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Chatterbox: Blab About Books
TOLKIEN FANPAGE
Greetings, Tolkienites an...
Greetings, Tolkienites and Ringers! This is just where we talk about our fave characters, fave scenes, and everything. YAY TOLKIEN!!!!!
Also, who here has a crush on Legolas?!?! <3<3<3
submitted by Brooke e?, age 11, AR
(July 21, 2014 - 9:11 am)
(July 21, 2014 - 9:11 am)
Okay, I'm sorry, but I'm going to further clog up this thread with a couple of quotes. If the Admins choose to publish any of them in the Cricket Letterbox, I would be extremely gratified.
"Not all who wander are lost." ~Part of a poem by Bilbo
"Even the smallest person can change the course of history." ~Lady Galadriel
"Yet the deeds will not be less valiant for being unpraised." ~Aragorn
"Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. Therefore you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought." ~Gandalf
"No man am I! You look upon a woman." ~Eowyn (I have always loved this one as a terrfic feminist hurrah)
"You left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the Brave. I want to hear more about Sam. Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam." ~Frodo (from the movie)
(July 24, 2014 - 4:23 pm)
Sorry, I completely forgot the important part of the Gandalf quote. Here it is in full:
"There are other powers at work in the world, beside the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its master. Therefore, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought."
(July 25, 2014 - 1:45 pm)
WARNING:THIS POST WILL HAVE SPOILERS GALORE!
I love LotR! These are the only books where the books and movies are equally incredible!
MOVIES
MUSIC
Nobody has mentioned this yet, so I'm bringing it up. The music is incredible! The Shire music wants to make me get up and dance. Which is funny, because I don't dance.
FUN FACTS
In the Mines of Moria, Viggo Mortenstean was only filmed showing half of his face because he slipped at the beach and bruised his entire left face.
One of the extras liked a horse a lot so Viggo bought it for her.
Orlando Bloom originally auditioned for the part of Faramir.
Orlando Bloom got the part of Legolas 7 days before he graduated film school.
Liv Tyler (Arwen) never went to film school.
The monolouge Theodon has before Paloner Fields was his idea.
Sean Astin's (Sam) daughter plays his and Rosie's daughter at the end of RotK.
Christopher Lee (Sauroman) was the only person to meet Tolkein, and he gave him rights to play Gandalf.
All of the Riders of Rohan were New Zealand sheep harvesters (mostly).
If you paid thirty bucks, you could get your name in the credits.
Legolas's eyes are sometimes blue and sometimes brown.
Treebeard's voice is a messed with version of Gimli's.
Sean Astin gained 7 pounds to play Sam.
When they were shooting the Borimir death scene, at a lunch break they had the dead Borimir dummy and the waiter asked it what he wanted to eat. [This one is making me laugh out loud!--Admin]
Once Viggo was carrying around his sword and the cops almost arrested him.
I have am illion more, but I'll move on to my next topic.
CASTING
I think that Aragorn was cast perfectly.
Frodo? Not so much. With the faux accent and everything, eh. Not great.
Gollum was incredible. Andy Serkins was perfect. I watched a thing on the animation of Gollum. It was fascinating.
Sam was pretty good.
Some people don't think so, but Legolas was great.
Eoweyn was great.
Denethor was so good I wanted to knock him upside the head and then whack him with all of my papers from fifth grade. 15 pounds of paper. Ow.
Merry and Pippin had their ups and downs.
Sauraman was really good.
SPECIAL FEATURES
You should watch all of them. I have. Everything from horse to costume designings to filming to stunt doubles.
The Fellowship of the Cast is really good. Anything on Gollum is good, and the Day in the Life of a Hobbit is great. Really any of them are good, depending on what you like.
FAVORITE SCENES
I love the scene with the fireworks. That's hilarious.
The scene at weathertop.
The scene where Pippin is singing A Walking Song.
The Battle of Helm's Deep.
The Battle of Palener Fields. When Legolas shoots the oliphants.. priceless!
