November 19, 2003
Middle Earth Shuttle
Yesterday, was a typical morning commute for Gothamist - except for the shuttle train to Grand Central decorated in Lord of the Rings lite decor. Greenish lighting, burlapped ceiling (for texture), Shire-inspired seat wraps, stone stickers on the floor, vines on the columns at the Grand Central platform, security guard in the shuttle...it was a journey into a New Line marketing executive's wet dream nightmare – (updated via neil) it seems that the promotion went off horribly in the eyes of fans.
This was all to herald the release of the special extended version of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on DVD. We missed out on being able to ride with Gollum and see the 12-foot Ents, but this here's some of what the so-called Middle Earth Shuttle looked like.
Buy the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Special Edition) on Amazon. Or check out the super gay posters for The Return of the King.
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an unconscious guy and his buddy looking after him...gay? theres an awful lot of lesbian movie posters out there then. seriously, get over it.
Oh, come on! Those posters are so homoerotic. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
the train was a bit on the lame side, the ents walking around vanderbilt avenue were pretty cool, the free extended DVD's that they gave away were far and away the best part.
funny, though. what is the sense of giving away free DVD's to people who would nearly certainly have bought them anyway? not that i am complaining...
THERE WERE FREE DVDS BEING HANDED OUT? God, I would totally have ditched my super important meeting for that. Bah.
interesting concept, poor execution. thanks for the photos, I was wondering how it turned out!
DVDS GIVEN OUT?!?! WTF was I doing at work? Damn!
sorry to post again, a bad review of the event at theonering.net it seems they shut the thing down 45 minutes early, and all the press swipped the free copies.
http://www.theonering.net/perl/newsview/2/1069202935
uh, i don't kow. i mean, it was sort of dumb (and i surely would have thought it dumber had i not gotten a DVD (which i didn't expect to get in the first place)) but what were people really expecting?
the stuff went quickly, sure, but they just gave it to whoever was there. my four friends and i (none of us are press) got dvd's, another friend got a medallion. i think maybe folks from the press got some stuff because they were actually there the whole time, and then were spotted with their loot because they were *still* there. i suspect most normal fans who got stuff got bored and left.
heck, 5 minutes after i got the DVD i was at juniors eating a half pound hot dog.
damnit...free dvds? aw well, ive had mine for almost 2 weeks now, so i cant complain. i think the ceiling of the trains wouldve looked nicer with a forest canopy instead.
and i think our societys a little too gay-sensitive these days. two guys even in remote contact with each other becomes homoerotic?
Doh!!!
Gothamist needs a late breaking news service (via email/sms/im) for events were we can avoid work and meet at various points in NYC for free DVDs, food and such.
(Flashmobs: Don't call it a comeback!)
c'mon, everyone wants the cock ring, bob the angry flower.
Oh boy. Warner Bros. should turn the shuttle into the Hogwarts Express for the Prisoner of Azkaban release.
Re: The Gay Question.
The root of the whole argument is whether or not 'super gay' is meant as a homosexual lifestyle or something two gay guys would do.
For instance, if a Jewish man were to put up Christmas lights, his friend might call that act 'super goy'. Does that mean he's a Gentile???
In the same way, while Professor Tolkien didn't intend for Sam and Frodo to be homosexual lovers, the situations Peter Jackson puts them in are unmistakably 'gay'.
And besides, Patrick from the movie poster link is right. All men are capable of performing homosexual acts in certain environments, prison, war (or in my case, Boy Scout camp), it doesn't necessarily mean that you subscribe to a gay lifestyle.
How much is a "subscription" to the gay lifestyle? 'Cause I never got a bill . . .
Maybe I've taken one "Narrative cinema and the homosexual fantasy" class too many, but the posters remain gay to me. Everything is gay gay gay!
apparently tenderness equals eroticism?
can there be any movie poster (or photo/painting/film/what-have-you) with two people (i don't think gender or orientation necessarily factors into it) in any sort of embrace that does not play as sexuality?
intimacy and sex are not the same thing, and our confusion in that regard is our loss.
Sorry Jen, I have to disagree. No gay in Sam Gamgee. Just loyalty.
listen- if you are uncomfortable acknowledging a homosexual undercurrent to LOTR, that's cool- but to say that one doesn't exist is to blatantly misread the movie. even the most cursory inspection reveals numerous homoerotic or homosexual-themed situations, for instance, the scene in which frodo and samwise go to that gay club in drag, and have sex with each other. or wait- was that lord of the cock rings?
frodo, sam and gollum have their sexy little love triangle. sam is so, so jealous of gollum. gollum is trying to seduce that beautifull cock off of frodo. frodo is trying to play his men cool. can't we all just get along, frodo thinks as he messages the ring. the cock ring. frodo is, the lord of the cock rings.
On rereading LOTR two years ago, not having read it in over a decade, what struck me the most was the incredible homoeroticism that just permeated the whole story.
Forget the all-but-overt Frodo-Sam relationship -- everyone in the damn fellowship is in a same-sex couple. Merry and Pippin? Legolas and Gimli?
As the kicker, if you actually read the appendices at the end of Return of the King, you discover that when Aragorn was a strapping young lad, he had a student-mentor relationship with a wise and worldly wizard named Gandalf.
This is probably where I should post a link to
http://home.nyu.edu/~amw243/diaries/
Frodo is gay, Sam is not but becomes involved in homoerotic activity with Frodo due to lonliness and devotion to his friend.
did we forget that Frodo and Sam kiss in the book?
did we forget that Frodo and Sam kiss in the book?
Okay...does it really matter if Frodo and Sam are gay or not? If two people - of any gender - are incredibly close to eachother, it wouldn't be surprising if they develop stronger feelings for eachother. Though love and attraction may involve sex, it seems pointless to focus on the sexual part of "gay" in this context... The movie isn't about sex, but about love. Why is it so important that people distinguish between male/female and frienship/romanctic love...? I personally thought they might be "gay," but not just b/c of my biases...Frodo and Sam loved eachother...what else matters?
Okay...does it really matter if Frodo and Sam are gay or not? If two people - of any gender - are incredibly close to eachother, it wouldn't be surprising if they develop stronger feelings for eachother. Though love and attraction may involve sex, it seems pointless to focus on the sexual part of "gay" in this context... The movie isn't about sex, but about love. Why is it so important that people distinguish between male/female and frienship/romanctic love...? I personally thought they might be "gay," but not just b/c of my biases...Frodo and Sam loved eachother...what else matters?
There no gay relationship between Frodo and Sam. Yes, they loved each other but in a different way. It's a brotherly love, not sexual love.
Why people like that Jen could not see the different between a gay romance and a pure friendship like these two little hobbits had?
I was wondering what the ones that do not like “Lord of the Rings” (is there anybody out there?) have to say about it. I agree with Margui. That is no gay relation and it does not matter. The fact is that they achieve a great thing together and as far as I know from both sources (book and movies) Sam got married and had two kids.