I thought I’d write a quick note about last night’s ROTK preview in Palm Springs. I had no idea of this beforehand, but we were told that this was the first-ever “public” screening of the film–all the previous screenings had been for invited guests.
A late arrival at the theatre put me very near the end of the line to get in, which resulted in second-row side seats–directly behind the seats reserved for Sir Ian McKellen. He sat there for a few minutes while he was introduced, then took the stage and spoke briefly, relating his experiences to the importance of public funding for the arts (the screening was a benefit for LA’s PBS station) before sitting down for a charming interview which ranged over his entire career. At the end of the interview, he was persuaded to recite a bit of Shakespeare–the “seven ages of man” speech from “As You Like It,” which he performed quite movingly, and dedicated to recently-deceased filmmaker John Schlessinger. Sir Ian looked great, in a very beautiful pair of leather pants. Not surprisingly, he didn’t stay for the screening. I swiped the “reserved” sign from the back of his seat. He was replaced in the front row by some New Line folks, a couple of whom took turns scanning the audience with night-vision binos looking for bootleggers.
I’m disinclined to write a spoiler-filled review of ROTK, especially as I’m still internalizing a lot of it. I will say that I like FOTR much better than TTT–both the books and the films–and had mixed expectations for ROTK. I needn’t have worried: the final film of Peter Jackson’s trilogy is an absolute masterpiece. I have a few quibbles, of course. I have serious reservations about the characterization of Denethor (my similar reservations about Faramir in TTT faded with repeat viewings, so I’ll say no more). I sorely missed Saruman’s balcony scene, which, by now, everyone knows was cut. One potential spoiler: I also missed a cut scene I hadn’t heard about in advance–the parley with the Mouth of Sauron, which seemed to me to be a lost chance for some real character-driven drama.
That said, the dramatic tensions, intercutting between stories, and development of the themes of friendship, sacrifice and loss in ROTK are handled brilliantly. The siege of Minas Tirith and the battle of the Pelennor Fields are terrifying and heart-wrenching. And Frodo, Sam & Gollum’s journey through Mordor is a thing of great emotional complexity. Trust me, you’ll cry.
Visually, how can you lose when you let Jackson’s brilliant team loose on rich environments like Minas Tirith, Mount Doom and the Grey Havens, or on fantastic creatures like fell beasts, war oliphaunts … and Shelob? I’ll only say your jaws will ache from repeated dropping.
I don’t know how I’ll feel next year after I’ve seen the ROTK extended edition a few times and can judge the trilogy properly as a whole. Today, though, to quote Boromir, life is good. I think ROTK is probably the finest of three very fine films.
Attention all free peoples of Middle Earth! Just as Gandalf sought out the identity of the One Ring in the library at Minas Tirith so can you discover your true fellowship at the Orlando Public Library. Begin your preparation for the final leg of the journey with an afternoon of all things Middle Earth. Event features:
The event is on Sunday, December 14th from 1:00 to 4:00 at the Orlando Public Library, 101 E. Central Blvd Orlando, FL 32828.
1:00 “Prancing Pony Brag Meet”- Secure a table at the Prancing Pony to display your most enviable LOTR goods.
2:00 “Free Peoples of Middle Earth Fashion Show”- Up for some healthy competition? Come decked out in your Middle Earth garb and try for the title of “best dressed”.
2:30 “Hobbits in Hollywood”- “Shire” your thoughts about the Lord of the Rings books and films. How faithful to the movies were the books? What underlying themes course through these time-honored stories? Would Tolkien have approved of the films? The answers to these questions are what inquiring minds want to know!
3:00 Lore Challenge- Do you have the heart of the hobbit, the erudition of the elf, and the mettle of men? If so, then prove your valor at the trivia table to determine how well you really know Middle Earth.
4:00 Special presentation by Dr. Jerome Donnelly, professor of English literature with a specialization in Tolkien, at the University of Central Florida.
And much, much more! Participate or come enjoy the company of fellow Ringers all afternoon.
For a full schedule of the day’s events or to register for the Prancing Pony, the Fashion Show, or the Lore Challenge, please call 407-835-7323.
