Elanor writes: Last year before Fellowship was released, a friend tipped me off to a store in my neighborhood that sells DVD’s earlier than the official release date. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check this year either. I went in yesterday and to my utter delight the guy said yeah we’re getting it tomorrow. So today I am the proud owner of the theatrical widescreen DVD of The Two Towers. I had always planned to buy it, eiven though I am even more eagerly awaiting the special extended version due in November. Hopefully I’ll get that early too and review it as well. But I was dying to see the Return of the King preview. And now I have. I wanted to get this news out to all those salivating for ROTK news. Hola to all my AICN tailend pals. It’s worth it, oh yes. It’s worth it.
What a relief! I finally have some ROTK footage to swoon over. Well here is as much of a review as I can muster since all I really want to do right now is watch it over and over. So far all I have watched is the ROTK preview (3 times) the Extended version preview and the Gollum’s Song video. I think the preview may be the very same thing as was shown at Comic Con. Be prepared though, this is not a trailer per se but a behind-the-scenes preview with actual snippits of footage interspersed throughout. Some amazing snippets but nothing that lets you get emotionally involved. Lots of interview snippets with PJ, Viggo, Elijah, Alan Lee, etc. Some cool looks at ‘how they did it’ but I would rather see that later, after I see the movie itself. The last few minutes is straight footage (the sequence I never saw online but lots of you have) which is all superb, especially the Frodo, Sam and Gollum stuff . For those enamored of Tolkien’s melancholy the preview gave me the distinct feeling that the filmmakers have NOT missed that element. Nor do they seem to have forgotten that it’s Frodo’s story.
WARNING SPOILERS:
Mumakil with horses running between its legs! The Reforging of Narsil into Anduril which PJ once said would open ROTK seems to take place in a cave-like forging room Rivendell as it should, which makes me speculate again that Elrond will sub for Halbarad and bring it to Aragorn, rather than Arwen’s banner (he could bring both I guess, poncy elf that he is) Cool scene with Aragorn and Gandalf talking strategy. Denethors bitterness seems ratcheted up and more personally against ‘upstart Ranger’ Aragorn. Dialogue spells out that Sauron mistakenly thinks Pippin has the Ring (more subtly done in the book) but it looks like PJ is getting some bonus emotional mileage from it via Merry and Pippin. Not sure yet how this jives with Nazgul/Frodo; did he see/sense the Ring in Osgiliath but I will wait to see. It looks like the Three Hunters are alone at the Paths of the Dead – and it looks foreb oding as hell. One shot I can’t figure out of something, someone walking into Barad Dur. Shelob’s cave looks less dark (how could you film that anyway?) but absolutely creepy and terrifying. Gandalf and Shadowfax galloping up the stairs only to see the immensity of Sauron’s army on the Pellenor.
END SPOILERS
Yes, I would say this makes buying this version worth it, even if I do still wish I had gotten the type of trailer we were treated to of Two Towers at the end of Fellowship’s run. But then again, I am now satisfied that they were not holding out on us. In the back of my mind I kept thinking they HAVE a trailer, they are just not showing us one. But now I see, they really never made one. HOWEVER, for those like me who love seeing footage, we have the preview of the Two Towers SEV. Now THAT is far more satisfying. I saw lots of juicy morsels that have not been talked about yet and far be it from me to spoil any of it for the next Rings geek.
Murky Majare writes: I have just gotten a sneak peak at the 10 min preview of RotK and can confirm that it is on the TTT DVD which will be out on the 26th.
The ‘teaser’ that many of us have already seen is the end of the preview, where we get some short interview from Sean, Viggo, Eliah and PJ as well as a few other directors, Alan on Minas Tirith etc.
We get to see a lot other short clips from diffrent stages of the film. A few scenes of Frodo running in Shelob’s cave. (awesome) The entrance to the Path of the Dead Sequence.
A scene between Merry and Pippin, where Pippin is informed that Sauron now believes that Pippin has the ring and thus is after him.
