May 15, 2003

Re: Visual Effects and Mount Doom
In the Land of Mordor

In response to Visual Effects
I think we may all need to wait until we see the Matrix sequels before we can make any SFX comparison between them and LOTR. I'm sure the filmmakers aren't showing everything up their sleeve during the trailers. There will more likely be even cooler stuff in the actual movie. For both movies, the main bulk of SFX shots are just reusing the same techniques established previously in other movies. But in both there are certain areas where the filmmakers push the limit (Gollum, bullet time). And going back to the trailers, there were things in the LOTR trailers that I thought looked a little hokey but when I saw them on the big screen they looked alright, so the same may be true for the Matrix.
Also, this may be bad news, I've heard that since the Oscar ceremony is going to be moved up a month in 2004, then the deadline to be eligible has also moved up and ROTK will not even be a contender until 2005.(The good news being that it won't be up against the Matrix.)

In response to Mount Doom
Speculation(especially negative)about how PJ will handle certain characters/situations seems a little pointless, partly because(as I said above) the movie almost invariably turns out different than you imagine(an example:Arwen never materialized into the Xenarwen character everyone feared she would). Obviously there are a million different variations that PJ could use for the Mount Doom scene, but I think we all need to relax and wait for ROTK to come out, then we can praise/criticize; there's really nothing else we can do until then, speculation just makes everyone more antsy and in some instances, angry, usually for no reason.
Now with Frodo I always thought his strength lies with his ability to resist the ring(of course not without some struggle). I thought Sam, if anyone, was more obviously heroic in the books, he was really the driving force to get Frodo to Mount Doom to destroy the ring.
Also the TTT do refer to Orthanc and Cirith Ungol, since each half of TTT ends with each group reaching those locations. But the movie, because of the changes, focused on Orthanc and Barad-dur.