Not in the US they didn't. Virtually nobody in the US knew of Nokia the company before they became the big name in cell phone hand sets.

Glad you enjoyed it but I think it looks like a B-Movie that would go straight to DVD these days. It looks really amateurish. Ruins the entire experience for me. It's the same reason I can't really stand old Dr Who episodes. The FX is so pathetic that it ruins some pretty awesome stories and even some decent acting.

That doesn't mean it needs to look like a high school art project.

That would be a pretty neat trick since probably the majority of the audience already knew the story having read the books. While I won't argue that Jackson could have done a better job with those elements in places, it is there. I don't think RB's LOTR take on those elements was meaningfully better.

I disagree. It has an ending but the wrong one and I find that unforgivable. Either tell the whole story or don't bother. If you are going to tell just part of the story the title shouldn't mislead on that fact.

Because the movie was not very good and thus didn't make much money. Sure it was faithful to the source material but the animation was pretty bad which matters a lot. It looks like a low budget B movie drawn like one that would go straight to DVD today. It needs to have a good story (check), good visuals/sound (miss) and be well acted (miss). Plus if the producers planned on making a second movie their naming choice for the movie was quite peculiar.

Calling something an "action movie" is shorthand for saying it's visually interesting but not very deep. Basically anything by Michael Bay. I don't think that fits the Jackson LOTR movies well at all. They were more complex than that. Hardly flawless masterpieces but certainly better takes on LOTR than anything else that has been put out there. I think your distinction between action and adventure is silly but if Jackson's LOTR isn't an adventure movie, I'm not really sure what is.

I'm indifferent to the movie genre and whether I like it or not has little to do with the amount of action in the movie. I generally disagree with your characterization of the Jackson LOTR movies as merely action movies. Just because there are some big action set pieces doesn't make them shallow action movies.

As for it being a psychological thriller, exactly how are you going to do the siege of Gondor as a psychological thriller and really do it justice? Battle of Helm's Deep? The balrog? I don't see any way to do those without making it a very dull and visually uninteresting movie. While there are certainly powerful psychological elements to the books I never once considered them a to be primarily a psychological thriller and I've certainly read them enough to know.

If anyone was watching any LOTR movie for the "sex" then they desperately need to get out more.

Point remains that NOBODY wants to go see The Hobbit: A Musical Adventure. (well maybe the audience for Broadway musicals but nobody else) Just because some song lyrics were in the books doesn't mean it is a good idea to put them in a movie, especially one that intends to make any sort of profit.

I think Nokia will be surprised to hear that since their HQ is in Finland and always has been.

And Ericssson will be surprised to hear they are no longer Swedish.

No insult intended (seriously) but you were pretty much the only one who thought that. They are a Finnish company and that fact is well known worldwide. I can see how one might think they were Asian though since so much electronics comes from that part of the world. But Nokia got quite a lot of press regarding where they were from.

And you know this how exactly? I've actually been to China whereas you pretty clearly have not. Slave labor? 'Fraid not. China has a lot of people and so thanks to supply and demand, wages are relatively low there. (but rising fast) Yes the Chinese government has a hand in everything but there are plenty of places in the US and EU economies where free trade does not exist and the government is heavily involved. Agriculture, weapons manufacturing, Boeing/Airbus, satellites, automobiles, and many more.

Your argument would be more credible if the US and EU didn't have manufacturing sectors equal to or larger than China's manufacturing sector. Cheap labor is only helpful for products that have a high labor content. Lots of products require relatively little labor or require specialized labor that isn't cheap anywhere. I have a stamping press in my plant for making wire leads. Operating this press requires some of skilled labor to set up and then it is all automated. No amount of cheap labor from China can undercut us on price, we're fast and we can pay our people good wages too. There are some products we can't compete with China on and there are some products China can't compete with us on. The trick is knowing which is which.

There can be lots of value to them but getting that value requires actual work on your part. If all you are doing is paying the membership fee to list it on your resume then there is no point to joining. However if you actually attend events, meet colleagues and talk with them, get involved in the organizations, etc you can actually get a ton of value out of them. I'm a member of two professional organizations (not ACM) which I actively participate in. I've gotten job interviews, excellent contacts for specific expertise, a certification important in my profession, contacts for funding, and even made some friends. You can get the most value often by being an officer in the organization (they always need help) and actually working hard to do a good job.

