| Friday, December 20, 2002 |
22:58 - Movie Thoughts
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Okay-- my reaction to The Two Towers, which I saw today, is likely to be a complex one. I'm still digesting it. This isn't the euphoric rush of relief after the first one, where all the fans realized that Peter Jackson was taking on the story in a totally unprecedented style and making extensive modifications, and yet that was okay, because it worked. By now, Jackson's style is something we've gotten used to; it's its own animal now, and TTT is going to be judged on a different set of criteria than FotR was. Just as the second film now has the strength of all the fans of the first one, who only discovered the series during the past year (and many of whom haven't read the books), it also has the peril of following in its predecessor's deep footprints. Which means the popular reaction-- including from the fans-- is bound to be considerably different in tone.
It's just such a big movie, such a vast and rich story, with so many intricate twists and textural details in each scene, that I can't offer a cohesive "review". Rather, I'll just list a whole bunch of observations, things I noticed and thought were worth remembering.
This means there will be spoilers below, if you're the sort to whom that's important to know.
So, here goes:
- As many have noted, Jackson has taken many more liberties with the storyline in TTT than he did in FotR. This one is definitely his own story, rather than the one in the book; it follows the same framework, but so many of the little events that flesh out that framework are different-- even radically so-- that the movie and the book, this time, won't in any way each spoil the other. Most of Jackson's changes I think are positive ones, but many I'm ambivalent about-- they're things I'll grant him in the interest of understanding what kind of story he wants to tell, but I don't necessarily think they improve the story per se.
As a friend notes, however, the changes in this movie seem designed more for storytelling purposes and pacing than for expedience and time-saving, as was a sporadic issue with the first movie; so in many ways this movie is more successful, even with all the extreme changes.
- Whereas the book was divided into "Book III" (with Merry and Pippin and the Rohan story) and "Book IV" (with Frodo and Sam), the movie interleaves them together, as I suspected it would. This is definitely more successful from a moviemaking standpoint than it would have been if this had really been "two movies in one", back-to-back.
- Even so, it looks as though Jackson intends to cover less story in Return of the King overall than is in the book, because TTT cuts off well before the book version does, in both storylines. No Shelob, no Minas Morgul, no confrontation at Isengard. These things will presumably be moved forward into RotK, which-- if it's as long a movie as this one is-- certainly won't feel lacking in material (even if they skip the Scouring of the Shire, as it has been suggested that it will).
- Starting the movie with Gandalf's battle with the Balrog-- and framing it as a dream Frodo is having-- does a good job of reintroducing the previous movie's salient plot point, without a cheesy Trekkish "summary" run-through at the beginning. Plus it did an excellent job of realizing the otherwise difficult-to-picture "Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him" narrative.
- "Well, we have lembas bread. ...Oh, and look! more lembas bread." Cute. Likewise with Sam's crack about "foreign food".
- Gollum's design was jarring at first, but grew on me. Especially the face. Very expressive... and even lovable, in the "Slinker" mode. Speaking of which-- the scene in which he argues with himself, which Jackson has treated as the occasion where he quite literally banishes the "Stinker" side of himself from his psyche (not exactly permanently, though), was an unexpected comedic gem. The way Jackson jumped the camera back and forth was certainly something I didn't expect in this kind of movie; it's a very comedy-film kind of trick, and it reminded me very strongly of the Pixar short "Geri's Game", which I suspect was among Jackson's inspirations for the scene. I half expected one of the Stinker jump-cuts to consist entirely of him leering at Slinker, before jumping back-- which in itself is one of the best bits of physical and situational humor in "Geri's Game", and the basis for the gag. Nice homage, Peter, if that's what it was.
- The Dead Marshes worked well. Especially the close-up on the Nazgûl, and the pull-back to show the whole winged creature-- I saw it coming, but it worked well.
- When Saruman was rallying the Dunlendings-- his language: "The Rohirrim drove you out from their lands, forcing you to scratch out a living in the mountains. Now those dirty peasants are living in your country-- it is now time to fight to take it back!" Hmm... where have we heard this before?
Also, I just remembered-- in his first scene, Gríma maintains that Saruman is a friend of Rohan, that he'd never do anything to hurt his neighbors-- but then he's caught in a lie outright by Éomer's report of the skirmish on the outskirts. Gríma then changes his tactic, accusing Éomer of "warmongering". Hmmmmm.
- One of the women in Rohan was named Haleth. That's a name out of The Silmarillion. Good research-- it's even appropriate.
- Gandalf's wink when he's allowed to keep his staff as they enter Meduseld-- great. Gríma was extremely effective, as were all his extra oily lines that were added in order to intensify how gross a guy he is, and the terrifying implications of the importance of his position. (The decayed, desiccated old Théoden under Saruman's spell-- wow, what a mess. Almost as impressive as the subtlety of the transformation after Gandalf exorcises him.) But one thing I thought was missing was any of the "mystery story" about Gríma-- whether he was an agent of Saruman was never in any doubt; Éomer called him out in the very first scene. Not a bad omission, but it seemed a bit rushed.
