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pegkerrOne of the producers of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, Barry Osbourne (sp?) is a Carleton College alumni, and so they have held early premieres of all three movies as a Carleton fundraiser. Pat Wrede (also a Carleton alum) took Lois McMaster Bujold as a birthday/Christmas present. They went last night, and so here is Lois' review, quoted with her permission:
No spoilers, at least if you've read the books.
Which makes it a little hard to talk about. My friend Pat the Carleton grad took me for my combined Christmas and birthday present to the downtown mall theater where the preview was showing. I haven't felt like this about Christmas since I was nine. I made sure not to drink any liquids starting at least three hours before show time.
Short version: wonderful, wonderful stuff.
And yet...
None of the three films I've seen, so far, has been love at first sight. I have to assimilate, I have to fight the book in my head, I have to have seen it enough times that my aging eye begins to slow the high-speed, dense presentation and tease out all the non-verbal information that really is packed in there. I should have a more considered opinion later in the month. Half a dozen more sittings should do it...
As ever, it's all visually gorgeous. Music's great. Costuming and effects superlative. Detail is phenomenal. Every individual scene is a wonderment, and I wouldn't want to give up a minute of what's on the screen (possibly excepting the flashback prologue. Yes, yes, I quite see why it's essential in terms of the film's overall structure, but for the same minutes I'd much rather have had the Houses of Healing.) The main stuff's all in there. But there are large chunks of important "minor" story literally missing in action, and I wonder if some of the emotional frustration I feel may be cured when the extended edition finally arrives, and the reaction shots, the time to assimilate and digest, the time to release and build up more tension between peaks, may be restored. Or not. It's all very intense, but despite the multiple plot-lines it felt almost too much of a straight shot to the end. I do not know how someone (is there anyone?) who hasn't read the books would process the pacing and tension of the film as a separate work of art, but I'd love to hear it.
Best moment of fixing what they broke in the first place was the way they got Arwen turned around from her flight to the Grey Havens. Can't say more without spoilers, but it was one of the two places in this movie that I got teary-eyed. Now, *that* worked for me, breathtakingly. (The other was where Faramir's forlorn hope rides out of Minas Tirith.) Some of their other kludgy fixes I just had to swallow and go on with (one with Arwen and Elrond, obviously put in to justify his switch from the opposition force of the romance that they made him in TTT, seemed unnecessary); several spots where they traded IQ for speed, as usual; I do see why, but I still grit my teeth.
I think they lost a lot of potential power in the presentation of Denethor; if they'd allowed him to be more competent (though just as mad), he'd have been a lot scarier. In undercutting that character, making him unattractive in non-necessary ways, they robbed the film of some strong adult complexity.
I had my heart most in my mouth for the Paths of the Dead sequence, which the filmmakers had been very cagey about previewing. Their methods of making it visual worked adequately for me, and had most of the most essential stuff I wanted from it in terms of Aragorn's characterization, I think, but it all went by too fast for me to be quite sure yet. I'd figured from the beginning that Halbarad and the Grey Company were going to be MIA, so my withers were un-wrung by their non-appearance in the film.
The missing stuff about Saruman at Orthanc was not missed much by me; as cuts went, that was one I could live with.
A scene I really, really wanted from the book was Aragorn and the palantir, but it too went MIA. It would have been hard to make visual but not silly, so perhaps it's just as well. The information from it gets peculiarly distributed over the film in odd bits, so I am not sure if it will show up in the extended, or if what we saw is all we'll ever get. Several lines of dialogue we'd seen in the previews failed to show in the film, also the case for TTT; where ever that electrifying, throaty "He has gone unchallenged long enough," went to, I want it back, dammit.
On the other hand, there was one effective scene that I would never have thought to ask for, from the book -- the signal fires -- that worked amazingly well on film on at least two levels; if only the set-up hadn't been one of the Stupid Bits, sigh, because what came after the set-up was just glorious.
On the downside, at over 3 hours on-screen, the tale is still painfully abridged and compressed. Several of my favorite sub-plots dropped out entirely (fingers crossed for the extended edition). Subjectively, the first viewing felt about 45 minutes long. I kept wanting to hit the slo-mo button, and I didn't have a remote, drat it.
