Just give me a movie with swords - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Kent2010 · 03-26-2009, 07:31 AM

This is my first thread attempt, so bear with me, and hopefully this will make some sense.

When I got to thinking about the 'legacy' of the films, my head started hurting, because I think at this stage it's almost impossible to tell the impact of LOTR. My one professor has constantly warned us just because an event follows another, doesn't mean the first event impacted the second, but I think we can come up with some general ideas. I will only be speaking on an individual basis, my own personal thoughts, but I am curious to find out what others have to say.

This current decade has been filled with some type of fantasy or heroic epic. The stories of these movies happen a long, long, time ago or in a galaxy, far, far away. Gladiator (2000), The Last Samurai (2003), Troy (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy (starting 2003), King Arthur (2004), The Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Golden Compass (2007), Eragon (2006), The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008), Beowulf (2007), and of course The Lord of the Rings (starting 2001).

The decade is loaded with films that have swords. I left out Harry Potter and the Star Wars prequels because they were released in 1999, but maybe there's some relevance.

Obviously there were fantasy films and epics before LOTR, like one of my all-time favourite movies The Princess Bride, and you have The Neverending Story, Braveheart...etc, but this decade in particular seems to say forget about guns, lets go sword happy. (However I did love the Bourne trilogy). Why this spurt of heroic, fantasy epics in the decade? And we're poised to end the decade with these films as well - The Hobbit and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I see The Hobbit has been pushed back.

Eventhough this decade of heroic epics truly began with Gladiator, it is LOTR that I'm continually drawn to. It is The Lord of the Rings that really kicked my interest. Now on bad weekends, if I want to watch a movie, I just think to myself: "give me a movie with armies, and armor, and swords." And eventhough I will watch movies like Gladiator, and Braveheart, which were released before LOTR, the reason I watch them is because of LOTR. That was the first, stand-out, landmark film of the decade, that has shaped what movies I want to see on a crappy weekend. Sometimes I'll put in The Bourne movies, or a comedy like Charlie Bartlett, but most of time I think just give me a movie with swords. I don't remember when the last time I watched LOTR was, but I know it is because of LOTR, that I watch the films I do.

I think what I'm wondering is, on an individual level, has LOTR shaped the movies you're interested in seeing? Is it a call back to the long gone glory days, an excape from the modern Sarumanic world? Has it impacted the movies of this decade? If so, does that make it a landmark in film history? When people look back on this decade, will LOTR be the standout?

Nogrod · 03-26-2009, 10:19 AM

I guess I would have to stand with your professor on this. Correlation and causation are not the same thing and it would look like both LotR and the other fantasy/history movies have been spawn from the same cultural ethos of romantic escapism... which indeed began well in the nineties. So I'd say you would just have to accept that the Neverending Story, Braveheart and others (The last of the Mohawks, Robin Hood - Prince of thieves etc...) gave birth to this cultural phenomenon of which LotR is just one follower.

If you wish to make LotR outshine the other movies you can always say that it is based on a far greater original story than the other "competitors" in the field.

Kent2010 · 03-26-2009, 11:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nogrod

So I'd say you would just have to accept that the Neverending Story, Braveheart and others (The last of the Mohawks, Robin Hood - Prince of thieves etc...) gave birth to this cultural phenomenon of which LotR is just one follower.

I hope you don't mind bearing with me some more, because I don't think I made my post, and questions clear. Sorry about that, I'll have to work on it.

I'm not exactly asking what this film's legacy will be in the years to come, that was more of a side thing to get my ideas down. Like I said, I tried to think about that, but it just made my head hurt, and honestly I believe it's rather silly to wonder whether LOTR will be seen as a 'landmark' film 10, 20 years down the road. That's like wondering if an i-pod shuffle will still be the 'big thing' 10 years from now. It's here with us now, so lets enjoy it (or not).

What I was wondering was, for you - individually - how has LOTR shaped the movies you watch, or the movies you want to go see? If it even has at all. Before Lord of the Rings I was more of a comedy person, I loved the movies that poked fun at these types of movies - I'm talking Mars Attacks and Spaceballs. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves? Huh? Give me Robin Hood Men in Tights.

