TV/Movies Megathread

[celedhring]

Yeah, that movie hadn't made it onto my radar at the time.

But yeah, he was pretty much seen as a gory horror filmmaker. His signature film at the time was probably Braindead?

[Syt]

It was his most well known one, at least in Germany. Meet the Feebles and Bad Taste circulated on VHS after that a bit more widely.

It's a bt like Sam Raimi who went Evil Dead => Hercules/Xena (and Brisco County Jr. ) => Spiderman. Or take James Gunn who started at Troma or did his (still hillarious) PG Porn shorts series.

[celedhring]

It was his most well known one, at least in Germany. Meet the Feebles and Bad Taste circulated on VHS after that a bit more widely.

It's a bt like Sam Raimi who went Evil Dead => Hercules/Xena (and Brisco County Jr. ) => Spiderman. Or take James Gunn who started at Troma or did his (still hillarious) PG Porn shorts series.

Sam Raimi had put together a strung of "legitimate" Hollywood films before Spiderman (Quick and the Dead, For the Love of the Game, A Simple Plan).

I think the most "wait? what?" director appointment is Chloe Zhao for a Marvel movie (and she had been hired before Nomadland, even)

Sadly it didn't turn out too well.

[Sophie Scholl]

Sam Raimi was involved in Brisco County, Jr.? Huh! I didn't know that. I *loved* that show. Networks still use the theme from it a lot for sporting event coverage I've found. I'm probably one of like 5 people who recognize it when they use it.   

[Syt]

Sorry, have to take that back - apparently he wasn't. I guess I just assumed because it had Bruce Campbell.

[Sophie Scholl]

Totally understandable. 

[Admiral Yi]

In the case of the LOTR movies, though, we see such a small part of the subcontinent that it's easy to imagine there's other fertile lands. The Gondor we see in the movies is actually just a strip of the entire kingdom.

There is no agricultural activity shown in Rohir. The land around Mt. Doom is hardpack.  It's not just Gondor.

[Josquius]

I've been carrying the minorest LOTR nit pick for decades now and I need to vent.  WTF did the Gondorians eat?  Everthing around their city is beaten down dirt.

Don't we first see the city when its already basically under attack?
Would make sense burning the crops and farm houses would be a first step by Mordor's raiders before their main force even arrives.

[Admiral Yi]

Don't we first see the city when its already basically under attack?
Would make sense burning the crops and farm houses would be a first step by Mordor's raiders before their main force even arrives.

No.  We first see the city when the orcs are still in Osgiliath.  They haven't trampled anything yet.  The stretch of land from Osgiliath to Gondor is a parking lot.

[Syt]

I've been carrying the minorest LOTR nit pick for decades now and I need to vent.  WTF did the Gondorians eat?  Everthing around their city is beaten down dirt.

Don't we first see the city when its already basically under attack?
Would make sense burning the crops and farm houses would be a first step by Mordor's raiders before their main force even arrives.

We also see it when Gandalf rides there in the first movie when he's researching about the ring. Also barren plain.

[The Brain]

Even in the books Tolkien's world building is very weird. We are told The Shire is not considered important, but it's a huge chunk of real estate with intense farming using what appears to be 18th/19th century tech, and this while most of the rest of the world is various forms of wasteland. One of the few other places that we are told has intense farming is Nurn in Mordor.

And then you have the extremely insular (that's a week's ride away, no one has been there in hundreds of years) and static (steady slow decay in tech over thousands of years) human societies. Tolkien's interests were languages and purity of blood, not other things, and Middle-Earth reflects that.

[Syt]

Good first episode of new season of Only Murders in the Building.

[Valmy]

Don't we first see the city when its already basically under attack?
Would make sense burning the crops and farm houses would be a first step by Mordor's raiders before their main force even arrives.

No.  We first see the city when the orcs are still in Osgiliath.  They haven't trampled anything yet.  The stretch of land from Osgiliath to Gondor is a parking lot.

I always thought it was a little ridiculous how close Osgiliath and Gondor were in the film    You can jump on your pony and be there in a few minutes.

But this isn't really that kind of series. Everything is almost dreamlike and archetypal even if Tolkien insisted nothing meant or represented anything.

[Barrister]

I mean depending on how deep you want to go - as someone who studied geology they very landforms of Middle Earth made no fucking sense.  How the hell do the mountain ranges around Mordor make 90 degree turns like that?  The Anduin river makes no sense - running parallel to the Misty Mountains, then also running through a nonsensical gap between the White Mountains and the mountains around Mordor.  You're extremely unlikely to get the lush Mirkwood in the rain shadow of the Misty Mountains (unless if somehow Middle Earth rotates the wrong way).

In a fantasy (or sci-fi) series the most you can really ask for is that the show or movie be internally consistent - that it doesn't break it's own rules.

[Josquius]

I mean depending on how deep you want to go - as someone who studied geology they very landforms of Middle Earth made no fucking sense.  How the hell do the mountain ranges around Mordor make 90 degree turns like that?  The Anduin river makes no sense - running parallel to the Misty Mountains, then also running through a nonsensical gap between the White Mountains and the mountains around Mordor.  You're extremely unlikely to get the lush Mirkwood in the rain shadow of the Misty Mountains (unless if somehow Middle Earth rotates the wrong way).

In a fantasy (or sci-fi) series the most you can really ask for is that the show or movie be internally consistent - that it doesn't break it's own rules.

Magik.

The where are the farms, why is the country just two cities, etc... Points are valid criticisms (as they are for many RPGs. Always bothered me in final fantasy you'd come to some tiny out of the way town nobody cares about but... Dude. It's the 3rd biggest town in the world)

But the geology and geography of middle earth... A world where it's actual history that until not too long ago the sun was a lamp and the sea went up into the sky and all sorts of wacky stuff... That is forgivable. It deals with the past rather than how things exist right now.