Finnish LotR

[A Little Green]

Wow, I can't believe they have it on youtube! Love!

Originally Posted by Lommy

If I had more time, I'd just love to learn to use some movie maker and make English subtitles for the rest...

If you get me a movie maker (and time) I could do that, I know how to make subtitles. (At least with one particular program the name of which I can't remember, don't know if they all work the same way..)

[Pitchwife]

Just noticed that the videos davem linked to in his original post seem to have been deleted from YouTube, but I found episodes 1-4 and the beginning of 5 with English subs here - are those by any chance your work, Greenie?

Anyway, this is a very interesting version: very gloomy (most of it makes Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz look brightly lit by comparison), very minimalistic in it's use of scenery and sfx (you can tell it evolved from a theatre play and was probably made on a small budget), relying mainly on atmosphere, music and acting, its visual side about as far removed as you can possibly get from the popular images PJ, Howe & Lee, the Hildebrandts e tutti quanti have implanted in our heads. They condensed the story a lot, of course (e.g. by cutting from the Nazgûl attack on Weathertop straight to Frodo awakening in Rivendell, so no Glorfindel), but they kept Tom Bombadil (bonus points for that!, even though he looked nothing like I imagine him), and all in all I think they captured the gist of the story quite well.
Some of the highlights: Frodo looks like an adult and indeed quite tough, Gollum is scarily mad and depraved and utterly uncute, and Gandalf is an impressive wizard even without the usual yardlong beard. And I love the idea of having the whole story told/read by old Sam Gamgee to his kids (or grandchildren?); that actor did a great job - the wistful smile when he first mentions "Frodo Reppuli" has all his love and dedication to his former master in it, all the fond memories of the good and hard times they shared, it's brilliant.

(Side-note: I watched the first three episodes without the subs while they were still available, and it's marvellous how much you can understand even without knowing the language, just by knowing the story; if nothing else, I've picked up that "ring" is "sormus" in Finnish. Learn a foreign language with LotR - not a bad idea, is it?)

I'm curious how they handled the later parts of the story - especially the Elves, but also the development of Sam's character - , so I hope whoever made the subbed versions will go on uploading the remaining episodes.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Just noticed that the videos davem linked to in his original post seem to have been deleted from YouTube

Hey, what a pity That's bad, it was still there a few days ago when I was looking...

(Side-note: I watched the first three episodes without the subs while they were still available, and it's marvellous how much you can understand even without knowing the language, just by knowing the story; if nothing else, I've picked up that "ring" is "sormus" in Finnish. Learn a foreign language with LotR - not a bad idea, is it?)

I can assure you it isn't a bad idea at all

[Morthoron]

Yes, I was able to finish Lord of the Rings quite handily. Good book. An easy read. In fact, I've finished reading it several times.

[Blind Guardian]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Yes, I was able to finish Lord of the Rings quite handily. Good book. An easy read. In fact, I've finished reading it several times.

>.< You stole my words!




Except I haven't finished it. I really should. Maybe after I read Sean Astin's There And Back Again: An Actor's Tale

[Thinlómien]

This guy has uploaded and translated the whole series: link to his YouTube uploads

I didn't watch it yet so I can't guarantee the translation is good - the parts I saw were good except that he had misspelled Minas Tirith, but he had taken care to use the exact wordings of LotR when the original script was doing that, which at least is good.

Going to watch at least some of this tomorrow, so excited!

[Thinlómien]

Watched most of it today. It's really quite awesome - you can poke Legate for some impressions since he watched it with me and he hasn't seen it a gazillion times before - but the subtitles are kind of bleh. They are too big and too in the middle of the screen and sometimes the English is quite bad. Not saying that it's ununderstandable, though, and quite many lines are straight from LotR so it's ok (except take everything Tom Bombadil says which a pinch of salt 'cos the guy apparently didn't understand him at all: TB is definitely not asking the Hobbits to tell their story to their sisters or warning them against cold aspens - I'm not sure what he said exactly in the sister case but he meant that they should tell him and the thing the Hobbits should be careful with is cold wights (kylmiä haamuja) not cold aspens (kylmiä haapoja)! And also whenever the translation says "treacherous", it doesn't mean treacherous but terrible. )