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Subject: Clips from LOTR: the Sci-Fi Channel version. (no joke!)
Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 04:21:51 +0000 (UTC)
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I Dreamed the Sci-Fi Channel version of LOTR last night!!

Actually, I only dreamed the "lost" Voice of Saruman
episode.  plus some other clips.

But it was in Hi-Def.  Which my dreams rarely are.  I think it helped
that I didn't realize I was dreaming. I thought I was actually sitting
down to watch an ultra-extended version of lost footage from
Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings.

Summary review:

I have just witnessed proof that the live-action LOTR trilogy could
have been much, MUCH worse  (and yet remained strangely watchable,
even exhilarating)... with mostly the same actors, cinematography and
special effects.

Sci-Fi's version (or was it Jackson's Miramax version?) features...
in order of sequence:

A night-time heroic shot of Aragorn winching up a catapult,
which appeared to be powered by a giant steel leaf-spring.

In this version, Helm's Deep and the confrontation at Isengard
appear to have been concatenated into a single event... the
Siege of Isengard.  Perhaps this was lost footage from the old,
two-movie version.

Aragorn, played the same way by reassuring old Viggo Mortenson,
appeared to be the hero of this version. In close-up shots, he
sometimes
acted/looked a bit too much like Eric Bana.  Clearly they wer e still
trying
to get over the whole Stuart Townsend thing at this point in the
production.

The good news, there was no Arwen at Helm's Deep.  In fact, there was
no
Helm's Deep.

The next scene featured Saruman:

A toothy, sci-fi British Saruman with Dan Hennah hair and a typically
English
cock-eyed grin (his teeth were not as bad as Alan Lee's. I think it
might have
actually been one of the Dr. Who guys, ca. 2001, playing Saruman.  It
was
someone identifiable.)  He chewed up the scenery quite effectively.

He started by parleying with Aragorn (indoors, in a generic
stone-castle / mad scientist's lair scene set cribbed from my personal
movie-version of the Gandalf-Saruman confrontation, back when
I first read Fellowship of the Ring.)

After Aragorn demanded his surrender, he chortled, and began
enumerating, precisely, his enemies' strengths and weaknesses,
to Aragorn's shock and dismay and the consternation of Gimli.

"Surrender? ah.

"Our troops number ten thousand... two hundred and eighty-six."

"Arrayed against us, your forces number... two thousand, eight
hundred and forty-two... and a HALF!"

"Ohh yes, and a HAWLF, Aragorn!!" (cackles)

(Referring either to Gimli or one of the Hobbits.  I am not sure
which, but Aragorn looked disma yed, and Gimli lo oked pissed.)

"Maybe even three-quarters! Soon enough, at least."

Saruman then continued by PRECISELY enumerating their provisions
for a siege, the probabilities for when their provisions would run out,

and all the ways they might die. (His own troops included, sounded
like.)
Cholera, dysentery, etc.

With a sort of cock-eyed grin on his face.

This whole extended dialogue scene was very sci-fi-ish, sort of
Ming the Merciless meets Dr. Who from an old British TV episode,
with a little bit of Monty Python (or Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein)
thrown in.  And did I mention Saruman looked like a taller, ganglier
cross between Alan Lee and Dan Hennah from the LOTR extras?
I'd have liked to see a full length version of this Saruman, actually.

The next shot we see is a heroic, big-screen,
- Worm's Eye View - of Aragorn striding towards the camera
after stepping off a lowering drawbridge, at night, in the rain.

This is the point where I really began to get into the movie.

Real "Once Upon a Time in the West" stuff.

I literally told myself, "I can't believe they didn't put this shot in
the theatrical version!"  It was that good.
Cinematographically, at least.

Then we get the big reveal of the Isengard battlements in daytime
as the siege begins, an exhilarating,

A 360-degree, all-CGI with matted in backgrounds, over-the-shoulder
crane shot of the battlement wall, which was shot in the same way as
a similar shot in the movie Troy.  With a choir in the background, etc.


Only... much to my shock and dismay... something was not quite right.

The regular orcs (all-CGI), which made up the bulk of Saruman's
forces atop the battlement wall were incredibly realistic and lifelike,

as we zoom in over their shoulder and pan out across the other side
of the wall, but their massing and movement was peculiarly, nay
entirely robotic
and their appearance was very much reminiscent of the Winkies,
or maybe the Oompah Loompahs, with blotchy blue-green skin
and greasy grey-green Go llum-esque hair pulled back in a bun,
Samurai-style.

It was then that I realized:

These are the poorly rendered Elves from Shrek with yellow eyes and
green skin!

Smooshed down a little, and better rendered, but with the same
obviously animated mo vements and geo metric features as the castle
soldiers and slant-eyed animated elves from the Shrek movies.

And the battlements of Isengard, shot heroically, Troy-style...
were the castle walls from Shrek!!!

"OK, people are going to be pissed off about this," I thought.

The 360-degree background environment (obviously matted in
and out of focus) was exactly the same as the landscape around
Isengard that we saw in the theater, though.

No sign of Orthanc tower, by the way.

