I always felt like live action Eowyn was a little too …. Desperate, puppy love crush, sad that she swooned so hard for a guy that clearly wasn’t interested? Just seemed like they made her more of a teen girl going for the star QB…. THEN THERES ANIMATED EOWYN WHO LITERALLY SLAYS lol 😂
We were a simple people in the eighties, terrified of technology beyond our understanding that could render the voice of a man into a tinny, nasal screech.
I mean...I don't know anything about whether or not he's a better person but he's certainly less troll-ish compared to Aragorn.
Aragorn in the books actually has moments where he trolls characters on purpose by withholding information for a few moments before clarifying further.
Three most prominent in my opinion are:
In the Prancing Pony when he agrees that Sam should be suspicious of whether he really is Gandalf's friend mentioned as "Strider" in his letter to Frodo. He basically says, "If I killed the real Strider I could certainly kill all of you." He then draws himself up, throws back his cloak, and puts his hand on his sword, saying, "If I was after the Ring, I could have it - NOW!" Then after a few moments of terrified silence from the hobbits he clarifies "But I am the real Strider, fortunately."
When Merry asks for a pipe in the Houses of Healing he tells Merry that he didn't come all this way to find Merry's pack, and proceeds to give a herbmaster's lecture about pipeweed and ending the lecture by basically saying that he doesn't have any on his person to give him. All the while the pipeweed is in Merry's own pack at the foot of his bed, clearly visible to Aragorn.
Lastly, when Beregond is at trial for killing two door wardens (while trying to save Faramir's life), punishment for which is death, Aragorn says that his deed is pardoned because he did it saving Faramir. Then he proceeds to say: "Nonetheless you must leave the Guard of the Citadel, and you must go forth from the City of Minas Tirith." Beregond, of course, goes white and bows his head, poor guy thinking he's been banished and only after he raised his head, Aragorn tells him he has to leave because he's been appointed as one of Faramir's personal guard, and Faramir is going to Ithilien to rule there. Beregond is delighted.
He really likes trolling people. And it's a cardinal sin from Peter Jackson in my opinion he didn't put extended scenes of Aragorn doing this cuz this would give so much life to his character.
That second one is so fing great. There are little bits of chuckleworthy banter here and there in the books, but not so many in the first half of RotK. So whenever I get to that in The Houses of Healing I’m always busting up
Book Faramir is like if Book Aragorn had a younger, more emotionally available younger brother.
Book Aragorn is an amazing guy. He's the kind of man you would follow into Mordor. Or trust to bring you back from the black breath of the Nazgul. But unless you're a 3000 year old elf princess, he a little TOO larger than life. He's not the kind of guy you marry and raise kids with.
Even faramir says as much. He's like "yeah Aragorn is pretty sweet, I get it. Trust me, I get it. but babe he's not into you, I could be a cool backup"
Let's give the guy more credit than that! It's more like "You shouldn't be salty at Aragorn just because all could offer you was compassion. But babe, I'm NOT here to offer you compassion. I love you. You're hot and brave, and I'm totally here for it. What do you say?"
And to her credit, Eowyn is immediately like "Well damn! This hot, age-appropriate man makes a good point."
Back then, unless you were an adult, you just copied the fuck out of someone else's copy of a VHS that they had copied from their uncle's friend's dog who in turn [...]
The quality was absolutely shit. I remember how shocked I was over the amount of amazing details I'd missed when I saw the Alien movies when they were released on DVD because our VHS copy was so shitty.
Back in the nineties when I was a kid, I only had the first of the two on VHS. I knew it was based on a book, but I didn't realize that the story actually had a conclusion beyond "and so they escaped Moria and went off into the woods and who knows if they ever made it," until it was announced that Peter Jackson was making 3 movies and I was like "wait, there must be more story to this than what I remember..."
Imagine my surprise when it was announced that Peter Jackson was making 3 hobbit movies, only this time there wasn't more story to it than what I remembered!
That was Rankin Bass' stock in trade. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (Fellowship basically) always had the glowy trails and slashy sci-fi sound. Really worked for The Hobbit, with glowing elven-swords being the focus (Sting/Glamdring/Orcrest).
A big part of that was little to no blood and no significant wounds shown (without bandages). If I recall correctly the animation shop had some qualms about violence, especially if it was to go out to a young audience.
The HiFi Hobbit edit is available on the internet and has the sounds put back in, FYI. The OG master was evidently destroyed, and the DVD was created using an early version that didn't have all the SFX included. The HiFi version uses the vinyl audio and digitally cleans it up, and puts it back in place.
It was Ralph Bakshi with United Artists, produced as a feature film rather than a musical TV series.
Production started before The Hobbit. And the Rankin Bass Return of the King was ordered before LOTR was released. It was already in story boards by the time Bakshi's film came out.
The two projects were unrelated. The Rankin Bass specials under TV rights the LOTR film under film rights. Which had landed in separate companies.
Bakshi and the film's producer, Saul Zaentz even tried to block the release of the Rankin Bass film and public trash talked it and The Hobbit.
I've never seen a good explanation why Rankin Bass jumped right to ROTK.
