Movie Time : Lord of the Rings

I don't watch Tv. I don't even have cable. But I do go out and buy dvd's and add them to my collection. Got over a hundred, so I guess I'll do my own little review thing here when I'm bored and there's really not much else going on in the world to comment upon.

Lord of the Rings marks a turning point in movie history.

The turning point is that of special effects.

The special effects hav become so cheap , and so common , in movies now adays, that the "gee wiz" factor is dead and buried. And the producers of this movie know it. And so , while this movie does use those effects where it needs it , and does not shirk on it, on the other hand it doesn't go hog wild on them either. No one expects the special effects to carry the movies. Everything pulls their load. The actors can actually act. The sets are beautiful works of art unto themselves. Ditto the costumes. And special effects are now officially religated to merely equil status as any other part , rather than blow your socks off with all the explosions kind of thing.

The story :
Fantasy - low magic setting , ,a hobbit (half sized humanoid) finds a ring of even power , and the ring must be taken on a mighty quest to dangerous lands to be finally and utterly destroyed forever.

The original story was written by JRR Tolkien during world war II and was probably intended to escape the dreary war life. So while the battle for Middle Earth bears little reflection upon the events of world war II , the impact is there none the less.

The Orcs and the Germans.
The germans have this whole fantasy thing going where they believe in magic and stuff ,even to this day. The Orcs , obvious reference to the germans of ww2, reflect this in their ancestory as "elves who were corrupted by evil". I suppose it might count as a kind of propaganda , but every story needs their villians , and the germans of that day were running amok conquering all and claiming they were the master race, so tough luck for them , guess they get the honor of the orcs after all.

Fantasy land vs the machine

Sauraman the white tears up the landscape in the "fires of industry", an obvious reference to turn of the century (oops , a whole other century has turned now hasn't it ? Turn of the 19th century) industrialization overtaking the previous rural life. One might gather that Industry , the coal mines, etc , may be required, but were not well liked by the population of that day. And embodying this dislike as a struggle between "the fires of industry" and the Ents of the Forests (in the Two Towers) is an intersting sub plot.

Communism / Capitalism also make their apearance here in an unusual way, that of "The Common Man". While it is now common for the action hero's of today to come from humble beginnigns, back when this was written it wasn't . It was knights in their glory rescuing the fair maiden and all that.

The common man , represented by the hobbits who have basically no strength , magical powers, etc , at all, is at the center of the story. While on the outskirts the heroic knights (Aragon, the ranger who becomes King) and their princesses (That elven princess that marries him) and the affairs of other magical beings (tree-ents , wizards like gandolf, giant spiders .. the list goes on) which are the staple of such tales before JRR Tolkien , almost take a back seat to the trials and tribulations of our common man with no special abilities.

I should explain that both communisim and capitalism were considered viable organizations at that time , and both toted "the common man" as the center piece of their organization (in communism the people owned everythign , captitalistic economies were all democracies where the common man would vote for the next leader ... ) so any reference to the common man could be interperted as a hero of either of those systems. And it's hard to see a "hobbit" a half sized man with no skills at all save smoking the long grass , standing next to full sized knights in shining armor , could be viewed as anything but.

special effects

Hey ! I said special effects didn't blow you over in this movie !

Well... the balrog was awesome. So was the long fall and fight between gandolf and the balrog at the beginning of the second movie. And the major battle scenes in two and three were pretty awesome as well. No lightning bolts or such flying back and forth , this isn't star wars, but it was one heck of an impressive seige they had at Helms Deep. And again at the White City.

All in all. These three movies were pretty impressive, and I've watched them several times and consider it time well wasted.