This was one of the rallying cries of the anti-movie crowd in the months leading up to its premiere: “The movie will overwhelm and destroy your cherished mental images from the books!” Well, months later I’m happy to report that my mental images are still well intact. I enjoyed many aspects of the movie, would have liked to have seen others done differently, and was flat disappointed by others, but what happened was basically what I thought would happen – I’ve taken the things I liked from the movie and discarded the rest. For instance, though many have raved about the beautiful New Zealand locations, I have to confess that many of them underwhelmed me. I still picture images which are no doubt influenced by the lush greenness of my native Pennsylvania for many of the locations – New Zealand seemed, for the most part, a bit too scrubby and rocky for my Middle-earth.
I too, retain an image of Frodo that’s less innocent and a bit older and “good-natured rather than beautiful”, as well as a Sam that’s more simple than simple-minded, even though I think the performances were generally good in both cases. It never occurred to me that Legolas would ever become some sort of teen-idol dreamboat – and still doesn’t when I read. I liked the portrayal of Aragorn and thought his costume was especially good, though my Boromir is completely different than Bean – though again, good performance. I thought Gandalf was pretty spot-on.
That’s a vivid analogy, Stephanos, though I would bend it slightly for my own experience – seeing the movie was like seeing a drawing of an old-friend by a journeyman artist. You can see that it’s supposed to be your friend – the nose and the sweep of the cheekbones are just right, but the expression in the eyes is off and there’s something not quite right about the set of the mouth. I can say, hey, neat picture but a bit off, without having to feel like my old friend has turned into a melted basset-hound version of himself. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
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