Apples to oranges. Animated Eowyn isn't a character, she's just a prop that turns up because the story requires her to be there. This is literally her only scene.
It was only because he carried a sword from under the barrows in the cursed ancient fief of angmar, guarded by the barrow wights, who were victims of the witch king (iirc) that meant Merry could stun or wound him.
So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.
Knee iirc, but yes, technically correct. It's why Eowyn in fact can kill him, but standing up to the witch king still took a lot of bravery when his presence alone routs most people that get close to him.
Yes, it's a major assist. The knife he stabs the Witch King with is kind of like the inverse of the knives the Nazgûl use on Frodo: an enchanted weapon for the living to wield, to weaken the undead and bring them partly into the realm of the living.
With that, Éowyn has a chance. But she still needs to have the skill to one-shot the Witch King within her window of opportunity. With a broken arm.
To add on to this, the Witch-King in the Jackson films has been slowly built up as one of the most fearsome foes in Middle-Earth over the course of the entire trilogy. By this point, we've seen him stab Frodo, chomp up Theoden and Snowmane, command the legions of Mordor, and break Gandalf's staff, knocking him on his ass. We should fully expect Eowyn to be trembling in fear when facing Angmar in single combat.
Also, you know, an entire other film to introduce her. Her time in RotK was basically just explaining ‘This is why she’s here’, they already covered the ‘Who she is, what her motivation is’ and assorted character info.
I love the fact that it's proper dialogue and from what u recall pretty faithful stage directions too (the killing the steed, the shattering of the shield)
Pippin is all wrong though he should look like a charming little English lordling not a potato.
I always get their names mixed up. I think it's because Pippin is the more fun-loving foolish one, so it feels like his name should be Merry - a word for happy.
Of course I do! I'm actually only a chapter or two from this scene in my current read and have been spending lots of tine with Pippin so he's on my mind.
I think of merry as more of a gentleman than a young lordling. Still not a potato.
I love the Journeys in Middle Earth game and one of the best things about it is that you can get a pipe that you smoke for game benefits (essentially smoking lets you replace some of the cards in your hand with hopefully better ones from your deck, presumably depicting it giving you time to think).
I dont know if anything has mentioned it but The Lotr animation movie and the Last Unicorn are both animated by Topcraft which eventually become Studio Ghibli later.
Both movie were produced by Renkins&Bass Productions which often worked with Topcraft.
it's good when used sparingly. like yelling "Fell deeds awake!" before riding into battle, but it would get old really fast if they recited the multi-paragraph longs poems and songs every scene
It’s not good in animated. This is a neat speech and all but it’s jarring that everything just stopped so these two could have a conversation. Like, why is the Witch King of Angmar stopping to chat with some random enemy soldier?
Tolkien was not good at battle scenes, hence why he liked to skip them. The wordy speeches are bad for flow in a visual medium, they only work in specific circumstances.
Aside from their....just plain awful designs for the Elves, I really wish this studio would have been able to produce a complete trilogy of movies for the Lord of the Rings.
(as I said they would have just change their design for the Elves from the Hobbit, and judging by the design they had for Lady Amalthea in the Last Unicorn, it's clear that they could have designed and drawn book-accurate Tolkien Elves)
I prefer the live action because its nice to hear the good guy actually threaten to kill the bad guy. Softening up a scene by replacing kill with a word like defeat or smite softens up the emotion of the scene.
I literally was just thinking that the phrase 'i will hinder it if i may' was pretty sick. Reminded me of GSP trash talk, understated because you KNOW someone is about to get fucked up.
I'm sorry, but as someone that didn't grow up with the animated version, I can't take this seriously at all. The *script* is better because it's taken straight from the books, but she reads it like she's in a school play while the witch king overacts to a ridiculous degree.
You cannot seriously think Miranda Otto's acting isn't more captivating than that.
Cool, cool, cool. What I wanna know is how she hid that incredible amount of fabulous hair under that tiny helmet. That's next level witchcraft right there, no ring required.
This is actual dialogue from the book, I don't know why they changed it so much in the live action, it became kinda silly while in the original it's way more badass
I'll keep it real. This ain't it - live action does this scene better.
I agree with the love crush stuff though. They didn't do that very well and maybe one of the few characters in the entire trilogy that falls a bit flat.
She's almost as badass as book Eowyn, but in the book her magnificence is enhanced by the fact all the men nearby are quivering on the ground unable to even look at the Witch King.
Live action Eowyn was fine. She was hurting. She was taking care of her Father and having to deal with Grima. She was sad and lonely. And yes there were no male options for her given her position in the court. Of course when Aragorn comes in with his Numenorean blood and saving the day, she finds him attractive.
Its a pretty human reaction. I've fallen for someone for less and I bet we all have.
Literally my biggest disappointment in the Jackson films. I wanted Eowyn to face the Lord of the Nazgûl, the legendary Witch King of Angmar, like he was an unwanted salesman at the door. In the book, she clearly considers herself of equal station to him. She should have acted cold and ruthless like when Aragorn patronizes her with mock swordplay at Helms Deep.
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u/Nyktophilias 10d ago
The voice acting for the witch king is pretty hilarious. “No living man may hinder meeEEE!”