The Hunt for Gollum

[Rumil]

Hi all,

well I got round to watching it at last,

First of all I reckon it's a magnificent achievement to put a film like this together on a budget of tuppence-hapenny and have it look so good. The crew and cast should be heartily congratulated for their hard work.

Thing I liked were, similar to PJ, the wonderful scenery - Misty Mts, Mt Doom, Woods, Mountains and Hills, the Gladden Fields etc. Gollum was spot on, I especially liked the 'bag-gambit', reminded me of Bilbo...

I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me

There will be some who dislike it for following the PJ approach, but I think there was no alternative really, and I quite liked the 'look' of much of the Trilogy (naturally, while muttering and spluttering about the bits PJ made up while leaving so much else out, oh and the giant Hyenas etc etc etc ).

However, there were quite a lot of 'could have done better' moments. The Random Ranger - whats that all about? Should have been a Woodman or Beorning by rights. After the Gladden Fields there was little sense of Middle Earth location. I guess it was mostly supposed to be around and about Mirkwood, the difficult thing with a solo mission is that there's little scope for exposition. Basically Aragorn gets to stare at the ground a lot and look for footprints - not so exciting. I was rather hoping for some action on the margins of Mordor (though I guess trip to Waikato was over-budget!) and a Dead Marshes scene.

The plot was overall pretty weak. Unless you know, there's little indication that Gollum has already been captured and set loose by Sauron, who's hoping to follow him to the Ring. Also there's little feeling of the epic scale of Aragorn's task, it seems as if he pops out for a bit of a stroll and comes back with Gollum a week next Tuesday. Was it just me or were Arwen's ears a bit weird?

Some extra bits I did like were the direct book quotations, the poisoned dart scene (was that plant Elanor perhaps?), Gollum thieving fish from the woodmen (although the cottage was a little too high-tech with its Rayburn grate).

Still I think the main thing is that LoTR fan movies CAN be done, high hopes for the future!