Ok, I'm not as 'inspired' for this scene, but I'll give it a try.
On the plus side, I think the village scene is masterfully done. It could have been very gory, heads being choped off all over the place, brutal men (or pretty orcs, I'm not sure in which category they fall) biting off flesh of still living women... and we would probably say "well, it's shocking, but that is what he was trying to achieve".
Yet PJ does not. While the acting was not quite perfect, the scene of the mother and her children gets the job done. We see how families are torn appart, we see enough examples of the wild men killing innocents but not too many.
On the minus side, the whole comunication scene between Saruman and Sauron... well, I don't buy it. First of all, as noted before, why is Saruman adressing Sauron as his lord? if he really wants to co-rule ME, he should start by adressing the other as a peer, not a superior. Then, I must admit that the scenes of Orthanc and Barad-dur are pretty impressive... but I don't buy them. Orthanc is somewhat beliable, but the stronghold of the Dark Lord does not look plausible enough.
Points for making it obvious that Barad-dur rather than being one tall tower suported by whatever structures they built, it is actually a tower suported by a mountain (you can see rocky outcrops in the lower levels) but.... am I the only one who thinks that the "eye holder" (why does the eye need a holder anyway?) strangely resembles some sort of ornate torch? I just don't buy it I guess.... it does not look completely real.
Anyway, that's it for now... I'm sure glad I stumbled upon scene 4 which got me to join this discussion as a whole!
Edit: Going back to the eye-holder discussion... when you read the books, did you think that the fiery eye existed as a physical thing? I always thought it was more like Sauron mind's eye... something that did not exist in the material but rather the spiritual plane... what do you think? (and if it makes for a good discussion, I might open a new thread outside this section as it might be a bit off-topic here)
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I prepared Explosive Runes this morning.
Last edited by Farael; 03-02-2006 at 12:06 AM.
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