[Ryan Peter]

Yeah, the 12:01 crowd was great here as well. A lot of getting up by some of the younger ones, but no talking no cells. I wouldn't expect the same out of the matinee or regular evening folks though. These were true fans and geeks tonight.

[Ryan Peter]

Was this movie dubbed into German and French (when it plays in Germany and France) or did they use subtitles?

[Walter Kittel]

Regarding the crowd, we had one guy stumble in just before the previews ( Austin Power's Goldmember rocked, BTW ) who made a bunch of noise and I thought to myself 'Oh great, just what we need' But to his credit, as soon as the film started rolling he quieted up. No disturbances, etc. at my showing. It was a nice experience.

On another topic, I'm a pretty big defender of Ebert on this forum, but his rating of LOTR:FOTR makes me question his sanity. A lot of folks on this forum, including yours truly, believe that Ebert tends to give props to films that excel at world building. I don't know what frickin' version of FOTR he was watching, but the one I watched was magnificent in that role. ( Actually, I read his review and I think he needs to re-read the novels since his problems seem to stem from a perceived lack of emphasis on the Hobbits in the film. )

Anyway, enough for now. Gotta try to get some sleep.

- Walter.

[Ryan Peter]

Here's an article from the big guy about the movie:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert...tr-lord19.html

[Scott Weinberg]

OK, I saw the midnight show tonight, ran home to bang out my review and now I'm here.

If any of you are at all familiar with my movie reviews, you might note that I generally don't GUSH over movies.

Having said that....


WOW!!!!! WOW! WooooW!!!

If I didn't know better, I'd think Peter Jackson made this movie for ME only! I gotta crash now, but I'll post my review in the appropriate thread tomorrow. If you'd like to take a look before that (as if I'm some big popular movie critic, ha), feel free to take a look here.

And in case I didn't mention it yet...just wow.

[Paul W]

At the end of the movie, the person sitting behind me said aloud:

"Boy they leave the shit hanging, don't they."

[Pete-D]

Just saw it tonight. I've read the books so I ate it up. The action sequences were a lot cooler than even I could've imagined. I saw it with about 8 other friends, most of whom didn't know much about the LOTR books beforehand. The general consensus from the audience to be honest seemed negative, because there were a lot of "joe six-pack" movie goers who I suppose thought the movie was too long.

I loved it, however . I think it'll go down as the ultimate "geek" movie, to make up for all those who complained about the Phantom Menace. I'm not sure however that the general public in large will embrace this film. I suspect it'll open big but suffer a large drop off.

It's not so much even the length but the "and then...and then....and then" structure that Tolkien used in his books, that I can understand being redundant to some people. I was very happy with it, I felt even the "comedic" elements and the "warm" sides of characters like Gandalf came through better than I had hoped for.

[Ryan Peter]

I forgot to mention: the biggest laugh was the

Spoiler:

DWARF TOSSING

line, that was great!

[Ryan Peter]

Did anyone think the big CGI cave troll was a lot better in this movie than Harry Potter?

[Ryan Peter]

Scott, your review is excellent. You've captured my thoughts exactly!

[Scott Weinberg]

Quote:

Scott, your review is excellent. You've captured my thoughts exactly!

It's comments like that that keep me writing. I'm very pleased that you enjoyed my ravings. Thanks.

Quote:

Did anyone think the big CGI cave troll was a lot better in this movie than Harry Potter?

The troll in Harry Potter was pretty neat.

The troll in Lord of the Rings might be THE coolest CGI creation I've ever seen. The ENTIRE Mines of Moria* sequence is simply unbelievable.

*Forgive the spelling. I haven't read the books....YET!