Author: Yu-kai Chou

I believe I should explain my reasoning for not liking this movie fast before everyone tries to burn me. I understand what is great about this movie, but it does not mean we can neglect the little things that it does wrong. LOTR is the most famous movie with the most glitches I have ever seen. I understand that making a fantasy movie like this is not easy to be glitch free, but there are way too many. I have only seen the first part, the big battle of the 2nd part, and I decided not to watch the whole and the third part. Since what’s good about this movie is found everywhere, I’ll just talk about why I don’t like it. I’ll include the parts I’ve seen on the 2nd one too since it’s convinient to do so.
First lets give some point values:

Video: 92
Audio: 90
Scenes: 92
General Plot: 87
Specific Plot: 83
Intensity: 82
Consistency: 88
Glitches: -12 (avg is -3)

As you seen all the stuff are pretty solid. The only thing I can pick out of the movie, besides the glitches is the slow pace. The movie doesn’t seem to have a fast pace, and with 3 hours of this, you get quite tired watching it.

Yea, I’ll get to the point, what are all the glitches that I am talking about? Well, first, glitches are more oftenly seen the 2nd time watching the movie, I have only seen it once, so ones I didn’t identify doesn’t mean it’s not there. But I can already tell you a plethora of it:

(Yes, I realize this is just a movie and meant to just entertain, but it is also art and make-believe, so it should not constantly remind you that “Yo, I’m just a movie! I don’t need to make sense!” Even Muholland Drive made sense.)

1. During the first part, there was a place where the big fire devil(pardon me for not remembering much names, I’m not aquainted to Tolkiens’ book and only seen the movie once. But one should not let the book influence a movie rating) was chasing the fellowship. They were running on the stairs and the place is so crappy that their weight made the stairs fall down. So the question is, if those little guys can make the stairs fall down, HOW IN THE WORLD DOES THAT FIRE DEVIL RUN AROUND AND CHASE THEM!???? Oh, maybe he can fly…but wait! He fell down with Gandolf! He can’t fly, he just magically appeared to catch up to everyone. It looked more like a video game to me at that part where you keep running in one direction and someone is chasing you and will never catch you, when you finish the level, it catches up and you have to fight the boss….^^||

2. Wraiths suck!!! From the description in the movie, wraithes are described as super powerful beings. There’s 9 of them in the world and it seems like each one of them can defeat a thousand men. What I saw in the movie is…. The only thing they do is ride horse and scare short people. They are afraid of fire, they are afraid of water. Six of them were trying to kill Frodo and one human with a torch scared them away…. I don’t know what kind of definition of suck would you use, but they suck. My friends told me they’re better in the book; the book doesn’t count in the movie. My friends also said: “What makes them so powerful is that they can’t die! You just can’t kill them! Anything that can’t die is scary and powerful…” Then i bring up my favorite analogy. You’ve played Super Mario 3 yea?(best Nintendo game ever) In it there’s this skeleton turtle that when you step on it, it turns into bones and then it revives a few seconds later. Even though they can’t die, they are still WORTHLESS!(Sincere Apologies for those who suffer from these creatures in the game, but then it just means you suck too.) They have no threat. (I know you can find ways to kill them, but not my point). Anyway, the wraiths suck. Then my friend told me in the 2nd and 3rd one they become more powerful, and I said “Good! That’s more like it!” But then I discovered they are more powerful just because they are riding on dragons!!!! Frodo can be more powerful when he’s riding on a dragon too. Oh yea…finally, I heard one or some died because the girl stabbed a dagger in them…….point made.

3. The fact that the elf guy constantly have like 8 arrows left all the time and has time (explained in the book….) to pick them all back when surrounded by thousands of orc is just a little glitch.

4. The Dramatic place where the Dark Lord got his finger chopped off, starting the whole thing is pretty dumb. The human had a broken sword, he hit the dark lord’s finger. The dark lord loses all the power and dies… This does’nt make sense. The dark lord has all his powers, perhaps because the rings fulls his body with energy. The guy slashes at the dark lord, his finger, close to the ring, is suppose to be one of the lords toughest places. Yea they made it dramatic, but in reality situations, the guy would slash at the dark lord (first the dark lord is powerful enough not to let the guy touch him) and then when he hits the finger, the broken sword will instantly turn to dust and the dark lord will laugh and all is to a end….yea, atleast they should make the dark lord fall in a more probable way. If this was the ending of a great epic itself, wouldn’t the view/reader be pissed? Why can’t the Dark Lord just trip, hit his head, and die, hoping he has insurance?

5. This is more of an understanding part. Frodo puts on the ring and becomes invisible, where is the dark POWER? How come the dark lord doesn’t become invisible?

6. The magicians fight…is funny. Goes like this. A shakes staff, B hits wall. B shakes staff, A hits the wall, so on. What the hell are they doing?? Are they playing RPG? I’m sure they are desperate on waiting their bar to fill and regret that they didn’t put more points in speed….WHAT ARE THEY DOING? It should go like this, A makes B hits the wall, and does it again, and again, and again, and again, and makes him spin in the air until his bones shatter, and then make him hit the wall 10 times more…that’s realistic fighting if they really have those powers! They are like, “Go hit the wall! Ok, now it’s your turn.” And then the bad guy suddenly gets smarter and wins….wow, best fight I have ever seen.

