Posted on 12/20/2002 3:38:38 AM PST by JameRetief
Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the wargs of fandom!
Peter Jackson's "The Two Towers" brings the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy around the bend. We're in the home stretch now, and as a wondering world begins to judge the second movie with a variety of opinions, the purist in me cries out: Ick. Of course, no one really cares what the purists think. Frankly, I don't, either. It's a good movie.
And that is my review. Now for the analysis.
I liked Treebeard. I liked him a great deal. My only disappointment with the Ents was that there seemed to be too few of them in the Entmoot. But I couldn't help thinking, as the Moot ensued, that there just wasn't enough room in the dingle (that's The Derndingle to you purists out there) to show 50 or so Ents as Tolkien describes in the book. However, we do get to see there are far more than a handful of Ents left later on, so I think the scene worked as it was.
I liked the wargs. People have been unhappy with what they've seen of the wargs in advance images. But now that the movie is in full release, people will be able to see the wargs in all their CGI glory. Or lack thereof.
Do the wargs look like wolves? Not really. Do they look like demonic wolves? Yes, I believe they do. What's the difference? Well, demonic wolves don't really exist, so the CGI artists had no baseline to compare their work with. In any event, Tolkien described his wargs as "demonic". I think Peter Jackson's wargs are "demonic". Are they Tolkien's "demonic"? I have no idea. I don't really care. They looked cool.
The whole movie is a showcase for film magic ala CGI. It's amazing how well the actors (especially the Hobbit actors) were able to perform against bouncing tennis balls, or whatever visual cues they were given. In the scene where Frodo and Sam subdue Gollum, I had to ask myself several times, "How did they do that?" Now, maybe the answers are just a mouse-click away, but I didn't want to know those kinds of details before I saw this movie.
CGI dominated the heart of the movie (or, perhaps I should say, "the hearts of the movie"). Gollum hams it up in scene after scene, looking more like the love child of Samuel L. Jackson and Yoda than a depraved Hobbit. I mean that in the kindest way. Gollum is an exaggeration, and by the time the movie ended, I had realized something terribly important: exaggeration is the uncredited movie magic which helps to make this movie work.
As I mentioned to the lady sitting next to me when the film had ended, I think I understand what they are doing with these movies better, now. There is indeed a lot of compression, but there is also a lot of exaggeration. In fact, one of my growing concerns was the performance of John Rhys-Davies in the first movie.
JRD is a fantastic character actor. I love watching him work. But there are some scenes in "The Fellowship of the Ring" (and "The Two Towers") which make me cringe. Why? Because he serves as the comic relief. They almost turn Gimli into a buffoon, and a lot of people have reacted badly toward that (at least in private discussions with me -- I have no idea of what the general audience thinks).
And yet, watching Gimli and Legolas bond in the second movie just a few hours ago, I realized that JRD was probably the only actor whom Peter Jackson could ask to bite the bullet, take the shot, and pull off his performance with credibility. Gimli isn't just comic relief. Rather, he is the counterweight to the extremely tense presentation of certain scenes.
Were it not for Gimli's grumbling running commentary during the highly anticipated Helm's Deep sequence, the audience would have passed out from self-inflicted asphyxiation. They needed reasons to burst out laughing. They needed opportunities to breathe. The site of 10,000 Uruk-hai as they assemble on the battlefield, beat their spears into the ground (in what seemed a subtle homage to the wonderful battle preparation scenes in "Zulu"), is stunning. You could have heard a pin drop in the theater (which would have been quite a feat, considering just how noisy 10,000 Uruk-hai can be).
Except for the dwarf-tossing joke (which leads one to wonder if they are going to beat that horse into China by using it in the third movie), Gimli's lines are very useful. They break up the intense pacing of the action. And the dwarf-tossing joke actually moves the story forward, although it seems to me that they could have achieved their end without it.
One of the curious scenes in the film came when Eomer met Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. All I should say is that the storyline was substantially altered from this point onward. I wondered why, at first, but gradually realized that Eomer had been given a more important role than he plays in the book.
