(I should add that the CGI Legolas horse-mounting in TTT didn't throw me out of the scene at all. I think because it was too brief for me to really process "Hey, that's not him....")
You want to meet the real me now?
Mal ,'War Stories'
LotR - The Return of the King: "We named the *dog* 'Strider'".
Frodo: Please, what does it always mean, this... this "Aragorn"? Elrond: That's his name. Aragorn, son of Arathorn. Aragorn: I like "Strider." Elrond: We named the *dog* "Strider".
A discussion of Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King. If you're a pervy hobbit fancier, this is the place for you.
Jessica - Dec 23, 2003 9:31:38 am PST #777 of 3902
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?
§ ita § - Dec 23, 2003 9:34:58 am PST #778 of 3902
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Jess, that threw me out of TTT every time I saw it on the big screen, but so completely failed to on the DVDs that I thought they'd redid it.
When it came to Leggy and the Oliphaunt, I did spend time thinking "Wow, technology's come a long way. Oh! There's Orlando again!" which is a step up from "fake fake fake", but way below "How can that be Andy Serkis?" which is the only way I like to be jarred from a CGI moment, if at all.
tina f. - Dec 23, 2003 9:35:05 am PST #779 of 3902
I might be making this up, but I think they brushed up the Legolas mounting the horse scene for the TTT EE version. I *hated* it when I saw it the theater (and it gave me "oh god this is going to look fake" fear that lasted through the end of RotK) but it looks better to me somehow on the EE. (It's not small screen vs. big screen, I don't think because my theater-release DVDs look bad too.)
Then again, though, maybe not.
Steph L. - Dec 23, 2003 9:35:57 am PST #780 of 3902
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe
Dude, I *loved* Legolas mounting the horse!
I choose to believe it was real, just like vampires with a soul.
Calli - Dec 23, 2003 9:38:14 am PST #781 of 3902
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs
Dude, I *loved* Legolas mounting the horse!
As did I. In my case, it helps that I've been around horses maybe three times in my life (about as often as I've been around elephants, actually), and therefore didn't know if it was against the laws of physics or just really, really nifty.
Jessica - Dec 23, 2003 9:39:17 am PST #782 of 3902
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?
In RotK, I had time to think "fake...blue screen...blue screen...fake...fake," and in TTT, I really didn't. By the second (third, fourth, fifth) time I saw it, I knew it was CG, but was so used to the way it looked that it didn't bug me.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if they tidied it up for the EE DVD release.
§ ita § - Dec 23, 2003 9:43:01 am PST #783 of 3902
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if they tidied it up for the EE DVD release.
It's the same as the theatrical. We went back and ran it right away. It might be a screen size thing, or a getting acclimatised thing, I suppose.
Aims - Dec 23, 2003 9:44:35 am PST #784 of 3902
Shit's all sorts of different now.
Funny, the horse mounting scene throws me off way more than the Oliphaunt scene, because he goes up the horse on the wrong side and his wrist is all catty-whoumpus! The Oliphaunt scene, like Jess said, is fake fake fake, but still really exciting. The horse scene they TOTALLY could have done for real with a crane and stuff.
tina f. - Dec 23, 2003 9:45:32 am PST #785 of 3902
Ohhh - help!
Non-Tolkein friend just asked me who the guys on the elephants were (like their actual name - not just - "bad guys" which is what I said at first) and I can't remember...anybody?
DavidS - Dec 23, 2003 9:45:33 am PST #786 of 3902
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
The horse scene they TOTALLY could have done for real with a crane and stuff.
As I recall, Orlando was injured on that day and couldn't mount the horse properly so they did a little CGI pickup and made it more spectacular.