Random thoughts on re-rewatching Return of the King

[bunn]

1) My goodness the Rohirrim are hard.  I mean, they are quite tough in the book, but here 6,000 Rohirrim go through the Armies of Sauron, including Oliphaunts, like a knife through butter.   I think Rohirric horses may be closely related to rhinos.    I don't care though. I love the charge of the Rohirrim at the battle of the Pelennor Fields in both book and film. 

2) I wonder who lent Eowyn her nightie.  Because that does not look like an Eowyn nightie to me.  

3)  Elijah Wood has really odd lips, and his ridiculous youth is just silly. Frodo should not be that young.  Fastforwarded through the Frodo Closeup bits for this reason.  Also Frodo Closeups appear to cause Mollydog to whinge.  Whereas at the point where there was a closeup of the One Ring, Yama Bungle stood up in front of the telly and went 'Yowp!'  in the manner of a cat saying ' I want one of THOSE!'  This confirms all my worst suspicions about Yama Bungle. 

4)  Sam!  Hurray!  Let's face it, he is the real hero.  Aragorn  Hurray again!  I really can't imagine Aragorn played by anyone else now.   Arwen on the other hand.... hmph.   Eowyn would wipe the floor with her. 

5) I really hope the dwarves in the Hobbit film will have better makeup than Gimli. 

6) I wonder where the three dead rabbits strung on a frame in Mordor came from.  And what they did. 

7) Did the Mouth of Sauron have *oil* on his teeth?  I wonder how that works. 

8) I wonder if Gondor has hairdressers that specialise purely in putting in people's incredibly-neat backplaits.   Oh, and Arwen?  Very-pale-green?  REALLY? 

9) It was worth getting the extended DVD just for the proper nasturtians at the end, rather than those rather naff and obviously-grown-in-pots petunias that were in the cinema release. 

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that was a difficult scene for the location-finder people (if they thought about the whole maize thing at all), because there really aren't that many crops that grow densely above head height without support that you *could* get lost in.

Wheat, oats and barley will grow maybe 2-3 feet tall, but I'm not sure even a hobbit could not get lost in them. Beans or raspberry canes would be tall enough, but are always grown on supports so would probably look too modern and be hard to push through (and difficult to position the cameras, perhaps). When you see the standard scene in a film where people get lost and can't find each other in a crop-field, it's *always* maize.

A 2-year-old hazel coppice-wood would have been good, but I'm guessing NZ doesn't have a lot of old, wellmaintained coppices. Or orchards of tall, old-fashioned appletrees (modern industrial apple orchards would look wrong again, I suspect).

WHY YES I seriously overanalyse plants in films. :-D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... of course, a hazel coppice or an orchard might well register with most of the audience as just 'woods' - and since they are trying to make the point that they are still safe inside the Shire at that point, that would be the wrong impression.

So I can see why they would use maize, which at least comes across to everyone as obviously a cultivated crop.

There's a pumpkin in the pub at the end of Return of the King, which is equally transatlantic - but for some reason I found that less bothersome. Though it would have been nice to see a traditional Gigantic Onion instead, as widely grown in competitions across England for many generations.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Some grain crops (especially rye, I think) used to grow taller - one of the changes in modern cultivars has been to make them shorter, and so more easily harvested.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

There are certainly some very tall varieties of oat, some of which are grown as very lovely decorative plants. I've never had a good site for one, but Stipa Gigantea, the Golden Oat, is an *awesome* plant which will grow well above head height.

But I don't think that solves the problem for the poor location-finder who has been given the job of hiring a suitably-furnished field to film in for a couple of days. I mean, if they'd hired it for a year and planted it up with Golden Oat, I *would* be cheering, but it does seem a lot to ask.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

... whereas you can go anywhere and find a field of maize, and as it's such a cheap crop I imagine it's not hard to find someone who will cheerfully sell you the right to charge about filming in it.

[andrewducker]

I just saw this, and the first point reminded me of this conversation:
http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/2011/10/five-things-you-should-never-do-in-epic-fantasy/

[bunn.livejournal.com]

LOL, good article! Though I think the person who objects to Punch and Judy in Pratchett is missing the point of Pratchett somewhat!

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I made the same comment on my own journal as regards the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay universe - it's at least partially satirical, so I expect realism to take a back seat to what's fun/funny some of the time.