Ok, Is Lord of the Rings really that great of a movie? now listed as #1 ALL-TIME on imdb.com

[Electric Amish]

<< Relax, people. IMDB's rankings are mostly an indicator of the public's favorite films and nothing more...it's nothing to get your panties into a wad over. So 20,000+ people on some web-site loved LOTR and you didn't...well, cry me a freaking river. That's life. Accept that your opinion is in the minority here and move on without attacking them for simply enjoying a movie.

The #1 ranking will likely come down somewhat anyway...there is always backlash (as this thread illustrates nicely). Either way, as "unscientific" as IMDB's system is (just wondering: how exactly would you determine the greatest film "scientifically"?) if you look at the Top #250 list most of the films near the top are pretty damn good by anyone's standards, so LOTR must be doing something right.

Also, I am LOL at the comments about LOTR appealing only to nerds/geeks. Everyone I have encountered in person--young children, teenage girls, business executives w/ 6-figure incomes, middle-aged beer-guzzling football junkies (who probably wipe their asses with pages from LOTR ), and MANY people who ate nerds for breakfast back in high school--ALL happen to like the movie. And it is cleaning up at the box office ($154 million domestic so far) so apparently they're not the only ones who feel that way. It is a fact that reaction to the film is extremely favorable across all demographics (all four quadrants, if you like). Even the so-called experts love it, as 90-95% of their reviews are favorable.

As far as the Oscars go: LMAO. The Academy is a joke and always has been...I cannot believe that anyone would measure a film's worth by the number of nominations/wins it receives. There are many good--and possibly even great--movies that were never so "honored". Conversely, some of the Academy's selections have been questionable at best (especially recently). >>



Yup!

amish

 

[RSI]

I saw it twice and I'm going to see it again. It's pretty good.

-RSI

 

[fjorner]

yeah, it's pretty good. i thought it was an incredible movie, perhaps one of the best i've seen, but i could have made it better. Gandalf's falling scene was especially a scene i felt could have been done better.

 

[Danzilla]

<< I think you mean ethereal, not mithril

no, he meant Mithril the amazing metal of LOTR. >>

Thanks PlatinumGold. I wasn't sure if I should say anything. On one hand, it seems thedan hasn't read the books, but feel he knows the story well enough to try and correct my choice of words. Oh the other hand, he seemed to almost be defending against wageslave's dumb remark.

No wageslave, I'm sure you're not biased or anything. ("Its the best movie of all time to me.... "). If you really believe most people will sit quietly for three hours, I applaud your high opinion of your fellow man. Personally, I have a more realistic view. Anyone have the stats on how often an average person goes to the bathroom or get a drink? I have a feeling wageslave will be surprised.
In a side note, have you even read the books?

MarktheManiak, stop being a maniak and actually read my post before responding to it.
1) I clearly stated that while I don't remember an elf princess (I was referring the section with her helping Frodo, but I didn't specify) in the original, I also said I may need to reread the book. I have read the books probably three times in my 31 years but the last was at least a half dozen or so years ago.
2) I didn't say anything about the Nazgul's ability to cross the stream. I was referring to the poor choice of film direction that made it appear as though the Nazgul were just plain stupid by having them sit and wait for the flood when they could have easily made it to either shore physically. I'm not at all talking about the magic that does stop them from crossing, merely the physical aspect of their just sitting there and waiting for it.

Try and read more carefully next time, eh?

 

[Stark]

It was long. Good, but looong.

I'll see the rest of the movies, but I don't know if it was the best movie ever. Maybe the best fantasy movie ever.

I also noticed many similarities with Star Wars. Or should I say, it became clear where Lucas came up with many of the ideas for his stories (rip off!!).

 

[Danzilla]

<< I swear, if I were Peter Jackson I'd get so pissed at those whiny, nit-picking brats I'd fill the second movie with Ewoks and have the Tellitubbies destroy the ring in the 3rd movie just to freaking piss them all off! >>

LOL! I'd really like to see that.

 

[Texmaster]

LOTR Sucked IMO.

The movie was one predictable battle to another.

But this is coming from someone who never read the books and was never really into them but from a movie standpoint, I gotta say it was long, boring, and the battles just repeated themselves.

 

[StageLeft]

NFS4 You really need to see this movie before you start bashing it. It's not a movie for geeks and people who run around with staffs and wizard caps in real life. I'm still quite surprised you'd never heard of Lord of the rings until this year - a story that is considered by many the greatest fantasy story ever (you don't have to like fantasy to have heard of it) and has such a level of popularity that it is even required reading in some schools (Mrs. Skoorb's entire english class had to read it). Whether you like the story or not (but you've never read it), it IS a classic. I don't mean classic in the sense of dickens or other painfully mind-numbing authors, but it is undeniably a classic across the world.

