Home » Reading & Literature » J.R.R. Tolkien » Cry 'Havoc!' and Let Slip the Wargs of Fandom!

Cry 'Havoc!' and Let Slip the Wargs of Fandom!

© Michael Martinez

Peter Jackson's "The Two Towers" brings the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy around the bend. We're in the home stretch now, and as a wondering world begins to judge the second movie with a variety of opinions, the purist in me cries out: Ick. Of course, no one really cares what the purists think. Frankly, I don't, either. It's a good movie. And that is my review. Now for the analysis. I liked Treebeard. I liked him a great deal. My only disappointment with the Ents was that there seemed to be too few of them in the Entmoot. But I couldn't help thinking, as the Moot ensued, that there just wasn't enough room in the dingle (that's The Derndingle to you purists out there) to show 50 or so Ents as Tolkien describes in the book. However, we do get to see there are far more than a handful of Ents left later on, so I think the scene worked as it was. I liked the wargs. People have been unhappy with what they've seen of the wargs in advance images. But now that the movie is in full release, people will be able to see the wargs in all their CGI glory. Or lack thereof. Do the wargs look like wolves? Not really. Do they look like demonic wolves? Yes, I believe they do. What's the difference? Well, demonic wolves don't really exist, so the CGI artists had no baseline to compare their work with. In any event, Tolkien described his wargs as "demonic". I think Peter Jackson's wargs are "demonic". Are they Tolkien's "demonic"? I have no idea. I don't really care. They looked cool. The whole movie is a showcase for film magic ala CGI. It's amazing how well the actors (especially the Hobbit actors) were able to perform against bouncing tennis balls, or whatever visual cues they were given. In the scene where Frodo and Sam subdue Gollum, I had to ask myself several times, "How did they do that?" Now, maybe the answers are just a mouse-click away, but I didn't want to know those kinds of details before I saw this movie. CGI dominated the heart of the movie (or, perhaps I should say, "the hearts of the movie"). Gollum hams it up in scene after scene, looking more like the love child of Samuel L. Jackson and Yoda than a depraved Hobbit. I mean that in the kindest way. Gollum is an exaggeration, and by the time the movie ended, I had realized something terribly important: exaggeration is the uncredited movie magic which helps to make this movie work.

The copyright of the article Cry 'Havoc!' and Let Slip the Wargs of Fandom! in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Michael Martinez. Permission to republish Cry 'Havoc!' and Let Slip the Wargs of Fandom! in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.