Lord of the Rings
Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, Ian Holm, Cate Blanchett
Rating: PG-13 — epic battle sequences, monster violence, nightmarish images
Area Sightings: Just follow the crowds.

Once upon a time, in a tiny room in the middle of a wood-paneled hall, lived an 8-year-old boy. The wee lad was very fond of books, and he was apt to forgo things that most young boys do — mud fights, unorthodox basketball, and telling young girls that they were smelly. One day at the library (a favorite place for “odd” little boys), he came across a parchment entitled Lord of the Rings, a thousand page trilogy by the late author, J.R.R Tolkien. The youngster already knew of Mr. Tolkien. The writer had shown the tyke Middle Earth and its most innocent resident, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. The boy stood alongside Bilbo as he battled orcs, dragons, and his own cowardice. However, the youngster was whisked away from Middle Earth because Bilbo had decided that one adventure was enough.

The child had been searching for a way back in, and the lodestone was the dust-laden trilogy that now weighed heavily in his tiny hands. Dashing home, he isolated himself in his room, opened the book, and for several months, joined Hobbits Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamshee on their quest to drop the evil ring into the lava of Mount Doom.

Words were not enough for the youngster. He wanted visualizations, a manifestation of the fantastical that swirled in his brain. A cartoon emerged from the first installment, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” and was theatrically released to mortals in 1978. It bloomed with disappointment. Director Ralph Bakshi took Tolkien’s Middle Earth and turned into a bland gothic portrayal. The lad was crushed, a taste like chewed aspirin stuck in his mouth. The trilogy was forgotten for 22 years.

Puberty and adulthood marked the lad with forgetfulness. Sports, girls (that no longer smelled), and daunting responsibilities made him forget about his second world. Then a signal came. The drone of the TV (which had darkened the taste for books) mentioned something about a new movie based on “The Lord Of the Rings.” His ears perked up like an elf, and a tidal wave of memories gushed into the unused grey matter. The trilogy was discovered inside a black locker (that housed more than just inanimate objects); and soon enough, Gandalf, Frodo, Pippin, and the rest of the merry (and not so merry) crew were recreating their quest in the young man’s living room.

But the ache remained. The movie was till a ways off, but the fanfare behind the picture was growing like Sauron’s evil minions. Words appeared here and there about the task of recreating Middle Earth. Director Peter Jackson was being hailed as a visionary, building an authentic Tolkien World in his native New Zealand. Rumors flew of 26,000 extras and a cost of $300 million to make all the trilogies at once. The movie was cast simultaneously in 274 days and spread over 15 months. This was unlike Tolkien. The author (who never owned a car) was a great procrastinator, and it took him 14 years to write the trilogy. He also never intended the “Lord of the Rings” to be trilogy. It was a publisher’s edict, and Tolkien made it visibly clear that he loathed this decision.

But like Tolkien, Jackson (who resembles one of the well-fed Hobbits) was a stickler for perfection. To ensure an ideal model of the Shire, (aka Hobbiton), 5,000 cubic meters of vegetation were planted a year before the shoot. Special effects (for the most part) were done without computers; the pixel world was replaced with over 60 meticulously crafted miniatures. Jackson even went so far as to reconstruct the several languages that Tolkien had first created. Not only had Tolkien written a literary masterpiece, but he had painstakingly created a vast appendix of histories, languages (i.e. elven, dwarf), and fully illustrated maps.

Oh, but the wait still remained. The young man grew grey overnight, chewing his nails to nubs and reading Middle Earth factoids incessantly until the rooster bid good morning. His talk became obsessive, and his beautiful maiden began to wonder if his feet were growing Hobbit hair. Repetitive calls were made to the theatre to ensure that tickets could be had well in advance.

Finally, the wait was no longer, and the fatigued hero crammed his siblings and fiancé into a small carriage for the ride to the theatre. The young man ran to his seat like an unkempt child looking for bladder relief. The blank picture darkened and then sprung to life with Middle Earth. For 22 years, he had waited, and finally his vision of the land beyond our land was real.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Peter Jackson would be able to recreate the vision of the great magi, Tolkien. But here it was — the Shire, the mines, the Misty Mountains, Rivendale, and the murky depths of Mordor. The similarity between Tolkien’s words and Jackson’s picture were eerie. But the characters were even more striking. Ian McKellan (Apt Pupil, Gods and Monsters) played Gandalf with a fervor that could have been concocted in a forbidden alchemy lab. McKellan is possessed with Gandalf — the wizened expressions, enchanted smoke rings, incanted spells, and unfettered tenderness towards the hobbits

Bilbo (Ian Holm) warmed the heart and made the young man pine to nestle down in a hobbit hole and have the daily allotted seven meals with his first guide through Middle Earth. Frodo’s (Elijah Wood) blue-eyed intensity rippled through the theatre, as the young hobbit began to realize that his quest will affect every man, elf, dwarf, hobbit, and dark dweller.