I did see Gladiator and Princess Bride, before LOTR, but neither of them effected the movies I wanted to watch. (I would also include The Princess Bride more in that Men in Tights category than a fantasy/heroic epic). I actually didn't watch Braveheart until after LOTR. That is what I was trying to get to is that since LOTR the movies I want to watch has changed. I still like Spaceballs, but I'm more excited to just see the next LOTR-style movie. So, what is it about LOTR that made it more exciting than Gladiator, The Neverending Story, or other movies before? I guess, as far as I go, only I could answer that, but I was hoping others could kind of see where I was coming from. How has LOTR shaped what movies you want to see? Or just what you like to see in movies?

Quote:

If you wish to make LotR outshine the other movies you can always say that it is based on a far greater original story than the other "competitors" in the field.

Now there's something, maybe we can broaden it a little bit...how has LOTR shaped your reading of Tolkien's books? I might get tarred for saying this, but I preferred the Narnia movies over Lewis' books. I can't say the same about LOTR, but I did watch the movies before reading the story. Tolkien's story was by far better, but I have no doubt that the movies impacted my reading of the books. Maybe for someone who read the books first the movies had no impact on the reading of the text. I don't know? Did it?

I will forever be grateful for what the movies have done to introduce me to a great story and if that makes me in someway a lesser fan, so be it. I can't sit here and pick out all the differences between the two, and I'm not going to even if I could. But I can tell you this is how the LOTR movies impacted what movies I like watching, and this is how the LOTR movies impacted my reading of Tolkien's story. I'm just hoping others are willing to share. (for either good or bad reasons - don't matter to me)

Morthoron · 03-26-2009, 07:20 PM

Well, I don't know how the LotR films have altered my view of movies, if at all, but I have noticed a proliferation of annoying CGI armies sprawling endlessly across horizonless blue screens in the wake of Jackson's movies. Movies previous to LotR, like Braveheart, had to enlist the entire Irish army as extras for their massive battle scenes; whereas, films afterward, such as Troy, 300 and Narnia are almost totally dependent on pixellated gimmickery. Personally, the amazing amount of extras in such movies as Lawrence of Arabia (or any David Lean film, actually) , Ben Hur and even Gandhi (which had approximately 300,000 extras appear at Gandhi's funeral) create more overwhelming scenes than 1 million pixels parading in perfect phalanxes. It's all a matter of taste, I suppose.

Kent2010 · 03-27-2009, 08:35 AM

CGI can get way over the top, I'm thinking about the Wachowski brothers' Matrix movies. The Matrix was an exciting movie and the CGI was an interesting compliment. But, for the last two Matrix movies, the CGI just got out of control. There was too much, it was cheap, and it looked video-gamish.

There were some bad CGI moments in LOTR (like Legolas jumping off the back of a troll, sliding down the Oliphant - well almost any Legolas "stunt," - or the Army of ectoplasm.) but the CGI was also quite stunning. What they did with Gollum was far better than the Star Wars Jar Jar disaster. Also, I thought the battle scenes looked real, despite a few places where you could tell it was obviously CGI. Like Saruman's "blocks" of troops outside Isengard.

Azaelia of Willowbottom · 03-29-2009, 04:50 PM

I can't say if LOTR really changed my taste in movies. Prior to LOTR, I was a huge Star Wars fan (of the original trilogy, anyway...the new ones choked to death on CGI), so that falls into the same sort of epic escapism category, and I already loved The Princess Bride.

LOTR didn't really lead me to any other movies within the genre, though I tend to wind up interesting places when I follow LOTR actors around. Elijah Wood brought me to Everything is Illuminated, a truly unique film that is definitely within the top five on my favorites list. Viggo Mortensen led me to Hidalgo which has served my friends and I well in terms of rainy-day entertainment. Seeing his face on the cover of The Road by Cormac McCarthy led me to discover a bleakly beautiful book. I'm awaiting the movie with bated breath.

I do think I wouldn't have watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail without LOTR's influence. Make of that what you will, as I certainly don't know as there's any significance to that.

I don't care for the special effects revolution that LOTR brought about. There's something about seeing flesh-and-blood people onscreen that no amount of computer wizardry can replace. That said, the special effects in LOTR do still remain the standard by which I judge other movies. So far, only the first Chronicles of Narnia really measures up. Movies need to have a soul, a purpose, beyond special effects, or they're just a disaster, and I hope that cinema realizes that sooner rather than later.