Thanks to Tourism New Zealand and the Science Museum in London, British LOTR fans were able to celebrate the premiere of ROTK in style on 1 December.
Despite the heavy rain and early hour (07:30) about 100 guests, several in costume, turned up at the Science Museum to drink champagne and enjoy pictures of the red-carpet walk at the premiere in Wellington being beamed across to us (almost live!). The New Zealand High Commissioner gave a little speech to mark the occasion and we were all made to feel very welcome by all the Science Museum staff and the staff from Tourism New Zealand.
We even got a chance to wander about in the LOTR exhibition currently running at the Science Museum and to see all the wonderful costumes, weapons and armour on display. It’s well worth a visit if you are an LOTR fan and live in or near London because some of the costumes, particularly Gimli’s and Galadriel’s didn’t come across that well on screen, or else they were just more ornate and stunning in the flesh, so to speak. You will marvel at the detail in the helmets for instance, and remember to take a look at the leather strap at the back of Eomer’s helmet – it has his name embossed in the leather! So many treasures to see, so little time!
At our departure we were given goodie bags from TNZ containing LOTR mouse mat, Rough Guide to LOTR and some posters of NZ amongst other things.
Many thanks again to Ainsley Pope from TNZ and Matt Garrett at the Science Museum and their teams for giving London LOTR fans such a treat to mark this great occasion.
The final eposide of ‘The Lord Of The Rings’ trilogy is coming to a screen near you. Shane Hegarty on the epic work, from conception to creation.
In Wellington on Monday, the première of The Return of the King, the final instalment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was a quiet affair. Just the cast and crew, 100,000 fans, a 470 metre-long red carpet, an Air New Zealand jumbo jet flying low over Wellington harbour, its fuselage painted with movie scenes and daubed with its current slogan “Airline to Middle-earth”, and a tickertape parade for director and local hero Peter Jackson.
Ladies, the Prime Minister Helen Clark was wearing a specially designed Tolkien-style chain-mail jacket.
After seven years and a total spend of more than the GNP of Sierra Leone, it was probably not the time to get stingy. The big-screen treatment of Frodo Baggins’s adventures in Middle-earth has inspired awe and just as much admiration for how it got there. They are movies great in both scale and soul, but they are also movies of statistics. Twenty thousand extras were used. One in every 160 New Zealanders was involved in the production. 1,600 pairs of prosthetic feet and ears (individually shaped and sized) were made, as were 48,000 swords, scabbards, axes and shields, 300 wigs, and 900 suits of armour. Even breakfast was epic. The crew consumed 1,460 eggs every morning of the shoot.
It has taken seven years from conception to conclusion. Filming of all three movies took place back-to-back over 274 days between 1999-2000. In total they cost $330 million to make, not counting the $210 million spent persuading you to go and see them. The first two chapters – Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers – have already made $1.8 billion at the box office and ultimately, the franchise is expected to make $3 billion. The movies were nominated for 19 Oscars and won six. There is a woman in Thailand who claims to have seen Fellowship of the Ring 250 times already.
And they nearly never got made. The original studio, Miramax, was unable to guarantee Jackson his required budget and wanted the 1,000-page novel to be squeezed into a single two-hour movie. With Jackson aghast, Miramax allowed him four weeks to find another studio before they would take it back. Six studios did not even return his calls and when Jackson brought a 35-minute presentation made with $50,000 of his own cash to the offices of modest Time Warner subsidiary New Line Cinema, it was with the hope of spreading the three-part book over two films. New Line not only asked him to make three movies, it also allowed him to make them in one go in his home country of New Zealand.
The early days went badly. Irish actor Stuart Townsend was removed from the role of Aragorn a few days after filming began in October 1999, because of “creative differences”. The following month, sets were washed away by flood waters. New Line began to get a little nervous. During filming, it sacked 20 per cent of its staff and there was widespread belief that failure of the film would end the company. Concern grew that Jackson had made nothing but low-budget horror movies and one indie hit, Heavenly Creatures. The future of the company was in the hands of a Tolkien fanatic with no experience of making blockbusters.