OK, there was a bit of thematic similarity to the robotic all-CGI elves

on the battlement walls in Jackson's theatrical version, TOO. Go
figure...

This sequence (which was really quite well done, cinematically,
and well-animated at a Gollum-esque level of detail despite the
piss-poor creature design, which made it really disconcerting),
with the orcs marching around in ranks on the battlements,

...culminated in the BIG REVEAL of the Uruk-hai,

which was apparently saved for the climactic TTT siege sequence
in this "lost" version.

We see this from the vantage point of the Orcs high up atop the
battlement wall, as the Uruk Hai round a bend, past what looks
like a white-washed or pink-stone version of the parapet on the
outer wall at Helm's Deep.

This was shot close-up, in the bright of day (albeit an overcast,
obviously CGI daytime, like the battle scene in the Phantom Menace).

Pretty similar to the heroic reveal of the Fellowship from the
original LOTR movie trailer, actually; as they all come around
the bend.

The Oompah-Loompah orcs were all cheering wildly, and raising their
arms (in unison, of course) at revelation of their secret weapon,
like the real-life actors shouting "GROND!" in the ROTK:EE.
You can tell this is supposed to be our first glimpse of the Uruk Hai.


They amble out nonchalantly carrying their spears and equipment,
like the "Right Stuff" scene from Monsters, Inc.

They are... regular CGI orcs! (same as the others) rendered in
even greater detail (we get close-up on all of them as they p ass by
the camera.)

Only they are BLOWN UP, to miniatu re troll-like proportions,

like balloons which have been filled with blotchy
blue-grey-green paint (which runs down their extremities and pools
around their distended belly buttons) and tied loosely with rubber
bands
to create limbs.  This stretches and distorts their robot-elf features
almost beyond recognition.  They even moved like balloons that
had been filled with paint.

A few of them even had little dimples on top of their heads like an
insufficiently inflated balloon.  Their faces were individually
rendered,
however, and some of them are blotchy and elephant man-like, like the
Sloth orc from ROTK, albeit with slightly pixelated, geometric features

(like precisely oval, sunken eye s in their mottled troll-like skin).

Some had faces like ordinary Uruk Hai from the Jackson films; and
others look like the top-knotted drum major trolls from ROTK. One
big guy in particular was built the same way as the large, hairy ape
from Monste rs, Inc.

There were about... twenty to thirty Uruk H ai in all.

[I think to myself,  "NOBODY Expects the Uruk-Hai!
Our chief weapons are: surprise..."]

The next scene I remember was a bit bizarre, and appeared to have
been cribbed from either Troy, or Dune...or a Law and Order episode.

It is a dramatic scene in Saruman's dusty, castle-like study,
which is lit by warm red candle-light.  The siege is dragging on,
and one of the Good Guys has enlisted an old Rohan woman
(also with long grey dirty Dan Hennah hair, I think we see her
consoling another woman in the Two Towers) to convince Saruman
to surrender.

This woman appears to be a captive in the employ of Saruman
and speaks to him as an intimate, she may even be his <distant
roll of thund er> Girlfriend!  It is clear we are made to think
she has divided loyalties, though.  She appears to have replaced
Wormtongue in the cast.

I'm a bit unclear about what happened in this scene, but she
appears to have been given a gold-plated SUV (like t he ones
in the 1986 Olympics opening ceremonies -- you remember,
"Yes Bob, and these aren't any ordinary SUVs; these are 24kt
GOLD PLATED SUVS!!") as a gift from Theoden... like a Trojan Horse.

(Weregild?  A token of affection from an estranged relative?
A Wierding Module? A disguised doorway into another level of
the Tower? It is unclear, but the actors handled the material
convincingly enough. I mean, who could get away with a giant
horse as a gift to Poseidon in this day and age?? Middle Earth
is obviously different. Oh yeah, and the guy playing Saruman
was NOT Peter O'Toole... tho' again, he had a similar haircut.)

>From what I could make of it (the scene is shot very intimate
and coded-dialogue, in sotto voice, ala "What does your heart
tell you?") She is trying to convince Saruman that if the siege
is lifted, they will be able to hallow it (the SUV) and sail off
(or I guess, drive off) to Valinor together, over the Bent Seas
"where we are otherwise banned forever."

Saruman has apparently already been offered this deal (again,
in person) as a sort of plea bargain...  Law and Order style.

Although I (the viewer) was made to suggest that perhaps Aragorn and
Gandalf (in the Jerry Orbach / Sam Waterston roles)  are not telling
Saruman the whole truth, and are merely suggesting a possible plea
agreement.

Anyhow, Saruman's reaction to his elderly Rohan girlfriend is another
inscrutable, over-the-shoulder Jack Sparrow English grin. so I didn't
get to find out if he accepted the deal or not.

I think the movie ended before that point.  It was clearly a
Cannes-style highlight reel, come to think of it.

Did I mention the climactic fight on Mount Doom between
Aragorn and Michelle Yeoh, in, I think, the Frodo role?

You will see.  Oh yes, precious!!  You will see.
^A