The Two Towers: Why The Ents Are Not as Annoying as the Ewoks

Essay Version:

Introduction (hook, context, thesis): What do Ewoks and Ents have in common? Ewoks are protagonists in The Return of the Jedi, one of the first Star Wars films. A fundamentally peaceful, woodland people, the Ewoks help the main protagonists outmaneuver and overcome the bad guys. The Ents, quite literally a woodland force (they resemble trees), supply equal help in defeating evil in J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. In both cases, these unexpected helpers turn the tide. The Ewoks, however, are far less believable than the Ents.

Body Paragraph (topic sentence followed by specific evidence): The Ewoks are unbelievable. They are cute and play clever tricks on the antagonists. For example, they use slingshots and other such devices to trick and tie up the Empire's stormtroppers. The Empire created a moon-size device that blew up a planet. Nevertheless, the audience is supposed to believe that cute and clever tricks can overwhelm and "outgun" the adversary. The suspension of belief regarding the Ewoks is too difficult to muster.

Body Paragraph (topic sentence followed by specific evidence): The Ents, however, are far more believable. The Ents go up against a corrupt wizard, Saruman. A force of nature, they destroy his dam and flood his compound, Isengard. In fact, they are galvanized initially by Saruman's destruction of their forest. In the book, specifically, they confer and come to a thoughtful and organized resolution: Saruman must be stopped. The Ents' patience and deliberate action makes them a formidable force demanding respect. 

Conclusion (restatement of thesis and points followed by a call to action): Although both Ewoks and Ents play important roles in their respective franchises and are also both linked to nature, Ents are ultimately more believable. The fact is, the sheer force of nature, from blizzards to volcanoes to floods, has played a role in human endeavors. Both Napoleon's and Hitler's armies came up against Russian winter and found themselves in less than advantageous positions. Some military historians believe that the English army won at Agincourt mostly because of English superiority with the long-bow but also because of the incessant rains. The ground was so muddy and churned up, the French horses never got up enough speed. They were taken out before their superior speed could reach the English lines (and this despite the English being fatigued and ill from those same rains). Cleverness is cute but the sheer impact of a blizzard on supplies or a flood on a home or a volcano on an entire mountainside makes nature a far more powerful force. The Ents not only use this force, they are this force. To find out more about Ents, check out Peter Jackson's second movie in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers, and read the source of inspiration, the book with the same title. You can find the book at the Portland Public Library and online at Powell's Bookstore.

Blog Version:

In both cases, a small force of innocent non-war-like beings go up against a powerful military force. 

The Ewoks are wholly annoying. They are cute and play clever tricks on the bad guys. Somehow the audience is supposed to believe that these cute and clever tricks can outwit and outmaneuver and "outgun" people who blew up a planet. 

Yeah, right. 

The Ents go up against Saruman. A force of nature, they destroy his dam and flood his compound, Isengard. 

And it's believable. 

The fact is, the sheer force of nature, from blizzards to volcanoes, has played a role in human endeavors. Both Napoleon's and Hitler's armies came up against Russian winter and found themselves in a less than advantageous position. 

Some military historians believe that the English army won at Agincourt mostly because of English superiority with the long-bow but also because of the incessant rains. The ground was so muddy and churned up, the French horses never got up enough speed. They were taken out before their superior speed could reach the English lines (and this despite the English being fatigued and ill from those same rains). 

And don't get me started on the problem of feeding an army! If weather keeps the food away...

Forget toilet paper--when a blizzard clears the local grocery store of all perishables within 24 hours, the message is clear: 

Nature don't care what anybody thinks. Supplicate it all you want. When the volcano blows...

Mount St. Helens, 1980

For the Fans: I Like Jackson’s Trilogy, Part I

The banishment of Sauron to Mordor: a scene

referenced in The Hobbit and LOTR, fully 

explored in Jackson's latest trilogy.

Considering how much money Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy has made by now, there are regrettably few people with whom I can share my love of the movies. So to any fans who might read this post, this is for you. (If you want to discourse on how awful it is, there are other websites!)

I like this movie--and Jackson's!

(I prefer "and's" to "or's.")

I recently reread the book (second time in a year; fifth or sixth time in my life so far) and was struck all over again by Tolkien’s plotting and perspective. The book is lighter in tone than the trilogy but not quite as light as criticisms of the trilogy often imply. If you are in search of that particular approach, I recommend the delightful Rankin production—it is a faithful adaptation, tightly plotted, with great songs!

