So painful to watch

I decided to put my comments here so that they might stand in contrast to the OP, since I seem to fall somewhere between this one and the predominantly laudatory ones.

Full disclosure: I am not, generally speaking, a fan of fan fiction. The worst of it leaves me wondering why the creator even bothered, and the best has me wondering why someone with creativity and talent would spend it on someone else’s creations and characters, rather than something completely and unequivocally their own. I have not watched The Hunt for Gollum. I stumbled on this purely by accident.

That having been said, I was far from disappointed in this piece of work. The acting was on the low-key side, and for the most part I actually found that a refreshing break from the heated overacting that costume and period dramas – particularly of the fantasy genre – tend to engender. The story was pretty well-constructed, and I liked the smaller personal dramas told within the larger Mythic tale, which to my mind might be summed up as “How Aragorn wound up being raised by the Elves of Rivendell”.

Technically, there’s little to fault here. The scenery was lovely, the camera work had some very nice things going on there. I think it was very well edited; it kept things dynamic and it pulled the story right along. Costumes were adequate to quite good, the biggest problem being what I call the “they didn’t have dry cleaners in pre-industrial cultures” problem of period piece costume dramas. Too many people looking just too clean.

And just one question: was the whole thing dubbed? Because there were just a few too many unsynched moments, it was a bit distracting, but I don’t know if it was the transfer to whatever format I watched it in, or if you missed the mark a few times in the mix.

I think that by way of critique, my main problem here is that, as a derivation of LOTR, I understand that there’s a thin line you have to walk between looking too “Peter Jackson” in one direction and straying too far in the other direction from the visual design people have come to expect.

My personal opinion? Anyone making a fan fic film of the LOTR universe might consider really going light on the Peterjacksonery. Jackson’s LOTR is slick, polished, choreographed to a fault in some cases, and without any real rough edges at all. (I'm talking construction now; not the grittiness of the story). Even a decent Indie-scale budget can only approximate that sort of polish, and at times do little more than simply evoke it. While it may be riskier, I think that creatively, it could be far more effective to buck the trend and go for a more personal “look”, one that would utilize one’s resources more effectively.

So. I’m just suggesting that Peter Jackson’s (et al) vision of LOTR is not canon, it hasn’t been around long enough to be canon, and so you really do have the freedom to re-interpret, visually, any aspect of telling a story of Middle Earth, in any way you want, Jackson’s auteurial style notwithstanding.

Take the battle scenes. I see some tight choreographing in them, some fancy swordplay and a few nifty moves that involves stuff like twirling a sword by it’s hilt like a baton. Some of the kills had that feel to them, also. Very evocative, some might say derivative, of the filmic, rather than the printed, Lord of the Rings.

I’d suggest going back to (or going to, if you haven’t been yet) some of Kurosawa’s darker Samurai films and look at the battle scenes in those. You won’t find the kind of whiz-bang action scenes that Jackson’s LOTR supplies, but you will see how there are other ways of approaching the elements of costume drama. The nearly Operatic battles of Ran, the stark, down and dirty fights of Throne of Blood; the absolutely awesome final epic battle in The Seven Samurai, completely stripped of all glamour and cool; just a filthy, staggering melee in the mud and the pouring rain. It’s the antithesis of the Jackson model of sword battles.

To wrap up that thought, I just think that you should consider the source material more strongly than the film interpretation. Like I said; it’s riskier, because people have their pre-formed notions now of what it all should “look” like, and so might easily reject anything that strays from that. But if you’re willing to take that risk, then you go back to square one and have the entire universe of interpretations open to you again.

I think your film made the most progress in that direction, with your characterizations; the romance subplot was more real (as opposed to Aragorn and Arwen’s Fairy Tale-ness), and if I have any complaints there, it’s that I would have liked to have seen even more time spent developing the characters. From a storytelling perspective, you want to see an arc in a character, see how the events of the story changes them in some intrinsic way. Begrudgingly accepting your daughter’s boyfriend, or finally deciding to stop carrying a torch for someone, isn’t quite enough for me. It’s as though those subplots existed parallel to the theme of impending war and the rise of the dark, rather than intertwined, so that the subplots informs the theme, and vice versa, through the characters and how they change.

