The 👁️Eye of Sauron

[Kavrangoz]

As you've watched the film you've seen the eye.
Correct me if i am wrong but i don't remember any sentence that described Sauron just as an eye.
Did you dream of Sauron like that?
A lighthouse?
I think that's the worst, meaningless thing in the film. Like a joke.

 

[Morgul Agent]

It's definitely not supposed to be a joke.

In the book, The Eye of Sauron is definitely referred to, many times. But Tolkien was such a skillfull writer that you can never really tell if it's a real eye, or a metaphor for Mordor's watchful vigilance, or a red star or something, or only a vision that Frodo can see...

In the movie they needed to portray Sauron, and they didn't want to make up some new Sauron creature...so they used the Eye from the book. They did, however, exaggerate it a bit (especially in film 3, with the searchlight/spotlight feature), but that was basically a cinematic device to illustrate the fact that Sauron is this almost-all-seeing presence...The book always talks about the plan to draw Sauron's eye away from Frodo.

 

[Kavrangoz]

Maybe it is not supposed to be a joke but i think it is some kind of "sick" joke.
In the film i can see only a mind without imagination.(p.J.)
I think you can only laugh to sauron's eye(the lighthouse).
And i am sure it's just a phrase used to mention Sauron.
"The eye" means Sauron, nothing more.

And i ask you, you say "they didn't want to make up some new Sauron creature" but didn't they create a Sauron really? In the beginning of the first film we have seen a Sauron creature and a fighting Sauron, and the Sauron forging the ring.

According to these informaitons we can understand that P.J. create the lighthouse not because he didn't want to "make up some new Sauron creature", but because he dreamed of Sauron as an eye, sorry lighthouse.

And you say that this kind of things are necessary for films.Here i agree with you, to make money and to ruin my favourite book p.J. had to create the lighthouse.

 

[Kavrangoz]

What did you feel when you saw the "lighthouse of Sauron" in the film?
Is Sauron described as a lighthouse in the book?If so, where?
I think that's the most disgusting, most idiotic thing in the film.
Yes Sauron is described as an eye, but not physically i think.
"the eye" just explains that Sauron has a great power to see, and he's not sleeping, always watching(liddless eye)
Anyway, do you people think like me?If not, please let me know?
And what is the most funny(idiotic funny i mean) scene in the film, according to you?

 

[Confusticated]

I actually laughed when I seen that because after the first movie I joked that Jackson would do that. I even made a small animation of the light-house effect and used it as my forum avatar for a couple days. I didn't think he would really do it though! But at the same time it wasn't surprising.

Yes, it was stupid! But no more so than the way he did the eye itself. If he was going to have Sauron shown as only an eye he could have maybe had a smaller one surrounded in darkness, leaving open the chance that there is an entire hideous body.

There wre so many idiot scenes I wouldn't know where to begin naming them.

 

[Jotun]

I think Sauron's eye in the book was a physical presence. 'Cuz in the book (somewhere in the beginning I think) describes it as a lidless yellow catlike eye wreathed in flame. As for the lighthouse effect, I think Peter Jackson did that to show (especially in the distance) where he was "looking". I don't mind it at all.

Tolkien coulda just had the whole description as a metaphor, though. Cat-like and lidless could mean he sees all and wreathed in flame could mean really mad. I have no idea, though.

 

[GuardianRanger]

In the literal sense, I think it was kind of weak.
However, I think it was used more as effect...showing where the eye was looking.

Heck, change some of those orc horns into fog horns, and we're all set.

 

[Hobbit-GalRosie]

Tolkien never described the eye as a separate physical entity. I'm nearly certain that yellow, wreathed in flame bit comes from the mirror of Galadriel scene, in which case it can be interpreted as either a visual metaphor of Sauron's watching mind, or, what I think, just a close view of his eye so that Frodo couldn't see anything else. Later in TT Frodo thought he could feel a great eye watching him, which is where the movie got that "pierces stone and flesh" and there was one other thing it pierced, but you know what I mean.

In the book as published in the scene at the Crack of Doom, when Sauron sees Frodo about to destroy the ring, has something about how the eye--referred to for a short time as "it" fell on him and pierced him and he (Sauron) was at last aware of how he had been deceived, clearly showing that though the eye was an important part of Sauron, it was still just that--part of his body. The History of Middle-Earth--I believe it was volume IX, but it may have been VIII--had a draft in which Tolkien did in fact use "it" throughout, but subsequently corrected this so that it read "he" everywhere except that first moment when Frodo was perceived, showing that even Tolkien perhaps had come to view the Eye to be iconic of Sauron to point of being nearly synonymous on some sub-conscious level, but he viewed this as an error and made a point of fixing it, which goes to show just how misguided Jackson's interpretation is.

This is what is said on the subject in this thread http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?t=15393 about your fav LotR villian, a poll which included PJ as a joke at first, but when he got 25% of the votes consistently for quite some time, ruining everyone else's chances one of the mods changed that spot to Grima, as he had been forgotten at first.

Very well then, firstly, I voted for Sauron, because he had this way of making you believe he was behind all the other villians even if he wasn't, like in the case of Shelob. You could never help wondering what passed through that foul mind, what treachery was contemplated there; feeling somehow that he must know your every thought and there could be no escape from him.

Secondly, however, Peter Jackson (who, I note, never appeared in the books, which is what this section is devoted to) is the real villian because he RUINED the otherwise most perfectly evil, malicious being ever devised. He took all that wonderful subtlety of a devious mind at work and turned it into a 100,000,000 candle-power "Spotlight of Doom"!

 

[joxy]

It is 500 years since the theory was abandoned that the eye sends out the light by which it sees.
Galileo could have taught Jackson a thing or two.