Strange as it seems, when you go back through the book, Eomer doesn't do a whole lot from the time Gandalf heals Theoden until Theoden's death. Eomer is just there to fill in some gaps in the information presented to the reader. Technically, he is bonding with Aragorn, but even that plays through a bit weakly.
The movie simply gives Eomer something more useful to do, although the audience was wondering where he'd got off to for a while. The movie is fast-paced enough that people cannot dwell on any one anomaly for very long.
If anything, it's a little too fast-paced for the first 30-40 minutes. But I couldn't see any way to tighten it up or slow it down. Peter had to give the audience the equivalent of "Meanwhile, back at the ranch" three times in a row. He tackled part of that problem by having Aragorn figure out what happened to Merry and Pippin (as in the book but with visual cues to the audience). I was very reminded of Prince Humperdink in "The Princess Bride". I almost expected Viggo Mortensen to pick up a bamboo phial and say, "Iocaine powder. I'd stake my life on it."
But Viggo plays a very good Aragorn. He clearly takes the role seriously and works with the material he is handed. One of the criticisms which has been leveled at the first movie (even by me, when people insist I analyze this aspect of it), is that Viggo's Aragorn starts out with less self-assurance than Tolkien's Aragorn.
In the book, Aragorn expresses self-doubt only when the mantle of leadership has passed to him. And then he pretty quickly gets past that stage. After he decides to follow the Orcs who have snatched Merry and Pippin, his resolve and his decision-making ability increase rapidly. Aragorn grows stronger.
In the movie, while Viggo is clearly very comfortable in his performance, his character is plagued by inner turmoil. He doesn't believe he can be any better than Isildur. He is not simply humble, as the book Aragorn is on at least one occasion -- the movie Aragorn honestly believes he is set up for failure.
But now I see that Aragorn has been compressed, as have so many other characters -- and so many events -- as a means of editing out a lot of the narrative exposition which Tolkien relied upon. Cinematic story-telling tends to suffer when you rely upon narrative exposition. Some people actually complained about Cate Blanchett's voiceover for the Prologue to the first movie -- but if that is not the way to present all that history, what is?
My point is that the movies are compensating for the lack of narrative exposition by sending characters into unexpected directions. A lot of people in the audience were wondering why Viggo was dropped off a cliff, for example. Well, that reason became clear once we saw Viggo again. He gave the audience a change in perspective which helped Peter avoid having a character see too much from too far away.
The same principle is at work with Eomer. His literary role is not followed closely. Instead, we see him ride off and slowly other characters tell us a little bit about where he is. By the time Eomer returns to the action, he is more important to Rohan than his literary counterpart is at the same juncture in the book.
Of course, there are some things I find a little puzzling. For example, why does Theoden have only a few hundred Rohirrim. And why are none of them Riders of Rohan? I suppose the answer must lie in the fact that Elves do indeed show up to fight with the Rohirrim at Helm's Deep (but Arwen does not).
As I watched the Elves march into the fortress, it occurred to me that by showing the Elves standing side-by-side with Men, Peter Jackson was including some of the back-story which Tolkien had to relegate to the appendix. You don't learn until you get to the appendix that the Elves of Lothlorien actually fight several battles in the War of the Ring (and they bring down Dol Guldur, a fortress about as strategically important as Isengard).
And that leads me to Arwen's expanded role in the movies. We don't see nearly enough of Liv Tyler in "The Two Towers" for my taste, but we see enough of her to learn that A) she and Aragorn truly love each other and B) she is watching over him from afar. That is crucial to her character. For, you see, Tolkien stipulates that Arwen does just that in "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen".
Arwen is actually being more faithful to Tolkien than Eomer. And no one should see that as a fault or a sin. Rather, it's the fault of the people who complain about Arwen's expanded role -- they don't bother to acknowledge Arwen's expanded role in the appendix.
Am I saying that Liv Tyler's performance at the Ford of Bruinen is therefore justified? No. What I am saying is that I understand why Glorfindel may not have made the cut. His function is mostly Elvish. That is, it's his part to be a wise and powerful Elf. Well, if Arwen is going to be portrayed as the wise and powerful Elf Tolkien said she was, then why can she not take on Glorfindel's role?