Although aimed at children, the book itself is filled with dark edges. Nothing in the book reaches the sheer exhausting terror and despair of the Mordor chapters in The Lord of the Rings. However, even as a kid, I recognized the unusual anti-hero elements, not to mention the dramatic and shattering chain of events that lead up to the destruction of Laketown and the final battle. The book is remarkably political, a factor that Jackson captures well. Thorin’s fear that the mountain will be overrun by hoarders is justified. At the same time, the people of Laketown have rights to the treasure. The Elf King’s claim, though less meritorious (in the book and in the movie), still carries weight. Tolkien handles the resulting conflict with a deftness that belies its complexity—but the complexity is there.

Likewise, the lightness of Tolkien’s touch is not intended to disguise the greed, anger, fear, and self-interest of many characters. The Elf King is indeed "less wise and more dangerous [than the elves at Rivendell]."  Likewise, the Master possesses a cunning mind (as Baldrick would say). His conman-like assessment of Thorin & Company (it takes one to imagine one) permeates those chapters as they permeate the film, more than validating Jackson’s interpretation of Laketown politics. In fact (speaking of Baldrick), Jackson intelligently gives the Laketown scenes a Monty-Python/Blackadder feel and humor that is somewhat atypical for his films but perfect for the venue (and Stephen Fry). These scenes are very English.

Speaking of Laketown, Jackson is often criticized for adding to/expanding on the book’s material. Since nothing is eliminated, my response here is the same as Frasier’s:

“If less is more, imagine how much more more will be!”

That’s how I feel about the trilogy: Give me The Hobbit plus all the stuff referred to in The Hobbit and LOTR plus Tolkien’s extra material plus the invented stuff Jackson decided to throw in. I’ll take it all!*

Adaptations of a book to film can take several routes: the slideshow or strict rendering (boring), the interpretation (more interesting), the other viewpoint (fascinating), the make-a-place-for-myself (problematic but often insightful), and the “all we used was the title” (pointless). For instance, Howl’s Moving Castle is an interpretation and a make-a-place-for-myself, not a strict rendering. Yet nothing is lost. Hey, it’s Miyazaki!

LOTR, which I greatly enjoy, is an interpretation. With The Hobbit trilogy, Jackson gave himself permission to combine interpretation with another viewpoint (The Hobbit inside Tolkien’s larger universe) plus make-a-place-for-myself.

He had fun! And I am very grateful.

*Even Legolas’s superhuman abilities don’t bother me. In fact, I enjoy the barrel scene as one of Jackson’s few “less is more” action sequences. I’d rather watch a Spiderman leaping on people’s heads for five minutes than people mashing each other with swords for twenty. (Best action scene ever made: John McClane blowing up the building in Die Hard: no muss, no fuss, and it lasts about a minute.)

For the Fans: I Like Jackson's Trilogy, Part II

The final movie captures Bilbo's inner struggles.

Ultimately, the movies are an excellent showcase for Martin Freeman. Throughout the trilogy, Jackson delivers Bilbo's scenes with surprising accuracy (adaptations do involve change!). He is in the movies as much as he is in the book.

Bilbo’s presence in the book ebbs and flows. Tolkien's prose is smooth and unselfconscious: he doesn’t call attention to his own textual strategies. Because so much of the action is delivered through Bilbo’s eyes (Bilbo saw that the dwarfs had . . . ), the reader is left with the impression that Bilbo is doing more than he does in fact do. Many of the chapters use the third person plural almost exclusively: Bilbo and the dwarfs. They . . . Thorin and company . . .

Every place in the book where Bilbo rises to the fore in action, not just voice, appears in the movies. These instances may appear less because, well, more is more. But Jackson never forgets his protagonist. Not only are Bilbo’s scenes rendered, they are often “strictly rendered”: Bilbo and Gollum 's scene is transferred practically verbatim from book to film.*

It would be interesting to see a "book" version of the trilogy, one cut to just Bilbo's scenes (or those that affect him directly). Since all of them are there, the resulting movie might hold together surprisingly well. But then, of course, all the "more" would be gone! I am personally hoping that Jackson puts out a director's cut that expands the trilogy by several hours. My one complaint about Five Armies is that it ends too abruptly--I think Jackson was responding to criticisms that Return of the King had too many endings. Me? I want three or four endings!**

Returning to Bilbo, one major difference between the book and the trilogy is that we don’t hear Bilbo’s inner voice in those scenes where he rises to the fore—which one does with the book. I wonder if Jackson considered (and obviously discarded) a voice-over by Bilbo. If so, I imagine he found no need for it once he watched Martin Freeman on film.