Costs spiralled. Much of it went into creating landscapes of Middle-earth through WETA Digital, a New Zealand company Jackson co-owns. The effects were a mix of computer ingenuity and human graft. They created a camera that forced perspective, so that Ian McKellen’s giant Gandalf towered over Ian Holm’s four-foot tall Bilbo Baggins. More than 250,000 silk leaves were applied by hand to just one tree. There are 220,000 computerised soldiers in the final battle scenes, each of them programmed to independently interact with their surroundings. As the technology evolved and became cheaper, so the battles became more ambitious.
The Return of the King has as many effects shots as the first two movies put together.
The success of the first two movies allowed New Line to give Jackson carte blanche to do what he needed with the special effects for the third.
All the while, secrecy was paramount. Mark Ordesky was the New Line executive charged with bringing footage from New Zealand to Los Angeles. On more than a dozen 14-hour plane flights, Ordesky would slide himself into an aisle seat, put the video tape into a backpack, strap the pack to his chest, drape an airline blanket over his torso, tuck the ends under his thighs for good measure, and strap the seat belt tight across his lap.
The paranoia proved justified. In May, 2000, Wellington police launched a sting operation after someone tried to sell footage of the then unreleased first film over the Internet. Police offered €96,000 for the footage before arresting three men, including a member of the film crew. Later that year, a former security guard admitted stealing €114,000 of costumes and props.
Meanwhile, the scenery was keen on the limelight. The movies, as the New Zealand Tourist Board is most eager to point out, were made in their beautiful country, and they would like you to come visit. Nobody’s quite sure what effect it has had on the local economy. They have been expecting a surge in tourism since the first day of filming but are still bracing themselves for impact. Visitor numbers were up 9 per cent for September, making it the busiest September ever. But Australia’s visitor numbers were up twice that amount. It will gall New Zealanders all the more to know that the Melbourne Age was this week running the story: “Rings Film to Boost Aussie Tourism.”
There is no Oscar for Best Mountain. When the first movie was released there was dismay at how the leading American newspapers did not mention the location in their reviews. Feeling that they let the opportunity slip by twice already, the New Zealand government has been keen to capitalise on the final instalment before it is too late. Some $4 million has been spent on a promotional campaign. The elf queen adorns New Zealand stamps. They have minted a set of coins, all legal tender and “featuring a range of popular characters and stunning scenes from the three movies”. A “Minister for Lord of the Rings” has been appointed to oversee the promotion of the country.
Meanwhile, there has been growing debate over the true cost of the project.
New Line’s arrangement with the New Zealand government allowed the studio to set up a tax-sheltered local company to make the films and then buy the finished product from that company. It is estimated to have cost the local taxpayers €115 million, which is about what the country earned from wine exports last year. Current Finance Minister, Michael Cullen, recently pointed out that it would have been cheaper to buy every New Zealander a ticket to each film in the trilogy.
A leaked government report earlier this year admitted that it is “unclear whether any substantive profits will be returned to New Zealand”. An expensive report on the effect the films have had on the native film industry was dismissed as vague and inconclusive. By way of bait to Hollywood, a large budget grant scheme has been set up, which will reimburse one-eighth of the money production companies’ spend there. Local film-makers have complained that it will be of little benefit to them, while cynics point out that only Tom Cruise’s next movie, The Last Samurai, has been filmed in New Zealand since.
Even Jackson’s WETA faces an uncertain future, with as many as half of its 408 workers facing the door. The special effects for his next movie, King Kong, will be made there in 2005, but until then the company acknowledges that it will find it hard to keep everybody busy.
Any gripes, though, were drowned out by the scream of the jumbo over Wellington on Monday and will soon be lost under the crescendo of ringing tills. There will most likely be more Oscars in February. Jackson will ultimately pocket $150 million for giving up seven years of his life to the movies. There is talk of adaptingTolkien’s prequel, The Hobbit.
Meanwhile, The Lord of the Rings can expect an epic shelf life. The extra footage on the DVDs guarantees huge sales. There are porn versions and someone is threatening to do Lord of the Rings: The Stage Musical.
The merchandising possibilities seem interminable. A wizard’s pipe, yours for only €59.99. A “very collectible” paperweight, a snip at €50. A Lord of the Rings pinball machine of your very own for just €4,000.
Millions may have been spent on the movies, but this is no time to start wasting it.
