Someone who makes me laugh, and who laughs with me.
But not at me.
Unless I just fell down onto a cake. Then, laughing would be okay.
But if I skinned my knee, then laughing is not allowed.
Unless I somehow skinned my knee on a piece of cake. Then I myself would laugh. And cry. At the same time.
Are you laughing now?
No?
Then get out of my house.
No, seriously, get out.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Citicisms of the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy - Part Three
PART THREE - THE RETURN OF THE KING
When I was a literally two years old Rankin/Bass, an animation company probably best remembered for its stop motion animation version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (and for the snow miser/heat miser, Thundercats, and the film of the Last Unicorn), produced a version of the Return of the King which I must have seen about a hundred times since. The main reason that I mention it is that, though its only about an hour and a half long, and a somewhat simplified version of the story, it manages to get in just about all of the important plot points covered by Peter Jackson's film of the same name, plus things that got cut from Jackson's three hour (plus change) movie. Rankin/Bass gets it all in, and still has time for orcs singing songs to a disco beat.
So to all of the critics out there who might read my review and say: "But Jackson must have needed to make these cuts," go ahead and watch the Rankin/Bass version and tell me with a straight face that Peter Jackson didn't have enough time to tell all these stories.
I mentioned in my review of the Two Towers that the entire ending of the Two Towers was chopped off, but I didn't realize how much Return of the King would suffer from this decision until I saw it. I have to admit that this was the Lord of the Rings film that made me stop believing that Peter Jackson and company had any idea what they were doing, but of course it won a million oscars and made a ton of money so it must be great, right? Read on, dear reader, read on...
- So the Weta digital team can make me believe in a fucking troll, but it can't create a convincing scene of a hobbit being dragged underwater by a large fish? What gives?
- Is this really the proper place for Gollum's origin story? These scenes are meant to remind us the seductive powers of the one ring, but do we really need reminding by this point? And, though I like them, I'd rather have seen them earlier in the series, possibly in the Two Towers, if at all.
- Frodo says that the days are growing darker as they exit the culvert they have been sleeping in, but are they? More on this when I discuss the the light conditions during the siege of Gondor.
- The character of Saruman is arguably the villain who we come to know the most through the story, and to merely cut him right out of film with a throw away line is a travesty, especially since they had cast the perfect man to play the corrupted wizard, Christopher Lee. The sequence in which Theoden, Gandalf and the Fellowship are tempted by Saruman's magical voice (his most insidious power according to Gandalf,) and Grima throws the palantir at the heroes (which is, of course, why it is sitting in the water in front of tower) needed to appear at the end of The Two Towers. And even if it didn't, I can't believe they basically wrote Saruman out of the film with the throw away line: "No. He has no power anymore."
- The scene in which Gollum reestablishes his plan to have Shelob kill the Hobbits, both wastes our time and insults our ability to remember the last film. And, I don't know, can't the film makers try to surprise us for a change? Put us in Frodo and Sam's shoes, so to speak?
- Speaking of stuff that's not in the books, I hate hate hated the whole Frodo turns against Sam plot-line. Frodo and Sam have one "fight" in the books, and this is due to the power of the ring over Frodo. And guess what? Gollum has literally nothing to do with it. He doesn't sprinkle crumbs on Sam and accuse him of stealing food. We're already behind, Jackson, lets just get to the real events of the book!
- Okay. This one just baffles me. There is ONE place in the books where Sauron "appears" and that is when Pippin looks into the Palantir against Gandalf's wishes. Sauron actually speaks through Pippin, briefly possessing him. Doesn't this sound over the top, and like a good opportunity to see the villain of the piece actually doing something besides being on fire? But no, what do we get? One: Super slow motion. Two: The same damn lines from the Fellowship of the Ring film ("I see you.") And Three: The pointless Pippin seeing a piece of Sauron's plan subplot. Guys, we don't need to see inside Sauron's mind to know that he's going to attack Gondor. He, and his minions, have been trying to crush the place for thousands of years. If he's going to conquer all of middle earth, Gondor is literally in his way. Of course he's going to attack Gondor! Plus, if you really wanted to put in the whole nazgul on a fellbeast going after a hobbit scene that appeared at the end of the film of Two Towers, it would be so much better if it was in reaction to Sauron's erroneous belief that Pippin is the hobbit who is carrying the ring. Something very similar even happens in the book, though Gandalf assures Pippin that even the nazgul would take a long time to arrive all the way from Mordor. It all fits so well, I can't imagine why they didn't use it so that the end of Two Towers could have been: We see Sauron through Pippin's eyes, nazgul comes after Pippin and is fought off, Gollum abandons Frodo and Sam, Shelob, Sam abandons Frodo thinking that he's dead, finding out he's not and is on the wrong side of an iron gate, BAM, end of movie.
- Another flashback of Isildur while the broken Narsil is being reforged into Anduril. I remember someone in the theater even saying: "Alright, already! We get it!"
- Arwen is dying? Dying? Dying for no good reason other than the growing power of Sauron? And tied to the fate of the ring? What the fuck is this? Isn't there enough at stake already? I guess fucking not.
- We flashback to Boromir becoming a human pincushion as Pippin remembers him in Denethor's chamber. I think its safe to assume that people who saw the first movie will remember this moment. Especially since Boromir is the only member of the fellowship who actually dies!
- Okay, so we get Haradrim, and a brief shot of Corsairs in this film, but what about the cool looking Easterlings that marched into the Black Gate in the Two Towers? Were they all executed for their incredible inability not to spot things that are right in front of them? Actually, you can see them very briefly, in the background, during the siege of Minas Tirith, but its literally a shot that's under two seconds. Of all of the "evil, dark skinned men" minions of Sauron, these guys clearly got the best costumes. Seems like a waste to me.
- We flashback to the Lord of the Nazgul yet AGAIN when Gandalf brings him up to Pippin. Why don't you trust our ability to remember things, Peter? Why?
- In the books, Denethor is desperate for Rohan to come to their aid, and does not hesitate to light the beacons which will signal their need. He even sends a messenger bearing a symbolic emblem of their alliance (a red arrow.) For some reason, though, this film Denethor is an even bigger dick than Theoden was in the last film, and we never know why. And sure, Denethor is a pseudo villain of the books, but he's no fool. He's not really ready to hand over Gondor to Aragorn, true, but in the beginning he's willing to defend his city. Yet as the siege goes on he loses hope and decides to do himself in. And do you want to know why? Well, the answer is this: He has a palantir of his own, a seeing stone like Sarumans. And in it he has seen a vision of black ships coming up the river which leads to the edge of the Pelennor Fields. He doesn't know that these ships will contain Aragorn, the true king, so he thinks that the battle is pointless. Plus, his son is dying. So he's really more a sympathetic figure in the book, one who you could understand people following. Here we don't know about the Palantir, so we just get this cardboard cut out villain that we feel no pity for. Its a shame.
- Why does Pippin have to scale a mountain to light the beacons? After all, Gandalf literally rode all the way up to the top level of Minas Tirith without stopping to ask permission. Apparently he's got the run of the place. This sequence, like so many others, wastes precious time.
- Gothmog is the second in command of the Mordor army in the books, and briefly takes command of the host after the death of the Lord of the Nazgul. Its not really clear in the book if he's even an orc, or if he's an evil human, or what, because there's only one sentence devoted to him in the book. One sentence. So, why in the world would you decide to forgo using the Lord of the Nazgul as the motivating force of the Mordor army, and instead focus on a guy who is essentially a glorified mook to the big guy. Its like focusing on the comings and goings of Admiral Piett rather than Darth Vader. Such a weird decision. And also, after building this guy up for so long during the film, could we at least see him die? For all I know, Gothmog is might be lying on a beach on the coast of Far Harad, sipping on a rum cocktail.
- Peter Jackson's kids make their third and final appearance watching Faramir going off on his suicide mission, spoiling the great mood of this scene for me totally. Oh, hey, there's those guys again. So distracting.
- False death rears its head again: Faramir goes off to his death... Or does he?
- On top of being a dick, Denethor is apparently a really messy eater. I'd think the steward of Gondor would at least be able to use a knife to eat his food, and would chew with his mouth closed.
- The books Aragorn, in an effort to distract Sauron into striking a clumsy first blow, uses Saruman's palantir in the books to reveal himself to the dark lord. I think this would have been something cool to leave in, and it would show you that Aragorn wasn't just a mere ranger. Whatever, he's still got to be all emo about being king.
- Legolas says that the dead men of Dunharrow swore an oath to the last king of Gondor. Actually the oath was to Isildur (cue flashback of Isildur), to fight with the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. The real last king of Gondor, Earnur, foolishly accepted a personal challenge to fight the lord of the nazgul and lost.
- Eowyn's disguise is total shit. I would have liked for them to try and surprise us with her presence, as it is handled in the books. I mean, sure, you know its probably her, but in the film its so obviously her that's it ridiculous.
- This is going to seem like a nitpick, but bear with me. The entire siege of Gondor seems like its takes place during a sunny, slightly overcast day, except for the portions of it that take place at night. But, hey, do you know what orcs hate? Light! They literally have a hard time seeing in the stuff. That's why the Uruk-Hai, who can travel by daylight, are so frightening to Elrond and Gandalf in the first film. And its also why the Sauron of the books literally uses his power to cover Minas Tirith in a cloud of darkness. Not complete darkness, mind, but dark enough that the sky should have looked like a giant bruise. The Rankin Bass Return of the King has a perfect sky color for the siege of Gondor. Its obviously not night but its very clearly dark out. This little detail really ruined a lot of the feel of this siege for me, and since its my favorite part of the books, I was let down.
- Denethor would never tell his soldiers to abandon their posts. He might tell them to go forth and fight, and win for a day, and that it was better to die sooner than later, but he would not say: "Abandon your posts! Flee!"
- Minas Tirith seems pretty damn fragile. The first blocks of stone that hit it literally smash huge chunks out of it. Was it pasted together with Elmer's glue or something?
- Gandalf would never strike Denethor down with his staff. He's just not like that. This part is total shit.
- First of all, Minas Tirith has access to trebuchets, which are just too modern of a siege weapon for my tastes (pre-history remember?) Second of all, they are shooting pieces of the city back at the Mordor host? Don't they have their own fucking ammunition? Or was the city being super breakable part of the general battle plan?
- Grond, the wolf headed battering ram named after the mace of Sauron's old boss Morgoth, doesn't really look like a siege weapon here. Its too ornate and pretty almost. I feel bad that they're beating it against the door. I feel bad for the battering ram, not the door. Shouldn't it be the opposite way around? The Rankin Bass Grond on the other hand looks fucking bad ass, and seems as though its core is filled with lava. Check out The Breaking of the Gate on Youtube.com if you don't believe me. Yeah, its a weird anime version of ROTR with really bizarre looking orcs, trolls and people, but I still like its tone better than the Jackson film.
- Considering how long we've been waiting to see Shelob the giant spider (one movie late, even,) couldn't they have done a better job on the actual Shelob reveal? Its really fake looking, and I prefer the subtle reveal in the books in which all Frodo AND Sam (who never abandoned him) can see is hundreds of eyes staring at them from out of the darkness. Now that's creepy, and it makes a better visual than a spider rearing up on its back legs. This isn't just some random giant spider: Its a spider demon, the last child of the queen of all spiders. Treat it with more weight.
- After the initial escape from Shelob it is Sam who fights with Gollum, not Frodo. Frodo's not really the fighting type anymore, really. This is important because it is because of this fight that Sam is unable to help Frodo before he's been stung by Shelob. More on this later!
- False Death number ten: Gollum, in a fight with Frodo, falls down a seemingly bottomless pit. This never happens. In the books, Sam fights Gollum off, and he disappears until the next book. I'd only like to see Gollum fall to his death once per epic series, okay? And I think, maybe, just maybe, we should wait for the climax of the film for this to happen.
- You know, for a guy with really small legs, Pippin does an awful lot of running up and down the citadel of Minas Tirith. Then again, he also can scale a freaking mountain without breaking a real sweat, so maybe he's just got a lot of natural climbing endurance.
- Hey its the eleventh false death of the series: Frodo gets stung by Shelob! In the books you really are led to believe that Frodo has died. A huge, huge moment. But guess what? After the ten false deaths of major characters in the films leading up to this moment I'm just not buying it anymore. Not only that, those overblown deaths make this one seem trite. A real travesty.
- Okay, Sam learns that Frodo is alive, and he has to rescue him from an orc infested tower! Check your watches: Yes, its 154 minutes into the film of the Return of the King, and we've finally wrapped up Frodo and Sam's plot-line from the Two Towers. Boy, look at the time, I wonder how we're going to fit in everything that happens to Frodo and Sam once they actually break into Mordor? You know, the plot of the Return of the King? Oh, that's right, we can't, because we wasted too much time building up plots that aren't in the books. Oh, well, better luck next time. Wait, there probably won't be a next time? Oops.
- I commend the scene with Theoden's speech leading up to the charge of the Rohirrim on the Mordor host, its truly epic, but how could you follow that up by cutting away from the battle. Excuse me, I'd like to actually see the epic battle that we've been building up this whole movie? What, did they think it would be boring?
- Are you telling me that a man on fire could run from the rear of the citadel (which is where the tombs are located) to the front of it, all the way to the end of the "ship's prow" style outcropping and throw himself off? Its so ridiculous, and is also the nail in the coffin of Denethor being treated with respect by the authors of the film. Is there anyone who doesn't see this and want to laugh at it? I shouldn't laugh at the tragic death of a misguided ruler, right? Right?
- There's a moment, before the Southrons on their mumakil (big elephants) arrive where it seems as though the Rohirrim have cleared the field of the entire Mordor host, a force that outnumbers them to the tune of something like 100,000 against 6,000. Think the movie 300 for an easy comparison of the numbers. Did the Rohirrim kill all of those orcs in one charge? There don't even seem to be that many bodies on the field, or any at all for that matter. I've always pictured this as a completely insane battle in which the good guys were clearly better fighters than the vast majority of the Mordor forces, but could fall anyways just by dint of the fact that one man can't block ten opponents all at once, and that there would never be a point at which you were really "safe" so to speak: You'd always be fighting, for literally a day. Okay, granted, they are setting us up for the mumakil charge sequence here, but the truth is that the mumakil were already spread out across the battlefield. And what about the Southron cavalry? Theoden killing a Haradrim king? Not cool enough for you, Jackson?
- Gandalf and Pippin await their deaths and discuss the nature of the afterlife. Hmmm, first of all, shouldn't these two be fighting rather than cowering behind a door from a troll and a bunch of orcs? And, secondly, there are different afterlives in Middle Earth. If you're an elf, or a angelic spirit like Gandalf, then death isn't really death. You basically get resurrected, world of warcraft style, in the Undying Lands to the West, which are impossible to reach if you're not immortal (unless, like Bilbo, Frodo and, eventually, Sam, you were a bearer of the One Ring, and have the sponsorship of high up immortals like Galadriel, Gandalf, Elrond, etc.) And in a way, the elves get the short stick in Tolkein's mythology. They live forever, but only as long as the earth exists. When it goes, they go. But when men die, and go on to the true afterlife, which is pretty much supposed to be the Judeo-Christian heaven. I'm not sure where hobbits fit in, but my assumption was always that hobbits eventually interbred with men until they became a part of the British racial stock. So, I assume that the Undying Lands that Gandalf is describing are the ones that he will be going to, not Pippin. Thanks for the comfort, movie Gandalf.
- Theoden's death, like just about every dramatic moment of the films, is accompanied by super slow motion.
- Eowyn versus the Lord of the Nazgul. I've been looking forward to this moment since I saw it as a kid in that Rankin Bass cartoon. It is, for my money, the best part of the third book. Its so cool, it doesn't seem possible to screw it up. So congrats, Jackson, for making me realize that: Yes, you can screw this moment up. Royally. Here's how to do it: First, don't have Eowyn reveal that she's a woman before the fight. Very important. You want to have her reveal this information in a great "girl power" moment right before stabbing the Lord of the Nazgul. Second, make Eowyn a complete panty waist, who doesn't seem like she could fight her way out of a paper bag. Third, get rid of that pesky fell beast as quick as possible. Wouldn't want it to seem like a credible threat or anything. Fourth, bigger is always better, so make sure the Nazgul lord has a flail the head of which is bigger than a human torso. Fifth, make sure that the Lord of the Nazgul has been kept out of the picture until this moment. Don't, you know, have him face down Gandalf and be on the cusp of killing him, thus showing that he's actually tougher than a Balrog. That might be too much like the book. And, again, we don't want our villains to seem like credible threats. This is important because: Sixth, you need to make certain that the Lord of the Nazgul can be crippled by a strike from behind from a hobbit, rather than just momentarily distracted by it. If he's not crippled, how will Eowyn ever have time to say: "I am no man!" But I almost forgot the seventh way to screw this scene up: Cut away from it. Oh, and when you do cut away to the moment that turns the tide of the battle for good, the arrival of Aragorn and company. Hey Eowyn, why not just sprint away from the Lord of the Nazgul? After all, the invincible army of the dead has arrived!