I know I’m getting a little cerebral here, but I figure if I’m going to comment I should try and tell you how I think it could be improved. I noticed that Kate took the role of (IMO) the best character in the film, (and you did a wonderful job, btw), and she is so because she has the most at stake emotionally, or at least we feel it more with her. But in the end, she’s wasted. Literally and figuratively. What does she represent, in terms of the larger story? The idea of accepting the way things are, and having to live accordingly, or suffer if one fails to do so. This is reflected in the Dunedain’s reticence to accept that things really are getting as dark and dangerous as they are.
I think that there was a lot of potential in this interlocking of the main theme and Elgerain’s story and character arc that wasn’t fully exploited.

Just as an example.

And all that being said, I think you guys really did yourselves proud. The effort and dedication shows. It’s a good film, flaws and all.

And I also want to say that, as far as the OP is concerned, if

I just had to turn it off when I saw the silly blank look on the blond actress's face, at the moment she managed to save one of her companions from being stabbed by an orc.

Of course some parts are pretty bad, while others are much better, Maybe the filmmakers became more skilled during the process of the making of the film? After all, the movie is more of a learning project I guess (after all, it wsn't suppose to hit the big screens was it, not even to produce money).

Apart from some bad scenes, the one thing that annoyed me a bit was the portrayal of the Dunedain. I think Tolkien had them to be more like quiet, middle-aged men. But I still liked the characters that portrayed the Dunedain in this film, even though it's not how I would have imagined them.

PJ had a massive budget, and still his movies include LOADS of scenes that are totally un-Tolkien. While his scenes may be all good in the cinematic view (he could afford back-up skill), some storyline and how some characters behave is just really bad. I don't think PJ would have done a much better job with such a small budget as for this film, at least not the best parts. That's why I don't one think should follow PJ as some sort of prophet when making LotR films.

I agree with the OP about the cringe factor. As a piece of filmmaking, this was pretty good for an indie film, as far as costumes, make up and special effects go. Even the music and the acting and editing were all right,

But the script was AWFUL. Soooo cheesy and inaccessible for the audience, with zero character development and no interesting plot lines. And so many of the lines sounded like they'd just been ripped from Jackson's Lotr and altered a bit. Not enough to be original, but just enough to no longer be any good.

You really thought so? I have to confess that I can't quite see where you're coming from.

This was one decent film-making effort if I ever saw one. In fact, it was so decent that it makes you wonder, when taking into account the immense difference in budget, exactly WHY Peter Jackson needed THAT much money.

Don't get me wrong: I'm very familiar with the economic side of production, the only problem I'm having with it all, is that with such tremendous budgetary differences, there should be at least some sort of "return on invest" in terms of artistic quality too, not just financially.

And... there isn't. Much of the camera work, the sound, the score, the acting, the script, even the stunt choreography of Born of Hope, in other words: the things that make a film an art product and not just some other piece of chewing-gum for the brain, were quite up to par. The things like CGI, sets, costumes, props etc. were not, but that's understandable. And yes, nobody in BoH earned anything (other than experience, I suppose), whereas LotR made everyone involved rich.

But the amount of money spent (25000 pounds vs. 281 million $), the amount of time it cost to make both products and - last, not least - the amount of time it costs to see them (a lot of time in the LotR-trilogy is spent on fill-up mass scenes with no merit whatsoever in terms of character development, moving the plot ahead etc.) should put Peter Jackson and everyone else involved in producing LotR to shame.

agreed - if I wana see LARPing in a movie I'll watch Role Models .. or the Knight's of Badassdom when it's released :P

It's not the worst movie I've ever watched.... but it doesn't land in my top ten either. My problem was the narrator. She just wasn't... mysterious enough? Ah... but honestly what annoyed me more was the way they pronounced Elladan. Of course, there's no set way on how to pronounce it, but I always pronounced it like Aladin, 'cept with an 'E' instead of an 'A'.