- There was one weird moment of directorial bobbling that confused me: right at the moment when Gandalf drives out Saruman's spell from Théoden and is knocked headlong on the floor in reaction. Now, maybe it's just me, but... my interpretation, for several weird seconds, was that Gandalf had quite literally driven out Saruman from Théoden's body, and that was Saruman that got flung on the floor. I half expected him to jump up, look around wildly, hiss, and raise his arms and go flying out the window, wailing and screeching his way back to Isengard. And of course the guards would all yell, "Quick-- he's getting away!"
- Treebeard and the Ents work, I think. I buy it. Certainly a better interpretation of Ents than I've seen before.
- Speaking of which, good misdirection on the "white wizard" bit-- though the explicitude of Merry and Pippin meeting Gandalf the White before he reveals himself to the other three is an interesting plot simplification. Not sure if it'll have repercussions later.
- And speaking of relevant-to-these-times dialogue, how about Éowyn when she's practicing with her sword? "The women of this land learned long ago that even those who do not live by the sword can still die upon them." As good a literary distillation of the Rachel Lucas/Bill Whittle gun-rights argument as I've seen.
- Gandalf, when describing his battle with the Balrog, said he "smote his ruin upon the mountain", instead of the original implication (perpetuated by Bakshi) that casting down the Balrog onto the side of Caradhras caused the mountain to collapse or something ("broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin"). A little verbal massaging that did wonders for plausibility.
- Random note: This movie wasn't very green, was it? Especially compared to the first movie, and especially compared to how I expected places like Rohan to look. I was thinking "Irish countryside" or "Dances With Wolves". Instead we get this rocky, hillocky wasteland that I can't imagine would be a good place to run horses; can you imagine how many wombat holes there would be to trip them up and break their legs? On the plus side, though, beautiful cinematography, especially in those long, wide pans across the White Mountains with Edoras in the foreground and the peaks off the top of the screen. Fantastic use of telephoto.
- Something odd I noticed: Jackson seems to be deliberately setting up the entire bloody world to be unhelpful, cynical, disinterested, provincial... first Rivendell, then Lórien, now Théoden, Gondor, and even the Ents. Merry and Pippin have to trick Treebeard into attacking Isengard. World in decay, indeed...
- After the Entmoot, when Merry says "How can that be your decision?", the camera does this weird jump-cut-- from behind Merry, to close-up on his face, then straight back to the aerial shot behind Treebeard, all before he's done with the sentence. Looks like a sloppy editing job to me; here's hoping it looks better on the DVD.
- Jackson combined Dunharrow and Helm's Deep in this movie-- probably a good move, for simplification purposes, and it was one of the things that I thought was a little needlessly confusing about the book: if the Orcs were interested in attacking the women and children and destroying Rohan through that ruthless route (as was indicated by the Warg-riders' attack on the refugee train), they could have simply ridden on by the warriors in Helm's Deep, waved, and gone on to slaughter. This way is more direct and understandable, and concentrates all the more urgency into Helm's Deep itself. (I wonder how much screen-time the Paths of the Dead thing will get; in the book it's all handled in a very offhand, high-style aside, with some of the book's most Biblical language; it's a confusing plot point to all but the most hard-core fans.)
- Speaking of Helm's Deep-- all I'm going to say about it is that it's one helluva battle. Someone was really doing his homework about how a siege of this type would work. Beautiful work.
- Still no mention of Andúril, even though there was a prime opportunity for it that was added explicitly-- Haldir's robot archers. (Seriously-- robots or Vulcans. Jeebus.) Haldir specifically said he'd come from Elrond; and Elrond, in the preceding Arwen scene, had flashbacked to the painting on the wall of the chamber in Rivendell where the shards of Narsil were. It seems the time was ripe for Elrond to have had the sword reforged and sent to Aragorn as a token. But then, this whole new subplot with Aragorn's near-death after the Warg attack seemed designed to show that Elrond is still one tight-assed, bitter old Half-Elf, and Arwen isn't improving his mood any. My suspicion is that he'll eventually come around, in RotK, and Andúril will appear then, on the Pelennor, or in front of the Morannon, or somewhere-- or not at all. (Or maybe at the coronation. Elrond will come riding up, panting: "Aragorn! Your Majesty! Here you go-- I believed in you all along! Good on ya, kid!")
- That whole "Aragorn fake death" sequence... it seemed awfully weird, and the Elvish platitudes between him and Arwen were meaningless, saccharine, and took too long, giving the audience time to lose interest, giggle and talk amongst themselves, and call each other on their %^$#%$@#@%@ cellphones-- but it did give Jackson an opportunity to cover a number of things about Rohan-- for instance, how "special" the horses are. The horse that comes to rescue Aragorn, that turns him over and bends down to let Aragorn hoist himself up... very cool scene, but at first I couldn't tell if Jackson was actually going to play it bizarrely comedic-- I was all set up to laugh my ass off as his imagined kiss with Arwen melted into a tongue-wrestling match with the horse, his hands in the horse's mane accompanied by an "Ohhh... Arwen..."
