So it has come to this...
Dec. 20th, 2002 04:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
setraI saw The Two Towers tonight. Anyone that has a while and doesn't mind disconnected ranting can read...
My Two Towers Rant (SPOILER and RANT WARNING) -
I realized as I sat in the darkness - feeling more strongly than ever the absence of my ring – with the cord of my necklace wound around my hand and the coin clasped in my palm; I realized the significance of the symbols I chose last summer when I had the necklace stamped. On one side the tri-symmetric pattern of swirls (I don’t know it’s celtic name) and on the other the rising Phoenix. This movie and the book are above all a rising flame. Gandalf rises as the Phoenix – reborn from flame (which only he could have survived) as a new light. The meaning of the three should be obvious to anyone who knows me…
I was still disappointed in Elrond. He does not inspire the awe and respect and worship in me that he should. He should have been the focus of the movies for my heart, yet he failed. The actor was not the right choice. In some aspects he was acceptable… but he was not quite as he should have been. His speech to Arwen about her immortality and her choice was the closest to being truly Elrond that he has come. Still, the third remains, and the end will be the final test.
The coin on my necklace is copper and there is a green circle in the center of my right palm. The second book always hurt me, pulled, stung, drained… I don’t know how to interpret the fact that the movie did not do this. I cried at Haldir’s death in Helm’s Deep… three tears, though it was coincidence I believe. The singing and music was amazing. I swear that in the words as Gandalf falls they say Narya.
I have all the books around me now, looking things up… re-reading the Glorfindel section of the first book. It was so good… yet what they did was all right I guess… taken as another version. When I say I have all the books, I realize I have only been looking through the first and the last. As I said, the second has always hurt me a little… but I must now see what was changed.
It may help to know what my books look like. They are hard cover, bound in black cloth. On the cover of each is an eye in a circle, that circled by the flame-like letters that are inscribed on the One Ring… at the top where the ends of the letters rise up like flame, there is an inverted ring. The pupil of the central eye and the ring are gold on all three books, but the circle and letters are a different color, pale orange on the first, pure red on the second and violet on the third. (my corrent avatar is a scan of the cover of The Two Towers) The First Book is in the worst condition – for which I still berate myself – the Second is in the best condition. I’ve always associated the First with Nenya, the Second with Narya and the Third with Vilya… but that may be just my feeling.
Anyone that was with me will probably recall me saying “It’s him, it’s HIM!” when I saw Wormtounge for the first time. Here’s why…
in the Babylon 5 episode “Passing Through Gethsemane” the main character is Brother Edward. There is a lot of angst about him having been a serial killer who underwent death of personality and now he’s a very sweet guy… after a lot of anger and mental trauma and angst he dies rather messily. The actor was also in The X-Files once and in Voyager a couple of times. That actor was Grima…. just a bit of creepiness for me. Ironically, Grima is the LEAST insane/psychotic character I’ve seen him play yet. o_0
Gollum… Smeagol… wow! I mean WOW! Just amazing, I kept forgetting that he was computer animated… his interaction was flawless. Likewise, Ents. I’m sure that Nick will eventually do a rant about the massive nature taking revenge and how the battle at Isengard was on screen for three minutes and Helm’s Deep was fifty-seven. Speaking of Helm’s Deep… Legolas… shield… stairs… skateboard? It seemed both slightly out of character and a bit cheesy… but it was cool anyway. I felt bad laughing during massive carnage… but it was /so/ a skateboard or a snowboard or something… Then Haldir died and I was not laughing.
Despite Corina’s complaints – rather LOUD complaints – I didn’t mind the Aragorn and Arwen fluff (I refuse to use fanfic notation with an x or + or /). The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen has been raised to a far more prominent role. It was nice and since they’ve done what they have with Arwen, I appreciate the fluff and the angst. I think seeing it again in silence would increase it’s meaning and emotion for me. The music was very soft throughout those scenes.
The Eowyn and Aragorn relationship was done extremely well… simply lovely even without some of the moments that I cherished from the book (the goblet, hand touch scene – I don’t mean it to be hand-touchies, but it WAS). The Rohirrim in general were wonderful, though they never had Theoden reffering to Eowyn as sister-daughter or Eomer as sister-son, which is one of the things in the book that really struck me for some reason. The whole Eomer exile thing seemed a bit odd… but that’s just the movies. Or maybe I really missed or forgot something from the books.
Faramir was all right. He's not meant to be perfect. Osgilliath was a bit silly, but they needed more drama and carnage than Helm's Deep I guess...
They cut a good two or four chapters off the end of the book... recall that the second book is the shortest... I'm confused... they can't skip Shelob, can they? No, they had Gollum saying things about HER... hm...
The closing song I really liked… though I didn’t get to stay for all of it. It was appropriately bittersweet, not in Elven and simply lovely… almost sounded like Bjork singing though I don’t think it was… it was a good end to a movie that really has no end.
Now for some lovely worship on my part and the reason that I wait above all else for the third movie…
“…upon his [Elrond’s] finger was a ring of gold with a great blue stone, Vilya, mightiest of the Three.”
“On her [Galadriel’s] finger was Nenya, the ring wrought of mithril, that bore a single white stone flickering like a frosty star.”
“…Gandalf now wore openly upon his hand the Third Ring, Narya the Great, and the stone upon it was red as fire.” (LotR-VI – Chapter 9)
So... that seemingly covered and me just realizing how late at night it really is now and how much more wordy than Corina-senpai I was... o_O I'm off to bed... I need the movie soundtracks... for this and the last one. I would like to say in closing that subtext in LotR is WRONG! Even if it's there... it's still wrong. and it's worse in the movies... and still SO wrong!
