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Movie Epic Battles - Anything that can trump LOTR?

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J

JWong

Banned
I admit, I haven't watched many movies since LOTR. Maybe the odd Marvel movie, but I always been feeling that there won't be a movie as good as LOTR.

Particularly the big battles. I know a lot of movies tried to capitalize and copy LOTR's battles. I doubt there are any, but give me some names and samples.

Come at me, Bro!

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B

badcrumble

Member
Someone's going to post Braveheart as an answer and they're going to be so wrong.

Honestly? LOTR did a great job with its battles precisely because it made them incredibly intelligible on the strategic level to casual viewers. Most films just feature two armies running at each other and clashing; even if it's shot better or prettier, that's still not as good because what the viewer sees isn't actually telling a story the way it does in LOTR. There's a very good reason that The Two Towers spends a great amount of time simply teaching the viewer the basic geography of Helm's Deep long before the battle even takes place - it all pays off when you can understand precisely what the importance is of each new breach of the defenses.

I don't even like Peter Jackson much as a director and I still know that he knocked his big battle sequences (but especially Helm's Deep) out of the park.
 
N

Nekofrog

Banned
Man I love LOTR and all, but the "epic" battles were mostly all terrible.

Bad CGI throughout most of them, and a lot of things just seem so jumbled and pieced together.

not to mention the awful ghost warrior thing
 
L

LuchaShaq

Banned
Honestly LOTR wouldn't even be in my top 10 of non gun large scale battles because the orcs and magic both look ridiculous. My reaction is more laughter than anything.
 
C

Cday

Banned
When Gandalf and the horsemen came at the end of The Two Towers Gandalf was emitting a bright light and when the movie flashed back to the battle where Sauron got the ring cut from his finger he was swinging a mace that had some kind of force push power. Not that it makes LuchaShaq's comment any less dumb.
 
L

LuchaShaq

Banned
Nekofrog said:
Man I love LOTR and all, but the "epic" battles were mostly all terrible.

Bad CGI throughout most of them, and a lot of things just seem so jumbled and pieced together.

not to mention the awful ghost warrior thing
Click to expand...

Exactly

The enemies in the battle of helms deep call them orcs or goblins or trolls don't really care or remember which name just think they look awful. Then the ghost warriors that aragorn summons? The worst!

Almost all of the scenes people find "epic" I find cheesey/hilarious despite usually LOVING large combat scenes with bows/hand to hand weapons.
 
M

Malvolio

Member
While it doesn't compare to the scale of LotR's battles, Zulu will always be my favorite "epic battle" movie. I was so happy when Jackson mentioned it as an influence for the Helm's Deep fight. The build up to the first attack is just astonishing. It's a must watch for any war movie fan.
 
R

Renmei

Banned
Lots of Chinese movies have pretty epic large scale battle sequences, the recent Battle of the Red Cliff has a few cool ones.
 
G

Guerrillas in the Mist

Member
I just re-watched the Fellowship of the Ring, and it reminded of how perfect the prologue sequence was. I know a lot of inspiration for it was taken from the animated film, but my god it's a perfect piece of exposition in movie-form.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
I thought Helms Deep was disappointing since there was a bunch of dumb buddy humor between Legolas and Gimli, plus Peter Jackson kept killing the battle's momentum by cutting to some boring talking trees. Then the big battles in ROTK had some obnoxious wacky CGI moments plus the dumb ghost army.

But no, if "epic" means body count, there probably isn't anything that tops LOTR. But who cares?

----------------

I nominate the climax to Glory.
 
D

Dead Man

Member
Dan said:
I thought Helms Deep was disappointing since there was a bunch of dumb buddy humor between Legolas and Gimli, plus Peter Jackson kept killing the battle's momentum by cutting to some boring talking trees. Then the big battles in ROTK had some obnoxious wacky CGI moments plus the dumb ghost army.

But no, if "epic" means body count, there probably isn't anything that tops LOTR. But who cares?

----------------

I nominate the climax to Glory.
Click to expand...

Well, the actual body count was pretty low in LotR.
 
W

walking fiend

Member
The size of armies is obviously only possible via computer, so it is safe that the reason no movie with that body number has been had been technological barrier.

However, in terms of the epicness of war scenes, there's a considerable gap between classics such as Battleship Potemkin and LotR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lk75ycHH3w&feature=related

and as a silent movie, there's just so much difference to see it on Cinema.
 
J

Jacobi

Banned
Kingdom of Heaven. I don't really like the LOTR battle scenes because I never felt any danger for the characters.
 
C

Cday

Banned
Not really the thread for it but I recently read The Hobbit and the first two LoTR books and was impressed at how well they adapted them into movies, especially the first one. They left out everything having to do with Bombadil but that's probably for the best. I liked those parts but he was perhaps too fruity even for LoTR.

The Two Towers was less faithful by a mile but still relatively good especially the scene where they go to Edoras. They definitely favored the more 'actiony' parts. For example in the book the battle for Helm's Deep was fairly brief especially considering how Tolkien will go on and on about stuff like how a certain rock looks in a land of rocks. The part where they go to Isengard to confront Saruman was a lot richer in comparison.

A lot of people like the movies because of the action and the big battles but there's a lot more going on even in the movies. A lot of it is done subtly probably as to not alienate the audience who haven't read the books or make an already long movie even longer.

So basically if you want an extended extended edition definitely give the books a go including The Hobbit. You might come to appreciate the movies (or hate them) more as well.
 
