Lord of the Rings (Animated) pt. 2

Frodo's own personal hell

Frodo comes to with Gandalf’s bushy eyebrows standing guard over him. The two of them, acutely aware that there’s a lot more ground to cover in this movie, spend a few pointless minutes recapping what just happened. “The river! It rose up!” Frodo says. YES, Frodo, we KNOW. We were THERE. Ever the bearer of happy news, Gandalf squashes Frodo’s parade by telling him that the Nazgul will indeed return, that S/Aruman turned against them, and that the war of the ring had begun. “So rest now,” Gandalf tells the shivering, brutalized hobbit. Frodo turns to stare directly into the camera as if to say, “Help me, the man’s out of his gourd!” 46:22

It's the Pasadena Star Trek convention all over again!

The council of Elrond scene. Frodo and his hobbity entourage walk in to what appears to be a low budget renaissance fair. There’s far too many elves looking daft and playing dollar store harps, for one. Frodo spies Bilbo, and hurredly runs over to belt him in the face for getting him into this mess. At least, that’s what I would’ve done. But this movie can’t resist its hugs, so a-hugging we will go!

I did notice a detail the filmmakers got right: Frodo is definitely taller than the rest of the hobbits, a fact that Tolkien made clear in the books.

Bilbo asks to see the ring and near freaks out when he sees it, fluttering his hands around. Frodo actually raises his hand and forms a fist – you go, hobbit-boy!

Now, everybody talk at once!

The council actually begins. The narrator happily leaps back into the fray, trying to speed things along while the “action” happens in the background. The events at the table happen as fast as the narrator can get them out of his mouth, so for instance, when he says that “Gandalf told them about Saruman the traitor”, Gandalf stands up and waves his hands around for only as long as it takes for the narrator to say this, then sits down. Boromir, looking for all the world like a stereotypical Viking (bushy beard, helmet with horns), explains to the council that his people are already under attack. Elrond listens impassively, looking like a cheap drawing of Sulu from Star Trek. Exposition zooms around and crashes faster than any NASCAR race. We sort of discover that Aragorn is a king of something or another. Elrond says they must throw the ring into Mt. Doom, which prompts Boromir to protest, “Why do you speak of hiding and destroying?” Um, buddy, nobody said anything about hiding. That’s okay. Have a seat. Elrond talks in a deep, mushy tone, uncannily like Patrick Stewart (sorry for all the Star Trek references), and Gandalf goes out of his way to once again throw all of the responsibility for the ring squarely on the hobbits’ shoulders, the cruel taskmaster that he is. Bilbo volunteers, but Gandalf physically shoves him back down into his chair. Seriously. Frodo gets the shaft, and Sam volunteers to join him. The director yet again decides to portray Sam as a sulky, thick-headed nincompoop who’s more of a mascot than a loyal companion. Call me crazy, but it works! 52:12

Bilbo bequeaths his mithril shirt and Sting to Frodo, perhaps not realizing that his last gift to Frodo pretty much messed up the young hobbit’s life. Maybe Bilbo shouldn’t be the village Santa, after all. “Young Gertrude, I give you… the Evil Necromonicon, cast in the shadowy depths of the underworld, bound in the flesh of angsty college students, and cursed to whomever owns it! Now, be off to experience a world of horrors beyond imagination. Go, go.” This is a pretty melancholy and short scene (short, I can live with). 53:23

I think Sam has some sort of flesh-eating virus here

The Fellowship takes off, while Elrond’s voice catches up to them to explain what, exactly, the Fellowship is and who’s in it. Guess they’re starting to run short on time already. The party struggles onward, snow obscuring not only their vision, but also the viewers who are trying to look at the characters. They argue about using the Mines of Moria, and Gandalf forgets his notes and calls his enemy “Aruman”. Stick with one or the other, people! Most of the party doesn’t want to go (Sam raises his hand to agree with this statement, and here the movie does a closeup on his plague-ridden visage, lumpy and misshapen). But we’re forgetting that Gandalf is a big bully, and he verbally pushes the Fellowship around to get his way. 56:08

