Shadowfax

[Fatty Lumpkin]

this may have been discussed already. if so, apologies...

but, here's my issue. overall, i thought TTT was great. one thing that really disappointed me, however, was shadowfax. maybe it's just me, but from the way the horse was shown in the film, i really didn't get the impression that it was the king of horses. it wasn't particularly beautiful or fast, it was just... a horse. i always loved reading about shadowfax when i was a kid, and was more than a little let down by the film. i'm not sure how PJ could have made it better, but still...

what did anyone else think? did i just not "get it?"

[squinteyedsoutherner]

I thought the horse itself looked magnificent. It was the Walt Disney portrayal that ruined the scene for me. Slow-motion takes away from the majesty and power of a horse, it does not enhance it. The rearing up on the hill before the charge was, in my opinion, the worst moment of the film. A cheesy cinematic cliche.

[Fatty Lumpkin]

the slow-mo definitely did not work. i had forgotten about that until your post. perhaps that's why i am so displeased...

[Fat middle]

it seems that PJ tends to overuse slow motion all over the trilogy, and almost every time he uses it, the result is horrible: Frodo's little accident at the Prancing Pony, the meeting of the hobbits at Rivendell, Sam's drowning in the Anduin... Shadowfax...

however i admitt that sometimes the result is touching as in the company flying after Gandalf's fall in Moria.

[Beleg Strongbow]

Actually, I think that the only bad use of slow mo was the horse rearing up. And that gave me goosebumps the second time I saw it, so...
I just think Gandalf would've fallen off.

[FrodoFriend]

Originally posted by Beleg Strongbow
I just think Gandalf would've fallen off.

LOL.... even Wizards have their bad days....

I didn't have a problem with the slomo, except for the part where Frodo gets skewered by the troll in FotR - that was just over done. Shadowfax was alright, though I pictured him as larger and with more mane and well, smarter and wilder looking. But then, where are you going to find a horse like that on Earth?

[LuthienTinuviel]

Originally posted by FrodoFriend
But then, where are you going to find a horse like that on Earth?

my thoughts exactly

[Shadowfax]

I just didn't like the cliché slow motion junk.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Shadowfax was originally grey, I think but I'm not complaining. :)

*Loves white horses ;)*

[Lady of Rohan]

I thought the Shadowfax in the movie was beautiful (but then again I think that all horses are beautiful!). But I thought that they would tell more about him and make it more important that he was the King of Horses. And I thought that they would show more about how much Gandalf loved Shadowfax, because in the book were they not always talking about Gandalf and Shadowfax's special bond? :confused:

[Evenstar1400]

anyone seen george of the jungle? think of the scene where he was chasing the horses with all the ladies giggling about how sexy he looked (yadayadayada.... he isnt that hot) yeah well anyway...... now that i think about it, one of those horses looked like shadowfax. he doesnt seem as magestic as he was portrayed in the book. and wasnt he supposed to be kinda silverish???

[Dúnedain]

I liked Shadowfax. I think that if we saw him running off and leaving everyone in the dust it would just look weird, especially for the people who know nothing about Shadowfax, they'd just be like "wtf!" :D

[Firekitten2006]

Did anyone else notice they used several different horses for shadowfax? I think that was my main problem. Really distracting for a horse freak like myself. I was just excited to see him. I was personally dissapointed with the Stables. I thought that the Rohirrim would have more magnificent stables for horses, since they really love them. I mean they had a wonderful grave for Snowmane! lol

[Gwaimir Windgem]

If they took two minutes to explain a bit about Shadowfax (probably less than that), it wouldn't seem wierd.

[Huan]

Yeah, in fact, in the book the lines explaining Shadowfax's majestic nature aren't just pure exposition; they fit into the action of the story. For example, Grima's condemnation of Gandalf's "daring" to "presume" to "claim" Shadowfax. A bit of that could get across to an audience who this horse is. In the movie, I hate to say, with only that one line it sounds kind of cheesy: "The lord of all horses." You can't say that to a movie audience without backing it up (same with the "walking trees", whose entire profundity is neglected in the movie: just add two lines and some of it would be there!). The philologist in me is also bothered that the line about Shadowfax being "one of the mearas, unless some spell etc." goes to Legolas. I don't think he would use the word mearas to describe him, as that is an Old English (Rohirrim in Tolkien) word (origin of our modern "mare"), not an Elvish one. I'm sure the elves have their own word to distinguish the mearas. And finally, Gandalf and Shadowfax rearing up in the sunlight at the movie's climax is indeed VERY cliched.

