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"Lord of the Rings" Quicktime Preview Available 243

Posted by Roblimo from the teasing-the-fans dept.
esk writes "A QuickTime 4.0 preview of the upcoming Lord of the Rings movie is now available at the official site." There's only about 30 seconds of actual footage from the movie in the two-minute trailer, but it's enough to give you an idea of what the characters will look like -- and they came out almost exactly as I have always envisioned them, even the Trolls and poor, sad Gollum. Yessssss!
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"Lord of the Rings" Quicktime Preview Available More

"Lord of the Rings" Quicktime Preview Available

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  • This makes me feel like ... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    pouring hot grits down The Witch King of Angmar's pants. thank you.

  • still waiting for the Sorenson Codex dept. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Until the guys at Apple decide kindly to make a Linux player available *hint, hint*, here's a second best alternative:
    A shot-by-shot summary [theonering.net] from the kind-hearted folks over at theonering.net [theonering.net]
    Lest the author be accused of karma-whoring, he is posting anonymously. However, suggest you moderate this up as informative. ;-)
  • What has been bothering me, is: why the hell the eagles just coudn't fly in, drop the ring and be done with it?
  • Note that the elves apparently did not know where the Ents were (and the Ents didn't know where the Entwives were), so incorporating them in a battle they weren't aware of wasn't an option.

    Cavalry would have had a hell of a time getting over the Misty Mountains.

    The hobbits were remarkably resistant to the Ring's effects. Bilbo and Sam were the only beings who ever voluntarily gave it up, and Bilbo nearly couldn't. (And Frodo largely snatched it from Sam.) Saruman was corrupted by the thought of it and planned to capture it and challenge Sauron. Borimir was also corrupted by the thought of it, and tried to take it by force.
  • You're right - Gollum was captured at the border. My mistake.

    The point about Sauron expecting the Ring to be used against him and not an attempt at destroying it is still valid though. ;)

  • No, you can't. It uses the Sorenson codec.
  • Bleh. Why do people get so hyped up over remakes of old movies that won't hold a candle to the orginal? First talk about remaking "Planet of the Apes" and now this? There can be only one "Lord of the Rings" movie, and that's already been made. What's next? Some idoit is going to remake "2001", replacing HAL with Wesley Crusher?
  • >I watched this film a long time ago, and was mostly bored. The thing
    >is, Bakshi was the wrong guy for this film. Have you ever seen Fritz
    >the Cat or Coonskin? In his early days, Bakshi was the kind of guy
    >that just likes to do crazy visuals without worrying too much about a
    >plot.

    Just like I suspected. This thing is going to turn out to be another "Wing Commander" or "Starship Troopers". Feh.
  • Even easier, if you're using a Mac:
    1. Set iCab [www.icab.de] as your default browser in your Internet control panel.
    2. Open the movie site in Navigator (so that the JavaScript runs properly).
    3. When you click on the link to load the movie, iCab will pop out of nowhere with its Download Manager and begin downloading the movie file itself.
  • Ok, I'm probably being anal, but why is a movie domain .net?
    Shouldn't it be .com?
    Was it just that lordoftherings.com was taken and they really wanted that domain name?
    Does this sort of stuff even matter anymore?
  • Rush off to a lab windows machine.
    Cannot open 'http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/51/e2d91ae227744c/ www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_t he_rings/images/click2full.mov'. Please verify that the path and filename are correct and try again.

    Suggestion: Check the web site or content source for information about playing this content.

    Visiting www.apple.com/trailers/newline/lord_of_the_rings/i mages/click2full.mov didn't help either, so maybe someone lost the content at apple.com?
  • I wonder what they'll do to boost the second volume, "The Two Towers." Most people find that volume to be a hard bridge to cross between the more exciting introduction and conclusion volumes.

    The Two Towers is great, and not only on a "war strategy" level:

    • The strange alliance of Frodo and Gollum comes into play.
    • The ents are introduced. Treebeard is one of the most memorable characters (at least for the young reader).
    • Gandalf confronts Saruman, something that was set up when he mysteriously vanished in the first book.
    • Everything almost falls apart when Pippin is tempted by the Palantir. It's the only time we actually see the face of Sauron, in the whole book.
  • Great preview! That said, isn't everyone just a little tired of the "Mason" typeface they use in their title? I personally file Mason right under Exocet (Diablo, Tazo, "Man in the Iron Mask", etc.) in the annoyingly overused category.
  • This is Tolkein after all, what about something that loogs even vaguely Tengwar?
  • In my minds eye Ive always imagined Gollum as looking a lot like Don Knots.
  • Elrond does not say it directly, but at the Council, he says something like, "If I understand rightly all that I have heard, I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo, and that if you do not find a way, no one will." The question is, who does Elrond think is doing the appointing? Not himself--he pointed out at the outset of the Council that he had not even convened the meeting--they all were "called" (his word) but not by him. By whom, he again does not say.

    Gandalf once brushed this subject when Frodo asked him why the Ring should have left Gollum just when Bilbo would happen by to find it. After all, "wouldn't an orc have suited it better?" And Gandalf said (danger! quoting without checking source! #include <stddisclaimer.h>) "I can put it no more plainly that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its Maker." The question sometimes comes up as to whether this mysterious Power that summons councils, appoints burdens, and directs the loss and finding of a powerful weapon is actually Iluvatar or maybe just one of the Valar, Manwë most likely.

    I don't think that Manwë is the Unnamed Power in this case, because his input into the situation was the sending of the Five Wizards--Gandalf was one of those. But although Gandalf did a lot for the cause, there were a number of things that happened above and beyond his control or knowledge. The "fortuitous" meeting of the Council, the selection of Frodo, of Bilbo even, all these came to Gandalf and the others from "outside".

    I read a webpage once that opined that Gandalf's downfall in Moria constituted the actual failure and ruin of the plans of the Valar for Sauron's overthrow. Gandalf's aid was essential for the resistance--everybody knew they had next to zero chance of withstanding Sauron without him, for although he was not as powerful as Sauron, they were beings of the same order, and Gandalf had wisdom that nobody else had. But upon meeting the Balrog, which, like Gandalf, was also a Maia, Gandalf engaged the thing in combat, knowing that he could be no more help to the Company or anyone else, and in so doing he died.

