Dumb and dumber-er

So I was sitting in the movie theatre last night for the premiere of "The Two Towers" when a preview for "CORE" comes on. I sat there, dumbfounded, that they could pack so much BAD science into a single two minute trailer. I think they learned their science via ouija board.

The premise is that after years of evil-polluting-dumping of nuclear waste into the planet, the system goes awry and the rotating Earth's core comes to a full stop. According to Movie Scientists, this will cause the core to overheat (helllooooo???) which will cause us all to die within a year. So an Intrepid Team of Terranauts is going down to the core of the Earth to get it started again... with nuclear devices.

Words can't adequately convey just how LAME this is. It sounds like a bad episode of "Lost In Space." This is one to earmark for the "MST3K Night" and "The Golden Turkey Awards" (which are, alas, no longer being given.)

The trailer following CORE was "Dumb and Dumber-er," and for a delightful moment I thought that might have been a commentary about the CORE trailer and the science in the movie. I suspect that D&D-er will be a far better movie... and that's not saying a whole lot.

Speaking of two towers......... THAT MOVIE SUCKED MONKEYDICK.

Speaking of Two Towers, that movie - ROCKED granted it could have been done a tad better, but still, very damn good!

Anyways, I too saw this preview, and I must say, for showing nothing but a few definitions, and a weird 1950's like voice, it was the funniest preview I've seen in a while

Dumb - Lacking of Intelligence.

Dumber - Really lacking of Intelligence.

Dumber-er - Totally devoid of any intelligence, what-so-ever.

Yes the CORE has to be the most retarded preview I've ever seen. The fact that a Nuclear explosion will some how begin the revolution of a trillion tons if not a quadrillion tons of Iron//Nickle, dumb founds me. I hope the movie ends with the core being blasted out of siberia and into space where it will shine its evil light on earth as the humans watch in horror, at their grose mistake

Sincerely,
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[Edited on 20-12-2002 by FreeMason]

QUOTE FM

it could have been done a tad better


WHAT?! how so? have you no respect for the best movie this year? film makers arent gods y'kno.
anyway, yeah LOTR 2 was great but no, the most retarded movies are teen horrors like Jeepers Creepers- what a load of....

No it could have been done WAAAAAY Better. You've not read the books Kim?

Oh man they have so far been leaving out the best parts of the books.

In the first movie, they did not emphasise the "passing" of the elves from middle earth as they did in the books, they didn't show just what their passage/deaths mean. The end of middle earth. In a sense, their world is passing away with the elves, to leave plain us in its place, no more dwarves orcs or goblins, nothing but humans.

In the second book this was even FURTHER emphasised by the "Ents" inwhich Treebeard has a bit of a discussion about how the names of places are shortening. And he reflects on how Lothlorien used to have a much longer name, as did himself. And he raises the question if the reason for the shortening names is because the things themselves are becomming lesser, and diminishing.

And back to the first movie, they left out the most important part of all, Sam's vision in the Mirror of Galadriel. Where he sees the burning villiage (which was shown) and then he sees frodo sleeping. He wants to run back to the shire. But Galadriel tells him that the mirror only shows what might be, or what might never be at all. And tells him that if he were to go back to the shire, that that might be what lets the shire burn and be besieged (which happens to be true) so she tells him to continue the journey, and not to choose his path based on the Mirror. Which consequently, he gets to see the "Sleeping Frodo, so cold and blue and peaceful" (That'll come up early in the 3rd movie)

Finally, I bet they won't show Arwyn's death in the 3rd movie either. That there alone is the one of the most important parts of the whole story, but its not even in the books, its in the appendix, because it is pretty much the last thing that happens in Middle Earth. After her death, she Dies in Lothlorien, Winter settles upon lothlorien for the first time ever, and in effect, Middle Earth passes from reality, and into history, and eventually to legend and myth.

So you can see, that the movies are short-falling on the meaningful aspect. But I don't blame them, many don't view the books as meaning anything. So the director is just making the movie as literal as he can, and he's omitting things that might give too much foreshadowing to other things in the movie, for dramatic purposes.

I think the second movie did do the Ents very well, I wasn't expecting that much, and gollum was done well too, and I think they really well showed how close Smeagol was to being free...but because of Faramir and his men, he was again turned into Gollum, and broods his treachery.

But when I say they could have done it a little better, it is because they are omitting what I feel is the most saddening part of the whole story.

That is the passing of the elves and of middle earth. Even sauron's end I thought was a shame, because with that end, came the end of ALL of the people's of Middle Earth.

They do not stress enough in the movie, the importance of the existance of the "One Ring of Power" it is more than just an evil. It is the essence of all Elvendom in Middle Earth. With its destruction Gandalf loses the ability to weild fire, Galadriel's ring of Adament loses its power to keep the forest of Lothlorien as it has been for many thousands of years. And Elrond's ring also loses its power.

In effect, the whole story is a real sad tale of how all must eventually pass into history, not even with the Immortal elves can all that happend be rememberd by those who lived it. As Elrond had seen the death of Morgoth, but he too must leave Middle Earth, and all thats left is a book of tales.

Morgoth too, is an example of the "diminishing" of middle earth. As Elrond says, and they left this out of the movie too...."I remember it, for I was there, on the Daggorlad plain (or whatever) and I remember the splender of the banners, which were more so than now, but not as much as when the hosts of Valinor broke Thangorodrim (and defeated morgoth or whatever)and the elves deemed that Evil was rid from Middle Earth but it was not so" He is saying that the past was MORE than the present, and that the 1st defeat of Sauron was more than now but not as much as in the defeat of Morgoth, and now is but a memory of what it once was, and the future, will be nothing, but the history of Middle Earth.