Old Noakes · 02-22-2010, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Well, I don't know how the LotR films have altered my view of movies, if at all, but I have noticed a proliferation of annoying CGI armies sprawling endlessly across horizonless blue screens in the wake of Jackson's movies.....Personally, the amazing amount of extras in such movies as Lawrence of Arabia (or any David Lean film, actually) , Ben Hur and even Gandhi (which had approximately 300,000 extras appear at Gandhi's funeral) create more overwhelming scenes than 1 million pixels parading in perfect phalanxes. It's all a matter of taste, I suppose.

I completely agree Morthoron. When I first saw the FOTR film I liked the depiction of the Last Alliance and the rippling ranks of elvish swordsmen. But by the end of ROTK I was heartily sick of CGI and now I can hardly bear to watch such stuff, and I return to epics with real people, such as The Vikings, El Cid etc. That Rohan charge at the Pelennor when the 6,000 spears become 600,000 is just plain stupid, made all the more so by the fact that Bernard Hill has dialogue in which he mentions how he has 6,000 and wished for more (clearly King Theoden had reckoned without his CGI eoreds)

alatar · 02-23-2010, 03:17 PM

Welcome to the Downs, Old Noakes!

You state that you like the old movies with the billions of real flesh-and-blood extras. Any ideas about why the industry moved away from them? Sure, CG could be cheaper, but then again, maybe not. Any chance someone will go back to those methods?

As I stated in another thread, with the advent of the movie "Avatar," CG doesn't have to be so glaring.

03-26-2009, 07:31 AM	#1
Kent2010 Wight Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: USA Posts: 240	Just give me a movie with swords This is my first thread attempt, so bear with me, and hopefully this will make some sense. When I got to thinking about the 'legacy' of the films, my head started hurting, because I think at this stage it's almost impossible to tell the impact of LOTR. My one professor has constantly warned us just because an event follows another, doesn't mean the first event impacted the second, but I think we can come up with some general ideas. I will only be speaking on an individual basis, my own personal thoughts, but I am curious to find out what others have to say. This current decade has been filled with some type of fantasy or heroic epic. The stories of these movies happen a long, long, time ago or in a galaxy, far, far away. Gladiator (2000), The Last Samurai (2003), Troy (2004), Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy (starting 2003), King Arthur (2004), The Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Golden Compass (2007), Eragon (2006), The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005), Prince Caspian (2008), Beowulf (2007), and of course The Lord of the Rings (starting 2001). The decade is loaded with films that have swords. I left out Harry Potter and the Star Wars prequels because they were released in 1999, but maybe there's some relevance. Obviously there were fantasy films and epics before LOTR, like one of my all-time favourite movies The Princess Bride, and you have The Neverending Story, Braveheart...etc, but this decade in particular seems to say forget about guns, lets go sword happy. (However I did love the Bourne trilogy). Why this spurt of heroic, fantasy epics in the decade? And we're poised to end the decade with these films as well - The Hobbit and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I see The Hobbit has been pushed back. Eventhough this decade of heroic epics truly began with Gladiator, it is LOTR that I'm continually drawn to. It is The Lord of the Rings that really kicked my interest. Now on bad weekends, if I want to watch a movie, I just think to myself: "give me a movie with armies, and armor, and swords." And eventhough I will watch movies like Gladiator, and Braveheart, which were released before LOTR, the reason I watch them is because of LOTR. That was the first, stand-out, landmark film of the decade, that has shaped what movies I want to see on a crappy weekend. Sometimes I'll put in The Bourne movies, or a comedy like Charlie Bartlett, but most of time I think just give me a movie with swords. I don't remember when the last time I watched LOTR was, but I know it is because of LOTR, that I watch the films I do. I think what I'm wondering is, on an individual level, has LOTR shaped the movies you're interested in seeing? Is it a call back to the long gone glory days, an excape from the modern Sarumanic world? Has it impacted the movies of this decade? If so, does that make it a landmark in film history? When people look back on this decade, will LOTR be the standout? __________________ an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind

