The White Council

Re: Fantasy Films

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : Don't get me wrong Pad m8. I loved Conan and it had all the ingredients you could want but bad hammy acting sends me into convulsive spasms and this has lots of it. Acting is important in this type of film. You could compare this genre of film to many historical films (Cromwell, Richard III etc..) with there noble kings and big battles. Any of these films with bad acting would have been awful. As they stand they are classics.

: Yeh. The acting just wasn't up to scratch, with two exceptions - James Earl Jones and Max. But I don't think Conan needed an actor with much ability. Some people don't have much colour or tone to their voices and yet they are just as real as you or I. Conan was a muscle bound thug and all they needed was someone who could look like that (no offence Arnie!). The rest? Well they were just extra's really, I went to see the movie for Conan, no much else!

I agree m8, but I would still only rated a B-.

: : Absofrigginglotely. But the ACTING has to be good.

: LotR should be handled the same as Star Wars, as has been mentioned before on this site and a number of others. And it seems PJ will do just that! Have established and GOOD actors for the smaller rolls, and newbee's for the main parts. Characters I would like to see, or rather that I believe would benefit from a well known actor are:

: Saruman, Denethor, Theoden, Elrond, Celeborn, Galadriel.

It is funny. Nearly all of these characters are old and I think you are right. We know we can have more faith in our older actors.

: Who? Well that has been debated before and will, no doubt be debated long after the decison has been made.

: Gandalf and Aragorn may be two others that COULD benefit from an established actor, but I would rther they didn't - too much baggage.

Gandalf with a well known could work well. As before, you can rely on you older established actor.

: : Please tell me more about Dragonslayer. I haven't heard of it. Sounds great.

: It's a superb movie, despite being a Disney (stick to cartoons chummers) one. The basic plot is that a group of commoners travel a long way to get a magician to kill their local dragon (a rather LARGE dragon) and for one reason and another the magicians apprentice takes up the challenge (though there is a twist at the end). Considering it was made in the early eight's (if I remember right) the effects are superb - as one would expect from Disney. The Dragon is - ok not as good looking as the Dragonheart one - fantasic and has a real presence on screen. Its my most fav dragon movie so far and unless something along the lines of The Hobbit, The Riftwar Saga or the Earthsea Trilogy (ok so there's 4 now) is made, where we see a lot of some real big and stunning dragons, its going to remain so.

: See it - it's WELL worth it. And besides it's got our Ralph in it and he's brilliant (Did you know he was the first option for Gandalf in the BBC Radio production, but he turned it down! Not that is mattered really cause Michael was awesome!)

Michael was good but I personally would have prefered Ralphy boy.

: : What about Highlander. A classic. I would class that more Fantasy than Sci-fi.

: Yep! How could I have forgotten!! A real classic!

: : TreeBeard......

: : Padster