If I were to emphasize Arwen's role in the primary story, I might indeed do something similar. That is, in compressing actions or even characteristics, I'd like for literary characters whose attributes and functions are similar. While the literary Arwen never faces down the Nazgul, she does provide some wise counsel and healing. She also motivates Aragorn to aspire to great heights.
Tolkien's Arwen is a mover and a shaker in the back-story. Peter simply chose to make her a mover and a shaker in the main story. I believe that some of the experimentation with Arwen failed during filming. Liv Tyler reportedly hid behind Viggo, for example, as several Orcs charged at them. Of course, we could always see something like that in the third movie. I suppose it's too early to write it off. But I feel certain that no such scene will be included.
On the other hand, there is an interesting scene between Arwen and Elrond in "The Two Towers". People were asking why that scene is necessary. I couldn't help but answer the question silently: It's necessary because there can be no appendix to the movies. Everything which Tolkien revealed in the appendices must either be cut or somehow included in the primary action of the films. The Elrond-Arwen scene offers a way of slipping an appendix into the middle of the movie. I felt it was a rather clever method of being extra informative.
Unfortunately, all this compression has one undesirable side effect. It tends to diminish the scope of Peter Jackson's Middle-earth. It seems like, if he cannot make reference to someone or something, even obliquely, then his canon is trimmed. Hence, we hear nothing about the Kings of Arnor. They don't seem to have ever existed (after Elendil and Ilsidur).
Hence, we lose the Beornings and Woodmen, the Men of Dale and the Long Lake, and all the Dwarves of the Ered Luin because they cannot be smoothly included in the movie action. Do these peoples and places exist in Peter Jackson's Middle-earth? He seems to be careful not to exclude them on the maps, but neither does he go out of his way to tell the audience they are there.
The compression serves to tell the story of a great war in a place called Middle-earth, but it's not necessarily the same story that Tolkien told us. That is, we all know the "Battle of the Bulge" movie isn't entirely faithful to real history, but it does get the point across. The same is true of "The Longest Day".
Peter Jackson is trying to depict the significant events of an entire fictional war in three movies. But if you had only three movies in which to tell the tale of World War I, or World War II, could you be comprehensive? Of course not. No one could. So, you would resort to compressing characters and events in order to cover as much ground as possible. You would also use a little smoke and mirrors when necessary.
Let's take a look at one of my pet peeves: Peter Jackson's Middle-earth is way too much like Medieval Europe. Tolkien's Middle-earth bears little resemblance to Medieval Europe, and drew upon many classical (pre-Medieval) and modern (post-Medieval) influences, from Greco-Roman history and mythology to Victorian/Edwardian England.
But Tolkien had the luxury of reminding the reader the in every other chapter that there had once been an ancient civilization which surpassed the civilization of the Shire-folk. The movies had to make do with a prologue and an occasional glimpse of ruins. By dressing up the ancient Elves in Greco-style armor, Peter implies that the Second Age is to the Third Age as the Greco-Roman classical period is to the Medieval Europe period.
Suddenly, the pseudo-Medieval motif makes a little more sense. We are seeing Peter Jackson's Middle-earth in a period of decline and decay. It isn't so much that the Time of Men is at hand as the Time of the Elves is passing. Of course, it could just be that John Howe was given overwhelming authority to depict Middle-earth as he sees it and since he distorts Middle-earth heavily toward pseudo-Medieval fantasy, that's just the way it came out. But I want to believe that the theming is a little more purposeful than that.
Having seen "The Two Towers" at last, I can say that some things are starting to look a little better for me. They do not satisfy the purist's yearning for a faithful rendition of Tolkien's Middle-earth, but I never expected to receive anything like that. There were too many obstacles in the way.
But I must concede that there is a level of faithfulness I did not notice before. It obscures the obvious faithfulness, and though some might be quick to claim that compression cannot in any way be deemed "faithful" to the hand of J.R.R. Tolkien, I must be just as quick to point out that, if that is really the case, then why the heck are you people reading (and enjoying) The Silmarillion? It doesn't matter who composed the published Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien himself has repudiated the authority of the book.
