I understand this. But maybe PJ was always gonna take a hit for this. How
do you show an 'eye' roaming across the landscape looking for his Ring and spying on his enemies as Tolkien talks about.
I remember when I was a young kid and I was standing on the Prom in Satlhill near Galway, Ireland on my hols looking at all the stars in the sky. And I had an epiphany that light wasn't the fastest thing in the world at 186,000 miles per second, but Eyesight was. I made the mistake (and it wasn't cleared up for me for years) that when I was looking light years back in time my eyes were looking OUT at the stars, and reaching them instaneously rather than the years that light would take. Instead it is actually the light from the stars themselves hitting the back of my eye and my brain taking this data and forming an image for me.
So eyesight is not something like a 'searchlight' as people have called PJ's Sauron Eye. But what Tolkien gives us with the Eye of Sauron is almost a description of what I was naively thinking of as a kid. The scene at Parth Galen shows us this best, as Frodo looks out from the seat of seeing as her wears the Ring:
Quote:
Then at last his gaze was held: wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant, he saw it: Barad-dûr, Fortress of Sauron. All hope left him.
And suddenly he felt the Eye. There was an eye in the Dark Tower that did not sleep. He knew that it had become aware of his gaze. A fierce eager will was there. It leaped towards him; almost like a finger he felt it, searching for him. Very soon it would nail him down, know just exactly where he was. Amon Lhaw it touched. It glanced upon Tol Brandir he threw himself from the seat, crouching, covering his head with his grey hood.
He heard himself crying out: _Never, never!_Or was it: _Verily I come, I come to you_? He could not tell. Then as a flash from some other point of power there came to his mind another thought: _Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring!_
The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so. He took the Ring off his finger. He was kneeling in clear sunlight before the high seat. A black shadow seemed to pass like an arm above him; it missed Amon Hen and groped out west, and faded.Then all the sky was clean and blue and birds sang in every tree.
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So what Tolkien is doing here is almost describing the Eye as (to be honest) a searchlight for want of a better word, something that is SCANNING the land loooking for his Ring - how can you show this in the medium of film? I can't think of anything closer to this than a spot light - no matter how cheesy it may look.......
We could perhap have a shot of Sauron sitting on his throne suddenly looking out towards Amon Hen, the camera shooting out from barad dur, following his gaze. (This is how I first saw the scene as I read the book the first time) - But we know that Sauron has no physical form at this time, so if Jackson did something like this, he would be lambasted for not following Tolkien's story correctly.....
He can't win. (again......)