Watched the Two towers last nite. Fantastic. I want to move to New Zealand. The sound is Dolby only, and was very good. Rattled stuff in the walls on a few scenes. I saw a couple instances of image artifacts, but on the whole, image was very very good. I like the LOTR story too. Icing on the cake was I picked it up for $15 at Fry's.

Rented this last night, waiting to purchase the 4 disc set in November, saw it in the theaters last December. This is a bass heavy movie compared with Fellowship. Thought the first movie had more going on in the surrounds that added to the movie, (such as birds, horses, woodland creatures), that might make you duck or flinch. The Towers is a treat and test of your speakers, not just the sub. The battle scenes really give your center and mains a work out. The flapping of the wings is a way of identifying any loose items on walls or shelves. All in all, it is a home theater treat.

Alejate,

I had a misfortune of not seeing The Two Towers in the theater. If you can recall your theater experience, at the moment the wall explodes at Helms Deep, did you feel that the sound (not the rumble) was a bit subdued for such a spectacular scene? I watched it at home and I wonder if a typical home theater set up isn’t adequate for it because it did sound soft (enough to disappoint me). BTW, I have a sub that can rattle all the bones in my body. Here’s more detailed discussion of it towards the bottom: http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/001031.html

Do you think I really missed out by not seeing it in the theater?

IMHO, while there are pros and cons in the “commercial theater” vs. “home theater” issue, I find that I prefer home theater over the average commercial theater. As similarly expressed in the “Outlaw to Outlaw - Rip It and Pass It On” discussion thread on October 15 & 16 regarding creative people in the music industry, I think that most commercial theaters are not constructed with visual and audio enthusiasts making the decisions. It seems to me that in most commercial theaters, the very high and the deeply low frequencies are well outside the effective roll-off of the equipment and venue while a fair amount of the frequencies in-between have peaks, valleys and various sibilance problems. The problem is the dollar-per-seat initial investment in expertise and infrastructure. I think most theater goers don’t know the difference and therefore will chose the ticket costing less over the slightly more expensive ticket to an exceptional venue, so I don't blame theater owners for their decisions. I just wish it could be different, so I invest in home theater.

So, if your home theater does a decent job, I would say you haven’t missed enough to fret about. According to an news report,

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=638&ncid=762&e=1&u=/nm/20031016/en_nm/film_rings_dc

if you wish to experience a commercial theater viewing, some commercial theaters are running Fellowship and Two Towers, extended versions, during the two weeks before the third film is released for commercial theaters. Other theaters have scheduled 11 hour marathons for all three films in-a-row, but those sold out within hours of being available.

Spiker; Sorry it has taken me so long to reply but I have not had an opportunity recently to keep up with Outlaw postings. This may sound strange but I can't recall what the theater sounded like, (it's been almost a year). Plus, I usually am not impressed with the way movies sound in the theater, I definately prefer the way it sounds in my living room. I only rented the Two Towers so once again I can't recall how this scene sounded. In November I will be buying the 4 disc version, I will then pay close attention to this scene and post my opinion. Sorry I can't be more help right now.

Spiker, we had some friends over to watch a movie on Saturday so I rented the Two Towers again since they haven't seen it and my curiosity over this scene was getting the best of me. Yes the wall explosion is felt more than heard, but I believe this is more the way it should sound. I have had the unfortunate experience of being present during an explosion, it is felt more than heard. You can feel it hit your chest, car alarms hundreds of yard away go off, and yet you don't hear much bass but a deep low rumble. So I think Two Towers actually did a fine job with this scene.

Alejate,
I guess the point is I didn’t forget any audio settings while watching The Two Towers. In that case, I feel that they've missed the target during that scene. Making the sound close to the real life explosion has it’s place such as in a movie based on true stories like Black Hawk Down or U571. But The Two Towers is a fantasy. I think they could’ve highlighted more. For that reason, I’m placing Star Wars, Attack of The Clones DVD above The Two Towers in audio department.