- Speaking of the invincible army of the dead: Why the hell are they present at this battle? Doesn't Peter Jackson realize that their presence robs our heroes of their actual heroics? I mean, why would you even fight if you had a unbeatable army on your side, sweeping across the battlefield? And yet, there our heroes are, chopping orcs down as undead specters wipe out entire battalions within seconds. Legolas even goes to all of that trouble taking down a mumakil single handed, and what for? Right after he's killed it you can even see another mumakil being dragged down to its death by the undead host within less time and with less fuss. This battle was meant to be a hard won victory, not a cake walk. Ask yourself, what's more epic? The gates of Minas Tirith are broken, the Witch King is about to kill Gandalf and then the Rohirrim show up, slug it out for most a day, culminating in the death of the Nazgul Lord. This disheartens the Mordor host, until they see Black Ships coming up to join them. The tide turns, and our heroes seem as though they will be overwhelmed, and then it turns out its Aragorn, flying his kingly banner, leaping off of the ship with Legolas, Gimli, Elrond's two bad ass sons and a handful of tough ranger dudes, and they manage to fight their way to where the Rohirrim are, and turn the tide of the battle just enough so that the Mordor forces flee. Or, we just have an invisible army of the undead come in and clean house. No fuss, no muss. Its definitely one of the worst things about this film.
- If you lived through the era when Lord of the Rings first became popular, you probably are familiar with the following line from the book: "Frodo lives." It was common graffiti during the 70's, somewhat akin to "Kilroy Was Here." The line is spoken by Samwise, and is tied into another one the great moments from the books. Frankly, its the best example of how the One Ring works on the minds of even simple folk like Sam. Frodo is trapped in Cirith Ungol, and Sam now has the One Ring and Sting. There doesn't seem to be any hope of rescuing Frodo, and it is at this point that the Ring begins to tempt him, causing him to start to proceed into Mordor alone, abandoning Frodo, and eventually culminating in him having a delusion of grandeur akin to that of Galadriel or Boromir. With the ring's power, he thinks, he could become Samwise the Strong, and throw down the dark tower. But then his simple hobbit sense brings him back from his vision, and he realizes that all he needs are a garden, and his own two hands, not the hands of others to command. "Frodo lives." He turns around, determined now to try and rescue Frodo. In the movie we instead get the plot line about crumbs sprinkled on Sam's cloak, and the "share the load" scene culminating in Sam abandoning Frodo because he was told to "go away." Which one sounds better to you?
- Due to time restrictions we lose the scene in which Samwise must use the phial of Galadriel to force his way past a wall of magical force created by two demonic statutes (called merely the watchers in the book.) You can see them, briefly, in the film: A pair of three headed vulture headed monsters lurking on either side of the entrance to Cirith Ungol which Samwise runs right past.
- We also lose Samwise's search for Frodo within the tower, a scene that's played mainly for laughs in the film, with a bunch of Uruk-Hai mistaking Sam's shadow for a giant warrior. Mordor is supposed to be an intimidating place, and shouldn't be used as a source of humor. We also miss out on the interesting interplay between few remaining orcs in the tower, but hey, we've got to wrap this movie up!
- After Sam kills Shagrat, (who survives in the books by the way, taking Frodo's mithril shirt, elven cloak and the sword that Sam left with him in place of Sting to Barad-dur, more on this missing plot line later) Frodo is thankful, but despairs that the ring has been lost, and that the quest has failed. He's literally crushed. Here, Frodo just seems mildly disappointed.
- So, Sam's just gone through a whole lot of trouble, risking his own life numerous times, to rescue Frodo, and what happens next? In the book, Frodo loses it when Sam suggests helping to carry the ring (the book's equivalent of the "share the load" scene in the film), and FOR THE FIRST TIME, begins to display the qualities of Gollum. Its really quite effective, especially because its totally unexpected. By the time we get to this in the film, however, Frodo's already lost it about five or six times, and in fact they don't even play this scene as a major freak out.
- Sauron loses a little more credibility when it is revealed in this film that his gaze acts as a search light. Maybe if it moved a little slower it would be more menacing, but here it just seems kind of silly. Also, Sauron really should shroud the Dark Tower with some cloud cover so that his eye isn't just hanging out there. See my thoughts on the treatment of Sauron in the posting on The Fellowship of the Ring.
- Mordor is filled with armies, but I doubt they'd be camped all across the entire Gorgoroth plateau. And isn't it ridiculous that Frodo and Sam arrive here just in time to see them marching north to the Black Gate? This diversion does help Frodo and Sam, but the way its treated here is way too convenient.
- Gone is the moment in the books when an Uruk and a smaller archer orc are seen by Frodo and Sam searching for them. It is through these orcs that they learn that Gollum is still lurking around somewhere, and that the Lord of the Nazgul has been slain. It also tells us a lot about the way that the culture of mordor works, and that without the fear of superiors the orcs would quickly kill each other over petty arguments.
- Frodo and Sam wear orc garb as disguises, but in the films they don't wear them for long. In the book they get picked up by an orc regiment heading to the Black Gate and are forced to march for a day. This puts a ton of strain on Frodo, who's bearing the even growing weight of the ring. They escape only because of the ever present infighting between the orcs. An interesting sequence. But, again, no time.
- Is it just me, or does Frodo actually get seen by the eye of Sauron? And what the hell is with the weird trip fall that he does to avoid its gaze? I don't think hiding behind a rock is going to do much to deter a being whose supernatural vision can pierce through any veil.
- Sauron "speaks" in the series through his emissary, The Mouth of Sauron, the guy who seems like he's being groomed to be the next Lord of the Nazgul. He rides out of the Black Gate and displays the mithril shirt, elven cloak and sword of men to the heroes as proof that their halfling friends have failed in their quest, and that they now suffer the torments of the Dark Tower. He offers to release them, if the host of the west will retreat, and help to rebuild Isengard so that one of Mordor's lieutenants can abide there. Gandalf rejects these proposals, and the fight begins. In a book/film lacking any direct contact with the big bad guy, we need scenes like this to put something of a face on the enemy. And the Mouth of Sauron sequence is important because it shows us that our heroes will choose to fight to the end, even when they believe that the quest for the ring has failed.
- Aragorn's speech to his men seems rather shitty compared to one Theoden gave before the charge of the Rohirrim, and if I was there I'd probably be like: Wait, we're following this guy? Damn, I should have just stayed home.
- Why is Merry at the Black Gate? He should be recovering back at Minas Tirith from the wounds he received at the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Even stabbing the Lord of the Nazgul can kill you, don't you know?
- We need to hear Gollum's pathetic speech about how he will die if the ring is destroyed, and that he only wants to live a little while longer before it happens. Its the only reason that Sam doesn't kill him outside of Mount Doom.
- One of my favorite things about the climax of ROTK in the books is the fact that the closer they get to Mount Doom, the more like an angelic/demonic spirit Frodo becomes, almost as if some of Sauron is rubbing off on him. So, when Gollum attacks them it is in fact Frodo who overpowers him with the will of the ring itself, and then intones that: "If you touch me ever again, you will be cast yourself into the fire of doom." And that is, of course, what happens. Here Frodo just sort of remains a whiny bitch, and has to rely on Sam. The thread continues when Sam comes across Frodo standing over the crack of doom. In the books he claims the ring for himself, becoming quite sinister: His journey to the dark side complete. Here I don't get that sense that Frodo has become more than just a crazy hobbit.
- In the film one of the Olog-Hai (super trolls) almost kills Aragorn during the fight at the Black Gate. In the books, Pippin dispatches one of these monsters before being almost crushed to death underneath it. I'd like to think that the king of Gondor could handle a mere troll, super or otherwise.
- Gollum riding on Frodo's back, while Frodo is invisible, just looks goofy. I again refer you to the way that this scene was handled by Rankin Bass, its much more understated but just as epic.
- Gollum and Frodo fighting over the ring after Gollum has already bitten his finger off is total overkill, and it makes it so that it actually is not Gollum who completes the quest, a complete departure from the book. It also sort of turns Frodo into a murderer, something he is spared from by Gollum in an indirect way. I always felt that if Gollum wasn't there, it would almost seem sure that Frodo and Sam might have had to fight over the ring, leading to another dead hobbit. But no, instead we have to be subjected to...
- False death number eleven. Frodo falls off the side with Gollum? And then almost gives up on life due to his desire for the ring? What, is he Dr. Elsa Schneider from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? I also hate the way this ties in with Sam's ridiculous false death at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring. Just get them out of there for pete's sake!
- The last and final blow to Sauron as a respectable villain is the way his eye comically looks around, frightened, as the Dark Tower crumbles beneath it. Its too bad, because I actually love the way Barad-dur shatters into a million fragments in the Sauron shock wave. I prefer the way he goes out in the books: Forming into a giant lightning crowned shadow of himself over all of Mordor, and then being blown away on the wind.
- I hate the way that the earthquakes only kill the minions of Sauron. They're earthquakes, they can't distinguish between good and evil!
- False death number twelve is that of Frodo and Sam. I think a better way to have played this scene would have been to just pull back far enough from them as they were discussing the fact that there way out of the situation so that you could see the approaching eagles, who would then pick them up just as they were about to pass out from the fumes and heat. Fading to black is always a bad idea. Especially if you do it two or three times.
- Wouldn't it have been nice to see how Eowyn and Faramir got together?
- The Jackson team seemed to think that the second to last chapter of ROTK, The Scouring of the Shire, was anticlimactic after the destruction of the ring. What they fail to see, however, is the fact that it actually is the real climax of the book. To bring those who haven't read ROTK up to speed: The hobbits return to the shire, and find that its been turned into a miniature version of Mordor. Bagshot row, which is at the base of the hill leading up to Bag End, has been turned into a sand and gravel quarry. Trees have been felled, ugly new mills have been created, and the whole place is under the control of someone named "Sharky." Gandalf, who has traveled with them all the way to Bree, lets them handle this on their own. And they are more than up to the task, after their journeys. Merry and Pippin have grown considerably, and are incredibly capable warriors, and they quickly gather the hobbits to fight the men who've ruined the shire. Once this has been done, they find that "Sharky" is none other than Saruman, who traveled to the Shire after escaping from Isengard, and that he ruined what the hobbits were fighting to protect out of sheer malice. The hobbits want to kill him, but Frodo surprisingly says no. Despite all Saruman has done, he still shows him pity. Saruman then tries to kill Frodo with a hidden knife, but fails to penetrate his mithril shirt, and still Frodo orders the hobbits to stand down. Finally, Saruman orders Wormtongue to follow him, and reveals that Wormtongue killed (and possibly ate) Lotho Sackville-Baggins, who had acted in Saruman's name until he came to take over the shire personally. Grima then turns on Saruman and kills him, and is then shot by one of the hobbits. The War of the Ring's final blows take place right on the doorstep of Bag End. You can't tell me that this wouldn't have been a great way to capstone the action of the film. After all, its the only time in the book when Frodo, the main protagonist, faces Saruman, the only antagonist in the book who really has a human face. IT IS THE REAL CLIMAX OF THE STORY. Removing it from the film, and leaving the shire intact, also cheats us of some of the book's primary message: Good will always win, but at a great cost. We are also robbed of the reconstruction of the shire images, which is full of symbolic imagery, such as Samwise planting a mallorn tree where the Party Tree once stood.
- Frodo's memories of pain from the Witch King's blade, Shelob's sting and Gollum's bite is handled rather clumsily with him simply narrating that he can't pick his old life back up. Show us, don't tell us. Its a movie, remember? All they had to do to achieve this would be to contrast Sam's happiness, and his new life with Rosie Cotton, with Frodo's solitary suffering, which he is trying to hide.
- I think its important for us to know that Frodo is literally taking Arwen's spot on the boat heading into the west. I also think its important for us to know that he is going because he is a ring bearer, and that Samwise will also be allowed to make the journey, since he, too, was a ring bearer, if only for awhile.
- The hugging sequence is just too cheesy for me. I think it would be better if Frodo gave Samwise his goodbye speech and then broke down right at the end. So much sadder than seeing a lot of sloppy hugs. I also hate the goofy smile on Frodo's face when he gets on the ship. Healing is going to take a long time for Frodo, even in the Undying Lands, so I would have preferred seeing him looking as stately as Galadriel.
- Samwise inherits Bag End from Frodo, and have been living with him for some time before he departs into the West, so I'm not sure why he and Rosie have a new house.
- You know what the best part of this movie is? The credits. They are so beautifully illustrated by Alan Lee, and Annie Lennox's song really compliments them. My one complaint about them is that I think they should act as credits for all three films, and should have included pictures and credits of all of the major characters, particularly Christopher Lee and Brad Dourif.
THE END
When I was a literally two years old Rankin/Bass, an animation company probably best remembered for its stop motion animation version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (and for the snow miser/heat miser, Thundercats, and the film of the Last Unicorn), produced a version of the Return of the King which I must have seen about a hundred times since. The main reason that I mention it is that, though its only about an hour and a half long, and a somewhat simplified version of the story, it manages to get in just about all of the important plot points covered by Peter Jackson's film of the same name, plus things that got cut from Jackson's three hour (plus change) movie. Rankin/Bass gets it all in, and still has time for orcs singing songs to a disco beat.
So to all of the critics out there who might read my review and say: "But Jackson must have needed to make these cuts," go ahead and watch the Rankin/Bass version and tell me with a straight face that Peter Jackson didn't have enough time to tell all these stories.
I mentioned in my review of the Two Towers that the entire ending of the Two Towers was chopped off, but I didn't realize how much Return of the King would suffer from this decision until I saw it. I have to admit that this was the Lord of the Rings film that made me stop believing that Peter Jackson and company had any idea what they were doing, but of course it won a million oscars and made a ton of money so it must be great, right? Read on, dear reader, read on...
- So the Weta digital team can make me believe in a fucking troll, but it can't create a convincing scene of a hobbit being dragged underwater by a large fish? What gives?
- Is this really the proper place for Gollum's origin story? These scenes are meant to remind us the seductive powers of the one ring, but do we really need reminding by this point? And, though I like them, I'd rather have seen them earlier in the series, possibly in the Two Towers, if at all.
- Frodo says that the days are growing darker as they exit the culvert they have been sleeping in, but are they? More on this when I discuss the the light conditions during the siege of Gondor.
- The character of Saruman is arguably the villain who we come to know the most through the story, and to merely cut him right out of film with a throw away line is a travesty, especially since they had cast the perfect man to play the corrupted wizard, Christopher Lee. The sequence in which Theoden, Gandalf and the Fellowship are tempted by Saruman's magical voice (his most insidious power according to Gandalf,) and Grima throws the palantir at the heroes (which is, of course, why it is sitting in the water in front of tower) needed to appear at the end of The Two Towers. And even if it didn't, I can't believe they basically wrote Saruman out of the film with the throw away line: "No. He has no power anymore."
- The scene in which Gollum reestablishes his plan to have Shelob kill the Hobbits, both wastes our time and insults our ability to remember the last film. And, I don't know, can't the film makers try to surprise us for a change? Put us in Frodo and Sam's shoes, so to speak?
- Speaking of stuff that's not in the books, I hate hate hated the whole Frodo turns against Sam plot-line. Frodo and Sam have one "fight" in the books, and this is due to the power of the ring over Frodo. And guess what? Gollum has literally nothing to do with it. He doesn't sprinkle crumbs on Sam and accuse him of stealing food. We're already behind, Jackson, lets just get to the real events of the book!
- Okay. This one just baffles me. There is ONE place in the books where Sauron "appears" and that is when Pippin looks into the Palantir against Gandalf's wishes. Sauron actually speaks through Pippin, briefly possessing him. Doesn't this sound over the top, and like a good opportunity to see the villain of the piece actually doing something besides being on fire? But no, what do we get? One: Super slow motion. Two: The same damn lines from the Fellowship of the Ring film ("I see you.") And Three: The pointless Pippin seeing a piece of Sauron's plan subplot. Guys, we don't need to see inside Sauron's mind to know that he's going to attack Gondor. He, and his minions, have been trying to crush the place for thousands of years. If he's going to conquer all of middle earth, Gondor is literally in his way. Of course he's going to attack Gondor! Plus, if you really wanted to put in the whole nazgul on a fellbeast going after a hobbit scene that appeared at the end of the film of Two Towers, it would be so much better if it was in reaction to Sauron's erroneous belief that Pippin is the hobbit who is carrying the ring. Something very similar even happens in the book, though Gandalf assures Pippin that even the nazgul would take a long time to arrive all the way from Mordor. It all fits so well, I can't imagine why they didn't use it so that the end of Two Towers could have been: We see Sauron through Pippin's eyes, nazgul comes after Pippin and is fought off, Gollum abandons Frodo and Sam, Shelob, Sam abandons Frodo thinking that he's dead, finding out he's not and is on the wrong side of an iron gate, BAM, end of movie.
- Another flashback of Isildur while the broken Narsil is being reforged into Anduril. I remember someone in the theater even saying: "Alright, already! We get it!"
- Arwen is dying? Dying? Dying for no good reason other than the growing power of Sauron? And tied to the fate of the ring? What the fuck is this? Isn't there enough at stake already? I guess fucking not.
- We flashback to Boromir becoming a human pincushion as Pippin remembers him in Denethor's chamber. I think its safe to assume that people who saw the first movie will remember this moment. Especially since Boromir is the only member of the fellowship who actually dies!
- Okay, so we get Haradrim, and a brief shot of Corsairs in this film, but what about the cool looking Easterlings that marched into the Black Gate in the Two Towers? Were they all executed for their incredible inability not to spot things that are right in front of them? Actually, you can see them very briefly, in the background, during the siege of Minas Tirith, but its literally a shot that's under two seconds. Of all of the "evil, dark skinned men" minions of Sauron, these guys clearly got the best costumes. Seems like a waste to me.
- We flashback to the Lord of the Nazgul yet AGAIN when Gandalf brings him up to Pippin. Why don't you trust our ability to remember things, Peter? Why?