[Dunadan]

Yes, I thought that was a bit Bakshi-esque. Also agree with the comment about Ents; in general, he tried to cram in too much detail and didn't spend long enough developing the characters and plot lines which really matter.

Given that Shadowfax really ought to have been in the first film, there was always going to be an issue around how they introduced him. I reckon we'll see a bit more in ROTK, especially when G.saves Faramir and confronts the Witch-king at Minas Tirith
cheers

d.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Hmm? I didn't remember him in the first book; where was he there?

[Beleg Strongbow]

yeah.

[squinteyedsoutherner]

Shadowfax is not in the first book.

[azalea]

Yeah, I thought that instead of doing slo-mo, it would have made more sense to SPEED UP the film for Shadowfax's entrance -- no way would it take him that long to get from where he was to Gandalf!:D And it was a beautiful horse, but I think people who hadn't read the book didn't really understand what the deal was, I mean why was all this time (relatively) spent introing this horse (they thought), of course not understanding the significance. But it wasn't that bad to me.

[Lady of Rohan]

Originally posted by Firekitten2006
Did anyone else notice they used several different horses for shadowfax? I think that was my main problem. Really distracting for a horse freak like myself. I was just excited to see him. I was personally dissapointed with the Stables. I thought that the Rohirrim would have more magnificent stables for horses, since they really love them. I mean they had a wonderful grave for Snowmane! lol

I thought that they would have more fancy stables as well, but I never noticed they used different horses! I'll have to watch for that next time! :)

[Erawyn]

Well most of the time in movies more than one horse is used, and if you're a horse person it's usually pretty obvious, although I thought they did a pretty good job with the horses in the movie. The first time I saw Shadowfax I was pretty disapointed too, and I really wish they had given more back story on him. I pictured him grey too (well technically a darker grey:p because that horse was grey).

[Fimbrethil]

Personally I loved Shadowfax and you people saying he was silver in the book geuss what; There arent any silver horses unless it's a horse of a differnt color ( sorry I went to the wizard of oz for a moment). Someone said that Shadowfax wasn'tparticularly beautiful or fast". ARE YOU MAD? Did you even glance at his conformation? From what I saw almost everything about him was perfect. I bet PJ had to spend a pretty penny to get that horse to play the role of Shadowfax. They might have done this in editing(though I'm not qiut sure if they would have been able to) but Gandalf rode without tack so that must have been a very well trained horse.

[urmom]

Personally i wanted to kick shadowfaxes ass..i hated him he is such a loser...why would horses need a king!!!what losers!!!!

[hobinator]

Originally posted by urmom
Personally i wanted to kick shadowfaxes ass..i hated him he is such a loser...why would horses need a king!!!what losers!!!!
i think you are a loser and you shouldnt come to this board if all you are going to do is ridicule everything

[Firekitten2006]

Originally posted by urmom
Personally i wanted to kick shadowfaxes ass..i hated him he is such a loser...why would horses need a king!!!what losers!!!!
hmmmmmmmmm............maybe so they can avoid people like you?

[Fimbrethil]

Originally posted by urmom
Personally i wanted to kick shadowfaxes ass..i hated him he is such a loser...why would horses need a king!!!what losers!!!!
I think your a loser and if you hate Shadowfax soooooo much why did you even come to this thread?

[WallRocker]

Originally posted by urmom
Personally i wanted to kick shadowfaxes ass..i hated him he is such a loser...why would horses need a king!!!what losers!!!!

urmom, I'm not going to get mad, because I'm guessing this is what you want by posting ridiculos posts like this. But you really need to stop spaming. I really wish I were a Mod so I could edit this persons post:rolleyes:

[Fimbrethil]

Originally posted by WallRocker
urmom, I'm not going to get mad, because I'm guessing this is what you want by posting ridiculos posts like this. But you really need to stop spaming. I really wish I were a Mod so I get edit this persons post:rolleyes:

Hmmmmm...good point WallRocker. Maybe I should try that more often.:D

[WallRocker]

Originally posted by Fimbrethil
Hmmmmm...good point WallRocker. Maybe I should try that more often.:D

Thank you:D

Now, back on subject... I liked Shadowfax in the moive, but I do think that the kingdom of Rohan would have had better stables for their horses, like Lady of Rohan said:D

[Legolas_Frodo_Aragorn]

i thought that shadowfax looked amazing..the slow running part was cheesy..but i like it when shadowfax reared

[Legolas_Frodo_Aragorn]

Originally posted by Fimbrethil
They might have done this in editing(though I'm not qiut sure if they would have been able to) but Gandalf rode without tack so that must have been a very well trained horse. '

they did edit the saddle out, gandlafs robes covered most of it, and the parts that it didnt, they edited it out

[Firekitten2006]

Plus I read somewhere (I think it was Ian Mckellen's site) that there were two different horses for Shadowfax. One Ian rode and it was trained for standing still, walking, and troting, the other one his stunt rider rode and it was the horse that did the canter/gallop.

