World Enough and Time

Lucky! I watched the first two over vacation but never got to the third. I don't think I could watch them all in one day lol.

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It's difficult to watch them all in one day - it takes time. We try to fit it in between 10 am and 10 pm, but we always start a little late. We cheated a little this year:

maaboroshi fast-forwarded through a lot of the scenes where Frodo, Sam and Gollum and climbing and squabbling (and squabbling and climbing). Those are not our favourite parts. In fact, much as we admire Gollum, his parts are our least favourite scenes. We like the prettier men.

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I completely agree w/ you. He is my least favorite aspect of the entire series. That's part of why my favorite movie is Fellowship!

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I certainly like "Fellowship", but I also like the way the Aragorn plot (the important part!) escalates in "Return of the King". And it has good Faramir bits!

I'm not sure I could pick a favourite movie of the tree. My favourite bits are scattered all through.

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Yes I do like all the Faramir bits in Return of the King. And the way it all comes together. I just, on the whole, always prefer the beginning of a journey for some reason. And I loved the Fellowship formation.

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I love so many things about "Fellowship", and our meeting with Strider at Bree is one of my favourites bits of the whole series. I also love the Council of Rivendell and the Elrond scenes. Actually I could go on listing 'favourite bits' in that movie all morning.... But that doesn't differentiate it from the others!

I adore Argorn (and his scenes) throughout, with a few lapses, but I like his tough'n'scruffy looks in "Fellowship", before we know he's a king-in-the-making.

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I teared up when Gandalf and Boromir died. *sniff* And God I love Faramir and Legolas!

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Yeah, I love 'em all. Faramir is just gorgeous - I was thinking that as I
watched yesterday. Aragorn remains my favourite (right up there with
Lymond, for example) but my goodness... what great characters they all
are.

But Gollum is horrible to look at, even when - especially when - he's so
well depicted and characterized.

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creativeelf.livejournal.com

That is awesome! It sounds likes fun :D

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It's a great thing to do to start off the year - rather a lot of movie to cram into one day (or try to), but that's part of the fun. We had lots of great food, too, thanks to

maaseru.

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duncanmac.livejournal.com

Sigh. I wish I could have come to join you ... but I was not up till well into the afternoon. I also seem to have picked up a cold.

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Oh, no! Feel better soon.

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abrakadabrah.livejournal.com

I watched Fellowship with my nieces over the holiday. It was new to all of them, despite the fact that for years I've been trying to get my oldest niece to pick up the Hobbit and begin. I had to stop it a lot to explain what was going on.

It was a funny experience, some cultural discontinuities. My middle niece was obsessed with the fact that Elijah Wood's were too large, and that in parts of FOTR, one was bigger than the other. She was right about that, I hadn't noticed. So they thought he looked weird. Although Aragorn was pronounced "hot" by the oldest. Well, sure. Of course, she didn't meet Faramir yet.

The oldest one spent a lot of time texting, while watching the second half, because "she has a life."
When we came to the end and passed the two giant statues of former kings of Gondor on the river, the middle one wanted to know what the poses of the statues meant, with their hands sticking out. Did it mean, "talk to the hand"?

LOL! What to say.

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I watched Fellowship with my nieces over the holiday.

What fun!

My middle niece was obsessed with the fact that Elijah Wood's were too large

His... ears? Eyes? Hands? (Obviously, whatever it is, I hadn't noticed.)

Although Aragorn was pronounced "hot" by the oldest. Well, sure.

A young woman of good taste! Or at least, not blind.

Of course, she didn't meet Faramir yet.

A treat in store for her.

Did it mean, "talk to the hand"?

LOL - what a great interpretation! A whole new insight into Gondorian kingship!

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The whole thing??? All twelve hours of it???

I usually make a whole week's project of it, and watch one DVD per night.

But it is one of the most beautiful movies ever made (and the scenery is nice, too [g]).

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The whole thing???

Almost. We were a little late in starting and we missed the very end, and there was some fast-forwarding going on during some of the Gollum scenes, but except for that - yes.

Doing it over a week would be fun. I must propose that to my friends!

Yes, it's gorgeous. And I love it for all the reasons I love the books, which were very formative in my life.

Not to mention, loving it for Aragorn's sake.

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I didn't read the books until after I saw the movies. Well, I take that back. I made it to about a third of the way into TTT (I got as far as the Ents) in high school, then gave up, and didn't try again until after I'd seen the movies. Even then, the only way I made it through all three books was by using them as my treadmill books. I don't think I'd have made it through them even after the movies if I'd just sat down and tried to read them.

I love the movies. The pace of the books is too leisurely for me.

As for Aragorn, you and I both fall into the demographic split Lois talked about back when the movies first came out -- the under-30 set imprinted on Legolas, and us more mature ladies imprinted on Aragorn [g]. He sure did clean up nice at the end of RotK. Except that he looked like he was wearing a rather anachronistic brown cotton turtleneck under his robes at the coronation, which kind of jerked me out of the story for a few seconds the first time I saw it. Other than that, however, he was perfectly lovely.

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filkferengi

For added savor, Lois said that Aragorn was Cazaril, so you can get twice the lusting & drooling for the same price. ;)

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Hee. Interesting image! I'm not sure I can do the right equations here, but it's nice to know what Lois was thinking.

Aragorn is one of my Great Heroes of All Time, along with Lymond and Aral and Captain Jack Harkness and Sidney Carton and a few others.

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filkferengi

Would Miles & co. have read Dickens? I can quite see Miles enjoying playing Sidney Carton [very dramatically, of course].

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Yes, I think Miles would enjoy Sidney Carton....

