Well, this is a topic that will come up again and again as P-day (Premier Day — or maybe Peter Jackson Day) approaches. Let’s put aside all the media hype right now and concentrate on the real hype: fannish expectations. There are three sets of fans involved in the process of hyping the movies and they are not always easy to distinguish from each other. There is so much agonizing going on, as well as celebration, that sometimes it’s difficult to tell who is whom.
First there are the Tolkien fans. They seem to group themselves into the Fundamentalists and the Radicals. The Fundamentalists cry "No movies!" and the Radicals yell back "Jackson forever!" Well, okay, there’s a third camp between these two extremes: the Wait-an-seers. They were at one time the majority but I’m not so sure a majority exists any more.
Secondly, we have the Peter Jackson fans. These folks have watched everything Jackson’s made, many if not all of them know what The Lord of the Rings is and love it, and they have the same kind of undying faith in Jackson that Sam bestowed upon Frodo and Gandalf.
Then there are the vast, silent masses whom the other fans all fear will somehow react in the wrong way. They won’t like the movies, or they’ll like them too much, or they’ll miss the point completely. Personally, I think a lot of people miss the point of the story (it’s about death and the search for deathlessnes, according to Tolkien), but does that diminish their enjoyment of it? I haven’t seen so.
Will the movies be about “death and the search for deathlessnes”? That’s a pretty deep concept, but it’s not necessarily a rare one in science fiction (fantasy seems to have overlooked the concept since Tolkien’s day). The search for immortality, the quest to become godlike, is a theme SF writers have explored over and over again. And it is about becoming like a god. The Elves of Middle-earth (well, the Noldor of Eregion) became so arrogant and powerful they attempted to stop the flow of time so they could enjoy Middle-earth forever. And through that arrogance they unleashed a devastating series of wars which resulted in very nearly their own complete destruction and the enslavement of many tribes and nations of men.
Tolkien’s history reveals that three wars were fought over the Rings of Power. The first war was really inconclusive. Eregion was destroyed and the Rings of Power were lost (except for three). But the Numenoreans helped the surviving Elves destroy Sauron’s armies, so he had to rebuild his empire. The second war was equally inconclusive. The Rings of Power were neither recovered nor destroyed, but Sauron was slain and his Ring was taken. Unfortunately, Isildur succumbed to the Ring’s lure and deferred the final decision.
The third war proved costlier to the Elves than the first two. It occurred three thousand years after the second war, and in that time the Elves used their three remaining Rings of Power. The Rings were always active in their efforts to halt or slow the passage of time. But the Three were only capable of affecting small areas of Middle-earth. However, it may be that seeing Isildur march off to Gondor with a Ring of Power in his possession, Elrond and Cirdan returned to their homes in the north and promptly put on their Rings of Power. Why?
Foresight failed the Elves on this occasion. Or, rather, the lure of arrogance overcame their wisdom. After Isildur was slain in an ambush on his way home from Gondor and his father’s broken sword brought back to Rivendell, Elrond foretold that Elendil’s weapon would be reforged when the One Ring was found again. Perhaps it was the loss of the One Ring which led Elrond, Cirdan, and Galadriel to put on the Rings which had been entrusted to them by Gil-galad, the last of the High Elven kings in Middle-earth.
With these Rings Elrond and Galadriel were able to enhance the beauty and richness of their lands. Cirdan’s Ring, the Ring of Fire, was called the Kindler. It helped its wearer inspire others. It kindled hearts, as he told Gandalf many years later. There wasn’t much use for Narya in Mithlond, Cirdan’s twin cities on the seashore. But it did help to hold back Time as was intended.
How does Peter Jackson convey the imperative of the Three Rings, and the awful doom it holds for the Elves? Using the Rings throughout the Third Age of Middle-earth meant that if Sauron ever recovered the One Ring he would know, as soon as he put it on, how the Three had by used, who had used them, and where they were. There would be no further hiding from him. And if the One Ring were found and destroyed, the Three would fail, and all that they had accomplished would be undone. The enchanted Elven realms would wither and become truly Mortal Lands again.
Something we’ll probably not see much mention of in the movies is why the Rings of Power were made in the first place. People often assume the Elves were truly immortal, that they didn’t age. This is not so. Tolkien wrote that the Elves did age in their own way. Their spirits were confined to the world, and closely tied to their bodies (more so than the spirits of Men). But the Elves’ bodies were still things of flesh and blood. Eventually they had to expire. Sustained by the spirit an Elven body would retain its youthfulness outwardly, if the indwelling spirit so desired, but it would eventually become weakened, stretched and worn. It would eventually fade, literally dissolve away (over a long, slow process) until there was nothing left but a disembodied spirit.