Entrance at the Mines of Moria. Gandalf’s off in the background, failing to open a door, and the rest of the cast is sitting around and toking off a hobbit pipe or something. Frodo talks about Gandalf’s “fireworks”, which, by the way, we haven’t seen in this movie at all. Gandalf’s shown no magical properties greater so far than you normally see from a lump of Silly Putty. Gandalf continues to make a horse’s ass out of himself, saying foreign words all dramatically while the rest of the party doesn’t even watch. Just a small mention that Gandalf’s staff really looks like a small intestine stretched out and hardened. I thought you’d like to know that. Legolas asks Gimli why the dwarves are so secretive and why the door won’t open, but Gimli just — I swear — shrugs and remains mute. Dude, this is the only dwarf-related thing in all three books, you’d think he’d be a bit more excited to show off some dwarven knowledge of sorts. But hey, shrug. I think he’d really rather be home in bed. Boromir pitches another hissy fit about Gandalf (Boromir is here only to be a thorn in everyone’s side), but Gandalf finally realizes the simple riddle and opens the doors by speaking the elvish word for “friend”. Time for Gandalf to lead his pitiful followers into certain doom! Then, we get the following exchange between elf and dwarf:

Legolas: So, all you did have to say was “friend”… and enter.
Gimli: Those were happier times.

Guh? Maybe I’m really reading too much into this, but shouldn’t Legolas have figured out the riddle before Gandalf, being an elf and all? And does Gimli’s attitude here mean he knew the answer all along, but was staying quiet for some unknown reason? Anyway.

When squid attack! Bill bites it! Hooray!

The Lake Octopus attacks at this point, grabbing Frodo’s leg. Sam takes about three whacks with his sword at it, but the film shows each blow glancing off and the blade repeatedly bending. Is it rubber? Were Sam’s friends concerned that he might hurt himself with a real sword? Makes sense. Boromir rushes over and delivers a deadlier blow that appears to not only hack into the tentacle, but also Frodo’s foot. Whoops! He keeps chopping away, green blood splattering everywhere. This movie just got gory! The party runs into the mine, as a tentacle reaches out of the water and prepares to envelop Bill the pony. The film cuts away just as the tentacle starts to grab, but Sam’s voice goes “Poor old Bill… poor old Bill”, suggesting that Bill is now dining with the fishes. Aw. Then the tentacles courteously close the doors behind the adventurers. 58:49

Exploring the mine. They talk about the lake creature, and Pippin remarks, “It grabbed Frodo first out of all of us.” Not missing an opportunity to be mean, Gandalf GROWLS “Quiet, Pippin!” More horrible rotoscoping animation, actors shuffling along in the dark. The mines are well-done, as far as dark caverns and stairways go (helpful Middle Earth tip: dwarves don’t believe in stair rails, so be careful!). Frodo spots Gollum’s eyes, all of five feet away in the dark. It’s really, really dark in these scenes. They do a lot of stopping and resting. Legolas and Gimli start to talk about how wonderful and cheery the mine used to be, but Gandalf yet again barks out, “Be STILL, both of you!” What crawled up his sphincter that morning? I have no idea why the filmmakers started making Gandalf go off the deep end here — probably knowing that his screen time was coming to a close — but he’s uncharacteristically snappish. Pippin throws in a rock into the well, where it makes a tiny splash, but this is all that Gandalf needs to send him into a rage, hands flying about like a madman. Gandalf is also walking with a severe limp. No, I don’t know why.

This is no time for farting, Frodo!

More walking. They find Balin’s tomb. Gandalf opens a book, which scatters dust in Sam’s eye. Gandalf reads that terribly scary diary left behind. The bad guys come, running in all their rotoscoped glory! One tries to get through the door, but Boromir slices at him, and Frodo (I think) dives on its foot and stabs it in a particularly bloody fashion. They close the doors, but the orcs have their patented Door Exploder™, a device used in cartoons to make a door literally burst open in flying chunks. The battle ensues, which is to say that each orc chivalrously pairs off with one good guy. Gandalf tells them to run for it, his bushy eyebrows flying away on their own accord.

Where are the mithril defenders now, huh? HUH?

