h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

but without the damaging effect of Munchkins.

(actually I saw nowt wrong with Treebeard... different eyes?)

Yeah, I liked Treebeard too. I thought at first that his walk was a little too John Cleese, but then I recalled Tolkein's description of a stiff heron-like gait (somewhere - I can't be mithered looking through the book right now). At least I think I can recall it, maybe I'm imagining it.

It would fit, even if he hadn't said it.

Treebeard's walk *was* with reference to the book - JRRT makes a point of talking about how treebeard puts his toes on the ground first. I thought the eyes were very good (several people in the cinema jumped when he opened them for the first time!) I also though he looked a little like JRRT

The worst bit oabout treebeard, with reference to whoever criticised above - was tthe shots of Merry and Pippin when he was walking - a poor backdrop effect made it look a bit like a Hitchcock chase movie!

My verdict - if anyone cares:

Gollum - brilliant (great job Andy Serkis, the voice especially was perfect and his schiophrenic nature was shown very well)

Rohan - very good but didn't like the changes with Eomer, also he, Eowyn and Wormtongue were not in it enough (but obviously there are limits - maybe there'll be more on the extended DVD)Plus attraction of Eowyn to Aragorn not developed enough

Gandalf - not in it enough

Ditto Saruman

Theoden - not as wise as he is in the book (what was he thinking, sending all of the refugees to Helm's Deep too?)but the exorcism was good

Faramir - woah! Bad change! What was the point in the whole Osgiliath bit?

Arwen going to the Grey Havens and all of the dreamy/vision with her and Aragorn - what's going on? Confusing, presumably supposed to be a cliffhanger (will she/won't she leave - and then what about Eowyn?)

Helm's Deep - great!

Overall, very good but I'll have to see it again to take it all in.

Gimly was the funnest tho

Gimli was funny, and that's alright. But i don't see why he had to be useless. He can be funny and still kick ass. He only killed a paltry dozen orcs or so.

Wormtongue was brilliant. Gollum too.

The Arwen parts were excruciating. In Aragorn's shoes I'd ditch her for hot hot Eowyn without a second thought.

Do I recognise the chappie who plays Wormtongue? What's he done before?

and come off it, i v, I may be a red blooded heterosexual female, but I can't believe you think Eowyn is hot - she's a drip! Not that Liv Tyler scores as the 2nd most beautiful female to walk Middle Earth....

much prefer Eowyn to Arwen - the much cooler female IMO

Didn't mind Gimli as comic relief, as I find his relationship with Legolas lightening in the books too - and I loved the pair of them in this.

Ents from the waist up I loved, the legs were a bit bizzare.

Gollum is amazing, utterly, Andy Serkis should get many many awards, just for the Smeagol/Gollum voices.

Adored Rohan and the actors involved - Theoden and Eomer were great
Helm's Deep was amazing - and Gandalf riding in at the end, WOW

I liked Osgiliath, I felt it stopped the Frodo/Sam line getting lost, and gave them something concrete (rather than gold!) to struggle against.

Another 'just seen it' so opinions

Well it must have been good as, unlike many, I didn;t have to go the loo hlf way through!

Faramir, non event in the film I thought.

Ents, cool, pretty open minded, I mean, how *do* you visually portray a walking tree? I must say i didn;t actually have a mental image.

Ents 2, the hobbits in treebeard special effects, I thought it must be our version of the film but that was CACK!! Sooo unrealistic, did they run out of money or what?

Helmsdeep, spot on again I Very well done! more!

Gimli, where can I get a comedy dwarf? Not needed, at all!

Legolas, still the coolest character to my mind, that leap from the ground onto the horse in the warg fight was WAAAAY cool! I wanna do that!

Elven archers/warriors at helmsdeep, very, very good! I like the outfits and the acting and everything. I want some!

Elven Archers 2, where can I get elven jet propelled arrows? They way they just took off with zooming noises, ace

Elven archer s3, why are they stillusing plastic nocks on their arrows?

What else? Frodo was good, Gollum/Smeagol was very good.
Still don;t know why there is only 1 Rohan Shield Maiden? What about the rest of 'em, couldn't they fight?

One that may well confuse people, why did the Nazgul just s*d off when Sam knocked Frodo out the way? I can;t believe 1 arrow caused the wyrm to run scared?

Overall? Not as atmosheric as the first, pity they split the battle up.

Hopes for the future DVD releases:-
1) All the battle scenes on 1 showing, continuous
2) The 'spoof' interview with Gollum/Smeagol with the Harry Potter reference

Oh, just remembered. Legolas has, unfortunately, slightly tainted his copy book. Skateboarding?!?!?!

But yes, me like!

