In article <"/GUID:06C188DB6EC0D111BB61000000000001*"@MHS>, Lyth Chris <Chris.C.Lyth@> wrote:
The Saul Zaentz Production Company set out to film "The Lord of the >Rings"
using a revolutionary (for the time - and we're talking 1978 here)
half-animation system. Basically they filmed actors (and hundreds of
extras) and then animated using the film as a guide for the motion. The
effect, as I remember it, is really quite good.
I remember watching this. I didn't think too much of it. The animation
was bland and the voices bugged me. I think it had the hobbit characters
sounding like children.
They did indeed have high voices, but if they are as small as that you'd
expect them to. It's something to do with sound travelling at the same
speed through smaller voiceboxes (and also the reason why women have higher
voices, and men these huge lumps in their necks.)
The animation was less "disneyfied" because it was drawn over real actors,
yes. It was more "realistic" and less arty.
Unfortunately they didn't finish - my memory says that they ran out of
budget after filming the first book.
They got halfway through the second book as well in the film. I wasn't too
disappointed that they couldn't afford to finish.
But then you wouldn't be if you didn't like it.
Since I have only ever read LotR in the "trilogy as one book" form, I am a
bit hazy as to where one bit finishes and the next bit starts. The film
gets to the end of the battle in Helm's Deep, if my memory serves me right.
let's hope, please God, that it isn't Miramax.
Speilberg and Lucas are said to be intending to buy out the project from
Miramax. The Tolkien family are also said to be unhappy, though if they
watched Jackson's movies, (esp Heavenly Creatures) they would see
that he is a very skilled director whose films tend to be exactly what he
planned for them to be. The Fantastic type sequences in Heavenly
Creatures show a hand that would be able to capture the Tolkienesque
mood.
I guess they are afraid that it will go the way of "Aladdin" or "Quasimodo".
And rightly so, from what I have seen. Can you imagine Galadriel doing a
"Who Shall Have the Ring" song-and-dance routine with Frodo, with all the
elves of Lothlorien dancing around like the animated crockery in "Beauty and
the Beast"? Argh! Bring me my broadsword etc. >:-( =<-----
(BTW, if that sort of idea appeals to your warped and twisted little
imaginations, you should definitely read "Bored of the Rings" by the Harvard
Lampoon, which takes the rip out of LotR big-time. At least one person I
know considers it to be an act of high blasphemy. Judge for yourselves: it
is in the
IFIS library...)
If you haven't noticed, I like heavenly creatures and would reccommend
anyone reading this to get iot out on video.
Haven't seen it. Any possibility of a review (if it is F&SF related, and
you can do so without spoilers)?
BTW when I was reading my way through LotR for the first time,
I managed to get the first 2 books no problem, but it then took me
6 months to get my hands on Return of the King.
Like I said, I only read it as a trilogy. But it's in the
IFIS library, I
am sure.
Simon
---
"This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind" -Ecclesiastes 4:16
simon@ | Not affiliated to any religion
simon@ | Not affiliated to any politics
H (+44/0)1784 431998 | Not affiliated to any ideology
W (+44/0)1784 434568 (GMT/BST) | What does that make me?
"I have been asked to point out, as if you couldn't guess, that my rantings
are not the opinions of One Chip Solutions. So now you know, don't you..?"