    His coming back to life was not the doing of Manwë at all. He had no such power. It was Iluvatar himself that sent Gandalf back. Tolkien meant this as a "seal of approval" on the sacrifice that Gandalf, and all the Valar, had made. Their plan had failed, and could not but have failed against such an enemy, but they had done the right thing in trying it. So Iluvatar stepped in and made it possible to succeed anyway.

    None of this is explicitly stated in the books, which avoid directly mentioning Eru/Iluvatar in Middle-Earth contexts.

  • Not so...Gollum didn't "slip into" Mordor, he was captured at the frontier and dragged in, then interrogated and eventually released. When Frodo was given the mission to sneak into Mordor, nobody had any proper idea how he was supposed to do it. All the Council were certain of is that force was not an option, and if the Ring were to be destroyed at all, a hobbit might as well do it as anybody. And Master Elrond sensed that Iluvatar was actively guiding the process, and that He had appointed Frodo particularly to take the burden. That decision was not taken lightly, no more than it would have been in RL.
  • There is a reason for the similarity -- they draw on the same source material -- the Siegfried legend of Nordic mythology. Read Lin Carter's "Tolkien: A Look behind 'The Lord of The Rings'" for a full description. Another similarity of course is the sword that was broken and forged again -- Nothung (Wagner)/ Narsil (Tolkien).

    However, I've read that Tolkien had very little respect for Wagner's version of the legend.
  • Yes, that's accurate. Frodo planned to take the ring for himself just as they reached the cracks of Mount Doom. This gives meaning to all the constant reminders how everyone (Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Bilbo..) could not bring themselves to killing Gollum, and Gandalf's foreshadowing in Rivendell that Gollum had some part to play before the end.
  • And one insane hobbit isn't worth saving the world?

    No one else volunteered to take the ring, and anyone who held any amount of power would be corrupted by it. Gollum was an example how hobbits could wield the ring discretely (he used it to kill orcs underneath a mountain!). Frodo was the perfect choice for a ringbearer. Anyone else would have been overcome with desire to wield the ring openly against Sauron (and in a matter of hours find themselves surrounded by Sauron's millions of orcs).

  • Sorry (Score:1)

    by mcb ( 5109 )
    Sorry..Bilbo volunteered, but he was far too old for the journey.
  • The only reason I caught it is I just reread the Silmarillion last month ;)

    Currently rereading the LOTR, I'll try to pay closer attention when Sam uses the phial, you've got me wanting to know now.
  • Sauron watched his lord and master Morgoth brought down by the Valar, not by Elves and Men. Morgoth utterly defeated the Noldor, and Beleriend was destroyed, and men were terribly weak in the Elder days. His victory was nearly complete when Earendil sailed west to ask the Valar for aid. The Valar came, and almost entirely destroyed Morgoth's servants. Morgoth was thrust outside the world, into the void. Sauron was summoned to Valinor, but he hid in Middle Earth. What you are thinking of is when Sauron rose in power after he had destroyed Numenor (indirectly, by causing the Numenoreans to assail Valinor). The men of the west who settled in Middle Earth, Aragorn's descendents, allied with Gil Galad's Elven forces. Together they defeated Sauron, but he was not destroyed (Isildur kept the One Ring, as we all know). Elrond states that the reason they cannot assail Sauron by force is that Elves have greatly diminished in power and number. The majority of the High Elves have already sailed to Valinor, there are only the small remnants in Lorien and Rivendell. And I'm not so sure that the power of the high elves can be "detected", but the orcs thought Sam was an Elven lord because he had fought against Shelob and won. I could be wrong about this, though.
  • uggh. Wagner. Some nice minutes, some very boring hours.

    I can't understand how anyone can enjoy that wagnerian crap with its insufferable geman nationalism.
  • Screw my karma for this useless post.

    The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are most definitely among my favourite books. I do not read a lot *shame on me*, but the quality stuff just gets to you.

    My dad gave me a great set of these books during a deal we made during a ski trip (I gave him a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe) and I was hooked since the very start. It is a real shame I didn't read this earlier, although, I am glad I read it *now*, because I have a lot more appreciation for my "first time" now than I would have had being a teenager.

    Despite the evil MPAA, this will sometime be one of the DVD's I will own. With pride.

  • you can export to avi from qt pro. from there you should be able to mpg it with no probs.
  • and the ring of dooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!

  • The 'pipeweed' is tobacco... they even call it tobacco in that same chapter (I just finished that chapter).

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • I'd rather wrassle an Ent than miss this one on the big screen!

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • ...why does that one look like it's pouring hot grits down it's pants?
  • This blows my mind because I am a huge Tolkien fan and I never even considered this. The books of course do not address this AFAIK. Why the hell couldn't a swarm of eagles swoop down suddenly and drop the Ring in Mt Doom? It's not like Gwaihir would want (or could use) the Ring himself... (put it on his leg?)

    Did Tolkien just never consider this?

  • I can't leave it alone.

    Saruman's Uruk-hai were defeated in 2 places. Both times by the Rohirrim.

    Once were the small group that kidnapped the hobbits Pippin and Merry and killed Boromir. They were killed outside Fangorn forest.

    The second group fought a battle outside of Helm's Deep, also in Rohan. These were killed by Riders and by the Huorn (sp) old ents who got more tree like.

    At the Battle of the Pellinor fields you have Sauron's forces of orcs and men against the forces of Gondor, later reinforced by the Rohirrim.

    Outside of Morder;s front gates you are more or less right, but the Rohirrim where there too.

    The elves in Rivendell, Lorien, and Mirkwood were all under attack themselves by branches of Sauron's forces. They were not going to be any help. The dwarves were also under attack in the iron hills and the lonely mountain.
  • That's the shits man. I read that quote and I see Eomer standing in the fields getting ready to go out and get himself killed in his grief and percieved end of everything.