03-26-2009, 10:19 AM	#2
Nogrod Flame of the Ainulindalë Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Wearing rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves in a field behaving as the wind behaves Posts: 9,308	I guess I would have to stand with your professor on this. Correlation and causation are not the same thing and it would look like both LotR and the other fantasy/history movies have been spawn from the same cultural ethos of romantic escapism... which indeed began well in the nineties. So I'd say you would just have to accept that the Neverending Story, Braveheart and others (The last of the Mohawks, Robin Hood - Prince of thieves etc...) gave birth to this cultural phenomenon of which LotR is just one follower. If you wish to make LotR outshine the other movies you can always say that it is based on a far greater original story than the other "competitors" in the field. __________________ Upon the hearth the fire is red Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet...

03-26-2009, 07:20 PM	#4
Morthoron Curmudgeonly Wordwraith Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits Posts: 2,515	Well, I don't know how the LotR films have altered my view of movies, if at all, but I have noticed a proliferation of annoying CGI armies sprawling endlessly across horizonless blue screens in the wake of Jackson's movies. Movies previous to LotR, like Braveheart, had to enlist the entire Irish army as extras for their massive battle scenes; whereas, films afterward, such as Troy, 300 and Narnia are almost totally dependent on pixellated gimmickery. Personally, the amazing amount of extras in such movies as Lawrence of Arabia (or any David Lean film, actually) , Ben Hur and even Gandhi (which had approximately 300,000 extras appear at Gandhi's funeral) create more overwhelming scenes than 1 million pixels parading in perfect phalanxes. It's all a matter of taste, I suppose. __________________ And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision.

03-27-2009, 08:35 AM	#5
Kent2010 Wight Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: USA Posts: 240	CGI can get way over the top, I'm thinking about the Wachowski brothers' Matrix movies. The Matrix was an exciting movie and the CGI was an interesting compliment. But, for the last two Matrix movies, the CGI just got out of control. There was too much, it was cheap, and it looked video-gamish. There were some bad CGI moments in LOTR (like Legolas jumping off the back of a troll, sliding down the Oliphant - well almost any Legolas "stunt," - or the Army of ectoplasm.) but the CGI was also quite stunning. What they did with Gollum was far better than the Star Wars Jar Jar disaster. Also, I thought the battle scenes looked real, despite a few places where you could tell it was obviously CGI. Like Saruman's "blocks" of troops outside Isengard. __________________ an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind

03-29-2009, 04:50 PM	#6
Azaelia of Willowbottom Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: By the Sea Posts: 446	I can't say if LOTR really changed my taste in movies. Prior to LOTR, I was a huge Star Wars fan (of the original trilogy, anyway...the new ones choked to death on CGI), so that falls into the same sort of epic escapism category, and I already loved The Princess Bride. LOTR didn't really lead me to any other movies within the genre, though I tend to wind up interesting places when I follow LOTR actors around. Elijah Wood brought me to Everything is Illuminated, a truly unique film that is definitely within the top five on my favorites list. Viggo Mortensen led me to Hidalgo which has served my friends and I well in terms of rainy-day entertainment. Seeing his face on the cover of The Road by Cormac McCarthy led me to discover a bleakly beautiful book. I'm awaiting the movie with bated breath. I do think I wouldn't have watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail without LOTR's influence. Make of that what you will, as I certainly don't know as there's any significance to that. I don't care for the special effects revolution that LOTR brought about. There's something about seeing flesh-and-blood people onscreen that no amount of computer wizardry can replace. That said, the special effects in LOTR do still remain the standard by which I judge other movies. So far, only the first Chronicles of Narnia really measures up. Movies need to have a soul, a purpose, beyond special effects, or they're just a disaster, and I hope that cinema realizes that sooner rather than later. __________________ "Wherever I have been, I am back."

02-23-2010, 03:17 PM	#8
alatar Doubting Dwimmerlaik Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Heaven's basement Posts: 2,466	Welcome to the Downs, Old Noakes! You state that you like the old movies with the billions of real flesh-and-blood extras. Any ideas about why the industry moved away from them? Sure, CG could be cheaper, but then again, maybe not. Any chance someone will go back to those methods? As I stated in another thread, with the advent of the movie "Avatar," CG doesn't have to be so glaring. __________________ There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it.