- Gimli was certainly converted into this movie's comic relief, instead of Merry and Pippin-- and I think that's fine, considering how much fun we know John Rhys-Davies has been having with the role. It was cool to see the "dwarf-tossing" joke come back around again; that was one I'd never expected to see again. But Gimli and Legolas are what adds a "buddy movie" line to the story, even in the book; and the whole "kill tally" business, which is the source of a lot of the book's humor, is only part of the set of gags Gimli gets this time. (The riffs on his height, especially right before the Orcs attack Helm's Deep, were like arrows to the mark: "Shall I get you a box?") However, I'm bummed that the "kill tally" line never really had a resolution, like in the book; it just sort of petered out. Perhaps in the long-version DVD...
- The arrival-of-the-cavalry at the end-- damn, those are some good horses, if they can come down that steep-ass mountainside under control and at a run.
- Throughout the movie-- the orcs get a whole lot more lines and interaction with the regular characters than I expected. Makes them seem more real and "human"... but it was surprising how it worked, the texture it added. They aren't monsters, anymore-- just really ugly dudes. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
- So, then, turning to Frodo and Sam... I thought the Black Gate scene was outstanding. Great tech on the gate, with the trolls and the machinery (fits in nicely with Saruman's crack about the old order "burning in the fires of industry"-- and McDonald's, and Levi's, and Barbie, and Coca-Cola, right?). Excellent armor design on those Easterlings or Southrons or whoever that army was that was entering via the gate. And the bit with the cloak, and the pretending to be a rock-- that worked surprisingly well, especially with the whipping it off at the end. Except it would have been nice if they'd foreshadowed what the cloaks could do, a little bit, beforehand. Otherwise this looks like just a stupid happy accident.
- So then there's this whole side story with Faramir and Osgiliath. Frodo gives him the by-now-familiar "Here's the Ring; what are you gonna do about it?" temptation, but Faramir actually says I'm taking it. It's like I was watching some kind of Choose Your Own Adventure, and I'd taken a wrong turn here. What, Peter, did you get hold of the infamous "alternate ending" version of the book, where Faramir took the ring and used it to defend Gondor? But it did eventually resolve itself fairly well, with the battle in Osgiliath and Frodo's attacking Sam, which were pretty cool; still, the movie wasn't kind to Faramir at all. Which I didn't like very much. Faramir was always one of my favorite characters-- the put-upon "wussy younger brother" who did everything right and made all the honorable choices, but was still spat on by Denethor, who could never see beyond his love for Boromir. Faramir was the Harry Potter to Boromir's Dudley Dursley. So far, Boromir's come off as a much cooler character-- much more of a badass, looks better in armor, has a better beard, has a much more direct and convincing redemption scene. There's plenty of time left for Faramir, yes, but... so far I don't like him one bit. Pity.
- Much less "mysticism" about the Ring this time around; it didn't seem to be "calling out" to Faramir, the way it did to everybody in the first movie.
- Gollum gets an overall thumbs-up. Great animation, especially on his face. I was a little worried at first, having seen only the trailers, that he'd look too jerky and crude. But now that I've seen the whole thing, it all looked very convincing. And the Ents, by the way-- their smooth movements from stock-still to stock-still worked extremely well. Cool... very good job by all the animators.
- Interesting how they spent a fair amount of time poring over a map on-screen this time. It was one thing I think the first movie was lacking, and could have benefited from; this time, the geography of Rohan and Gondor is much more clear. And that's all to the good. It even worked as a plot point.
- Good choice of where to end the two storylines; the Rohan story ends right where Bakshi ended it ("The forces of evil were banished forever from Middle-Earth"-- oh really?), and Frodo and Sam's story ends right after the Osgiliath thing. I guess Jackson wanted to end both storylines right after a big decisive battle scene; putting in Shelob or Isengard would have been very anticlimactic places to end. This works, I think-- though RotK will be the touchstone for the success of that move.
- By the same token, one friend noted that one purpose of the Osgiliath subplot might have been to keep the movie from being four separate plotlines: two big army ones, and two with a couple of hobbits sneaking around in the background. This way, the hobbits-sneaking-around storylines get interwoven with the big-army storylines, which keeps the audience interested.
- "The Two Towers" was supposed to refer to Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul, according to the original punditry on the book. But in the movie's interpretation, the "two towers" are Isengard and Barad-dûr, with the explicit "alliance of evil industry" between Saruman and Sauron. Interesting twist, but it works.
- The destruction of Isengard: excellent. Especially that one Ent, on fire, ducking into the water.
Whew... so now for another year of waiting and speculating. Lots of people are completely hooked now, people who had never read the books and haven't yet started... it's shaping up to be a fantastic trilogy. With a lot of original creativity imposed by Jackson-- not just a blind posting of the books up onto the screen. Definitely a monumental three years for all of us Tolkien fans.
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