Some TTT thoughts

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

Resolutely lowering the tone...

The trouble with the Ents is not that they have legs, but that they 
were taught to walk by Jar-Jar Binks.

Note to aspiring Evil Overlords.  When you send out your Legions of 
Terror, equipped with siege ladders, battering rams, explosive 
charges, and crossbow-launched grapnels, spare a thought for packing 
a set of portable bannisters: they are *so* helpful on those open 
ramps.

On a more serious note, that Arwen dream/flashback, or whatever it 
was, as a LOTR reader I could understand that Jackson was trying to 
get her into the story.  Had I been a non-reader, I think I would 
have thought that he was *trying* to suggest that Eowyn could 
supplant Arwen in Aragorn's affections, not tell us that he was 
already spoken for.  Perhaps that's so, but if so he doesn't follow 
it up well as otherwise he seems immune.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick, or did the Rivendell scene 
where Elrond looks pained as she marches off mean that in ROTK there 
will be a scene where they find a barely-conscious Arwen under a 
pile of Elf bodies?  Not only does that make the near-death 
experience even more commonplace, but it further confuses Arwen's 
and Eowyn's turf.  What's a shield-maiden to do, if elf-princesses 
go nicking all her best storylines?  One wonders if this was the 
real reason for bringing the elves to Helm's Deep, since they arrive 
too early to turn the tide of the battle (aspiring Evil Overlord 
note: *always* maintain a reserve, no matter how desperate the 
situation).  IMO Tolkein was never very convincing with his 'Last 
Alliances' anyway - he could always find room for just one more, and 
dredge the Elves out of the bottom of their barrel yet again.

When Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli meet Gandalf, they have to try to 
attack him, and this I think is a good example of my issue with the 
debate about 'drama' a few days ago.  It is clearly more dramatic 
(in some sense) for them to attack him and to bounce off as they do 
than to nearly do so and realise just in time, as more or less 
happens in the book, but is more always better?  It feels like the 
logic of the soap-opera, where you know that the characters, 
confronted with a choice, will always take the stupidest option, 
because it maximises the short-term gulp factor, whatever the long 
term sacrifices in consistency, subtlety, originality, and dare I 
say it, entertainment.

Faramir's temptation: I wasn't too bothered by making it stretch 
from Henneth Annun to Osgiliath.  What was harder to swallow was the 
instant volte-face once the Nazgul had swooped over a couple of 
times.

Oddly enough, as time passes, I am beginning to go off Jackson's 
LOTR and appreciate Columbus' HP.  Both of them have a depressing 
love of crashes and bangs, and there is a an interesting analogy 
between the Hogwarts prospectus feel of PS and the Middle Earth 
Tourist Board appeal of FOTR, but once you take these things away, I 
feel there is more left in the HP series.  So far.

Oh, and here's a Tolkein thought, no doubt completely done to death 
on the LOTR equivalent of HPFGU.  I am reading LOTR yet again, this 
time to my youngest child (at his demand over my protests) and this 
time round it is striking me as the grandfather of all those 
computer games where you have to reach your goal, wiping out enemies 
and picking up various objects, weapons, and medkits along the way.  
You know, arrive at Rivendell, add 40% to your health score, pick up 
Mithril shirt and Sting; when you get to Pelennor, use Barrow blade 
on Nazgul's tendon; to get to Level 6 you have to go through the 
Paths of the Dead.  Congratulations, you have reached Valinor/become 
King of Middle Earth/been elected mayor of Michel Delving.

David