In that period during which FILM FREAK CENTRAL received twenty or thirty e-mails a day concerning Walter Chaw's pan of Episode II, more than once I was asked if I agreed with him. The answer is yes, though my reaction leans closer to apathetic than vitriolic. One thing I found, having just seen Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones again on DVD, is that the small screen amplifies the picture's weaknesses in reducing one of its core strengths: magnitude. Watching the film on TV, you reach all too instinctively for the game controller, and I felt violated this time out by Anakin's scenes with Padmé (whereas before, one could somewhat blot out the bad thoughts with the larger-than-life sight of Natalie Portman)--not only are they like dramatizations of the wrong answer in a multiple choice Cosmo quiz, they also unfairly paint Padmé (Portman) as one of the most superficial female characters in movie history.
While paired with her, Anakin (Hayden Christensen) whines, whimpers, and stamps his feet continuously; lasciviously confesses to her that he stalks her in his Jedi sleep ("You are in my very soul--tormenting me!"); speaks out against her democratic policies; slaughters a village (of "women and children"); and smiles precisely thrice (once after rolling in a pasture). To all of the above, she ultimately replies "I love you," which must be Nabooese for, "Sorry, what was that? I was staring at your shoulders." Impresario George Lucas hasn't had to honestly seduce anybody in awhile, one presumes--a perq of the richer-than-God, to be sure, but just another way in which he's out of touch with the humanity that made the first (er, last?) three Star Wars movies so enduring. A movie this artificial has little hope of aging well, leaving aside its instantly-dated CGI.
On the other hand, returns on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring did not diminish for me (quite the opposite, in fact) upon a viewing of the "extended" cut prepared exclusively for DVD. This is not an apology, per se, for snarky, clichéd comments I lobbed at the original film in last March's Oscar preview, as that version might still be the most overrated motion picture since Disney's Beauty and the Beast; rather, this is one of those movies that feels shorter in a longer incarnation, and the improved pacing makes the extended edition (henceforth "EE") preferable to the theatrical release--which probably came close to winning Best Picture and would today, I think, if voters were granted the opportunity to revise their bone decision to award A Beautiful Mind the statuette.
I remain put off by a number of Fellowship's elements that endure in the EE. The action sequences are cleverly staged but they seem clustered together in the second half of the picture--that's not uncommon structurally, but each of these set pieces is as elaborate as the other, depleting our supply of awe. The film's score by Howard Shore, who was one of the great unsung composers up until Fellowship (he is as important to The Silence of the Lambs as Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Demme, and Tak Fujimoto are, and he's among The Score's few assets despite the in-a-blue-moon collaboration of Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, and Marlon Brando), works against its emotional encounters as far as I'm concerned in being prototypical of the fantasy genre, if nonetheless virtuous. Shore's music, such as his wrenching cues for David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, used to establish tone, not race after it.
Among the EE's thirty minutes of new footage is a delightful sequence "Concerning Hobbits" that's sandwiched between the expository prologue and Gandalf's arrival at the Shire. With Bilbo reading from the first chapter of his autobiography on the soundtrack, we meet a thriving community of small folk--imagine the opening of Willow done with style and taste. Aragorn's (Viggo Mortensen) relationships to Arwen (Liv Tyler) and Boromir (Sean Bean) are clarified by the addition of two brief encounters, although Arwen continues to be weaved in and out of the picture somewhat clumsily. Cate Blanchett's Galadriel has had screen time restored: she's now shown gifting each member of the Fellowship with something for his travels. It's a set-piece full of inexplicable yet effective tension.
Best of all is a new joke regarding the outsize appetites of hobbits. Frankly, it always belonged in the film and provides the perfect pre-storm calm beat for the Fellowship's departure from Lórien. The supplemental material summarizes the EE as "less Frodo-centric" than the theatrical version of The Fellowship of the Ring--as such, it lacks a consistent point-of-view, giving off the impression of a mini-series. If that offends you as a fan of the film, it shouldn't--this rendition belongs to the small screen, remember. (Read Walter Chaw's review of the theatrical cut here.)
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition hit DVD in a pair of outstanding presentations, with much edge given to the latter for its sheer quantity of supplementary material. Attack of the Clones was shot in a 24fps HDTV format and bypassed celluloid altogether in its transcription to disc; the direct-to-digital 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen image is brilliant and does not for a second resemble video, except in its total absence of film aberrations. (A separate pan-and-scan issue arrives day and date.) Unlike on the DVD release of The Phantom Menace, edge-enhancement is kept at bay. Sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 (with EX encoding) only; after one whiff of it you'll forget that DTS was left out in the cold. Every whoosh of every light saber reminds of Marty McFly's overload of Doc Brown's guitar amp, as do Django Fett's seismic charges. The true showroom highlights are the speeder chase through the Blade Runner backlot (chapter 7) and the slapstick at the droid factory (chapter 38), what with its deep-churning, multi-directional clatter.