    These staves he spoke, yet he laughed as he said them. For once more lust of battle was on him; and he was stil unscathed, and he was young, and he was king: the lord of a fell people.

    Gives me the chills each and every time I read them. That is why Tolkien is the best, he characters, writing, plots, stories, whatever it is move you in ways that nothing else can.
  • Actually, Legolas's father, Thranduil, was a Sindarin elf. The Sindarins were found in small numbers among the Silvan elves and were often the leaders.

    Basically there are Elves who never even started the journey, and elves who started the journey but stopped around the misty mountains. They are collectively known as the Elves of Darkness.

    Then there is an overlap of the elves who stopped around the misty mountains (known as Silvan) and those who went all the way to Beleriand but didn't go over the sea and who were under the lord ship of Elwe (Thingol) and they are known as Sindar. Collectively they are known as the Umanyar, or the Eldar who are not of Aman. Eldar being a term applied to all elves of all 3 houses who at least started on the journey.

    Finally, there are the leves who went all the way. These are the Calaquendi and include all of the Vanyar and Noldor, and that portion of the Teleri who went with Olwe, brother of Elwe.

    Anyway, Sindar and Noldo rule, everyone else drools. Long live the Longbeards. Moria Rocks.

  • Men did not play a minor role in the War of the Jewels.

    They were numerous and strong. They were hardy and would often go into the extreme north to watch Angband during the long seige.

    Individuals of note performed amazing deeds, Hurin, Turin, Haleth, and Beren. Tuor married an elven queen and had a child who saved them all with his quest for the aid of the Valar.

    Treachorous men were even a deciding factor in the 5th battle. "Yet neither by wolf, nor by Balrog, nor by Dragon would Morgoth have achieved his end, but for the treachery of Men." If Ulfang and his accursed brood had been faithful, the good guys would have won!

    Finally, none of the elves of Beleriand fought in the final battle, the War of Wrath, however, men of the houses of the Edain did fight.

    "At BASF (Beleriandic Alliance of Sindarin Fletchers), we don't make the
    elf-hair; we give the elf-hair greater tensile strength. We don't make the
    great bows of black yew wood, we enchant them to shoot faster. We don't make
    the Silmarils, we make the Silmarils shinier. At BASF, we don't make a lot
    of the products you use to fight the War of Wrath; we make them better..."
  • BullSh*t.

    Get it straight, she chose to stay. Nobody forced anything on her.

    All of the Eldar were invited back to Aman at the end of the War. The only elves who had anything special upon them were the two surviving sons of Feanor, Maglor and Maedhros. Eonwe told them they would have to go and receive judgement from Manwe and Varda.

    Hell, all Galadriel did during the first age was hang around with Melian and learn to make lembas. What a spectacular waste if you ask me. At least Finrod (her brother) discovered and befriended men, established a kingdom, helped on the quest for the Silmarils, fought with Sauron, saved Beren's life, etc. Sure, he got killed, but that's living baby.

    Even Mablung (second fiddle to Beleg) did more than she did.
  • What planet are you from?

    The Lord of the Rings is about the only fantasy novel you can get that is perfect for the story it tells.

    The Shannara series by Brooks are too long, the Eddings sagas are complete humor fluff that are too long, and Robert Jordon, oh please, can you drag this out any longer to make more novels to make more money kinda crap?

    What is there to edit out of the LotR? Death of Boromir? Council of Elrond? I know, the Battle of the Pelennor fields. Anything that is not immediately essential to the story is always essential to make Middle-earth the rich fantastic world we all wish we had lived in or could experience and that all fantasy novelists aspire to.

    End of discussion and post.
  • There were also trolls at the battle outside of Mordor.

    Pippin slew one after it had crushed down Beregond. The troll fell on top of him and he passed out. Gimli later found him as his foot was sticking out.

    Interesting note about the name Grond. It was also the name of the mace of Morgoth in the Silmarillion. It's what he beat up Fingolfin with. Fingolfin rules. I still get choked up when I read about his battle.
  • If you want to avoid the slow link at the lordoftherings.net you can get the trailer directrly through http://www.apple.com/trailers/ on Apple's web site.

    Thank god the movie itself is Akamized, or none of us would ever see it.
    Cheers,
    WFE
    ===========
  • 20 years or so ago when my freinds and I were reading it, we though David Bowie might make a good Elric. 'Course, now he's a geezer, so... I could rattle off a dozen fantasy/sci-fi books that I'd like to see made into movies (OK, OK, Cook's Black Company series, Zelazny's... err... just about anything) which might be easier with computer-generated effects. But, let's face it, *all* movies are going to become easier and more realistic (or perhaps the word authentic is more fitting). I'm reading Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels now (which deal with the British Navy, around the era of Napleon. Think Star Trek: TOS, but on a sailing ship). I think the state of the art still isn't quite there yet (oceans are a still a real bitch to get right, I hear) but eventually you could make these novels into really kick-butt movies, without resorting to the old "models in a bathtub" way of filming battles which made all of the old swashbucklers look sorta cheesy. I read about a new Pearl Harbor movie (hmm.... targent... has anyone registered PerlHarbor as a forum for discussing Perl programming? :) in which a lot of the battle will probably be done on computers. The hired a few vintage airplanes, but to really fill the skies with zeros and the sea with wrecked battleships, it's going to have to be CG. Eventually, you figure that more and more of all types of productions will be going virtual. Many might bemoan this, but it will mean that a once huge, blockbuster film can be made for less... meaning more creative risk-taking, meaning lesser know books and totally new concepts coming to the screen. Personally, I can't wait for this sort of stuff to trickle down into the mere mortals realm. I dabble in computer graphics. I suppose, with the software and hardware at my disposal, I could probably remake the CG portions of TRON (well... of course, there's that pesky talent portion of the equation I'm lacking...) today. That was state of the art 20 years ago in movie making... I wonder what I'll be able to whip up on my desktop 20 years from now... stage my own personal battles with 60,000 orcs? Whee!
  • I always thought that rather than take the risk of sneaking it into Mordor, they should have gone the other direction and dumped it at sea. You could make a chain out of mithril (rust-proof), attach it to a big rock and dump it when you are several hundred miles west of the shore.