Then we get another Hilariously Bad Moment: Frodo turns around to see a solitary black orc running toward him. Running in, of course, slow-motion. The movie suddenly becomes a bizarre football game, with both Boromir and Aragorn running up to the orc like tacklers, only to get pushed aside. The orc throws his football (er, spear) and Frodo makes a spectacular catch right against his chest. All in slow-mo, remember. The spear goes in maybe an inch, and that’d be giving it too much credit as it is, but Frodo is hamming it up like nobody’s business. With bad animation techniques, Aragorn defeats the orc and runs over to Frodo, who’s precious life blood is wasting…

Oh! Hey! He’s okay! The spear is nowhere in sight, and Frodo is all the pluckier for it. “I thought you were dead,” Aragorn gasps in amazement. “And then I’d be able to get my own starring role in this series… maybe even have a book named after my legendary return or something!” 1:05:44

Is this even the same movie? Who is this bearded freak? Where's my mom? What's going on here?

More action-packed fleeing. I guess it’s becoming redundant to say that the animation is all over the place, but in this point it’s particularly bad. Rotoscoping changes to reverse negative live action and back depending on the shot. I want to quote from Roger Ebert’s 1978 review of this movie: “Working from a live action film shot before the first drawing was made, Bakshi and his crew of artists — 150 strong — have imbued the cartoon form with vital signs never seen in animation before. Bodies move in realistic concerts of sinew and bone, faces show expression previously reserved for live actors, and, most impressively, we begin to forget, after a while, that we are watching animation at all. The reality-fantasy gap begins to shrink before our eyes.” Yes. Impressive.

Gandalf runs like a girl. You heard it from me, first.

Then… well, you have to understand that there are just some sights in this world that defy all attempts at description. This is one of them. As the Fellowship attempts to bridge the chasm, Aragorn turns around to the pursuing orc horde and says, “Come no closer!” That’s it. No magical light shows, no demonstrations of superior sword skills, no mooning. Just a weak imperative, and the entire horde STOP in their tracks. Sure, they keep up with the bad acting motions of raising their weapons and yelling, but they form a nice straight line across the way as if they’re expecting the good guys to play Red Rover with them. For all I know, maybe they were supposed to. Nobody actually reads all of the parts of Lord of the Rings, especially the boring songs that go on for pages. So the orcs stop, and Aragorn runs away, and the orcs stay stopped. What a well-done scene.

The Balrog emerges from their ranks, to the horror of Gandalf but to the delight of young children who are attracted to cute and cuddly figures. Which the Balrog is. It’s a big pussy cat with moon boots and red wings. Definitely a Detroit fan (rimshot). It’s also the antithesis of “scary” and “pee-inducing terror” that Tolkien was probably going for. Never the one to overact in a situation, Gandalf flips out and tells everyone to “fly” and that “you can’t help me”. Because God knows that the only talent Gandalf has is to be overly dramatic and rude to his friends, and no other member of the Fellowship can match that. He shouts out “You cannot pass!” enough times to make you think it’s going out of style; the Balrog flies (in slow-motion, of course) onto the bridge. They sword fight, then both fall into the chasm. Guess the Balrog forgot he could fly. Good riddance to both. Aragorn does a little run-jump-reach to try to retrieve the Old Man, but nothing doing. Aragorn’s kind of batting one for three in this battle so far, I’ve noticed.

With Gandalf gone, Aragorn is free to be the Jerk King at last! He yanks Frodo away from the edge – twice! – and then keeps manhandling the party to get them to run, yelling “OBEY ME!” Dude, I thought Viggo was a nice guy, but I wouldn’t want him to be my king… so what chance do you think you have of obtaining my loyalty through a progressive policy of shoving?

Just a short mention: the orcs have no real defining features, except for red eyes and fangs. I think this film needs a Buffy. The party escapes the mines. 1:08:46

The Gandalf-is-dead, we’re-all-sort-of-bummed scene. Nobody’s really shedding tears though. Frodo doesn’t want medical treatment (for what, exactly?), but Aragorn pushes him a couple times until he relents. Frodo doesn’t see any hope in their situation, so Aragorn gives him this inspiring speech, written by the future king of Gondor:

“Then we must do without hope. There is always VENGEANCE!”

What a nice fellow, that Strider. He discovers Frodo’s mithril armor, slits the hobbit’s throat and keeps it for himself. Well, maybe not, but you just know he was thinking it!