Click here to buy a boxed set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. |
Peter Jackson's Movies Click here to go to the official Lord of the Rings movie website. I can't remember how or when I first heard someone was making a live-action movie of The Lord of the Rings, but I was visiting the movie website well before the movie began to receive mainstream publicity. Only Tolkien geeks were obsessively tracking the details of the filming, which was occurring in New Zealand. A good source of information besides the official website was www.theonering.net. Watching the interviews and clips at the movie website made me glad that someone who was rather a Tolkien enthusiast was in charge of the project. I always think the best movie adaptations of books are made by people who love the book they're filming. Not only the director, Peter Jackson, was a Tolkien buff, but the makeup people, the costume-makers, the set designers, and so on were immersed in the books. I was also glad that it was not going to be an animated feature, because Tolkien's story is not cartoonish; I was thrilled that each book in the trilogy was receiving its own full-length feature movie treatment, rather than an attempt made to squish all three into one movie; and I thought it a wonderful stroke of genius that Jackson was filming all three at once, so that the same actors played their parts throughout, and the whole energy and mood would be on a single trajectory. I was one of the millions who downloaded the first and second previews Jackson posted on the net, and those made me even more excited about the film. I saw The Fellowship of the Ring the day it opened and saw it again an embarrassing number of times for a middle-aged, usually moderate movie-goer. A year later, I saw The Two Towers on its opening day. Now my only problem with the movies is waiting a year between each release. There is so much information about these movies on the net that it would be redundant for me to spell out details such as the omission of Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire, or the expanded role of Arwen Evenstar. Suffice to say, I am able to accept the changes between the books and the movies as a necessary part of going from one medium to another. The Fellowship of the Ring The Fellowship of the Ring was almost an overwhelming experience. I had been waiting so eagerly for its release and I had read so much about "the making of" that when it actually started, I could hardly take it in. Repeated viewings overcame that problem. I bought the DVD when it came out and the extended edition DVD when that came out. I appreciated the extra scences in the extended edition, but I think Jackson made the right choices in his editing for the theater release. The pacing was better, and the story more focused. He said in the commentaries that editing became easy when he came up with the principle of showing only what pertained to the ring and Frodo's quest. It did make the movie more unified. Click here to buy a DVD of the theater-release version of The Fellowship of the Ring. Click here to buy the same on VHS. Click here to buy the extended edition DVD. Click here to buy the extended edition VHS. Click here to buy an extended edition DVD gift set with statues of the Argonath. The Two Towers I likewise anticipated The Two Towers and read extensively about it before it came out. I almost knew too much about it when I saw it, but that was my own fault for ceaselessly combing the net for information. It suffers a little in comparison to The Fellowship of the Ring because, being about the three different splinters of the broken fellowship, it cannot be as unified and focused. Recently, I watched The Godfather Part II, which also switched between story lines (only two instead of three), and Francis Ford Coppola said in his commentary that audiences understood the whole better when he stayed with each storyline for an extended period of time. At first, he had switched frequently between the two, but that confused preview audiences, so he re-edited to focus on each story a little longer. Possibly, The Two Towers would have benefitted from the same idea. Also, as Peter Jackson himself has pointed out in interviews, The Two Towers is the most difficult to make satisfying because it starts mid-story and ends still mid-story. Nevertheless, the movie is wonderful. I don't have a problem with the changes to Faramir's character, which some fans have complained about. It seems as though there has been more criticism from fans about The Two Towers than The Fellowship of the Ring; I theorize that's because Fellowship was so good as a detailed rendition of Middle Earth that audiences took for granted at the second movie a level of excellence that astonished them in the first. Still, judging from ticket sales, fans aren't really dissatisfied. I know I'm not. Click here to buy a DVD of the theater-release version of The Two Towers. Click here to buy the same on VHS. Click here to buy the extended edition on DVD. Click here to buy the extended edition on VHS. Click here to buy an extended edition DVD gift set with a statue of Gollum. (I can't help but laugh -- a statue of Gollum is not my choice for an objet d'art. One can only hope the gift edition of The Return of the King will have a statue of Viggo Mortensen in the role of Aragorn. Now that would be a handsome addition to any room!) The Return of the King At last. I liked the movie very much. My only disappointment was the ghost army from the Paths of the Dead. They were all green and quite visible, not to mention cliched -- they could have come from any low-budget horror film. I think a grey and white color palatte and a suggestion of their forms would have been more effective. But then I'm no movie director. I found all the rest of it satisfying, especially Aragorn's coronation and the petals blowing in the air from the renewed tree of Gondor. Of course, I'll buy the DVD when it comes out, but really I'm already more interested in the extended edition, which comes out even later. |
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien |
Tolkien's Books I read The Hobbit sometime between age 12-14 and enjoyed it. Several times, I read it and then started on The Lord of the Rings, which consists of three volumes, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. For a while, I simply could not get through The Fellowship of the Ring. I would put it down and just not pick it up again. I always ran stuck somewhere in the Tom Bombadil/barrow wights section. Finally, when I was 15, I determined to force myself to keep going even if I didn't feel like it, and once the group of four hobbits left Bree with Strider I could not put the books down until I had completed the whole trilogy. I was devoted to this story. I have re-read it many times since then, and I am never disappointed. |