Freeman’s physical acting makes a voice-over unnecessary. In the scene where Bilbo rescues the dwarfs from the Elf King's prison, Freeman conveys Bilbo’s exasperation and sudden confusion (“I forgot to get a barrel for me!”) through physical movement: the tilt of a chin, the hunch of a shoulder, the rise of a foot. But then film is—and should be—about what one sees, not what one hears.

So if you are tired of reading all the negative commentary online (and believe me, there’s plenty of it out there!), rest assured: at least one person loves the book and the trilogy!

--Slight Spoiler--

*In Five Armies, Bilbo’s decision to keep the Arkenstone, then pass it on to Thorin’s enemies plays as large a part as I had hoped it would. Despite the rapid sequence of events—Jackson is tackling multiple storylines at once—the movie conveys the difficulty and pain of Bilbo's decision (in fact, more time is spent on Bilbo making the decision than on carrying it out). The confrontation between Thorin and Bilbo at the gate after Thorin discovers Bilbo's "betrayal" is powerful although I favor the final scene between Bilbo and Thorin as heartbreakingly "true": both Richard Armitage and Martin Freeman deliver their characters' lines from the end of the book with gentle pathos and, in Martin Freeman's case, a boldly different interpretation: masterful performances by both actors.

**Interestingly enough, Five Armies is far more self-consciously thematic than Return of the King. LOTR is message or platitude-oriented: it is always darkest before the dawn; never give up; despair is the worst sin; the smallest person can change the course of history. Five Armies, however, ends with an uneasy peace (as does the book)--a difficult plot to platitudize.

The Mithril coat plus a discussion of values.

In many ways, Five Armies plays the same role in its trilogy as Two Towers except that Five Armies comes at the end of the quest cycle rather than the middle (hence the need for more endings). In a way, Jackson's decision to keep to the book here may have worked against the overall trilogy. I expected a more deliberate bridge of The Hobbit to LOTR; I surmise that Jackson pulled back to satisfy those who accuse him of "marketing" the movies and trying to capitalize off his success with LOTR. (This is a truly weird criticism: of course, Jackson is trying to make money off both trilogies! That's his job. Somebody has to pay WETA--the folks there can't work for free. Most readers don't have several million dollars floating around  with which to mount their own interpretations of Tolkien. Thank goodness somebody does!).

To solve the problem of Five Armies, Jackson threads it with a classic motif: by their fruits you shall know them - or - people show what they care about by what they argue, fight, and die for. Consequently, Thorin's speech to Bilbo at the end is not only a part of the book that had to be included (how I felt going in) but the capstone of a not-too-overly-didactic theme.

The Reimagining of Self: Jackson's Theme for The Hobbit Trilogy

Kili: I saw a fire moon once.*

*Jackson is quite adept at conveying

entire relationships in small scenes. Here,

we realize that Kili and Tauriel have more to

say to each other than to their companions.

The full exchange is below.

Brian Sibley's Official Movie Guide to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies quotes from concept artist John Howe:

The relationship between Tauriel and Kili is like one of those love stories where people think they are falling in love when, in fact, they are actually falling out of love with everything else around them, and the only sympathetic face is someone who they would never choose in any other circumstances...

Absolutely!

Take Tauriel first. She is an under-appreciated member of an insular society. The only person who seems to comprehend her worth, Legolas, is mute on the subject. She continues to do her job--and do it well--because after all, what else can she do?

And then this dwarf shows up who thinks she is the most impressive person, and woman, he has ever met. (She's just sooo cool!) The actors provide decent sexual tension, and the characters have a nice vibe (not to mention gorgeous music). More importantly, faced with Kili's admiration, Tauriel begins to re-evaluate herself, to question the role into which she has been slated by her king and culture.