I thought the shieldboarding down the stairs was cool. Gimli was very funny, and there were some great lines. The Arwen flashbacks were pretty well done, IMO. The Treebeard-background thing, though...

But Gollum/Smeagol was absolutely perfect.

I must have missed the treebeard background thing... hmm. now i'll have to look out for it next time.

Gollum was great, still there was some mismatching of density and saturation in the colors during the integration with the live action, but that's a small quibble. Did you notice you could see the fine golden hairs on his skin?

ooh, so much 2 say! here in brief is what i thought...

treebeard= cool. i agree wiv peeps that the walk wasnt as i imagined but considering how fast he moves etc (from book) it makes sense, also 'heron like gait' is mentioned in book (i reread sections the other day!). no quickbeam tho. i liked him. & dint like the way they persuaded treebeard & ents to go 2 war. that made ents seem just a tad out of it if they dint know vast areas of their forests had been destroyed. as the books sez of treebeard 'i can see and hear (& smell & feel) a lot that goes on' (or some such thing).
dint notice bit with hobbits either but now u mention it i know which bit u mean.
loved the ents @ isengard!

faramir & osgiliath = not needed/wanted. pants. (btw, boromir was meant to have dark hair, did ne1 else pick up on that?!)

oliphants = wicked

gollum/smeagol = ace. no more needs to b sed

theoden= good. but whats with this making the wizards conflict to tangible? i never assumed theoden was possesed, jus very misguided by the power of sauramuns words conveyed by wormtounge (who i thought was well done). oh well. that may just have been me.

eomer & eowyn = good. bt change to why eomer falls out of favour wasnt needed i felt, tho i guess its a time constraint thing.

helms deep= elven archers??? dint tell that gimli won the head count by 42 (?) to legolas' 41 (?). legolas boarding down the steps was good, but i felt it made it into a joke a bit. where were the hurons? i liked them!

Gandalf= great ! loved the opening shots of him & the balrog. & later when hes explaining bout it. when he returns to the three in fangorn, thats good too as we cant tell its him til they do

Strider= whats with the, 'is-he-dead-isnt-he' angle they keep playing? dint like the bit with him telling Arwen its over (or good as), whats with that?!

am goin to see it again tonight. so more may b posted later!

omy (cheerup)

(appologies 4 ne spelling/other mistakes, am half asleep at mo)

**warning Tolkien criticism*******

Back to the people mentioning the changes in Elrond/Farmir characters, to me this is brilliant.

The thing with Tolkien's characters is that they are either good or bad, with a few (Thoeden, Boromir) being bad at times because of specific reasions, I find very little grey areas in the characters.

By showing Faramir and Elrond as more selfish about their own kind this to my mind makes the characters more belivable and rounded.

Also the elves at Helms Deep added a counter to the selfish attitude of Elrond, here were beings 100s of years old willing to fight a doomed battle and almost certainly die for the sake of old friendships.

For me, not a avid fan of the book (only read it 6 or so times ) or of Tolkien's style, I found all the story changes more or less OK (except the Aragon over cliff part) - showing Theoden actually possessed certainly helped with the story , especially for the many who have not read the book.

Anyway a good romp if a bit cheesy at times.

CH

To be honest, the Elrond thing seems to me to be a slight miscasting / failed attempt. I always thought of the older elves like him as being not completely understandable to humans, that their motivations were just 'other' and hence there ctions could be misinterpreted or just completely unfathomable. I think perhaps this might be what they are rying to portray, but it doesn;t come across. Without knowing the background to why they are there and what is going on it is easy to see him as selfish and / or slimy etc. I think some subtlety of character is lost. But yeah, still think it was cool!

Oh, and at helmsdeep, di the orcs actually blow the whole wall up in the book? My hazy memory seems to think that they just broke through the drain and swarmed in that way, did it a couple of times? Probably my memory being wrong tho' !

i don't think they blew it up in the book, but it makes for a nice explosion
i liked the bit wth the ent that was on fire jumping into the water in isengard. ni fact, i loved the whole water/isengard thingy...
and i loved gollum! he wasn't at all how i was expecting him, but probably better...
i'm unsure about the elves going to helm's deep, seemed a bit pointless...but still, they fought well
one thing one of my friend's didn't like was the fact that haldir (?) died...don't think that was sposed to happen
erm...what else? i don't mind too much that it didn't completely stick to the book, because it's not supposed to be exactly the saem, the film's a film, the book is a book...(i know what i mean, i don't expect anyone else to )
yeah, that seems to be my
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Arrrgghh we have to wait a whole year for the next one!

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You may have recognised Wormtongue from the Child's Play films, in which he did the voice of Chucky.

Hasn't he come far...

Not really - his career went into slow decline after his debut in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.