The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

I have 2 nephews ages 3 and 7. I have only daughters and granddaughters. No idea what to get these 2 boys.

The Wal-Mart up by my house has these great, sturdy, plastic, child-sized basketball hoops for around $20. I bought one for my 3 year old nephew for his birthday, and he absolutely loved it. His 10 year old brother loved it as well. LOL...you should have seen him (the 3 year old) trying to dunk!

[ican'tbelieveit]

Ok, almost 6:30... will start the movie then. Will be ready to leave for the movie at 10. I think the kids stayed up a little late, they aren't as enthusiastic about being up this early as I am.

[JenB]

You're right about it being psychological. Since I am going again to the 12:15 showing today, I will pay closer attention!

[HairOfTheDog]

Hullo! - Good morning. And Welcome to the Hobbit Hole!

PJ certainly did move Frodo along in his mental journey, and the relationship of Frodo to Sam and Frodo to Gollum... and Sam's resentment of Gollum, all that was really good. Loved it!

You are right about Faramir being necessary. I was playing with it in my mind last night when I realized so much of the good stuff is yet to come! How will PJ fit all that, and the war, in RoTK?

I think Faramir's decision was made in three steps, but we are going to have to interpret his glances to see it. On further viewings, we will see him as thinking about it. He is given the information he needs to decide, in Frodo's "the ring will not save Gondor, it has only the power to destroy"... and in seeing what became of Gollum because of it, and then I think he was finally convinced both by by seeing Frodo in what must have seemed to be a bizarre invitation to that Nazgul, and by overhearing Sam's speech.

Those things would all happen, and PJ would cut to Faramir thinking about this. We have to interpret his thinking by his actions.

PJ did the same thing to us when Frodo decided to leave the Fellowship. Frodo decided to leave, and Aragorn, Merry and Pippin all understood and agreed. Why? - I know why he left, of course, but I had to explain that to two different friends who saw the film with me but had not read the books. They didn't think it made sense. PJ explained it with thoughts, if you know the characters well enough, you can see their thoughts... if not, it may not make sense.

[ican'tbelieveit]

On my way to our first viewing in an hour. So excited. And the movies are very cerebral. Since I haven't seen TTT, there are several things in FOTR that stick out that way. What you mentioned about the hobbits. But also the part where Aragorn kneels before Frodo and offers his life (the life of a King) to protect him.

[HairOfTheDog]

I am excited for you! - How neat! Tell us what you think when you get back!

[Scott from the Left Coast]

TTT minus 3 hours for me!!! We're leaving to get in line an hour before usual (it's not actively raining anyway). It's the first weekend showing (not counting Friday) so even though it's noon, we expect it to be a bit crowded in Lacey.

Everyone's really excited here ('specially me).

[HairOfTheDog]

Good! Buy tickets for your second view while you are there... You will want to see it again. Prepare to be rocketed along!

[NewCenturions]

Today's the day here too! Going to brave the crowds at the matinee.

[ksen]

261 HOURS TO GO!!!!!!!!

Just checking in briefly. My mom works for a doctor who recycles his older computers to me. He just gave us a Dell Dimension XPS T700, I think it has a PIII 700mhz inside, along with a 17" monitor and......a DVD player! ;^)

I've already tried out the Extended DVD, it works and the speakers he gave us with sound like surround sound. I'll be stylin' for our next chat/view. I'll actually be able to view while we chat instead of hearing it from the other room.

What about a New Year's Eve chat?

[HairOfTheDog]

Sounds good to me, I stay home on New Years.... Don't like the crowds at my comfy pub.

[Penny1]

Hi all!

Finally had a chance to see it yesterday. Gosh, I miss you guys...work has gotten progressively worse and I've been working like a dog, plus a vacation to Canada, plus trying to get my piano playing back up to speed and on and on and on....why did life have to get so darned busy?

I've been enjoying reading everyone's reaction to the new movie. I had to wait till I had seen it before I read anyone's reaction.

And now, I just want to mention that having seen it only one time, I was quite disappointed. However, let me make it clear, I think that probably I will absolutely adore it on a second viewing. Why is it that I always have to waste the first viewing just getting over all the changes from the book and from what I imagined?

I agree with all of you who were disappointed with Faramir. One of the big things I appreciated about Faramir was that he was almost a polar opposite of his brother, and that later on, in ROtK, we see that a big influence in that difference is the two brothers' differing relationships with Gandalf--Faramir was open to Gandalf's guidance and friendship over and against his own father whereas Boromir rejected Gandalf and of the two was the most (blindly) loyal to his father. I think I will probably always be a bit disappointed with the fact that we've kind of lost that important message, but I'm sure I will get over it and be able to separate the movie from the book. They really are two separate bodies of work, and when viewed that way, the book still has its message and the movie will have a similar, but slightly different, message. And that's okay...I think. ;)

I can't wait to see it again, though, and see if my response is 180 degrees from my initial response. I'm pretty sure that will be the case.

BTW, the audience was pretty good except for one scene. Did anyone else run into problems with the audience laughing during the Gollum/Smeagol struggle? I was really disappointed, because I knew that this was a huge, important, emotional struggle for Gollum, and I was unable to really respond/react/appreciate it because the stupid audience kept laughing. Did anyone else run into that?

[HairOfTheDog]

Well hullo Penny!

I have to get the first shock view out of the way before I can enjoy it too.

