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.

[Overtaxed]

...and paper plates...

[Overtaxed]

...and some cabbages!

[JenB]

How about taters? Think 2J will stew us some rabbits?

[Overtaxed]

Yes some po ta toes. There's this place in SC that sells rabbits already dressed....now where was that address....

[JenB]

Ah, handy! We can have a LotR themed meal. Everyone competes for "Best Lembas Recipe"...

[Overtaxed]

Found it! I'ts Ardeng Rabbit in Fountain Inn, SC. Now where's Fountain Inn?

Everyone competes for "Best Lembas Recipe"...

Is Everybody ready for another 200 posts on lembas?

[Overtaxed]

Now where's Fountain Inn?

Quite a bit west of 95....so much for picking up rabbit on the way.

[Penny1]

Hey, Jen, have you read or heard of these two books:

Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues

J. R. R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth

They sound quite intriguing to me....

[JenB]

Heard of them, but... I prefer to analyze Tolkien on my own, not read someone who I don't know.

We had some excitement. I went out to the store for some supplies, and when I got back our street was full of fire trucks! Someone thought they smelled natural gas but it was a false alarm. I did get stuck behind the fire trucks though.

[Penny1]

Wow, that's exciting! But annoying, I'll bet. ;)

It reminds of the time when my roommate and I arrived home to find out that someone in our apartment complex had called the fire department because our other roommate was at home and had started a fire in our fireplace. Talk about stupid neighbors, they saw the smoke and didn't apparently think about the fact that it was freezing cold outside and perhaps someone would have wanted a fire. They also apparently didn't notice all the smoke was coming from the chimney...Duh...

[Penny1]

I'm always on the lookout for books that my Mom could read that might give her enough background on LOTR for her to feel comfortable enough with the supernatural element to see the movies and/or read the books. As it is right now, she'd probably only get as far as the black riders and then toss the whole thing out the window.

[osagebowman]

OT-I'm probably in the same boat; the first time with FOTR, I was comparing and contrasting with the book, how I imagined persons, places with the way they were being portrayed. The second time I set back and just enjoyed the flow of the story. In TTT, was really shifting gears a lot again, even though I knew more about the changes. It still was a breath-taking experience. The next time, and that will be quite soon, I'll kick back and watch the whole screen. Third time,well thats when I go for the details I thought I saw the first and second time. After all, inquiring minds need to know

Was the cross section of the longbows of the Gondor rangers round or flat?

When did Aragorn stop carrying his short bow and quiver?

Were the woodland elve's bows a composite recurve with conventional nocks or sinyahs?

Anyone noticing a theme here? Yes, I do follow the sticks and string stuff pretty closely, or obsesively some may say.

BTW Hair: did you catch the Rohan bowman in the night fight with the U-H, rode from left screen to right, fired one arrow and turned in the saddle and fired another back at the U-H, at least I think so. If so, good riding and good shooting.

[Overtaxed]

When did Aragorn stop carrying his short bow and quiver?

Did he have them before the Warg battle? I need to make a list of things to look for!

[LinnieBeth]

Hi Penny, I know that little touch of disappointment- over all a good film, but. . .there were several scenes that I just didn't think were an improvement over the books,

to answer your question; no one laughed at the Smeagol/Gollum scene, but there was scattered applause at the end.

I hope we can try that TTT chapter by chapter thing again, this time maybe we can even compare it to the film??? (when will a tape or DVD by out)?

[Long Cut]

Hello, fellow Hobbit-heads! I saw The Two Towers this evening, and it was indeed a fine movie.

Unfortunately, it was RUINED for me.

I'm sorry, I just have to vent on this...I and Mrs. Cut have been waiting for a whole year to see this, so enamored were we of The Fellowship of The Ring, and to have the movie wrecked for us was heartbreaking.

You see, two rows behind us were five young boys, all about 10-13 years old. THROUGHOUT the film, they talked, laughed, snickered, and cut up like they were in their parent's basements instead of in a public place. At NO TIME did they give ANY indication of noticing that other people were in the immediate area at all.