She chases after Kili yet in many ways she is chasing after re-definition. When she declares to Bofur, "I'm going to save him," the line is not romantic. Rather, Evangeline Lilly gives it a reverberating pathos that addresses identity without sounding arrogant: I will do this. I can do this. Why did I never realize so before?

As for Kili: He is Thorin's second heir (Fili is the elder of the two). Like Fili, he looks up to his uncle, admiring his strength of purpose and leadership skills. Thorin is a goal-oriented guy! Even at the beginning of the trilogy (and in the book), Thorin comes across as one-idea-ed or tunnel-visioned. This is not necessarily a bad quality, especially when pursuing the seemingly impossible, but it closes him off to outside solutions and makes him susceptible to his grandfather's obsession with treasure.

As in the book, Fili and Kili demonstrate a flexibility of viewpoint lacking in their uncle. For example, they are more accepting and tolerant of Bilbo from the beginning than Thorin. In the movies, as the trilogy unwinds, Kili (representative of the brothers) begins to identify Thorin's inflexibility as a flaw in an otherwise great man. Meeting Tauriel, stepping outside his slated role, lends him the objectivity to voice his worries. He remains loyal to his companions while becoming more likely to question Thorin's course of action. He is in the process--unfortunately never finished--of remaking himself.

Remaking--redefinition--is the theme of the trilogy. Everybody's doing it!

Bilbo  naturally remakes himself, changing into a hobbit who returns home still valuing the comforts of the cozy life yet willing and able to appreciate the dangers he has experienced:

A pivotal moment echoed by the lines below.

Bilbo Baggins: No! I am glad to have shared in your perils, Thorin. Each and every one of them. It is far more than any Baggins deserves.

Bilbo Baggins: One day I'll remember. Remember everything that happened: the good, the bad, those who survived... and those that did not.

This is the Bilbo who will adopt and raise the near saintly Frodo, who sets out to save not just hobbits but  the entire world. Could (would) Bilbo have done it otherwise?

Legolas, Bard, (Saruman, on the downside), all recast themselves as something not entirely new (they retain their fundamental personalities) but altered, redefined in terms of how they perceive themselves within their own communities.

The remarkable aspect of Jackson's approach to this theme is that the results of such redefinition are epic but the redefinitions themselves are human, ordinary, even small.

"He was my friend," Bilbo says of Thorin, a small declaration in which the entire Fellowship (and the future of the ring) is contained.

Kili and Tauriel's Conversation in the Dungeon:

Kili: Sounds like quite a party you're having up there.
Tauriel: It is Mereth Nuin Giliath; The Feast of Starlight. All light is sacred to the Eldar, but the Wood Elves love best the light of the stars.
Kili: I always thought it is a cold light, remote and far away.
Tauriel: It is memory, precious and pure.
[they look at each other for a moment]
Tauriel: Like your promise.
[she holds out his stone and he takes it back; she turns and looks up]
Tauriel: I have walked there sometimes, beyond the forest and up into the night. I have seen the world fall away and the white light forever fill the air.
Kili: I saw a fire moon once. [as he talks, she sits on the stairs to listen] It rose over the pass near Dunland. Huge! Red and gold it was: it filled the sky. We were an escort for some merchants from Ered Luin; they were trading in silverwork for furs. We took the Greenway south, keeping the mountain to our left, and then it appeared. This huge fire moon lighting our path. I wish I could show you...

For an unalloyed Romeo & Juliet moment (with non-teenagers)

watch this while listening to Billy Boyd's "The Last Goodbye".

Another Female Blogger Talks About Kili and Tauriel!

* Spoilers Ahead*

I must confess that I, along with, I'm sure, many other female Hobbit fans, am a huge fan of the Tauriel-Kili relationship.

Sure Tauriel is an elf and lives with the apparent heart-throb Legolas but he is standoffish and his dad is fairly nuts, and then there's that whole class thing.

Along comes this attractive dwarf who teases her and quotes poetry to her and just, well, talks to her (not at her or about her). On top of all that, he is completely captivated by her from the get-go, impressed by her warrior abilities.

Still, it's the talking to her that impresses me. I mention in my Boromir post that in only a few scenes, Jackson is able to establish that Boromir is a good guy and liked by the hobbits. Jackson does the same thing in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug with Tauriel and Kili when they discuss the stars and Kili begins to tell Tauriel about his travels. Their easy relationship, their interest in the same things, in each other, is instantly established.