In next Thursday’s Ticket, Hugh Linehan reports from Berlin on the European première of The Return of the King, and talks to the cast and crew.
Ringer Lee sends in this very SPOILER HEAVY review of ROTK:
A Booklover’s Perspective: ROTK review from advance screening at KCET Public Television benefit event, Dec. 5. 2003
A warning up front: this review comes from the perspective of someone who has had a 27 year love affair with ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ It also comes from someone with advanced training in literary analysis, and therefore a high standard for any form of storytelling. So if you haven’t read the books, or don’t really care about thematic coherence and logical consistency in your stories, this review won’t mean much to you. On the other hand, I am not a ‘purist’ in demanding a faithful adaptation of the book: there are obvious differences between print and cinema that require change, and of course Peter Jackson et al. had to make a movie that would sell. So this isn’t a review by someone who rejects all change from the original. But boy, if you are going to change the elements of one of the best written, bestselling stories of all time, you’d better have a good reason, and you’d better do it well.
Note also: I’m not going to refrain from including spoilers, because frankly, if you love the book, you should be warned in advance of changes that you probably won’t like. That way, you can focus on what does work in the film, rather than being distracted and disturbed by unexpected elements. I wish I had known about the things that bothered me; then I might have been able to look past them more easily. This review isn’t going to go through the movie scene-by-scene (that, to me, would be the true spoiler) but focus on the unexpected–good and bad–that is worth noting.
As most fans know by now, the movie opens with the finding of the Ring by Deagol, and the murder that starts Smeagol’s descent. It’s a great way to begin this film, grounding us back in the addiction story and reminding us of what it is that Frodo so fears. Unfortunately, Andy Serkis overplays Smeagol as a witless grinning moron, and the SFX for the scene are way below WETAs usual extraordinary level, so the effectiveness of the scene is undercut. But the fight that leads to Deagol’s murder is chilling and powerful.
When the film shifts to Frodo, Sam and Gollum in Mordor, we get the beginning of an interesting expansion and change from Tolkiens original. What the filmmakers do, so that we have more to watch than the hobbits trudging along day after day, is to amp up the conflict among these three. We see more of Gollum’s plotting; more of Sam seeing Gollum plot; and more of Frodo refusing to see Gollum’s true threat. Indeed, the script goes so far as to have Gollum warn Frodo that Sam will ask to carry the ring (which he does soon after), and frame Sam as having stolen missing lembas. The result is that Frodo tells Sam to go home, and faces Shelob alone. Was it plausible that Frodo would march off with Gollum, not even a pack on his back, while Sam weepingly starts back down the stairs? Not really. But the dynamic works nonetheless because it fits the logic of the characters’ development. Frodo is suspicious already, so it’s easy to see why he’d fall victim to Gollum’s deceit; Sam is too loving and simple to know how to combat Gollum’s complex treachery. And the sorrow that each feels at this parting is moving and true.
And of course Sam doesn’t go home, but returns, and in so doing restores the story to the shared journey of these two brave souls. Indeed, the final journey through Mordor, although much shortened (how much crawling and thirst can a filmmaker depict?), is powerfully done, and pretty faithful to the book.
You know by now that we don’t see Saruman’s death. We do get a brief stop at Isengard, and a nod to ‘Flotsam and Jetsam’ (my favorite chapter in TTT), as the slightly drunken Merry and Pippin greet the party from Helm’s Deep. But the very brevity of the visit–we’re just there long enough for Pippin to find the palantir, and for Gandalf to tell Treebeard not to hurt Saruman–is frustrating. I would gladly have traded seven minutes of Oliphaunts and orcs at the Pelennor Fields for the closure of dealing with Saruman, who was the source of so much pain and death in the previous movie. By brushing him off as ‘old business,’ the movie makes me feel instead that it has left unfinished business.