- In the books, Denethor is desperate for Rohan to come to their aid, and does not hesitate to light the beacons which will signal their need. He even sends a messenger bearing a symbolic emblem of their alliance (a red arrow.) For some reason, though, this film Denethor is an even bigger dick than Theoden was in the last film, and we never know why. And sure, Denethor is a pseudo villain of the books, but he's no fool. He's not really ready to hand over Gondor to Aragorn, true, but in the beginning he's willing to defend his city. Yet as the siege goes on he loses hope and decides to do himself in. And do you want to know why? Well, the answer is this: He has a palantir of his own, a seeing stone like Sarumans. And in it he has seen a vision of black ships coming up the river which leads to the edge of the Pelennor Fields. He doesn't know that these ships will contain Aragorn, the true king, so he thinks that the battle is pointless. Plus, his son is dying. So he's really more a sympathetic figure in the book, one who you could understand people following. Here we don't know about the Palantir, so we just get this cardboard cut out villain that we feel no pity for. Its a shame.
- Why does Pippin have to scale a mountain to light the beacons? After all, Gandalf literally rode all the way up to the top level of Minas Tirith without stopping to ask permission. Apparently he's got the run of the place. This sequence, like so many others, wastes precious time.
- Gothmog is the second in command of the Mordor army in the books, and briefly takes command of the host after the death of the Lord of the Nazgul. Its not really clear in the book if he's even an orc, or if he's an evil human, or what, because there's only one sentence devoted to him in the book. One sentence. So, why in the world would you decide to forgo using the Lord of the Nazgul as the motivating force of the Mordor army, and instead focus on a guy who is essentially a glorified mook to the big guy. Its like focusing on the comings and goings of Admiral Piett rather than Darth Vader. Such a weird decision. And also, after building this guy up for so long during the film, could we at least see him die? For all I know, Gothmog is might be lying on a beach on the coast of Far Harad, sipping on a rum cocktail.
- Peter Jackson's kids make their third and final appearance watching Faramir going off on his suicide mission, spoiling the great mood of this scene for me totally. Oh, hey, there's those guys again. So distracting.
- False death rears its head again: Faramir goes off to his death... Or does he?
- On top of being a dick, Denethor is apparently a really messy eater. I'd think the steward of Gondor would at least be able to use a knife to eat his food, and would chew with his mouth closed.
- The books Aragorn, in an effort to distract Sauron into striking a clumsy first blow, uses Saruman's palantir in the books to reveal himself to the dark lord. I think this would have been something cool to leave in, and it would show you that Aragorn wasn't just a mere ranger. Whatever, he's still got to be all emo about being king.
- Legolas says that the dead men of Dunharrow swore an oath to the last king of Gondor. Actually the oath was to Isildur (cue flashback of Isildur), to fight with the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. The real last king of Gondor, Earnur, foolishly accepted a personal challenge to fight the lord of the nazgul and lost.
- Eowyn's disguise is total shit. I would have liked for them to try and surprise us with her presence, as it is handled in the books. I mean, sure, you know its probably her, but in the film its so obviously her that's it ridiculous.
- This is going to seem like a nitpick, but bear with me. The entire siege of Gondor seems like its takes place during a sunny, slightly overcast day, except for the portions of it that take place at night. But, hey, do you know what orcs hate? Light! They literally have a hard time seeing in the stuff. That's why the Uruk-Hai, who can travel by daylight, are so frightening to Elrond and Gandalf in the first film. And its also why the Sauron of the books literally uses his power to cover Minas Tirith in a cloud of darkness. Not complete darkness, mind, but dark enough that the sky should have looked like a giant bruise. The Rankin Bass Return of the King has a perfect sky color for the siege of Gondor. Its obviously not night but its very clearly dark out. This little detail really ruined a lot of the feel of this siege for me, and since its my favorite part of the books, I was let down.
- Denethor would never tell his soldiers to abandon their posts. He might tell them to go forth and fight, and win for a day, and that it was better to die sooner than later, but he would not say: "Abandon your posts! Flee!"
- Minas Tirith seems pretty damn fragile. The first blocks of stone that hit it literally smash huge chunks out of it. Was it pasted together with Elmer's glue or something?
- Gandalf would never strike Denethor down with his staff. He's just not like that. This part is total shit.
- First of all, Minas Tirith has access to trebuchets, which are just too modern of a siege weapon for my tastes (pre-history remember?) Second of all, they are shooting pieces of the city back at the Mordor host? Don't they have their own fucking ammunition? Or was the city being super breakable part of the general battle plan?
- Grond, the wolf headed battering ram named after the mace of Sauron's old boss Morgoth, doesn't really look like a siege weapon here. Its too ornate and pretty almost. I feel bad that they're beating it against the door. I feel bad for the battering ram, not the door. Shouldn't it be the opposite way around? The Rankin Bass Grond on the other hand looks fucking bad ass, and seems as though its core is filled with lava. Check out The Breaking of the Gate on Youtube.com if you don't believe me. Yeah, its a weird anime version of ROTR with really bizarre looking orcs, trolls and people, but I still like its tone better than the Jackson film.
- Considering how long we've been waiting to see Shelob the giant spider (one movie late, even,) couldn't they have done a better job on the actual Shelob reveal? Its really fake looking, and I prefer the subtle reveal in the books in which all Frodo AND Sam (who never abandoned him) can see is hundreds of eyes staring at them from out of the darkness. Now that's creepy, and it makes a better visual than a spider rearing up on its back legs. This isn't just some random giant spider: Its a spider demon, the last child of the queen of all spiders. Treat it with more weight.
- After the initial escape from Shelob it is Sam who fights with Gollum, not Frodo. Frodo's not really the fighting type anymore, really. This is important because it is because of this fight that Sam is unable to help Frodo before he's been stung by Shelob. More on this later!
- False Death number ten: Gollum, in a fight with Frodo, falls down a seemingly bottomless pit. This never happens. In the books, Sam fights Gollum off, and he disappears until the next book. I'd only like to see Gollum fall to his death once per epic series, okay? And I think, maybe, just maybe, we should wait for the climax of the film for this to happen.
- You know, for a guy with really small legs, Pippin does an awful lot of running up and down the citadel of Minas Tirith. Then again, he also can scale a freaking mountain without breaking a real sweat, so maybe he's just got a lot of natural climbing endurance.
- Hey its the eleventh false death of the series: Frodo gets stung by Shelob! In the books you really are led to believe that Frodo has died. A huge, huge moment. But guess what? After the ten false deaths of major characters in the films leading up to this moment I'm just not buying it anymore. Not only that, those overblown deaths make this one seem trite. A real travesty.
- Okay, Sam learns that Frodo is alive, and he has to rescue him from an orc infested tower! Check your watches: Yes, its 154 minutes into the film of the Return of the King, and we've finally wrapped up Frodo and Sam's plot-line from the Two Towers. Boy, look at the time, I wonder how we're going to fit in everything that happens to Frodo and Sam once they actually break into Mordor? You know, the plot of the Return of the King? Oh, that's right, we can't, because we wasted too much time building up plots that aren't in the books. Oh, well, better luck next time. Wait, there probably won't be a next time? Oops.
- I commend the scene with Theoden's speech leading up to the charge of the Rohirrim on the Mordor host, its truly epic, but how could you follow that up by cutting away from the battle. Excuse me, I'd like to actually see the epic battle that we've been building up this whole movie? What, did they think it would be boring?
- Are you telling me that a man on fire could run from the rear of the citadel (which is where the tombs are located) to the front of it, all the way to the end of the "ship's prow" style outcropping and throw himself off? Its so ridiculous, and is also the nail in the coffin of Denethor being treated with respect by the authors of the film. Is there anyone who doesn't see this and want to laugh at it? I shouldn't laugh at the tragic death of a misguided ruler, right? Right?
- There's a moment, before the Southrons on their mumakil (big elephants) arrive where it seems as though the Rohirrim have cleared the field of the entire Mordor host, a force that outnumbers them to the tune of something like 100,000 against 6,000. Think the movie 300 for an easy comparison of the numbers. Did the Rohirrim kill all of those orcs in one charge? There don't even seem to be that many bodies on the field, or any at all for that matter. I've always pictured this as a completely insane battle in which the good guys were clearly better fighters than the vast majority of the Mordor forces, but could fall anyways just by dint of the fact that one man can't block ten opponents all at once, and that there would never be a point at which you were really "safe" so to speak: You'd always be fighting, for literally a day. Okay, granted, they are setting us up for the mumakil charge sequence here, but the truth is that the mumakil were already spread out across the battlefield. And what about the Southron cavalry? Theoden killing a Haradrim king? Not cool enough for you, Jackson?
- Gandalf and Pippin await their deaths and discuss the nature of the afterlife. Hmmm, first of all, shouldn't these two be fighting rather than cowering behind a door from a troll and a bunch of orcs? And, secondly, there are different afterlives in Middle Earth. If you're an elf, or a angelic spirit like Gandalf, then death isn't really death. You basically get resurrected, world of warcraft style, in the Undying Lands to the West, which are impossible to reach if you're not immortal (unless, like Bilbo, Frodo and, eventually, Sam, you were a bearer of the One Ring, and have the sponsorship of high up immortals like Galadriel, Gandalf, Elrond, etc.) And in a way, the elves get the short stick in Tolkein's mythology. They live forever, but only as long as the earth exists. When it goes, they go. But when men die, and go on to the true afterlife, which is pretty much supposed to be the Judeo-Christian heaven. I'm not sure where hobbits fit in, but my assumption was always that hobbits eventually interbred with men until they became a part of the British racial stock. So, I assume that the Undying Lands that Gandalf is describing are the ones that he will be going to, not Pippin. Thanks for the comfort, movie Gandalf.
- Theoden's death, like just about every dramatic moment of the films, is accompanied by super slow motion.
- Eowyn versus the Lord of the Nazgul. I've been looking forward to this moment since I saw it as a kid in that Rankin Bass cartoon. It is, for my money, the best part of the third book. Its so cool, it doesn't seem possible to screw it up. So congrats, Jackson, for making me realize that: Yes, you can screw this moment up. Royally. Here's how to do it: First, don't have Eowyn reveal that she's a woman before the fight. Very important. You want to have her reveal this information in a great "girl power" moment right before stabbing the Lord of the Nazgul. Second, make Eowyn a complete panty waist, who doesn't seem like she could fight her way out of a paper bag. Third, get rid of that pesky fell beast as quick as possible. Wouldn't want it to seem like a credible threat or anything. Fourth, bigger is always better, so make sure the Nazgul lord has a flail the head of which is bigger than a human torso. Fifth, make sure that the Lord of the Nazgul has been kept out of the picture until this moment. Don't, you know, have him face down Gandalf and be on the cusp of killing him, thus showing that he's actually tougher than a Balrog. That might be too much like the book. And, again, we don't want our villains to seem like credible threats. This is important because: Sixth, you need to make certain that the Lord of the Nazgul can be crippled by a strike from behind from a hobbit, rather than just momentarily distracted by it. If he's not crippled, how will Eowyn ever have time to say: "I am no man!" But I almost forgot the seventh way to screw this scene up: Cut away from it. Oh, and when you do cut away to the moment that turns the tide of the battle for good, the arrival of Aragorn and company. Hey Eowyn, why not just sprint away from the Lord of the Nazgul? After all, the invincible army of the dead has arrived!
- Speaking of the invincible army of the dead: Why the hell are they present at this battle? Doesn't Peter Jackson realize that their presence robs our heroes of their actual heroics? I mean, why would you even fight if you had a unbeatable army on your side, sweeping across the battlefield? And yet, there our heroes are, chopping orcs down as undead specters wipe out entire battalions within seconds. Legolas even goes to all of that trouble taking down a mumakil single handed, and what for? Right after he's killed it you can even see another mumakil being dragged down to its death by the undead host within less time and with less fuss. This battle was meant to be a hard won victory, not a cake walk. Ask yourself, what's more epic? The gates of Minas Tirith are broken, the Witch King is about to kill Gandalf and then the Rohirrim show up, slug it out for most a day, culminating in the death of the Nazgul Lord. This disheartens the Mordor host, until they see Black Ships coming up to join them. The tide turns, and our heroes seem as though they will be overwhelmed, and then it turns out its Aragorn, flying his kingly banner, leaping off of the ship with Legolas, Gimli, Elrond's two bad ass sons and a handful of tough ranger dudes, and they manage to fight their way to where the Rohirrim are, and turn the tide of the battle just enough so that the Mordor forces flee. Or, we just have an invisible army of the undead come in and clean house. No fuss, no muss. Its definitely one of the worst things about this film.
- If you lived through the era when Lord of the Rings first became popular, you probably are familiar with the following line from the book: "Frodo lives." It was common graffiti during the 70's, somewhat akin to "Kilroy Was Here." The line is spoken by Samwise, and is tied into another one the great moments from the books. Frankly, its the best example of how the One Ring works on the minds of even simple folk like Sam. Frodo is trapped in Cirith Ungol, and Sam now has the One Ring and Sting. There doesn't seem to be any hope of rescuing Frodo, and it is at this point that the Ring begins to tempt him, causing him to start to proceed into Mordor alone, abandoning Frodo, and eventually culminating in him having a delusion of grandeur akin to that of Galadriel or Boromir. With the ring's power, he thinks, he could become Samwise the Strong, and throw down the dark tower. But then his simple hobbit sense brings him back from his vision, and he realizes that all he needs are a garden, and his own two hands, not the hands of others to command. "Frodo lives." He turns around, determined now to try and rescue Frodo. In the movie we instead get the plot line about crumbs sprinkled on Sam's cloak, and the "share the load" scene culminating in Sam abandoning Frodo because he was told to "go away." Which one sounds better to you?
- Due to time restrictions we lose the scene in which Samwise must use the phial of Galadriel to force his way past a wall of magical force created by two demonic statutes (called merely the watchers in the book.) You can see them, briefly, in the film: A pair of three headed vulture headed monsters lurking on either side of the entrance to Cirith Ungol which Samwise runs right past.
- We also lose Samwise's search for Frodo within the tower, a scene that's played mainly for laughs in the film, with a bunch of Uruk-Hai mistaking Sam's shadow for a giant warrior. Mordor is supposed to be an intimidating place, and shouldn't be used as a source of humor. We also miss out on the interesting interplay between few remaining orcs in the tower, but hey, we've got to wrap this movie up!
- After Sam kills Shagrat, (who survives in the books by the way, taking Frodo's mithril shirt, elven cloak and the sword that Sam left with him in place of Sting to Barad-dur, more on this missing plot line later) Frodo is thankful, but despairs that the ring has been lost, and that the quest has failed. He's literally crushed. Here, Frodo just seems mildly disappointed.
- So, Sam's just gone through a whole lot of trouble, risking his own life numerous times, to rescue Frodo, and what happens next? In the book, Frodo loses it when Sam suggests helping to carry the ring (the book's equivalent of the "share the load" scene in the film), and FOR THE FIRST TIME, begins to display the qualities of Gollum. Its really quite effective, especially because its totally unexpected. By the time we get to this in the film, however, Frodo's already lost it about five or six times, and in fact they don't even play this scene as a major freak out.
- Sauron loses a little more credibility when it is revealed in this film that his gaze acts as a search light. Maybe if it moved a little slower it would be more menacing, but here it just seems kind of silly. Also, Sauron really should shroud the Dark Tower with some cloud cover so that his eye isn't just hanging out there. See my thoughts on the treatment of Sauron in the posting on The Fellowship of the Ring.
- Mordor is filled with armies, but I doubt they'd be camped all across the entire Gorgoroth plateau. And isn't it ridiculous that Frodo and Sam arrive here just in time to see them marching north to the Black Gate? This diversion does help Frodo and Sam, but the way its treated here is way too convenient.
- Gone is the moment in the books when an Uruk and a smaller archer orc are seen by Frodo and Sam searching for them. It is through these orcs that they learn that Gollum is still lurking around somewhere, and that the Lord of the Nazgul has been slain. It also tells us a lot about the way that the culture of mordor works, and that without the fear of superiors the orcs would quickly kill each other over petty arguments.
- Frodo and Sam wear orc garb as disguises, but in the films they don't wear them for long. In the book they get picked up by an orc regiment heading to the Black Gate and are forced to march for a day. This puts a ton of strain on Frodo, who's bearing the even growing weight of the ring. They escape only because of the ever present infighting between the orcs. An interesting sequence. But, again, no time.
- Is it just me, or does Frodo actually get seen by the eye of Sauron? And what the hell is with the weird trip fall that he does to avoid its gaze? I don't think hiding behind a rock is going to do much to deter a being whose supernatural vision can pierce through any veil.
- Sauron "speaks" in the series through his emissary, The Mouth of Sauron, the guy who seems like he's being groomed to be the next Lord of the Nazgul. He rides out of the Black Gate and displays the mithril shirt, elven cloak and sword of men to the heroes as proof that their halfling friends have failed in their quest, and that they now suffer the torments of the Dark Tower. He offers to release them, if the host of the west will retreat, and help to rebuild Isengard so that one of Mordor's lieutenants can abide there. Gandalf rejects these proposals, and the fight begins. In a book/film lacking any direct contact with the big bad guy, we need scenes like this to put something of a face on the enemy. And the Mouth of Sauron sequence is important because it shows us that our heroes will choose to fight to the end, even when they believe that the quest for the ring has failed.
- Aragorn's speech to his men seems rather shitty compared to one Theoden gave before the charge of the Rohirrim, and if I was there I'd probably be like: Wait, we're following this guy? Damn, I should have just stayed home.
- Why is Merry at the Black Gate? He should be recovering back at Minas Tirith from the wounds he received at the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Even stabbing the Lord of the Nazgul can kill you, don't you know?
