August 11, 2002

Riddles in the DVD
Brett C.

Because of the unavoidable lag time in posting these articles, I expect by now many of those reading this will have seized a copy of the movie and begun scrutinizing it. I've just finished my first DVD viewing, and was extremely impressed by the picure and sound quality. Naturally once the movie had finished I jumped back to certain key scenes where I wanted to study certain points in detail. Anyone who has followed my postings for the last eight months probably knows which scene I jumped back to first.

Let me just say that the Balrog in DVD is absolutely BREATHTAKING. The vast improvement in detail of both the demon and its surrounds as it faces Gandalf is amazing. But of course the thing I was really checking out were the wings. Yes, they are wings; it would be foolish to even attempt to argue that movie-Balrog is wingless, but I was very impressed with PJ's artistic compromise on this point. The pinions are undoubtably solid, but the space between, which on a bat would be a membrane of skin, is a shifting, apparently insubstantial shadow or dark vapor. Now I am not in any way backing away from my literature-born view of the Balrog, but I do admit I liked this different rendering very much; it worked well visually and was obviously the result of painstaking efforts on those involved. So a tip of the pointed hat to PJ and crew, and I can't wait to hopefully see more of Middle Earth's favourite Flame of Udun in flashback in TT.

Another value of the DVD - subtitles! Arwen's chant at the ford is not translated as anything more than 'Arwen chants in Elvish', alas, but at least I was able to finally be clear on Sauron's little speech in Bree [I see you...There is no life in the Void...only death!] and Aragorn's battle cry leaping from the pedastal on Amon Hen; true to the literature, he cries 'Elendil'.