    Yeah, the problem would have surfaced again in a few millenia when the ring figured out how to get itself caught in someone's net or something. But in the meantime it would have been life as usual back in MiddleEarth. Destroying the ring meant the end of a lot of things - so don't destroy it at all.

    It was something that I've thought about before.
  • Jackson is either going to make a mockery of the story or kick much ass with his film adaptaion, and from the looks of the trailer, he is kicking much ass.
  • Hey Derek,
    Email me if and when you find a mirror/workaround.

    Mr. X
  • There are a few reasons.

    1) The ring is more dangerous to more powerful people as the temptation to try and use it for good would be overwelming.

    2) Hobbits are suppost to be able to resist it for longer, for some reason.

    3) To take it away by force would likely drive the person mad (is Gollum)

    4) Elves, and Ents would be to obvious, part of the problem was that they could not defeat Mordor by force of arms.

    5) Saruon would be able to sense Gandauf and a high elf.

    It's been a while since I read it so I'm not sure.

    Glynn
  • Well I haven't done all the collateral reading--I've just read the four books (Hobbit + LOTR), and this is my take on the Solo Frodo thing--hobbits have extraordinary constitution and incredibly ordinary ambitions. Key to keeping the Ring from falling into evil hands was keeping the Ring from hands that would become evil under its influence. nb Saruman and Boromir's lust, and Gandalf's refusal to take possession of the Ring. Every other wise and powerful character likewise refused to take custody, knowing that the temptation would be beyond their ability to resist. Frodo didn't have that problem. Anyway, that's my $0.0199999999 with a Pentium FP erratum.
  • How about this: The ring had it's own agenda and went where it wanted. Even if they had tried to give it to someone else the ring wouldn't have stayed if it didn't want to. I personally believe it could, in a small way, see into the future so it's possible that it believed that Frodo was it's best way of getting to Sauron, which may have actually been true. This leads me to believe that if someone other than Frodo had taken responsibility for the ring Sauron still might not have gotten his hands on it. It's been said already that if left to Frodo the ring would not have been destroyed. Gollum was the key.

  • TROLLS! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry this was just a Troll.

  • download link (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Good news, the guys at movie-list.com [movie-list.com] have a good download link.
    Now, let's everybody rush there all at once so we can /. the poor place :-)
  • Hey - it worked.

    I'll put the MPEG files up at http://house.ofdoom.com/~hungerf3 /video/lotr.rxml [ofdoom.com]
    They'll go up as they finish encoding, and stay up until someone asks me to take them down.
  • I don't think I can get this converted to mpeg.
    I'm making one more attempt by trying to edit the file headers to get around some annoyances, but I have little hope of it working...

    -Pathwalker
  • Sorry - I can't get a good encode - I think I need to reinstall premiere. Every file I've encoded has had something wrong with it...
  • Here's how I downloaded it:

    1. Download little 2k stub file.
    2. set netscape to prompt before opening quick time files.
    3. click on stub movie.
    4. when netscape asks, choose save.

    simple. Now getting it into a different format is much more tricky...

  • Mind sharing how you converted it?
    I gave up after resorting to hexediting the header in an attempt to disable the sprite tracks so premiere might be able to load it...

    -Pathwalker
  • Not this file - it disables save an export...
  • QT Pro wont let you export files in general or just this particular one? I've already done several Sorenson->Cinepak conversions with QT Pro running in a VMware instance.

    QT Pro refuses to save or export this particular file.

    Premiere refuses to recognize it as a valid Quick Time file (I think the extra "sprite tracks" are causing the problem with premiere)
    If I don't see a URL for a MPEG version posted in a while, I'll try running my TV-out into my video capture card and see what I can get.

    -Pathwalker
  • I'm working on it - this one is more tricky than most - It's crashed premiere twice so far...

    If/When I get it converted, I'll post a URL.
  • You've received a lot of good answers here, but this pointlet has been overlooked so far:

    Sauron was a overwhelming, mass-power, crush-and-dominate kinda guy. He expected the Ring to be taken up by some sort of Hero, and openly used against him. He was searching for the Ring so desperately not only because he wanted the power of it for himself, but because he feared it in other hands.

    To him, the concept that the forces of good might actually wish to _destroy_ it never occured to him.

    And Gollum had shown (via Gandalf's interrigation of him) that it was possible to slip into Mordor unnoticed, if you were inconspicuous enough.

  • McKellen [imdb.com] has some interesting notes [mckellen.com] on his website [mckellen.com] Worth a read...

    Jón
  • Excellent joke - I'd give this a [funny] if I had some spare points but I'm saving all mine to convert to beenz which I'll then convert into flooz and finally I might convert them into speedybucks which will allow me to get 0.0001% off a crap cd from a company nobody has ever heard of.

    In the meantime I'd just like to say Yeah! I've been waiting for this film ever since I read the books for the first time - they are still the most re-read story I own.

    That previous cartoonish attempt sucked as well but this looks like the guys in charge (Peter Jackson of Bad Taste fame) have the same mindset as myself.

    :)

    Troc

  • Right click on the link, and save it to the disk!

    That doesn't work because the links on the Apple and New Line page connect you to some incy wincy 9k .mov file, whereupon you will be sent the trailer as streaming video.

    You still need to have the QuickTime player to be able to receive and watch the stream, but then at least you can save the file. Just look for the temp file on your drive (they try to hide it soemwhere) where QuickTime buffers the stream -- it saves the entire file so you can jump around and watch more than once without downloading again, but it deletes it when you (I'm not sure which) close the window or quit the application. The file is called something like "QTPluginTemp1234567", or just search for files created today, sorted by size. Then just copy it somewhere else before it gets deleted.

