Ink hard: April 2015

Monday, April 20, 2015

Rewatching Lord of the Rings

I watched the original films in the cinema. I've never read the book. I had the old poster on my wall in the early eighties. I tried to read The Hobbit once, but didn't get far. I didn't watch the new triology. I found cheap copies of the original films on dvd, and have rewatched the two first ones. I find it's easier to evaluate the films on a smaller TV-screen, to see what works and what doesn't.

The co-existance of hobbits and people in the same image mostly looks very convincing, often achieved with oldfashioned effects. The actors are very good. There are some impressive sequences. The dark figure on the flying dragon, the fifteen year old me found that to be pretty awsome. The walking and talking trees. Jackson never forgets putting in emotional beats in the dragged out fights. There are some quite lyrical parts. What took me out of the film was anytime Gollum is on the screen. They couldn't have achieved him better using an actor, maybe tweaked with CGI? It's never completely convincing as a 100% CGI effect, clearly being in another layer than the other actors. Oh, well... My favourite is probably the first one, that only gets a bit lost in CGI overload towards the end, with the stone trolls and other creatures. Gandalf for President.

Added: Watched the first half of the third one and lost interest. It's the weakest film, not as well told, with CGI up the ying-yang and generally ugly and fake looking.