George Lucas, producer Rick McCallum, sound designer/editor Ben Burtt, and visual effects supervisors John Knoll, Pablo Helman, and Ben Snow (record together with animation director Rob Coleman)--each identified when speaking via subtitle--contribute a dizzying and, more importantly, unnerving commentary to Attack of the Clones on Disc 1 of this double-DVD. For example, split-screen was employed on occasion to combine the preferred halves of distinct takes, and it's because of those truly seamless (and defiantly inorganic) illusions that you worry for the fate of the technology--moreover, cinema in general. The THX Optimizer caps off Disc 1.
Kicking off the second platter of Attack of the Clones is a section of three teaser trailers and one theatrical, plus twelve TV spots and the video for "Across the Stars," which is identical to the "Duel of the Fates" video except that an Episode II montage stands in for clips from Episode I. (Note that everything on Disc 2 is enhanced for 16x9 displays.) You'll find under the heading Documentaries two lengthy pieces: "From Puppets to Pixels: Digital Characters in Episode II" (52 mins.) obtains its structure from the arduous process of porting Yoda over into the digital realm (an idea well received but, in my humble opinion, poorly executed); "State of the Art: The Pre-Visualization of Episode II" focuses on the computer-animated storyboards ("animatics")--the animatics team (led by VF/X supervisor/childhood Star Wars fan Ben Snow and animation director Rob Coleman) eventually became so adept at doing these that Lucas often mistook them for finished renderings.
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Portman as Amidala (left) and herself (right)
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Deleted Scenes features eight such excisions in Dolby Digital 5.1 with polished F/X work to boot, save a horrible compositing of Mace and Obi-Wan on a spaceship's terrace. Editor/sound designer Ben Burtt, George Lucas, and producer Rick McCallum invariably and optionally introduce each omission, and as these introductions are interspersed with clips from what you're about to see, it's often totally pointless to continue past and watch the scene in question. Of note is Count Dooku's interrogation of Padmé--in the finished film, although Obi-Wan replaced her as the tempted, the dialogue remained more or less intact. Moving on to
Featurettes, we have three bland makings-of dealing with separate aspects of
Attack of the Clones: story (9 mins.), love (10 mins.), and action (8 mins.). Portman's angelic dazzle in these shorts contradicts her jaundiced, jowelly appearance in
Attack of the Clones--proof positive that Lucas never misses an opportunity to screw with nature.
Twelve Web Documentaries* initially prepared for StarWars.com illuminate several sub-topics ignored elsewhere, including Christensen's induction into the Star Wars universe and an unusually balanced perspective on Lucas' revolutionary decision to shoot the film in HiDef. (ASC member Victor Kemper speaks of the digital cameras that many filmmakers are now pressured to adopt: "We spent years getting the camera free, now suddenly we're tied to cables again.") A section called Dex's Kitchen & Still Galleries rounds out the 2-disc set. This is where to go if you want to browse international printings of Drew Sluzan's one-sheet as well as dozens of exclusive production photos. For coolness, check out the excellent, 25-minute "Films Are Not Released: They Escape," about Burtt's hunt for sound effects, the picture's unsung foley artistry (a woman French-kissing her own hand brought Padmé and Anakin's first kiss to life), and savant Gary Rydstrom's task of blending the disparate elements together. For laughs, dig Don Bies VH-1-style documentary on R2-D2 "Beneath the Dome" (6 mins.), wherein Carrie Fisher diagnoses R2 as in need of Prozac and Francis Coppola confesses that R2 was cast before Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. Corny stuff, but it won me over like a relentless class clown. DVD-ROM owners can access information on the DVD itself, numerous Star Wars weblinks, and to-be-announced Episode III promotions.
The
Fellowship EE is very, very, very loud. For both the Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES tracks, I had to decrease the volume seven decibels below reference for listening comfort--remember, this is not the same mix you heard on the last DVD release of the film, since fresh bits of business were integrated both visually
and aurally. I love the big audio dynamite of this movie--the act of a character removing a scarf can produce an avalanche in your home. (A disclaimer pure and simple should preface the literal avalanche midway through the picture.) The surrounds determinedly immerse us in Middle-Earth, from a scary dragon firework that has an offscreen half-life to the wind-whipped dimension to which Frodo is transported when he dares try on the ring.
