Troll Lord Games

I'm watching Beowulf right now and it took me several minutes to realize that the characters were computer generated.

And the opening scene...

Nine hells!

That is simply the most brutal, terrifying opening of any movie I have seen to date.

Just amazing

The dragon bit is exceptionally well done on the director's cut. The story isn't all that accurate though.
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You weren't kidding; that was the most intense movie scene I have seen in years.

5 stars for that piece of work.

I loved Beowulf when I saw it in the theatre in 3D. I've heard the issues some folks had with "accuracy", but I took a different stance.

In the movie, you aren't seeing the story that's told in the original song, you're seeing a "behind the scenes" (albeit fictional) of events that led to the creation of the song. The song is a simplification of the events -and the man. I love how you can see that Beowulf isn't entirely noble -or honest- about his motives and actions. People believe him though (most of them, anyway). You also can see that the story "gets away" from him and he watches his legend grows and become more important to the people than Beowulf himself is; even as their king.

The other issue some folks had was the whole "nekkid Angelina" as Grendel's mom. I don't know how many times I pointed out that the film plainly shows her as a shapeshifter.

The action scenes are great and the mo-cap is a cool medium. The acting is well-done as well, IMO. I just wish there was a 3D DVD.

The wife and I enjoyed it. Course we didn't go in expecting a Peter Jackson; Lord of the Rings type movie.

Couldn't stand Grendel... not at all, not one bit. I understand the reasonings behind everything, but still I couldn't stand Grendel at all. Blah! The movie got better as it went on I think, and the dragon was the best. However, it seemed to me that even with all of this motuion capturing movie magic all of the characters seemed... creepy to me. The computer animation really made all of the characters seem like drowned corpses going through dialogue.

Oh well, computer animation still hasn't come far enough yet.

-O
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I have mixed feelings about Beowulf.

On one hand, the film is a technical marvel. The way it was made and the way it ended up looking are astounding.

Crispin Glover and Ray Winstone were great as Grendel and Beowulf, respectively. Crispin Glover is bugnuts, which helps.

The fight with the dragon is everything that a fight with a dragon should be, minus the golden boy garbage.

But what really does damage to the film is the change to Grendel's mother and Beowulf himself. Turning him into a tragic/flawed hero drove me up the wall. That sort of post-modernism just didn't belong in the story and rang false to me.

I rented this and Stardust last night. I loved both of them and thought Beowulf as good as 300. (Yes I liked 300). The story changes didn't bother me as I felt it made sense. This an the 13th warrior are two of the best Beowulf movies I have seen to date.
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JG I agree! I watched it last week & was amazed. it took my wife a bit to figure out it was CG (she wasn't expecting it) & it is amazing what they can do with a computer now days....

I loved the first "fight scene" that is what a troll should do to a group of 1st lvl fighters & npcs!

JF I agree (tooo a point) with the adition of the "tragic hero" aspect but it didn't bother me that much.
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slimykuotoan wrote:
I'm watching Beowulf right now and it took me several minutes to realize that the characters were computer generated.

Yah. I didn't particularly care for the sFx CG style the movie was presented, it. It was a solid story though, and a nice twist on the whole saga. All the amazing actors (Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Greg Ellis, etc.), of course, in the movie made up for the slightly off kilter CG style the movie used. I kind of likes Beowulf and Grendel from 2005 much more. Seeing the troll up in the rocky barrens throwing stones at Beowulf made the 2005 version a keeper.

This weekend was a CD movie buy weekend for me, with the theme being movies for guys who like watching warrior movies.

I added the 13th Warrior to my collection, as well as buying two other foreign flicks where I'll leave a review here...

First there was the Korean Film The Warrior by CJ Entertainment. Wide Screen with subtitles, on a scale of 1-10, I give it a 14.
Prepare for an ancient battle of honor when Korea's Koryo warriors band together for the ultimate war against the Yuan to save the Dynasty. China lies in chaos as the battles between the Yuan and Ming dynasties end with the Ming's bloody victory. The Korean Koryo Dynasty in an attempt to encourage peace with the new Chinese government sends a diplomatic delegation with a warrior escort to the new Ming leader in Nanjin. However the delegation is received with hostility, accused as spies and exiled to the Gobi desert. Abandoned and humiliated, the soldiers are forced to choose their loyalties when they encounter The yuan cavalry... shortly thereafter they meet a warband of Mongols under Ghengis Khan that have kidnapped a Ming Princess (played by Ziyi Zhang... anyone remember Memories of a Geisha?), and the Game is on!