SCENES I HATE
The scene where Faramir walks out into the water in his dream and sees a dead Borimir.
After everything, when the fellowship is reunited and Frodo can only laugh.
PLACES WHERE I CRIED
When Frodo leaves to the Land of the Undying. It was so sad. He's just like bye, and that's it.
When Haldir dies.
Books
I hate how they cut out Tom Bombadil in the movies. How could they!
The books are incredible, but some parts are very draggy.
GENERAL RANT (Prepare yourself)
LotR is incredible. I love it so much! I will just sit down and watch all of the movies at once. I love anything to do with LotR and will talk about it for hours. This post is getting too long. Sorry Admins.
This post has a lot of typos. [Admin usually tries to fix typos, unless in a hurry.]
BTW my favorite character is Aragorn. There is another fanpage for lotr somewhere.
(July 30, 2014 - 8:44 pm)
THE PRECIOUS!!!!! Andy Serkis was awesome. I'm secretly an elf and I'm gonna find Leggy someday. I promise.
(July 31, 2014 - 9:10 am)
S.E., you are my third long lost sister.
FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES WITH ME THAT FRODO WAS CAST INCORRECTLY! I never liked Elijah Wood. He's just too American and the Hobbits and the Shire are supposed to be all British! Not to mention he never changes his expression in any of his scenes. The only two decent scenes is the one where he looks back after Gandalf falls in Moria with the expression of guilt and the one when he says "Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam."
And you are another Aragorn fan. The only other Aragorn fan on the CB. Thank you. *faints away* I mean, he is just so cool. And VM does the part so well. Stuart Townsend, who was originally cast as Aragorn, wouldn't have been nearly as good. Same idea, but he doesn't look like he has that proper meloncholy. Not to mention that VM seems like such a nice person, buying Arwen's stunt double the horse for her.
I loved all of the special features, like how in that interview thing for TT, Miranda Otto says, "I defy any woman to not fall in love with Aragorn." :) I really like the horse things in the extended edition features, though. Still disappointed that David Wenham can't actually ride. :/
The only thing about Legolas was that I felt Orlando Bloom was too young to play an Elf who is some few centuries old. Otherwise, I wasn't too upset with his performance.
I only found out that fact about VM bruising his cheek after I saw FotR again, but I do remember you only see the right side of his face in Moria.
I cried so much in the Grey Havens part, not so much because of Frodo's acting but because how Sean Astin and Billy Boyd and Dominic Monahan were just weeping like crazy and they had to film it THREE TIMES.
Re: the reuniting of the Fellowship, that is JUST what I've always thought! I mean, Frodo's practically gone to hell and back, there are so many things to say and explain, and he laughs??? The only kind of sweet thing is when Sam comes in and does his smile to Frodo.
I haven't mentioned the music yet? I am so ashamed so myself. I LOVE the Rohan theme. And the Eowyn theme. And the Hobbit theme. And the Fellowship theme. And the Ring theme. And the Gondor theme (is that the one at the end of the RotK trailer?) And May It Be. And Into the West. I listen to the soundtracks everyday and hum them like crazy. HOWARD SHORE IS A GENIUS! Have you heard that other song Annie Lennox recorded, "Use Well the Days"? It wasn't in any of the films, but it's on Youtube. It's so pretty.
(July 31, 2014 - 10:58 pm)
No, I haven't heard that. But those movies/books are great. Anyone who doesn't think so is a lunatic. They messed up the Hobbit pretty badly. The trailer for the 3rd looks good. I practicly screamed when I heard A Walking Song in the trailer. I love that scene. I'm probably seeing There and Back Again tomorrow. Has anyone seen it yet?
(August 1, 2014 - 9:44 am)
@ S.E.
I loved the trailer for Hobbit 3. At first I was like, okay, hm, then Pippin goes with his sepurchral intonations, "Home is behind" and I hyperventilated. And squealed. And laughed. And probably looked like a complete and utter fool to everyone around me. It does seem a little like cheating, though, to put something so beautiful from LOTR in the Hobbit trailer. :/
What are your opinions for the casting of Elrond, Theoden, Gandalf, Eomer, Boromir and Faramir?
