Unhelpful

And what do we do when the desire to review a movie vastly outpaces the need for a review?

It could be argued that there is about as much need to proselytize about The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as there is to run a public service campaign about the long-term benefits of breathing. There are only three types of people who will not see this movie: people who do not care for movies, people who do not like fantasy movies, and the most extreme fundamentalist minority of Tolkien purists who had convinced themselves that they were honor-bound to despise this production even before Liv Tyler was cast. It is, assuredly, their loss. Those three groups do not need a review. The majority of regular movie viewers have already seen the movie, or have plans to, and a review is not going to change their minds. Why, then, do I even bother discussing this movie?

Countless overly-designed low-hit self-referential websites are no doubt going to post “reviews” of The Fellowship of the Ring which are little more than a thinly veiled excuse for the author to reveal a lot more about himself and make no attempt to actually review the movie. Make no mistake: this is one of them.

Aside from those few vocal people who had religious issues with this movie, I may have been one of the harder sells on the idea of actually putting out $8 to sit through three hours of hobbits, elves, and wizards (oh my). You see, I have Post-Traumatically-Bad-Fantasy Disorder.

Along with most other AD&D playing junior high school geeks, I inhaled a steady diet of fantasy novels. I’m sure some of them were quite good. Sadly, I can only really remember the bad ones really well. One of the best-selling series in fantasy literature is Terry Brooks’ Shaahj’ejf’aferarra’a'r’a'r”rrrraa’sha’na’narra series. I had the misfortune of reading Suckstones of the Sharnanar’a'ar’r”rrr’aa”ar’aarra, and it remains one of the most tiresome books I’ve ever finished, and I’ve only ever not finished one book I’ve started. The tale of the journey told in Suckstones of the Sharmmfarnarranarrr’a'r”ar””’ was so poorly paced that by the time the characters got to their destination, I had long since lost what little interest I had in them. I just wanted it to be over.

Another best-selling series I’ve had the misfortune of reading–in its entirety–is the Dragonlance Chronicles.

The Dragonlance books were a watershed moment in fantasy literature history, as never before have two authors so desperately in need of a thesaurus managed to so thoroughly poison an entire genre already packed shoulder-to-shoulder with would-be well tainters. By this time, fantasy writing was already legion with second-rate Tolkien-derived pulp. Much of this writing was inspired by Advanced Dungeons and Dragons which had from its earlier days been one of the better missionaries for the cause of fantasy literature–good and bad. In fact, Weiss and Hickman, the authors of the Dragonlance Chronicles, wrote the series under the TSR banner, and their world was one of over a dozen than a then-overextended TSR supported as part of its AD&D product line through books, modules, and source guides.

The Chronicles were very easy to read because all the characters (caricatures) were well-trod fantasy archetypes. The dwarf was always described as “dour”, the warrior as “taciturn”, the wizard as “tortured” and the kender–Weiss and Hickman’s stand-in for hobbits–as “irrepressible”, without fail. If you ever forgot that kender were irrepressible, you could rest assured that the very next paragraph that re-introduced a kender character would be described as such.

When the writing began to grate on my nerves, I was almost done with the first three books, but as my tolerance for that sort of irritation was higher then, I did manage to read a few more novels in that series.

After these and other similar experiences, I just swore off fantasy novels altogether, fully realizing that I had never gotten around to reading the two-highest recommended authors: Fritz Lieber and J.R.R. Tolkien. As I started reading more and more science fiction and alternate history (in addition to “real” science and history books), I had less interest pursuing these rather gaping holes even though I continued to enjoy fantasy gaming.

That’s right, I’ve never read a word of J.R.R. Tolkien. You knew there had to be someone, and I’m him. As I became more aware of the irony of this lack, I decided to continue it; I’d read a lot of fantasy which was so derivative of Tolkien, and did a fair bit of fantasy role-playing gaming that owed heavily to his works, so reading them ran the risk of being tainted by my preconceptions which were, ironically, molded by works which entirely owed their existence to the very novels I was avoiding.

The Fellowship of the Rings provides a logical out: “I can finally enjoy the tales of Middle Earth, having had enough time to recover from the horrible pulp fantasy of my past, and the movie can be the way. If it’s good.”