- We need to hear Gollum's pathetic speech about how he will die if the ring is destroyed, and that he only wants to live a little while longer before it happens. Its the only reason that Sam doesn't kill him outside of Mount Doom.
- One of my favorite things about the climax of ROTK in the books is the fact that the closer they get to Mount Doom, the more like an angelic/demonic spirit Frodo becomes, almost as if some of Sauron is rubbing off on him. So, when Gollum attacks them it is in fact Frodo who overpowers him with the will of the ring itself, and then intones that: "If you touch me ever again, you will be cast yourself into the fire of doom." And that is, of course, what happens. Here Frodo just sort of remains a whiny bitch, and has to rely on Sam. The thread continues when Sam comes across Frodo standing over the crack of doom. In the books he claims the ring for himself, becoming quite sinister: His journey to the dark side complete. Here I don't get that sense that Frodo has become more than just a crazy hobbit.
- In the film one of the Olog-Hai (super trolls) almost kills Aragorn during the fight at the Black Gate. In the books, Pippin dispatches one of these monsters before being almost crushed to death underneath it. I'd like to think that the king of Gondor could handle a mere troll, super or otherwise.
- Gollum riding on Frodo's back, while Frodo is invisible, just looks goofy. I again refer you to the way that this scene was handled by Rankin Bass, its much more understated but just as epic.
- Gollum and Frodo fighting over the ring after Gollum has already bitten his finger off is total overkill, and it makes it so that it actually is not Gollum who completes the quest, a complete departure from the book. It also sort of turns Frodo into a murderer, something he is spared from by Gollum in an indirect way. I always felt that if Gollum wasn't there, it would almost seem sure that Frodo and Sam might have had to fight over the ring, leading to another dead hobbit. But no, instead we have to be subjected to...
- False death number eleven. Frodo falls off the side with Gollum? And then almost gives up on life due to his desire for the ring? What, is he Dr. Elsa Schneider from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? I also hate the way this ties in with Sam's ridiculous false death at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring. Just get them out of there for pete's sake!
- The last and final blow to Sauron as a respectable villain is the way his eye comically looks around, frightened, as the Dark Tower crumbles beneath it. Its too bad, because I actually love the way Barad-dur shatters into a million fragments in the Sauron shock wave. I prefer the way he goes out in the books: Forming into a giant lightning crowned shadow of himself over all of Mordor, and then being blown away on the wind.
- I hate the way that the earthquakes only kill the minions of Sauron. They're earthquakes, they can't distinguish between good and evil!
- False death number twelve is that of Frodo and Sam. I think a better way to have played this scene would have been to just pull back far enough from them as they were discussing the fact that there way out of the situation so that you could see the approaching eagles, who would then pick them up just as they were about to pass out from the fumes and heat. Fading to black is always a bad idea. Especially if you do it two or three times.
- Wouldn't it have been nice to see how Eowyn and Faramir got together?
- The Jackson team seemed to think that the second to last chapter of ROTK, The Scouring of the Shire, was anticlimactic after the destruction of the ring. What they fail to see, however, is the fact that it actually is the real climax of the book. To bring those who haven't read ROTK up to speed: The hobbits return to the shire, and find that its been turned into a miniature version of Mordor. Bagshot row, which is at the base of the hill leading up to Bag End, has been turned into a sand and gravel quarry. Trees have been felled, ugly new mills have been created, and the whole place is under the control of someone named "Sharky." Gandalf, who has traveled with them all the way to Bree, lets them handle this on their own. And they are more than up to the task, after their journeys. Merry and Pippin have grown considerably, and are incredibly capable warriors, and they quickly gather the hobbits to fight the men who've ruined the shire. Once this has been done, they find that "Sharky" is none other than Saruman, who traveled to the Shire after escaping from Isengard, and that he ruined what the hobbits were fighting to protect out of sheer malice. The hobbits want to kill him, but Frodo surprisingly says no. Despite all Saruman has done, he still shows him pity. Saruman then tries to kill Frodo with a hidden knife, but fails to penetrate his mithril shirt, and still Frodo orders the hobbits to stand down. Finally, Saruman orders Wormtongue to follow him, and reveals that Wormtongue killed (and possibly ate) Lotho Sackville-Baggins, who had acted in Saruman's name until he came to take over the shire personally. Grima then turns on Saruman and kills him, and is then shot by one of the hobbits. The War of the Ring's final blows take place right on the doorstep of Bag End. You can't tell me that this wouldn't have been a great way to capstone the action of the film. After all, its the only time in the book when Frodo, the main protagonist, faces Saruman, the only antagonist in the book who really has a human face. IT IS THE REAL CLIMAX OF THE STORY. Removing it from the film, and leaving the shire intact, also cheats us of some of the book's primary message: Good will always win, but at a great cost. We are also robbed of the reconstruction of the shire images, which is full of symbolic imagery, such as Samwise planting a mallorn tree where the Party Tree once stood.
- Frodo's memories of pain from the Witch King's blade, Shelob's sting and Gollum's bite is handled rather clumsily with him simply narrating that he can't pick his old life back up. Show us, don't tell us. Its a movie, remember? All they had to do to achieve this would be to contrast Sam's happiness, and his new life with Rosie Cotton, with Frodo's solitary suffering, which he is trying to hide.
- I think its important for us to know that Frodo is literally taking Arwen's spot on the boat heading into the west. I also think its important for us to know that he is going because he is a ring bearer, and that Samwise will also be allowed to make the journey, since he, too, was a ring bearer, if only for awhile.
- The hugging sequence is just too cheesy for me. I think it would be better if Frodo gave Samwise his goodbye speech and then broke down right at the end. So much sadder than seeing a lot of sloppy hugs. I also hate the goofy smile on Frodo's face when he gets on the ship. Healing is going to take a long time for Frodo, even in the Undying Lands, so I would have preferred seeing him looking as stately as Galadriel.
- Samwise inherits Bag End from Frodo, and have been living with him for some time before he departs into the West, so I'm not sure why he and Rosie have a new house.
- You know what the best part of this movie is? The credits. They are so beautifully illustrated by Alan Lee, and Annie Lennox's song really compliments them. My one complaint about them is that I think they should act as credits for all three films, and should have included pictures and credits of all of the major characters, particularly Christopher Lee and Brad Dourif.
THE END
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Criticisms of the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy - Part Two
PART TWO - THE TWO TOWERS
The Two Towers is the part of the Lord of the Rings that was most radically changed in its adaptation from book to film, and in my opinion it was a change for the worse. The biggest change is the fact that the film version of the Two Towers ends shortly after the battle of Helm's Deep, with Frodo and Samwise on the road to the haunted city of Minas Morgul. For those who have not read the book, this is basically the same as cutting off the final third section of the story, and in the case of Frodo and Sam it really sells the entire series short.
If you haven't read the books, you may be thinking: "But wouldn't the Two Towers be an incredibly long movie?" The answer to this question is a resounding: No. For in changing events that happen halfway through the book into the climax (Helm's Deep, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum held prisoner by Faramir) meant that they then had to literally create more story to fill about an hour's length of film to build up to these events.
I'm not entirely sure why the film makers felt that this was anything resembling a good decision, especially because it creates a huge problem in the next film, The Return of the King. It also robs the film of the book's incredible cliffhanger, in which Gollum betrays Frodo and Sam to the giant spider Shelob, who "kills" Frodo. We are left with Samwise facing the near impossible task of rescuing Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol. Certainly a grim, Empire Strikes Back ending if there ever was one. People would have been dying to see the next film! Dying!
Yes, one of the reasons that the film makers did this was because the timelines of the two main stories (Fellowship remnants on one side and Frodo and Sam on the other) do not link perfectly up in the books, and Frodo and Sam's timeline would be way ahead of the other characters... But I imagine that most people watching the film would not notice this discrepancy. Frankly, the only place that it would really be noticeable would be the moment when Pippin and Gandalf see the signal from Minas Morgul light up the sky while Frodo and Sam cower at Minas Morgul's bridge.
But to go into much more detail:
- Right off the bat Frodo once again in treated to a magical close up of the eye of Sauron, which appears to have been slightly redesigned for this film, perhaps so that it does not appear so vagina like. I stand by my earlier statements about the overuse of Sauron's eye in these films.
- Andy Serkis delivers a wonderful performance as Gollum in this film, even though I'm predisposed to prefer the Brother Theodore version from the old Rankin Bass cartoons from the 80s, but I do have a few issues with the character. First, the Gollum of this film doesn't much resemble what little we saw of Gollum in the Fellowship of the Ring, and I like continuity. Second, his arrival seems rather abrupt. As previously stated, we haven't seen much of the character since the mines of Moria sequence. Would it have killed the film makers to have left in a little of the scenes in which Gollum continues to stalk the Fellowship? Since this film wasn't preceded by an adaptation of the Hobbit we can't just assume that the audience knows who Gollum is, exactly.
- I've always taken the title of the book the Two Towers to refer to the two towers which feature heavily in their climaxes: Namely, Orthanc and Cirith Ungol, the orc fortress near the lair of Shelob. Of course, since the film ends before our heroes reach these locations, Peter Jackson's writing team was forced to come up with an alliance between Saruman and Sauron and their respective towers. Nevermind, of course, that by trying to win the one ring for himself Saruman has essentially gone rogue from even Sauron's forces, and is now on no one's side but his own. But, hey, whatever.
- The burning of the Rohan village occurs shortly after Saruman's narration, and is basically the beginning of many scenes which were intended to add more subplots and complexity to the film so that the battle of Helm's Deep can serve as the climax. I don't know about you, but frankly I'd have rather seen the battle of the Fords of Isen, in which Theoden's son Theodred is mortally wounded. Theodred's death is very important to the story, so why not show us what happened rather than focus on a family of Rohan? With the obvious exception of the Hobbits, these books are not really about "the little guy." Showing us the Battle of the Fords of Isen also would have given us a good opportunity to see Saruman's forces win a battle, something they aren't very good at in these films.
- Probably in an effort to help set up the new characters coming into the story, we have a collection of scenes which introduces Eomer, Eowyn, Grima, and Theoden, leading up to Eomer's banishment. Frankly I would have rather met Eomer for the first time when we do in the books: With Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. All of the information covered in this section could have easily been handled in the way that it is in the books: At Edoras.
- More modern dialouge (see my review of The Fellowship of the Ring). I have a hard time hearing orcs say that they want to take "a breather" without then picturing them wearing spandex and getting in a few more reps at the stairmaster.
- "Looks like meat's back on the menu boys!" I don't know what kind of dining Uruk-Hai were used to back at Isengard, but I seriously doubt that they had menus. Actually, I doubt that anyone in middle earth, even the richest merchant, could eat at an establishment that had menus. This is prehistory we're talking about, remember?
- Eomer's sword falls out of its scabbard as he is about to ride away from Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. This is actually a movie flub, but its very noticeable. Sure, they didn't put the sound of it clattering to the ground in the hopes that maybe we wouldn't see it, but I think a retake might have been in order. Isn't Eomer going to need that sword?
- The return of the "false death" trend continues with its seventh victim(s): Merry and Pippin who we believe have been killed in the battle between the Uruk-Hai and the Rohirrim. I actually really like the way Aragorn reconstructs what really happened, so I guess I'll let this one slide.
- When the Nazgul return "on wings," as Gollum says, do we really need to see a flashback of the Witchking stabbing Frodo scene? Did they honestly think that we would have forgotten this incident?
- I think the scene in which we first see the Black Gate (or the Morannon as it is more formally called) is rather abrupt. I'm sure that the Towers of the Teeth alone would have been visible for some time before they clamber up the rock to see it, accompanied by the blaring Mordor theme music. Couldn't we have had some more build up? C'mon Jackson, you're trying to kill time here, remember?
- Elvish cloaks do indeed make you hard to see, magically blending in well with both rock and stone, but I don't buy that a pair of Easterlings would be unable to see something right under their noses, no matter how good the cloaks. And perhaps its just the editing, but it looks like the two Easterlings are right on top of them even before they pull the cloak over themselves. This serves to chip away at the credibility of the bad guys, which is always a bad move in my book. In a scene that is supposed to basically crush the hopes of the characters entering Mordor conventionally, why do this? If it were this easy to hide then maybe Frodo and Sam are right about making some crazed dash for the Black Gate before it closes.
- By the way, I never pictured the Black Gate to be an actual gate in the conventional sense, but more of a massive wall with a gate built into it, flanked by towers.
- The scene in which Grima comes on to Eowyn clumsily is unnecessary, clumsily handled, and also slightly confusing. Its meant to show us that Grima, the master manipulator, knows Eowyn's dark side, but what is her dark side?
- Grima has a quartet of flunkies who apparently have managed to stop an entire court from coming to the aid of their king. I fight this concept to be ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the fact that a fist fight breaks out in the king's chamber and some kind of alarm isn't raised to protect the king.
- In the books Theoden is not literally possessed by the spirit of Saurman. Its an interesting concept, and I love the way that Theoden morphs back into his own self, but frankly its a mistake. Why, do you ask? Well, for one thing it robs us of the real reasons that Theoden isn't doing anything about Saruman, which are then transplanted into later parts of the film, and just make Theoden generally seem like a dick. In the books Theoden is much like King Arthur, an older man who's kingdom is falling into ruin all around him, and who is languishing in despair when our heroes arrive. His son, Theodred is dead, an event which the movie Theoden doesn't even realize has occured due to his magical possession. And Grima has convinced Theoden that he is old and feeble, and that he needs Grima's care, much like one of those mothers that poisons their own children so that they can play the part of a caring mother (See the film the Sixth Sense.) Gandalf arrives and is able to slowly convince Theoden that he is not as old as he thinks he is, and that there is still some glory to be won by fighting, even in the face of certain destruction, something that the film Theoden needs to be constantly reminded of by Aragorn throughout the rest of the film. I feel that this robs Theoden of much of his character, which in the books helps to serve as an example of the kind of king Gondor currently needs. Instead we get Theoden the dick, the kind of man that I question anyone would serve with much joy.
- In the film, Theoden almost kills Grima for his treachery, and has to be stopped by Aragorn. In the books Theoden, even in the face of Grima's lust for Eowyn, lets him leave with a horse. It is a sign of how much he depended on Grima, and trusted him, and speaks volumes about the difference between the "good guys" and the minions of Sauron.
- I like the scene in which Theoden grieves for his son, I just feel like it should have occurred before he was taken out of his stupor by Gandalf.
- Both Gandalf and Gimli protest the move to hold up at Helm's Deep, saying that Theoden will be leading the Rohirrim into a trap. But Helm's Deep is basically a fortress which Saruman will have to take to secure his conquest of Rohan. Going there and defending it, particularly since it is a fortress that has never fallen to an enemy, seems like a pretty good idea to me, especially considering that an open battle with the Uruk-Hai's numbers has so far proven to be suicide (Remember Theodred's death?)
- That said, Helm's Deep wasn't designed to house civilians, and since it stands in the path of Edoras I'm not certain why Theoden orders the population to converge there. In the books Eowyn is left in charge of the skeleton force to defend the city while the real troops head to head off Saruman's army. She bitterly resents this, since she is a warrior princess, and since she basically blends into the background once she arrives at Helm's Deep I'm not sure why they bothered dragging her there, except for help kill time with her romantic subplot with Aragorn.
- There is a warg attack in the books, but it occurs in The Fellowship of the Ring, after the Fellowship has left Rivendell. Here it just serves to kill a lot of time. Its unnecessary.
- The warg rider commander has some dialogue that apparently wasn't good enough to be in the film, but we can still see him clearly responding to Saruman's command to summon the warg riders before we close up on him. Its distracting.
- Frodo's seduction by the ring in this movie seems rather accelerated, as if the filmmakers wanted to make certain that we would understand its power, and realize the danger of Frodo becoming like Gollum. In the books, Frodo is literally the last person to be tempted by the ring, because he is a person (a hobbit rather) with a very strong sense of innocence and good, even more so than his uncle bilbo, who stole the ring from Gollum and lied about it to others. That, after all, is why Frodo is trusted to be the ring bearer, and it is why it is so horrifying to us when he finally does end up succumbing to its power in the heart of Mount Doom. For that reason I think that Frodo's early major warning signs that he too is a ring junkie in this film serve to lessen the impact of the more important moments which occur in Return of the King.
- There's no way around it guys, the Haradrim (literally Southrons) who appear in both this movie and the Return of the King are clearly white, but in the books they are very clearly black. I imagine this change was made in the hopes of not offending people of color, but since a majority of the films dread lock wearing uruks are black skinned I imagine that having actual black people would at least help to differentiate the from literal black skinned monsters. Additionally, the Haradrim costumes resemble too much those of the Easterlings seen earlier.
- Aragorn's flashback to time spent with Arwen actually brings us back to events that apparently took place during the Council of Elrond. This, again, wastes time and adds in the plot wrinkle that Aragorn doesn't feel like he can allow Arwen to stay in Middle Earth and watch him die, and that she should go with her people into the Undying Lands. This is merely a ploy to keep Arwen involved in the story, and to remind the audience why Aragorn isn't snogging with Eowyn. I don't completely dislike its inclusion in the film, but I think the sub plot concerning Arwen leaving for the Undying Lands could have been pared down considerably to save time.
- The wargs look like they've been rolled around in modeling flock, and more resemble a cross between a hyena and a bear than a large wolf, which is essentially what a warg is.
- Gimli is used a source of comedic relief in this film quite a bit, and for the most part I'm okay with that, but I draw the line at the scene in which Gimli is under a warg under a goblin under another warg. Its just too ridiculous.
