| A review of the extended trailer for The Lord of the Rings Hello, all. I'm Count Poffula, long time listener/first time caller. I just wanted to put in my two cents about something very important to me, and maybe you. The Lord of the Rings. For any crazed fanboy (or girl) who has read Tolkien and heard that they are making a live action film, around all three volumes of The Lord of the Rings, it has been a concern: "What will they screw up, and how embarrassing will this be to those of us whom hold this story so close to our hearts?" Well I'm feeling better about some of that now. A few weekends back, our friend Nolan, my wife Lauré and I went to see "A.I." (A waste of cinema, in our opinion. But you may read a review of it on Nolan's homepage if you like.) and we got to see this extended trailer.... It opens with a voice over of Gandalf explaining the one ring and the power of Sauron. Then we see some of the main characters is flashes, as well as scenes of huge landscapes and oceans of orc armies. Then we see the black riders, racing through the woods with swords drawn (a very powerful scene). Everything looks great, very dark and very medieval (as it should). I'm very pleased. Gandalf looks great, at one point his face fills the whole screen as he asks Frodo in a panic, "Do you still have the ring? Where is it? Is it safe?" There is a brief shot of Legolas, the elf, up close, and a long away shot of Mt. Doom, and you hear a voice over of Gollum saying "My Precious." but you don't see him. You also don't see Sam, or any of the hobbits' feet (that's a shame). Aragorn looks a little young, but we shall see. I still feel apprehensive about Elijah Wood, but he does a good fake English accent (he sounds just like the Frodo in the cartoons from the 70s). There are so many flashes of characters and so much going on in so many scenes at once, it's hard to take it all in and decide who is who, but it sure looks promising. So, all and all, the trailer was very encouraging and in my mind justified the price to get in, even if they did tack on some crappy Spielberg fluff (the feature presentation) after the wonderful trailer. Thank you for your time, Poff :) |