unless they consider Sam a retard or re-shoot the scenes to let Russel Crow play someone they're not getting best picture.Re:Amelie gets zilch nada (Score:2, Insightful)
The oscars aren't about the best films... (Score:5, Insightful)
It was started by film and production executives, is chaired today by the same types of people. The only way to even get involved in the voting for the oscars is to be invited to join the Academy by the Board of Governers and is limited to 'those who have achieved distinction in the arts and sciences of motion pictures'. A link with the brief history is here [digitalhit.com].
You'll never see a movie like LotR take top honours, now or ever, for a very good reason. It's not in hollywood's best interest to admit that a 'silly' sci-fi, fantasy, or comedy movie was the best they had that year.
To sum up: the Oscars are of the hollywood crowd, for the hollywood crowd, by the hollywood crowd. This is why I never watch awards shows.
OSCAR NIGHT (Score:1, Insightful)
He is a masterful troll, if such a thing exists. (Score:2, Insightful)
Plus, what person would be so insensitive to vote for the best picture for a film entitled The Two Towers in this post 9-11 age? I hope Peter Jackson shows a little sensitivity and changes the name.
"9-11" should get the same treatment that "Nazi" gets on Usenet.
"Won't get trolled again", with apologies to The Who.
Re:State of the World (Score:4, Insightful)
I completely agree.
When I look in the newspaper, I want to only read about the horrible atrocities that get me depressed about the state of our nation. There should be absolutely nothing pleasing at all on my front page, because I don't care if someone's happy. I only care about the sad things, and that's all I want to read about.
Re:LOTR will never get best picture (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely! Only by forgetting the past, erasing painful images, and ignoring anything that makes anyone, anywhere the least bit uncomfortable, can we get on with our blissful, ignorant lives under the rule of our teleprompter programmers who tell our "elected" officials what to say and do.
Perhaps we can also finally put to rest those rumors of a "Holocaust" in Germany in the late '30s and early '40s. But you probably have already managed to put any reference to THAT out of sight and out of mind as well.
Newsflash: LOTR was not the best picture of 2001! (Score:3, Insightful)
I like Peter Jackson, too (Meet the Feebles is something else) but he wasn't the best director of the year, either.
And now, even though it has nothing to do with LOTR, I would like to once again razz the Oscars for not even nominating Waking Life for best animated film, instead picking 2 blockbusters (Shrek, Monsters Inc.) and a glorified Nickelodeon pilot (Jimmy Neutron).
Of course, this is to be expected - the Oscars are a crock of shit anyhow. Figure skating is a more objective contest with less corrupt judging. Basically, the winner in each category is decided by bloc voting and horse-trading by the studios who control the bulk of academy members - so says a former professor of mine who's a member of the academy and actually has an Oscar under his belt, whom I'm inclined to believe. Most Oscar voters haven't even seen all the films in the categories for which they're voting - there's just too damn many films up for consideration for anyone to watch and still have time to do anything else.
-Isaac
Oscars are a "Good Ole Boys" Club (Score:4, Insightful)
This year's prime example is Randy Neuman (sp?) winning for best song for that Monsters Inc tune. That song sounded EXACTLY like his past 10 million movie songs. But the dear old Oscars club wasn't going to let him go 0 for 16. The LOTR Enya song was by far the best, even my wife agreed!
It's all a sham and show put on for the drooling masses who get to see their movie star idols act like their not assholes. I'm surprised Russel Crowe didn't bite a chunk out of Whoopi's neck when she cracked on him.
Pay no attention to these awards. George C. Scott was the only smart one in the bunch. He wasn't even there when he won best actor for Patton. He was home watching hockey. He believed that these "competitions" spoiled the quality of films, making them pander to the masses instead of trying to raise intellectual and artistic bars.
Sure, mod me down (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would a site that is so anti-MPAA give a hairy orcs ass what the MPAA thinks of a movie? The whole Oscars/Grammys/Emmys/Tonys thing is nothing more than a studio circle-jerk, and the People's Choice voting is simply the public regurgetating what they're told to like.
Excellent movies come out every year that kick major ASS on whatever winner is given the Oscar ("Gladiator"/"CTHD" comes to mind), and many of them aren't even nominated.
Re:The oscars aren't about the best films... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your theory doesn't make much sense given that comedies like Annie Hall, fluff pieces like Shakespeare in Love, and fantasy like Gladiator and Titanic and Forrest Gump have all won Best Picture Awards. Do you really think The Sound of Music and Oliver! weren't "silly" films?
Maybe we didn't see The Fellowship of the Ring take top honors for best film because it didn't deserve it?
YHBT (Score:1, Insightful)
On the Contrary (Score:3, Insightful)
Take Star Wars for example. The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were both sequels to A New Hope, but both ESB and RotJ won awards, even after ANH won 6 Oscars.