There’s some really minor ones that I’m just too tired to talk about them now.

We’ll move on to the 2nd part. Realized I just watch about 20 minutes of it and I can pick out a few.

1. The Ent tree thing was carrying the 2 halfings for a whole day, and then he suddenly saw all the dead trees and got mad (He should kill humans too), he cried out loud and in 2 seconds the whole Ent race appeared ready for battle. Ummm…if the whole Ent race can appear in 2 seconds, WHAT WAS HE DOING WALKING FOR A WHOLE DAY WITH THE HALFLINGS ON HIS BACK?? Yea, maybe all the Ents were stockers.

2. The elf guy can shoot a orc in the head when it’s half a mile away. When it really matters, when he should kill the orc with a torch 500 ft away, he shoots the shoulder, and then the other shoulder, and watches the kamakazi succeed….

3. The dwarf jumped up and landed into the mass of Orcs…who had spears! This is butt and leg first. I’m surprised there was place for him to land. Does no one know what a spear is for? Maybe they just wanted to make the movie less violent so they don’t want to show raw dwarf on a stick…..

4. When they were on the bridge filled with orcs, they rode horses through the bridge like knife thru butter and the orcs all fell off the bridge. Wait….horses are more powerful than orcs? One horce in front can knock aside 30 orcs? Well, maybe they are more powerful, but then WHY DOESN’T THEY JUST TRAIN 1000 HORSEMEN AND JUST CONSTANTLY RIDING BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH? That way all the orcs will die(if not damaged) no? Oh, I later heard that’s kinda what happened. Orcs are war creatures designed to kill.

Well, anyway, those are the ones I still remember. Probably lots more. LOTR is really a good movie, but the glitches pulled it down alot, so it can’t make my collection.Too too many…. If you can refute me, plz do. I like being convinced wrong, though there might be some inevitable resistence. Feel free to msg me.

Last thing to keep in mind, this review I wrote in my 12th grade, but I have brought it back up again and again when people ask why I don’t think it’s the best movie ever. I thought I’d just bring it onto facebook. If you read up to this point, eprops to you.

So today’s schedule:

AM
8:30-10:30 Class
10:30-12:30 Coordinating email communication for the Professional Committee in Delta Sigma Pi(Business Fraternity)
PM
1:00-3:00 Meeting for my consulting startup Veridical Group with client from Re/Max
3:30-5:30 Class
6:00-8:00 Professional and Resume Meeting with a Delta Sigma Pi member
8:00-10:00 Facilitator of the Think Tank
10:00-12:00 Econ HW due midnight
AM
12:00-3:00 Structure, stratagize, and discuss Think Tank status and future with leader
3:00-4:30 Drive home and coordinate emails regarding the Think Tank, Veridical Group, and DSP
4:30-5:00 Write this blog

Life is leading me towards exciting places, and I cannot wait to be able to create more value for people in this world. I rather have a busy schedule/life with meaning than a chill schedule/life that does not stand for anything. At this point, only school is an annoying drag, and I need to spend more time on my large Startup: FD World.

This morning, around 1:00AM, I was getting gas on gayley, and a homeless guy approached me seeking for some change. I only had a twenty, so I told him I would go to the store, buy something, and give him a dollar or two. While I was walking towards it, I thought why don’t I just also buy something for him. He told me there isn’t something in that store he needs, but he needs to buy hot soup for him and his wife at Ralphs. I offered to drive him to Ralph and buy soup with him instead.

So on the car we had a good chat. We talked a bit about the government, people, annoying paperworks, geeks and the Geek Squad. Tony is homeless for awhile because he didn’t get the paperwork in, and so the government canceled his welfare until next month. Long time ago he used to be a factory worker in a chemical factory, and he accidentally got hurt, and since then had no ability to do good work. I asked him if he had hobbies if he was able to have any, and he said, “not really, maybe crossword puzzles.”

When we got to Ralphs, since it was so late, there were no hot soup. I then offered to buy him a whole roasted chicken. He was ultra-grateful and thanked me continuously. I told him the truth, that it was simply from the mercy of the Lord. I then offered to have him and his wife drop by my place some time so I can make some food to eat together. He liked the idea, but he said he can’t make a decision for both him and his wife, hence he cannot say yes to it. I told him I respect his care for his wife’s opinion.

Afterwards, he thanked me and told me he didn’t want to trouble me anymore. I told him to take a good rest because it is late at night, and make sure he doesn’t rest hungrily. He said that whenever I see him around, stop by because he wants to somehow pay me back if he could. I told him not to worry about it.

Anyway, I’m telling this not because I want to let people know that behind the craziness, I’m a pretty nice guy, but just to express that there are too little events like these that occur in society. I figured that $8 to me is worth A LOT less than $8 to this guy, and I thought it was an overall gain in the transaction. I know a lot of these homeless people choose to be like that, and buy drugs with new money, but there are poor fellas who just ended in a bad place due to bad luck. I am not asking people to sacrifice that extra boba, starbucks, or jamba juice money to the homeless people, but simply to be kind and express care. I think talking to them like a real person and expressing care is more valuable to these people than a couple quarters.