LotR1-FotR-Seq01

[alatar]

Like many things, we start in darkness...

Peter Jackson's prologue to the Trilogy really had a lot of work to do: get buy-in for this fantasy world from both Tolkienites and those that just happened to stumble into the theater or were dragged therein by a date. He had 7.5 minutes with which to work, to set up the world of Middle Earth, to establish the characters/players and to get us all fearing the One Ring. What is this place Middle Earth, how does it work? Who lives there? Should proper names be used, and if so, and how many to include? How much information was too much for the general audience? Or too little - or worse, incorrect - for the fan base? And who should be narrating - who's POV?

New Line wanted a prologue of about two minutes. Glad that PJ fought for the longer version.

The movie begins with Galadriel speaking Treebeard's words, getting us started in the world of Middle Earth and letting us know what's so special about this least of rings. There's something about Cate Blanchett's voice - not young, not old; authoritative, yet not too harsh. Mysterious. The whispering Elvish in the background adds to the eeriness of the narration.

Next, the main races or peoples of Middle Earth are introduced - Elves, Dwarves and Men. The elves are perfect beings; the dwarves shown more neutrally. Men are not presented in the best light, and this even before we get to meet Isildur. Did you catch the one-eyed bearer of one of the Nine?

We hear the "one Ring to rule them all" line, again delivered well by Ms. Blanchett, while seeing the elvish script on the Ring. The map shows us Mordor and the blackness that spreads over the countryside. Nice way to show where everything is located while also showing the growing menace in a simple yet threatening way.

Then it's on to the battle of the Last Alliance. The color palette is muted, possibly to show that this event occurred in the past. Plus Mordor is a black and grey place. The only real color in the scene is in the groups of elves and men, who are presented as green - a 'nature/life' color?

The synchronized sword swinging thing that the elves do looks really cool, and I assume that it was added to show the precision and coordination of the Elves, in contrast to the chaos of the orcs, who seem to attack in a free-for-all swarm. If you really think about it, though, the orcs have to hit the line in sync with the elves' sword wave for the wave to serve any purpose. If an elf swings his/her sword too soon, it's ineffective (but looks really nice! just like a marching band...); too late, and the orc has already bopped him/her on the head. On the one hand you have this graceful coordinated orc-dicing wave, on the other hand you start to think that the elves are automatons. A quick shot shows someone wielding a spear- to me it's Aiglos.

And while quibbling, do the arrows sail close by Elrond's head (1) to show that the archers were performing really close ranged-attack support, (2) to demonstrate the precision in which elves do everything, and so Elrond is unconcerned as the arrows will fly true (yet close) or (3) to see Elrond yet again, as he's important to this story somehow and we need to reinforce that? What's funny here is that we have the elves, all with the same shields and helmets and sword-moves, and later we will see this 'mass production' conformity in the Uruks, and so is the sameness a good thing or a bad thing? Sure, I'd rather have an elvish sword over those chunk of metal scimitars, even if it were mass-produced, but just thought that this was a noted difference between the races.

Whoa! Sauron shows up. Not exactly as imagined, but cool nonetheless. He has his Ring, and he's also carrying a big stick and obviously he means to use it...But what didn't really work is the fact that everyone seems a bit surprised that he shows up. Hello!?! He's most likely twice as tall as everyone else, and there are not many trees in Mordor behind which to hide. So where did he come from? After watching the scene a few times, you start getting (more?) goofy in the head, and you start thinking that Sauron is going to tap Elendil on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me sir, but I'm late come to this battle, and was just wondering if you could direct me?"

The Ring, seen again on his right index finger, looks menacing, but after Sauron starts swinging his mace I'm guessing that the only power the Ring supplies here is to only help him bat people away better. He didn't hold up his Ringed hand and crush people down, or push them back remotely, or even make them feel like an invisible hand was choking them. The Ring must have just made him stronger. Can you imagine Sauron saying, "Batter up!" or "Fore!" as he swung away at the elves and men?

And why didn't someone pepper him with some of those nifty arrows that we just saw? Even better, the Elves could have shot at him from a distance as he walked from behind a mound of slag. But maybe they thought it was to be a champion vs. champion fight. "Don't shoot the big guy who just popped out of nowhere. It's to be a Gil-Galad and Elendil tag-team against Sauron and the Mouth of the South, so just stay out of it."

Just a clue for the for the Last Alliance regarding attacking Sauron - encircle him, and attack him from the back. Just my two coppers.

And so now we come to it. Elendil "the King" takes a Mace-induced flight, and his son runs to his aid and to his sword. Sauron breaks Narsil by stepping on it. Ahh... not how I would have pictured it. Always thought that the Sword would have been broken while attacking Sauron, not cracking beneath his foot. If Sauron can break the sword with his heel, and he becomes a searchlight eyeball, exactly why would he ever fear Narsil/Anduril later?

Oops, jumped too far ahead there...back to the action.

So now Sauron reaches for Isildur. Why? Did Isildur have something that Sauron wanted? Was the Dark Lord going to hold him up and crush him with the Force? Was Sauron going for Elendil's wallet? What? But ha! Isildur cuts off Sauron's fingers.

Yes, fingers.