Watching it as a recovering pulp-fantasy reader is absolutely revelatory. That AD&D–particularly first edition–owed a debt to Tolkien was an oft-repeated truism. What I never quite realized was the depth and breadth of this debt. So many hooks in fantasy gaming conventions make so much more sense after having finally seen them in their original context: the Uruk-Hai, fantasy archetypical race relations, mithril, and the Balrog.

To truly appreciate this would be possible even if the movie itself was miserable–but accurate–tripe. The fact that it is anything but tripe makes the experience of being in a darkened theater with it for almost 180 minutes a true pleasure. Much has been made of the length, and to be fair, I must say that I saw the movie on opening day … and nodded off at least three times. Frankly, I didn’t much care because after the first time I did so, I knew with utter certainty that I would be back on the second day it was playing: my drowsiness was not a reflection on the length, rather, it was a function of the fact that I had been up a for over 24 hours and was nursing the beginning of a cold. I absolutely love good movies to be long movies: Apocalypse Now Redux, Brazil, Scarface and the special re-cut five hour version of Dune (the 1984 David Lynch movie, not the recent reprehensible Sci-Fi channel miniseries) immediately come to mind.

So again I went, without the slightest hesitation, to see the movie again on the second day of its release. This is rather notable. You see, I’m not the type of person who watches the same movies–even my favorites–repeatedly. The last movie I’d seen twice in theaters was Chasing Amy. The time before that may very well have been The Empire Strikes Back–not the special re-release which I would consider an ever-so-slightly different movie, but the 1980 original release.

The reference to Dune may be apt. This was another very long movie made from a very complex book which I saw in movie form. It was also a movie which generated apoplexy in the most strident purist fringe of the book’s fans. With Dune, as well as with Fellowship of the Ring, I was assured that I simply would not, could not comprehend the plot of the movie without having read the book. In both cases, such pronouncements from on high were spectacularly wrong. In the case of Dune, after thoroughly enjoying the movie I bought and borrowed the books until I had the entire series in front of me and started reading. The book was much deeper than the movie, as fans will no doubt attest, and there’s a lot of wonderful material that just isn’t possible to do justice to on screen. This is par for the course, but it doesn’t make a thoroughly enjoyable movie less enjoyable simply because the book is equally engrossing; it underscores the limitations and strengths of each medium.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings is one of the most enjoyable movies I’ve seen. It’s paced well enough that it’s entirely easy to forget how long you’ve been watching it. Its characters are presented in such a thoughtful way that their personalities shine. Gandalf’s love of his hobbit friends is thoroughly convincing; Ian McKellen’s portrayal, in particular, is approached with such emotion and care that he’s a joy to behold every instant he’s on the screen. Ian Holm plays Bilbo Baggins’ in such a way that beautifully expresses the dual nature of the personality of the disturbed but genuinely good hobbit. Elijah Wood’s Frodo is also torn by dueling emotions, but in a distinctly different manner than that of Bilbo. There seems to be so much care taken to nail the important details that even many of the most minor supporting characters manage to seem appropriately fleshed-out.

That the special effects are top-shelf is almost beside the point: expensive effects can make a great experience better, but they’re never going to save a miserable movie. In this case, they’re wonderfully realized. The Eye of Sauron is terrible in the best sense of the word; I was reminded of the fantasy artist John Barlowe’s stunning visual depiction of Hell when the astoundingly other-worldly Balrog first came into sight, Bilbo’s last mad snatch at the Ring in Rivendell was eerie–and startling as hell for those of us not knowing it was coming, and the sunny saturated colors of the Shire were the very definition of the word “idyllic”.

That this impression comes from someone who, as I’ve said, lacked the deep connection to the characters and places in this movie and from someone who could not be called a “raving Tolkien fanboy” in any sense of the word goes to show that even some of the hardest people to sell on this movie are going away from it wholly anticipating its sequels…

…and it’s also cured me of my flashback-ridden aversion to the idea of reading the books which inspired so many lesser followers. As with Dune, I’m sure I’ll enjoy that original book has a deeper back story and more intricate detail than the movie was able to convey.

I’ll see you at the opening of The Two Towers. Only this time, as a convert.

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