- The eighth "false death" of these films is Aragorn being pulled off of a cliff by a warg whose harness he is stuck to. It is also the worst of the "false deaths," for two reasons: First of all, the warg battle doesn't occur in the books, so obviously there is no "Aragorn falls of a cliff pulled by a warg" scene in the book. Secondly, this particular "false death" gives birth to a whole slew of invented scenes which only serve to make the movie longer. I'll list them as they occur.
- "He fell." If someone you knew had died by falling off of cliff during a battle (during which people "fall in battle"), and someone else asked you what had happened to them, would you say this? It just sounds like a pun. Also Aragorn never should have gone over that cliff, so its wasting our time.
- Brego the wonder horse. Are you seriously telling me, Peter Jackson, that Aragorn's horse had the time and sense to go chasing down river after him? Wouldn't have some random Rohan soldier have collected Brego? Why is Aragorn's horse, which wasn't even his until a handful of days ago, so loyal to him? Oh right, because how else would Aragorn escape from this terrible subplot in time to deliver the message that Saruman is coming?
- Halfway through the film Galadriel recaps everything that is going on, as if we had forgotten what was going on, or had been in the bathroom for the last hour. One of the basic rules of film is that you should, whenever possible, show, not tell. And that's what the movie's been trying to do: Show us that Saruman is bad and is sending an army to destroy Rohan. People have been talking about it for the whole movie. We're not that stupid, are we? And if we are, do we even deserve to be watching movies? This speech, a sort of psychic cell phone call to Elrond also introduces the whole Elves come to the rescue sub plot, but more on that later.
- "The ring will go to Gondor." Actually, it shouldn't. And here's why: Because unlike his brother, Boromir, Faramir isn't a dick. At least he isn't in the books. I thought that the film did a good job of making him seem dangerous but essentially good, until he chooses not to let the hobbits go. For the Frodo and Sam plot line, this is the event that serves to stretch out their story so that they don't reach Shelob by the end of the film, and its a real disservice. I've seen the interviews in which the screenwriters call the character of Faramir in the books "boring," but I think they are missing the point. Faramir, not knowing what Frodo is carrying, tells him not to fear, that he would not use one of the Dark Lord's weapons even if it were lying by the highway. When he later learns of the ring, he is indeed severely tempted, but he stands by his earlier statement, realizing at last why his brother came to a bad end, and wishing that he had gone to the Council of Elrond in his brother's place. Basically, this does sort of happen in the film, but only after he's dragged Frodo, Sam, and Gollum all the way to Osgiliath, a place that the hobbits don't even visit in the books. Why? To "increase dramatic tension." Yeah...
- How do we know Saruman's forces are coming? Aragorn sees them approaching while he is traveling to Helm's Deep on Brego the wonder horse. But didn't we already know they were coming, when that little Rohirrim boy and girl rode to Edoras? Or when Gandalf said they were? Or how about when Theodred, the king's son, died after fighting Saruman's troops? Oh wait, we still have some time to kill.
- Of course we need a reunion scene, now that Aragorn is back from his "death," and we need to be reminded, again, that Eowyn loves Aragorn but he loves Arwen. Because we obviously forgot by now.
- Theoden continues to appear to be a dick as he prepares for the siege, refusing to send for help, and generally seeming as though he is being too overly optimistic in the face of Saruman's approaching horde. Couldn't he just have acted, you know, like a wise and noble king?
- Peter Jackson's kids are cute, and I loved seeing them dressed up as Hobbit children in the first film, but they really tend to stand out as refugees at Helm's Deep. Doesn't someone else have a pair of kids who need screen time?
- Theoden, still reluctant and unsure of himself is being dressed in his armor by Gamling when he asks, in a looney sounding voice, "and do you trust your king?" Frankly, my answer would be: Uh, not anymore, my kooky friend. I keep feeling like they were setting Theoden up to be totally incompetent, only to revert to the real Theoden in the next film.
- Elves at Helm's Deep. A lot of people love that the elves come to mankind's aid at Helm's Deep, but I don't. And here's why: First off, it kind of ruins the mystique of the whole "Last Alliance of Men and Elves" that defeated Sauron 2,500 years previously. Secondly: Elves, far reduced in number, wouldn't be able to spare troops to defend Gondor, let alone Rohan (which is basically a backwater kingdom), when their own homes are sure to be under siege by Sauron. In the books these Elves would have been defending Lothlorien from another ringwraith led army out of nearby Dol Guldur. Thirdly: The presence of Elves at Helm's Deep really calls into question the ability of Elves. Had these Elves really been present at this battle I would have thought that the Uruk-Hai wouldn't have stood a chance. An elf, after all, is worth possibly a hundred orcs in battle. To support this claim, consider Legolas: Sure, he's a prince among elves, but he's a good example of what elves are like. So why the heck do these Lorien elves die off in droves if they are all the near equal of Legolas? Oh, right, because the uruks are supposed to win the early part of this battle. Notice as well that no elves survive, at least that we can see, while scores of Rohirrim do. I find that rather hard to believe.
- Haldir, who is clearly a captain of Galadriel, brings word from Elrond of Rivendell? Shouldn't he bring word from his own boss, Galadriel? Whatever.
- No where in the description of the Battle of Helm's Deep does Tolkien state that Legolas slid down a flight of steps, surfing on a shield, and I find it rather ridiculous. Legolas is unbearably cool in the first film, and all without pulling off a crazy stunt like this, which seems jarringly modern. Frankly, I was hoping that Gimli would really come into his own in this battle, especially since he wins the orc slaying contest 42 to Legolas' 41, and is treated as a buffoon much of the time. Come on, Peter, couldn't you have given the dwarves their due?
- To kill more time, and to wrap all of the early climaxes of the film into one package, Jackson has the Ents decide not to fight, forcing Merry and Pippin to trick him into seeing Saruman's devastation to enter into the war. Never mind the fact that the entire reason they are holding the Entmoot in the books is because Treebeard wishes the Ents to stop Saruman's destruction of Fangorn forest.
- As stated in my earlier review of the Fellowship of the Ring, I marvel that we have time for the second part of the dwarf tossing sub plot, but not enough time for the actual events of the books.
- The whole episode with Frodo and Sam at Osgiliath, the former capital of Gondor, is wholly invented. The film makers even wink at us with Sam's line: "By rights we shouldn't even be here." While they are there, Frodo continues to go mad under the rings power too early, going loopy and offering one of the nazgul the one ring. Offering it to him! As far as I'm concerned, doing this really should have ended the quest, since you know for certain Sauron would bend all of his strength there to recover the ring, and Frodo and Sam would have never been able to pass through the Morgul vale. The secrecy of the ring's location is, after all, very important, and Sauron is currently distracted by the possibility that the ring may have fallen into Saruman's possession. Oh well, it made for a good visual at least, even though its patently ridiculous.
- Theoden continues to be incompetent, hesitating to evacuate the civilians, and seemingly certain that the end has come. The Theoden of the books still thought he was riding out to his death, but he was glad to have such a glorious ending after so long a time spent in inactivity.
- "What can men do against such reckless hate?" I don't know, Theoden, fight it maybe?
- After Theoden is finally brought out of his move long stupor, he and his handful of men bravely crash out of the Hornburg to slay as many uruks as they can. A glorious moment, but I have a hard time accepting the scene in which they ride down a causeway, knocking down at least a hundred uruks as they charge. A handful of uruks I could have accepted, but a hundred? And notice that not a single good guy gets knocked off either at this point? What, are their horses made out of titanium?
- I would have liked to see Saruman's remaining forces at least try to put something of a defense in the face of the ent attack.
- When the river rushes in to drown Isengard, the single ent that we saw lit on fire earlier rushes towards the water to put himself out. It always got a laugh from the audiences I saw this with, and this is not a scene I want to see played for laughs.
- Frodo almost kills Sam when he is brought out of his ring induced daze. Sorry Peter Jackson, but the time for this to occur is in The Return of the King, at the top of the Tower of Cirith Ungol, when Samwise has the ring and hesitates to give it back to Frodo. Placed here it just makes Frodo seem totally overwhelmed by the ring's power before they even entered Mordor.
- Sam's speech at the end of the film is poorly written, hackneyed, and sadly ruins a great moment that should have occurred in the film of Return of the King: Namely, the conversation about whether or not they will appear in stories someday which is placed onto the end of this stinker of a speech, and which immediately proceeds the scene with Shelob. More on this next time.
- Gandalf says that Sauron will be furious that Saruman's forces failed, but actually, Saruman isn't a huge part of Sauron's plan, and the two don't seem to be very closely allied in the books, but the film makers want to foreshadow the bigger threat to come in the next movie, so we somehow can see the angry flash of either Mount Doom or Sauron's eye from here.
- The plan Gollum comes up with at the end of the film (let Shelob kill Frodo and Sam and then steal the ring from their corpses) was actually his plan all along. That's why he suggested going through the pass of Cirith Ungol in the first place, back at the Black Gate. But since Frodo and Sam's story must end here, I guess they had to try and maintain the cliffhanger that they lost when they cut out the whole end of the book. Hmmm, maybe they shouldn't have done that.
Stay Tuned For Part Three: The Return of the King
The Two Towers is the part of the Lord of the Rings that was most radically changed in its adaptation from book to film, and in my opinion it was a change for the worse. The biggest change is the fact that the film version of the Two Towers ends shortly after the battle of Helm's Deep, with Frodo and Samwise on the road to the haunted city of Minas Morgul. For those who have not read the book, this is basically the same as cutting off the final third section of the story, and in the case of Frodo and Sam it really sells the entire series short.
If you haven't read the books, you may be thinking: "But wouldn't the Two Towers be an incredibly long movie?" The answer to this question is a resounding: No. For in changing events that happen halfway through the book into the climax (Helm's Deep, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum held prisoner by Faramir) meant that they then had to literally create more story to fill about an hour's length of film to build up to these events.
I'm not entirely sure why the film makers felt that this was anything resembling a good decision, especially because it creates a huge problem in the next film, The Return of the King. It also robs the film of the book's incredible cliffhanger, in which Gollum betrays Frodo and Sam to the giant spider Shelob, who "kills" Frodo. We are left with Samwise facing the near impossible task of rescuing Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol. Certainly a grim, Empire Strikes Back ending if there ever was one. People would have been dying to see the next film! Dying!
Yes, one of the reasons that the film makers did this was because the timelines of the two main stories (Fellowship remnants on one side and Frodo and Sam on the other) do not link perfectly up in the books, and Frodo and Sam's timeline would be way ahead of the other characters... But I imagine that most people watching the film would not notice this discrepancy. Frankly, the only place that it would really be noticeable would be the moment when Pippin and Gandalf see the signal from Minas Morgul light up the sky while Frodo and Sam cower at Minas Morgul's bridge.
But to go into much more detail:
- Right off the bat Frodo once again in treated to a magical close up of the eye of Sauron, which appears to have been slightly redesigned for this film, perhaps so that it does not appear so vagina like. I stand by my earlier statements about the overuse of Sauron's eye in these films.
- Andy Serkis delivers a wonderful performance as Gollum in this film, even though I'm predisposed to prefer the Brother Theodore version from the old Rankin Bass cartoons from the 80s, but I do have a few issues with the character. First, the Gollum of this film doesn't much resemble what little we saw of Gollum in the Fellowship of the Ring, and I like continuity. Second, his arrival seems rather abrupt. As previously stated, we haven't seen much of the character since the mines of Moria sequence. Would it have killed the film makers to have left in a little of the scenes in which Gollum continues to stalk the Fellowship? Since this film wasn't preceded by an adaptation of the Hobbit we can't just assume that the audience knows who Gollum is, exactly.
- I've always taken the title of the book the Two Towers to refer to the two towers which feature heavily in their climaxes: Namely, Orthanc and Cirith Ungol, the orc fortress near the lair of Shelob. Of course, since the film ends before our heroes reach these locations, Peter Jackson's writing team was forced to come up with an alliance between Saruman and Sauron and their respective towers. Nevermind, of course, that by trying to win the one ring for himself Saruman has essentially gone rogue from even Sauron's forces, and is now on no one's side but his own. But, hey, whatever.
- The burning of the Rohan village occurs shortly after Saruman's narration, and is basically the beginning of many scenes which were intended to add more subplots and complexity to the film so that the battle of Helm's Deep can serve as the climax. I don't know about you, but frankly I'd have rather seen the battle of the Fords of Isen, in which Theoden's son Theodred is mortally wounded. Theodred's death is very important to the story, so why not show us what happened rather than focus on a family of Rohan? With the obvious exception of the Hobbits, these books are not really about "the little guy." Showing us the Battle of the Fords of Isen also would have given us a good opportunity to see Saruman's forces win a battle, something they aren't very good at in these films.
- Probably in an effort to help set up the new characters coming into the story, we have a collection of scenes which introduces Eomer, Eowyn, Grima, and Theoden, leading up to Eomer's banishment. Frankly I would have rather met Eomer for the first time when we do in the books: With Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. All of the information covered in this section could have easily been handled in the way that it is in the books: At Edoras.
- More modern dialouge (see my review of The Fellowship of the Ring). I have a hard time hearing orcs say that they want to take "a breather" without then picturing them wearing spandex and getting in a few more reps at the stairmaster.
- "Looks like meat's back on the menu boys!" I don't know what kind of dining Uruk-Hai were used to back at Isengard, but I seriously doubt that they had menus. Actually, I doubt that anyone in middle earth, even the richest merchant, could eat at an establishment that had menus. This is prehistory we're talking about, remember?
- Eomer's sword falls out of its scabbard as he is about to ride away from Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas. This is actually a movie flub, but its very noticeable. Sure, they didn't put the sound of it clattering to the ground in the hopes that maybe we wouldn't see it, but I think a retake might have been in order. Isn't Eomer going to need that sword?
- The return of the "false death" trend continues with its seventh victim(s): Merry and Pippin who we believe have been killed in the battle between the Uruk-Hai and the Rohirrim. I actually really like the way Aragorn reconstructs what really happened, so I guess I'll let this one slide.
- When the Nazgul return "on wings," as Gollum says, do we really need to see a flashback of the Witchking stabbing Frodo scene? Did they honestly think that we would have forgotten this incident?
- I think the scene in which we first see the Black Gate (or the Morannon as it is more formally called) is rather abrupt. I'm sure that the Towers of the Teeth alone would have been visible for some time before they clamber up the rock to see it, accompanied by the blaring Mordor theme music. Couldn't we have had some more build up? C'mon Jackson, you're trying to kill time here, remember?
- Elvish cloaks do indeed make you hard to see, magically blending in well with both rock and stone, but I don't buy that a pair of Easterlings would be unable to see something right under their noses, no matter how good the cloaks. And perhaps its just the editing, but it looks like the two Easterlings are right on top of them even before they pull the cloak over themselves. This serves to chip away at the credibility of the bad guys, which is always a bad move in my book. In a scene that is supposed to basically crush the hopes of the characters entering Mordor conventionally, why do this? If it were this easy to hide then maybe Frodo and Sam are right about making some crazed dash for the Black Gate before it closes.
- By the way, I never pictured the Black Gate to be an actual gate in the conventional sense, but more of a massive wall with a gate built into it, flanked by towers.
- The scene in which Grima comes on to Eowyn clumsily is unnecessary, clumsily handled, and also slightly confusing. Its meant to show us that Grima, the master manipulator, knows Eowyn's dark side, but what is her dark side?
- Grima has a quartet of flunkies who apparently have managed to stop an entire court from coming to the aid of their king. I fight this concept to be ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is the fact that a fist fight breaks out in the king's chamber and some kind of alarm isn't raised to protect the king.
- In the books Theoden is not literally possessed by the spirit of Saurman. Its an interesting concept, and I love the way that Theoden morphs back into his own self, but frankly its a mistake. Why, do you ask? Well, for one thing it robs us of the real reasons that Theoden isn't doing anything about Saruman, which are then transplanted into later parts of the film, and just make Theoden generally seem like a dick. In the books Theoden is much like King Arthur, an older man who's kingdom is falling into ruin all around him, and who is languishing in despair when our heroes arrive. His son, Theodred is dead, an event which the movie Theoden doesn't even realize has occured due to his magical possession. And Grima has convinced Theoden that he is old and feeble, and that he needs Grima's care, much like one of those mothers that poisons their own children so that they can play the part of a caring mother (See the film the Sixth Sense.) Gandalf arrives and is able to slowly convince Theoden that he is not as old as he thinks he is, and that there is still some glory to be won by fighting, even in the face of certain destruction, something that the film Theoden needs to be constantly reminded of by Aragorn throughout the rest of the film. I feel that this robs Theoden of much of his character, which in the books helps to serve as an example of the kind of king Gondor currently needs. Instead we get Theoden the dick, the kind of man that I question anyone would serve with much joy.
- In the film, Theoden almost kills Grima for his treachery, and has to be stopped by Aragorn. In the books Theoden, even in the face of Grima's lust for Eowyn, lets him leave with a horse. It is a sign of how much he depended on Grima, and trusted him, and speaks volumes about the difference between the "good guys" and the minions of Sauron.
- I like the scene in which Theoden grieves for his son, I just feel like it should have occurred before he was taken out of his stupor by Gandalf.
- Both Gandalf and Gimli protest the move to hold up at Helm's Deep, saying that Theoden will be leading the Rohirrim into a trap. But Helm's Deep is basically a fortress which Saruman will have to take to secure his conquest of Rohan. Going there and defending it, particularly since it is a fortress that has never fallen to an enemy, seems like a pretty good idea to me, especially considering that an open battle with the Uruk-Hai's numbers has so far proven to be suicide (Remember Theodred's death?)