A scene with Denethor, who is not pleased about this “ranger of the north”
Several snap shots of Minas Tirith, and also a sequence about Massive, their program for making the armires move. (In which we get to see some flyby scenes from the battle).
There is a long sequence from Pelenor Fields, where we get to see lots of horses attacking, a cool scene (in Massive) where an Oliophant tries to stomp some horses. Merry charging (in full armor).
And lots more than I can remember.
A spy by the name of Jedi over at Comingsoon.net has posted a bit of information about the scenes in the Two Towers Extended Edition and some minor spoilers for RoTK.
A lot of the Towers information we’ve already read in AICN’s report, but there are some very interesting clarifications on several scenes. Although this report seems credible, the usual spy report disclaimers apply. Jedi writes:
I’ll give you report on the EE of TTT first then info on ROTK including my experience on set of the pick-ups going on and a look at a completed scene I got to view. Then info. on the trailer.
The day was Tuesday and it started with getting up around 9am and going for some breakfast with my “friends” at a little cafe called “Fidel’s.” If you stay in Wellington, I highly reccomend Fidel’s for your eating needs. Got out of there around 10:30am, drove to the screening where we sat down in a little screening room with about 30 seats and then it was show time.
Extended opening with Sam and Frodo: After Frodo wakes from his nightmare of Moria, the scene cuts to the hobbits carefully making their way down a cliff as the two towers title appears on the screen contrast to the theatrical version where the scene cuts to the hobbits making their way up a mountain and title pops up on screen. There is a better teaser leading up to Gollum, the audience really gets full of effect of the hobbits being followed, I believe there was a scene where we see Gollum’s point of view watching them as rome around emyn muil.
The Urukhai: You see the rivalry between Mordor’s orcs and Sauruman’s urukhai. One orc asks Grishnak why “the master wants the halflings…” The reply is “they have some elvish weapon, the master wants it for his war…” It all still leads to the food fight.
Sauruman in the cabins of Isengard is extended a little, he just walks around more.
Great new added scene here: The fight at ford isens where Eomer comes upon the body of a wounded Theodred who was ambushed by orcs. Karl Urban rules! Nuf said.
Treebeard: New scene added with Treebeards home and the hobbits rest and then drink the ent draught where they realized they have grown in the next scene. The look on their faces is kind of deja vu..
Fangorn forest and the return of Gandalf seemed in tack, although when he speaks about what happened in Moria, it looked like some scenes of Gandalf battling the balrog were added. It’s been months since I last saw the theatrical version of TTT.
The king of the golden hall: This scene is extended a little, mostly it is more wormtounge, we see the the rohirrium guards leading Grima to the steps as he protests, this scene is contrast to the theatrical version where after Theoden is exorcised the scene cuts directly to the steps of of the Golden hall and Wormtounge is thrown out. We then go to the funeral of Theodred when the beautiful Eowyn (Miranda Otto) sings a lament for her cousin. Very moving scene, Miranda has a beautiful voice.
There is are new scenes in the golden hall, in paticular Eowyn serves Aragorn some stew, the stew doesn’t look too tasty, but when you have been living off Lembas for days anything looks good. Also if I remember correctly there was another small scene where Aragorn reveals his real age to Eowyn.
Extended scene in the Edoras stables as the Rohirrum guards along with Aragorn and Eowyn are seeing that the horses are saddled ready to depart to Helms deep.
[My guess is the picture below is part of this scenes – Dem.]
Brego is better introduced as he becomes wild, kicking and screaming. A calm Aragorn says “turn this fellow free… He has see enough war…” That is when Eowyn really begins to fall in love with Aragorn.
More conversations between Gandalf and Aragorn, including the scene we have seen in the previews where Gandalf and Aragorn are talking at nightfall about Sauron and Saurman tightenting the noose… Also talking about how war is upon us.