I’d like to know if there are better ones than Attack of The Clones when it comes to low-end sound. I do have a craving for low frequencies for some reason…

I would suggest that the goals of the sound editors and directors of each movie was very different. Star Wars is a "far far distant fantasy," with comic and action hero type characters throughout. The use of direct and metaphorical references to popular culture lends itself to over the top, super-realistic images and sound.

The Two Towers has a far different goal, in that the characters and sub-plots are more complex and contextual to the story itself. The role of sound in making a fantasy become a more involving and realistic experience is the intent of the images and soundtrack. It is painful to imagine the damage that a highly stylistic, and super-exaggerated set of images and sound effects would have on this movie.

As an architect, you may appreciate the difference between Michael Graves and Violet-le-Duc. As both would be considered designers of "fantastic" structures, they couldn't be more different in their use of materials, and the vocabulary of elements and forms. Especially in respect to the metaphorical and symbolic nature and intent of their designs.

Personally, I don't dig Graves... and I don't own any of his overvalued home appliances. They remind me of the "licensed authentic collector edition" Star Wars junk you can find at the same K-mart.

Aalto rules, and best wishes to all this holiday season...

Allan

[This message has been edited by AGAssarsson (edited October 26, 2003).]

Interesting analogy AGAssarsson.

I guess there aren’t many architects in this saloon or perhaps in audio community in general (they must be more of visual people). So, I’ll try to keep the architectural terminologies to minimum if at all before the other Gunslingers start to loose interest in this thread.

After seeing the LOTR, Fellowship of The Ring, I could not help thinking about the term “special effect” when I heard about its sequel The Two Towers. The book has been around and many people already know the story just like Harry Potter movie. What people did not know was how its going to look (and sound) beyond their imagination and some drawings shown in the book if at all. Don’t get me wrong, I like both LOTR movies. I think they are very well made. Yes, the character and sub-plots are complex. Another movie that has even more complex character and sub-plot with similar imagery (medieval) as LOTR is Brave Heart. The movie does not have to have tons of special effects to be liked by me.

What I’m saying is that in The Two Towers, the entire movie leading up to the explosion scene during the battle of Helms Deep, there are series of fantastic visual and sound effects such as in the beginning scene just before Froto wakes up. BTW, that is one of the coolest beginning of the movie I’ve ever seen. It made my jaw drop! What about when Nazgul flies over the marshland on a dragon. The sound of dragon wing flap was spectacular, thanks to my good subwoofer. Now, if that isn’t exaggeration, then I don’t know what is. After that scene I was getting into the groove and thus far, The Two Towers has not disappointed me. In fact I was impressed all the way until the wall explosion scene at Helms Deep. For a while, I thought something was wrong with my audio system but now I’m beginning to realize that it ain’t so. Intuitively, I felt that compare to the rest of the movie, the sound just didn’t quite give enough punch. Its as if during that split second, was hit with a cotton ball instead of a hammer as it should’ve been. Like I said, its just my gut feeling. So, I still stand with my decision to consider Attach of The Clones as my Favorite Demo over The Two Towers as far as the sound effect goes (we are in audio company chat room).

BTW, Violet-le-Duc was one of the great architects in history. Graves has many followers but considering him as one of the designers of “fantastic” structures may cause a lot of controversy at this point. May be someone can in about hundred years from now. Perhaps this discussion about architect deserves a separate chat room in a different website. I’ll bet there are already but I don’t know because I’m not a big fan of Graves. I’ll give him credit for his gutsy move though.

No arguement here. I mention Graves not because he is fantastic, but only because of his use of symbolic and metaphorical elements to create fanciful architecture. His very sylistic and "pop culture" work will not survive as Viotet-Le-Duc's.

Spiker, I waited and finally bought the extended version of Two Towers. Listen to the explosion in DTS ES and see if this makes a difference.

Is it that much better? I like the rest of the movie except for the sound effect during that one second or so. I’m wondering if its worth the price of extended version ($25) because I already own the first edition (5.1 EX).

