October 21, 2003

Re: Frodo Lives
Bob Praz

I think the way I can best imagine PJ ending RotK would be to have the camera on the grey ship as it leaves the shore and fades in the mist, zooming out until we see Sam, Merry, and Pippin standing silently on the docks and watching it disappear. That's just an idea, but it would be cool to see the movie end just as it does in the books.

As for Faramir and how he guessed Frodo had the Ring (a.k.a. "the Precious"), I had always been under the impression that Faramir still interrogated Gollum further after the latter screams: "My...PRECIOUS!! AAAHHH!!!!" He would have figured it out shortly after, I suppose. Or maybe he was smart enough to figure it out without further words from Smeagol.

Beginning of ROTK: I have no way of knowing, but I think the movie might start with a great battle scene like, let's say, the orcs' conquest of Osgiliath? It would be good, because TTT left us with the suspense of the gondorian city under siege, plus it would be kinda of long if the entire Siege of Gondor action sequence (stretching from the fall of Osgiliath to the Battle of the Pelennor) was all shoved at the middle of the movie; we need breaks from time to time. This battle at the beginning would immediately arouse our concerns for Gondor, and allow PJ to spread some of the action across the movie, instead of all at the beginning. The only possible flaw with this (that I can find) is the timeline: while Osgiliath is being overrun, Gandalf and Pippin are supposed to be at Minas Tirith already. So whether PJ could make this work or not - maybe having the enemy invade Osgiliath and then wait a while in order to construct siege weapons and such - is up to everyone's opinion.
So that's ONE idea only; just a thought.

Lastly and briefly, I think Craig Parker (guy who plays Haldir) himself said that Haldir reacts the way he does to Aragorn's hug because elves don't really "embrace" each other in such a physical way (at least in PJ's vision); they're more graceful or spiritual, I suppose. He also said, jokingly perhaps, that Aragorn had not taken a bath in any reassuring length of time.