All the rest of the stuff I'm wild to talk about would be spoilers, so it will have to wait. Just found the translation of what spoiler sang at spoiler in the liner notes of the sound track CD, and had to pick my jaw up off the floor. *Jeezus*, when these guys get it right, they can drop you to your knees.
On the whole, what portions made the cut stuck much closer to the book than TTT, especially in the Frodo-and-Sam plot-line.
To sum up: great visual impact, not as much emotional impact as I wanted, and I'm not yet sure quite why. That impact may grow; it did before. I want the Extended Edition and I want it *now*...
Ta, L.
[and from a later, follow up message:}
Oh, yeah, and I also just noticed -- OK, so I'm slow --It had to be first pointed out to me by an artist, but all along the filmmakers have been equating Aragorn=fire and Arwen=water. The first time we see Aragorn, back at the inn at Bree, he is surrounded by symbolic fire -- the fireplace, the candle on the table, the pipe-glow-and-eyes... He's framed with fire in shot after shot. Weathertop of course. Arwen, likewise her water trick at the Ford, and Rivendell is dripping.
So. Where do fire and water come together to create and renew?
The forging of Anduril, of course...
When they are good, they are so *very* *very* good... and frequently, totally non-verbally.
Albeit not non-verbally here...
"Et Earello Endorenna utulien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildenyat tenn'
Ambar-metta..."
Which translates:
"Out of the Great Sea to Middle-Earth I am come. In this place will I
abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world."
>That's somewhere in Tolkein -- may be the
> Silmarillion rather than LotR, I don't remember, but it's there.
It's *right there* in the coronation scene: Aragorn says it as he picks up
the crown.
>And
> Jackson knew the books. Why make it up if it's already there?
Every time something makes it from book to screen un-fucked-up, is a little
triumph for the forces of good over evil. Still more so if it makes it
*glorified*. As it was, in that melt-your-bones Voice, here in full flower.
Life is good.
All right, it would be even better today if I had been able to fall asleep before 5 AM, but I was a trifle over-stimulated.
Ta, L. (tired but happy.)
No spoilers, at least if you've read the books.
Which makes it a little hard to talk about. My friend Pat the Carleton grad took me for my combined Christmas and birthday present to the downtown mall theater where the preview was showing. I haven't felt like this about Christmas since I was nine. I made sure not to drink any liquids starting at least three hours before show time.
Short version: wonderful, wonderful stuff.
And yet...
None of the three films I've seen, so far, has been love at first sight. I have to assimilate, I have to fight the book in my head, I have to have seen it enough times that my aging eye begins to slow the high-speed, dense presentation and tease out all the non-verbal information that really is packed in there. I should have a more considered opinion later in the month. Half a dozen more sittings should do it...
As ever, it's all visually gorgeous. Music's great. Costuming and effects superlative. Detail is phenomenal. Every individual scene is a wonderment, and I wouldn't want to give up a minute of what's on the screen (possibly excepting the flashback prologue. Yes, yes, I quite see why it's essential in terms of the film's overall structure, but for the same minutes I'd much rather have had the Houses of Healing.) The main stuff's all in there. But there are large chunks of important "minor" story literally missing in action, and I wonder if some of the emotional frustration I feel may be cured when the extended edition finally arrives, and the reaction shots, the time to assimilate and digest, the time to release and build up more tension between peaks, may be restored. Or not. It's all very intense, but despite the multiple plot-lines it felt almost too much of a straight shot to the end. I do not know how someone (is there anyone?) who hasn't read the books would process the pacing and tension of the film as a separate work of art, but I'd love to hear it.
Best moment of fixing what they broke in the first place was the way they got Arwen turned around from her flight to the Grey Havens. Can't say more without spoilers, but it was one of the two places in this movie that I got teary-eyed. Now, *that* worked for me, breathtakingly. (The other was where Faramir's forlorn hope rides out of Minas Tirith.) Some of their other kludgy fixes I just had to swallow and go on with (one with Arwen and Elrond, obviously put in to justify his switch from the opposition force of the romance that they made him in TTT, seemed unnecessary); several spots where they traded IQ for speed, as usual; I do see why, but I still grit my teeth.