Obviously something about LOTR really bothers you. Personally I'm bothered about certain things also. For instance, why did so many people watch Jurassic Park 3 this year? What a god-awful movie (and lots of people share that opinion but if you try and find people who didn't like LOTR you're going to find yourself terribly outnumbered). I think you're annoyed that LOTR has come along and impressed so many people and yet you'd not even heard of it until a short while ago, so I can't help but wonder if you have an ill-based bias against it so that you don't have to admit to yourself that perhaps - just maybe - LOTR is actually a good story. I suppose that unless you're willing to sidestep your pre-conceived notions of what LOTR is about and actually watch the movie you'll never know.

 

[S0me1X]

I don't think much of imdb's user votes, but LotR is good.

 

[NFS4]

<< NFS4 You really need to see this movie before you start bashing it. It's not a movie for geeks and people who run around with staffs and wizard caps in real life. I'm still quite surprised you'd never heard of Lord of the rings until this year - a story that is considered by many the greatest fantasy story ever (you don't have to like fantasy to have heard of it) and has such a level of popularity that it is even required reading in some schools (Mrs. Skoorb's entire english class had to read it). Whether you like the story or not (but you've never read it), it IS a classic. I don't mean classic in the sense of dickens or other painfully mind-numbing authors, but it is undeniably a classic across the world.

Obviously something about LOTR really bothers you. Personally I'm bothered about certain things also. For instance, why did so many people watch Jurassic Park 3 this year? What a god-awful movie (and lots of people share that opinion but if you try and find people who didn't like LOTR you're going to find yourself terribly outnumbered). I think you're annoyed that LOTR has come along and impressed so many people and yet you'd not even heard of it until a short while ago, so I can't help but wonder if you have an ill-based bias against it so that you don't have to admit to yourself that perhaps - just maybe - LOTR is actually a good story. I suppose that unless you're willing to sidestep your pre-conceived notions of what LOTR is about and actually watch the movie you'll never know. >>


My pre-conceived notions may be blurring my vision...but even having not seen LOTR, I feel (from other people's reactions) that it IS a good movie. I won't deny you that. But Greatest Movie of All Time? That's stretching it a bit.

 

[StageLeft]

I agree it may be stretching it a bit as well. I haven't seen movies like the maltese falcon and other oldies that just don't interest me so I can't say whether it's better than them or not. I can say it's better than godfather based upon what of godfather I've seen!

 

[pulse8]

<< can say it's better than godfather based upon what of godfather I've seen! >>



You could, but you'd be wrong.

 

[miniMUNCH]

I've seen the movie twice I love it.

There is no way to completely capture the books in a movie...even if the first movie was 4 or 5 hours long, they would not have captured the book. They took some creative liberties but I was prepared...I was not expecting the book to be fleshed out in every detail.

Technically, the movie was superior to any fantasy sci-fi movie ever made...their were definitely some errors...a couple of bad ones that will be CG'ed out or remastered for the next release and/or DVD...but the realism and complexity that the movie attempted to portray was far more grand than Episode I... and Episode I's technical presentation sucked hard core...but, again, they fixed most it for the DVD and hopefully, they wont make those mistakes in Ep II. Also, the artistic presentation of FotR was pretty amazing, I thought the cinematography was awesome... there were some truely excellent shots and none of them bad.

But I think Peter Jackson, cast, and crew did a near perfect job of bring the first book to life (i.e. I don't think anyone could do better) ...and FotR is the toughest book to do in a three hour movie...Two Towers and Return of the King are easier, IMO.

I give away one of the grevious errors: When Boromir is dying...in one of the shots, some of his face make-up is in his hair...it was obvious to me the first time I saw the movie and really stuck out the second time I saw the movie.

But some of the other error that people pointed out above were not errors at all, IMO:

The whole head bobbing thing is a little subjective...I didn't it a problem. And the whole Isildur floating in the river thing... There are several explanations which I felt the movie didn't need to go into (i.e. his armor was very light due to enchantments)... at any rate, Isildur jumped into the river to attempt escape...he would not have done that if his armor would cause him to drown.