    I do wish they'd quit trying to obfuscate things this way; it's so silly. For one thing, like CSS, SDMI, etc., it can never really work, so all they'll accomplish is making legitimate use (not that there's necessarily even anything illegitimate about the other uses, even if they don't like them) less convenient and pissing off customers, but they also should not even try. I understand that the "content providers" want to keep some control on where their content goes, but half the point of putting it on the web in a digital format is that people can save it, to view at their pleasure, or to show off to friends. Especially that last -- given that this is a trailer for an upcoming movie, wouldn't you think that they'd want it to be seen by as many people as possible? Letting us keep local copies can only be good for them. Probably half a dozen people will see this as a result of my keeping a local copy who wouldn't see it otherwise. They should pay me for the publicity.

    But even when it's not actually better for them, they should realize that accessibility is desirable. If I just wanted to watch the content as they present it, I'd watch it on TV instead of in a low-res window on a small screen; hence, if they only want me to watch it that way, they should just broadcast it on TV. Keeping the file is what I as a customer want, and it doesn't cost them anything, so why should they go to all that trouble trying to inconvenience me, especially when it won't work anyway?


    David Gould
  • roamer,

    One little problem: how about giving us record label and the catalog numbers for your Blind Guardian's albums? I'd like to get them but without that information, I'm not going to be able to order them online....
  • Surely you jest.

    I prefer a REAL CD disk (since I have a home stereo CD player, a CD boombox and a car stereo CD player). ;-)
  • I've been hearing the rumours for this film for years upon years, I'm so glad it is FINALLY in production. If there is one trilogy that is really under exposed to the world it's Tolkien's. Star Wars is nice and all and gets props for technical wizardry but if you want good depth (Star Wars is a typical space opera with higher budget effects) you HAVE to go with LotR. I find it a bit depressing that all of the LotR stuff I have ever seen has been such poor quality and had little depth. The Super Nintendo video game sucked troll balls and I've never seen a good game reproduction of the trilogy. Maybe now with the movie exposure it will make its way into other media forms. I'd buy a MMPG if it were based on LotR or the Hobbit. Besides those you could easily use the world of the Silmarilion or the Second Age with Numenor. Fanboys unite!
  • Show me some FTP space, I'll show you a 60MB trailer. Email me.
  • If you have mirror space you'd like to spare, email me with the info.
  • I'm not sure if I can get around this anti-saving stuff, but in case I can, I'd like some volunteers for mirrors.
  • At work, I have a WinNT box on my desk and access to a RHL 6.1 box. Can someone tell me how to convert the QT file to MPG (either in Win or Linux)? I might make it available if I can convert it...

    Eric
  • Huh??
    "Back to the Future" was released in 1985, part 2 in 1989 and 3 in 1990. There weren't going to BE any sequels originally, but when the green light was given, Zemeckis wanted to do 2 and 3 back to back to shorten the time between films.
    That's 5 years between 1 and 3, while Star Wars was 1977, Empire in 1980 and Jedi in 1983, making 6 years between 1 and 3. How is this so different?
    and OF COURSE the re-release of the Star Wars trilogy was not drawn out: the movied were ALREADY MADE!

    Geez, I was 6 when Star Wars came out, and I remember getting totally jazzed up for both Empire and Jedi.

    I mean, come on, it takes time to make movies, ya know :)

    Pope

  • While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.

    May be a bit off topic, but I've heard that LOTR is a favorite read among neonazis. Probably a result of the very clear differences between wrong and right, good and bad etc... It might also have to do with the obvious skin colour of elves and orcs, but I've never asked a neonazi...

    IANAN but I can see that there are certainly elements that might appeal. I always found it interesting that Tolkein and C.S.Lewis had free, white, wild Northern and Western kingdoms that were under attack from the South and the East. In LOTR there are cruel Haradrim with dark skins and oliphaunts who are a mixture of harsh noble cruelty and corrupt evil. There are the swart Southerners that have been interbred by Saruman with orcs to make slant-eyed half-men such as Bill Ferny's friends or the Isengard servants. In Lewis's work there are the Calormen to the south who have curved swords and eat oil on their bread instead of good honest English butter. The orcs in LOTR always have scimitars too instead of decent upright straight swords.

    I think that this "foreigness" is a quick way to feel that the other group is not human. That supposedly is what racists and neo-nazis are all about - emphasizing difference. Tolkein was doing it for dramatic effect, utilizing something that really was probably quite common, a feeling that "Foreigners are fiends and abroad is unutterably bloody" and that "The wogs begin at Calais" [quotes from one of Nancy Mitford's characters.

    All that said I still find those writers (especially Tolkein, he's not as in-your-face-Xtian as Lewis and his world has a much greater depth not matched by any other fantasy author) amazing.

    I am torn about whether or not to see the movie though. I am afraid that its images will pollute the private ones that I have....what to do what to do!

  • The Council of Elrond discussed this very issue, and two reasons were given.

    1. Such a large well-armed war party would have drawn way too much unwelcome attention, and the "they'll never suspect this motley crew could possibly have anything so valuable" approach seemed more likely to succeed. This turned out to be true.
    2. Many of the big decision-makers at the CoE believed that there was more to hobbits in general, and this hobbit (Frodo) in particular, than met the eye*, particularly with respect to being able to resist the ring's mental "pull". This also turned out to be true.

    * ...or Eye. Get it?

  • >If I recall, there were no trolls in Lord of the Rings; they're not organized by Mordor

    Trolls are explicitly mentioned as being among the troops commanded by the Captain of Minas Morgul on the battle before the Gates of Mordor, staged to distract Sauron from the hobbit who was at that same moment climbing the slopes of Mount Doom with the Ring. Actually these were a special kind of troll bred by Sauron, called Olog-Hai. Pippin saved Beregond by killing one.

  • In trying to save the movie myself, before reading these comments, I discovered yet another way to do it. It's significantly more complicated than the rest, and I don't really recommend it, but here goes.

    1. Get Quicktime Pro (by whatever means necessary) and try to save the movie. It yells at you. Apparently, they don't want you to save the movie. Reminds you of the whole DVD mess, doesn't it? Anyway...