My second favorite scene is when Tauriel heals Kili, not the healing itself though that is lovely, and not Kili's wondering speech ("Do you think she could have loved me?") though that is very touching. It is the scene right before when Tauriel runs into Bofur on the stairs.

She takes the kingsfoil. Bofur says, "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to save him," Tauriel says.

By themselves, the words could be meant arrogantly or passionately, but Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) says them like she's found a purpose in life or, rather, like she has found a reason to be a elf. *I* can do this. *I* can do something for him that no one else can. I was right to come.

I have my own opinion about what will happen next (taking the book's ending into consideration) and how all of it will affect Legolas. In any case, I think this is one place where a director's invention is completely merited. Tolkien doesn't give us much on Legolas to explain his background or motivations. Jackson and his fellow scriptwriters have gone a long way toward filling in the gaps.

In the meantime, the audience gets a great romance!

Thoughts on Fellowship of the Ring, Extended Version

The masterly Sean Bean quoting one of my

favorite lines: It is a strange fate that we should

suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing.

Such a little thing.

Following are my thoughts on Fellowship of the Ring, Extended Version:

1. Extended scenes--The extended scenes do add a lot. However, the one editing choice I have never understood--in both the theatrical and extended versions--involves Moria. There's an extra scene in there (that's not in the book) with a collapsing bridge. It goes on for about five minutes, and it is completely unnecessary. Jackson left it in the release-to-theater version and cut out much of Lothlorien scenes.

I think this was a huge mistake. Most of the women I've talked to, both those who like Tolkien and those who got dragged to the theater, wish there had been more Lothlorien in the release-to-theater version. It would have been very easy for Jackson to cut the completely unnecessary bridge scene and add more Lothlorien.

Yes, I know the movie was probably aimed at young men, but studies show that most successful movies attract both sexes, and it would have been such an easy substitution to make.

2. Lighting--Jackson's lighting is the weirdest thing in the world. I actually like it; it has a staged/picture quality to it. But it is strange. One minute everything is dark with cool, glowing lights all over the place. The next minute everything is in full sunlight with everything glinting. The whole thing is like watching CSI episodes over and over and over. Cool. But startling.

3. Casting--I consider The Lord of the Rings movies the best cast trilogy of, oh, the last 100 years or so. Okay, that's an exaggeration, but there are few book-to-movie films I've seen that completely and totally and without misstep cast the characters exactly the way I picture them. Except for Elrond, and I like Hugo Weaving so much, I don't care.

Interesting note about Hugo Weaving. Pre-Jackson, Tolkien's elves are portrayed much the way the Vulcans used to be portrayed before Star Trek: Enterprise came along: good and pure and wise and wonderful. And then Hugo Weaving showed up, and suddenly the elves (like the Vulcans) got edgy and a little annoyed and somewhat sarcastic. Which is frankly more interesting.

The glasses were added by a blogger!

About the hobbits: I know people confuse Merry and Pippin. I never did although that could partly be because I ran across Dominic Monaghan before Fellowship came out (Hetty Wainthrop mysteries). He isn't exactly like the Merry of the book, but he is given enough lines to clarify that he is the more perceptive and mature of the Merry and Pippin duo.

Sean Astin and Elijah Wood are perfect. I happen to think Elijah Wood's range of emotion was greater than Jackson pulled out of him. By the end of the first film, Frodo has been reduced to (1) scared and (2) more scared. If you watch the beginning of Fellowship, Wood displayed a much broader range. Frankly, I don't think Frodo interested Jackson much OR Frodo represented a type to Jackson. He gave all the ambiguity to Aragorn and Boromir.

I quite like Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn. The book makes clear that Aragorn is supposed to be scruffy and unattractive at first glance--a rangy Ranger with absolutely no appeal to civilized folk like Butterbur, the Prancing Pony owner. I think Mortenson pulled this off. He isn't as fine an actor as either McKellan (hard competition) or Sean Bean, but like Keanu Reeves, he knows how to act physically (which is pretty important!). The scene at the end of Fellowship where Mortensen walks down the hill towards the cast of thousands-De Mille crowd of orcs is frankly quite cool.

McKellan of course occupies his own class of perfection. And Sean Bean is so phenomenal that I hold him personally responsible for the cohesiveness of the latter half of the movie.