I think they lost a lot of potential power in the presentation of Denethor; if they'd allowed him to be more competent (though just as mad), he'd have been a lot scarier. In undercutting that character, making him unattractive in non-necessary ways, they robbed the film of some strong adult complexity.
I had my heart most in my mouth for the Paths of the Dead sequence, which the filmmakers had been very cagey about previewing. Their methods of making it visual worked adequately for me, and had most of the most essential stuff I wanted from it in terms of Aragorn's characterization, I think, but it all went by too fast for me to be quite sure yet. I'd figured from the beginning that Halbarad and the Grey Company were going to be MIA, so my withers were un-wrung by their non-appearance in the film.
The missing stuff about Saruman at Orthanc was not missed much by me; as cuts went, that was one I could live with.
A scene I really, really wanted from the book was Aragorn and the palantir, but it too went MIA. It would have been hard to make visual but not silly, so perhaps it's just as well. The information from it gets peculiarly distributed over the film in odd bits, so I am not sure if it will show up in the extended, or if what we saw is all we'll ever get. Several lines of dialogue we'd seen in the previews failed to show in the film, also the case for TTT; where ever that electrifying, throaty "He has gone unchallenged long enough," went to, I want it back, dammit.
On the other hand, there was one effective scene that I would never have thought to ask for, from the book -- the signal fires -- that worked amazingly well on film on at least two levels; if only the set-up hadn't been one of the Stupid Bits, sigh, because what came after the set-up was just glorious.
On the downside, at over 3 hours on-screen, the tale is still painfully abridged and compressed. Several of my favorite sub-plots dropped out entirely (fingers crossed for the extended edition). Subjectively, the first viewing felt about 45 minutes long. I kept wanting to hit the slo-mo button, and I didn't have a remote, drat it.
All the rest of the stuff I'm wild to talk about would be spoilers, so it will have to wait. Just found the translation of what spoiler sang at spoiler in the liner notes of the sound track CD, and had to pick my jaw up off the floor. *Jeezus*, when these guys get it right, they can drop you to your knees.
On the whole, what portions made the cut stuck much closer to the book than TTT, especially in the Frodo-and-Sam plot-line.
To sum up: great visual impact, not as much emotional impact as I wanted, and I'm not yet sure quite why. That impact may grow; it did before. I want the Extended Edition and I want it *now*...
Ta, L.
[and from a later, follow up message:}
Oh, yeah, and I also just noticed -- OK, so I'm slow --It had to be first pointed out to me by an artist, but all along the filmmakers have been equating Aragorn=fire and Arwen=water. The first time we see Aragorn, back at the inn at Bree, he is surrounded by symbolic fire -- the fireplace, the candle on the table, the pipe-glow-and-eyes... He's framed with fire in shot after shot. Weathertop of course. Arwen, likewise her water trick at the Ford, and Rivendell is dripping.
So. Where do fire and water come together to create and renew?
The forging of Anduril, of course...
When they are good, they are so *very* *very* good... and frequently, totally non-verbally.
Albeit not non-verbally here...
"Et Earello Endorenna utulien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildenyat tenn'
Ambar-metta..."
Which translates:
"Out of the Great Sea to Middle-Earth I am come. In this place will I
abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world."
>That's somewhere in Tolkein -- may be the
> Silmarillion rather than LotR, I don't remember, but it's there.
It's *right there* in the coronation scene: Aragorn says it as he picks up
the crown.
>And
> Jackson knew the books. Why make it up if it's already there?
Every time something makes it from book to screen un-fucked-up, is a little
triumph for the forces of good over evil. Still more so if it makes it
*glorified*. As it was, in that melt-your-bones Voice, here in full flower.
Life is good.
All right, it would be even better today if I had been able to fall asleep before 5 AM, but I was a trifle over-stimulated.
Ta, L. (tired but happy.)