- That said, Helm's Deep wasn't designed to house civilians, and since it stands in the path of Edoras I'm not certain why Theoden orders the population to converge there. In the books Eowyn is left in charge of the skeleton force to defend the city while the real troops head to head off Saruman's army. She bitterly resents this, since she is a warrior princess, and since she basically blends into the background once she arrives at Helm's Deep I'm not sure why they bothered dragging her there, except for help kill time with her romantic subplot with Aragorn.
- There is a warg attack in the books, but it occurs in The Fellowship of the Ring, after the Fellowship has left Rivendell. Here it just serves to kill a lot of time. Its unnecessary.
- The warg rider commander has some dialogue that apparently wasn't good enough to be in the film, but we can still see him clearly responding to Saruman's command to summon the warg riders before we close up on him. Its distracting.
- Frodo's seduction by the ring in this movie seems rather accelerated, as if the filmmakers wanted to make certain that we would understand its power, and realize the danger of Frodo becoming like Gollum. In the books, Frodo is literally the last person to be tempted by the ring, because he is a person (a hobbit rather) with a very strong sense of innocence and good, even more so than his uncle bilbo, who stole the ring from Gollum and lied about it to others. That, after all, is why Frodo is trusted to be the ring bearer, and it is why it is so horrifying to us when he finally does end up succumbing to its power in the heart of Mount Doom. For that reason I think that Frodo's early major warning signs that he too is a ring junkie in this film serve to lessen the impact of the more important moments which occur in Return of the King.
- There's no way around it guys, the Haradrim (literally Southrons) who appear in both this movie and the Return of the King are clearly white, but in the books they are very clearly black. I imagine this change was made in the hopes of not offending people of color, but since a majority of the films dread lock wearing uruks are black skinned I imagine that having actual black people would at least help to differentiate the from literal black skinned monsters. Additionally, the Haradrim costumes resemble too much those of the Easterlings seen earlier.
- Aragorn's flashback to time spent with Arwen actually brings us back to events that apparently took place during the Council of Elrond. This, again, wastes time and adds in the plot wrinkle that Aragorn doesn't feel like he can allow Arwen to stay in Middle Earth and watch him die, and that she should go with her people into the Undying Lands. This is merely a ploy to keep Arwen involved in the story, and to remind the audience why Aragorn isn't snogging with Eowyn. I don't completely dislike its inclusion in the film, but I think the sub plot concerning Arwen leaving for the Undying Lands could have been pared down considerably to save time.
- The wargs look like they've been rolled around in modeling flock, and more resemble a cross between a hyena and a bear than a large wolf, which is essentially what a warg is.
- Gimli is used a source of comedic relief in this film quite a bit, and for the most part I'm okay with that, but I draw the line at the scene in which Gimli is under a warg under a goblin under another warg. Its just too ridiculous.
- The eighth "false death" of these films is Aragorn being pulled off of a cliff by a warg whose harness he is stuck to. It is also the worst of the "false deaths," for two reasons: First of all, the warg battle doesn't occur in the books, so obviously there is no "Aragorn falls of a cliff pulled by a warg" scene in the book. Secondly, this particular "false death" gives birth to a whole slew of invented scenes which only serve to make the movie longer. I'll list them as they occur.
- "He fell." If someone you knew had died by falling off of cliff during a battle (during which people "fall in battle"), and someone else asked you what had happened to them, would you say this? It just sounds like a pun. Also Aragorn never should have gone over that cliff, so its wasting our time.
- Brego the wonder horse. Are you seriously telling me, Peter Jackson, that Aragorn's horse had the time and sense to go chasing down river after him? Wouldn't have some random Rohan soldier have collected Brego? Why is Aragorn's horse, which wasn't even his until a handful of days ago, so loyal to him? Oh right, because how else would Aragorn escape from this terrible subplot in time to deliver the message that Saruman is coming?
- Halfway through the film Galadriel recaps everything that is going on, as if we had forgotten what was going on, or had been in the bathroom for the last hour. One of the basic rules of film is that you should, whenever possible, show, not tell. And that's what the movie's been trying to do: Show us that Saruman is bad and is sending an army to destroy Rohan. People have been talking about it for the whole movie. We're not that stupid, are we? And if we are, do we even deserve to be watching movies? This speech, a sort of psychic cell phone call to Elrond also introduces the whole Elves come to the rescue sub plot, but more on that later.
- "The ring will go to Gondor." Actually, it shouldn't. And here's why: Because unlike his brother, Boromir, Faramir isn't a dick. At least he isn't in the books. I thought that the film did a good job of making him seem dangerous but essentially good, until he chooses not to let the hobbits go. For the Frodo and Sam plot line, this is the event that serves to stretch out their story so that they don't reach Shelob by the end of the film, and its a real disservice. I've seen the interviews in which the screenwriters call the character of Faramir in the books "boring," but I think they are missing the point. Faramir, not knowing what Frodo is carrying, tells him not to fear, that he would not use one of the Dark Lord's weapons even if it were lying by the highway. When he later learns of the ring, he is indeed severely tempted, but he stands by his earlier statement, realizing at last why his brother came to a bad end, and wishing that he had gone to the Council of Elrond in his brother's place. Basically, this does sort of happen in the film, but only after he's dragged Frodo, Sam, and Gollum all the way to Osgiliath, a place that the hobbits don't even visit in the books. Why? To "increase dramatic tension." Yeah...
- How do we know Saruman's forces are coming? Aragorn sees them approaching while he is traveling to Helm's Deep on Brego the wonder horse. But didn't we already know they were coming, when that little Rohirrim boy and girl rode to Edoras? Or when Gandalf said they were? Or how about when Theodred, the king's son, died after fighting Saruman's troops? Oh wait, we still have some time to kill.
- Of course we need a reunion scene, now that Aragorn is back from his "death," and we need to be reminded, again, that Eowyn loves Aragorn but he loves Arwen. Because we obviously forgot by now.
- Theoden continues to appear to be a dick as he prepares for the siege, refusing to send for help, and generally seeming as though he is being too overly optimistic in the face of Saruman's approaching horde. Couldn't he just have acted, you know, like a wise and noble king?
- Peter Jackson's kids are cute, and I loved seeing them dressed up as Hobbit children in the first film, but they really tend to stand out as refugees at Helm's Deep. Doesn't someone else have a pair of kids who need screen time?
- Theoden, still reluctant and unsure of himself is being dressed in his armor by Gamling when he asks, in a looney sounding voice, "and do you trust your king?" Frankly, my answer would be: Uh, not anymore, my kooky friend. I keep feeling like they were setting Theoden up to be totally incompetent, only to revert to the real Theoden in the next film.
- Elves at Helm's Deep. A lot of people love that the elves come to mankind's aid at Helm's Deep, but I don't. And here's why: First off, it kind of ruins the mystique of the whole "Last Alliance of Men and Elves" that defeated Sauron 2,500 years previously. Secondly: Elves, far reduced in number, wouldn't be able to spare troops to defend Gondor, let alone Rohan (which is basically a backwater kingdom), when their own homes are sure to be under siege by Sauron. In the books these Elves would have been defending Lothlorien from another ringwraith led army out of nearby Dol Guldur. Thirdly: The presence of Elves at Helm's Deep really calls into question the ability of Elves. Had these Elves really been present at this battle I would have thought that the Uruk-Hai wouldn't have stood a chance. An elf, after all, is worth possibly a hundred orcs in battle. To support this claim, consider Legolas: Sure, he's a prince among elves, but he's a good example of what elves are like. So why the heck do these Lorien elves die off in droves if they are all the near equal of Legolas? Oh, right, because the uruks are supposed to win the early part of this battle. Notice as well that no elves survive, at least that we can see, while scores of Rohirrim do. I find that rather hard to believe.
- Haldir, who is clearly a captain of Galadriel, brings word from Elrond of Rivendell? Shouldn't he bring word from his own boss, Galadriel? Whatever.
- No where in the description of the Battle of Helm's Deep does Tolkien state that Legolas slid down a flight of steps, surfing on a shield, and I find it rather ridiculous. Legolas is unbearably cool in the first film, and all without pulling off a crazy stunt like this, which seems jarringly modern. Frankly, I was hoping that Gimli would really come into his own in this battle, especially since he wins the orc slaying contest 42 to Legolas' 41, and is treated as a buffoon much of the time. Come on, Peter, couldn't you have given the dwarves their due?
- To kill more time, and to wrap all of the early climaxes of the film into one package, Jackson has the Ents decide not to fight, forcing Merry and Pippin to trick him into seeing Saruman's devastation to enter into the war. Never mind the fact that the entire reason they are holding the Entmoot in the books is because Treebeard wishes the Ents to stop Saruman's destruction of Fangorn forest.
- As stated in my earlier review of the Fellowship of the Ring, I marvel that we have time for the second part of the dwarf tossing sub plot, but not enough time for the actual events of the books.
- The whole episode with Frodo and Sam at Osgiliath, the former capital of Gondor, is wholly invented. The film makers even wink at us with Sam's line: "By rights we shouldn't even be here." While they are there, Frodo continues to go mad under the rings power too early, going loopy and offering one of the nazgul the one ring. Offering it to him! As far as I'm concerned, doing this really should have ended the quest, since you know for certain Sauron would bend all of his strength there to recover the ring, and Frodo and Sam would have never been able to pass through the Morgul vale. The secrecy of the ring's location is, after all, very important, and Sauron is currently distracted by the possibility that the ring may have fallen into Saruman's possession. Oh well, it made for a good visual at least, even though its patently ridiculous.
- Theoden continues to be incompetent, hesitating to evacuate the civilians, and seemingly certain that the end has come. The Theoden of the books still thought he was riding out to his death, but he was glad to have such a glorious ending after so long a time spent in inactivity.
- "What can men do against such reckless hate?" I don't know, Theoden, fight it maybe?
- After Theoden is finally brought out of his move long stupor, he and his handful of men bravely crash out of the Hornburg to slay as many uruks as they can. A glorious moment, but I have a hard time accepting the scene in which they ride down a causeway, knocking down at least a hundred uruks as they charge. A handful of uruks I could have accepted, but a hundred? And notice that not a single good guy gets knocked off either at this point? What, are their horses made out of titanium?
- I would have liked to see Saruman's remaining forces at least try to put something of a defense in the face of the ent attack.
- When the river rushes in to drown Isengard, the single ent that we saw lit on fire earlier rushes towards the water to put himself out. It always got a laugh from the audiences I saw this with, and this is not a scene I want to see played for laughs.
- Frodo almost kills Sam when he is brought out of his ring induced daze. Sorry Peter Jackson, but the time for this to occur is in The Return of the King, at the top of the Tower of Cirith Ungol, when Samwise has the ring and hesitates to give it back to Frodo. Placed here it just makes Frodo seem totally overwhelmed by the ring's power before they even entered Mordor.
- Sam's speech at the end of the film is poorly written, hackneyed, and sadly ruins a great moment that should have occurred in the film of Return of the King: Namely, the conversation about whether or not they will appear in stories someday which is placed onto the end of this stinker of a speech, and which immediately proceeds the scene with Shelob. More on this next time.
- Gandalf says that Sauron will be furious that Saruman's forces failed, but actually, Saruman isn't a huge part of Sauron's plan, and the two don't seem to be very closely allied in the books, but the film makers want to foreshadow the bigger threat to come in the next movie, so we somehow can see the angry flash of either Mount Doom or Sauron's eye from here.
- The plan Gollum comes up with at the end of the film (let Shelob kill Frodo and Sam and then steal the ring from their corpses) was actually his plan all along. That's why he suggested going through the pass of Cirith Ungol in the first place, back at the Black Gate. But since Frodo and Sam's story must end here, I guess they had to try and maintain the cliffhanger that they lost when they cut out the whole end of the book. Hmmm, maybe they shouldn't have done that.
Stay Tuned For Part Three: The Return of the King
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Criticisms of the Lord of the Rings Film Trilogy - Part One
Since I was but a little tyke, I've been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkein's The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was the first real book that I read to myself, and that's probably had a huge impact on my continued love of fantasy as a genre into my adult life. In the years before the films came out, I would re-read Lord of the Rings (or LOTR as it is often called, to save time,) every year. Only those who have known me for a long time would remember that the original reason I went to college pursuing a degree in film was because of my life long dream of adapting the Lord of the Rings to the big screen.
So it was with great and bitter disappointment that I learned, in 1997, still in the spring semester of my freshman year of college, that Peter Jackson, the film maker behind The Frighteners, had attained the rights to produce his own adaption. I hadn't even really begun my film development education before I lost all interest in the field due to this news. I hadn't realized how much I had put all of my eggs into one basket, so to speak, but without the dream of a LOTR film of my very own, I had had enough of film school. And yet, there were three years still to go. I eventually thought about doing some other projects, and if you'd like to see the films that came out as if in answer to my working on a script for a pretty much completely similar project go rent Election, Underworld, and Troy. Actually, in the case of Underworld and Troy, don't.
In retrospect, much like my friend John Davies' plan to make a big budget film about the sinking of the Titanic, I am comforted that my squelched dream would have been worth a shit load of money at the very least.
Despite this, and the obviously negative title of this piece, you should know that I was a huge fan of Peter Jackson's adaption of the Lord of the Rings. Its a daunting task to try and encapsulate Tolkein's book into three films, even ones that run over two and a half hours long, and I enjoyed them greatly when they came out on the big screen. The promise of a new Lord of the Rings film to look forward to each year made the grueling years of 2001-2003 pass by quite easily. Probably highest amongst the film's strengths is the stunning work of WETA, the workshop which designed and produced the costumes, sets, models and computer generated images for these films. For the most part, I couldn't have asked for more in the way the films looked. And let's not forget to mention that the cast is pretty much perfect, especially Ian McKellen as Gandalf.
That said, having been a fan of LOTR since I was seven years old has made me hard to please, and since I had been picturing my own version of this film for years, I've never been able to watch the films without my criticisms echoing in my head. In conversation after conversation I've bitched and moaned about the LOTR films, and its time for it to stop. Not because I don't enjoy it, but because its wasting too much of my time.
So, in an effort to waste less time complaining about LOTR, here are my main criticisms of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy:
PART ONE - THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
This was, and still is, my favorite of the films, mainly because it is the one that is most true to the book on which it is based. This is odd, because if you've read LOTR you would know that the Two Towers and the Return of the King are by far the more cinematic of the books. Fellowship, on the other hand, is a very long, rambling narrative, and its not until Moria that the quest to destroy the ring picks up steam. But yet the film does a very admirable job of juggling between pulling back to show us the big picture while keeping ourselves grounded to the plight of the ring bearer.
There's a lot of great moments in this film, but the following are not some of them.
- "One by one, the free lands of Middle Earth fell to the power of the ring." So intones Galadriel in the film's prolouge, while a burning village in superimposed over a map of middle earth. Yet even the first time I watched the film I couldn't help but notice that the village very closely resembled the architecture of the country of Rohan, which figures so prominently in The Two Towers. Mind you, Rohan as a country didn't exist until after the "Last Alliance of Elves and Men" defeated Sauron at the end of the Second Age. So are we to believe that Sauron's forces somehow travelled through time and sacked a village of Rohan? Or, the more likely answer, that someone felt the need to show bad guys burning shit down for a few brief seconds, and they didn't want to go to the trouble of building another set? When Saruman's orcs and wild men burn down villages in the film of the Two Towers, I realized that this was where this footage had come from. It always serves to pull me out of the moment, no matter how many times I see it.
- When the ring is cut from Sauron's finger he begins to glow with the heat of a thousand suns, and then explodes in a shock wave that apparently knocks down all of the armies currently battling. I thought that this was overkill when I first saw it, and wondered how anyone at the epicenter of the blast could have survived, particularly Isildur. My feelings on this were further compounded when the eye of Sauron explodes in a similar shockwave in the third film, shattering the dark tower into a million pieces.
- "The Shire... 60 Years Later" After going through all the trouble of setting up the story in the beautiful prolouge, the film makers apparently decide that we might not realize that many years had passed since Bilbo Baggins found the ring in Gollum's cave, and add in this jarring message at the bottom of the screen, right after the title of the film. We discover this information later when Gandalf sees Bilbo again for the first time in many years and comments that he hasn't aged a day. Not only does this insult our intelligence, it also is presented in a font that seems totally out of place in these films.
- In the books Sauron's symbol is indeed a yellow eye, with a black slit for a pupil, rimmed with fire, and it is this fashion that he is perceived by Frodo the few times that he appears at all in the books. However, it is clear that Sauron is not physically a flaming eye. He is still takes the shape of a terrible dark lord, missing a finger from the hand on which he wore the ring. This image is important because, if you've read the books and seen the films you would know that Frodo also eventually loses the finger on which he wore the ring, creating some interesting connections between the dark lord and Frodo much like Harry Potter and Voldemort. What is more, in the books it takes Frodo quite awhile to finally see, naked and lidless, Sauron's eye. At first it appears to be a red star in the east, but as he approaches Mordor, and the burden of the ring grows heavier, the veils of shadow are stripped until Frodo vocally despairs to Sam that there is no veil between him and "ring of fire." Contrast this to the film, in which Sauron's eye appears again and again, starting with the brief flash as Gandalf's fingers come close to picking up the ring of power. This overkill strips Sauron of much of his mystique, and it doesn't help that his eye often looks to be nothing more than a giant flaming vagina.
- There are a number of annoying trends in the LOTR films, and one of them is the fact that the editors don't seem to believe that we will remember what happened earlier in the movie, particularly when it comes to Isildur's recovery of the ring from Sauron. The first time this happens is when Gandalf is researching the ring, so its pretty forgivable, but more on this later.
