As fictional universes go I’ve seen more creative (“Star Wars”), more insightful (“Mulholland Drive”), and more satirical (“Triplets of Belleville”). But “The Lord of the Rings” is a breathtaking visual feast of sweeping vistas, deep valleys, lush trees, soaring clouds, stunning castles, and the massive scope of armies—both human and four-legged—marching across wide open fields. Battle sequences are awesome in their scope and complexity, as monsters are fought in dungeons, on the open fields, and in the shadows of high castle walls.
But on the level of interesting, sympathetic characters, which is just as crucial to making a successful adventure?
The incendiary comment by Roger Ebert, which prompted the response from the reader at www.flickfilosopher.com, is as follows:
“One feels at the end that nothing actual and human has been at stake; cartoon characters in a fantasy world have been brought along about as far as it is possible for them to come, and while we applaud the achievement, the trilogy is more a work for adolescents (of all ages) than for those hungering for truthful emotion thoughtfully paid for.”
James O’Ehley writes:
“Nowhere did any of its characters feel like real people with real emotions – they were simply too nobly self-sacrificing, too evil, etc. for that – they are mere archetypes.”
Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central:
“The characters have ceased to evolve in any meaningful way and no significant time is given over anyway to any particular one of the principals—something sort of amazing, given that the film runs just shy of 210 minutes. The result of that lack of focus and depth is a picture comprised entirely of frankly stunning special effects set-pieces, long walks in slow-motion to predetermined destinations, and what feels like an eternity of strained conversations about arcane locations and events held in stage whisper.”
And Daniel Kimmel of the Worcester Telegram Gazette:
“There [are] numerous…characters involved, but we get neither characterization nor plot. It's just the guys we're rooting for against really ugly monsters. The battle scenes are intended to thrill, but they are so driven by special effects and a lack of anything invested in the individuals fighting that they are merely spectacle.”
They’re right—there’s not much sense of the three-dimensional to the likes of the Fellowship. Once we discard the illusion of the moral inner-struggles brought on by the Ring (see “Lord of the Rings” and the Moral Quandary of Good vs. Evil), we are left with basically one-note characters. To wit:
Sam: Let’s go, Mr. Frodo! Believe in goodness because it’s good!
Frodo: Let’s go, but I’m gonna pretend to be conflicted about it and look constipated!
Gandalf: Let’s go, but I’m gonna be real mysterious and vague about everything!
Merry/Pippin: Let’s go, but I’m gonna act real stupid!
Cate Blanchett: You guys go, while I stay here and act real mysterious and vague!
Gimli: Let’s go, and kill a lot of stuff along the way!
Orlando Bloom: Let’s go, and I’m gonna kill even more stuff along the way!
Aragorn does get a few moments of doubting, but when you consider he’s the title character of a 201 minute movie, these instances are spread very, very thinly over ten hours. The sacrifice of immortality made by Elf Queen What’s-Her-Name effects us like something we read in the newspaper or that pops up when we check our email. For escapism, these characterizations are more-or-less fine—but for a “serious” movie that just won Best Picture? Say what you will about literary or allegorical interpretations of the grand scheme of “LOTR,” those subtexts are not what gets much of the trilogy’s screen time. What does get the screen for most of that time are supposed to be people, and they aren’t very impressive. “Lord of the Rings” as Pure Adventure is perhaps the most meaningful essay of this collection and accounts for the trilogy’s “junior” feel.
I could only work up genuine emotions for a few isolated scenes involving Gollum and the brothers ‘mir. And there are those touching bits involving Sam insisting that there will be a journey home, things of that sort, but they are few. Part of the problem is that there is no real opportunity for the characters to choose between good and evil, or choose between much of anything. There is certainly the illusion of these things (see The Moral Quandary of Good vs. Evil), but the great moral battle of “Lord of the Rings” is “do we fight here, or do we fight over there?” To repeat some of Good vs. Evil, we are shown no alternatives to Middle-Earth and since all of Middle-Earth is threatened, no one has the ability to run away and hide. Their choices to stay and fight are not choices at all, not the result of bravery or cowardice. Choices made—Aragorn decides to return to the throne, Frodo accepts his quest, Elf Queen What’s-Her-Name gives up immortality—are so generically preordained and made without any internal exploration that they don’t feel like choices at all either, merely archetypes marching along as they must.
Page two of "'Lord of the Rings' as Pure Adventure."
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