I'm sure there are other examples as well, but this was the first one that came to mind.
Furthermore, IMHO, "Towers" and "Return" have a greater potential of being recognized, simply because the story was just getting started with "Fellowship". The next two will hopefully be even better than the first.
Don't give up hope!
Re:Screenplay adaptation?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Tom Bombadil is important to set the atmosphere and background of Middle Earth. I feel that the point is that some things are older and more mysterious than can be explained, even though they seem so warm and familiar.
Events that would shed light into the relationship between Frodo and Sam were edited badly. Why was the Hobbit's (and especially Sam's) natural fear of water not mentioned? (Did I miss it?) It would have added great dramatic weight to Sam's almost drowning at the end. Why was Sam not present at the viewing of the mirror? His vision was important in the book, but deleted completely from the movie.
To my mind, Sam is the everyman hero of the books, yet his role seems to be being played down. This nobility of the common man (or Hobbit) is an important message of the books and is being glossed over.
I would have liked to have seen the Dinner scene at Rivendell where Frodo meets Gloin. The discussions at that Dinner sets the background for Rivendell, what's going on in the rest of Middle Earth, etc.
I understand why they rewrote the scene at the River when the riders were closing in, but it's unfortunate that Frodo's challenge to the riders and the breaking of his sword are missing. Like I say, I understand that they wanted to setup the love story between Arwen and Aragorn so they decided to give Arwen a big role there. Actually, if I were to criticize the books, I would have to say that women were not given important enough roles, so this all may be to the good.
I also liked the scene in the book where Gandalf realizes that he's facing a Balrog...
Don't know why that was changed (do I not remember the movie correctly?).
Now, admittedly, they had to edit for length. I'm not sure what else I would have left out instead. I guess I would have liked to have seen 6 movies on all 6 books, but perhaps that wouldn't have sold well.
Taking into account the necessity to edit for length, I guess I would only really criticize the deemphasis on Sam's role.
Sorry if I've misrepresented the movie above. I've only seen it once. I don't like to watch movies more than once a year or so. I've just never seen a movie that didn't seem flat if I tried to watch it again too soon and I hate having that experience with movies that I otherwise enjoy.
Re:Screenplay adaptation?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving the award to A Beautiful Mind endorses a mockery of the man's life.
I write a few of the major changes in the screen play in this post. [slashdot.org]
Basically, *every* major scene in A Beautiful Mind was completely made up.
The movie is loosely inspired from the actual book, and I do not think that anyone who has read the book can say that it is "based" on the book at all.
FotR deserved that award. Yes, there were a few problems with the adaptation, but there always are going to be them. Even Shawshank, which I consider to be the best adaptation ever, has a major problem with the amount of time that Red spend wandering around, looking for the tree.
I gave up on the Academy Awards when Forrest Gump won over both Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption.
And Memento was robbed in best original screenplay (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In other words (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sure, mod me down (Score:3, Insightful)
First, the site isn't anti-MPAA. Many of it's users are. The site is a news and discussion forum.
Second, not all Slashdot readers are Anti-MPAA. Some don't give your hairy orc's ass about the issue. Some, like me, realize the issues and have come to an internal compromise. Some users haven't bought a movie ticket or DVD in years. You have to realize that there are many thousands of posters, and not all have the same opinions about issues.
Sure, industry awards are a circle jerk. So? Don't watch. Go to your local independant movie house and Fight The Power.
Just remember,
Re:How many do you think Two Towers is going to wi (Score:2, Insightful)
Not impressed by the music, ... (Score:2, Insightful)
"one dimensional script (basically just the book)." thats like saying a movie adaptation of gone with the wind, or war and peach was just one dimensional, it was just, you know, the book thats all!! DUHHHHH, could you try to hide your bias even a bit better???
Re:Why does /. have to concentrate on this film? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How many do you think Two Towers is going to wi (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the main problem with a movie like LOTR or SW winning is that people basically vote for what they like, and who they like. Most of the people in the academy probably aren't geeks, so SW and LOTR, while they probably liked them, didn't really grab them. Also, there is a huge impetus to vote for people who "deserve it" after a career... Like Denzel winning for Training Day when he didn't win for Philidelphia, Malcom X or Hurricane.
Re:Screenplay adaptation?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why does /. have to concentrate on this film? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because CmdrTaco likes the books and the movie, a lot.
That's what I like about this place. The editors aren't afraid to show their own tastes in their story selection. They aren't constantly second guessing themselves saying things like "I wonder if this story will have the right geekiness to have wide geek appeal?"
They just publish what they like. This place has character. Unlike most media.
