Contrarian

Look, I hate to rain on Peter Jackson’s parade, but I’m pretty disappointed with the Return of the King (ROTK). This is meant mainly to capture my thoughts after seeing it the first time. I didn’t like the Two Towers much the first time I saw it, but upon watching the DVD Thursday night it’s grown on me quite a bit.

Spoilers to follow

I wanted to love the RotK. I really, really wanted to love it. But I don’t. As a matter of fact, I’m more disappointed with the RotK than I was with the Two Towers. Here’s the deal:

HOW IN THE HELL CAN HE JUST COMPLETELY IGNORE … sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to shout.

How can he completely ignore Sauraman and Wormtongue’s presence in the Shire? The industrialization of the hobbits was, IMO, a critical part of the book. As much if not more so than the entire war for Middle Earth. The four hobbits were the central characters of the LotR; the four non-halflings were there to provide a background by which the hobbits could grow from characters without any real depth beyond drinking beer and eating mushrooms and ‘taters to actual, functional people. The “scouring of the Shire” was the essential denoument of the series, and was fundamental to Tolkien’s metaphysics.

But the hobbits go traipsing back to the Shire, take up their table at the Green Dragon, and Sam Gamgee gets a piece of ass. Whoop-de-frickin’ doo. What had changed in Middle Earth? What was the cost of the War of the Ring?

Instead of the powerful, poingnant world that Tolkien created, the LotR in Peter Jackson’s mind is wrapped up at the end just like another episode of the Cosby Show. Sam gets laid. Aragorn and Liv Tyler are knocking boots. And Frodo’s off to take care of Bilbo with the Elves and the Wizard. Like I said, whoop-de-fricking doo. Twenty hours of film for another treachly ending.

The weak ending really miffs me because up until the hobbits ride off into the sunset, I was awed by the flick. Frodo and Sam’s journey up the mountain and through Mordor were phenomenal. The interplay between Frodo/Sam/Gollum would be almost impossible to top. Even Sam sitting on the rock wishing he had settled down with the barmaid in the Shire was touching, creating a real sense of sacrifice and loss for the members of the Fellowship. Aragorn’s speech before the Black Gate will get played in more leadership forums, locker rooms, and summer camps than anything I can think of at the moment. Really reminded me of Gen McArthur’s farewell speech at West Point - “Duty,” “Honor,” “Country” - those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you want to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. … Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the Nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be Duty, Honor, Country. Really, read the speech. The dude was tottering and looking for a place to rest when he gave it, but it’s a classic. The movie was clipping along.

Then suddenly, abruptly, without warning … Everything’s OK. Hey, the bad guys are defeated, the war is over, and we’re all going to drink beer and get us a little.

Whaa???

I know, I know, he was pressed for time, the visuals are fantastic, blah, blah, blah blah… But to have nailed everything in the book until he gets to the ending - Suddenly the 18 hours leading up to this point seem somewhat trivial.

Tolkien didn’t write the LotR as an allegory; didn’t want to do anything except for create his own world. But in doing so he painted a clearer picture of the real world than he could have if he had written allegory. It’s something that Tolkien uniquely got. CS Lewis and even Orwell, both masters of allegory as much as has existed in Western Lit, come off as completely heavyhanded, missing much of the intracies of humanity that Tolkien is able to capture even in creatures not explicitly human. The hobbits in the LotR are you and me…

Up until the end of the RotK, there was much carrying on about dealing with the hand that life deals. Even during the battle for Miinas Tirth, Gandalf gives the hobbit a speech about the White Shores, and the beauty of death that one cannot hope for in life. But then, 40 minutes later - guess what? The hobbit’s back in the Shire with nothing to do for the rest of his days besides wrinkle his toes in the grass and drink ale down at the pub. No realization that each solution brings its own problems, no acknowledgement of the inexorable march of time. Everything is cleaned up neatly for presentation to the Academy.

On its own merits, the RotK is a fine movie. The trilogy does surpass the first Star Wars set, IMO. Even if Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones hadn’t been made to besmirch Lucas, I’d still stack LotR on top of any other trilogy out there. Much has been written on that; I won’t dwell on it. - One last thought on that - Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western Trilogy beats LotR for consistiency, origninality, and fealty to an idea.

I’ve been able to get over most of the areas where the LotR was different in different media by acknowledging that we were dealing with drastically different audiences, and different timeframes for the story. I forgave the omission of Tom Bombadil in Fellowship without second thought or hesitation. Bombadil was Tolkien putting himself directly into the story, or so I thought; Jackson left Tom out since there was a different vision looking at Middle Earth. But taking out the Scouring of the Shire, and leaving Sauraman to rot in Isengard is a direct potshot at the intelligence of the audience, assuming that we aren’t sophisticated enough to realize that even though the War cost the hobbits the Shire, that it was necessary and proper that it was fought.

I cannot in any way, shape, or form say that the RotK was bad because it’s been a long, long time since anyone has even attempted a work on this scale, much less pulled it off like Jackson did. I can no longer believe that Jackson was faithful to Tolkien.

Which, in the end, is a fitting and proper ending. Triumph tinged with loss as a result of human nature and the general unfairness of life.

Posted by jank at December 19, 2003 11:26 PM