February 1, 2003

Oliphaunts and More
Lady of Rohan

To Marxmoore: Yes! The oliphaunts really were supposed to be that big! Tolkien describes the opliphaunt as "a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty."

Also, here's my two cents' worth of ranting about the movie changes.

I totally failed to see the point of making Faramir so downright mean to Frodo and Sam. Audiences who hadn't read the book were cheated of the knowledge that Faramir is the kinder and wiser of the two brothers.

I was also upset at how mean and suspicious Treebeard was towards Merry and Pippin. I was disappointed that PJ chose not to show the friendship growing between the hobbit and the Ent--that always seemed like an important element of the book to me.

And of course, I found the whole "Aragorn death fake-out" to be slightly too cheesy.

In all fairness, I should probably mention a few of the many things that I absolutely loved.

The score, especially the Rohan theme, was beautiful. Major kudos to Howard Shore.

Gollum. Y'all know what I mean.

And finally,one plus that I haven't seen mentioned yet: Brad Dourif's performance as Grima Wormtongue. He played that character's oozy, sinister creepiness to perfection, in my opinion.