The worst disservice to the original story, however, comes in the portrayal of Denethor. Gone is the noble, if arrogant, Steward, with his keen vision. What we get instead is a nasty pig of a man, who won’t light the beacons to send for help from Rohan (we’re never told why), necessitating an absurd scene in which Gandalf has Pippin secretly scale some insane height so as to light the first beacon. Rather than film the superb moment in which Faramir reports to his father in front of Gandalf and Pippin, and reveals that he’s seen hobbits in Ithilien, Gandalf takes Pippin with him on Shadowfax to rescue the riders retreating from Osgiliath. The filmmakers clearly wanted a way to have Faramir see a hobbit, so that he could then tell Gandalf. But as a bit of plot logic, this is just plain silly (why would you take a hobbit with you to ride out against a Nazgul whom you plan to battle with light from your staff?), and misses the chance to have Faramir torn between Gandalf and Denethor and forced to admit to his father that he let the ring go. Instead, we get Denethor, who appears utterly oblivious to what is going on, eating sloppily as he tells Faramir to go on a suicide mission to reclaim Osgiliath, for no other reason than that he hates his son. David Wenham does a great job showing Faramir’s pain at his father’s cruelty; John Noble chews the scenery as absurdly as he chews his chicken and tomatoes.
But here’s the worst–when the orc armies arrive at Minas Tirith, Denethor freaks and tells his soldiers to abandon their posts. How does Gandalf handle this? He USES HIS STAFF TO BEAT UP THE STEWARD OF GONDOR. Gandalf, who embodies wisdom and only uses violence when physically attacked, is reduced to thuggishness in dealing with craven, nasty Denethor. This was for me the low point of the film; I was so astonished at the needless reduction of a complex character, and its distorting effect on the other characters in the film, that I wanted to leave the theatre. In changing Denethor, for no good reason, the filmmakers sacrificed true dramatic conflict for an overly simplistic polarizationDenethor BAD, okay to beat up; Gandalf good, no matter what he does. And can you imagine the soldiers of Gondor obeying Gandalf after they’ve seen him coldcock their leader?
The other character who is most damaged by the film’s revisions is Elrond. We know that he resists his daughter’s choic–how could he not? But by ROTK he has become such a doom-and-gloom naysayer that one wonders why he ever held his Council; after all, he seems to think that the side of good cannot win, so why bother to try? In order to give Elrond something to do, and amp up the dramatic tension, he delivers Anduril to Aragorn at Dunharrow, along with the announcement that Arwen is dying: her life force, he says, is now tied to the ring, so that if Aragorn fails and the ring is not destroyed, that will be the end of Arwen. Huh?! Nothing is served by this bit of plot complication; it’s never referred to again, and makes no sense in relation to all else that has come before and comes after.This pattern of creating excessive danger and conflict in order to amp up the story reaches its absurdist peak here.
There is much that the film leaves out, of course, of sad necessity. Here are some things you should plan NOT to see, that you might have expected and would be disappointed to miss:
· Merry pledging fealty to Theoden, or any of that plot line
· Eomer mourning his uncle on the field of battle (although they must have shot this, as I’ve seen stills of the scene) or taking on the role of King of Rohan
· The wedding of Aragorn and Arwen (although we get their meeting on the day of his coronation)
· Anything to do with Faramir and Eowyn after Faramir is rescued from the pyre and Eowyn saves Theoden (except that they stand smiling side by side during the coronation)
· The partings of the members of the fellowship, other than at the Grey Havens
In sum: although there were some excellent and very moving moments in this film, including the Grey Havens, I left feeling that Peter Jackson et al. had moved further and further away from an evocation of the original story, and more towards an excessively hyped-up, Hollywood-ized action adventure. Subtlety and complexity have increasingly given way to simple contrasts and exaggerated dramatic conflicts. The thematics of loss that are the heart of the book are minimized: we see only the prices paid by Arwen and Frodo for their choices, and Arwen seems happy enough at the end that even her sacrifice is minimized. Where there is thematic coherence–as when Frodo wakes after being rescued from the slopes of Mt. Doom, in a scene very like his awakening at Rivendell–the film goes for the quickie result, showing a bunch of happy hobbits hugging and laughing. And where ROTK might have come back to the theme of heroes and storytelling that Sam raises at the end of TTT, it fails to do so, missing another opportunity to develop its own ideas.
I hope this review will help other lovers of the trilogy to be prepared; perhaps, if you are, you will be able to tolerate what is wrong and better appreciate what is right. It is still an amazing thing that Middle Earth was brought to life!