    2. Look at the page that launched Quicktime. No hints. Fire up filemon, and notice that it's reading some file in windows\temp.

    3. Look at the file. It's zero bytes. What the hell? Quit Quicktime. The file disappears. argh.

    4. Download the whole movie again, since they don't want you to save it anywhere... and try to copy the file. Bzzt: Sharing violation. Tricky bastards.

    5. Now the fun begins. With Quicktime still running, kill Windows. Entirely. Turn off the power.

    6. When the computer restarts, let Scandisk run. It'll find about 28 MB in lost clusters. Save the file.

    7. Back in Windows, look at the file with a hex editor. It starts off with something that is apparently the Quicktime file header, and then either random bytes or the actual movie. Assume that it's the movie, and trim off the end of it since there's some extra crap there, but that shouldn't be too hard. (You can also look at other QT4 files and see how many ASCII 0 characters to leave at the end of the file, if you want.)

    8. Watch the movie. It works. Brag to your friend about your 1337 sk1lz.

    9. Accidentally delete the file that just took two hours of hacking to get. Complain to your friend because you're such a dumbass.

    10. Go read the comments on Slashdot to see if anyone else has managed to get the file. Not surprisingly, someone has.

    11. Not content to just blindly accept someone else's solution, try it yourself. Load the movie yet again, save it to your favorites, find the file that stores the favorites, and get the URL out of it.

    12. Have Quicktime crash, completely screwing up the graphics in Windows, and requiring another restart. (Granted, this step is somewhat out of your control, but with a little luck it'll happen.)

    13. Finally, just download the file (it's all one URL... complaints about this later.): http://a912.g.akamai.net/5/912/51/7f33d9e39a6b87/
    1a1a1aaa2198c627970773d80669d84574a8d 80d3 cb12453c02589f25382
    f668c9329e0375e81785ea61cd36a 40938a41385e948b71d7cf058bd1c8ef765cc3 f
    /lo tr_640_full.mov

    14. Post your method to Slashdot (Hey Rob, what's a "lameness filter"?) and hope somebody moderates it up as Funny^H^H^H^H^HInformative.

    Have a nice day. :-)

  • Actually, for the most part - yes...

    There is one main guy they (meaning "Hollywood") hire to do the voiceovers for trailers (I can't remember his name) - he is on nearly EVERY trailer. It is something about his voice, and the way he does it - he can make a comedy trailer funny, and an action trailer "quickening", and a horror trailer downright scary.

    There are very few of these trailer voice "actors" - and this guy is one of the top dogs...
  • . . . the cartoon I will be pissed. They are going to do the movie in three installments. Each appearing about a year apart. The cartoon also did it this way, but they never finished the two towers and return of the king. I'm sure this movie has enough financial backing that it will get done. There are enough people who have read the books and loved them who will go see the movie. I'm sure that it will be better than Star Wars.
  • ...before somebody converts it to MPEG?

  • Music (Score:2)

    by roamer ( 70273 )
    Slightly off topic, but fitting in the same thread, any of you Tolkien fans might want to try out Blind Guardian. They are very deep, hard-hitting band that writes 90% of there music around Tolkien's stories and themes. Definitely not for the faint of heart or wannabe fans- it is pretty heavy stuff, and most of the songs relate more to the Silmarillion than the Lord of the Rings (ex. "Curse of Feanor", "Mordred's Song", "Noldor (Dead Winder Reigns)"etc). Some of their stuff does pertain to the Lord of the Rings- for instance "The Lord of the Rings" song is just a rendition of the opening verse on the books- the Orchestral version of it is excellent! (for the record, these guys have been doing symphonic metal for years, way longer than Metallica S&M, and unlike Metallica, Hansi from Blind Guardian actually rights all the music for all the instruments you here in all their songs). Anyway, just a quick promo for an excellent Tolkien based band...moderate me down if you think I need it, I don't really care. Whatever you do though, check out their album "Nightfall in Middle Earth". Oh, and just a warning, Yahoo lists them as a death metal band, but don't let that worry you, because death metal they are not (I loathe death metal), they are pretty different though. For more information, go to http://www.ba-stuttgart.de/~bziller/blind_guardian /
    or feel free to contact me.
    Icq#:25834656

  • The Ents would have had a difficult time with the Great River between Fangorn forest and Mordor.
  • The movies will be released on a three year train. While I think it's cool to draw it out, I liked the faster releases of "Back to the Future" and the rerelease of "Star Wars IV-VI".

    I recall the big gap between Star Wars movies in my childhood, and it was way too spread. Almost all interest had died out in one before the next one began.

    As for LotR, I wonder what they'll do to boost the second volume, "The Two Towers." Most people find that volume to be a hard bridge to cross between the more exciting introduction and conclusion volumes. Lots of very important things happen in TT, but it holds less interest if you're not interested in war strategy.

  • If I recall, there were no trolls in Lord of the Rings; they're not organized by Mordor.

    In the Hobbit, three trolls were kept up past their bedtime, and they turned to stone.

    I just want to see their rendition of Shelob. Do it wrong, and that half-goddess giant spider will come off very unbelievably.

  • He expected the Ring to be taken up by some sort of Hero, and openly used against him.

    Yes, and this is actively used as a strategy by Aragorn - that is why he uses the Palantir before venturing on the Paths of the Dead - he challanges Sauron, so as to hope that Sauron is fooled into believing that Isildur's heir weilds the Ring.

    This draws more of Sauron's forces out of Mordor, thus making it easier for Frodo.

    Aragorn does admit later however, that he didn't expect the response to be as swift as it is - he barely comes in time.

  • How'd it get it's power?

    Sauron actually made it and let a 'large part' of his power pass into it. He learnt the skill from Celebrimbor, a High-Elvish descendant of Feanor (see The Silmarillion) who made the Three Rings. They appear to have collaborated on the Seven and the Nine.

    You'd think a descendant of Feanor (and Celebrimbor is only four or five generations down) would have been wary of Morgoth's lieutenant.