The added material on the Extended Edition LOTR discs are more than worth the price of the DVD. It makes the movies a completely different and, IMHO, better experience. The DTS-ES is the bonus for some but the added scenes add that much more. Since getting the Extended Edition of Fellowship, I have yet to even think of watching the theatrical version again. It's worth it.

I have to agree with Jason, the added scenes are well worth the cost, (that's why I waited to purchase this version, I learned from the Fellowship of the Ring). But I really don't think the DTS version is any better, but then again I'm not a great fan of DTS.

The explosion at Helms Deep did kind of underwelhm (??) me, at first. Then I thought about it...

I think it's more of a subtle explosion for dramatic effect. As in, until that explosion, the good guys (elves, humans, dwarf, wizard,etc.) are basically doing well enough in the battle for one to think they have a chance of winning easily. Then the explosion takes place and the tone of the entire battle changes. The lack of sound to the explosion helps show this change of momentum. Now, the bad guys (orcs, goblins, etc.) seem to have the advantage. Then the music starts again to pick up the pace which lasts until Gandalf shows up to save the day.

At least, that's my .02 cents on that. May have to listen to some of the commentary tracks for some other clues...

dts is worth the entire cost of the extended edition if the original didnt have it. dts makes me want to cry i am so happy to hear it over dolby digital. i would think that dolby would have released a less compressed version to more directly compete with dts. i am glad to finally see more movies come out using dts, it speaks volumes as to the direction and education people have on audio.

For a previous discussion about Dolby Digital vs. DTS please refer to this thread:
http://ubb.outlawaudio.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000209.html

As you will read, not all DTS is made the same. Nor do I remember the final result being in favor of Dolby only. I think it's nice to have the choice when presented and also that the competition hopefully drives the competitors to provide a better product.

As I mentioned above, I think the extra film material on the Extended Editions outweigh the value of the DTS track. If you have yet to see these DVDs and consider yourself a home theater buff, you are doing yourself a considerable injustice. They represent some of the most amazing DVD releases yet.

[This message has been edited by Jason J (edited December 03, 2003).]

yeah i have both lor extended. i have never at any single time in my entire life listened to dolby digital if dts was available. if you understand how dts is made you can see the difference

If you refer to the thread in my post above; you will understand what I'm talking about. It contains not just opinions but also real personal experience obtained from Hollywood soundstages and master audio tracks.

.

Wayne:

Please do me a favor. Do a side by side comparison between Helms Deep wall explosion and Star Wars, Attack of the Clones when senator Amedala’s shuttle craft explodes at the beginning of the movie. It will only take a few minutes. Put the audio settings at normal listening level as it would be in an average household. After all, these DVDs are made for those households to get the most sales, aren’t they?

Once you’ve done the comparison, please tell me which sound you liked better.
In my opinion, one felt like I was hit with a cotton ball the other with a sledgehammer. I’m just looking for opinions to see if I’m alone on this.

.

My two cents (not intending to be critical of Wayne's post, but just to use it as a springboard):

I think this statement reflects too little respect for the sound engineers and too much respect for the Academy voters.

When engineers are creating a soundtrack, their preeminent concerns are the creative desires of the director and producer -- NOT whether or not they'll win an Academy Award.

Academy voters see films in a wide variety of theatrical contexts -- when they see the films AT ALL -- and, oftentimes, just on a DVD player at home.

Wayne:

Thank you for expressing your opinion. That’s what I was hoping to see – more people putting in their 2 cents. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. Mine just happens to differ from yours since this DVD experience can be subjective.

I’d say that wall explosion scene didn’t have enough punch considering how visually spectacular it was (I’ve mentioned this earlier in this thread). There seem to be a bit of imbalance between sight and sound in my opinion. I brought up the example of Star Wars DVD for the sake of clarifying my point about the balance (when heard through same equipment). I’ll be careless whether audio engineers do side by side comparison in their studio or not.