I just think there is too much to throw into the movie, but I'd really have liked to seen these things in it. I think the small details in the books really gave it a meaning that almost no one looks at it with.

Sincerely,
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[Edited on 20-12-2002 by FreeMason]

To be honest I feel PJ with FOTR has made a good film out of what is in a sense a fairly mediocre set of books.
I see TTT tomorrow and I suspect that I'll enjoy it.
But the constant arguing I hear between tolkien fans and the film fans about accuracy seems a little irrelevant.

The lord of the rings simply isn't a very good story. its riddled with bad writing, over sentimentality, sloppy construction.

That shouldn't negate its importance. Just as Bram Stoker "invented" the modern vampire, or Mary Shelly "invented" the modern Horror novel, J.R.R. "invented" the fantasy genre.

there was stuff before him, mainly retellings of fairy tales and mythology but the man created orcs, the bastion of modern fantasy, he created the whole concept of creating mythologys of parallell historys.

thats an amazing feat.

but it doesn't meen it comes anywhere near the complexity or style of modern takes on the genre.

The Lord of the rings should be seen as a great mile stone in the history of literature, but just as Hamlet is a damn good read and a "great" play, it doesn't meen that if somone were to write somthing in the same style with the same characteristics it would stand up to modern film or theatre.

Metropolis absolutely rocks and blows my mind every time I see it, but one wouldn't argue that the special effects are better than those in AOTC, nor could one argue that the characters have as much deapth or act as well as in that film, which, given that AOTC was one of the most horribly written things I've ever witnessed says a lot about just how far we've come from these undobted classics, with their wooden characters, fake sets and terrible dialogue.

A faithfull retelling of the books would sicken all but the most fanatic tolkien fans.

In fact frankly, I don't even see the films and the books as being connected.

The Lord of the rings has earnt its rightful place in history as an important piece of literature.

Go watch Hamlet in a dirty smelly pit amoungst leperous beer swilling # covered commoners performed by a bunch of Massive Hams who don't know their lines and are almost certainly bored and drunk on a stage painted with the worst back drops you've ever seen and then tell me its better done that way than sean beans recent take at the national.

(which, frankly, was a massive dissapointment, but still better than eating a moldy pie while some twat smacks you with a pigs bladder on a stick and screams "hey nonny")

Oh Lupe_101 you just are afflicted with having not picked up on the subtleties that are there if you are capable to see them...I think even without frodo dying (heck because that way the ring gets to consume him ) the book is still very deep, yes, its writing is very droll, but the meaning behind the book as a whole is very deep.

Sincerely,
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The subtleties are exactly what Tolkien claimed werent there. He hated the fact that people were convinced it must have a deeper meaning, a fact even more ludicrous when people start argueing the alagorical nature of the hobbit, a childrens book with no deeper insight into global politics or the human soul than "Spot and the red ball"

all books have subtleties (except friggin terry I'm a twat Pratchett) and all books have deeper resonances if you are willing to spend the time looking.

that doesn't make LOTR classy literature though. Now somthing like Gormanghast on the other hand...

FM, to do full justice to the book you'd have to make it into a tv series running several years. Books just don't translate well onto the screen (just as books don't translate well into comic books. There's a lot of writing constraints there... things that read (silently) well turn into tounge-twisting drivel when you have to speak them.

I had quibbles with the military tactics presented (you just DON'T charge horses down onto a field of pikes) but it wasn't bad enough to block my enjoyment of the film.

Hmm. It's kind of like the film made from the book, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Both got across the point. There were wonderful scenes in the book that had to be left out of the film -- but if left into the film, the pacing would have been SO bad that the film would have been unwatchable.

LOTR2 was a wonderful movie, with some industry-defining CGI (particularly on Gollum) and good (despite occasionally annoying modernisms) writing. It would be interesting to see if it could be done as a tv mini-series, but I'm rather afraid you'd end up with another DUNE.

Yeah I noticed the horse pike ramming too...we all seen where that leads in Braveheart I know they really couldn't have done MUCH more with it, but these are small points, taking 30 seconds at most...nothing TOO big.

And in either case, leaving them out has NOT hurt the movie, simply lessened it in my opinion.

But this series is still the best in a LONG time, so we've got definately one good year next year too of movie, and after that, we only have Matrix to rely upon

Yes, I don't think they should retry this anyways, but if only everyone would just read the books, that inhances the movies by far

And poor poor Dune, captivated me as a child, but damn, the screen productions just were so #ty.

Sincerely,
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Sincerely,
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No doubts the movie was well done except that is deviated from the book so much it was painfull to watch. If i had not read the books before seeing the movie it would have been awsome.

Deviation from the master's novels was an important component of devising an on-screen story.

Let go of the important sequential details of the novels, and step back to look at the larger Tolkien tapestry. I feel that Mr. Jackson has done an inspiring job of converting that complex Middle Earth tapestry into perhaps one of the most important movies ever. And I do say movie, singular... remember, the vision here is for one massive 9-10 hour movie... you've simply just seen the middle 3 hours.

i would have to agree with Byrd, that books that are as long as The Lord of the Rings don't make good movies because they would have to be so long that nobody would sit through them. look at 2001 Space Odyssey, I thought it was a great movie, then i read the book and they left out so much stuff it made me sick. I'll give the filmakers some slack for at least trying since the only televised version of any of Tolkiens work were animated and made about 100 years ago.