Some more random impressions: the architecture of Rohan looks rather Northern European, possibly Scandinavian or Baltic, though the people seem to speak with Scottish or Irish accents. Eowyn looks quite the strapping country lass; meanwhile, Grima Wormtongue looks like an uglier version of Professor Snape, or perhaps a generic Fat Old Goth. The orcs, meanwhile, look very metal indeed, resembling the ghoul from Iron Maiden cover artwork. And the Ents are quite well done; a bit obvious perhaps, but they got them right.
The attention to detail was quite marvellous; I didn't catch all the hand-made, individual buckles on the Orcs' uniforms or such, but minor details, such as fragments of ruins here and all the many elaborate sets they built and used just for minor scenes look quite extravagant. It's well worth seeing (though don't bother unless you've seen the first one).
Also, the vocal in the closing credits sounded a bit like Björk, though it probably wasn't. I did notice one Elizabeth Fraser credited in the vocal solos section, though.
(They also showed the trailer for the next Matrix films; the emphasis on waging war for peace seemed quite post-9/11; the visuals looked as you might expect, lots of black-clad post-cyberpunk dazzle.)
I read an article that some of the masses of orcs were computer generated. They came up with some sort of cutting edge AI to give the individual animated orcs personalities and logical responses, but they had to rejigger them because lots of them kept clustering at the back then running away from the battle!
The people who programmed the first computer chess game had a similar problem. Left to it's won devices, the computer would always decide to charge the king down the middle of the board towards the opponent. So again they had to establish rules on the opening moves.
I've got my complimentary tickets, after that terrible session my wife and I had to sit through at Northlands, plus a grovelling letter from the management (which is pretty funny) so I'll probably see it tomorrow.
Yes, when they were testing the computer system, MASSIVE, both armies fled at the sight of one another. They had to dumb them down considerably.
The 'Making of the Trilogy' book has the author being taken through the storehouse at WETA and being shown boxes of boxes of weapons, props and jewellry that were never ever shown on film. Character who would never draw a sword on screen were made real swords, instead of just sticking a hilt to a scabbard.
Crazy stuff!
More on the AI - there's an easter egg in the scene. . . apparently, somewhere in the crowd, one orc is dialing a mobile phone.
Heheh. I liked your assessment of Grima as Fat Old Goth, and he did that pretty well.
Well I saw the film this pm and I must say I was a little disappointed. The big battle scenes were OK, but not as good as Braveheart IMO. The ents were nice) esp when they trash Isengard) but I didn't like the way poor Gimli was used as Aragorn's comedy sidekick. Grima De Vries was good, and I look forward to seeing him in the next movie. But Gollum was good, even the brats in the first row shut up when he appeared (at least for about 5 minutes. A lean, bald guy with tattoos and piercings got annoyed enough to start threatening them to shut up at one point. Serves me right for going to Northlands I suppose, but my free tickets for Hoyts meant I have to go where they show it and if I have to choose between Preston and St Albans, St Albans will come a close second).
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Fri Dec 27 18:27:36 2002
The vocals in the closing credits ('Gollum's Song') are by Emiliana Torrini who, despite the italian name, is (surprise, surprise!) Icelandic.