I don’t know how you can get such accurate information from watching DVD. Perhaps you can share some DVD features I may have missed out. I couldn’t tell if it was 100 or even 50 feet. BTW, there are multiple shots during that wall explosion. At early stage of the explosion, they show a close up of the wall coming apart, then some people’s faces and bodies, then a shot that appears to be about one football field length away. Calling that a half mile may be stretching it. Also, the explosive may be some kind of gun powder like. I don’t know. Judging from images like cave trolls and Belrock (spell?) swinging a flame sword (an ancient version of light saver perhaps?) and whip, it could’ve been something more fantastic. Anyway, I get your point. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the movie. As is the case in reality, no movie is perfect. In The Fellowship of the Ring, a noticeable bump is when Belrock falls from the bridge. It looks like there was a visual hiccup. Still, I liked the movie.

Thanks for your time and input.

when i watched the movie that scene seemed a pretty good fit for the rest of the movie. not that any of its sound was spectacular... some movies are driven by sound, special effects, etc. and obviously lor does not want to be pigeon holed into that type of movie. they chose a more subtle approach, and kudos to them because the series is very good. the more compelling question is why couldnt legalos shoot that guy with the bomb, i mean he didnt miss at any point of the entire movies, so why now all of a sudden could he not kill the guy. i would have liked to see the dwarf jump down and hit the guy in head with his axe... :-) oh hed have to be tied to a rope so they could pull him back up.

Hi all,
I decided to do a quick measurement on the two towers vs attack of the clones. I only powered the sub-woofer. All other channels were set to small @60Hz. The results...

LOTR Dam breaking: 106db
Scene right after with bird flaps 105db

Attack of clones clone war 110db

So the quick answer is, ATOC has louder bass.
Both rattled the walls, with ATOC more at
the louder levels. ATOC had many more "events" that achieved this louder level as well.
So if your looking for thunderous bass, ATOC
wins. I still prefer LOTR as a movie, as I feel the story & acting is better.

I'm sure the measurement quality is weak. I doubt if the SPL meter was really meant to measure in thie frequency range. Mainly, I used the same position & range for the meter.

.

A few words on explosive sound … having lived in the Middle East on the fringes of, and occasionally right in the fabric of, short battles, I have: had a mortar round hit the ground exploding about 50 feet away while I and my family were in the car; driven through a mile wide valley on a dirt road at night suddenly to find myself very near six to twelve mobile artillery (they are similar to “tanks,” but have less armor and larger guns) arrayed in the field near the road as they began a steady outgoing barrage (in the midst of the ‘flash and thunder’ all around, I didn’t stop to count how many pieces of artillery were firing); spent time in a bomb shelter several meters underground listening to the low rumbling of explosions coming through the ground; seen and heard what appears to be a thunderstorm a few miles away on a cloudy night, but was actually an artillery duel; plus other occurrences that would take many words to describe. I’m certain some who have served in the military have even greater experience with this.

In any case, I feel that the SW2-AOTC sound was less authentic, but better at conveying the intensity of a nearby explosion. To make it more real, the experience would have had to stun the audience and at least temporarily leave them with ringing ears and partial hearing loss. As in the theory of gunshot sounds in some films (if you need to see a pistol firing, use a rifle sound; if you need to see a rifle fire, use a shotgun sound; etc.), the SW sound seemed to be built of several layered sounds that do not occur together naturally, but do give a desired impression.

The LOTR-TT explosion was very close to the feeling/sound of a distant explosion. For LOTR-TT, I heard and felt the sudden rumble of an explosion at a distance, but without the higher intensity concussive sound that would ‘slap’ you and make your ears bleed had you been ‘closer’ to the explosion. IMO, this was closer to explosion-at-moderate-distance authentic.

As often happens, sounds that attempt to be ‘actual’ do not make as much of a theatrical impression as those that are enhanced for greater audience impact.