Which brings us to subplots.

5. Subplots--This is the third or fourth time I've seen the movie, the second time I've watched the extended version. The subplot with Aragorn is a lot clearer after that many viewings, but I don't think it was as clear as it could have been. The tension between him and Boromir, the (real) issue of Aragorn's allegiance, Boromir's (legitimate) concern for his people, and Aragorn's reluctance to test his rights to leadership are great themes and could have been emphasized. Not expanded because, okay, the movie is really long, but pointed to more clearly. There's lots and lots of implied dialog on these issues, delivered mostly by the masterly McKellan and Weaving, and the last scenes between Aragorn and Boromir are very effective, but the release-to-movie version really fell down here. (The extended version makes these themes much clearer. Even with the extended version, though, I think they could have been emphasized. I think Jackson, whom I like, is rather like Shyamalan, whom I also like: throw enough stuff at the screen, and you get a good movie. Which is sort of true. But sort of not.)

6. Speaking of the final scene--First of all, I never thought the Boromir being shot full of arrows scene funny. I can see why some people rolled their eyes, but I've got a C.S. Lewis-medieval knights-Beowulf fan inside me, and I've always thought it utterly chivalrous and honorable and gosh darn heroic! I also don't find it improbable. The human body can take an amazing amount of damage before it shuts down, as one realizes when one watches Civil War documentaries.

In fact, that whole last scene is my absolute favorite battle scene in the LOTR trilogy. It's exactly like a Civil War documentary, only with the added bonus of really old statues and much cooler armor.

And I love the chivalrous, heroic stuff. I don't think anyone but Sean Bean could have pulled off that last scene, but he is Sean Bean, and he did. His confession to Aragorn and his plea for his people, Aragorn's promise and his kiss on Boromir's forehead all hit a note of high medieval romance. It's better than King Arthur because stupid Launcelot isn't there to drip excuses all over the place.

Tangent-time: Questions have been posed (many by my brother) about why teenage girls get into stuff like yaoi and such--that is, why do many teenage girls and women get enthralled by male-to-male dedication/loyalty/devotion?

I think the reason is that these types of relationships don't imply subordination in the sense of weakness (Boromir is not weak for finally professing loyalty to Aragorn) and also because the relationship allows for objectivity. It isn't oh-now-I'm-in-love-I-must-immediately-lose-my-ability-to reason (and therefore get together with a guy who will beat me because I luuuuuv him so much). Both parties are allowed to retain their dignity.

I think this dignity is possible for female-male relationships, by the way; there simply isn't a whole class of classical literature out there that deals with it. (Dorothy Sayers and Jane Austen all by themselves do not constitute a class). George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) wrote about the desire of women for this type of relationship with a male spouse/companion (and she had such a relationship herself), but she didn't succeed in creating one on paper: in Middlemarch, Dorothea marries a gasbag and then a self-promoting politician--a nice self-promoting politician but still--

Thoughts on The Two Towers, Extended Version

I consider the extended version of Fellowship better than the cut version. Not so with Two Towers. I consider the cut version (with one exception) to be far superior to the extended version.

I've seen the cut version of Two Towers several times, and I've always considered it pretty straightforward and streamlined. After seeing the extended version, I must congratulate Peter Jackson on making such intelligent cuts for the release-to-theater version. The extended version is downright convoluted. Talk about confusing! And I'm reasonably well-versed in Tolkien lore.

The extended scenes do carry some interest. There's an entire section between Boromir and Faramir which gives you insight into the brothers and their father, Denethor. A line is spoken which is echoed in the cut version: "Now is a chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality"; when you realize that the line was originally spoken by Faramir's father, it lends the line (spoken the second time by Faramir) some pathos.

And it's nice to see Sean Bean again. But, still, the scene is very confusing. It's a back-flash, coming at a point in the narrative when we have cut away from the main action (Rohan) to Frodo. It's too many balls in the air and consequently gives the extended version a clunky feel.

Likewise, there are a number of scenes in the extended version that underscore Aragorn's identity as Isildur's heir. In the books, this is terrifically important. One reason Sauron gets so freaked out--if one can use that phrase about a big, evil eye--regarding the resistance of Gondor is that he believes that Aragorn is coming to reclaim his throne and that Aragorn has the ring.

