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Apr. 1st, 2007 04:07 pmI just finished re-watching Fellowship of the Ring while foiling orchids. *happy sigh* What a great movie.
I love the spookiness, the sense of danger and urgency, the presence of the ring as a near-conscious entity unto itself. I love how they evoked the hauntedness of Middle Earth, how everything is overshadowed by ages past that have been mostly forgotten. I love how they wove in a subtle internal conflict for Aragorn, how he doubts himself and finally comes into his own. I love how tormented and tragic they made Boromir. I love everyone's timing and delivery. "Nobody knows it's here, do they?...Do they, Gandalf?" Hee!
I wish they could have taken a bit more time with the last two films to evoke that same atmosphere - I found they lost the sense of history and uncanniness. Minas Morgul is just a particularly dangerous place; the Nazgul are just particularly dangerous monsters, there's no sense that dread and despair follow in their wake like in the books. That was one of many things they captured brilliantly in Fellowship - with that one warping shot of the road when Frodo feels them coming, or that ungodly noise they make, just for example. The last two movies stopped using the visuals to deepen your perspective on Middle Earth and just fell back on exposition, which didn't work half so well. And without that sense of looming history, Aragorn's army of the dead or the wakening of the Ents became kind of arbitrary and meh. And they never really followed through with Aragorn's coming into his own as King. I wish they could have slowed it down a bit. I mean, I wouldn't have objected to a fourth movie...
I love the spookiness, the sense of danger and urgency, the presence of the ring as a near-conscious entity unto itself. I love how they evoked the hauntedness of Middle Earth, how everything is overshadowed by ages past that have been mostly forgotten. I love how they wove in a subtle internal conflict for Aragorn, how he doubts himself and finally comes into his own. I love how tormented and tragic they made Boromir. I love everyone's timing and delivery. "Nobody knows it's here, do they?...Do they, Gandalf?" Hee!
I wish they could have taken a bit more time with the last two films to evoke that same atmosphere - I found they lost the sense of history and uncanniness. Minas Morgul is just a particularly dangerous place; the Nazgul are just particularly dangerous monsters, there's no sense that dread and despair follow in their wake like in the books. That was one of many things they captured brilliantly in Fellowship - with that one warping shot of the road when Frodo feels them coming, or that ungodly noise they make, just for example. The last two movies stopped using the visuals to deepen your perspective on Middle Earth and just fell back on exposition, which didn't work half so well. And without that sense of looming history, Aragorn's army of the dead or the wakening of the Ents became kind of arbitrary and meh. And they never really followed through with Aragorn's coming into his own as King. I wish they could have slowed it down a bit. I mean, I wouldn't have objected to a fourth movie...
