cimorene

i woke up to find it at my place at the table. my daddy thoughtfully folded it so i could see his name, and those of our other friends. the whole thing is written with quotes from big!gay!andy and my daddy and andy duncan (aka important writer andy) (and one more dude we don't care about). my daddy is the cutest tolkien geek of my acquaintance. when he and mom met in the science fiction club in college, he said something like 'i've read the lord of the rings seventeen times, once a year since i was 9.' which led her to do math and conclude that he was 26, when in fact he was 23. (or maybe i have the numbers off and he was 21. but anyway.) he hasn't read it once a year since then, and there are even some tolkien books that he doesn't own, and he doesn't speak quenya or anything. so, cast of article:

my daddy
big!gay!andy is daddy's friend from work for whom i was doing photocopying all last summer >.<.
important writer andy (aka andy duncan) was nominated for a nebula, and won the john w campbell award for best new sf writer, blah blah.

the time has come: two towers arrives in theaters with much anticipation by a staff writer, lalalaa

it takes a family to really pick you apart. just as a truly devastating personal remark is often prefaced by 'bless her heart,' fans of jrr tolkien's epic rings trilogy love the first movie. but bless its heart, it forgot the bombadil. god love it, but why did it eliminate caradhras?

don't get them wrong: tolkien fans really do love "the fellowship of the ring," the first installment of "the lord of the rings" trilogy. and they're planning on queuing up early and often for "the two towers," the next episode, which opens with late-night showings tonight at the fox 12 theatre.

'the serious tolkienites i have spoken to, including many fantasy writers, universally agree that the movie was first-rate,' said andy duncan, a co-founder of the tuscaloosa science fiction society, a group so new it has only met through an e-mail list. 'having said that, each one [me included] then feels compelled to mention one particular nit-picky thing about the movie that really annoyed him -- a flaw of omission, a wonkey interpretation, an over-the-top 'hollywood' moment.'

it's splitting hairs, he knows, but in the tradition of james bond or sherlock holmes fans debating the finest filmed sleuth. most of the nit-picks concern omissions or variations from tolkien's text.

big!gay!andy read tolkien's trilogy several times in the 60s and 70s, and again last year after the 'fellowship' movie came out. (each of the three installments was filmed at the same time. the movies are being released at intervals of one per year). 'my main impression of the film was how faithfully the director [peter jackson] had kept to the book, even in slight details, despite the enormous condensation that that required,' gay!andy said.

but, bless its heart...

'i was a bit disappointed that the bombadil/barrow-wight sequence was left out, but was also well aware that something would, have to be left out, so i was willing to let it go.'

there's some debate over jackson's glossing over the origins of the uruk-hai (elite human-orc--orc being monstrous fightters--hybrids), and m. petersen doesn't like the way the tobacco-ish smoke seemed to take on the air of marijuana {cim's note: read the very secret diaries, did he?}. 'good for a cheap laugh, i supposed, but it was a pointless change,' petersen said.

what really bothered him, though, was that the film didn't communicate the sense of scope, the lengths of time and distance encompassed. 'as it is, the film gives only a couple of landscape shots, and for all we know the fellowship has simply been out for a weekend hike,' he said. {cim suggests: watch it again, asshole ::bristlebristle::.}

the immensity of the undertaking might have been improved had jackson kept in caradhras (a mighty peak in the misty mountains) as an independent entity. 'that helped show the vast scope of middle earth,' said cim's daddy, 'against which even sauron [the dark wizard] was merely an important player.'

one thing all can agree on: anything would be an improvement on the 1978 animated 'the lord of the rings,' directed by ralph bakshi. {they didn't ask me! i liked the balrog's fuzzy slippers! hmf!} 'you have to recall the bakshi animated film to realize just how bad it could have been,' gay!andy said. 'remember seeing battle blood cover the screen over and over again, to the point of boredom?'

bakshi's movie was 'abominable, and i think most fans gave up on the idea of there ever being a decent movie, much less a great one like this,' said cim's daddy.

in fact, in some respects, fans prefer the movie to the book. cheifly among those is the performance of english actor sean bean as the tragic human hero boromir. film fan bryant burnette called bean's performance 'heartbreaking.'

'it's a complex, excellent characterization, and i hopse bean gets some primo roles on account of it.' {cim hopes so too, even though she hates

squirrelmir's slimy guts.}

cim's daddy said bean's boromir expands on tolkien's. 'in the book, he's little more than an arrogant sob. in the movie, we like him, in spite of his foibles,' the daddy said.

even at three hours running length, 'fellowship' had to crunch timelines. burnette feels that pace worked better than the leisurely crawl of the books.

in tolkien's pages, 10 years elapse between bilbo baggins leaving the shire (discovering the ring, as written in 'the hobbit,' and c ondensed to a prologue in the 'fellowship' movie) {cim says: ahahahahaha, stupid writer, read the damned trilogy again, or watch it and pay attention!} and gandalf returning to convince frodo (bilbo's nephew) to destroy the ring. {cim says: isn't it more like seventeen years? frodo's 55, ain't he?}

'then, it takes frodo like six months to actually get his [expletive] in gear and hit the road,' burnette said. 'this would have destroyed the movie. it would have been ridiculous for frodo to have found out about this world-threatening ring, and then sit on it for months before doing anything much about it.'

but to each medium its own, the cim-daddy suggests {quite appropriately laying the smackdown on the second jackass}. what was needed for film was one thing; but in print, tolkien had the luxury of exploring character and setting more. 'people are procrastinators, and hobbits are more so,' cim's daddy said. 'also, frodo didn't really understand the magnitude of the threat at first, because gandalf didn't. i like both book and movie treatments of this.'

and for true fellows, there's an expanded dvd version out now, with another half hour of expanded or restored scenes. burnette said he thinks the longer version is better than the theatrical release, even though the added moments are small ones, such as snippits of a song or extra action. 'galadriel [an elf-queen]'s gift-giving scene is back int eh story this time, though and that is a fairly significant addition, given that some of those gifts will come in handy in the next two films,' burnette said.

in the end, despite all the admonitions, nit-picks and bless-her-hearts, the end result is 'i loved the movie.' and hopes are equally high for the remaining chapters.

'i haven't spoken to a single professional in the field of science fiction and fantasy who didn't love the first 'lord of the rings' movie and isn't eagerly awaiting the next two,' duncan said. to find members of tsfs, just look in the seats at tonight's opening... and, no doubt, in repeat viewings in coming days.

'i never dreamed that i would get to see a movie that did justice to tolkien's work,' said cim's daddy. 'to have three... well, life is very, very good.'