    • Frodo was given the ring by his adopted uncle Bilbo, who found it/stole it from Gollum in The Hobbit
    • The Elves' power was fading by the time LOTR happened. LOTR is the end of the Third Age of Middle Earth. There were no companies of Elven cavalry at this point.
    • If the Ring had been openly marched to its destruction, Sauron would have noticed and intercepted with about 100x as many orcs as there were in the Ring's entire escort. Secrecy was a major strategy



    Dracos
    "Integer: a number that represents any valid floating-point value"
  • Thank you. That was a very silly memory fudge on my part.

    Morgoth was the rogue of the Valar and was taken down by his own kin. Sauron was the strongest of Morgoth's Maiar(sp?) servitors. I haven't reread the Simarillion since my freshman year of college, wheras I reread TLotR in the past couple of years.

    I was actually thinking of Earendil and Beren(?) the one handed who retrieved one of the Simirils from Morgoth's crown. Men played a minor role in the war of the elves against Morgoth and his servents, and they were rewarded with the Isle of Numenor, within sight of Valinor. The elves of Beleriend and other Noldor fortifications were nonetheless potent enough to stick in Sauron's memory. He respected their power, but learned to warp it against them by insinuating himself in their circles to betray them to his master Morgoth.

    By the third age, most of the power displayed by remnants of the high elven lords appears related to words and the light of the last remaining Simiril: Earendil's star. Sauron was pretty well familiar with the power of the Simirils. IIRC, as soon as Sam used the Phial on Shelob, Sauron's eye started to drift his way. Sauron was not worried, however, as he had one of his most potent allies watching the path: Shelob.

    You are completely right in your recounting of the fall of Numenor, etc. I was just mixing things together in my mind a bit.

    B. Elgin

  • So the new question is why wasn't the ring given to a group of well-trained elven commandos to sneak it into Mordor instead of a group of hobbits.

    Short Answer from someone who studied the books (including the Simarillion) too closely for his own good...

    Sauron did not take hobbits seriously. Nobody would entrust the fate of the world to a gaggle of pint-sized twerps. Elves on the other hand were a well known enemy. He had been fighting the high elves to one degree or another for millenia. He watched his lord and master Morgoth brought down by a combination of high elves and the men Aragorn was decended from. These enemies had specific patterns he could watch for. The moment Sam invoked the Phial of Galadriel to fight Shelob, Sauron knew something was up, because that was high elven magic.

    Legolas was sent because he was a grey elf. High elves were simply too distinctive and obvious. Sending a high elven lord like Glorfindel or Elrond's sons would be like sending in a panzer armed with a searchlight and a cannon into a sniper position. As soon as it fired once, you would know exactly where it was. It's trail would not be too hard to follow either. Grey elves didn't have that same type of power, because they never left Middle Earth to go dwell with the not-quite-gods.

    B. Elgin

  • For those w/o QT 4.1.1 (yes, 4.1.1), http://www.theonering.net [theonering.net] has teaser broken out into frames with some commentary on each -- the whole presentation takes up 8 screen pages.
  • The answer is pretty simple really: gathering together a kickass army of elves, ents, humans etc and trotting off to mount-doom to take on The Enemy directly would have been too risky. Sauron had become too powerfull and The Ring would have been captured and Suaron would win etc etc (and anyway, the Elves would never again ally with man - the last defeat of Sauron was the Last Alliance of Mena and Elves: but that's a whole other story). Now, the only option left was to get the Ring into Mordor by stealth. Hence the ligh-footed Hobbits. Gandalf knew much of Hobbit lore and knew that they were a hardy bunch and would putt up with much to acheive their goal.

    For more info on this, read the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and/or TheOneRing.net [theonering.net]


    Quix0te - Wales, UK
  • It should also be noted that hobbits were very resistant to the power of "fading" and to the evils of the ring itself. This is pointed out numerous times in the books. The fact is that hobbits are very tough concerning resisting magic.

  • First Post (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07, 2000 @02:28AM (#1146328)
    Yessss, precious, we haves the first postesses!

  • Re:OK, this has been bothering me for years (Score:3)

    by Aurik ( 11003 ) on Friday April 07, 2000 @04:43AM (#1146329)
    This wasn't THE most important event in the entire history of Middle-Earth, but it was certainly one of the three most important. In order, those would have been: The casting out of Morgoth (and the end of the First Age), the defeat of Sauron at the hands of the Last Great Alliance of Elves and Men (end of the Second Age), and finally the destruction of the One Ring (ending the Third Age).

    There are a number of reasons that Elrond and the White Council chose not to use force to destroy the Ring, but instead sent a small Fellowship to destroy it. The first reason is that the strength of the Elves and Men of Numenor was much less than that in previous Ages. Many of the greatest Elves had been slain in prior Wars against Morgoth and Sauron, and many of the rest had returned across the Sea to Valinor. The only Elven strongholds with the strength to combat Sauron were in Rivendell and Lorien, and few of the race of Numenor remained as well (including the Rangers of the North and the Stewards of Gondor). They simply did not have the strength for a full-on assault on Mordor.

    Additionally, who would they give the Ring to? Gandalf? Galadriel? Aragorn? The desire to use the Ring would quickly overwhelm anyone with that kind of power, and they would find themselves in a position to overthrow Sauron; however, they would quickly be corrupted by the pure Evil of the ring. Of all the Ringbearers, only Frodo and Bilbo Baggins were pure enough of heart and free enough of desire and ambition to actually have a chance of resisting the temptation of the Ring, and in the end, Frodo even succumbed to the Ring's desire.

    Also, they did not send Frodo off "with just any friends he found along the way". Yes, the four hobbits seemed like unwise choices at the outset, but they all proved their worth by the end. However, Gandalf (in truth Olorin of the Maia) was one of the most powerful forces in Middle-Earth at the time (remember, he faced a Balrog one-on-one and defeated it). Aragorn was the Heir of Isildur, and probably one of the few Men in Middle-Earth that Sauron actually feared, and he wielded the blade that had originally defeated Sauron at the end of the Second Age. Boromir was the Heir to the Steward of Gondor, and a great warrior in his own right. Gimli and Legolas both proved to be outstanding warriors as well, felling over ninety orcs in the battle of Helm's Deep between the two of them.

