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Jan. 18th, 2004 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
herewiss13Just finished exploring the Two Towers extended Edition DVD.
The number of featurettes about the making of it all _alone_ is almost worth the rental, let alone the 40 additional minutes of film. The sheer complexity of the production organization (P.J. often did trans-global teleconfercing in an effort to be three places at once) and the utter intricacy of the design workshops are beyond belief.
So is the software they used for the crowd scenes. Named "Massif" (I think), it actually randomly generates each figure (so the orcs are cookie cutters), and runs each and every one as an independent agent following a set of rules that allows each and every one to react and respond to everything going on around it. The mother of all simulations (with subtle direction for scripting purposes). I can't even begin to image the processing power required.
Let me also say that a day involving LotR doesn't go by where I don't find myself more and more impressed with Andy Serkis. The man deserves some sort of form of official recognition. There ought to be a special one-time Oscar.
King Theodred was also extremely...soothing to watch. I want more I'm not sure how to explain it, but seeing him on the screen was simply a pleasure. Perhaps it just that he does "regal" very assuringly.
It was also a pleasure to listen to Gandalf's voice. It's an _extremely_ reassuring tone. Gandalf is clearly a Maia who knows what he's doing.
The Balrog scene, however, doesn't work at _all_ well on the small screen. A real pity, that.
Not all the those 40 minutes are necessary. Some I still even could have done without. But some of it makes the things from the actual film make a _lot_ more sense.
For instance:
Short scene at Edoras where Aragorn uses elf-speech to calm a rearing horse, incidentally impressing Eowyn. Turns out the horse, Brego, was the dead Prince's mount. Aragorn tells the stable hands to set Brego free as "he'd seen enough of war."
This allows Brego to be the horse that shows up to carry Aragorn to Helm's Deep after his fall off the cliff. Before I watched the extended version, I'd never even _asked_ myself "where'd that extremely convenient horse come from?" but I should have.
There's also an extended flashback to Osgiliath with Faramir, Boromir and Denethor which sets up Boromir's departure, Denethor's disapproval of Faramir and Faramir's odd line (in the real film) about "Now is the time for Faramir, Captain of Gonder, to show his Quality". This also allows Sam to give him a nice compliment after it all about how he _actually_ showed his quality to be of the very highest.
Some of the more extraneous larger bits were some additional Sam/Frodo footage from the beginning of their journey (although it was nice to see the miraculous elven rope at work) and a lot more between Merry, Pippin and Treebeard, most of which was amusing, but hardly any of which was necessary. Some of the early Sam&Frodo extras were even a bit of a drudge. I didn't need to know that Sam had packed a box of salt.
Learned an interesting fact (well a lot, but this one struck me in particular): In the initial script, Arawen was going to escort the Elf Corps to Helm's Deep and fight at Aragorn's side. Everyone is _extremely_ glad they changed their minds. I saw just a single short shot of some of the initial shooting and it just looked _odd_.
Other interesting fact: The Fell Beast screeches started life as recording of donkeys. Not the "hee-haw", but the other sort of complaints they can utter. Listen next time and you'll hear it.
And finally, I've just started re-reading 'American Gods' and was astonished to discover that I'd forgotten my favorite simile of all times:
Shadow put his knee into Mad Sweeney's chest. "For the second time, are we done fighting?" he asked.
"We may as well be, at that," said Sweeney, raising his head from the floor, "for the joy's gone out of me now, like the pee from a small boy in a swimming pool on a hot day."
Having been (a long time ago) a small, sometimes aquatic, boy, I know exactly what he means. :-) And it's just such an amusing visual anyway. Not the sort of image you associate with bar-fights. Gotta love the viciously cheerful (or is it 'cheerfully vicious'?) Irish. (Sweeney's a rather tall leprachaun).
The number of featurettes about the making of it all _alone_ is almost worth the rental, let alone the 40 additional minutes of film. The sheer complexity of the production organization (P.J. often did trans-global teleconfercing in an effort to be three places at once) and the utter intricacy of the design workshops are beyond belief.
So is the software they used for the crowd scenes. Named "Massif" (I think), it actually randomly generates each figure (so the orcs are cookie cutters), and runs each and every one as an independent agent following a set of rules that allows each and every one to react and respond to everything going on around it. The mother of all simulations (with subtle direction for scripting purposes). I can't even begin to image the processing power required.
Let me also say that a day involving LotR doesn't go by where I don't find myself more and more impressed with Andy Serkis. The man deserves some sort of form of official recognition. There ought to be a special one-time Oscar.
King Theodred was also extremely...soothing to watch. I want more I'm not sure how to explain it, but seeing him on the screen was simply a pleasure. Perhaps it just that he does "regal" very assuringly.
It was also a pleasure to listen to Gandalf's voice. It's an _extremely_ reassuring tone. Gandalf is clearly a Maia who knows what he's doing.
The Balrog scene, however, doesn't work at _all_ well on the small screen. A real pity, that.
Not all the those 40 minutes are necessary. Some I still even could have done without. But some of it makes the things from the actual film make a _lot_ more sense.
For instance:
Short scene at Edoras where Aragorn uses elf-speech to calm a rearing horse, incidentally impressing Eowyn. Turns out the horse, Brego, was the dead Prince's mount. Aragorn tells the stable hands to set Brego free as "he'd seen enough of war."
This allows Brego to be the horse that shows up to carry Aragorn to Helm's Deep after his fall off the cliff. Before I watched the extended version, I'd never even _asked_ myself "where'd that extremely convenient horse come from?" but I should have.
There's also an extended flashback to Osgiliath with Faramir, Boromir and Denethor which sets up Boromir's departure, Denethor's disapproval of Faramir and Faramir's odd line (in the real film) about "Now is the time for Faramir, Captain of Gonder, to show his Quality". This also allows Sam to give him a nice compliment after it all about how he _actually_ showed his quality to be of the very highest.
Some of the more extraneous larger bits were some additional Sam/Frodo footage from the beginning of their journey (although it was nice to see the miraculous elven rope at work) and a lot more between Merry, Pippin and Treebeard, most of which was amusing, but hardly any of which was necessary. Some of the early Sam&Frodo extras were even a bit of a drudge. I didn't need to know that Sam had packed a box of salt.
Learned an interesting fact (well a lot, but this one struck me in particular): In the initial script, Arawen was going to escort the Elf Corps to Helm's Deep and fight at Aragorn's side. Everyone is _extremely_ glad they changed their minds. I saw just a single short shot of some of the initial shooting and it just looked _odd_.
Other interesting fact: The Fell Beast screeches started life as recording of donkeys. Not the "hee-haw", but the other sort of complaints they can utter. Listen next time and you'll hear it.
And finally, I've just started re-reading 'American Gods' and was astonished to discover that I'd forgotten my favorite simile of all times:
Shadow put his knee into Mad Sweeney's chest. "For the second time, are we done fighting?" he asked.
"We may as well be, at that," said Sweeney, raising his head from the floor, "for the joy's gone out of me now, like the pee from a small boy in a swimming pool on a hot day."
Having been (a long time ago) a small, sometimes aquatic, boy, I know exactly what he means. :-) And it's just such an amusing visual anyway. Not the sort of image you associate with bar-fights. Gotta love the viciously cheerful (or is it 'cheerfully vicious'?) Irish. (Sweeney's a rather tall leprachaun).
