slag@charm.UUCP (Peter Rosenthal) (05/16/84)
Does anyone out there in netland know what happened to the sequel to Lord of the Rings part 1. I don't like cliffhangers.
hobbit@sunybcs.UUCP (Thomas Pellitieri) (05/17/84)
As best I know, here is what happened with _The Lord of The Rings_
First of all, there is a matter of film rights. Ralph Bakshi was
given the rights to _The Fellowship of the Ring_ and _The Two Towers_,
whereas Rankin/Bass got the rights to _The Hobbit_ and _The Return of
the King_. Bakshi had planned to get the rights to RotK, but failed.
Therefore, since Bakshi did only about half of T2T, we have a MAJOR
gap in the story. I would recommend you actually read all the books
as I believe that all of the above were real botch jobs. However,
a summary of what is missing follows. If you are a true Tolkein
fan you might want to skip over it.
A bit of a side comment first. In the early 1960's I believe, an
American film company wanted to produce an animated version of
LotR, with JRRT's approval. Needless to say, he did NOT approve
much at all. If you would like more information on this, please
see _The Letters of J.R.R.Tolkein_, edited by Humphrey Carpenter.
What follows is a potential ***SPOILER***. Type 'q' to avoid this!
***SPOILER*** ***SPOILER*** ***SPOILER*** ***SPOILER*** ***SPOILER***
As I recall, the movie LotR ends with Frodo and Sam in the wilderness
about to enter Mordor, Merry and Pippin being taken off by Treebeard,
and everyone else at the Hornburg. Now, I will take each of the three
groups separately to the end of _The Two Towers_.
Frodo and Sam: Back up a bit, they encounter Boromir's brother in the
wilds (Fanamir (sp) is his name). He takes them to a secret place of
Gondor which looks to the west behind a waterfall. Gollum rejoins
them there (having taken off just before they arrive) and Frodo again
sees that Gollum's life is spared. Gollum then leads them through
Shelob's Lair, she being a Great Spider. She attacks Frodo while Gollum
tries to get Sam, who manages to avoid being killed. Sam next attacks
Shelob with Sting (Frodo's sword) with a bit of help from Elbereth, one
of the Elvish Gods. Believing Frodo to be dead, Sam takes the Ring and
plans to go to Orodruin himself, but he meets up with some orcs, which
he avoids by using the ring. The orcs take Frodo into Minas Morgul, a
tower in the mountains between Gondor and Mordor. Sam overhears them
with the help of the ring and finds that Frodo is not dead.
Merry and Pippin manage to arouse the Ents (Treebeard's kindred) into
attacking Orthanc (Sauraman's (or Arwanain's??) tower) which is not
an easy task, considering the nature of the Ents. They are told to
wait for Gandalf.
Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn arrive at Orthanc shortly afterwards.
There they are reunited with Merry and Pippin, who have grown somewhat due
to drinking Ent-draughts. They confront the Multicolored-Wizard (Gandalf
now being the White Wizard), whose henchman, Wormtongue, throws the
Palantir (acute accent on the i, one of the seven Seeing Stones of old)
at them. The Multicolored-Wizard is banished to be locked up in Orthanc
and Treebeard is given the key. The group then goes back towards Rohan.
On the way, Pippin gazes into the Palantir, and confronts Sauron! This
spells a minor disaster, since Sauron believed Sauraman to still have
the Palantir. Gandalf realises the danger, and speeds off with Pippin
on Shadowfax to Gondor, leaving the Palantir with Aragorn.
*** End of Summary ***
Most of the holes are filled in by the Rankin/Bass version of RotK,
and I apologize for any spelling errors. If I have left out details,
you may drop me an electronic line, but I would prefer it if you would
buy yourself the books and read them.
May the Light of Elbereth shine upon you,
--
-The Parker Hobbit
a.k.a. Thomas R. Pellitieri
UUCP: {allegra, seismo}!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!hobbit
decvax!watmath!sunybcs!hobbit
ARPA & CSNET: hobbit.buffalo@rand-relayjeff@dual.UUCP (Jeff Houston) (05/18/84)
I got some info about this movie from one of the other guys here at Dual
and he said that Ralph Bashi (sp?) the producer simply ran out of funds
and never got around to producing the second half of the Lord of the Rings
saga. To bad though, it had some potential...
Jeff Houston
Dual Systems Corp., Berkeley, CA
{ucbvax,ihnp4,cbosgd,amd70,zehntel,fortune,decwrl}!dual!jeffgrw@fortune.UUCP (Glenn Wichman) (05/18/84)
[]
I believe that Bakshi scrapped his plans for finishing LotR when
nobody went to see part I. And I say it's just as well. This
travesty should have been abandoned before the first frame was shot.
I like some of Bakshi's other work (Wizards, American Pop).
No cute signoff,
-Glennburton@inuxg.UUCP (Thomas Burton) (05/18/84)
[] One of the networks carried a sequel a while back called "the Return of the King", which should have been subtitled "Greatest Hits of Middle Earth". It was lousy! The animation was awful, even worse than "The Hobbit" which was aired a while back (and which featured songs and music by Jud Strunk). Anyway, my understanding of the whole mess was that the studios and Bakshi had a disagreement, and that Bakshi was going to go do his own version of the second half, but since the studios held the rights, he got tied up in legal problems. Meanwhile, the studios put out that awful version that was on network TV. Doug Burton ATT-CP Indianapolis inuxg!burton
ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader) (05/19/84)
If you ask me*, the whole story should be filmed over again, and done right this time. This means LIVE actors, not animation -- but with heavy special effects, because of the different-sized characters as well as the magic. Considering what was done in Tron (a marvelous special effects achievement, whatever you thought of the plot) and the Star Wars series and so on, it should now be possible to do Lord of the Rings. Of course, at least three movies are called for to cover the plot. Mark Brader *I know, you didn't. Just as well, if you had, I might've told you.