Finally, I have to say something about the tobacco. They cut back on it. Only Aragorn smoked in "The Two Towers". The reduction in tobacco use is good, but not good enough. Although an essential part of Aragorn's character (in the book) is his fondness for smoking a pipe -- particularly when he needs to think -- this is not Tolkien's Aragorn. It cannot be Tolkien's Aragorn because of the compression and the changes in the storyline. Hence, what is the point to including gratuitous pipe-smoking?
One cannot discuss Middle-earth in depth without discussing tobacco. Tolkien was completely unaware of how deadly tobacco is. He is therefore excused for having advocated its use as a result of his ignorance. Those who advocate the use of tobacco today cannot claim any excuse. They are wrong to do so. Period.
Other than that, I am eagerly awaiting the third film. I hope the rest of you are, too.
Problem is that putting in Shelob might have added a half hour of screen time or so. What would you cut out to get it back in?
How do you know he won't include the scouring of the Shire - to me that is one of the best parts. That would be a disappointment indeed - please... say it ain't so! WHat info do you have on it??!!
But folks have been pretty good so far about spoiling it! Answering this question would entail a chronicle of Jackson's changes and inventions. He could at least save the invention for the DVD.
I guess I wonder that Jackson was able to carry us well into The Two Towers in the first film, but he couldn't get us out with this one. It would've been a good exit, for example, if the end of TTT would've had Aragorn entering the Paths of the Dead, and Frodo and Sam entering the tunnels beneath Cirith Ungol.
The second half of Jackson's TTT holds the bulk of the divergent material. Many of the changes are meant, seemingly, to develop the characters. They are meant to instill doubt, restore hope, or underscore the motivations of key characters and at critical times. Fans of Tolkien and general movie-goers with no interest or knowledge of Tolkien accepted these same characters as presented in FOTR. Why the need to play so radically with the sequence of events from the books to round out characters we already accept? The first half of the film was more akin to the pacing and mild(er?) changes that we saw in FOTR.
It's a good movie. The story is good, the acting uniformly solid, and the effects superb. Were this an orignal Jackson movie under a different name, we'd still be talking about him as a revolutionary in epic filmaking. That epic at this point in time, IMO, is not now Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
Jackson has said on several occasions that all of that would be cut from the movie - the theatrical release, at any rate.
2) Peter Jackson said that the scenes of The Shire, which Frodo sees in Galadriel's Mirror, showing what would happen if Frodo should fail, were intended as an homage to The Scouring of the Shire, since Peter Jackson would not be including it in the film. Hence, you sort of have already seen The Scouring of the Shire, in Galadriel's mirror.
What can I say? I would say you're probably right. Case in point is George Lucas' The Phantom Menace. Straight, unadulterated Star Wars from the creator himself, who is a film-maker. Universally despised upon release.
But unlike Mr. Martinez, I don't come out say to how much l liked Jackson's film and then launch into a litany of discrapancies between what I saw and what Tolkien's work is supposed to be. Nor do I soft-peddle or apologize for Mr. Jackson by saying that the changes were probably best for the making of a good adaptation to film.
What I'm saying is that Peter Jackson made a fine film which needs his previous film for reference and support. The previous movie was a fine adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring. This latest one didn't suit me as it has most others and the point of divergence is when Jackson is clearly re-writing Tolkien's story in the second half. There is much in the first half of TTT that will please Tolkien fans who enjoyed the first film. In the second half, you have to take your Tolkien goggles off and accept that one man has decided to fill another's shoes if you wish to continue enjoying the film.
I could accept it to enjoy a good movie. But I can't accept that what we are watching from the middle half of TTT forward is a faithful adaptation of Tolkien's story. It's a story of Mr. Jackson's design that borrows the characters, creatures, and trappings of Mr. Tolkien's world. And I really don't see why he needed to do that.
No more Ring of Power, no more Lord of the Ring (Sauron) and everyone would have lived happily ever after four (or was it two) thousand years before until the present.
Why did you not let Isildur keep it Elrond.? It would have been so easy to snatch it and toss it! It's all your fault. You failed as an Elf in Lord of the Rings just as you failed as an "Agent" in the Matrix.
I'm sure he had no desire for such a fight.
Presumably he hoped Isildur could be talked out of it at some point later.
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