The Fantasy Hall of Fame

Finished Kwaidan today (ended up watching it in three sessions - planned for two but was too tired to finish yesterday). One story is good, two are OK, and one is rather weak. Which is which will become clear once I write my review in a few days.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Thanks to @CosmicRunaway, I looked away for the spider scenes, and I made it through this movie. I didn't watch these scenes, but they sounded pretty intense.

The third movie seemed to be more about the battles, and with the exception of Sam and Frodo, it was less about the characters. I was surprised at how easily Gollum was able to trick Frodo into turning against Sam, but I loved that Sam came back to save Frodo anyway.

I also liked the friendly competition between Legolas and Gimli. I thought the banter between them was a highlight of the movie, especially when Gimli said "I never thought I would die fighting side by side with an elf.", and Legolas replied "What about side by side with a friend?".

However, throughout the trilogy, Merry and Pippin seemed like the same character. They were pretty much interchangeable to me.

Did I hear right at the end, that the timeline of the trilogy was 13 months? It didn't seem like that long.

After watching the entire trilogy, I expected to see the ring have some great power at the end, but I still don't know what it can do. It seems to have a power over people, (and hobbits, elves, dwarfs, etc.), but it was never really explained why the ring is so powerful, and what someone can do once they have the ring.



There seemed to be a few similarities to the original Star Wars trilogy, although I'm not sure that they were intentional. The battle scene reminded me of the battle on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back, with large attackers, and they had to take them down by the legs. And another similarity to Star Wars was the Heroes ceremony at the end.


And on a completely different issue, did anyone else have any issues with the sound in the movies? (I watched these movies on DVDs, so it couldn't have been a bad download or a streaming problem.) The sound fluctuated between the music being so loud that I was waiting for my neighbors to complain, and so low that I had to turn on the subtitles. It drove me nuts. And for disc 2 of the third movie, I was so worried about the spider, that I forgot to turn the subtitles on until more than halfway through the movie. I had to rewind a few times to find out what I couldn't hear them saying.

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

Just as an aside, there are a couple of things that I learned by watching the LotR trilogy.

In "The Big Bang Theory" episode "The Financial Permeability" (S2E14), Leonard wants to go confront Penny's large ex-boyfriend, and he when asks his friends to go with him, they refuse. Now I understand this conversation:

Leonard: Excuse me. When Frodo left the Shire to take the one ring to Mordor, didn't Samwise, Pippin and Merry go with him?
Sheldon: They did.
Leonard: Well?
Sheldon: They had a terrible time of it, Leonard.


And I've had this LotR item sitting in the warehouse for a while, but I didn't know what it was until now:








Does anyone know what this image on the inside of this statue means?

It's the White Tree of Gondor, and that version specifically (with the crown and taller top branches) is the design on Aragorn's flag.

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I had one hand on the volume control pretty much the entire time. My DVDs and the BluRays I borrowed from my brother had similar audio issues. The BluRays were actually slightly worse, and I imagine they were likely designed to take advantage of fancy audio equipment I don't have.

I noticed a huge difference in audio quality the two times I saw each film in theatres as well. The first time I saw them was here in town, and the sound was fantastic. I remember the Nazgûl screeches in particular being great, where you'd hear them just off to one side, then on the other. The music would be loud, but you could still clearly hear the dialogue over it. When I saw them back home in our small local theatre, I was very disappointed that all the sounds were muffled, and I didn't get that same experience with the Nazgûl. It was also much harder to hear the characters over the music there.

So I think it comes down to individual sound systems and how the films were originally mixed.

Dragonslayer



Those last 20 minutes were very entertaining. I wish the rest of the film felt that way but it didn't. Yeah I agree with everyone the dragon was pretty badass here but I still liked Connery's in Dragonheart if we are comparing.

I forgot who said it but the lead here just doesn't stand out all that much to me and really just seems like he's there rather than being all that enthusiastic about his role. The love story didn't really get with me either unfortunately. It needed to get more out of Richardson's role which again I'll say it he was the best thing the film had going for itself.

On the other hand, the film looks really good. I think it could have suited itself better throwing more humor around here and there like Dragonheart did. Well, anyways, that should he enough to tell you which I preferred.

Work and life have been busier than anticipated recently. As a result I cannot guarantee I'll be able to watch all the films at regular intervals over the next few weeks. I therefore humbly withdraw from this mighty quest. Apologies to all. I'll keep an eye on the thread and hopefully the best film will win. Goodnight and good luck.

You have until Sept 19th, actually. Plenty of time

I figured Hollowman wouldn't finish. But I'll still probably watch Return of the King.

I only watched the first one, but yeah the sound mix was horrible. The audio was so low that I didn't always know what they were saying, then if I turned it up the music score would break my eardrums. And I don't have surround sound, just the speakers in the tv. For me it was really a drawback.

Nah it was fine

That's cool HollowMan. Thanks for being honest about not being able to complete this...and thanks for taking the time to post and let us know, I appreciate that! You'd be surprised at how many past members have just disappeared without ever saying a word. You're OK in my book

Thank you.

I preferred Sean Connery's dragon in Dragonheart too.

@HollowMan,
I just looked it up on the first page, and you nominated The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), so I actually watched two extra movies because of your nom. I'm just kidding. I'm not really angry about it because, (except for the spider), I enjoyed the whole LotR trilogy, and I've had the trilogy on my watchlist for years, so your nomination finally gave me the push that I needed to watch all three movies.

Are you sure that you want to drop out? Just because other people are finishing quickly, it doesn't mean that you have to rush to finish. You still have almost two months to watch the noms. It's a shame if you drop out because I think your nom had a good chance to win.

I'm just curious, did you watch LotR on DVD or streaming?

No problem. I don't like backing out of things I've committed to but a combination of work and social commitments due to Summer and the loosening of Covid restrictions left me no choice really. I'll probably be able to watch them all by the deadline but not with the regularity or engagement a HoF requires. Just think of me as Boromir, pierced by the arrows of time...

That was my evil plan all along; make you all suffer through two more LOTR films
I don't like dropping out but don't want to mess you all around with my potential unreliability. I'll still watch a few films anyway and offer my thoughts.

It kinda sucks that for your first Hall of Fame you didn't even manage a single viewing or review but it happens....anyways

@ahwell @Citizen Rules @edarsenal @gbgoodies @MovieGal @pahaK @rauldc14 @Siddon @Wyldesyde19

As some of you may have already seen, HollowMan has decided not to join us on our quest after all. As a result, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has officially been disqualified and removed from your quest logs. For those who wish to complete the full Lord of the Rings journey anyway, it has joined The Two Towers as a purely optional side quest.

Since some members of our fellowship have already watched Return of the King, the deadline will not be altered, and as a reminder it is currently set to Saturday, September 19th. Thanks for your time everyone. I hope you stay safe on your travels.

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