[Kuruharan]

[sighs and shakes head, realizing he's probably making a mistake]<BR>Please allow me to respectfully disagree. The movie overall was, imho, very good. However, the portrayal of Galadriel was one of the very few things that, to me at least, just did not work. First of all I should probably qualify my statements by saying that Cate Blanchett is one of my least favorite actresses, but there were other reasons why I disliked the Lorien parts.<BR>While I personally thought that the whole Lorien sequence in the movie was more than a little bit strange, I'll confine my remarks to the Mirror of Galadriel scene.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Besides, I've known women who's emotional stability makes Galadriel (in that scene) look relatively sane and serene...<BR> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>But she's not just a mere woman. She's an elven lady of great power and lineage. She was instructed by Melian the Maia in Doriath back in the First Age. She was ruler of an elven realm for centuries. She is very wise and certainly not unused to great responsiblity. I think that she would probably be very emotionally controlled, even in such special circumstances as having the Ring offered to her. But whatever happened I think she would have been the last person in Middle earth to suddenly go green and start shouting at the top of her voice.<BR>Speaking of going green, what really bugged me about that scene was the way that Galadriel seemed to be attempting to terrify rather than inspire unspeakable awe. Such a performance struck me as being a cheap imitation of Sauron that (however much in mockery of him it may have been) seemed to be completely out of character for Galadriel. In the book, a great light radiated from her and she towered over Frodo and she became beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. In the movie a greenish darkness radiated from her, she towered over Frodo, and she looked and acted like she had been possessed by some horrible demon.<BR>When the vision fades in the movie, she acts startled and surprised, and then wanders around as if she had let something slip that she had not intended. This loss of control is the most out of character aspect of the whole scene. Galadriel probably rarely (if ever) had an uncontrolled moment in her life and the way that it is described in the book this was not one of them.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly laughed again, and lo! she was a slender shrunken elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.<BR>"I pass the test," she said. "I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>There she just sounds sad because of the inevitable fading of herself and her people, not regretful that she had let herself get carried away on her little power trip. (Note how she laughed both before and after the vision as if she was not taking herself so seriously.)<P>Edit:<BR>Something else that just occured to me, in the book she is speaking with a gentle voice, not shouting at the top of her lungs.<P>[gets down in his bunker waiting for the answering barrage ]<p>[ February 10, 2002: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]