View Single Post
Old 06-01-2008, 03:25 PM   #37
mark12_30
Stormdancer of Doom
 
mark12_30's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars
Posts: 4,407
mark12_30 has been trapped in the Barrow!
Send a message via AIM to mark12_30 Send a message via Yahoo to mark12_30
OK, going back to the "tons o Hobbit News" theme: GdT, and his attitudes, versus PJ and his. I have a question which is really about Del Toro, whom I know very little about. (I didn't knkow much about PJ before LOTR movies, either.) Here's the background:

PJ was a maestro at depicting bad guys, badder guys, and very baddest guys. We got orcs, we got ringwraiths, we got trolls and we got balrogs. (Okay one was enough.) We got watchers in the water and we got Shelob and we got a gollumy gollum which drew plenty of deserved admiration. Lots and lots of really bad bad guys. Magnifique.

But-- where are the Really Really Good Guys?

Look at the books, and there are characters which are So Good-- I mean, Soooo Verrrrry Goooood-- that you almost don't know what to do with 'em. Elrond is so good he shimmers. He's so virtuous he's untouchable. He's angelic.

Book Aragorn: annoys people because he is such a goodie two shoes.

Galadriel: when you first read the books, did you think she had any bad in her at all?

But all three of these guys got (IMO) too humanized by PJ&co. The Ubergoodness got sucked out of them. THey became The Guy Next Door and the PowerHungryQueen next door. Maybe PJ sold more tickets that way, I dunno, but it distressed me deeply. Everybody suddenly had common faults. Normal everyday run-o-the-mill faults. Movie-Elrond walked around with such a scowl that half the fans didn't like him much. Galadriel creeped out people so much that when Gollum said, "we could take them to Her-- She could do it", some folks thought that Gollum was planning on involving Galadriel. Really.

My sister watched the movies and really didn't like or enjoy Middle-Earth all that much. Then she read the books, and when she saw the Goodness in Lorien and Rivendell, she saw why I loved it so much, and said, Oh, you enjoyed the movies because you knew that there really was real goodness there-- BECAUSE YOU HAD READ THE BOOKS.

Gandalf the Grey was pretty not-bad, but Gandalf the White didn't do it for me.

The only PJ movie character that was Truly UberGood All The Time-- besides Sam-- was Arwen. And I suppose you could say Legolas.

SO there's the background: PJ was a baddie Maestro but didn't have a touch for Saints and Angels.

I'd like to think that TH and Part Two provide an opportunity to see some of that change. But do they really? Thranduil is no Eldrond. Bard... just a man. Certainly the thirteen dwarves have their roaring faults (as they are supposed to) and certainly BIlbo has faults of his own. Who, in The Hobbit, is Ubervirtuous? Where are the characters that really, really shine? Are there any? (I would say Elrond, but he seems doomed to scowl. Would that it were otherwise.)

Elves are supposed to be Good People. Though they Tra-La-La-Lally on midsummers day, and Roll-roll-roll thirteen dwarves in barrels down the sluice gate, and turnkey and butler are drunkards, still, they should shine.

Will they?

All this makes me hope for the return of Legolas and Arwen, even Mid-Hobbit.
__________________
...down to the water to see the elves dance and sing upon the midsummer's eve.
mark12_30 is offline   Reply With Quote