[Fimbrethil]

I wasn't really sure if they could edit the saddle out so thanks for clearing that up. And I did think the slow running part was a bit cheesy but wouldn't Ian's stunt rider have to make him do that since cameras can only go but so fast? And I loooooooooooove horses so it didn't really bug me that they used 2 Shadowfaxes!:D

[Legolas_Frodo_Aragorn]

i didnt even realize that they used 2 horses...

[Fimbrethil]

Originally posted by Legolas_Frodo_Aragorn
i didnt even realize that they used 2 horses...

Yeah that was kind of hard to notice. Even a horse wiz like me:D missed it the first time. But I really liked Snowmane too...maybe someone should start a thread about him? I just think PJ should have portrayed(sp?) Snowmane better after all I think the books say aomething about it being the horses fault that his master(Thoeden) dies.

[Sween]

The main problem of shadowfax is you got no idea of his speed. i dont know if they could of used any tricks like filming shadowfax running sepertally to the other horses to show how easy it is for him.

Best example of this is when they are all rideing to edoras and all the horses are galloping at the same speed i allways imigined that shadowfax could probably trott that. And when gandal sets out i would of loved to of seen a huge over head shot of his wizzing off into the distance at great speed.

[Millane]

Shadow fax wasnt in the first book
didnt gandalf ride to Rivendell on Shadowfax???

anyways i hated the slo mo bit with the horse... but all the other slo mo bits were cool especially when sam was drowning (i never knew that they didnt do that underwater thats how cool it was:D ) and i reckon they did the bit of Arwen riding accross the plains in the Flight to the Ford great as far as the speed of the horse goes but they didnt seem to do that aswell for Shadowfax... im not a huge fan of horses so i cant really complain or not...

[Legolas_Frodo_Aragorn]

Originally posted by Millane
didnt gandalf ride to Rivendell on Shadowfax???

anyways i hated the slo mo bit with the horse... but all the other slo mo bits were cool especially when sam was drowning (i never knew that they didnt do that underwater thats how cool it was:D ) and i reckon they did the bit of Arwen riding accross the plains in the Flight to the Ford great as far as the speed of the horse goes but they didnt seem to do that aswell for Shadowfax... im not a huge fan of horses so i cant really complain or not...

i dont think so

[Fimbrethil]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Millane
[B]didnt gandalf ride to Rivendell on Shadowfax???

Yeah,when he found out Soaromon(sp?) was in league with the
Enemy and the windlord came and rescued Gandalf the windlord took him to Rohan. But the Rohirrim were already partially under Soaromon's(sp?) spell so King Thoeden pretty much told Gandalf to choose a horse and get out. And Gandalf choose Shadowfax.

[Elvellyn]

And Gandalf choose Shadowfax.

And Shadowfax actually came with him which really says alot about Gandalf's power because Shadowfax was all wild and stuff and wouldnt listen to anybody else and I dont think they even brought that up in the movie.
And its Saruman Jennifer.
haha Jennifer I have found you once again * really really evil laugh*

[Erawyn]

Sort of off topic, but I loved Asfaloth, thought he/she was way prettier than Shadowfax, and looked like an Andalusian which is all good! Was none to impressed with Brego though...

[Fimbrethil]

Thank you for the spelling lesson Sarah. And you're really starting to creep me out!!:D *Shouts for someone to help* hehe I'm so funny!

[Firekitten2006]

Asfaloth was an Andalusian, so was Shadowfax.
:)

[Fimbrethil]

I thought they were Meras(sp?).

[Lollypopgurl]

Shadowfax is, and I think they're talking about the real world.

[Lief Erikson]

Some of you might get a bit mad at me for this, but when I watched TTT for the first time, I was rather hoping that they would use some computer effects to speed Shadowfax up a bit :). Instead they slowed Shadowfax down! ;)

[Fimbrethil]

I won't get mad because I agree with you. But I did like the rest of Shadowfax's time in the movie.