CitizenKaneRBud

Was it really necessary? Gollum looks fake in quite a few scenes. I think they could have done a great job with make-up (there have been some stunning make-up creations in the past). Why wasn't make-up used here?

CitizenKaneRBud

They made a man look like an elephant with make-up. They made people look like apes. I really think they could have made someone look like gollum just as easily.

karnblack

Steve Buscemi wasn't available.

Giantrobo

Why not?

If they had used make up then you would posting "Why didn't PJ use CGI for Gollum?"

CitizenKaneRBud

I just thought it looked pretty fake in some scenes.

Time will make these effects look terrible. Sure, now they look stunning, but years from now they will look just like Raiders of the Lost Ark's effects look today.

caligulathegod

They couldn't find someone that emaciated. Besides, they wanted a consistancy in appearance.

al_bundy

The apes looked pretty fake all those years ago. Just like most of the make up jobs.

Unless you find a crackhead, cancer patient or AIDS patient that looks like skin and bones it's going to be pretty hard finding someone who has wasted away for hundreds of years. And if you did find them then getting any decent work out of them would also be pretty hard. Not to mention having them run on all fours down jagged rocks.

I think gollum was great. The voice acting was fantastic. And so was the way he was rendered. Only thing I still find wrong with animation is in a fighting scene it's hard to get everyone lined up correctly and movements properly synced up. Happened in AOTC and you could tell things weren't 100%in TTT either.

The Antipodean

Some people will never be pleased with special effects just because they're special effects. If you look for seams hard enough, you'll find them in anything. I can even look at the old Ray Harryhausen movies with stop-motion animation and get swept away in the story even if the effects aren't state-of-the-art; and for my money the effects in the original Star Wars films are BETTER than the new ones, which are plastic and cold. I think Gollum's one of the best special effects I've ever seen.

Fanboy

Gollum is one of the best special effects I have ever seen, but that is part of the problem - he's not supposed to be an effect, he's supposed to be an actor in the movie.

That said, I thought most of the Gollum stuff was pretty well done and didn't scream "I'M A CARTOON!!". Some needed some spiffing up, like . That could have been cleaned up, but otherwise, for the most part, he was absolutely fabulous.

JCJF10

OK.. who's going to clean the coffee (I just spit out) off my monitor?!?!?

JCJF10

The countries of most of Africa weren't available?

I liked Smeagol/Gollum and thought the effects worked in most cases but certainly they could have also done a great job with make up.

Now I'll say a quick and silent prayer that Jackson doesn't go over to the CG Darkside like Lucas has.

The first two LOTR films PJ has made great decisions on when to use CG and when not to. Smeagol/Gollum was his closest borderline call so I won't fault him for it.

JCJF10

I agree, that seemed like an odd oversight.

But I suppose there is only so much time/budget for each part of the film.

caligulathegod

Oh, yeah, that would go over well. Having some poor malnourished African with spindly arms and legs and distended belly running around on all fours through rocks and swamps calling the two white boys "master".
Not that I'm above a bad taste joke, but if that was a joke it was in the poorest taste.

JCJF10

and "caligulathegod" isn't in bad taste?

Why do you think I used the "shaking head in disgust" smilie.

Imagine all the food service carts and barristers making Starbucks Coffee just off camera.

Inverse

It took *eleven hours* to apply the full body makeup for the actor who played the main Uruk-Hai in Fellowship of the Ring. Gollum would have required something similar--and Gollum has far more screen time.

That's eleven hours a day the actor is not in front of the camera acting. It's a huge time sink, especially when, as with LOTR, the actor also has to spend a chunk of the day commuting to some remote wilderness location.

So one big reason is simply time.

caligulathegod

Never seen that smilie used in sarcasm before (usually it's the rolly eyes or whatever) and the rest of the post didn't go on to rebut it but seemed to continue the same thought. I figured it just had to be a joke and like I said, I'm not above a bad taste joke myself, but living in a country where "poor" people are obese, it's a bit rough to make fun of one of the world's great tragedies. And considering what the character Gollum has to do and say, there is (I know absolutely that it was unintended) a rather unsavory undertone to the joke. My whole point is sometimes all the repercussions of an admittedly tasteless joke have to be weighed to guage whether or not it might be too offensive. Trent Lott was making a similar comment in that he meant it to be complimentary and he didn't consider the repercussions of what it really meant and he paid the price. I know you didn't mean it like that, but you have to be careful when making jokes that can be misconstrued as racist in a public forum and those are hard to defuse with a vague smilie.