Early on in the movie, a man walked over and politely asked them to quiet down. That lasted until he walked away, whence the rotten behavior began anew. When they laughed out loud during Smeagol's wrenching battle with himself, I had had enough. I whipped around and fixed each one in a stare of such fury as to weld steel, put one finger to my lips in a "shush" motion, and balled my other hand into a fist. I am six feet, three inches tall and 200 pounds and work out 4 times weekly, so one might say that I am not unintimidating.

The quiet only lasted, however, for about ten minutes, then it was on again. I had to do the same thing three more times. Suffice to say, the distraction was more than enough to take me out of the movie for the remainder. Mrs. Cut was similarly annoyed, which only made me madder. She wound up holding my sleeve tightly to restrain me.

As soon as the end credits rolled, I jumped up, ready to confront the little brigands about having given me such a wonderful memory of this first viewing of a great film. They were already up and hauling for the door, and raced out of the theater at speed, giggling all the way.

The sad fact of life is, kids that age know fully well that for an adult to lay a hand to them is to face personal destruction at the hands of the law. Therefore, no limits whatsoever are on their behavior outside of the view of their parents, and few within it.

Now, myself and Mrs. Cut will have to find the time in our busy lives to see the movie again, to get the proper feel of it without distraction. Sadly, however, we will run the same risk. And no matter what, our memory of the movie will always contain that stain.

Theaters used to have ushers, to help in controlling unruly children. That was back when children, for the most part, NEEDED no controlling. I can truly say that when I was a boy, I NEVER would have behaved so in a movie! Then again, I am a movie fan, so perhaps my view is not that of a modern child with time on his hands and a screen for a baby sitter.

In any case, there is a reason why I go to movies in theaters only once or twice a year nowadays. The ONLY movies in the past five years worth seeing on a big screen were, in fact, the Rings pictures. If only we could talk Peter Jackson into digitally removing annoying kids from the theaters showing his films, all would be well.

[HairOfTheDog]

What a disaster! After all that waiting! I haven't had any as bad as yours. I had minor misbehavors around me, but I was able to stop them with a stare and one PFFFFT!

I hope you will give it another try... Try the later show... You may get drunks, but at least they will be adults who may fear your imposing posture!

[HairOfTheDog]

BTW Hair: did you catch the Rohan bowman in the night fight with the U-H, rode from left screen to right, fired one arrow and turned in the saddle and fired another back at the U-H, at least I think so. If so, good riding and good shooting.

Yes, I saw that one, and I tried to notice all the good riding and shooting! There was a lot of both! - was sad to find that some of the stills I have seen of Legolas riding and shooting either happen much too fast to sit back and gawk at, or were cut! Crime! Murder!

[Overtaxed]

I suppose I've been fortunate in my audiences. So far I've been at 4:30 on a weekday and at noon today and the kids at the theater were actually well behaved while the movie was running (okay...so they spilled drinks even with cupholders and we had sticky floors underfoot but that didn't interfere with the movie.) However, for the most part it seemed that the kids were there with adults.

[HairOfTheDog]

Heh... actually the people I had to PFFFFT! were grownups. All but one who was left to guard the seats ducked back out after we were seated to go have a couple more shots at the bar next door. Wonderful! - They were all drunk, but after my PFFFT! - they were behaved, Except for their frequent trips to pee.

[Long Cut]

We were at the 4:15 PM showing. However, the children WITH ADULTS were well-behaved. It was the ones on their own that drove us nuts.

Fortunately, our local theater is nowhere near any drinking establishment. Therefore, I need not worry about scraping drunks off my boots. UN-fortunately, it means I have no Scotch handy to cope with the noisy brats.

Mrs. Cut has a job that requires long hours of work. She would thus be unable to stay awake for a late showing, or if she did, would hate life at work the following day. If we would see a film together, we're stuck with weekend early shows.

However, she now has no interest in going to a theater to see this one again, so maybe I'll go alone. When does the Extended Version DVD come out?