    When given all of the options (hiding the Ring, sending a massive force to destroy the Ring, or sending a small Fellowship to destroy the Ring), this was the ONLY choice that had any reasonable chance of success.

  • Don't forget ..... (Score:3)

    by taniwha ( 70410 ) on Friday April 07, 2000 @03:17AM (#1146330) Homepage Journal
    They are making a trilogy .... 3 full length movies .... not 1

  • Re:OK, this has been bothering me for years (Score:3)

    by Vicegrip ( 82853 ) on Friday April 07, 2000 @03:20AM (#1146331) Journal
    Fundamental to the lore of the ring is the fact that while it gave immense power to whomever wore it, it also possessed that individual totally. Witness the effect the 9 lesser rings had on the riders.

    Gandalf himself said he could not even hold it in its hands lest he become enthralled with the power it held. The ring needed to be carried by somebody who didn't care for its power and was innocent. That person would take longer to be possessed by the ring. It took the immense willpower and self control for the elf queen not to keep the ring when Frodo gave it to her... even then she had to give the ring back to Frodo before the desire for power consumed her.

    There is also the additional side-effect to the person that destroyed the ring. The ring gradually transformed those who wore it into wraiths. Thus, when the ring was destroyed, in all likelyhood, he who wore the ring would be destroyed as well as much of what gave him former sustenance would be gone. In a way, Frodo was the guinea pig of the wizards and elves ... or their hero. He selflessly sacrificed himself to destroy something everyone else knew they wouldn't have the courage to do.

    And, on a final note, in the end even Frodo failed. Were it not for Golum, the ring would have fallen back into the hands of Sauron

  • Re:Synopsis (Score:3)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Friday April 07, 2000 @03:28AM (#1146332) Homepage Journal

    Two orc battles in LotR.

    The human Riders of the Rohirrim, who knew nearly nothing about the saga of the Rings, but were next-door neighbors to the smooth charlatan, Saruman. It was Saruman's Uruk-hai (white hand) orc armies that were defeated on the Plains of the Pellenor.

    Sauron's orc army remained in Mordor, until there was a clash at the front gates; this was fought by the humans of Gondor.

    Elves don't breed like rabbits, humans do. Elves were giving up on life, waning in power and will to go on. Rivendell was an outpost, and Lothlorien was an enclave.

    It has been years since I picked the books up, but I self-studied it pretty deeply at the time. If I'm inaccurate here, forgive.

    While Tolkien steadfastly denied any metaphor for WWII politics, many scholars tied the Shire to England, the Elves to France, Mordor to Germany, Saruman's Orthanc to Japan, and the Rohirrim/Gondor pair as USA's two-fronted war.

  • I can't stop watching it [spoilers] (Score:3)

    by Dracos ( 107777 ) on Friday April 07, 2000 @02:37AM (#1146333)

    Even though the first movie is a year and a half away, I think this is a better trailer than some that are showing in theaters now.

    The most technically impressive shots are the two that show the orc army marching through Mordor...Massive is probably the best cg software in existence. And, watching the letters get burning into the ring is just awe inspiring.

    I'd love to be a fly on the wall when George Luca$ watches this. He wanted to make LOTR in the mid-eighties but couldn't get the rights to it. What did we get instead? Willow. Sad but true.

    www.theonering.net [theonering.net] has a shot by shot analysys here [theonering.net].

    I was in their chat room earlier...watch for the preview to be mirrored around the web.




    Dracos
    "Integer: a number that represents any valid floating-point value"
  • Here's the URL for the 27.5MB 640x320 mov, direct from akamai.net. I tried severaly times putting this all together and properly "a href"'d, but slashdot just gives me a "Lameness filter encountered: post aborted" (is that because the URL is too long or something???)... so you'll have to cut-and-paste from below. SOrry!

    http://a912.g.akamai.net/5/912/51/7f33d9e39a6b87 /

    1a1a1aaa2198c627970773d80669d84574a8d80d3cb12453 c02589f25382f668c 9329e0375e81785ea61cd36a40938a41385e948b71d7cf058b d1c8ef765cc3f

    /lotr_640_full.mov

  • Direct links - all that you need.. (Score:5)

    by Gridle ( 17502 ) on Friday April 07, 2000 @03:34AM (#1146335)
    lotr_640_full.mov [mbnet.fi] (29 MB) (Now I really hate the damn AI of /., it didn't let me put the absurdly long direct URL into a href)

    QuickTime Installer.zip [apple.com] (8 MB) (Win32 version)

    I, as many others, like to actually download the files instead of downloading a downloader program which downloads something which perhaps downloads something, that you can't even save to your HD after downloading it. These links work as of my writing, let's hope nobody changes the URLs.

  • Can't save the trailer? Here's how to do it. (Score:5)

    by lythari ( 118242 ) on Friday April 07, 2000 @02:42AM (#1146336)
    For some reason, Apple or New Line have rigged it so that you can't save the trailer to hard drive. Fortunately, there are two ways [aint-it-cool.com] to get around this.
  • Right, I need an answer to this question from a Lord of the Rings fan. The question is this:

    Given that the Ring was so goddamned important, and that its destruction was literally the central event of the entire history of Middle-Earth, why did the supposedly wise Elves entrust this mission to a young hobbit with no military experience, supported by any friends he happened to pick up along the way? Particularly as the hobbit in question had never previously been more than a few miles from his native village.

    Surely, the obvious solution would have been to assign a company of elven cavalry with magic swords, supported by Ents, and accompanied by guides familiar with the terrain. It's clear from the book that the elves could raise a huge military force when they had to -- why not use it for this mission?

    The really annoying thing is that there *is* a reason why this was not an option, and a Lord of the Rings fan told me what it was three years ago. I forgot it, though, and it's been driving me mad ever since.

    thanks, streetlawyer

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