 

[NFS4]

<< I agree it may be stretching it a bit as well. I haven't seen movies like the maltese falcon and other oldies that just don't interest me so I can't say whether it's better than them or not. I can say it's better than godfather based upon what of godfather I've seen! >>


Being a person that just watched the 8-hour Godfather Saga on TNN Christmas Eve, have seen parts 1 and 2 about five times each, have seen the 3rd one (not as good as first two) one time, and got the DVD set for Christmas...it's gonna take a lot to top the Godfather series IMHO as being THE GREATEST Or Schindler's List and The Shawshank Redemption for that matter. Shawshank is probably my favorite movie from the past 6 or 7 years. I personally don't put much faith in movies that depect fantasy as being "Great Movies" of all time. For that status, I prefer movies that stick more to real events, or believable realms. I mean, my favorite movie of all time PERSONALLY is Batman (nobody else could have pulled off the Joker like Jack) from 1989. But best movie of all time, nahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[kami]

NFS4, Godfather rocks. It's a classic. But that doesn't mean you can't like other movies that much too. I just think you are very stubborn You have some ridiculous preconceived notion that anyone who likes fantasy is removed from society and is an anti-social. Where did you get that anyway? The reason I (and many other people like it) is because it's an escape. You can pick up any fantasy book and you're transported somewhere else and any problems you have are forgotten when you're flipping through those pages. Same thing goes for the movie. When you close the book/turn off the movie you're back - simply as that. It's not like I walk around with a staff and a pointy hat all the time. There is no possible way anyone could know I was into the stuff unless I knew them personally.

Go see the movie WITHOUT a bad attitude (i.e. "oh i'll never like this swords and sorcery pimple-faced nonsense no matter how freakin good it turns out to be"), then if you still think it sucks so much you can bash it all you want and i won't say a word.

Box office numbers mean NOTHING for the quality of a movie, but it's made over $150million domestically in it's first 12 days (and over $100m at least overseas). There are a lot of nerds in this world but not enough to put out those numbers. I predict it will come to a rest somewhere in between $250 and $300m domestically when it ends its theater run in march.
BTW the budget for each film was only about $90 million...and new line already had 2/3 of it paid before the movie came out. They must be sh!ttin in their pants

 

[LordMaul]

<<

<< Come back next year see how the rating balances out. >>



or 50. i'm a big fan of the classics, like maltese falcon. that movie owns! >>



Yes, but the Fatman was an "estyoopit idiot!", according to Peter Lorry...

 

[mundania]

<< BTW the budget for each film was only about $90 million...and new line already had 2/3 of it paid before the movie came out. They must be sh!ttin in their pants >>



errr.. how come? must've missed something

 

[VisionsUCI]

fantastic movie... thanks for the idea; i'm going to go to imdb.com and vote right now.

 

[CyberCowboy]

This movie was too long. The effects were ok. I'm not familiar with the whole story of the lord of the rings, so I was pretty much lost throughout the movie. I didn't like this movie that much... It's not the worst movie ever, but not the best either.

The trailer was what got me to go see this movie. Dang it.. after seeing the movie and knowing that I never want to see it again, seeing the commercials on tv makes me just want to go see it again.... but I know that it's not worth my money.

if i were to compare this movie to a similar one... like dungeons and dragrons, I would say dungeons and dragons blows this movie into space. D&D was way better than this movie. Of course we all have our own opinions. This is just coming from someone who has never read the book.

Anyways, the Matrix was the best movie ever.... and nothing will top that for awhile.. haha... not even star wars 1 (which was pretty lame), 4, 5, 6 .

 

[fow99]

It IS good. But I wouldn't crown with 'best movie of all time'.

 

[NetGuySC]

I never read the book but I thought the movie was great...


The only problem was the ending...it really pissed me off......even Star Wars had an ending, but with something to carry on to next movie.

Great movie and a really piss me off ending.

I would pay to see it again

 

[SoBizarre]

Granted the filmmakers had in their hands one of the best stories ever written, I would say the result should be much better. I didn't like some of computer-generated scenes and editing "sucked big time" in my opinion. Basically I believe that the only way to visualize LOtR is to make a high budget, 20-30 hours TV series. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the movie at all, I'm just saying it could be (couldn't it?) much better. Oh, and I hope some of the youngsters (lol) out there who did not read the book, will now do it.

 

[kiranv]

I'm always suspicious of people calling some movies "the best of all time." It's really not an accurate way of judging one single film when compared to all the movies made in the past 60 years.

 

[EXman]

<< everyone i talked to either said.. ITs the best movie ever made.. or.. its sooo freakin loooong! >>

I thought it was long... of course I had to pee the whole time from my 44 ounce drink but it was good but not even close to the best movie ever made. Hell the Episode 2 trailer was better I hope it is better than Episode JarJar err Episode 1 I mean.

 

[BeauJangles]

<< no, never seen it, but i seriously doubt it's that good. godfather and maltese falcon probably both beat it. >>



I hate to break it to you, but it is better then both (but godfather is a close second).