Al,
[q1]> Lord of the Rings - wow![/q1]
[q1]>[/q1]
[q1]> Anyone else seen it yet? Thoughts, opinions. Does anyone actually not[/q1]
[q1]> like it I wonder?[/q1]
Oi. I was just going to start this thread. :-)
Visually, you couldn't ask for more. The sets were stunning in the
extreme, and they were right about that New Zealand landscape. I
particularly liked the toiling pits around Orthanc.
Plot-wise, well, they had to make alterations. For the most part,
though, these were no more than you might expect: some parts had to be
cut, and the bits either side had to be stitched together to fit. Thus
Frodo doesn't tarry in the Shire, so Butterbur's failure to pass on
Gandalf's letter is left out, and Gandalf's stay at Orthanc is
remarkably brief; Merry and Pippin are to be found stealing in Farmer
Maggot's land, because the Conspiracy is not included; the whole Old
Forest/Tom Bombadil/Barrow-wights part is missed out, so Aragorn has to
give the hobbits their swords; Glorfindel's character is left out, so
Arwen does his job at the Ford.
(The only unnecessary plot changes I can think of were presumably for
the sake of dramatic interest. Gandalf grabs Frodo at Bag End, urging
"Is it secret? Is it safe?". There is a mad dash at the Ferry, with the
Black Riders just out of reach of Frodo, instead of the quietly eerie
"On the far stage, under the distant lamps, they could just make out a
figure: it looked like a dark black bundle left behind. But as they
looked it seemed to move and sway this way and that, as if searching
the ground. It then crawled, or went crouching, back into the gloom
beyond the lamps." Aragorn puts up a mighty display of strength against
the Nazgul. Gandalf and Saruman have a protracted wizard-fight, with
scenes that wouldn't have been out of place in The Matrix, or perhaps
even Blade.
But as I say, they're there to keep up cinematic interest, and for that
reason I don't mind them. If I wanted something completely faithful, I'd
have just read the book.)
Acting-wise, you could tell from the cast list that they'd be alright.
Gandalf was much better than the trailer might indicate, as was Frodo. I
wasn't so sure about Sam, who should have been a darn sight more rustic.
I thought Aragorn and Boromir were superb, especially playing off
against one another. Merry and Pippin were funny, playing the Fred &
George Weasley of the Tolkien world (though they're less comical in the
books), and good at it too. Elrond and Galadriel never seemed quite
human, which was a good thing, seeing as they'd been around for a few
thousand years. Liv Tyler was much better than I'd expected as Arwen,
and the much-touted expanded love interest was not intrusive in the
slightest, I thought.
The animations were damned good too. The Balrog was perhaps the
trickiest thing they had to do, as they're very scantily-described in
the books and so very open to interpretation. I'm glad to say their
Balrog looked the part, falling somewhere between a physical beast and a
swirling shadow.
Finally, the one small but tangible let-down: the dialogue. Much of
the dialogue was very good, lifted as it was straight from The Book.
But you could really tell where they'd stuck something in without
thinking about it. Arwen, carrying the near-unconscious Frodo on
horseback, crosses the Ford ahead of the Black Riders, whose horses
rear up but are afraid to enter the water. She calls across the river,
"If you want him, come and claim him." What kind of rubbish is that?
It's certainly not Tolkien-esque; it's certainly not elf-like, and
particularly not suitable for the Evenstar herself, with the
Ring-bearer in her charge; it's a pure Titanic moment. On the bright
side, this sort of moment is very rare. Only one other stands out as
quite so crass: when Galadriel says to Frodo, "Even the smallest
person can change the course of the future."
Anyway, enough of my ramblings. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and will
be seeing it again in a couple of days' time.
Mark.