I'm a member of a few professional organizations. Most of them are kind of money grabs when it comes to anything education related. To maintain a certification I have to get 30 hours of continuing education each year and wouldn't you know that the professional organization is just all too happy to sell it to me for vaguely unreasonable amounts of money. Or I can attend about 15 meetings and conferences a year, also costing $ each time. I try not to get too worked up about it but it isn't cheap even if it sometimes is useful to be a member.

There are basically just a few reasons to join professional organizations. The biggest one by far is networking. These organizations can be a terrific way to get yourself known in your profession and sometimes get opportunities if you do it right. There also for some professions is accreditation and credentialing. I don't just mean joining the organization to have it on your resume. I have an accounting certification which has been very useful to me professionally. Sometimes there are learning opportunities which can be helpful though usually they are just pointless money grabs by the organization.

No. Last time I visited Comcast to get some gear there were about 30 people in line and I waited about an hour, not counting driving time to get to the one service center which is about 25 miles from my house. They announced loudly that if we were just dropping off gear that we could put it in their drop off big (a cardboard box) which nobody believed. Then there was no way to prove that you had dropped it off.

Fortunately my dealings with Comcast have been minimal and the service has been largely reliable for my needs. TV is WAY overpriced for what you get but the internet service isn't too bad as long as you don't need to deal with support too much.

Of course if they are water tight then they are air tight too... That bit never made sense to me even when I was reading it as a kid for the first time. Unless there was a hole in the barrel the dwarves should have suffocated. If there was a hole in barrel they should have drowned.

So instead we got a drawn out, absurd even by fantasy movie standards, pointless action scene that added nothing to the story. That entire scene could have been cut out and the movie would have been better for it. At most it should have been 1-2 minutes long if they absolutely had to have some action.

Sounds like you already did and worked on The Hobbit.

Why not? Suspension of disbelief is probably the most important thing about sci-fi and fantasy movies. Far more than say a romantic comedy. You can do it well or you can do it poorly. You need a good script, good acting and good special effects to make a movie like that believable. If you are going to ask the audience to believe in magic or magic-science for 2-3 hours that is fine but you can't simply throw anything on the screen and excuse it just because the story says it is magic. The story has to be carefully crafted, the acting has to be believable and the special effects have to be good enough to keep your brain from screaming "bullshit" the whole time.

I've always had a hard time getting into Dr Who as an example. The stories are often flat out amazing and the acting has had some pretty good moments but the special effects and cinematography have been so bad (especially the older stuff) that my brain simply couldn't accept it. I have the same problem with Star Trek except that the stories aren't as good (IMO) though the FX is better (not great but better). One can enjoy them but I'm always left thinking that they could have been better.

That rotoscoped steaming turd? I've rarely been more disappointed at a movie. It had reasonable fidelity to the books but that alone was hardly enough to make it good. I remember excitedly renting it from the video store sometime during the 1980s and thought that it was a really badly done movie. I thought the rotoscoping was bizarre and still do - uncanny valley reaction I guess. The voice acting was meh at best and the "action" was nothing to write home to mom about. Plus they released it as The Lord of The Rings but it only covered about half the story. I can live with it being condensed into a single movie even if they chop a lot out but then give some indication that there is more to the story. I clearly remember saying "That's it? Where is the rest of it?"

Jackson's adaptations of LOTR, like the recent The Hobbit trilogy, could have used more editing but it was at least in general a good and engaging movie. Visually excellent, faithful enough to the books in most places, captures the epic The worst bits of Jackson's adaptations are when they start going off script for stupid jokes like the dwarf tossing joke during the battle of helm's deep. It wasn't all bad but a high percentage of the dialog that deviated from Tolkien's words was pretty campy. That sort of thing should have only been on a gag reel. More editing would could have made a tighter story but it was a decent movie even if an imperfect adaptation.

Why is that unfair? Other teams are permitted to get sponsors. It's their problem if they can't recruit good sponsors. Plus most of those companies hire Michigan engineering graduates so why wouldn't they sponsor the students they are likely to hire?