I'm going to come right out and say it, then: this is the best-sounding DVD I've ever experienced. The 16x9-enhanced, 2.35:1 image is complementary, if the tiniest amount too dark and not always as crisp as one would like, probably due to the intense colour/contrast correction the film underwent in post. Meanwhile, no fewer than four screen-specific, full-length commentaries accompany the main event. (See "Commentary Listings" sidebar.)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition arrives on DVD in a 4-disc "Platinum Series" with an endless supply of supplements--the appendices alone bring the magician's handkerchief to mind. (As for Easter eggs, clicking "
" re-directs the user to production credits for the DVD.) Jackson prepares us in a taped introduction for two-and-a-half hours of documentary video on the third platter and another three hours on the fourth, none of which encompasses the storyboard and editing demonstrations, the 2,000 production stills, or other graphical ephemera. Any stones left unturned by this exhaustive record go unnoticed.
As I don't imagine that even those with the shabbiest of social lives will select the "play all" function prior to spinning the mini-docs (which, as a five-hour feature, bears no title), let us discuss them individually.
J.R.R. Tolkien - Creator of Middle-Earth (22 mins.)
Tolkien was an orphan, we're told--one begins to notice parallels between Tolkien and the anti-heroine of Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, although the motif is unaddressed. Uncanny is the Middle-Earthian name of Tolkien's long-time publisher, Rayner Unwin.
From Book to Script (20 mins.)
Jackson professes that his teenage copy of The Lord of the Rings was a reprint tied-in with Ralph Bakshi's animated adaptation. Here, the Miramax fiasco (is there another word that goes with Miramax?) that led Jackson and co. to New Line gets fleshed out, constant rewrites are confessed, and co-screenwriter Philippa Boyens--a hardcore Tolkien buff--remarks that you won't see Jackson's wife/filmmaking partner Fran Walsh anywhere among these DVD extras because "one of them needs to remain private." (Thankfully this did not preclude Walsh's participation in the recording of commentary track #1.)
Storyboards and Pre-Viz (14 mins.)
Ironically, Jackson got the idea for animatics from visiting George Lucas and Rick McCallum.
Designing Middle-Earth (41 mins.)
Jackson instructed the art department to think of his Rings trilogy not as fantasy, but a recreation of history. "Designing Middle-Earth" adds up to a semi-moving piece on the filmmakers coaxing favoured Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe out of seclusion to join the design team.
Weta Workshop (43 mins.)
Creative supervisor Richard Taylor's interview answers suggest Robin Leach voice-over, thus they provide quasi-narration for this tour of the place where Middle-Earth blossomed. Liv Tyler adored the workshop's atmosphere to the extent that she volunteered to help build props, while John Rhys-Davies grew weary of the surroundings thanks to a gruelling daily application of latex make-up and heavy body armour handcrafted by Stu Johnson and Warren Green, New Zealand's premier blacksmiths.
Costume Design (12 mins.)
Costume designer Ngila Dickson says it took three months to determine the enormity of her task. "Costume Design" closes with a nice anecdote regarding the culmination of Gandalf: McKellen's hat fitting.
New Zealand as Middle-Earth (10 mins.)
Matamata, for instance, doubled for Hobbiton. Some of these sub-segments are zippier than others. (We reach the end of Disc III here.)
The Fellowship of the Cast (35 mins.)
The shoot was an apparent blast, if a boy's club that unintentionally alienated Tyler, Blanchett, and other female cast members. The "splinter" incident is very amusing, while Tyler outs Orlando Bloom as a former film student. Arguably most intriguing, we meet the hobbits' scale doubles--midgets and dwarves outfitted with creepy masks of Wood, Sean Astin, et al--and hear how one of them took to bossing Viggo Mortensen around, Mortensen delighted by the anti-star treatment.
A Day in the Life of a Hobbit (13 mins.)
"Day..." is a tad superfluous as it's mostly devoted to the application of prosthetic feet.
Visual Effects: Scale (16 mins.)
More on those scale doubles, and an engrossing demonstration of the various techniques (forced perspective, bluescreening) applied to allow thespians of the same size to tower over the hobbit cast.
Visual Effects: Miniatures - Big-atures (16 mins.)