Guess what? I didn't give away any spoilers at all with this, this is what the story starts with in about the first five minutes. I would add, The Mongol Warlord Rocks! and the Koryu party included a rogue, cleric, and fighters, and I'm definitely going to feature the Mongol Warlord in some of my games as an NPC.

The other foreign flick I reviewed, worthy of inclusion in Movies that feel like roleplaying campaigns is Asoka.

I rate this 8 out of 10, only because of the 3 or 4 Bollywood MTV musicals that disrupted a most awesome spectacle of Indian history. But then again, if you don't have Bollywood dance scenes with the lead actors singing, it's not Bollywood.
Asoka traces the life of Emperor Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya who ascended to the throne of Magadha in the 3rd Century BC. To extend the borders of his empire Asoka waged one of the bloodiest wars in history with the neighboring kingdom of Kalinga, leaving it ravaged and devastated. Confronted by the aftermath of his conquest in which hundreds of thousands lost their lives, Asoka is overcome with remorse and renounces the paths of war to dedicate his life to spreading the teachings of Buddhism across the World.

One of the many indelible scenes featured the Kalinga Elephants charging Asoka's army in one of the many battles, and it was an awesome spectacle indeed.

I liked it also. Wonder if they could do a C&C film?

Speaking of this movie and C&C here is a point of non-interest for you all:

Grendel gives me a good idea of what a troll should look like. Just as much as the immortals from 300 gave me a good image for Hobgoblins.
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Julian Grimm wrote:
Speaking of this movie and C&C here is a point of non-interest for you all:

Grendel gives me a good idea of what a troll should look like. Just as much as the immortals from 300 gave me a good image for Hobgoblins.

Hay that is some good ideas Julian. Hope you dont mind me steal them.

I picked up both Beowulf and Elizabeth, the Golden Age last weekend. I watched the latter first.

ye gods! Will nothing ever again approach the quality of Elizabeth R? And that had a bit of fictionalisation, but this effort was, on the whole, drek. It's not the fault of the actors, either. They worked their arses off, and Cate was great, but please. Half of the court was missing, Mary Stuart, a classic femme fatale in real life*, was turned into some sort of simpering nobody with the charisma of cold porridge, and it wasn't even set in Elizabeth's golden age but some twenty years later.

And for a 12 cert, it had far too much torture in it. What kind of f**k-up morality limits the steamier sex scenes to an 18 but lets you watch a man having his tongue carved out with a dagger on a 12?

Then I watched Beowulf. In the first ten minutes I was more entertained than during the whole previous two hours. The storyline had turned into some kind of twisted soap opera, which I could've done without, but it seems to be a mark of adaptors these days that they can't just leave a story alone.

You want to make your mark? Write your own bloody story!

Still, that aside, it was fun, well shot, I didn't find the animation unsettling at all, and Ray Winstone's "Ov cam ter kiw yer monstah!" will surely go right into one-liner heaven along with such glories as "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"

And I very much enjoyed the drinking-songs. They remind me of barracks-songs my grandfather tought me when I was little.

*And that bit really got to me. Nobody does Mary justice, not even folks like the Scottish nationalists** who like to set her up as some sort of Virgin Mary character. Remember Faye Dunaway in the Four Musketeers? That was ol' Mary, not some non-event going helplessly and demurely to her fate.

**And that makes me laugh; just which king ascended which throne in 1603 and promptly emptied which country's coffers?
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I've yet to see a Grendel I like. Though, if its any better than Lambert's Beowulf, I might just not die from boredom.

I saw a directors cut at Wal-Mart tonight. I may get it on payday.
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I finally got to see this last night. I thought it was really good. For one thing I only had vague memories of what I read nearly 20 years ago; I remembered Grendel, his mother, and the slave stealing the cup from the dragon.

The CG animation was hit and miss. Most of the time it worked very well, but sometimes... For some reason, some of the characters just didn't work; unfortunately, Queen Wealhtheow was among the worst. Grendel was acceptable. The dragon was, well, fantastic!

Now, how is the Director's cut different?