Random snatches of conversation on the way home from Lord of The Rings.
"Gandalf did kick arse though, didn't he?"
"Well, his role in The Two Towers wasn't much more than an extended cameo,
although there's more of him in the director's cut. But he's pivotal in ROTK,
so I'm glad they made so much of his warrior instincts. Even though it was rather
strange having him bonk Denethor on the head as opposed to just talking to him."
"Yes, that was a little strange."
Gandalf arrives at the entrance to Isengard and finds Treebeard hanging around.
"Saruman is a prisoner in the tower."
"And there he must stay," says the wizard.
You lazy git, Jackson. Are you so determined to deny Christopher Lee the screentime
he's earned? Saruman is a far more interesting character than Gandalf, even
though Mckellan does look pretty cool in white.
In the blue corner, Arwen. In the red, Eowyn. Prissy elf has her five minutes of fame in Fellowship in admittedly my favourite scene in the first movie, riding across New Zealand while being chased by all nine Nazgul. Even if the subsequent pay-off line at the river is a little "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" (to quote Gareth) and the special effect is lifted stylistically from a Guinness commercial, it's a great moment. But Arwen's later appearances seem to consist of looking nice in floaty dresses and wearing far too much make-up; she looks like a reject from a Scottish Widows campaign. I fail to see what Aragorn sees in her; Eowyn is much more down-to-earth, feisty and ultimately heroic. And why oh why oh why are we told that Arwen's strength is fading as Sauron's grows and then shown absolutely nothing of her again until Aragorn's coronation? I can't even tell if she's in full health or not; those years of living cooped up by the river have given her complexion an endlessly pale look. "The light of the Evenstar does not wax and wane." Nor, it seems, does her face.
Ooh, this ought to be good for a laugh. Reasons why the ultra-Christian Capalert didn't like the film -
Oh, good grief. So that makes, erm, Mary Poppins, with its chimney-sweep rooftop dance, unsuitable for kids?
Gollum?!? Does he even count as human, let alone male?
Anyway. Battles outside Minas Tirith. Avenging her father, Eowyn obliterates the Nazgul; her impressive speech in the novel is reduced to a feminist cry of "I am no man!" before she buries her sword into its head. Germaine Greer would have been proud but I felt for Theoden; why was there so little made of such a major character's death? Meanwhile, Legolas jumps on the back of an oliphaunt and obliterates its riders. It was a little unnerving watching the Men of the West (Aragorn / Theoden's words, if I remember correctly) take on a bunch of African-style savage tribesmen - it felt a little too colonial. But the resulting battle is less Zulu, more Empire Strikes Back. Oliphaunts = AT-ATs.
"Legolas was a moron."
"God! I don't know what people see in the guy."
"So you wouldn't sleep with him?"
"No," she said.
"He's usually quoting bad sixth form poetry," I pointed out, "with
terrible dialogue like 'The red sun rises. Blood has been spilt tonight'. Or
'Evil stirs in the east'."
"Maybe it's because he looks pretty, so they figured that was all they
needed."
"You're probably right there. He's not helped by the lines he's given.
But if Legolas isn't doing a lousy performance at a beat cafe, he's stating
the obvious."
Cases in point -
When you play the ROTK videogame, the intrepid heroes are wandering through a dank cavern on the way to meet the King Of The Dead. Aragorn ploughs through a thick, waist-high fog that renders visibility all but non-existent, only to have Legolas cry out "The mists swirl here also!". It's too bad that even armed with Elendil you are unable to hack the irritating little windbag into tiny elf bits.
"You know who he reminds me of?" I said. "The bloody paperclip.
The ultimate MS Office irritation."
Emily giggled. "Hey, maybe they could produce a Legolas version!"
"It looks like you're being attacked by orcs. Would you like help?"
Ah. Mount Doom. Sam fails to tackle Gollum on the way up - faced with the chance to kill him, one that he refuses. It's a pivotal moment for Sam as it's his key to understanding Gollum (and so understanding Frodo) and it's a shame that they decided to substitute it with Gollum falling down steps in a most unrealistic manner. At this point I have to confess to being on the edge of my seat, and despite Frodo's less-than-convincing change of heart (not a patch on the book) at the edge of the abyss and the subsequent Terminator 2 rip-off when Gollum fell into the lava, it was quite something to watch Barad-Dur crumble.
And so home. Last twenty minutes thankfully not as drawn-out as they could be - as I'm sure I've stated elsewhere, the novel ends with about a hundred pages of "Behold, let us sing about elves for another fifteen paragraphs". Followed by The Scouring Of The Shire, which bores me to tears - and yes, I know that it's about the Hobbits becoming heroes in their own right, and I know that it's about how you can never truly escape evil, but I nonetheless tend to skim-read the closing chapters. Nothing on Faramir and Eowyn, just a hint at Aragorn's coronation, although presumably there'll be more in the extended edition (which seems to be a standard response from everyone who found their favourite scene missing). Instead we're faced with the heroes sitting in the pub, right before Sam -
" - gets married, for crying out loud! Look, earlier in the film there's
a shot where Sam is cradling Frodo in his arms and you're just waiting for the
kiss."
"No," she said, "you were waiting."
"Whatever. Are you telling me that I'm the only one who thought that it
was an obvious gay storyline?"
(Interesting that a Finnish reviewer should pick up on Smeagol's use of 'my
love' and ascertain that being gay, as he "obviously" was, would lead
to fiery damnation.)
"I don't think it was quite as blatant as you're making out."
"There's a *completely* blatant love triangle between Frodo and Sam and
Smeagol. And then Sam gets hitched to a barmaid in a ridiculous attempt to repress
his latent homosexuality!"
"No, no, come on," said Emily gently. "I mean, he's obviously
bi."
"All right, that I can live with."
Final encounter on the shores of Rivendell (which I'm sure was a different location to the book). Galadriel, previously only glimpsed once during a dream sequence where a hallucinating Frodo finds himself in the middle of a Timotei commercial. My attention tends to wander when Cate Blanchett appears on screen, as I never found the forest queen a particularly interesting character - on this occasion I'd wound up thinking that her outfit would have made a lovely wedding dress for Emily.
And I cried for the last five minutes. "Not all tears are evil." I'm sorry, I'm a wuss. But I loved the film. Despite all obvious areas of ridicule, I loved it - the best they could have done with a damn near impossible job. You'd always upset some people, and the books are so long (and, in places, meandering and tedious) that some trimming was required to make audiences happy. As far as being a fan of the novels is concerned, I'm not in the die-hard section - this makes it easier to swallow the cinematic changes, as I can see why things were taken out or put in. Although I'm still curious as to why Liv Tyler, who gets hardly any screen time, manages to be placed fourth on the casting bill - but as someone at the Gallery pointed out this afternoon, it's probably just because she's Liv Tyler.
"It's so miserable. Everyone dies."
"In the end. Not in the film.
"Yeah, but everyone dies eventually."
"Aragorn has a good few years as king," I said, as we strolled off
into the night. "And then Legolas and Gimli sailed into the west."
"Hmm. Do you think those two were are a couple?"
"Probably. Although I can't imagine what the sex must have been like…"
Roll credits, presumably to Annie Lennox, who's presumably due for a revival. Video to follow, featuring Eurythmics' finest in the middle of a boat surrounded by fog, and Elijah Wood.
(Sunday, 4th January 2004)
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