E

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
Cday said:
Not really the thread for it but I recently read The Hobbit and the first two LoTR books and was impressed at how well they adapted them into movies, especially the first one. They left out everything having to do with Bombadil but that's probably for the best. I liked those parts but he was perhaps too fruity even for LoTR.

The Two Towers was less faithful by a mile but still relatively good especially the scene where they go to Edoras. They definitely favored the more 'actiony' parts. For example in the book the battle for Helm's Deep was fairly brief especially considering how Tolkien will go on and on about stuff like how a certain rock looks in a land of rocks. The part where they go to Isengard to confront Saruman was a lot richer in comparison.

A lot of people like the movies because of the action and the big battles but there's a lot more going on even in the movies. A lot of it is done subtly probably as to not alienate the audience who haven't read the books or make an already long movie even longer.

So basically if you want an extended extended edition definitely give the books a go including The Hobbit. You might come to appreciate the movies (or hate them) more as well.
Click to expand...
You should read The Silmarillion next, it far surpasses anything found in LOTR and The Hobbit in terms of scale. The LOTR is just a mere chapter of a much grander narrative stretching back to the creation of Arda. If The Silmarillion is ever adapted for the silver screen, the battles in it will blow away anything found in the trilogy and the upcoming Hobbit films.
 
Z

Zizbuka

Banned
I'll never get the LOTR hate. Guess it's snooty hipsters? Cool to go against and all.

How about 300. Maybe not in scope, but the battles were good. Rest of the movie was OK, and a little drawn out, but the fights were good.
 
1

1138

Member
If you don't have any problem watching old movies, then Waterloo and War and Peace by Sergei Bondarchuk has as epic battles as you can get. They were made in the 60s and 70s, and has a crazy amount of extras in the big battle scenes. This is from the wiki article for War and Peace:
According to the Guinness Book of Records, its cast of 120,000 people is a record.
Click to expand...
 
F

Freezie KO

Banned
1138 said:
If you don't have any problem watching old movies, then Waterloo and War and Peace by Sergei Bondarchuk has as epic battles as you can get. They were made in the 60s and 70s, and has a crazy amount of extras in the big battle scenes. This is from the wiki article for War and Peace:
Click to expand...

The film almost bankrupted the Soviet Union!
 
V

Visceir

Member
Gonna have to go with Kingdom Of Heaven too. The first time when they charge in while being completely outnumbered and the final battle.
 
C

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
LotRs battles were awesome, but I don't think anyone tried to copy them as much as the technology to do it is just much more affordable now and people knew you could now pull this sort of thing off without having to hire a whole load of extras to pull anything close off, doesn't help the general cinema going population likes a big battle in every film these days.

Personally I doubt anything will ever top the Battle of Endor for me, 3 battles being waged and none of the fancy technology we have now to do it with.
Still waiting for a modern HD Rogue Squadron game where I can choose a ship and be flung into one of the many Star Wars space battles.
 
Chuckie

Chuckie

Member
badcrumble said:
Someone's going to post Braveheart as an answer and they're going to be so wrong.

Honestly? LOTR did a great job with its battles precisely because it made them incredibly intelligible on the strategic level to casual viewers. Most films just feature two armies running at each other and clashing; even if it's shot better or prettier, that's still not as good because what the viewer sees isn't actually telling a story the way it does in LOTR. There's a very good reason that The Two Towers spends a great amount of time simply teaching the viewer the basic geography of Helm's Deep long before the battle even takes place - it all pays off when you can understand precisely what the importance is of each new breach of the defenses.

I don't even like Peter Jackson much as a director and I still know that he knocked his big battle sequences (but especially Helm's Deep) out of the park.
Click to expand...

The battles in Braveheart were much more intense than the battles in LOTR. If you want to call those crazy Legolas antics 'epic' or suddenly appearing ghost armies 'strategic' then please do.
But it would be nice if you wouldn't call other people wrong even before they wrote something.
 
Monocle

Monocle

Member
Zizbuka said:
I'll never get the LOTR hate. Guess it's snooty hipsters? Cool to go against and all.

How about 300. Maybe not in scope, but the battles were good. Rest of the movie was OK, and a little drawn out, but the fights were good.
Click to expand...
I agree with this post. All of it.

Tence said:
The battles in Braveheart were much more intense than the battles in LOTR. If you want to call those crazy Legolas antics 'epic' or suddenly appearing ghost armies 'strategic' then please do.
Click to expand...
This is a bullshit argument and you know it. You have chosen to highlight two isolated moments from LOTR's battle scenes while ignoring their main substance. Resorting to a tactic like that makes you look desperate to fool people into supporting your position.

But it would be nice if you wouldn't call other people wrong even before they wrote something.
Click to expand...
People have opinions, who knew?
 
Chuckie

Chuckie

Member
Zizbuka said:
I'll never get the LOTR hate. Guess it's snooty hipsters? Cool to go against and all.

How about 300. Maybe not in scope, but the battles were good. Rest of the movie was OK, and a little drawn out, but the fights were good.
Click to expand...

I don't hate LOTR at all, I love LOTR. I've seen them in cinema's twice, and on DVD even more often.
However some of the critique on the battlescenes is simply true. The 'banter' between Gimli and Legolas gets annoying really fast. The horrible CGI shit with Legolas and his surfing antics are awful.
This was already my opinion in the theatres, so I don't think it is a 'hipster' thing.
 
S

Spectrum128

Member
Ok for me it has to be Omaha Beach at the start of Saving Private Ryan - following the men as they move from the boats all the way up the beach and clearing out the German pillbox. That trumps them all.

Large numbers of troops, top sniping scene .. it's got the lot. Absolutely no Dwarf tossing.
 
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