The High Elves knew this was their fate. They feared it. They loved Middle-earth and wanted to be a part of it until the end of Time. But they either had to pass over Sea to the Undying Lands where they could be rejuvenated, or they had to fade. And thus came Sauron into the picture.
He wanted to entrap the Elves, enslave them so that his will prevailed over their own. Tolkien speculates that at first Sauron desired only to help redress his wrongs, and to lead Elves and Men down paths for their own good. But "knowing better" than they, he became arrogant and fell once again into evil, and eventually sought to dominate others purely for the sake of being in control.
Knowing the Elves’ ultimate fate, he used their fear as a key to unlock doors of trust. Nonetheless, most of the Elves (perhaps the least sophisticated of them) ignored Sauron’s entreaties and refused to accept him into their lands. But the Noldor of Eregion, possibly including the last remnant of the haughty and arrogant Feanorians of the First Age who had led the war against Sauron’s former master, Morgoth, seem to have delighted in the possibilities Sauron presented them.
We can stop time. We don’t have to fade. We can live here forever! How giddy the feeling must have been to realize there was a way to stave off death. The Elves achieved a power of choice, or so they believed. It was more a power of delay and deferrence. They could not prevent the inevitable, but they could prolong their sojourn in Middle-earth through countless centuries and millenia. The only problem with the plan was that Sauron intended to be the guiding light (or darkness) of those countless millenia. Upon discovering Sauron’s plans, the Elves who were wearing the Rings of Power must have been overcome with a horror and dread unlike any other they had felt.
I took many words to discuss all that. Jackson will have only a few minutes in the opening of the film and in Gandalf’s discussion with Frodo (if it occurs), as well as at Elrond’s Council in Rivendell, to convey all this. Will he succeed? One fear I’ve seen expressed is that people will almost have to know the full story in order to understand the movies. That might turn out to be the case.
But there is a richness and depth to Middle-earth that Jackson is pursuing. He doesn’t just want to show off New Zealand’s landscape, or to celebrate the magic of CGI armies and characters. He’s looking to create a realistic and believable world. For that to happen, he will have to duplicate much that Tolkien accomplished in the book, though perhaps in different ways.
For instance, Tolkien scattered bits of history and folklore throughout the book. I don’t expect to hear a narrator telling us about the mysterious wanderers east of Bree as the Hobbits come to the gates. We’ll have to see something about the Rangers elsewhere. Maybe a casual comment from Butterbur will be revised to offer more detail. Or maybe the past of the Rangers will be dropped altogether. After all, we only see them when they go to war. And Jackson has announced that the crucial Tom Bombadil chapters will not be included in the movies. There is much to be learned about Aragorn and his people before ever we see the long-legged rascal smoking a pipe at the Prancing Pony.
Instead, I think Jackson will concentrate on the richness of the moment. Since he cannot show everything in the book, he will show everything he can about what is in the movies. Bree, therefore, will probably be a full-featured town (never mind the use of models, CGI, blue screen, and backdrops) — we’ll see homes, gates, fences, hedges, and signs. Yes, signs. Why not signs? And what about furniture, and architecture? Tolkien didn’t really describe much about these things, so it’s an open book. Clothing is mostly an open book, too (though if it appears medieval it will be unforgivably contradictory to Tolkien’s own descriptions of the waistcoats and trousers of the Hobbits).
The story will progress from the Shire to Bree, from Bree to Weathertop, from Weathertop to the Trollshaws, from the Trollshaws to Rivendell. If Jackson can contain all that in the first hour of the first movie, he’ll be about right on track with the book. But is it fair to expect each movie to keep pace with each of the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings most people are familiar with? Tolkien actually subdivided the work into six "books", not three, and those each lend themselves better to film-based story-telling than the three published volumes.
This is the easy part of the story, too. Jackson will mostly benefit from the rich landscape of New Zealand for giving a backdrop to the adventures of the Hobbits until they reach Rivendell. From there on he’ll have to depend more and more on sets and character interaction to convey the feel of Middle-earth.