Some new scenes with Faramir. Faramir role is beefed up. Most notable is the extension of scenes and new scene added to the osgiliath sequence, during the sequence where the Gondorian army and Faramir rangers retake the city of Osgiliath the great new scene of the flaskback of Boromir being sent to Rivendell and the introduction of Denethor. Great new scene, the Denethor’s cameo is well done and well placed. I gurantee you that when you guys see and meet denethor, you want jump through the screen and strangle him and tell him to show love to both his sons. Faramir gets no repect, which better explains Faramir hard nosed attitude and why he wants to take the ring to Gondor.
There are extended scenes of Sauruman and Worntounge in orthanc.
Helms Deep seemed longer and I could bet the farm in saying that I saw some new scenes in interlaced with others. Like I said above it has been awhile since I saw the theatrical version, so I can’t remember what is new and what is not new.
The storming of Isengard has some new scenes added, what appears to be hurorns leave and appear at helms deep as the urukhai are fleeing the scene and the huorns take on all comers. This was a cool scene..
The ending is not really new, but more extended, it still has the same stuff but there are more scenes that lead up to it, like Merry and Pippin going in the store room, Legolas and Gimli claiming they each won the orc killing contest and of course Faramir showing Frodo, Sam and Gollum to the sewers of Osgiliath where he tells Frodo “Go with the good of all men…” Then Faramir snickered something at Gollum. Sam and Gollum make a semi truce there too.
Well, that’s it. Another job well done by PJ and the editors.
Now the ROTK stuff:
I got to see some footage of ROTK, actually it was an actual scene. The scene consisted of a King who as fallen in battle and his nephew who is his last true heir gives a lament to his fallen Uncle. Very emotional scene. I was almost driven to tears, I would haved cried if the scene had been scored. That won’t happen untill sometime in late September or early October. BTW, if I have to actually tell you the names of the characteres invloved in this scene, then you are NOT a LOTR fan.
I did get to go Thursday and watch some pick-ups being shot at Wellington studios, they are actually doing some more pick ups for the pellenor fields, they are using a giant blue screen and there were a bunch of extras. Also in previous pick ups, Dom Monaghan did some new scenes with Bernard Hill who plays Theoden.
Finally, work on the trailer will begin in late August.
It will be a type of “super trailer,” over 2 minutes in length. Also, don’t get your hopes up about seeing shelob in the trailer, she will be teased. You may see just a leg or any eye or just her lair, they really are not considering putting her in the trailer in all her glory.
Also, there is talk of adding a hidden ROTK preview to TTT EE dvd just like what was done with TFOTR EE dvd and TTT hidden preview. Nothing is certain yet.
That’s it.
Peace out,
JEDI
3rdOrcfromtheleft is back with more information on just what scenes they are filming at the studio backlots in Wellington. Take a look!
Mostly our scenes consisted of Gondorians awaiting the Orc army to arrive at Minas Tirith, the battle then occuring with bows and arrows, a catapult, with the Orcs using the same as well as Nasgul arriving.
Then we did the opposite, as Orcs lining up and marching to Minas Tirith; some of the battle – firing arrows, dodging CG rocks; the arrival of Aragorn and his ghost ships (all green screen); lastly, dead and dying Orcs and Rohans.
[Take a look at our latest studio images from New Zealand]
Ringer Spy 3rdOrcfromthelef writes: Both the blue and green screens have been in use over the past two months for pick ups, reshoots and additional film.
An oliphaunt scene was shot recently with stunties, who are also back as Rohan warriors riding on Pelennor Fields. In fact, both screens are currently joined together as one enormous screen, specifically for shooting Pelennor. It is still ongoing, even though the wrap parties are being held over the next few days.
[Take a look at our latest studio images from New Zealand]
Lolly’s Report from the Australian Effects and Animations Festival held in Melbourne back in May, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image at Federation Square. This happened back in May, but I don’t think we got such a detailed and funny report as this at the time.
