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mae govannen
Tol Eressea
Dec 2 2015, 4:47am
Post #26 of 34
(457 views)
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and I wish I, too, would already have all this to watch...
Good that youre posting some of it!!! 
'Is everything sad going to come untrue?'
(Sam, 'The Field of Cormallen', in 'The Return of the King'.)
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Avandel
Half-elven
Dec 2 2015, 6:39am
Post #27 of 34
(453 views)
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Well, the dwarves stole my heart. I'm SUPPOSED to be snarky about elves.
That said, as dwarves have a high sense of the aesthetic and craft beautiful things, watching the Appendices hafta say that Lee Pace is an *insanely* beautiful Thranduil. Happily the EE provides more JOY for both elf and dwarf fans
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CathrineB
Rohan
Dec 2 2015, 10:54am
Post #28 of 34
(434 views)
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Why is it people say they would have "problems" if all the dwarves "looked alike" but they didn't have this problem with the Elves? The Rohirrim? The men of Minas Tirith? The outfits don't have to be exactly alike to show cultural continuity but the...
Who says they don't have problems with elves though? When I watch Helm's Deep or Mirkwood scenes etc they're all pretty identical to me. All supermodels walking around with straight long hair. The dwarves at the battle of five armies all look like one dude in the same armor so it's hard to tell them apart too. The Rohirrim and Gondorian army etc - pretty much the same thing too.
But even with the dwarves of the Company being pushed into the background they still all have names and they show up again throughout the movies. All those armies of elves and dwarves and men are nameless background characters. That's why, to me anyway it's important that the characters you name and you will see more than once in the movies look different from one another.
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Kilidoescartwheels
Valinor
Dec 2 2015, 6:30pm
Post #29 of 34
(406 views)
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"but somehow people are able to distinguish between John Wayne, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Victor McLaglen, etc. in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon without any of them sporting pimp furs"
Now THERE'S a comment I get tired of reading - honestly, you'd think there hadn't already been decades of films where Royalty wore fur-trimmed coats and robes, like the whole thing was invented by Snoop Dog.
"People can tell the difference between Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, and Giovanni Ribisi in Saving Private Ryan. They didn't have to have Tom Hanks sport a ZZ Top beard to distinguish him (sort of the reverse analog to "Thorin" having such a barely beard). The Dirty Dozen also had 14 main characters and gave them all distinct personalities with strong individual roles in a single movie even though they nearly all wore the same thing."
Two things. First, I actually had trouble telling them apart - didn't realize that was Vin Diesel for several years. Second (and more importantly), they key word here is Military Unit. Now, when the Iron Hills Dwarves and Elves showed up, they were all dressed alike - no surprise, they were a military unit after all - but Thorin and Company were Civilian volunteers from different stations of life, so why would they be dressed alike? As Balin said, they were miners, merchants, tinkers and toymakers, i.e. Different! Okay, I get it, not everyone is going to like the designs, and as I said earlier even I thought some were ridiculous, but most were just fine. I don't need to see long plaited beards tucked into belts to figure out that these guys were Dwarves. More importantly, there is NO WAY that the designers at Weta could come up with a design that would please everyone who saw the movie. It seems to be a strong trend on TORn that people who loved the book are less happy about the movies, well I guess that's just the way it is. Btw, Evangeline Lily complained that her extremely long wig gave her headaches, and the Dwarf actors were already under layers of clothing and fat suits, so maybe THAT had something to do with the shorter hair & barely beards?
Proud member of the BOFA Denial Association
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Avandel
Half-elven
Dec 3 2015, 1:20am
Post #30 of 34
(377 views)
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Now, when the Iron Hills Dwarves and Elves showed up, they were all dressed alike - no surprise, they were a military unit after all - but Thorin and Company were Civilian volunteers from different stations of life, so why would they be dressed alike? As Balin said, they were miners, merchants, tinkers and toymakers, i.e. Different!
And too, the Chronicles books point it out - the Rivendell elves have different color schemes re their postions - gold and such for the musicians, burgundies for the staff like Lindir.
And to me the idea of the dwarves NOT wearing fur - along with the leather and iron and so on that they sport - is silly. Heck, even Azog has a furry little something (a fur cropped T-shirt?) under his plate armor in BOFA.
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Ilmatar
Rohan
Dec 3 2015, 11:46am
Post #31 of 34
(362 views)
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Agreeing with you and Kilidoescartwheels.
And to me the idea of the dwarves NOT wearing fur - along with the leather and iron and so on that they sport - is silly.
Indeed, typically most people living in cold climates - snowy winters, mountains (!) etc. - have worn fur since the stone age. (Until the invention of Gore-tex, that is.  )
Especially royalty - nothing "pimp" about it.
