Some more news thanks to Ringer Spy Jon [More]
Day: May 20, 2001
A roundup of LOTR-at-Cannes news from Ringer Spy Jon, who must be a gun typist to get even this much down! ; )
“Hey guys,
Liquid News, a slot on cable news channel BBC News 24 in the UK hosted by Christopher Price featured a [brief] segment on Lord of the Rings at Cannes.
Price referred to the piece as “Gandalf goes Gaelic” though he sounded more like “Gandalf goes Garlic” which was no doubt his intention.
Price said “Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and their smoking friends were out in force in Cannes this
week,” and so beginneth the tale of “how LOTR stole the show”.
The reporter (sorry can’t remember her name, too overcome with catching images of that amazing set they had built) said the preview was “the talking point of the festival”.
Christopher Lee went on to say “I had this dream that one day it would be made, and of course I had a dream that I would be a part of it in some way… I am not a young man you know.”
(apologises for any paraphrasing that might go on, it wasn’t taped, and I had to type pretty quick).
Everyone appeared in the clip, as well as Lee, there was Sir Ian McKellen who paid particular
tribute to the fans. He cited them as the reason there was so much global hype in the movies.
That in itself just goes to show how studios should relax their views on unofficial web sites
and recognise how great a “free” marketing tool they can be.
John Rhys-Davies was his usual buoyant, exuberant self. He felt that they had made the “movie of the season… of all time”, and commented that he felt in twenty years time people would look back at LOTR and consider it “one of their favourite films”.
Liv Tyler was briefly interviewed and asked to speak in true Elvish tongue, which she did, off-script and very well!
And Elijah Woods was very charismatic with the reporter and featured with PJ and the other
hobbits in a brief clip of their [kinda] can-can routine.
And throughout it all they played key notes from “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, which actually fitted
quite well.
At the very end as the reporter was summarising she was attacked by orc’s – forget Tehran or
Beirut, a true test of a reporters bravery has to be in the midst of that vile breed.
Take care guys,
Ringer Spy Jon
There’s some amazing people out in the big world-including people who study and understand Elvish languages. They’ve translated Liv Tyler’s lines in Elvish which were heard on TV recently [More]
Thanks to Androg, we know more about what Liv Tyler SAID in Elvish, and he asks some interesting questions about it. He pointed us towards an amazing website run by people who know Elvish well enough to translate and speak it. Here’s Androg:
“As reported on the 26th of April, Liv Tyler spoke one of her Elvish lines in an interview with Conan O’Brien (see here )
Not surprisingly, this sentence was translated and analysed by some of the Sindarin experts; the analysis can be found at galadhorn’s website
The line was said by Liv to mean “Now my lord, winter has not yet come. Would you before your time leave your people?”
I immediately recognised this as being based on the line, “Would you then, lord, before your time leave your people that live by your word?”, from ‘The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen’ in Appendix A to LotR.
The curious thing is that this is what Arwen says to Aragorn just before his death — could this mean that Aragorn’s death will be shown in the movie also?”
I wonder what sort of ending that would make – where that would fit into the Grey Havens and the people who leave, and Sam’s return home which is the final end. It would be hard to make the trilogy end with an exhaustive bio of the eventual fate of every character. That’s WHY Tolkien left that stuff in the appendices. It doesn’t work, in story terms.
It could be worked into the story in other ways – for instance having that conversation as a precognitive dream could work because it’d give us a chance to see how fearful Arwen must be about mortality. It’d give us a chance to know her a bit better if we saw the inward struggle she had between her love for Aragorn and her fear of death. Well, that’s my 2c worth. – Tehanu
Somebody has seen it already, and posted a description on the messageboard. Here’s the gist of what they said [More]
This came in via a secret source…is it for real? This person’s reply was ‘Wait and you’ll see everything that I’m describing.’ Read on:
The next preview trailer – No it does not have the Balrog in it. It is very very good – much better than the 1st one. I do not know when it is going to be shown – very soon (within a week) I would guess.
There is a lot in the thing – some things just one frame. But I had not noticed (or forgot) there is a very brief scene where the orcs are coming down the pillars (looks OK to me), A scene where Galadriel and Frodo are facing each other, you see a nice close up of the ring (with fire runes visible), there is some sort of “fire-bird” swooping down on the shire (I guess it’s in the shire – there are hobbits), – I do not remember it either from LOTR, at first I thought it was just some magical fireburst, but after looking at again it is definately a pterydactyl-looking bird swooping down on a hobbit. It is transparent – like made of fire – very brief shot. [Gandalf’s fireworks? -Tehanu] There’s shots of the party oaring canoes of some sort. As I’ve said the important thing (to me anyway) it’s a very nicely done trailer and I hope it generates a lot of buzz in the general public. I can’t wait to see it on the big screen!
It opens with a beautiful aerial shot of some forest region with a river running through it. Then we see Gandalf (looking very afraid and haggard !?) asking if the ring is safe — to Frodo. Then we hear some narration about the ring and see Mt Doom in the distance (not too realistic). There are multiple fight scenes (very cool), we hear more dialog (all very good), There is some breathtaking scenery. One very cool scene we hear Gollum say “My precious” and make… well a “gollum”. This comes right after Frodo says “There’s something down there” Very well done I might add – very creepy voice.
Near the end, Aragorn asks Frodo if he is afraid and he replies yes then Strider says “Not nearly afraid enough” – Very well done — Very very good trailer – should get a lot of people excited.
There is more of course, I don’t have photographic memory or anything. Some things I have not seen on some of the pictures so far – Ringwraiths shown in negative, a female being chased by a number of cloaked riders (aerial view), There is some footage of the council with Boromir saying “The Ring is a gift from the enemy – let us use it against him,” then Aragorn saying “No one can wield the Ring” All in all I was very excited to see this!! You will not be disappointed. The only thing I noticed is that Gandalf looked a bit crazy, not like the calm wizard I imagined.
One other scene comes to mind – Gandalf (I think) narrating about theRring says, “Sauron could bring a second darkness on the land if found,” and “his whole mind is bent on finding it” or something like that. Very exciting stuff. BTW the sound was incredible!