The "miniatures" to be composited in the background of scenes (there are fewer instances of CGI than one realizes) were often enormous, because Jackson wanted models intricate enough to withstand close-ups. Isengard's ceiling, for example, was in reality the size of a rugby field!
Weta Digital (25 mins.)
The scissors-and-glue computer facility developed for Heavenly Creatures expanded to meet the demands of Jackson's The Frighteners and now rivals ILM in size, thanks to the manpower required for Rings. Digital Domain did the water horses, however. Stephen Regelous's artificially-intelligent soldiers are incredibly innovative.
Cameras in Middle-Earth (50 mins.)
Several concurrent units led to Jackson assigning surrogate directors. Another redundant snapshot, notwithstanding a priceless moment wherein a weakened Christopher Lee refuses to ascend a few steps and a voice in the shadows calls out, "You did it this morning!" "That put me in my place," Lee good-naturedly recalls.
Editorial: Assembling an Epic (13 mins.)
"New Line said they wanted a rollercoaster ride," remarks editor John Gilbert, who had the unenviable task of whittling down a motion picture with a 50:1 shooting ratio (that's fifty takes for every take used--the average movie has a 12:1 shooting ratio) into a 3-hour and, later, 3 1/2-hour flick.
Digital Grading (12 mins.)
The film was O Brother, Where Art Thou?'d from soup to nuts in post: all colour timing was digitally accomplished. Hobbiton presented the biggest challenge--how to achieve lush greens without oversaturating them?
The Soundscapes of Middle-Earth (13 mins.)
This segment is in 5.1 Dolby Digital; Fran Walsh's bloodcurdling screams for the Ringwraiths benefit from the increased wattage--but our ears do not!
Music for Middle-Earth (12 mins.)
Howard Shore, sayeth Peter Jackson, considers the trilogy that rare chance a composer gets to write an opera. I shan't further begrudge Shore his day in the sun.
The Road Goes Ever On... (7 mins.)
The Wellington premiere of The Fellowship of the Ring, straight from Elijah Wood's camcorder. Alas, a lengthy end-title crawl will have to suffice for those anticipating a Two Towers sneak. Michael Pellerin is credited with overseeing this mammoth documentary project and should be patted on his back until it's sore.
Now for the submenus! (Aside: ROM content is surprisingly negligible.)
Visualizing the Story
-Early treatments in storyboard form of the prologue (with narration read by Frodo as opposed to Galadriel), an abandoned Orc pursuit, and a chase along the rapids of Sarn Gebir, never-filmed due to a flood that destroyed the set
-"Pre-Visualization Animatics"--similar to those for Episode II but far cruder--for Gandalf's ride to Orthnac and the stairs of Khazad-Dûn
-Split-screen or animatic/film-only "Animatic to Film Comparisons" for the Nazgûl attack at Bree and the bridge at Khazad. (Note that "animatic" here refers to a succession of storyboards.)
-"Bag End Set Test" (7 mins.): Peter Jackson himself plays Bilbo Baggins (replacing co-producer Rick Porras, on whose wedding band the One Ring's shape was based!) in this rehearsal (for purposes of deciding angles) of Gandalf's visit with Bilbo.
Designing & Building Middle-Earth
An umbrella for seven "Peoples of Middle-Earth" galleries (which does not begin to suggest the quantity of sub-galleries) and twelve "Realms of Middle-Earth" galleries. The slideshow option is time-consuming; note that the symbol denotes a passage of commentary. (Conceptual artists Christian Rivers and John Howe are among the participants.)
Middle-Earth Atlas
Re-trace the journey of the Fellowship (with clips) up to the climax of The Fellowship of the Ring.
And finally:
Post-Production: Putting it All Together
A multi-angle breakdown/tableau of "The Council of Elrond" sequence. View six shots straight from the camera, the assembled result, or all in Time Code-like tandem.
The preceding item of interest has been executed better elsewhere; the rest of what's featured on this quartet of discs scarcely has. Falling smack-dab in the middle of art appreciation and how-to, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition (Platinum Series) (available in a standard gatefold or costly collectible packaging also housing Argonath bookends, trading cards, and a Special Edition of "National Geographic's Beyond the Movie: The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring"--I'll refrain from endorsing one or the other as our review copy arrived in cracked jewel cases!) confirms the existence of wizards. The question, "If you could only buy Episode II or Fellowship Extended on November the twelfth, which would you choose?" was recently posed to the newsgroup alt.video.dvd--and the high-quality Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones DVD faces competition too stiff, I'm afraid, to entertain debate.-Bill Chambers
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