DDDDDDDDDDDDDDUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDDDDEEEEEEEEE!!!

I MUST GET THE SPECIAL EDITION NOW!!! That movie totally restored my faith in book => movie translations. I mean really. That movie did justice to the book in the best way possible. It was a glorious piece of cinamatography that Tolkien would have loved I think. (although it left out some important under themes that can't really be expressed in a movie)I'm a massive fan as is all of my family, and I have read almost every scrap of parchment there is on the world of Middle-Earth. I know the creation myth on to the beggining of the fourth age. (the end of The Return of the King) I know that Middle-Earth is a prehistory of our own world. (If you see a map drawn by Tolkien you can make out a proto Europe among other places) I know that the ring was a metaphor for any large powerful weapon/force desired by many but leading to ruin. I know that the choice of a hobbit to carry it to it's end was to illustrate that even the smallest among us has the potential to change the world and history. This was written before Nukes were really well known, but the Ring metaphor draws a startling parallel there. As if Tolkien anticipated some 20th century weapon/force. (these things have all been spelled out in various analyses of Tolkien's writings, and various essays, and among my own musings)

Anyway...since all 3 were filmed at the same time I expect that they are should be about the same quality as far as film making goes. Script wise I expect the Two Towers to be better because of what happens in the book. The Battle of Helm's Deep uses new technologoy to create the battling armies. MASSIVE is the name of the AI engine and it actually generates characters that can react and engage when given the proper level of intelegence. (the winning side is given more obviously because the fight is scripted in that way. Other than that a scene may be completely random) This system is so well done that in the middle of a scene simulation a group of warriors actually decides to run away! Jackson said that was really spooky because that was not in the script. The AI chose that course of action. (SEE the latest issue of Popular Science for the full story)

I enjoyed that movie in the theater because it's very well made, but by second viewing at home it shrunk on me. I'm just not a fantasy person, I guess. I do, however, find the movie to be a technical milestone. I also find Aetrus's bit of trivia fascinating. Here's a quote with more details:

• "For high-tech tasks, a computer program called MASSIVE made armies of CG orcs, elves, and humans. These digital creations could 'think' and battle independently - identifying friend or foe - thanks to individual fields of vision. Jackson's team could click on one creature in a crowd scene of 20,000 and see through his 'eyes'. Different species even boast unique fighting styles.

  It is reported that on the first run of the fight sequences using the MASSIVE Artificial Intelligence program, the intelligent fighters - programmed to fight in the most efficient manner possible all turned and ran away."

Does that [color="brown"]make[/color] anyone think about FoI battle entity / NPC A.I.?

BTW, that "dude!!!" line (lots of text with no word breaks) causes a page misalignment and horizontal scroll-bars for me. (800x600, large fonts.)

BTW2, random idea of the hour: how about creating sub-nodes for the "General Discussion" node, so they could be organized by category? Those could include "Video Games", "Movies / TV / Anime", "Funny", etc.

[color="brown"]EDIT: smallified, fixed a typo.[/color]

The film was a classic, great musical score, great directing,great story and great special effects.

The film was good, but nothing like the book really. I've read the book, and it deserves its place amongst the greats, but I have to admit I'm not as hyper over it as some of you guys are.

ow much is the DVD in England, guys?

Jewels, ur mad..the Bond movie is wkd aparently!!

I got the extended version, I don't really think its any better then the movie(which was great) it adds some stuff(about 30 minutes) and almost every scene has some stuff added to it. Most of the added stuff is on disk 1.

Ah, come on jewelss, the Brits don't get ANY shooting-with-no-plot any more. Apart from xXx, and that was a pile of poo.