Horizon

Clearly the war is not based only on the Shire's pipe-weed. Rohan and Gondor's unceasing hunger for war is a larger culprit, I would say.

Brilliant. Brilliant.

I like the beginning, but the pipe-weed ramblings went on too long and I got bored.

It ebbs and flows a bit, I grant you, but there are laugh-out-loud bits buried throughout.

Zinn: A perfect example of what you're talking about is right here, when Strider attacks the Black Riders, "saving" Frodo from them.

Chomsky: Think of it from the Black Riders' perspective. No doubt they arrived at Weathertop thinking, "Can we ask a few questions? We'd like to talk to you" ...

Zinn: It's on fire. Somehow being an on-fire eye is this terrible thing in the minds of those in Middle Earth.

It's funny up to a point but it's also a dishonest slander of a kind that's far too familiar lately. I won't trouble this forum with the exegesis.

It hurts, though, because Tolkien's writing is so good that everyone, regardless of political opinion, tends to see the LOTR heroes as being "on my side." For example, I think of Galadriel's "...we have fought the long defeat..." as having to do with the American right's slow rolling-back of 1960s civil rights achievements. Someone else will read that differently. Frankly I'd rather not even know how other people apply this story to contemporary politics -- I apply it in my way, you apply it in yours, and let's not ruin our appreciation of the story by comparing how we apply it.

That said, the later episodes of the Jackson film almost half-deserve that kind of anti-militarist criticism. Fellowship was pretty good except when Jackson couldn't resist his urge to make a monster movie, but the later two episodes got more and more Wagnerian, making it uncomfortable to be a fan, and glossing over a lot of Tolkien's original saving graces. For example, evil in Tolkien's original world wasn't as monolithic as Jackson makes it -- in the books, both Saruman and Denethor are self-deluding but still personally ambitious; they're not consciously slaves of Mordor as in Jackson's version -- and Tolkien put a lot more emphasis on the heroism of individual step-by-step persistence by people who didn't feel grand or heroic at all. Tolkien's basic values included defense of the weak and resistance to the temptations of power, and I'm not sure those got through well enough in the film. And I was looking forward to seeing Sam Gamgee say, "If I hear 'not allowed' much oftener, I'm going to get angry," but Jackson skipped the Scouring of the Shire so the moment never came.

Also, I'm disappointed in Viggo Mortensen for not being able to keep up with his character's increasing gravitas. When I first saw Fellowship I thought, "The guy looks like a junkie," and I'm not sure he ever fully absorbed the "not all those who wander are lost" business. I wanted to like him -- he's attractive and has a cool personal history -- but by episode three, Theoden was coming across as the most authoritative figure. Mortensen can play 'punk' and 'veiled intellectual' but he can't play 'old soldier' so well. It's a pity