Against my better judgement ...
I'll list the things that bothered me about the movie. This doesn't help my 'The movie was
basically faithful' argument any, it is a conciliatory gesture to the 'Purists' (really, NPW was so much more playful) and a bit of catharsis.
1) 'Come and claim him'.
Arwen development aside (I think it's necessary if she is to have any presence at the wedding, movies just can't wait for appendices), this was a pretty bad line. It doesn't need to be as long as
Tolkien, but please try to make it sound as intelligent. For the sake of brevity I'll through in 'Let's hunt some
Orc' as being the same complaint.
2) Cave
troll skewering
Frodo instead of Orc chieftain (see Mickyplums' FOTR quote for reference). I realize that if you have a big special effects budget you're going to want more than just the foot of the troll to get through the door. But the Orc ducking and dodging in order to spear Frodo was an action sequence which I loved (it reminded me of playing NA football), and Bakshi showed that it can work on screen, in my opinion. I think it would have been just as easy to stay a little truer to the book here by having the fellowship be completely concerned with eliminating the troll (as in the film), and having them finally kill it, a lull and let down in watchfulness (as in the book), and then voila, Orc Dickerson breaks one open (he could ... go ... all ... the ... way!), crossing the goal line with a celebratory spike into the chest of Frodo, just prior to an outstanding bit of late hit/unnecessary roughness by
Aragorn. Of course this is a
very minor detail, and the special effects guys were probably not about to give the bad-guy glory away to some extra in an orc suit after spending months on troll animation. Again I'll throw in the flight to the ford, for the sake of brevity. I just loved the idea of Asfolath being so much faster than the
horses of
the black riders, that even with a considerable head start they couldn't cut him off. I would have loved to have seen the look on the ethereal face of that last
black rider, as Frodo and Asfolath blew by, just barely in front of his sniffling nose.
3) This didn't bother me, but everybody's addressed it, so I'll give it my view: Saruman- fence straddler in over his head, or mindless servant of the
dark lord? This is going to play out in the Two
Towers, no point in passing judgement after the introduction. What will
Ugluk and company be taking the
halflings to
Isengard in spite of the protests of Grishnak's faction (assuming they exist)? This will mean far more to me about
Saruman's allegiance than anything that has happened in the film so far. Here is one scenario PJ might have: Saruman, considering himself to be without any tangible options, feigns allegiance to the dark lord.
Gandalf comes, and Saruman entices him to join the dark lord, *just as he did in the book* ('This then is the choice before you, before us. We may join that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf'). However, he learns from Gandalf that
the ring has been found, and a new plan begins to develop in his mind. He will build an army as
Sauron bids, but he will use it to capture the ring for HIMSELF, not to enhance the might of
Barad-dur. This scenario would be quite in-line with the book, and I don't think we can write this scenario off until we've seen the Two Towers. If Saruman turns out to be the spine-less
Grima that the Purists have proclaimed, then I PROMISE to rail right along with them. But not yet.
Finally, on a 'something I found altogether pleasant about the movie' note:
After being mentioned by an alert reader on these boards, I paid extra-special attention to the scene in which Arwen first comes to Frodo. To my delight I noticed that Frodo was laying underneath the shadow of everybody favorite stoned
trolls: Bert,
Tom, and Bill! I thought that this was a wonderfully subtle touch. No hyping prior to the movie (at least none that I know of), just waiting there for fans with an attention to detail (granted it could have been the sole survivor of an edited scene). This was all set up perfectly by
Bilbo's recital at the Birthday party, too. I'm sure that there are more little gems like this scattered in the movie, a reason that I'll be watching the DVD release vey carefully. This also gives me faith that PJ is not some soulless pillager of classics, willing to wring every penny out of a desicated version of Tolkien's tale. He loves Tolkien's works, and enjoys these sorts of details.
Well, looking back at the top of my post, I realize that eleventy-one lines is far too short a time to spend conversing LOTR with such excellent and admirable ringers. I regret to announce that this is the end of my post, I won't make it a single word longer, GOOD-BYE!
