Posts by BenWilson
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My general feeling on another Harbour Crossing is "what's the hurry?"
I guess the answer is: These things take an awfully long time to organize, and it's only going to happen if there is a political will to make it happen.
Remember, the harbour crossing project has a cost of $4 billion or more. Would that money be better spent on a railway line out to southeast Auckland? I'd be curious.
I would be too. The thing about the harbor crossing is that it's a bottleneck, so any improvements there create general improvements in all of the traffic flow near the city. But southeast are certainly poorly catered for. More bus lanes for them could be a short term trick. The bus commutes sound awful.
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Some people use MILFO.
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Loose as a goose, and full of juice.
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No, it was always going to happen. Godwin's 4th corollary: Any thread that carries on for long enough will become pendulous.
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For those that are talking about how white kids are the minority in their childcare, the reverse is definitely still the case here.
No doubt. And most of the enclaves in Auckland, apart from South, are like that too. I don't actually feel that comfortable in them though, I guess you get used to diversity. Same in Australia, a place I think is pretty racist by comparison. But I always lived in the poorer inner suburbs, surrounded by Italians, Indians, Vietnamese, and it felt normal to me. Bugger all Aborigines though, I just never saw them, which always freaked me out a little.
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So, yeah, much enlarged in the film, but still more or less within canon.
Yup, there's no indication that Gothmog is an orc, other than the name is a little bit orc sounding. Most of Sauron's inner flunkies were human.
I don't think Parker was a retrofit. The elves were from Lothlórien so it wouldn't have made sense to have Arwen leading them.
Nothing about it made sense. Considering that they met Haldir in Lothlorien, why the hell didn't the Company travel with them, considering they were an entire army, and must have left Lorien about the same time? How and why they happened to be crossing the middle of Rohan on foot, just in time to turn up without any heralding, fully armed, without any train of supplies, at a remote valley, rather than going to, say, Edoras, or Fangorn, was beyond me. Arwen being with them would just cap off the silliness, she'd have had to have ridden solo through the gap of Rohan to catch up, riding blind without any means of knowing where anyone was. Also, from their armor, it's not clear they were wood elves - it seemed to be the very same that was worn by Elrond in the opening sequence of FOTR. I guess Jackson kept his options open, and made the best of it.
Quite frankly, good on him. Fanboys be damned, he wanted the fight to be a lot more meaningful, considering it was the grand finale of the film, whereas the book ends with Frodo being captured in Shelob's Lair. But that was never going to happen, no way was Return of the King going to have the ring destroyed halfway through the film, and then 2 hours of wrap up, that would never fly in a movie. Kids around me were yawning and fidgeting all the way through Grey Havens scene, there would have been a riot if 20 minutes were spent just getting back from Minas Tirith to the Shire.
And anyway, what was wrong with Tolkien's choice of strong female character? Eowyn was his answer to the boy's own story criticism, she falls for Aragorn, is politely rejected on account of his having been betrothed to Arwen for decades, bitterly rails against sexism, and says fuck it and goes anyway, and together with the little hobbit earns everlasting renown on the battlefield by slaying the leader of the Nazgul. Then she scores a prince.
But yes, I can see that the very nature of the elves was very hard to convey in film, because they are so alien, more alien really than the dwarves and hobbits, on account of their immortality. So Arwen was not a strong character in the book and that needed some amends in the movies, and why waste an actress like Tyler on sitting around looking pretty? The book had the leisure of a huge appendix just about Aragorn and Arwen.
Well, they (Northern Rangers aka the Grey Company) did turn up in Rohan, but after the battle for Helm's Deep. The 30 or so of them then hung round in Aragorn's background for the rest of the book
Yes, and two half-elves, the sons of Elrond. I think this is homaged by Elrond himself turning up with Anduril (which in the book Aragorn actually carries at all times, first broken, then reforged after the council of Elrond, and it figures very highly in the Helm's Deep battle).
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Unfortunatly I never got to see you Ben because the host always has pissed me off..sorry
I saw him plenty, although I never made the connection, mainly cause I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes. It was a highlight of the show, marred only by the inanity that Henry always tried to bring to it, his scornful dismissal of any number of gadgets which I'd have liked to hear more about, and his attempts to clown around when a lot the time the jokes were already made by the very selection of the items, and I just groaned. With Henry it was "If I don't immediately see a use for it for me then I don't want any air time spent on it". Or even more importantly, "If I can't put it on my head and get the camera back on me, I don't like it".
It surprises people I talk to overseas when I describe just how non-white NZ truly is. It's about time "middle NZ" (whoever the fuck they are) woke up to the fact.
Yup, I'm in Avondale, a traditional poor white west Auckland suburb. But that's just the tradition. As for the reality, my wife, just yesterday, was invited to a lunch by one of the other mums at my son's kindergarten, a lovely Indian woman, and some of her friends. My wife introduced herself as "Marcus' mum". One of the other ladies pondered: "Marcus? Marcus.....Oh, yes, the white boy".
So far as I can tell, Marcus is totally unaware of race. I'm in no rush to point out the distinctions. He only really takes notice of different languages, and enjoys hearing them a lot, repeats them when he can.
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She was then cut out of the scenes entirely, there's been comments that she asked to be taken out, I've heard that she was just awful at it so they had to cut her out.
I bow low to your knowledge! If it were me I'd have cut the lot out. So Parker was a last-minute retrofit? It makes sense if they had already gone to great expense during extended battle sequences involving the Elves.
I'm not surprised she would not have worked too well as an action figure.
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Free wine at communion?
I really should go to a Mass at least once in my life, just to see, and get the bonus sacrament, bringing me up to a bare fail.
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When was the last time you heard of A NZ director / writer identifying an actor and writing a character around them?
Actually I can think of 2 examples from LOTR. Jackson seemed determined to give Craig Parker more of a role and added a very odd scene in which Elves from Lothlorien turn up at the battle of Helm's Deep. Considering the huge array of things that had to be left out of the story it was quite an odd one to add in (and made no sense at all). I can only presume it was Parker's very elven looks, and ability to deliver even awful lines with conviction, that sold it.
Also, Lawrence Makaore was given several roles that utilized his huge physicality, even though they were nothing in the books at all. There was no Uruk Hai leader called Lurtz who singlehandedly killed Boromir, nor an Orc commander called Gothmog.
Small parts, but in very big movies.
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