Rivendell is more than just a house by a river. It’s a community of Elves. We hear about Elrond’s house in the book, but there were other houses where Elves lived nearby. Will we see them in the distance? And when we walk through Elrond’s house with the Hobbits, will we pass by ancient Elven tomes and artifacts? What does an ancient Elven artifact look like? Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the set designers’ and propmakers’ offices! Hey, guys. I’m available if you need advice. đŸ™‚
After Rivendell we get a short spin through the countryside and then we’re on to Moria. Will the famous snowstorm be omitted? It could be. Its contribution to the story is not significant, except that it gives impetus to the drive to use the passages of Moria. But Sauron’s enchanted wolves should provide enough motivation for the movie.
So, in Moria, what will we find? Dark caverns, endless tunnels, and abandoned halls which have long been subject to the tender cares of the Orcs. Will we see piles of old bones and trash? Will we hear rumblings of Orc humor in the background as the mob/army pursues the Fellowship toward the eastern gate? Will we see an Orcish sign warning, “Fire down below”, carefully ignored by the Fellowship as they rush by?
Emerging from Moria the Fellowship then enters Lothlorien. There are no mallorns in New Zealand, I’m sure of that, so how will Jackson recreate the marvellous forest of the secluded wood-elves? Will Haldir take Frodo up high in the flet to look down upon the valley of Anduin with its two forests facing each other like schoolyard rivals in a staring contest?
Caras Galadhon will be an achievement of design in itself, unless we’re only permitted to see treetrunks and roots. It would be a shame if Jackson had to defer giving us the full tour by showing the Fellowship marching next to a hedge and then suddenly climbing a large tree. What about all those lanterns in the trees throughout the city? What about the singing Elves? What about the bands of Elf-children playing in the stream? Okay, we don’t see any Elf-children, but we should. That would be a nice touch.
Other costuming aside, the swords and armor of Middle-earth have been matters for speculation and debate for a long time now. I’ve heard that the swords are going to look realistic. They won’t have fanciful ornamentation like many fantasy movies put on their weapons. As much as I loved Jack Kirby’s great artwork when I was a kid, his armor and weapons should have gotten their owners killed at the first onslought. If Jackson is going to convey the scope of the large battles in Middle-earth, he’ll also need to convey the practicality of the arms and armor Tolkien described.
But once the Argonath are reached the story presents an expensive requirement to Jackson. Most of the sets he’ll have to construct from that point on will need to be Numenorean: the Argonath, the Hornburg, Isengard, Minas Tirith, the ruins of Osgiliath, Minas Morgul, the fortress of Cirith Ungol, the Towers of the Teeth. All these places were built on a massive scale by the ancient Numenoreans. They must seem big, Egyptianly massive (if not Egyptian in style). The Numenoreans shaped mountains. They built a city on a bridge spanning a river so wide and deep seagoing vessels could harbor there.
Special effects will take on most of the work of protraying these places to the audience, but they will have to be superb. Queen Amidala’s city of Theed in "The Phantom Menace" only hints at the majesty of Middle-earth’s ancient cities. Will Jackson’s people be able to surpass Industrial Light and Magic’s accomplishment? Let us hope so.
I have no doubt that as time goes by more and more revelations will proceed from various fannish Web sites. Our image of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth will shape up well in advance of the movies, and the real question we must ask is how much will those with advance knowledge of the appearance of Jackson’s Middle-earth reveal to the rest of us? Will it be enough to whet anxious appetites for more, more, more, or will it leave many peopl gasping for a breath of True Middle-earth air?
No two fans possess the same image of Middle-earth. Jackson cannot hope to please all of Tolkien’s readers through his faithfulness to the book. Rather, he will have to pursue a faithfulness to the theme of Middle-earth. He will have to invent turns in the roads which are not described, walls which are never revealed, signposts and plates which the reader doesn’t know about, candles on windowsills, lanterns in inns and halls, stairwells, rooms, passages, wagons, barrels, and many more items which are implied but never really seen in the original story.
The movies will have to seek a balance between fannish expectations, a myriad of interpretations, and the constraints of what is, after all, a very limited budget for building an entire world. We’ll see more of Middle-earth in these three movies than we have seen of Tattoine in three Star Wars movies. Whose Middle-earth will it be? Jackson’s, undoubtedly. But it may indeed resemble Tolkien’s in the minds eye of millions of viewers. Here’s hoping it will hit that mark.
These Web sites, among others, are dedicated to providing news, links, and related information concerning the movies
- The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit Movie Fact/Rumor Roundup (Shut Down)
- Ringbearer.Org (Shut Down)
- The Onering.Com
- Tolkien Archives’ LOTR Movie Page (Shut Down)
- The Onering.Net
This article was originally published on September 3, 1999.