But the nightmares soon came. The young man had always been haunted by the Ring Wraiths and the demon Balrog, whose vileness drew faithful ranks from the goblins. He almost wished Mr. Jackson would have spared these awful characters, but to do so, would have compromised the whole tale. The Ring Wraiths dredged up old fears that hadn’t been around since those reading days in the tiny room. Everything about them was horrible — faces hidden by cloaks, ear-piercing squeals that could blacken a heart, and their dark steeds that had thick and crusty blood flowing down their flanks in a constant stream. The shudders turned to disgust when the goblins or orcs appeared. Nastier than anything Tolkien had written about, these bottom-dwellers made the young man nauseated, but the desire for a good yarn kept him in his seat.

The best part, though, was the storyline. The 1978 cartoon had slapdashed the Rings story together and left out huge chunks of important material. Not so here. Even those “homedwellers” who never risked an adventure in Middle Earth will be swept up by Jackson’s screenwriting (done with wife, Fran Walsh, and rookie screenwriter Phillipa Boyens). The first five minutes explain why an object no bigger than eight inches radius could destroy all that is pure about Middle Earth. Three thousand years ago, a ring was created by the Dark Lord Sauron that would rule the nine kings who owned the other magical rings. The inscription (read only when lit by fire) said, “One Ring to Rule Them All.” The kings were conquered, and each of them turned into the ghastly ring wraiths. Sauron soon had a grip on the world, but was defeated by a lucky sword stroke that chopped off Sauron’s ring finger and left him powerless.

The ring could have been destroyed then, but the folly hearts of mortal men allowed the ring to exist, and so it did for 3,000 more years, going from man to Gollum to Bilbo and finally, to Frodo.

By Gandalf’s discerning wisdom, he discovers that the ring is owned by Bilbo. Baggins (like all the others before him) has been tainted by the ring, and Gandalf has to bully his hobbit friend to get the ring back. He knows that it must be destroyed and the only person who can rightfully do it is Bilbo’s cousin, Frodo Baggins. But the evil forces know that the ring is out there, and the ring (with a mind of its own) wants to be found. Already, the Wraiths have hastened to Shire, to find their master’s lifeforce. Gandalf whisks Frodo into travel clothing and sends him into the wildwood. Thus begins the adventure to Mount Doom.

Memories flooded into the young man that hadn’t been quenched since pre-puberty. There were the playful hobbits, Sam (Sean Astin), Pippin (Billy Boyd), and Merry (Dominic Monaghan), who join Frodo for companionship and comic relief. The other members of the Fellowship began to appear, and the memories of old friends and nemeses came alive. There was the sinewy warrior, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) who protects Frodo on his initial journey; the shady warrior Boromir (Sean Bean) who craves the ring; the ego-laden dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies); and the noble elven archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom) whose aim is always true.

But with the good came the treacherous, and Saruman (a diabolical Christopher Lee) gobbled up the screen like an impending plague. Saruman was once Gandalf’s friend, but now has become Sauron’s rebirth aide. His glare is worthy of many sneers and his treachery encompasses Middle Earth. He creates races of orcs, goblins and man/orcs (that have the ability to travel through day) that will chase Frodo and Company relentlessly until the final installment, “Return of the King.”

Although it was nice to revisit, the young man forgot about the dark intensity that dwells in Middle Earth. There are light spots, but the omnipotent power of evil resides in the land like a fog that can’t get away. Peter Jackson understood the Tolkien darkness and he makes it flourish on the screen. There is no profanity or sex, but the images of monsters and “suggestions in the shadows” crawl into the fear receptors and hatch (warning to adults: young children should steer clear of this movie). The adventure plops into another adventure, and the three hours wisp away like spiraling ashes.

Our material hero had barely time to find the contours of his seat, before being jolted by another fight scene, or a demonic glare from the hordes of Sauron.

When the credits rolled up, the intrepid traveler found that he was pleased as having a bellyful of mutton. He also found that he was normal again. Talk centered around food, and his fair maiden realized (with a wash of relief) that her love had lost his Baggins’s accent. There were minor complaints (Tom Bombadil, the Earth Father, is nonexistent in the movie, and although Saruman is evil in both novel and film, he is never a pawn of Sauron in Tolkien’s telling), but overall the movie was magic because it remained faithful to the great scribes of Tolkien.

However, the craving soon returned.

“Must I wait a whole year for the ‘Two Towers’?” our protagonist whined. Yes, my dear boy, I fear it is true. Until then, exercise, dote on your lady in waiting, and even try adventures from other authors. Frodo will return. He’ll latch onto your hand and lead you down the road of obsession once again.

(Hunter Pope writes about entertainment and other topics. He can be reached at w.h.pope@worldnet.att.net)

 

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