Look at Faramir again... He was responding as a man of Gondor would... Deciding that the prisoners, and the ring, should be taken to his father. He did not take Frodo because of weakness, but duty. I did like the explaination by Phillipa, that it would seem illogical for Faramir to have no weakness at all, when everyone else clearly has to wrestle with their conscience.

The midnight audience laughed at Gollum's first big scene... and I had to admit it must seem funny.... but then half of them were drunk! - In a sense, I think PJ put him too close, and so exaggerated that I forgave them for laughing a bit. There was less laughing the second night... with the 8:00 crowd.

If you are like me, you will like it better the second time... It won't seem as choppy, and you will be able to notice the moments, the "spots in time", that made you love the first one.

I am not disappointed with it, so much as I just don't like this part of the story as much as the other two.... and I think the editing that cut back and forth a little bit too often, felt like sitting with someone else changing the channel on me right at the wrong time.

[Penny1]

LOL, we had almost the same reaction. ;) I think my issues with Faramir can be resolved if I can just separate book-Faramir from movie-Faramir. And I definitely need to re-read TTT to be able to evaluate better. I think movie-Faramir makes sense within the context of the movie, it's just that he's painted differently from the Faramir in the book.

And to be honest, I really wanted the Frodo-fainting scene from the book "I don't think we shall ever get there" and when that was taken out, everything else seemed all wrong, lol. I'm sure I'll get over all of it, it's just that initial shock.

I also find that TTT is the least interesting portion of the story to me, so I fully expected to feel that this movie would be my least favorite of the three. But that's okay, and I DEFINITELY know I will love it the seond time. Even FOTR, which I ADORED on first viewing, I loved that much more the second time. So I am looking forward to that.

It probably also didn't help that I was an emotional wreck from what's been going on at work (have you ever been forced to work with a psycho before and then found out later that she really was diagnosed with a mental disorder?) Sheesh! So I wasn't in a good frame of mind to really enjoy it.

BTW, did you miss Frodo's extreme weariness from the book? It seemed a little odd to me to have the "insane" moments without the extreme progression of weariness that we see as they get closer to Mordor.

You know what else? I think I am going to notice A LOT of the things I "missed" when I see it again and can evaluate the acting a little more. Someone here mentioned that much of the character stuff, such as Faramir changing his mind, might be conveyed just in the acting itself, rather than anything overtly stated. When I watch it on subsequent viewings, I have a feeling I will be able to pick up on that more and more.

BTW, I absolutely LOVED the elven-cloak scene with Frodo and Sam, that was so cool, and I had been afraid that they wouldn't be showing the usefulness of those cloaks.

[HairOfTheDog]

I think we have some of Frodo's weariness, but he is not weary yet... That will come later... Right now he is still struggling.

I am not sure why they had to be taken to Osgoliath yet.

And I really do think that Gollum was too close to the audience. He could have been more effective if he was cringing away from us, too. I can understand that they were very proud of their creation, but the extreme closeups might be better when he is at home, at a more reasonable size. He was really big.

But, we have to disagree a bit on the elven cloak scene. I wrinkled my nose. It was important, but might have been more believable if the Easterling was 10 or 20 feet off... not right on top of them... and maybe they shouldn't have shown them looking like a rock.... if nothing were there, I might not have wrinkled my nose....

It is funny the things we think are unbelievable. Talking trees are OK.... cloaks that make you look like a rock... not. HA!

[Penny1]

BTW, I'm so glad you got to see the first showing down there! How fun that must have been!

It's probably a good thing the tickets sold out, this week turned out to be a DISASTROUS week at work. I wouldn't have been able to go anyway, or if I had it would have been nervous breakdown time by the end of the week....

[HairOfTheDog]

It messed me up to stay up all night.... screwed up my body clock for three days! - But I am glad I did.

We should get together soon... can you come down to Tacoma for a show? - Or get together when you might be in Olympia for Christmas? we need to do some talking about these goblins you have at work, and catch up!

[Penny1]

I'm assuming that going to Osgiliath was necessary to "explain" the fall of Osgiliath and also deal with the issue of Faramir letting Frodo, Sam and Gollum go. The fall of Osgiliath was simply combined with the Faramir's dilemma over them. Another thing that accomplished was to show the threat Sauron posed to Gondor and to explain why Gondor would not come to Theoden's aid. It pointed out how Gondor and Rohan are cut off from each other, with Theoden being under Saruman's control and Denethor being influenced by Sauron, it made it easy for Saruman and Sauron to work together to "divide and conquer."

With Osgiliath taking place in TTT, we won't have to explain what happened to it in ROtK. Perhaps, also, it is to set up a conflict later on between Faramir and Denethor--after all, not only did he let the ring of power leave, he also couldn't prevent the fall of Osgiliath and had to retreat.

I also have a feeling Osgiliath and Frodo being drawn to the Nazgul was in place of the Minas Morgul scene where Sam and Gollum have to drag him back from going into the city.

[Penny1]

I would love to meet you somewhere. I will actually be in Olympia pretty frequently over the next few weeks. My brother is out of town, so I am charged with keeping an eye on his place for him while he and his family are gone. They live in Yelm, and have a bigscreen TV in case we want to watch the extended-DVD and then go to TTT in Lacey. I really would like to do that at least once, I think it will improve the flow and "feel" of TTT to see it right after watching FOTR. Of course, my eyes might glaze over at that point, lol...

[Penny1]

The Precious!