Ghan-Buri-Ghan, Where Are You? - Page 2
© Douglas Charles Rapier
I attended the premier of the film in the company of my fellow smial-members filled with high expectations. (For the details of that event see http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/amer... ) The film had barely begun, Gandalf and company had only just come to the foot of Orthanc for the pivotal episode wherein Saruman is confronted, when in a dull flash, my carefully cosseted credulity came crashing down under the weight of a cold disappointment. There, in the flooded courtyard amongst the flotsam and jetsam, lay the gleaming palantir of Orthanc for Pippin to find.
Where was the drama of the confrontation with Saruman, traitor to the free peoples of Middle-earth? Where was the 'Voice of Saruman', the bandying of words between Gandalf and the former head of his order? Where was the breaking of Saruman's staff of power? Nowhere to be seen. There was nothing but a throw-away line delivered by Gandalf to end Saruman's vital role in the story: "His power is gone." And so, with that flat, flaccid scene, the power of Jackson's film treatment of Tolkien's tale had dissipated. There were still plenty of action-packed sequences to follow, but in my opinion, the finagling done to the storylines by Jackson, Walsh and Boyens had become pernicious and to the detriment of the telling of the tale and to the integrity of the film trilogy.
If I might be given leave, I would like to present a 'laundry list' of faults from which I can no longer turn away nor willingly suspend my disbelief nor still the inner voice of dis-approval for the manner in which Jackson and his screen-play colleagues mangled a much-loved story. It is by no means a complete or thorough list of deviations from Tolkien's original story - as I stated before, film and books are not the same and one cannot expect the transition from book to film to be absolutely faithful. The flaws I have chosen are ones which, in my estimation, undermine the verisimilitude and logic of the essential story-line and needlessly obfuscate an already complicated tale.
I have divided these unraveled and knotted threads of the story's tapestry by theaters of action: Rivendell, Rohan, Gondor and Mordor.
Rivendell: I had accepted the fact that as a Hollywood movie there had to be more 'love interest' and so Arwen's part got inflated beyond reason. Jackson said over and over in interviews that he wanted to keep the story moving. Yet each time the films cut to the Elrond/Arwen debate over whether she should sail to the Undying Lands the story grinds to a maudlin halt.
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