From: Balin Of The Mines
Saw it monday night. All three hours of the Fellowship of the Ring. I can tell you that the casting is spot on all the way through, I can tell you that the visual effects are amazing, That the Balrog is Bad Ass in the way we always imagined, but about fifty feet taller, I can tell you that Arwen is only on screen for maybe ten minutes, and represents no threat to the story, but all those things are trivial.
Here is the important thing: The Story is not changed. It is not exactly the same, but it is the same story. That has in no way been lost, or weakened or polluted. I have finally arrived at a way of describing the difference between the book and the film: Imagine the book as a valuable weaving. Take the exact fabric and re weave it…tighter. Snip off a few barely noticeable threads, move a little of the fiber around to strengthen the integrity of the whole, and you have the same weaving…sturdier, renewed, ready for new use…but the same. Spoilers to follow:
Instead of Strider…for not much narrative reason…objecting to Gandalf taking the fellowship into Moria as is in the book, it’s the other way around. But because that subtle change is made, several other points click together more closely. Jackson and his writing team have used Tolkein to improve Tolkein. His words are everywhere in the script, everywhere. There are more scenes of Traitorous Saruman preparing for war, including several pointed sequences of orcs cruelly destroying trees. These scenes are going to pay off in the Two Towers, as you surely know. Aragorn doesn’t use broken Narsil in the early going of the story…but the broken sword that is eventually reforged helps create a scene in Rivendell that sets up the interplay between Aragorn and Boromir, that is astoundingly powerful in the movie. Gandalf is rescued from Orthanc by the great eagle, as before, but instead of a talky sequence with the seen-once-only Radagast the Brown, he sets up his escape with the help of a friendly Moth…done mostly visually, in the midst of telling other parts of the story. Efficient…but still the same story.
Thats the key here. As a result, once the script is streamlined like this, it MOVES. Tolkien’s prose, as much as we love it, is a little leisurely, but with just a little tuneup, connecting the same existing material in slightly different ways, you travel the same ground in breathless, headlong fashion.
The Bottom Line: It’s the Fellowship of the Ring. It IS. Frodo and Sam leave the fellowship wondering if they’ll ever see any of the others again, Merry and Pippin are in the hands of the Orcs, and Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn are hot on their trail, after the body of Boromir is sent down Rauros Falls. The morgul knife vanishes as smoke, white horses in the waves of the flooding river that sweeps away the black riders…that stuff is all there. Grubbs, Chubbs, Boffins, Bolgers, Bracegirdles and Proudfoots…Proudfeet…That’s there. I know less than half of you half as well as I should like…thats there. It’s there. And best of all there ARE suprizes. Little ones. Great ones that fit, work with the characters but are new…and delightful. There is also one spectacularly bad joke in the movie, but I won’t tell you about it. You’ll hear it.
We have lived long enough, we have good enough Karma. Not all of our dreams have or will ever come true, but this one has. A wonderful magical powerful movie has been made of The Lord of the Rings, and we get to see it. I have seen it, and will again, countless times and so will you.
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Just to let you know that the Evening Post ran a story on page 3 last night with photo about a 2m tall Thank You card from the people of Wellington to Peter Jackson.
This card is circulating around the Wellington Region and says ‘Thanks Peter, you made a difference to our city. From your fellow Wellingtonians’.
Anyone can sign the card, which will be presented to Jackson next week.
The card will be at the Upper Hutt Visitor Information Centre today, Hutt City Council’s customer service centre Thursday, Kapiti Coast District Council Friday and Wellington Central Library Saturday and Sunday. It will be at Meridian Energy’s head office December 17, Porirua’s Pataka Musuem December 18 and Westpac Trust St James Theatre “The Lord of the Rings’ display on December 19.
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Ringer Spies Stopher the Puce and truesilver send us these scans from Computer Graphics World magazine.
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News from Elliot: “The Evening Post ran a story on page 3 last night with photo about a 2m tall ‘Thank You’ card from the people of Wellington to Peter Jackson.
This card is circulating around the Wellington Region and says ‘Thanks Peter, you made a difference to our city. From your fellow Wellingtonians’.
Anyone can sign the card, which will be presented to Jackson next week. The card will be at the Upper Hutt Visitor Information Centre today, Hutt City Council’s customer service centre Thursday, Kapiti Coast District Council Friday and Wellington Central Library Saturday and Sunday. It will be at Meridian Energy’s head office December 17, Porirua’s Pataka Musuem December 18 and Westpac Trust St James Theatre “The Lord of the Rings’ display on December 19.”
For myself I can report that yesterday NZ really went LOTR crazy – it was in all the news all the time. Not just reports on the premiere, but a total blitz of Rings news on all media. I took part in a Tolkienfest at Auckland’s central public library, and it was absolutely chocker (full) of people – and what a varied group of people too.
A lot of interviews in yesterday’s news asked people at the London premiere ‘Do you think the LOTR films will bring tourists to NZ?’ The answer was yes, which should be good news for our Movietours idea.
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LTKaluza sends in these directions to find some hidden goodies on your DVD of Rush Hour 2:
Go to the scene selection menu. It will appear as a slot machine. All will contain scene from the movie except for two – a dragon crest and the number 7. The dragon crest is the trailer attached to Pearl Harbor (“Legend tells of a ring…”), and the 7 takes you to the trailer attached to the Angel season premiere (“In the lands of Middle-earth…”).
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A different side to the creator of Middle-Earth was revealed today, as J.R.R. Tolkien manuscripts and printed editions went on display. They were unveiled at the British Library by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, one of Tolkien’s own creations, who is currently appearing in the West End hit The Hobbit.
The displays include letters and notes from Tolkien to his grandson, many of which accompanied Christmas gifts and money. They are written in his unmistakably ornate calligraphic hand, using a broad-nibbed pen similar to a quill. Also on display are rare first edition copies of The Hobbit and the first illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and some examples of Tolkien memorabilia, including a role-playing game and a figurine.
In one letter Tolkien talks of losing his privacy having become become an unwilling celebrity. He is all set to move into a flat in Merton College following the death of his wife, but complains that he will no longer be protected from ‘Hoopers, Snoopers, Goopers, press-gangs, phone-bugs, and transatlantic lion hunters and gargoyle-fanciers’.
Sally Brown, Curator of Modern Literary Manuscripts at the British Library said: ‘The forthcoming film of The Lord of the Rings demonstrates Tolkien’s enduring appeal, and we wanted to mark this occasion by displaying some interesting associated items. The letters show the affectionate family man that we do not glimpse in his fiction, and the books show how the stories have been illustrated before this big screen adaptation.’
Entry to the British Library exhibitions is free, and all are welcome. This display will run until the end of January. For further information please contact Craig Westwood in The British Library Press Office on 020 7412 7115, or email craig.westwood@bl.uk
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