A bit of "fur info" from the past, if anyone is interested:
One of my ancestors was a royal hunter for the king between 1629 and 1634 - the King of Sweden, naturally, since Finland was under Swedish rule. It was his duty to hunt fur animals for the needs of the court, and had rights and responsibilities that went with the profession (for example, exemption from taxes, received gunpowder and lead, could keep one farmhand out of levy in case a war broke out, etc.). In 1610 it was declared that (Finnish) royal hunters were to travel all over Finland and its Ostrobothnia, hunting all kinds of animals, except the moose, and then deliver them in person. The court provided its hunters with hunt dogs trained to hunt bear, lynx, beaver and fox.
I'm sure that when my forefather arrived in Stockholm (his travel expenses paid by the royal treasury) and delivered his yearly pile of assorted furs, an official of the court inspected them and told him, "His Majesty, King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden, send his regards and accepts your settlement of these pimp furs. You may go now and hunt some more."
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Avandel
Half-elven
Dec 3 2015, 6:24pm
Post #32 of 34
(347 views)
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Great pictures and info! Thank you! Especially as your information is from a cooler part of the world, e.g. where I imagine Thorin & co. are from - as opposed to the IMO fascinating idea of SOUTHERN dwarf kingdoms, or even dwarves that might live near a sea coast, and how their clothes and jewelry might have been influenced by trade and the landscape. (The farthest left picture of the woman - IMO definitely dwarvish tho TOO TALL)
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Miss-Merriweather
Bree
Dec 5 2015, 1:33pm
Post #33 of 34
(308 views)
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The whole idea of dwarves being "not hot" by definition is just another prejudice we have to get rid of - the sooner, the better...!
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Cirashala
Valinor
Jan 1 2016, 8:41pm
Post #34 of 34
(270 views)
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Snert! Thank you for your lovely visual beard imagery
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I needed a good laugh today (poor Thorin= could you imagine him trying to rally the dwarves with onions and potatoes stuck in his beard? Plus all that chicken fat...one whiff near that candle and you would have had a dwarf TORCH!
Kinda hard to be regal when your beard is on fire.....
And your cross between Old Man Winter and the Son of Gandalf- I'm pretty sure my computer would be frying and smoking right now had I been drinking my orange juice when I read your post....
Aside from Bifur's axe (which in all rights should have killed him on impact-dwarf skulls aren't THAT hard), and a bit of time getting used to Nori's starfish hair, and still not sure about Bombur's "rope beard" (mostly because I cannot figure out how he could have done it in the first place), I think each of the dwarves had a believable, unique, very dwarven look. The beard lengths varied, but not completely out of the realm of possibility (though Kili's stubble is pushing it, but I have the theory that young child dwarves probably have a "beard" in the form of more thick sideburns and maybe a wisp on the chin that's hardly visible, but that their "adult beard" (aka full, thick beard on the chin) doesn't start coming in til later- and for all we know Kili may have been a late bloomer, which also accounts for the more slender look).
Think about it. If babies can be wrapped in the umbilical cord at birth (and sometimes do- my cousin had an emergency c-section recently because the baby's cord was wrapped three times around the torso and once around the shoulder- it's a very dangerous situation when that happens but they're ok the little preemie is still in NICU until she's more mature but otherwise healthy), then an infant BORN with a FULL waist length beard would likely be strangled during birth!
So Jackson's interpretation of child dwarves having their "beard" as more of a thick about 2 cm long sideburn but bare chin, with their "grown up beard" coming in on the chin thicker and fuller later on toward the end of puberty/maturation is a theory I can get behind. And Kili is young enough (with Fili's beard being just a bit longer, to account for 5 years' difference in ages)-approx. 29 or so in human years- that if he had been a late bloomer, his grown up beard might still be working its way in.
Meh- at any rate, other than starfish, axehead, and rope beard issues (which I've gotten used to), I think the production team did a wonderful job of showing these 13 to obviously be all dwarves, yet different. That was no easy feat!
And if humans can be tall, short, thin, fat, late bloomers, early bloomers, with shorter hair, longer hair, different natural colors of hair, round faces, slender faces, etc.....then it's not reasonable to expect all dwarves to be clones of Gimli, IMHO. There is variability (within the norm) of appearance, hair color, height (of 4-5 feet tall, with 5'2" being rare but likely not unheard of), beard styles, beard length, hair styles, nose sizes, etc within dwarves as well.
The only thing I really wished they'd done is not make Dain's entire army fully longbearded. That would give more weight to the individuality of dwarfdom amongst the company if others of their race were individuals as well (though I get the ridiculous amount of CGI and time that might have been needed to make more individuals within an entire army).
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*Smiles and bows*
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