From: mr@sandman.net   
      
   In article , Paul S. Person  wrote:   
      
   > > Sandman:   
   > > As for the white council - Gandalf will surely leave the company   
   > > right in the beginning of the movie to go to Dol Goldur, and   
   > > perhaps a first skirmish with Sauron will take place, but I'm   
   > > still assuming that the grand battle of Dol Goldur will coincide   
   > > with the battle of the five armies in the third movie.   
   >   
   > This is less clear from the trailers, but it has to happen at some   
   > point, and the attack on Dol Gulder cannot be simultaneous with the   
   > Battle of Five Armies because Gandalf is in both.   
      
   RIght, I meant they should both occur in the same movie, not occur   
   simultaneously, bad wording on my part.   
      
   > > Sandman:   
   > > As I've said in the past, Tolkien wasn't very good at describing   
   > > action. Not that he only disliked war and battles and didn't want   
   > > to "glorify" it, but rather that he didn't seem all that   
   > > interested in the actual battles, they were more of a necessity in   
   > > the scope of the story.   
   >   
   > > For all the detractors of the amount of "action" in the Middle   
   > > Earth movies, I still think that it's a much better description of   
   > > how these things would have transpired (all but the "wave of   
   > > ghosts" in ROTK).   
   >   
   > You mean, of course, the Green Slime.   
      
   > Well, that's what they look like from a distance. You don't think   
   > they actually /drew/ each and every ghost in those distance shots,   
   > do you? I don't, hence my conviction that it is, in the distance   
   > shots, Green Slime.   
      
   Actually, it was plotted and constructed using MASSIVE, a new CGI program   
   that can create enormous armies of characters without animating each   
   individual sperately. And then some green "slime" was added to it :)   
      
   > > Sandman:   
   > > The battle of the five armis is a good examples, it is very   
   > > loosely described with words such as "It was a terrible battle"   
   > > and not much more. It is summarized in one short chapter and Bilbo   
   > > is knocked unconscious by a stone and the battle is over in the   
   > > next chapter.   
   >   
   > Well, Bilbo is our viewpoint character and when he goes, the   
   > description goes. Kind of like Katniss: /Mockingjay/ gets patchy   
   > because Katniss is out of it a lot of the time.   
      
   Right, but it is my belief that Bilbo was knocked unconscious because   
   Tolkien didn't want, or felt he couldn't, write excitingly about a huge   
   battle. Even the battles in LOTR are sparingly described.   
      
   > In both cases, that gives the filmmakers the opportunity to fill in   
   > the gaps. The difference is that PJ & accomplices, having no   
   > commitment at all to telling JRRT's story,  tend to fill in the gaps   
   > with whatever comes to mind, not to mention creating new Action   
   > Sequences every few minutes out of whole cloth, while those doing   
   > the Hunger Games books, clearly showing, at least so far, a strong   
   > commitment to telling the same story as the books, have managed to   
   > produce background material that matches up with the books very   
   > well.   
      
   I don't like the Hunger Games movies or the books.   
      
   Regardless, I'm totally with you about the constant need to insert NEW   
   action scenes into the LOTR/TH movies. Sometimes it's somewhat justified   
   since some passages in the book are outright boring and eventless - and in   
   the book, they SHOULD be. But it works less well in a blockbuster movie.   
      
   But, the scenes in the book that are undeniably about action (battles) are   
   in turn very underwhelming, and the movies more than delivers on what one's   
   inner eye *wanted* to see. Battle of the Five armies is the most obvious   
   example of this.   
      
   > > Sandman:   
   > > I sure hope that the moviemakers aren't true to the books in any   
   > > capacity when it comes to events such as these. The events when   
   > > Bilbo is running around in the Elvenking's cave is FAR longer than   
   > > the action-fileld events of the battle and with the spiders.   
   >   
   > And yet, there are those who have argued, in the past, that we   
   > /must/ see Bilbo running about the Elvenking's cave at great length   
   > because it matured him.   
      
   You think? It was still a chapter, and he ran about for a couple of *weeks*   
   in the caves. I'm not sure I considering him having matured in the caves...   
      
   > Or something like that. My feeling is the same as yours, and (IMHO) the   
   > Rankin-Bass version clearly supports you: Bilbo is in the cave (in terms   
   > of screen time) no longer than he has to be, and it works just fine.   
      
   Indeed.   
      
   > For myself, I am wondering (from the trailers) if that she-elf who   
   > may (or may not) be Legolas' main squeeze will turn out to be his   
   > conscience, in the same way that Arwen was Aragorns backbone in the   
   > /LOTR/ trilogy. The first film, after all, showed similar uses of   
   > themes from the /LOTR/ movies.   
      
   I'll talk more about this in a spoiler post...   
      
      
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