Peter Jackson's Movies Click here to go to the official Lord of the Rings movie website. I can't remember how or when I first heard someone was making a live-action movie of The Lord of the Rings, but I was visiting the movie website well before the movie began to receive mainstream publicity. Only Tolkien geeks were obsessively tracking the details of the filming, which was occurring in New Zealand. A good source of information besides the official website was www.theonering.net. Watching the interviews and clips at the movie website made me glad that someone who was rather a Tolkien enthusiast was in charge of the project. I always think the best movie adaptations of books are made by people who love the book they're filming. Not only the director, Peter Jackson, was a Tolkien buff, but the makeup people, the costume-makers, the set designers, and so on were immersed in the books. I was also glad that it was not going to be an animated feature, because Tolkien's story is not cartoonish; I was thrilled that each book in the trilogy was receiving its own full-length feature movie treatment, rather than an attempt made to squish all three into one movie; and I thought it a wonderful stroke of genius that Jackson was filming all three at once, so that the same actors played their parts throughout, and the whole energy and mood would be on a single trajectory. I was one of the millions who downloaded the first and second previews Jackson posted on the net, and those made me even more excited about the film. I saw The Fellowship of the Ring the day it opened and saw it again an embarrassing number of times for a middle-aged, usually moderate movie-goer. A year later, I saw The Two Towers on its opening day. Now my only problem with the movies is waiting a year between each release. There is so much information about these movies on the net that it would be redundant for me to spell out details such as the omission of Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire, or the expanded role of Arwen Evenstar. Suffice to say, I am able to accept the changes between the books and the movies as a necessary part of going from one medium to another. The Fellowship of the Ring The Fellowship of the Ring was almost an overwhelming experience. I had been waiting so eagerly for its release and I had read so much about "the making of" that when it actually started, I could hardly take it in. Repeated viewings overcame that problem. I bought the DVD when it came out and the extended edition DVD when that came out. I appreciated the extra scences in the extended edition, but I think Jackson made the right choices in his editing for the theater release. The pacing was better, and the story more focused. He said in the commentaries that editing became easy when he came up with the principle of showing only what pertained to the ring and Frodo's quest. It did make the movie more unified. Click here to buy a DVD of the theater-release version of The Fellowship of the Ring. Click here to buy the same on VHS. Click here to buy the extended edition DVD. Click here to buy the extended edition VHS. Click here to buy an extended edition DVD gift set with statues of the Argonath. The Two Towers I likewise anticipated The Two Towers and read extensively about it before it came out. I almost knew too much about it when I saw it, but that was my own fault for ceaselessly combing the net for information. It suffers a little in comparison to The Fellowship of the Ring because, being about the three different splinters of the broken fellowship, it cannot be as unified and focused. Recently, I watched The Godfather Part II, which also switched between story lines (only two instead of three), and Francis Ford Coppola said in his commentary that audiences understood the whole better when he stayed with each storyline for an extended period of time. At first, he had switched frequently between the two, but that confused preview audiences, so he re-edited to focus on each story a little longer. Possibly, The Two Towers would have benefitted from the same idea. Also, as Peter Jackson himself has pointed out in interviews, The Two Towers is the most difficult to make satisfying because it starts mid-story and ends still mid-story. Nevertheless, the movie is wonderful. I don't have a problem with the changes to Faramir's character, which some fans have complained about. It seems as though there has been more criticism from fans about The Two Towers than The Fellowship of the Ring; I theorize that's because Fellowship was so good as a detailed rendition of Middle Earth that audiences took for granted at the second movie a level of excellence that astonished them in the first. Still, judging from ticket sales, fans aren't really dissatisfied. I know I'm not. Click here to buy a DVD of the theater-release version of The Two Towers. Click here to buy the same on VHS. Click here to buy the extended edition on DVD. Click here to buy the extended edition on VHS. Click here to buy an extended edition DVD gift set with a statue of Gollum. (I can't help but laugh -- a statue of Gollum is not my choice for an objet d'art. One can only hope the gift edition of The Return of the King will have a statue of Viggo Mortensen in the role of Aragorn. Now that would be a handsome addition to any room!) The Return of the King At last. I liked the movie very much. My only disappointment was the ghost army from the Paths of the Dead. They were all green and quite visible, not to mention cliched -- they could have come from any low-budget horror film. I think a grey and white color palatte and a suggestion of their forms would have been more effective. But then I'm no movie director. I found all the rest of it satisfying, especially Aragorn's coronation and the petals blowing in the air from the renewed tree of Gondor. Of course, I'll buy the DVD when it comes out, but really I'm already more interested in the extended edition, which comes out even later. |
Click here to buy a boxed set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. |
Three Christ Figures in The Lord of the Rings Here is part of my interpretation of Tolkien's story. If you've never read the books or seen the movies, there may be spoilers here for you. Tolkien wrote a myth of a pre-Christian age, but one in which Christ-types abound. First, of course, there is Frodo. He is a suffering servant type -- with no majesty that we should be drawn to him. His quest is to surrender power in order to overcome evil, and his weakness is what allows him to carry out his task. He saves his world through an apparent failure, and afterwards few recognize what he has done. Gandalf lays down his life for his friends and essentially rises from the dead. What's more, his resurrection self is transformed. As in the biblical resurrection stories, his friends don't recognize him at first, and he does acts of power that he did not do before his self-sacrifice. His role in battle scenes as the White Rider is an image lifted from the book of Revelation. Aragorn is a messiah figure. He is the king in exile, the true heir of the chosen line of kings. He returns to his people to overcome their enemies and issue in the age of right rule. None of these three is a perfect parallel to Christ, for Tolkien, as he often insisted, did not write an allegory. But I think that he envisioned a world in which the God who acts in and through history, although hidden from the knowledge of the inhabitants of that world, was yet at work in his own unmistakable way. |
