May 25, 2002

Missing Sam
Brett C.

I think Altariel's friend may have hit on something with trying to paly up Galadriel's scarier elements in the Lorien scenes. The thng is the lack of the gift-giving scenes means it lacks the balance in the movie achieved in print i.e. the view of Galdriel as both a powerful immortal but also a sympathetic and compassionate helper to Frodo in his quest. In the book it as Frodo receives the starglass that he is written as seeing her as still beautiful, but no longer terrible, as opposed to his vision of her when she is tempted by the ring.

Another element may be the lack of Sam in the movies scenes by the Mirror. In the book Sam's presence serves to have Galdriel give some of her more 'human' and less oppressive dialogue, such as when Sam says he will like as not see only stars or stuff he won't understand in the mirror, and she laughs and replies 'Like as not.' Not to mock him, I thought, but with the refreshing pleasure of talking to someone with genuine humility and the down-to-earthedness that are Samwise's trademarks throughout the story. He also provides the oppurtunity at the end of the chapter for Tolkien to reaffirm why it would have been wrong for her to take the Ring, in that she would have begun as a power for good but that '...it would not end there, alas.'

Actually, it's not until I was actually typing this that I realised how important Sam's presence in the mirror scenes in the book are: a shame time constraints forced led PJ to edit him out, but at least we can look forward to the gifts being in the special DVD.

And Bob, I thought you made some good points about the Weathertop face-off. I have no problem with people respectfully disagreeing with me, as you very graciously put it. I still have trouble with the Nazgul being that vulnerable to fear of fire, especially the Witch King, but I see your point. If the villains made no mistakes, the third book would be 'The Complete Triumph of the Dark Lord'. At least Tolkien didn't have him beaten by a tribe of Ewoks.