In order to make this clear in the movies, Jackson would have had to make the whole Isildur/ Gondor/ Aragorn-as-Boromir's-boss thing just a tad clearer in the first movie than he did. So I think cutting that material in the second made a lot of sense.

Because, really, the Two Towers is about Rohan and the battle with Saruman's forces. Some of the best performances of the movie come out of this storyline. Bernard Hill as Theoden is nuanced far beyond what the role calls for, and he has some of best lines in the movie (hey, I have a yen for weighty dialog). Miranda Otto is marvelous. Karl Urban is totally underused but at least he shows up. And Brad Dourif as Grima is just about as good an ambiguous bad guy as a character can get.

The amazing Brad Dourif

There's a point near the end of Two Towers when Saruman sends the orcs out to trash Helm's Deep. Grima, standing behind him, begins to cry; it is so poignant, it rips at your heart. Here is a self-serving, nasty-minded fellow who believed that his self-serving nasty-mindedness was limited--he wanted a girl, he wanted a little bit of power. And then he discovers that the little bit of power he wanted to wield never mattered to Saruman; Saruman isn't interested in playing power politics with Grima; Saruman is interested in destroying every human being on the planet. It's a huge miscalculation based on evil intent. It's one of Tolkien's subtler moments (the crying isn't in the book but Grima's ambiguity is).*

Back to the extended version: The only scene I regret Jackson cutting between the extended version and the release-to-theater version is a scene where Faramir eulogizes a dead soldier of Sauron's. In both the book and the movie, some rather generalized soldiers from the South stomp up north to help Sauron. Tolkien doesn't say much about them although he gives them "Oliphants." Both Lewis and Tolkien have been accused of insularity in their use of bad guys from the south who bear about them hints of the Arab world. From today's perspective, it is hard not to assume both Lewis and Tolkien are responding to modern terrorism. In fact, however, their insularity is a tad older. They are responding to and utilizing medieval attitudes towards Arabs which extended back to Hannibal's elephants climbing the Alps to attack Rome.

Which doesn't make it any less insular, of course.

In any case, in the extended version, Faramir gives this nice little speech in which he pities one of the dead soldiers and says, in effect, "Why is his honor any less than mine?"

C.S. Lewis would have approved.

It's nice because first of all, it makes clear that Faramir is the more introspective of the two brothers and therefore, prepares the viewer for Faramir's rejection of the ring. It's also nice because I get tired of orcs (BAD GUYS, BAD GUYS, BAD GUYS) and their residences (BAD PLACES, BAD PLACES, BAD PLACES). I mean, really, what kind of civilization is Mordor? It is one big desolation; what do its occupants eat? I assume even orcs eat meat and carbohydrates. At least, I assume they don't just eat each other and rocks. [Note, I wrote this before my Mordor post.]

I don't have a problem with this most of the time because Tolkien was writing world fantasy with mythic good pitted against mythic evil, and the bad guys aren't automatically supposed to be Grimas (ambiguous and undecided villains). They are supposed to be bad. But I thought it was a nice touch to point out that badness has its own agendas and its own ways of garnering support. No way those guys from the South are stomping North because of some big eye. They're thinking, "What will we get out of this?" and Faramir's speech pointed that out.

However, Jackson may have thought he was cutting it close to the PC line with the "Oliphants" anyway, so the speech got cut.

He left in, however, one of the best lines of the movie given by Bernard Hill:

"What can men do," Theoden says to Aragorn, "against such reckless hate?" What indeed?

My second favorite line comes at the end of the speech Theoden gives right before the battle starts:

Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?

Give Tolkien credit--Two Towers is one of the few pro-war/warrior movies I've seen where people spend a large percentage of the time feeling hopeless and wondering how things got so bad. Which is how good people usually respond to terror and war and reckless hate.

To end: in terms of weighty speeches, I don't even mind Sam's speech, but I confess that what I really like is the beginning portion--from Tolkien's point of view, there is no return, no going back to Exactly The Way Things Were. It's a principle fantasy writers should never forget:

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

And Frodo's end is foreshadowed.

*For Voyager fans, Brad Dourif plays Suder, the sociopath who tries to control his sociopathy with Tuvok's help. There's a 2-parter where Suder--who has laid off the killing due to Tuvok's influence--must help save Voyager by killing intruders. The despair with which he agrees to this course of action is wrenching; he knows that once he starts killing again, there is no going back. The Voyager series was lucky to get Dourif!