(August 1, 2014 - 5:06 pm)
Elrond was perfect. A lot of people say differently, but I thought he was perfect. RTheoden. Eh. Gandalf. Okay. Eomer wan't really big for me. Boromir. PErdect! Faramir, pretty good.
Spammie says Ewon. Eowyn! She was perfect.
(August 5, 2014 - 8:46 pm)
EVERRINNE, SE, I'm going to make a RP where we're long lost sisters! One of us lives with her rich but neglectful mom. The other lives with her poor but really nice dad. The third lives with her scholarly, wise grandfather. THAT WOULD BE SOOO COOL!!
I'll put it on the inkwell soon!
(August 1, 2014 - 10:43 am)
http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/blababoutbooks/node/127272
Here's a link to the lotr fanpage from awhile ago.
(August 1, 2014 - 9:46 am)
My own scores in terms of casting, out of a possible 5 points.
Aragorn: 6/5. No explanation necessary.
Frodo: 2/5. Elijah Wood did not seem at all like Frodo, starting with the terrible accent. The only reason I didn't give him a 1 was because the last scene at Mount Doom was pretty awesome.
Sam: 4.5/5. Sean Astin was always so moving in all his bits, and really captured the spirit of Sam.
Merry and Pippin: 4/5. They weren't exactly like their book counterparts, but they were funny and acted decently.
Gandalf: 5/5. Ian McKellen was so philosphical and really gave Gandalf such a reassuring air.
Boromir: 5/5. Sean Bean made me appreciate the different sides of Boromir that I never got from the books.
Legolas: 4/5. Since Orlando Bloom didn't really have anything to do but look good and fight well, he carried it off well enough.
Gimli: 4/5. He also didn't have that much to do, but he always made me laugh and I love his brogue. "Bless you, laddie."
Faramir: 3.5/5. Maybe it was Peter Jackson's script changes or just David Wenham's acting, but Faramir did NOT have the sensitivity of the books, and I was pretty bummed by that. Without it, why would Eowyn fall in love with him?
Eowyn: 5/5. Miranda Otto is Eowyn; even when I read the books, I always picture her.
Eomer: 4.5/5. Karl Urben acts so unassumingly, you almost forget him, but he does have his own brand of genius.
Arwen: 4.5/5. Just had to look beautiful and ethereal and grave, all of which she accomplished well.
Galadriel: 4/5. Slightly creepier than I expected, but she had a pure Elvish power that none of the other Elves had, which I liked.
Gollum: 5/5. Pure genius.
Denethor: 4.5/5. Maddeningly good, but almost too cruel.
Theoden: 5/5. Really had the Rohirric aura.
Elrond: 4/5. He acted well, but he didn't quite seem as fatherly as I expected, especially since he is the mentor of both Aragorn and Arwen.
(August 8, 2014 - 5:35 pm)
TOP!
(August 15, 2014 - 3:58 pm)
Okay, who thinks that Orlando Bloom might not have made such a bad Faramir?
Because despite how much I like Faramir in the books, he doesn't show up on my list of favorite movie characters, and whether this is due to Peter Jackson's script changes or David Wenham's acting or just general coldness of eye, I don't know. But he didn't at all live up to how I pictured Faramir, which was a little disappointing.
Now, I don't know that Orlando would have done any better, but since Faramir is often called the "Robin Hood" of LOTR and Orlando Bloom is like Errol Flynn (he played Robin Hood in 1939), I don't know why not. Admittedly, Orlando doesn't exactly have much depth of personality either and looked flippin awesome as Legolas--I mean, who would have played Legolas then? *shudders to think*
But I don't think he could have done any worse, and it might have been interesting to see how that would have turned out.
(August 22, 2014 - 10:05 pm)
Yeah, I agree.
(August 26, 2014 - 9:17 pm)
(September 12, 2014 - 12:46 pm)