By the way, my username is from Suetonius when the Mad Emperor Caligula declared himself a living god. In Imperial Rome, gods were voted into being by the Senate and it was common to make a deceased leader a god. Augustus, Livia his wife, and Claudius were all declared gods.

JCJF10

You said:My simple point (whether well conveyed or not) was that most of Africa is home for just the sort of people you said "they couldn't find".

I'm only offering a mild rebuttal to your statement in the form of a flippant one liner (in an effort to take the edge off the idea).

I'm not actually looking for a war of words. Just to have a good time. Wars are to be fought by better men then I

Peace Out.

caligulathegod

Hey, no problem. It's obvious you meant it as an "off the cuff" joke. I make'em myself all the time. When I know who I'm around, I might even be more offensive. It's just that in a public forum you don't know with whom you might be. It's easy to say something that you might regret if you aren't careful. Measure twice, cut once.

Whirled Peas.

JCJF10

I was starting to think you were taking this too seriously.

Although I'm not known for being all that worldly (or wise for that matter) I happen,
by chance, to be aware of your reference…. however one (under your set of rules)
has to be careful not to offend others due the unsavory undertones to your user name.

It’s a slippery slope you propose we should stand on.
If you remove all flippant banter from this forum you would end up with very little banter.

I’d say keep in mind Trent Lott is an elected official (which I am not, I’m some retard
posting in a LOTR discussion forum set on a side bar about the relative offensiveness
of my rebuttal to your comment) and must answer to his constituents regardless
of how reasonable they may be.

I’d further say what many (here in this forum) would find most offensive
about our posts would be their lack of relevance to the topic at hand.

Sorry folks I’ll be back on topic if I post in this thread again.

JCJF10

Holy Carp! 11 Hours!

You are on the money. Remote may be too timid a word for it though.

I remember one of the featurettes from Disc 3 had a small cut of video
that PJ shot in which shows his SUV quite a hike away over hill and dale.
I can't remember what he said but I'm thinking it was something in
disgust over having to walk all the way back there to his SUV.

caligulathegod

The Trent Lott reference was that he said something intended to compliment the 100 year old Strom Thurman but didn't stop to consider what it really meant. Trent Lott probable meant his fiscally conservative values and didn't research it enough to realize that Thurman had run on a segregationist party ticket (not a segregationist platform, an actual segregationist party!). He said we wouldn't have had "all these problems" had Strom been elected. Maybe all he meant was the problems with our economy, but when you consider that it was a segregationist party what it really meant was the whole civil rights battles and "uppity negroes". Whether it was intended or not, he paid the price for not thinking.

I know you didn't intend it, but when you said African countries could supply emaciated persons for the role what you might not have considered was that meant a genuinely starving black African who would have to walk around on all fours serving "massah" Frodo and Samwise desperate for the shiny piece of gold and a pat on the head (this is what changes Gollum back to Smeagol). Tolkien gets enough accusations of racism that we don't need that little mental picture. There is a difference between "Flippant banter" and what could be construed as a very racist comment. Flippancy is always welcome but it doesn't include racism.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think you intended it to be racist, but put that little mental picture in your head and see if it doesn't come off as a little more harsh than you might have intended it.

Again, peas out.

Fanboy

Hold on for dear life, kids! Cuz this thread has been hijacked!

porieux

I thought they did an awesome job with Golem. He showed more emotion than any of the REAL actors in SW Episode I, for example.

Troy Stiffler

Uhhhh. Gollum is really, really short and thin. I think it would have been hard to find someone to fit the role.

Taking someone and adding to them, like The Elephant Man, or the Klumps just takes skill. You can't really make a real person look so frail with make-up.

I say that Gollum looked great anyways.

RevLiver

Anyone else seen the new commercial where they promote Andy Serkis' performance as Gollum? New Line is pushing him for an Oscar nomination.