- - - - - - - - - -

Regarding Dolby vs. DTS, on the very limited number of DVD’s I have heard that have both, the DTS gave me a better impression in some cases, while in other cases the two seemed roughly equivalent, which leaves me with a mild preference for the DTS. I would like to see more releases with DTS available, just so that a comparison can be made and the track that you favor can be used.

There is a difference between movie and documentary. I doubt anyone would argue that we find movie listings from entertainment pages. For the sake of entertaining, they may very well use (within legal limits) what makes people tick, whether the sound is authentic or manipulated. It may not always work perfectly but I’m all for exploring sound effects that stimulate viewers in ways that it conveys the director’s idea efficiently for a given scene.

IMO, LOTR are all well made movies overall. They are more entertaining than most movies that came out in recent years.


[This message has been edited by Spiker (edited December 23, 2003).]

Reminds me of one of soundhound's threads -- his assortment of "lively" sound effects that included actual recordings of a Harrier for use in True Lies. As I recall, he mentioned that the real Harrier recording (and anyone who's been around a Harrier in flight knows they have a distinctive sound) was rejected by James Cameron and more generic jet engine noises substituted.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

Yes.

Let’s suppose that 80% of an audience has an expectation that a jet, or an explosion, or whatever, will sound a certain way because the reference for that 80% of the audience is what they have heard on feature film and television, even if that reference and/or expectation is inaccurate. Most of the time the production team will give an audience something within the realm of what the audience expects to hear in order to enhance the moment, rather than provoking, by the use of actual/authentic/accurate sound, a distracting conscious or unconscious question in the mind of the audience regarding the sound just heard.

While I applaud those that attempt to give us a more real reality in our fantasies (did I just say that?), going against the grain of the expectations of the masses is perilous.

One outstanding example of it would be during the pod race in Star Wars - Phantom Menace. From the looks of it, Anakin’s pod is pulled by turbine (jet) engines and yet for the most part of race, the sound is that of an internal combustion engine recorded from auto race track (DVD disc #2 explains it). Even though this is a science fiction / fantasy, that portion was too far-fetched.

Now this opens up a whole new can of worms. In Star Wars and other movies containing scenes in the space, you hear the sound of explosion, propulsion engine whizzing by and … etc. How could that be? The space is a vacuum. There’s no air to transfer vibration (sound). In the movie 2001 Space Odyssey, they made it true to the reality when they show space scene. The public’s reaction was somewhat less than what the movie maker wanted based on what I’ve heard. When movies and TV shows started to add sound even if the activity supposedly takes place out in the space, people got excited (or entertained) more. Why is this the case one may ask? Like I’ve mentioned already, it is an entertainment. I’ve also mentioned earlier in this thread that if the movie is based on actual event like Black Hawk Down or U571, the sound should be closer to reality which would fit better with the rest of the movie, IMO. I believe the general public is sophisticated enough to know where to draw a line. If they see something so far-fetched in a fictional movie, they may laugh or roll their eyes like I did to the sound of Anakin’s pod engine. On the other hand, if a school teacher starts to feed far-fetched information to kids, that would be much more perilous.

.

Just a couple of points:

1) The 2 LOTR movies so far are among my favorite demo/testing disk. The both have great sound, and they are wonderful movies that can be watched over and over again (at least I can watch them over and over). And I can't wait for Return of the King on DVD!

2) I don't think the Helm's Deep explosion is inferior or necessarily superior to any other explosion in a movie. I think it it exactly what the engineers wanted. As Wayne pointed out, the Helm's Deep explosion is in a stone wall. They show the Urik Hia running in the culvert with the bombs. How thick was that wall? 10 feet? More? That is some serious stone work. This explosion basically happens under ground. My feeling is that it is very realistic and very dramatic. The guys who put that together knew what they were doing. You may disagree with their choice, but it was a choice, not an oversight or mistake. And, personally, I am not "underwhelmed" by it at all.

Just my opinion and my 2 cents . . . and worth as much, I'm sure