Lolly writes:
Firstly Bay introduced himself and gave a brief run down on his role at Weta, which in TTT was building hero facial systems. He discussed what would be discussed and shown, and we were treated to a 50 minute tape of behind the scenes.
He started by showing some background info footage from FOTR, and if you’ve got the extended version it wasn’t anything new. Apparently, Legolas was the most used digital double. In the scene with the warg attack, where Legolas does his wonderful mounting of Arod, there is actually more Orlando Bloom than I thought. Orlando is in the shot right up to when the horse comes alongside him. He was filmed jumping up once the horse reached him, then the fun started trying to work out how to get him up on Arod. We were shown some of the different ways tried to get the digital Legolas on the horse, one in particular was jumping up in front of Gimli, which looked really corny. Another scene was Aragorn going over the cliff with the warg. There was some blue-screen shot with Viggo Mortensen hanging on the side of something that looked like a bucking bronco machine covered in blue cloth! Problem with this is that although Viggo was bouncing around, his feet were too, not dragging as they would if one was caught in the harness of a warg (I personally avoid that myself). The way around this was similar to Legolas on top of the Cave Troll in FOTR, actor from the waist up, digital legs.
While on the topic of the wargs, Bay explained that they developed a specific hair system for the wargs, and used reference footage of dogs to create a realistic (ish) gait for the critters. To test that the programming was right, and being animators after all, there were a couple of interesting scenes with wargs. Firstly, we saw a warg fetching a stick, like any good little doggie does. Another was labelled a “ham” warg, the one that falls on Gimli, very corny death scene by the warg! And finally the warg who comes at the camera with mouth open is then shown coughing and gagging and up comes the camera, but no sign of the camera operator! Gollum also gets special treatment, but more on that later.
There was a little bit on Treebeard (I don’t have too many notes so I am assuming it was only “little). Its probably well-known by now that he was a 14 foot puppet, but because his face wasn’t so flexible they had to digitally create a number of his expressions, and naturally his speech.
Now, Gollum!! As we know, a lot of Gollum was acted out by Andy Serkis, who was then rotoscoped out of scenes to put the more emaciated Gollum in his place. Gollum has some 925 facial morph targets. The facial expressions were based on Eckman’s Facial Action Units, a guy who put together a database of different facial expressions, mainly to determine through facial expressions alone when a person is lying. There were 30 people working on rotoscoping and paint for Gollum. Bay did say that Andy’s performance was very good, but some of the actions they wanted Gollum to do was not possible, for example when Gollum jumps on Sam and bites him on the shoulder. You’ll notice that Gollum’s feet are at Sean Astin’s chest, not something a real person could do, well not have Sean still standing anyway. Still there were some scenes that were motion capture of Andy, it was generally a mix of key frame and motion capture. Now, the fun bit. We saw Gollum with spiky purple hair, Kermit made an appearance while the Hobbits were battling with Gollum and the rope, plus when Gollum rears back (“every orc in Mordor will hear this racket”) he has a red electric guitar in front. May not sound quite so funny in text, but we certainly had a good laugh. Kermit also makes another appearance at Osgiliath, sitting in a window as Frodo, Sam and Gollum are pushed along. One of the marvels, and probably life-savers for Directors and Producers, of modern-day technology is that when you get an extra all dressed in Gondorian armour who clearly doesn’t have a clue what they’re meant to be doing, you don’t need to go to the expense of shooting the scene again, you just get them rotoscoped out of the scene! This extra was in the middle of the shot where the line of Gondorian soldiers jog past, took three months to fix but I’m sure it was less expensive than trying to re-build the set, get the actors back etc. etc.
We should know by now the wonders of Massive, Weta’s fantastic software. For TTT it was further developed where each agent (i.e. Soldier, orc etc) can see and hear, has its own brain and makes a decision what to do. It recognises the difference between orc and Elf armour and knows that its supposed to fight this other agent. Makes you wonder what’s in store for us with Return of the King!!!
Thanks to Lolly for that detailed report!
