February 24, 2002

Balrogs, Petitions, and Up Close and Personal
Satinder C.

Seeing as 'Balrogs and Wings' is flavour of the month, here's my two cents: who cares!!!??? My personal Balrog HAS wings, and I'm sure there are people who see it WITHOUT wings, and PJ created a Balrog that left it to our imagination as to whether it has wings or not - so really - what's the issue here!? I take it upon myself to end this debate - there are two parties of people here; those that see a Balrog with wings, and those that see it without. I am reminded of debates between different religious sects. Don't get the picture? Well, to put it in simpler terms - BOTH SIDES ARE FIRMLY CONVINCED THAT THEY ARE RIGHT. So what's the point of arguing? Nuff said :)

I love the idea of signing an online petition to have a full/longer version of the FOTR soundtrack available (I, for one, would love to get my grips on that background piece played at the Hobbit Party - does anyone know if it is available in any form and what's it called?). So whilst on the subject of petitions, I wanted to share my own ideas that I hope will one day come to be recognised. There should be a petition for:

*making D*MN sure that the special edition Fellowship DVD has FOUR hours of footage

* - well, seeing as PJ is going to release the Fellowship DVD in its cinematic form, and then the special edition DVD a couple of months later, I am sure there will be people who cannot wait for the S.E DVD and will ultimately buy them both (like me). So, I say there should be a petition for having some kind of part-exchange discount for the S.E FOTR in return for the original one (*sigh* - I can dream can't I?).

*having PJ and the crew make 'The Hobbit', and quite possibly other great Fantasy titles - like Magician. (This idea might have already been released but I thought I'd include it as I really want it to happen!!!!)

*bringing the release date of the second and third films, and the DVD's CLOSER. (OK OK - so I'm covering old ground, I'll stop already).

On to the last topic of my virgin piece for the debate, I wanted to put across my opinion of flaws in the movie. One of the biggest things I didn't like was the Up Close And Personal shots of the battle sequences - the fiasco in the Chamber of Mazarbul (have I spelt that right?) and the 'Watcher in the water' sequence are the biggest culprits. It was hard to see exactly what was going on. Mixing these types of shots with more 'panoramic' shots would have worked better. The only other thing I can think of for the time being are the short cuts the film took (Bree, and the general lack of character development for example), but I am sure that will be resolved in the longer DVD version of FOTR. That's all for now, INCREASE THE PEACE.