SO, that done! New topic...
Bishonen: Aragorn
Bishojo: Eowyn
My Two Towers Rant (SPOILER and RANT WARNING) -
I realized as I sat in the darkness - feeling more strongly than ever the absence of my ring – with the cord of my necklace wound around my hand and the coin clasped in my palm; I realized the significance of the symbols I chose last summer when I had the necklace stamped. On one side the tri-symmetric pattern of swirls (I don’t know it’s celtic name) and on the other the rising Phoenix. This movie and the book are above all a rising flame. Gandalf rises as the Phoenix – reborn from flame (which only he could have survived) as a new light. The meaning of the three should be obvious to anyone who knows me…
I was still disappointed in Elrond. He does not inspire the awe and respect and worship in me that he should. He should have been the focus of the movies for my heart, yet he failed. The actor was not the right choice. In some aspects he was acceptable… but he was not quite as he should have been. His speech to Arwen about her immortality and her choice was the closest to being truly Elrond that he has come. Still, the third remains, and the end will be the final test.
The coin on my necklace is copper and there is a green circle in the center of my right palm. The second book always hurt me, pulled, stung, drained… I don’t know how to interpret the fact that the movie did not do this. I cried at Haldir’s death in Helm’s Deep… three tears, though it was coincidence I believe. The singing and music was amazing. I swear that in the words as Gandalf falls they say Narya.
I have all the books around me now, looking things up… re-reading the Glorfindel section of the first book. It was so good… yet what they did was all right I guess… taken as another version. When I say I have all the books, I realize I have only been looking through the first and the last. As I said, the second has always hurt me a little… but I must now see what was changed.
It may help to know what my books look like. They are hard cover, bound in black cloth. On the cover of each is an eye in a circle, that circled by the flame-like letters that are inscribed on the One Ring… at the top where the ends of the letters rise up like flame, there is an inverted ring. The pupil of the central eye and the ring are gold on all three books, but the circle and letters are a different color, pale orange on the first, pure red on the second and violet on the third. (my corrent avatar is a scan of the cover of The Two Towers) The First Book is in the worst condition – for which I still berate myself – the Second is in the best condition. I’ve always associated the First with Nenya, the Second with Narya and the Third with Vilya… but that may be just my feeling.
Anyone that was with me will probably recall me saying “It’s him, it’s HIM!” when I saw Wormtounge for the first time. Here’s why…
in the Babylon 5 episode “Passing Through Gethsemane” the main character is Brother Edward. There is a lot of angst about him having been a serial killer who underwent death of personality and now he’s a very sweet guy… after a lot of anger and mental trauma and angst he dies rather messily. The actor was also in The X-Files once and in Voyager a couple of times. That actor was Grima…. just a bit of creepiness for me. Ironically, Grima is the LEAST insane/psychotic character I’ve seen him play yet. o_0
Gollum… Smeagol… wow! I mean WOW! Just amazing, I kept forgetting that he was computer animated… his interaction was flawless. Likewise, Ents. I’m sure that Nick will eventually do a rant about the massive nature taking revenge and how the battle at Isengard was on screen for three minutes and Helm’s Deep was fifty-seven. Speaking of Helm’s Deep… Legolas… shield… stairs… skateboard? It seemed both slightly out of character and a bit cheesy… but it was cool anyway. I felt bad laughing during massive carnage… but it was /so/ a skateboard or a snowboard or something… Then Haldir died and I was not laughing.
Despite Corina’s complaints – rather LOUD complaints – I didn’t mind the Aragorn and Arwen fluff (I refuse to use fanfic notation with an x or + or /). The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen has been raised to a far more prominent role. It was nice and since they’ve done what they have with Arwen, I appreciate the fluff and the angst. I think seeing it again in silence would increase it’s meaning and emotion for me. The music was very soft throughout those scenes.
The Eowyn and Aragorn relationship was done extremely well… simply lovely even without some of the moments that I cherished from the book (the goblet, hand touch scene – I don’t mean it to be hand-touchies, but it WAS). The Rohirrim in general were wonderful, though they never had Theoden reffering to Eowyn as sister-daughter or Eomer as sister-son, which is one of the things in the book that really struck me for some reason. The whole Eomer exile thing seemed a bit odd… but that’s just the movies. Or maybe I really missed or forgot something from the books.
Faramir was all right. He's not meant to be perfect. Osgilliath was a bit silly, but they needed more drama and carnage than Helm's Deep I guess...
They cut a good two or four chapters off the end of the book... recall that the second book is the shortest... I'm confused... they can't skip Shelob, can they? No, they had Gollum saying things about HER... hm...
The closing song I really liked… though I didn’t get to stay for all of it. It was appropriately bittersweet, not in Elven and simply lovely… almost sounded like Bjork singing though I don’t think it was… it was a good end to a movie that really has no end.
Now for some lovely worship on my part and the reason that I wait above all else for the third movie…
“…upon his [Elrond’s] finger was a ring of gold with a great blue stone, Vilya, mightiest of the Three.”
“On her [Galadriel’s] finger was Nenya, the ring wrought of mithril, that bore a single white stone flickering like a frosty star.”
“…Gandalf now wore openly upon his hand the Third Ring, Narya the Great, and the stone upon it was red as fire.” (LotR-VI – Chapter 9)
So... that seemingly covered and me just realizing how late at night it really is now and how much more wordy than Corina-senpai I was... o_O I'm off to bed... I need the movie soundtracks... for this and the last one. I would like to say in closing that subtext in LotR is WRONG! Even if it's there... it's still wrong. and it's worse in the movies... and still SO wrong!
SO, that done! New topic...
Bishonen: Aragorn
Bishojo: Eowyn