- One of the my biggest problems with the LOTR films is that Peter Jackson seems to feel that the only way to ramp up the tension of certain scenes is to make us think that a main character might have died, and then to reveal that, in fact, they didn't. Surprise! The problem with this technique is that it lessens the impact of the book's actual "false death" moments, particularly the biggest one of the whole story: Frodo "dying" after being stung by the giant spider Shelob. More on this later... But for now let me just bring up the first "false death" of the film: Gandalf being hurled towards the ceiling of Isengard by Saruman. Every time i see this film with someone who doesn't know the story, they invariably turn to me and ask: "Is Gandalf dead?" And I always say: "I guess you'll just have to find out."
- When Frodo puts on the ring at the inn of the Prancing Pony in Bree he apparently attracts the direct attention of Sauron himself, who apparently has something of a sense of humor, saying: "Ah. I see you." Get it? I / Eye see you? Ha. Aren't the Nazgul, who are drawn to the ring's power, threat enough? This scene is overkill, and highlights the overuse of the flaming eye as discussed above.
- The second "false death" scene of the trilogy occurs when we are meant to think that the Nazgul are stabbing our heroes while they are asleep in their beds. I don't have a problem with this particular scene, but I just wanted to keep track of how many times that "false death" occurs.
- I don't like the orc costumes in the scene in which Saruman begins to chop down the trees around Isengard. A nitpick to be sure, but since these are the first orcs we've really seen close up, that have actual lines beyond snarling, I would have liked better designs. In general the generic orcs in the film trilogy are nowhere near as intimidating as the Uruk-Hai, which makes sense, but after the climax of the Two Towers it makes the threat of Sauron's orc hordes seem less threatening. More on this later.
- Arwen wears different costumes in the first two shots in which she appears. The reason for this is that Frodo, having been stabbed by the poisoned Morgul blade, is seeing things on a more "pure level," much like the ring wraiths themselves. Its an interesting touch, but to tell the truth, I find the costume change kind of distracting, and I like the "real world" outfit that Arwen wears much better than her "wraith vision" dress.
- Apparently the Lord of the Nazgul, Sauron's second in command and a serious badass by all accounts, sounds a lot like Dr. Claw from the old Inspector Gadget cartoon. Trust me guys, there's nothing intimidating about the Dr. Claw voice.
- Third "false death" of the film: Frodo falls off of his horse, almost succumbing to the poison of the Witch King's blade. This is the first time in the books that we are led to believe that a main character might have died, though in the book (and the movie, to be fair) its pretty clear that he's blacking out. If you'll notice, it is at this point that Arwen chooses to pass on her immortality to Frodo, something which occurs after the ring has been destroyed and Frodo is hanging out in Minas Tirith in the books.
- I hate hate hate the weird overexposed shots of Frodo's head floating through a series of Rivendell backgrounds while Elrond's head appears as he attempts to heal him. The only thing I like about it is the way it ends.
- The second flashback to Isildur gaining possession of the one ring takes place while Elrond goes on about the weakness of men to Gandalf. Again, its forgivable at this point, especially since it adds a little bit more to the story and shows us the interior of Mount Doom... But more on this later.
- The Aragorn of the books may be a ranger, but by the time he leaves Rivendell he's pretty much ready to reclaim the throne of Gondor, with the reforged Narsil in his hands. Not so in the films, which give us the "Aragorn the reluctant king" plot line. I can see why Peter Jackson did this, and I actually think it works pretty well in this film, but the bottom line is that a subplot about Aragorn being unwilling or unsure of himself does nothing but eat up precious time, time which could have been spent covering events that did occur in the books, as we will see later.
- For the most part I find the dialogue of the LOTR films to be pretty decent, even though its a completely dumbed down version of the language of the books. But there's some points which stand out to me as glaringly modern. And the first is when, at the end of the Council of Elrond, Pippin states that the Fellowship of the Ring is going to need someone of intelligence on their: "Mission- Quest- Thing-" Thanks for ruining an otherwise epic moment Pippin. Dick.
- In the book, when Bilbo becomes much like Gollum in his desire for the ring, the transformation from kindly hobbit to a grasping, pathetic creature is quite sad. In the film this moment is played as a "gotcha" moment, in which Bilbo's face morphs into that of a Gollum-like monster. I would have preferred the sadder, less ostentatious approach, especially since Peter Jackson had master thespian Ian Holm to work with.
- I love the Cave Troll scene, but i hate the use of shaky camera movements in battles that take place before the invention of the camera.
- I also think that the computer generated Legolas who runs on top of the Cave Troll looks like shit, especially when he jumps off in the foreground of the camera.
- Fourth "false death:" Frodo is stabbed by the spear wielding Cave Troll. For some reason this particular "false death" is really played up. We don't just go into slow motion, we go into that terrible jerky slow motion that means that they didn't intend to use slow motion but just slowed down the film in the editing suite (hey, I had to learn something in film school!) And of course, we know that Frodo is wearing the mithril shirt, don't we? He's never really in much danger beyond getting a really big bruise from the impact of the spear point, right? So why the sad music, the super slow motion, all of the dramatic tension? Wasn't Frodo already stabbed in this film by the Witch King? Was that not dramatic enough for you, Jackson?
- Modern language: "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" I admit that I find this funny, but, for real? A joke about dwarf tossing, which is a bar attraction common to England and Australia in which patrons toss dwarfs in padded clothing across the room, to see who can throw the dwarf the farthest? The worst part about this line is that it is actually the beginning of a sub-plot which will be resolved in the Two Towers...
- Fifth "false death" is, of course, at the end of the Gandalf versus the Balrog scene. My only problem with this scene is that it makes it seem as though Gandalf, an angelic being who only appears to be an old man who is on par with Sauron in terms of personal power, can not do one single pull up. Now, maybe he's just using this opportunity to fight the Balrog, since someone was going to have to deal with it sooner or later, but I find that unlikely. Also, why the hell is Boromir stopping Frodo from helping Gandalf pick himself up?
- The bulk of my criticisms of The Fellowship of the Ring seem to lie in the way that Galadriel is handled. I don't mind at all the attempt to make her more sinister, but I do mind that it is done in such a heavy handed way, starting with her whispering in Frodo's mind within moments of entering her woods, to the over the top moment in which she says, "One who has seen the eye!" while flashing her own eyes as if to say: Hey, just in case you forgot what eyes looked like, here's my own impression of Sauron. But with two eyes instead of one. But, moving on...
- In the books the main reason that Galadriel shows Frodo (and Sam!) the Mirror of Galadriel is to test their resolve to carry out the quest assigned to them. In the movie I'm not quite sure what the point is, except to have Sauron's flaming eye show up again and for Galadriel to start talking like a man while being buffeted by a wind machine and overacting. All of the things that they see in the mirror in the book are clearly prophetic, and all of them happen. For instance, Samwise sees Frodo lying asleep, having been stung by Shelob, but doesn't understand what he's seen until he sees it again. It is Samwise who sees the ruin of the shire, which, unlike in the films, does occur, and Samwise is faced with the choice of leaving the quest to attempt to return to the shire to put things right. Frodo sees visions of the sea, which foreshadow his eventual voyage to the undying lands. And of course, this is the first time that Frodo perceives that the light in the east that he has been noticing since the quest began may just in fact be an eye, which is searching for him. All of this subtle meaning is lost in the film, cut down to the simple warning that if the quest fails the world will suffer under Sauron's rule. Well, no shit, Galadriel.
- Frodo, of course, turns the tables on Galadriel and offers her the ring, an act that seriously tests her own resolve. Much like the Bilbo/Gollum "gotcha" moment, I really would have preferred to see Cate Blanchett just play this scene straight, with very little special effects. Much like the tempting of Gandalf earlier, it shows us the power the ring has over the minds of even the mighty, and could have been one of the film's best moments. Instead we are overwhelmed by an overblown, shouted monologue.
- We could have spared the two minutes to include Galadriel's gift giving scene to the Fellowship. How else do we know from whence came Sam's elf rope, the hobbit's cloaks, and of course Gimli getting a lock of Galadriel's hair, which is such a sweet detail from the book.
- More jerky slow motion appears while Lurtz the Uruk commander searches for the Fellowship. Its not edgy, guys, its just poorly done.
- When Frodo's vision is magically enhanced by the "seat of seeing" that he is gripping onto in the film, and he sees for the first time the dark tower, I wish that they hadn't once again resorted to the flaming eye of Sauron filling the screen.
- In the film there is a great scene where Frodo explains to Aragorn why he must leave them. Its not in the books, and its a good addition that builds tension and allows Frodo to flee without us feeling like he abandoned his friends. Why then must he stop on the shore and once again have an angst filled moment in which he wishes the ring had never come to him, only to be answered by Gandalf's voice, repeating a line from earlier in the film, which gives him the hope to carry on? He already made the decision to go, so go already! I would have axed this scene, particularly in the interest of time, and just gotten him in the damn boat with Sam crashing after him.
- The sixth, and final "false death" of the film is Samwise almost drowning as he attempts to reach Frodo's boat. This does happen in the books, sort of, but Frodo reacts quickly enough that Sam is, again, in no real danger. The Samwise of the books certainly doesn't stop struggling and sink into the water, his face looking as though he has drowned. Sure, the shot of Frodo's hand grabbing Sam's which then grabs onto his is a nice shot, but by this point, which occurs after the death of Boromir, our emotions have been toyed with enough. Boromir was shot by three honking big arrows before he went down, and you expect us to believe that Samwise is going to drown for no good reason?
- "Let's hunt some orc!" Again, this totally pulls me out of the movie every time I hear it. As far as I'm concerned, he might as well have said, "Let's pick up some burgers before we go!"
Stay Tuned For Part Two: The Two Towers
So it was with great and bitter disappointment that I learned, in 1997, still in the spring semester of my freshman year of college, that Peter Jackson, the film maker behind The Frighteners, had attained the rights to produce his own adaption. I hadn't even really begun my film development education before I lost all interest in the field due to this news. I hadn't realized how much I had put all of my eggs into one basket, so to speak, but without the dream of a LOTR film of my very own, I had had enough of film school. And yet, there were three years still to go. I eventually thought about doing some other projects, and if you'd like to see the films that came out as if in answer to my working on a script for a pretty much completely similar project go rent Election, Underworld, and Troy. Actually, in the case of Underworld and Troy, don't.
In retrospect, much like my friend John Davies' plan to make a big budget film about the sinking of the Titanic, I am comforted that my squelched dream would have been worth a shit load of money at the very least.
Despite this, and the obviously negative title of this piece, you should know that I was a huge fan of Peter Jackson's adaption of the Lord of the Rings. Its a daunting task to try and encapsulate Tolkein's book into three films, even ones that run over two and a half hours long, and I enjoyed them greatly when they came out on the big screen. The promise of a new Lord of the Rings film to look forward to each year made the grueling years of 2001-2003 pass by quite easily. Probably highest amongst the film's strengths is the stunning work of WETA, the workshop which designed and produced the costumes, sets, models and computer generated images for these films. For the most part, I couldn't have asked for more in the way the films looked. And let's not forget to mention that the cast is pretty much perfect, especially Ian McKellen as Gandalf.
That said, having been a fan of LOTR since I was seven years old has made me hard to please, and since I had been picturing my own version of this film for years, I've never been able to watch the films without my criticisms echoing in my head. In conversation after conversation I've bitched and moaned about the LOTR films, and its time for it to stop. Not because I don't enjoy it, but because its wasting too much of my time.
So, in an effort to waste less time complaining about LOTR, here are my main criticisms of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy:
PART ONE - THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
This was, and still is, my favorite of the films, mainly because it is the one that is most true to the book on which it is based. This is odd, because if you've read LOTR you would know that the Two Towers and the Return of the King are by far the more cinematic of the books. Fellowship, on the other hand, is a very long, rambling narrative, and its not until Moria that the quest to destroy the ring picks up steam. But yet the film does a very admirable job of juggling between pulling back to show us the big picture while keeping ourselves grounded to the plight of the ring bearer.
There's a lot of great moments in this film, but the following are not some of them.
- "One by one, the free lands of Middle Earth fell to the power of the ring." So intones Galadriel in the film's prolouge, while a burning village in superimposed over a map of middle earth. Yet even the first time I watched the film I couldn't help but notice that the village very closely resembled the architecture of the country of Rohan, which figures so prominently in The Two Towers. Mind you, Rohan as a country didn't exist until after the "Last Alliance of Elves and Men" defeated Sauron at the end of the Second Age. So are we to believe that Sauron's forces somehow travelled through time and sacked a village of Rohan? Or, the more likely answer, that someone felt the need to show bad guys burning shit down for a few brief seconds, and they didn't want to go to the trouble of building another set? When Saruman's orcs and wild men burn down villages in the film of the Two Towers, I realized that this was where this footage had come from. It always serves to pull me out of the moment, no matter how many times I see it.
- When the ring is cut from Sauron's finger he begins to glow with the heat of a thousand suns, and then explodes in a shock wave that apparently knocks down all of the armies currently battling. I thought that this was overkill when I first saw it, and wondered how anyone at the epicenter of the blast could have survived, particularly Isildur. My feelings on this were further compounded when the eye of Sauron explodes in a similar shockwave in the third film, shattering the dark tower into a million pieces.
- "The Shire... 60 Years Later" After going through all the trouble of setting up the story in the beautiful prolouge, the film makers apparently decide that we might not realize that many years had passed since Bilbo Baggins found the ring in Gollum's cave, and add in this jarring message at the bottom of the screen, right after the title of the film. We discover this information later when Gandalf sees Bilbo again for the first time in many years and comments that he hasn't aged a day. Not only does this insult our intelligence, it also is presented in a font that seems totally out of place in these films.
- In the books Sauron's symbol is indeed a yellow eye, with a black slit for a pupil, rimmed with fire, and it is this fashion that he is perceived by Frodo the few times that he appears at all in the books. However, it is clear that Sauron is not physically a flaming eye. He is still takes the shape of a terrible dark lord, missing a finger from the hand on which he wore the ring. This image is important because, if you've read the books and seen the films you would know that Frodo also eventually loses the finger on which he wore the ring, creating some interesting connections between the dark lord and Frodo much like Harry Potter and Voldemort. What is more, in the books it takes Frodo quite awhile to finally see, naked and lidless, Sauron's eye. At first it appears to be a red star in the east, but as he approaches Mordor, and the burden of the ring grows heavier, the veils of shadow are stripped until Frodo vocally despairs to Sam that there is no veil between him and "ring of fire." Contrast this to the film, in which Sauron's eye appears again and again, starting with the brief flash as Gandalf's fingers come close to picking up the ring of power. This overkill strips Sauron of much of his mystique, and it doesn't help that his eye often looks to be nothing more than a giant flaming vagina.
- There are a number of annoying trends in the LOTR films, and one of them is the fact that the editors don't seem to believe that we will remember what happened earlier in the movie, particularly when it comes to Isildur's recovery of the ring from Sauron. The first time this happens is when Gandalf is researching the ring, so its pretty forgivable, but more on this later.
- One of the my biggest problems with the LOTR films is that Peter Jackson seems to feel that the only way to ramp up the tension of certain scenes is to make us think that a main character might have died, and then to reveal that, in fact, they didn't. Surprise! The problem with this technique is that it lessens the impact of the book's actual "false death" moments, particularly the biggest one of the whole story: Frodo "dying" after being stung by the giant spider Shelob. More on this later... But for now let me just bring up the first "false death" of the film: Gandalf being hurled towards the ceiling of Isengard by Saruman. Every time i see this film with someone who doesn't know the story, they invariably turn to me and ask: "Is Gandalf dead?" And I always say: "I guess you'll just have to find out."
- When Frodo puts on the ring at the inn of the Prancing Pony in Bree he apparently attracts the direct attention of Sauron himself, who apparently has something of a sense of humor, saying: "Ah. I see you." Get it? I / Eye see you? Ha. Aren't the Nazgul, who are drawn to the ring's power, threat enough? This scene is overkill, and highlights the overuse of the flaming eye as discussed above.
- The second "false death" scene of the trilogy occurs when we are meant to think that the Nazgul are stabbing our heroes while they are asleep in their beds. I don't have a problem with this particular scene, but I just wanted to keep track of how many times that "false death" occurs.
- I don't like the orc costumes in the scene in which Saruman begins to chop down the trees around Isengard. A nitpick to be sure, but since these are the first orcs we've really seen close up, that have actual lines beyond snarling, I would have liked better designs. In general the generic orcs in the film trilogy are nowhere near as intimidating as the Uruk-Hai, which makes sense, but after the climax of the Two Towers it makes the threat of Sauron's orc hordes seem less threatening. More on this later.
- Arwen wears different costumes in the first two shots in which she appears. The reason for this is that Frodo, having been stabbed by the poisoned Morgul blade, is seeing things on a more "pure level," much like the ring wraiths themselves. Its an interesting touch, but to tell the truth, I find the costume change kind of distracting, and I like the "real world" outfit that Arwen wears much better than her "wraith vision" dress.
- Apparently the Lord of the Nazgul, Sauron's second in command and a serious badass by all accounts, sounds a lot like Dr. Claw from the old Inspector Gadget cartoon. Trust me guys, there's nothing intimidating about the Dr. Claw voice.
- Third "false death" of the film: Frodo falls off of his horse, almost succumbing to the poison of the Witch King's blade. This is the first time in the books that we are led to believe that a main character might have died, though in the book (and the movie, to be fair) its pretty clear that he's blacking out. If you'll notice, it is at this point that Arwen chooses to pass on her immortality to Frodo, something which occurs after the ring has been destroyed and Frodo is hanging out in Minas Tirith in the books.