I don't recall the novels ever talking about books much, except for texts and the like. Aral and Cordelia don't seem particularly bookish. In fact, the books talk very little about popular culture. Do they go to plays? Watch movies and TV? Do they go to concerts, and if they do, is it rock or classical music>

I think in absence of a lot of had facts we can assume they are 'sort of like us', with variation as storyline dictates.

In which case, I can just picture Miles being most fond of A Tale of Two Cities and doing a Sidney Carton role very dramatically indeed.

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I read Lord of the Rings when I was fifteen. I read half of The Fellowship of the Ring on a long bus ride from Toronto to Parry Sound, and the rest on arrival, because by the time I got to Bree I couldn't put the book down. I don't remember why I loved it so much at that time, though I know why I love it subsequently:

(1) it evokes the thinking of a pre-modern age better than any other fiction I can think of

(2) I love the relationships between the characters - in a series almost totally without sex, there are personal links of love between all the characters, one way or another

(3) there's a beautiful sense of language

...Though I'm not sure I noticed #3 on first reading, or even on tenth reading, except that I was absorbing it.

The pacing is odd. Very odd. I always find that the first half of Fellowship is like reading a sequel to The Hobbit, which I didn't like much at all. Except for two chapters, or parts of two chapters. But at and then after Bree, I fell in love with Aragorn, and the whole high-toned early-medieval dark lyricism, and the evocation of cultures. I got a whole new appreciation of what Tolkien was doing after I read Tolkien: Author of the Century by Tom Shippey.

I love the movies too. There are places where I love the books a lot more - the movies messed up some of my favourite scenes, but enhanced others - but equally there are places where the movie is better. The Balrog, for example. I always found him a boring anti-climax in the book. In the movie, he's terrific.

he under-30 set imprinted on Legolas, and us more mature ladies imprinted on Aragorn [g].

Not that I have anything against Legolas [g].... But yes, Aragorn is the substantial one.

I never noticed the turtleneck bit in the coronation scene - why did you think it anachronistic? My general impression is that the costuming was as close to perfect as I have ever seen, with the beauty of the Elves and the toughness of the Men and the cuteness of the Hobbits. And the exquisite quilting on the cloak of Gandalf the White.

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Where's Parry Sound?

And, see, I loved The Hobbit. I read it any number of times when I was a kid. Which is one reason I think I was so disappointed in LotR when I tried to read it as a teenager.

As for Aragorn's turtleneck, it was the only article of clothing in the entire trilogy of movies that hit me as anachronistic. It looked like it came out of a Lands End catalog [g]. The rest of the costuming was so perfect...

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Where's Parry Sound?

Somewhere between Sudbury and Algonquin Park. On Georgian Bay, which is on Lake Huron. Or, to use Mal Reynold's term, at the corner of No and Where. Beautiful country, but remote.

I never read The Hobbit as a kid. I read it immediately after I read The Return of the King, with mind and heart all full of majestic heroism and epic grandeur. I didn't want cute Hobbits, I wanted Grand Heroes and Bilbo just didn't fit the bill.

I like Land's End catalogues... come to think of it, I like Aragorn's outfits, too....

I must watch it again just to see that turtleneck.

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So evidently it all depends on which you read first, The Hobbit or LotR. Since The Hobbit was meant to be read first, I win [g].

I like Lands End catalogs, too. Just not having their contents be worn by an ostensibly medieval style hero.

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Yeah, you win. But I have a longer book to love, so I win too. But I truly don't rally love all of it, so maybe it comes out as a tie.

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silverwhistle.livejournal.com

As for Aragorn, you and I both fall into the demographic split Lois talked about back when the movies first came out -- the under-30 set imprinted on Legolas, and us more mature ladies imprinted on Aragorn [g].

What about Boromir? My h/c complex kicked in massively…

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Yeah, but that's Sean Bean. I thought he went without saying...

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Good point!

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silverwhistle.livejournal.com

I haven't found him all that attractive in anything else! Just Boromir!

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He made a lovely Romeo a number of years ago, at least from the pictures I've seen of it (the production was in England, and I'm in the US).

And a terrific Sharpe. Did anyone else think that scene in Rivendell with the broken sword and Boromir's line "still sharp?" was a terrible play on words?

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Oh, and I should say that when I first saw the trailers for Fellowship I got all excited because I thought he was going to play Aragorn, and was utterly disappointed when I found out that he wasn't.

This disappointment only lasted until about thirty seconds into the Prancing Pony scene when I got my first eyeful of Viggo Mortensen, though [g].

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I really can't picture Sean Bean playing Aragorn, much as I have loved Sean Bean in every role I've seen him in. But Viggo Mortensen, whom I'd never heard of before these movies - I can't imagine anyone playing Aragorn so well. It isn't his looks, though his lankiness helps. It's his style.

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Yup. He really made that role his.

I hadn't seen him in anything before LotR, either.

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I've liked Sean Bean in just about everything I've seen him in. He has presence. Boromir is my favourite of his roles because I love all the movies and his Boromir lives up to what Tolkien wrote, but I've also loved him as Sharpe and Mellors and Ulysses and so on. And the villain in that Tom Clancy movie - I don't really like Tom Clancy movies but I did like the Sean Bean villainy. (Was that Patriot Games?) And wasn't he also a villain in National Treasure 1, or am I making that up? A quick trip to IMDb will tell me.

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silverwhistle.livejournal.com

Very few blonds sneak under my radar. I can count them on one hand.
Boromir I loved because he's Boromir, and my h/c complex kicks in. Also, when I made the mental image-shattering discovery that His Loveliness was probably blond, I started picturing him as rather like Sean-as-Boromir. So he's become my 'played by' image of Conrad!

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