Thoughts on The Return of the King, Extended Version

So I recently saw The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey and really enjoyed it. I will probably see it again before it leaves the theater and multiple times after it comes out on DVD. However, it will be another year before the second movie comes out, and I was feeling Middle Earth-deprived.

Faramir-Eowyn scenes that are thankfully

included in the extended version

So I rewatched Lord of the Rings for the millionth time!

Here, finally, is my review of The Return of the King, the extended version. I have reviewed the extended versions of both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers (I actually started these reviews in 2007--hence, the "finally".)

I put off watching the extended version of The Return of the King because I remembered the movie as fight scenes, more fight scenes, even more fight scenes, fight fight fight fight scenes. Some dialog.

And although I am a devotee of action movies from The Fugitive to The Avengers, I get bored after a couple of fight scenes, especially if a single scene doesn't end after about 2 minutes. (I don't care how many people an Oliphant tramples--my reaction isn't disgust; more lack of interest.) 

There is a lot of fighting in the extended version of The Return of the King. However, the extended version fills in a number of gaps, especially regarding Faramir and Eowyn. Unlike the extended version of Fellowship, which simply provides more information, and the extended version of The Two Towers, which gets downright confusing, the extended version of The Return of the King flows quite nicely between character interactions/dialog and battle sequences. 

The one major hiccup in this flow is, surprisingly, Sam, Frodo, and Gollum. In the release-to-theater version, their scenes balance very neatly with the other scenes. In the extended version, Sam, Frodo, and Gollum practically disappear from the first half of the movie (while taking over the second half; yes, I know, Jackson is following the actual chronology of the book--which just proves that he did a great job in his cut of the release-to-theater version).

Although this unevenness surprised me, it did help explain The Hobbit!

Richard Armitage as Thorin

As stated above, I enjoyed The Hobbit (Part 1); however, it is NOT for purists. Rather than a tale of lovable Bilbo, Jackson is using other Tolkien material to provide us with pre-LOTR events; it IS Tolkien material, but it is not always specific to The Hobbit. Consequently, the character who moves to the forefront is the Aragorn-type character: the king figure, Thorin.

Martin Freeman as Bilbo

Considering that Thorin is played by Richard Armitage, I have no complaints. And Martin Freeman (Bilbo) is in the movie enough to make me happy. But it does indicate that in his heart, Jackson seems to find returning monarchs slightly more interesting than good-natured hobbits (or simply easier to film).

This is comparative, of course. It isn't that Jackson doesn't do the hobbits justice--in LOTR, every scene with Sam, Frodo, and Gollum is lovingly and skillfully rendered; it's just that the king matters slightly more.

And, of course, The Return of the King is Aragorn's movie: the return of this particular king and what that means to Middle-Earth and to Minis Tirith specifically.

REBUTTLING A COMMON CRITICISM

At this point, I have to comment on a common criticism of Tolkien's work--that his evil is too blatantly evil: all the orcs are ugly; Sauron is merely a big evil eye, etc. This criticism is sort of true, but I think Tolkien deserves major kudos for his profoundly ambiguous, disturbed, multi-layered, and difficult to categorize characters, such as Denethor (steward of Gondor). Denethor's mixture of despair, pride, vainglory, pain, plus corrupted courage and love makes him one of Tolkien's most memorable creations.

There are also characters like Theoden, Faramir, and Eowyn. These characters are lightly sketched (Tolkien was more interested in Middle-Earth,  its history/languages, than in his own action sequences) yet still uniquely motivated and personalized. Not many world fantasy writers can say the same of their characters!

Frodo at Grey Havens

In other words, sticking an elf, a dwarf, a king-to-be, and an everyman into a book does not automatically a great series make.

I was glad I watched the movie again even though it is quite sad. Here's the thing about Jackson: he knows how to deliver high heroic moments that clutch at your heart. I sobbed like a baby during, oh, the last twenty minutes (here's the other thing about Jackson: he gives you about five endings). But--and I say this as someone who usually hates sad endings--it is the perfect ending. By keeping it, Jackson's respect for Tolkien's vision comes through.

In the end, it's that respect I appreciate most.

Grey Havens