- I hate hate hate the weird overexposed shots of Frodo's head floating through a series of Rivendell backgrounds while Elrond's head appears as he attempts to heal him. The only thing I like about it is the way it ends.
- The second flashback to Isildur gaining possession of the one ring takes place while Elrond goes on about the weakness of men to Gandalf. Again, its forgivable at this point, especially since it adds a little bit more to the story and shows us the interior of Mount Doom... But more on this later.
- The Aragorn of the books may be a ranger, but by the time he leaves Rivendell he's pretty much ready to reclaim the throne of Gondor, with the reforged Narsil in his hands. Not so in the films, which give us the "Aragorn the reluctant king" plot line. I can see why Peter Jackson did this, and I actually think it works pretty well in this film, but the bottom line is that a subplot about Aragorn being unwilling or unsure of himself does nothing but eat up precious time, time which could have been spent covering events that did occur in the books, as we will see later.
- For the most part I find the dialogue of the LOTR films to be pretty decent, even though its a completely dumbed down version of the language of the books. But there's some points which stand out to me as glaringly modern. And the first is when, at the end of the Council of Elrond, Pippin states that the Fellowship of the Ring is going to need someone of intelligence on their: "Mission- Quest- Thing-" Thanks for ruining an otherwise epic moment Pippin. Dick.
- In the book, when Bilbo becomes much like Gollum in his desire for the ring, the transformation from kindly hobbit to a grasping, pathetic creature is quite sad. In the film this moment is played as a "gotcha" moment, in which Bilbo's face morphs into that of a Gollum-like monster. I would have preferred the sadder, less ostentatious approach, especially since Peter Jackson had master thespian Ian Holm to work with.
- I love the Cave Troll scene, but i hate the use of shaky camera movements in battles that take place before the invention of the camera.
- I also think that the computer generated Legolas who runs on top of the Cave Troll looks like shit, especially when he jumps off in the foreground of the camera.
- Fourth "false death:" Frodo is stabbed by the spear wielding Cave Troll. For some reason this particular "false death" is really played up. We don't just go into slow motion, we go into that terrible jerky slow motion that means that they didn't intend to use slow motion but just slowed down the film in the editing suite (hey, I had to learn something in film school!) And of course, we know that Frodo is wearing the mithril shirt, don't we? He's never really in much danger beyond getting a really big bruise from the impact of the spear point, right? So why the sad music, the super slow motion, all of the dramatic tension? Wasn't Frodo already stabbed in this film by the Witch King? Was that not dramatic enough for you, Jackson?
- Modern language: "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" I admit that I find this funny, but, for real? A joke about dwarf tossing, which is a bar attraction common to England and Australia in which patrons toss dwarfs in padded clothing across the room, to see who can throw the dwarf the farthest? The worst part about this line is that it is actually the beginning of a sub-plot which will be resolved in the Two Towers...
- Fifth "false death" is, of course, at the end of the Gandalf versus the Balrog scene. My only problem with this scene is that it makes it seem as though Gandalf, an angelic being who only appears to be an old man who is on par with Sauron in terms of personal power, can not do one single pull up. Now, maybe he's just using this opportunity to fight the Balrog, since someone was going to have to deal with it sooner or later, but I find that unlikely. Also, why the hell is Boromir stopping Frodo from helping Gandalf pick himself up?
- The bulk of my criticisms of The Fellowship of the Ring seem to lie in the way that Galadriel is handled. I don't mind at all the attempt to make her more sinister, but I do mind that it is done in such a heavy handed way, starting with her whispering in Frodo's mind within moments of entering her woods, to the over the top moment in which she says, "One who has seen the eye!" while flashing her own eyes as if to say: Hey, just in case you forgot what eyes looked like, here's my own impression of Sauron. But with two eyes instead of one. But, moving on...
- In the books the main reason that Galadriel shows Frodo (and Sam!) the Mirror of Galadriel is to test their resolve to carry out the quest assigned to them. In the movie I'm not quite sure what the point is, except to have Sauron's flaming eye show up again and for Galadriel to start talking like a man while being buffeted by a wind machine and overacting. All of the things that they see in the mirror in the book are clearly prophetic, and all of them happen. For instance, Samwise sees Frodo lying asleep, having been stung by Shelob, but doesn't understand what he's seen until he sees it again. It is Samwise who sees the ruin of the shire, which, unlike in the films, does occur, and Samwise is faced with the choice of leaving the quest to attempt to return to the shire to put things right. Frodo sees visions of the sea, which foreshadow his eventual voyage to the undying lands. And of course, this is the first time that Frodo perceives that the light in the east that he has been noticing since the quest began may just in fact be an eye, which is searching for him. All of this subtle meaning is lost in the film, cut down to the simple warning that if the quest fails the world will suffer under Sauron's rule. Well, no shit, Galadriel.
- Frodo, of course, turns the tables on Galadriel and offers her the ring, an act that seriously tests her own resolve. Much like the Bilbo/Gollum "gotcha" moment, I really would have preferred to see Cate Blanchett just play this scene straight, with very little special effects. Much like the tempting of Gandalf earlier, it shows us the power the ring has over the minds of even the mighty, and could have been one of the film's best moments. Instead we are overwhelmed by an overblown, shouted monologue.
- We could have spared the two minutes to include Galadriel's gift giving scene to the Fellowship. How else do we know from whence came Sam's elf rope, the hobbit's cloaks, and of course Gimli getting a lock of Galadriel's hair, which is such a sweet detail from the book.
- More jerky slow motion appears while Lurtz the Uruk commander searches for the Fellowship. Its not edgy, guys, its just poorly done.
- When Frodo's vision is magically enhanced by the "seat of seeing" that he is gripping onto in the film, and he sees for the first time the dark tower, I wish that they hadn't once again resorted to the flaming eye of Sauron filling the screen.
- In the film there is a great scene where Frodo explains to Aragorn why he must leave them. Its not in the books, and its a good addition that builds tension and allows Frodo to flee without us feeling like he abandoned his friends. Why then must he stop on the shore and once again have an angst filled moment in which he wishes the ring had never come to him, only to be answered by Gandalf's voice, repeating a line from earlier in the film, which gives him the hope to carry on? He already made the decision to go, so go already! I would have axed this scene, particularly in the interest of time, and just gotten him in the damn boat with Sam crashing after him.
- The sixth, and final "false death" of the film is Samwise almost drowning as he attempts to reach Frodo's boat. This does happen in the books, sort of, but Frodo reacts quickly enough that Sam is, again, in no real danger. The Samwise of the books certainly doesn't stop struggling and sink into the water, his face looking as though he has drowned. Sure, the shot of Frodo's hand grabbing Sam's which then grabs onto his is a nice shot, but by this point, which occurs after the death of Boromir, our emotions have been toyed with enough. Boromir was shot by three honking big arrows before he went down, and you expect us to believe that Samwise is going to drown for no good reason?
- "Let's hunt some orc!" Again, this totally pulls me out of the movie every time I hear it. As far as I'm concerned, he might as well have said, "Let's pick up some burgers before we go!"
Stay Tuned For Part Two: The Two Towers
Sunday, July 8, 2007
The Sins of Michael Bay
Against my better judgement I went to go see the Transformers movie last night. I went in with very low expectations, since I've hated everything that the director, Michael Bay, has ever laid his hands on. Needless to say, Bay has once again managed to let me down, and when you go into a film expecting to see shit, that is a hard thing to do.
I went in with low expectations because Bay's previous work makes me question the value of the concept of freedom of speech. Whenever I value my own ability to say what I please about the U.S. government, I have to weigh it against the fact that the film Armageddon came out in theaters in 1998.
What boggles me is that Bay is the sort of director who you'd picture making terrible B movies in the 1970s, the kind of films that were honored by the recent double feature Grindhouse, and actually, even films like Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! seem like Shakespeare in my mind compared to the cinematic tumors that Bay releases, and yet here he is: A highly paid, highly successful director who keeps seeming to prove to me that the human race is doomed to extinction. Sadly, as the mayhem of the apocalypse is unleashed upon us, I imagine that many people will liken it to a Michael Bay film.
But back to Transformers. The real problem with this film is one of story focus. I don't know if you, the reader, has ever seen any incarnation of the Transformers television series (I've only seen the original 1984 series myself,) but trust me, the stars of the television show were the title characters: Robots fighting a civil war for the control of their home planet who had brought the battle to earth and used their advanced technology to hide themselves amongst us by, yes, you guessed it, transforming, into vehicles found on earth. On one side are the normally peaceful Autobots, robots who were built for labor purposes and who, as their name might suggest, transform into cars. Against them are the military robts, the Decepticons, who transform into fighter planes, tanks, and even handheld guns in the cartoon show.
In the Michael Bay movie, these fanciful robots take a back seat to mere humans, and unfortunately for us they are they kind of humans that inhabit Bay's movies. They are all mere sketches of human behavior, and it was particularly weird to see that an interstellar war between giant robots was consistently pushed aside in favor of a series of American Pie-esque scenes in which we meet the films protagonist: Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, who is the descendant of the first earthling to discover the existence of the transformers. Sam, as a character, is little more than an erect penis running around on two legs, chasing after an often sweaty bad girl (who seems to be nothing more than a traditional racing girl with a troubled past) played with massive ineptitude by Megan Fox.
Anything that was in the movie to give Sam depth seemed cribbed from another source. His relationship with Megan Fox, and his desire to buy a cool car to impress her reminded me of Spiderman, while his cast-wearing dog harkens back to the "dog in a cast" genre of comedy that's been around since "There's Something About Mary."
It is Sam who must go on the traditional hero's journey in this film, and ultimately it is he who saves humanity from an invasion of Vending Machines firing explosive Mountain Dew rounds at innocent bystanders. Yes, an evil vending machine makes an appearance in this film. Along with a rampaging X-Box and Nokia cellphone. Was it not written in the book of revelations, "Yea, you will see a film with thinly veiled product placement, and a woman working on Air Force One will be shown biting into a Ding Dong after it fell on the floor."
The film seems relentless in its efforts to introduce more and more humans into the plot, who we are forced to keep jumping back to so that we don't forget they were in the movie. The film begins with a group of soldiers under attack in the middle east, including one with a wife and new born baby back home. Then there's Jon Voigt as the secretary of state, and a subplot involving a number of experts in the field of signal detection and decoding. Then there's Anthony Anderson as the hacker who is brought in to decode the language of the Transformers. Add in John Turturro and his secret government agency, and you have a total of five plot lines involving humans going on at any one time, each one as insipid as the last.
Look, I'm not saying that I can't enjoy a stupid film, or even a bad film. If you throw 1982's The Beastmaster into a dvd player there's a good chance I'll sit there and watch it, laughing at its wonderful badness. But Bay doesn't seem to realize that all anyone who came to see the Transformers wants to see is robots fighting each other. Time and again he cuts away to focus on the human side, not realizing that his most human characters are the computer generated images battling each other for the control of the film's MacGuffin, an artifact called "the cube." The film runs on for almost two hours before the Decepticons even mobilize, leaving us watching endless scenes which desperately try to get us to care about the human characters.
As for the Transformers themselves? Well, its a mixed bag. Most of the transformers look like a jumble of metal that makes it hard to tell what you are looking at, and makes it particularly hard to follow any of the action sequences, never a good thing in an action film. Megatron, the Decepticon leader looked literally like a collection of shrapnel which vaguely resembled a human figure, but was such a multi-layed mess that I often had no idea what I was seeing. He also had visible fang like teeth, which I guess he needed to chew whatever kind of food robots eat.
That having been said, anyone who grew up watching the television show will probably love the Autobot's leader, Optimus Prime, especially since he was voiced by the same actor who originally portrayed him. Prime gets all of the film's best dialouge (which isn't saying much), and has the most heart of any character on screen. If there was one slightly redeeming thing about the film it was the scene in which Optimus Prime refused to use lethal force against humanity, even to rescue one of his own. But unfortunately, scenes like this were few and far between in Bay's film. And Hugo Weaving was totally wasted as the voice of Megatron, since most of his dialouge sounded as though it had been put through so many filters as to make his performance wasted.
If you entertain any idea about watching Transformers, do yourself a favor: Go out and find a copy of the animated Transformers movie which came out in 1986. Despite being intended for children, it has better dialouge, more exciting action sequences, and though its plot is basically a thinly veiled amalgam of the Star Wars franchise, it still beats the shit out of Michael Bay's Transformers.
And Michael Bay? Please, as a service to the future of humanity, stop making films.
I went in with low expectations because Bay's previous work makes me question the value of the concept of freedom of speech. Whenever I value my own ability to say what I please about the U.S. government, I have to weigh it against the fact that the film Armageddon came out in theaters in 1998.
What boggles me is that Bay is the sort of director who you'd picture making terrible B movies in the 1970s, the kind of films that were honored by the recent double feature Grindhouse, and actually, even films like Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! seem like Shakespeare in my mind compared to the cinematic tumors that Bay releases, and yet here he is: A highly paid, highly successful director who keeps seeming to prove to me that the human race is doomed to extinction. Sadly, as the mayhem of the apocalypse is unleashed upon us, I imagine that many people will liken it to a Michael Bay film.
But back to Transformers. The real problem with this film is one of story focus. I don't know if you, the reader, has ever seen any incarnation of the Transformers television series (I've only seen the original 1984 series myself,) but trust me, the stars of the television show were the title characters: Robots fighting a civil war for the control of their home planet who had brought the battle to earth and used their advanced technology to hide themselves amongst us by, yes, you guessed it, transforming, into vehicles found on earth. On one side are the normally peaceful Autobots, robots who were built for labor purposes and who, as their name might suggest, transform into cars. Against them are the military robts, the Decepticons, who transform into fighter planes, tanks, and even handheld guns in the cartoon show.
In the Michael Bay movie, these fanciful robots take a back seat to mere humans, and unfortunately for us they are they kind of humans that inhabit Bay's movies. They are all mere sketches of human behavior, and it was particularly weird to see that an interstellar war between giant robots was consistently pushed aside in favor of a series of American Pie-esque scenes in which we meet the films protagonist: Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, who is the descendant of the first earthling to discover the existence of the transformers. Sam, as a character, is little more than an erect penis running around on two legs, chasing after an often sweaty bad girl (who seems to be nothing more than a traditional racing girl with a troubled past) played with massive ineptitude by Megan Fox.
Anything that was in the movie to give Sam depth seemed cribbed from another source. His relationship with Megan Fox, and his desire to buy a cool car to impress her reminded me of Spiderman, while his cast-wearing dog harkens back to the "dog in a cast" genre of comedy that's been around since "There's Something About Mary."
It is Sam who must go on the traditional hero's journey in this film, and ultimately it is he who saves humanity from an invasion of Vending Machines firing explosive Mountain Dew rounds at innocent bystanders. Yes, an evil vending machine makes an appearance in this film. Along with a rampaging X-Box and Nokia cellphone. Was it not written in the book of revelations, "Yea, you will see a film with thinly veiled product placement, and a woman working on Air Force One will be shown biting into a Ding Dong after it fell on the floor."
The film seems relentless in its efforts to introduce more and more humans into the plot, who we are forced to keep jumping back to so that we don't forget they were in the movie. The film begins with a group of soldiers under attack in the middle east, including one with a wife and new born baby back home. Then there's Jon Voigt as the secretary of state, and a subplot involving a number of experts in the field of signal detection and decoding. Then there's Anthony Anderson as the hacker who is brought in to decode the language of the Transformers. Add in John Turturro and his secret government agency, and you have a total of five plot lines involving humans going on at any one time, each one as insipid as the last.
Look, I'm not saying that I can't enjoy a stupid film, or even a bad film. If you throw 1982's The Beastmaster into a dvd player there's a good chance I'll sit there and watch it, laughing at its wonderful badness. But Bay doesn't seem to realize that all anyone who came to see the Transformers wants to see is robots fighting each other. Time and again he cuts away to focus on the human side, not realizing that his most human characters are the computer generated images battling each other for the control of the film's MacGuffin, an artifact called "the cube." The film runs on for almost two hours before the Decepticons even mobilize, leaving us watching endless scenes which desperately try to get us to care about the human characters.
As for the Transformers themselves? Well, its a mixed bag. Most of the transformers look like a jumble of metal that makes it hard to tell what you are looking at, and makes it particularly hard to follow any of the action sequences, never a good thing in an action film. Megatron, the Decepticon leader looked literally like a collection of shrapnel which vaguely resembled a human figure, but was such a multi-layed mess that I often had no idea what I was seeing. He also had visible fang like teeth, which I guess he needed to chew whatever kind of food robots eat.
That having been said, anyone who grew up watching the television show will probably love the Autobot's leader, Optimus Prime, especially since he was voiced by the same actor who originally portrayed him. Prime gets all of the film's best dialouge (which isn't saying much), and has the most heart of any character on screen. If there was one slightly redeeming thing about the film it was the scene in which Optimus Prime refused to use lethal force against humanity, even to rescue one of his own. But unfortunately, scenes like this were few and far between in Bay's film. And Hugo Weaving was totally wasted as the voice of Megatron, since most of his dialouge sounded as though it had been put through so many filters as to make his performance wasted.
If you entertain any idea about watching Transformers, do yourself a favor: Go out and find a copy of the animated Transformers movie which came out in 1986. Despite being intended for children, it has better dialouge, more exciting action sequences, and though its plot is basically a thinly veiled amalgam of the Star Wars franchise, it still beats the shit out of Michael Bay's Transformers.
And Michael Bay? Please, as a service to the future of humanity, stop making films.
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