Re:How many do you think Two Towers is going to wi (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you have to read the books to critique the films? It would seem to be a failing in the movie, if you had to read the source material to understand it. That said, I've never read the books (beyond the Hobbit in elementary school) and I really enjoyed LOTR - thought it was great. Maybe I don't get every little thing, but I was never confused about the story. I never even got up to use the bathroom, and that's the mark of an entertaining movie as far as I'm concerned,especially if it's 3 hours plus.
It's ok for us to be elitist, we are much smarter afterall.
Well, you obviously have just as big an ego as a hollywood celeb, at least.
I agree... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, after seeing the movie, I couldn't imagine how anybody who hadn't read the books could really follow what was going on. One thing is the vastness of time - the movie made it seem like they were travelling for a week or so, but in the book it was months! And THE most exciting part of the FOTR was Moria - they took like a week in the book, but it was a one-nighter in the movie.
You don't get a sense of how absolutely gi-normous Middle Earth is, the feat of engineering and hard work that Moria was.
It was nice seeing the book visualized, and I still thought it was a great movie, but like most adaptations, the book is still better.
And, of course, like a lot of people, I still can't get over Elrond and thinking (as many have joked about before): "welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Baggins", and "Hobbits are a disease"...
I know it's getting bad, but I laugh out loud at all of these.
My biggest disappointment (Score:3, Insightful)
Once the Fellowship started out, the movie spent most of its time on Aragorn and Gandalf. Sure, they were great Heroes, but when it came down to it, it was the Hobbits who got the work done.
It's an adaptation, that's why... (Score:5, Insightful)
A movie has a host of criteria to be concerned about, as does a book. But those criteria have very little overlap between movies and books. A book can spend a chapter on Nash's bi-sexuality without losing focus, but for a movie to properly handle it would require too much time and distract from the focus of the movie (Nash's illness and recovery through force of will and the love of his wife.) Even such an integral fact such as Nash's divorce and re-marrage districts from the focus. Picking any one facet, scene, or even sub-plot of a book to judge a movie to set yourself up for disappointment.
Books can ponder the nuances of their story, but movies must have tunnel-vision like focus. That's to be expected, they are different media. If you want long winding passages that have questionable relevance to the final plot, read the book. If you want amazing visual to help with your questionable imagination, watch the movie. And if you want bad graphics and questionable interface, play the game.
-sk
Re:Newsflash: LOTR was not the best picture of 200 (Score:2, Insightful)
While I didn't really mind Gandalf in Bag End (the movie was just beginning and I hadn't had time to judge it or get a feel for it), Bilbo in Rivendell is horrible, and Galadriel in Lorien had to rate as the worst scene in the movie.
How bad? We're talking cringe and grimace inducing bad. I saw the movie with my girlfriend and literally dreaded having to explain to her what was supposed to be going on in that scene. So, she turns blue and starts talking in a wierd digitally enchanced voice, without reading the book I wouldn't be sure What the hell was going on. Of course, by that point I had already come to the conclusion that this was not the movie I had wanted to see. Except for the 3rd book, the first two are slow atmospheric works designed to help give a feeling for the place. The movie unfortunately made them into action pieces. I wonder how many people saw the movie, went out and bought the book and never finished it because of the slow pacing.
People are saying that A Beautiful Mind (which I haven't seen, so I can't judge it) shouldn't have won Best Picture or Best Adapted Screenplay as it was unfaithful to the life and works of John Nash. By that same reasoning, LOTR is right to have not won, as it was unfaithful to the books.
I can understand them leaving out Bombadil, but watching it I had the feeling that it should have been labelled as 'inspired by the works of JRR Tolkien' and not 'based on'.
Best makeup? I think not (Score:2, Insightful)
But saying LoTR had the best makeup seems pretty stupid to me. It's an abortion that the film with the best makeup didn't even get nominated, yes Planet of the Apes. Sure it was mediocre, but the makeup was fantastic and better than anything else this year (I can't believe Beautiful Mind got nominated for this category, urrrgh).
Re:Gandalf the Gay? (Score:3, Insightful)
"He didn't give you 'gay', did he? DID HE?!?!"
Does Ian being gay make you like LOTR less than you did before you found out? Personally I just found out last night. I said "Oh. His buddy is pretty young." and was done with it (my wife kept saying it's probably his son, denial I suppose).
His being gay shouldn't affect you at all. If it does, it's your problem, not his.
Re:LOTR won Best Film & Best Director... (Score:2, Insightful)
And would that really be all that terrible? Shouldn't this be about which movie is best? If LotR is the best for three years in a row, than it should get that award three years in a row. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Might mean that other movies would strive a bit harder for the next two years.
I'd like that. Might see us some real quality instead of the usual drivel...
Thanks! (Score:1, Insightful)
Sincerely,
Jack Valenti
Last of The Retards (Score:1, Insightful)