Though you can peek.
Well where to start? As someone not greatly moved by the book, though respectful of it as an ancestor and archetype (mention the Silmarillion though and watch my eyes light up), I found the movie *most* satisfactory. Gorgeous, imaginative, and powerful.
No matter how good your subwoofers, you just have to experience the crowd scenes and various megabeasties on the big screen. By the taunt buttocks of the Valar, that Rohirrim cavalry charge....
It creaked *loudly* in parts, and managed to include some of the hoariest
fantasy cliches available, but pulled most of them off with aplomb, in the
*finest* traditions of the genre. Most of said cliches can be sourced to the
book of course, Lord of the Plot Coupons, though I do have some (though not
complete) sympathy to the fact that they weren't quite so cliched when JRR
(who is not to be confused with RRR) first penned them. Even so, there are
salutary lessons here about the Evil Steward's dumb guards, and the dangers
of gloating before slicing and dicing a hapless hero or setting one's last
son on fire. They never learn...
It worked because people always mattered more than special effects, even when the special effects were breathtaking and sustained - very unhollywood. And of course Good (whities with smashing ears) triumphed over Evul (dark foreign types with bad dentition). <A valid and for me faintly disturbing criticism, but one hacked to death in previous discussions - I'll not expand on it here. While he didn't seem to do much to deflect JRR's more racially naive imaginings, Jackson did at least feature himself as a rotund leering corsair. You had to be quick though.>
The battles were breath taking, imaginative, and sustained, and the Shelob scenes confirmed Jackson's successful apprenticeship as a horror director.
It wuz Boys Own with lots of bits for the girlies, even if the entire Arwen rejig came to little in the end. And what would a single two second shot of Faramir squeezing Eowyn's hand at the coronation have cost? NPCs have feelings too. There wuz Hobbit Love aplenty, but it was noble, hard won, and any hairy foot-fetishising was thankfully confined offscreen. There wuz more adryami-mostal love, but Gimli was little less a figure of fun than in previous instalments. Legolas gives an absolutely **classic** lesson in how to take out a sixty foot war mammoth with a tooth pick. And there were enough hippy-esque good vibrations in the last twenty minutes to make any evocation of nilly-willy Tom Bomby dilly entirely superfluous. I loved it.
But after saving the universe, righting all wrong, beating global warning, marrying off the hero and restoring Republican values, Absolute Monarchy, and gerontocracy, some people *still* wanted a scouring of the Shire? Bizarre. It was damned odd in the book, and would have been even more Bizarre in the movie, with its much tighter dramatic arc. After what the hobbitsuz got up to at Pelennor Fields, they could take out the Shire shenanigans with blindfolds on. And we all know it.
Also, I hope the Elven boat people don't have to deal with the Australian government when they reach the western shore. "I don't care if you're a ringbearer or a twenty thousand year old heiress, we don't want *your sort of people* coming to our country." Foreigners. Go home, the bloody war's over isn't it? Merry Christmas.
Of the other hoary cliches, there was the earthquake that wipes out the enemy army while neatly tiptoeing around the good guys, and the 'we're hopelessly outnumbered, but did I forget to mention that round the next corner there's a mountain full of dead people that owe you a BIG favour?' Such could only be carried off my a very good GM. It creaked, but it worked, largely because there was too much going on to stop and think about it. Jackson can run my campaign anytime. I just hope he does *some* foreshadowing.
The Witchking of Angmar was a real hit, making up for the lack of the Mouth of Sauron and finally proving that Nozedroll can do more than glower menacingly. 'I cannot die by the hand of man?'. Well as any frp-er knows, that just means you have to *kick* the blighter to death, vingan harridans in the party notwithstanding.... Thank you Thrud. In this instance of course, we had a vingan on hand. And very nice she was too.
The Hero Wars offers the chance of similar battles and soul searing quests, and watching ROTK made me appreciate what 'cinematic' roleplaying really means. You need a system like HQ to cope with the sheer scope of something like ROTK. Can you imagine attempting the Pelennor Fields in RuneQuest? Well with narrative sweep for round one, with 200 thousand combatants, you could describe at least 2,000 orczes, Rohirrim and assorted Minas Tronians cutting off their own arms or legs with axes and swords. Thank you Murphies Rules.
Medic!!!
Seriously though, the movie should be an inspiration to us in thinking about epic fantasy. The way in which Jackson introduced strange new creatures and dastardly devices at key moments was top rate, and the battle was always about more than the glory of combat. Well almost always. Though possibly because orcs are only 4 EP each. Even with the odd Uruk Hai or Troll (now strangely unaffected by sunlight) its a long way to being a 12th level ranger like Arrowroot.
And the Rohirrim - Orlanthi with horses. Lots of loving detail to lap up here, especially inside the feasting halls, and to Jackson's credit he lets JRR's love of the Anglo Saxon sources shine through. The speeches by Theodin and Arrowroot trace a direct line right back to Beowulf and Byrhtwold.
All in all incredible success despite the hoariest collection of cliches assembled since Conan the Destroyer - carried off through imagination and clear focus on characterisation and relationships. Does that sound like a certain RPG? When Argrath comes to Boldhome, lets hope we manage as well as Jackson does.
Long live the king.
John
John
nysalor_at_OHq61OTdQ6SdtT1fnXMLzNvcmMncUYFvdtfcxkjasc_upBQAaVEhAe6Lz_Yt2ZZtj5zFBo9tZM6Gj1e0.yahoo.invalid John HughesQuestlines: http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/questlines/
Hige sceal že heardra, heorte the cenre, mod sceal že mare, že ure męgen lytlaš.
[Our hearts must grow resolute, our courage more valiant, our spirits must be greater, though our strength grows less.]
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