Oops! Looks to me that Sauron isn't going to be able to count beyond six using his hands. Wasn't he subsequently nine-fingered, even in the movie? Losing the Ring makes Sauron implode with light, then explode. Everyone on screen is knocked flat - initially I thought that they might have been killed, but as Elrond and Isildur are still around afterwards, it was just some sort of force wave, a 'parting gift' from Annatar to the elves - to tussle their hair.

Isildur is a pompous jerk. He has such a smug look as he rides through the foggy forest with the Ring atop his 'made-for-ring' chestplate you almost start hoping (quickly, as the scene's moving on) that he falls for some misadventure. And he does - ambushed! The attack is a little hokey, as you'd think that the good guys would have seen it coming. Isildur experiences a flight/fight reaction and goes with the first option. The grass that he parts (to show his invisible movement) is just too contrived as it seems to be the only such weed of that height anywhere. And just what was Isildur thinking anyway? Most people, especially when in water, sink. Most of these same people, laden with chain-mail armor, sink like rocks in water. Actually more like heavy large aerodynamic rocks with lead centers. So not so sure what he planned to do when Isildur started into the water. Luckily he gets a few wooden 'arrows of buoyancy' in his back as these offset the weight of his body and armor so that he can float away.

Or did he shed his armor? Hard to tell, seeing him from the back floating on the water like that, but it looks more like he's robed. Anyway, couldn't we have had a chase scene where Isildur is pursued, throwing away his armor piecemeal, then is shot after diving into the river? I guess every frame counts in film, and that would be too much time and detail for a character that isn't really important to the rest of the tale. Or not.

We learn that ~2500 years pass, which is odd that we get a detail that might not have made that much of a difference to the telling. The deed becomes history which becomes legend which becomes myth line expressed the same relative time span.

So Gollum finds the Ring and goes into hiding. Not sure who he is at this point (from the movie POV), except that he's obviously not one of the good guys and that he really really likes fish. The circular waves in the water, like the darkness spreading across the ME map, was another good visual. The sunset, and the Ring falling down. Nice images. Plus we are hearing that this Ring isn't just a spectator but a player. And now we're approaching the present time, and something odd happens when we see an ordinary-looking person find the Ring - definitely not a King, not a creature, but someone more like you and me. He's a Hobbit, we're told, and these little people are going to be important to the story.

But just who are these Hobbits? That will be for next week.

[Boromir88]

Believe it or not I'm quite pleased with the way Jackson handled the introduction. Though as far as being historically (ahem-Tolkienical) accurate, it's really quite far off, Jackson does the introduction well. As you said, the whole point of the intro is to...

He had 7.5 minutes with which to work, to set up the world of Middle Earth, to establish the characters/players and to get us all fearing the One Ring.

So, the minor details in the intro (like where the battle was at, when it was at, how it happened) aren't totally necessary in the movie. The point is to get everyone (bookfans and non-readers) into the world of middle-earth, and I think in the overall picture of the intro he does this.

As you have said he establishes the three main races at the time, and sets them all in a different light.

I don't think many more characters need to be established besides Elrond, Gil-galad, Isildur, and Elendil. Other than that, I don't see the need to establish someone like Cirdan.

Despite the change in what happens at Mount Doom (putting Elrond in there with Isildur), I think it goes to show a lot. It parallels Elves and Men by using Isildur and Elrond. With Isildur's "No" it shows that men can be more prone to the Ring, and the Elves are goody-goodies (Do what's right!) type of people.

This is an effective "addition" by Jackson. I can't say change, because we really don't know what happened at Mount Doom (are we even sure Isildur got there??) But it establishes the power and fear of the Ring, and that such a thing that was so close to destruction and it's end, escapes.

One extra thing I'd like to point out, in that (this might be suited better for later, but I'll probably say it again when the time comes). But here's a photo of how Isildur looks when deciding to destroy the Ring or not, and how Frodo looks. It's scaringly similar, and a great job by Jackson and his team to draw such a similarity...



Just looking at the smile is rather weary. It's that look of "It's mine to have, and mine forever." But more important the smile is each directed at someone. Isildur's smile towards Elrond, and Frodo's menacing smile towards Sam. So it's more like..."The ring's mine and you can't do nothing about it!"

Mor will probably come later when I actually get home and watch this sequence.

[Holbytlass]

Overall, I do like the prologue. It was cohesive in having to introduce and explain in a relatively short amount. Even my family members who haven't read the books caught on easily enough, at least good guys, bad guys, evil ring etc.

A couple of things:

1. The scene showing the three elves having their rings with Galadriel in the forefront and Cirdan and Elrond blurred out, I wonder why Elrond (Hugo Weaving) wasn't used. The men were already blurred, so what was the big deal in Elrond not being there?(BTW, Alatar, I'm lost on the signifigance of one of the men having only one eye. Maybe a foreshadowing of Sauron's one eye?)

2.The first shot of seeing Sauron after he successfully forged the one ring and is holding it up, his armour makes him look like he's got a big ol' fat beer belly. Sure there are and have been heavy set evil rulers of the world, but it doesn't seem to work for Sauron.

3.I just love the sound of the line "But they were all of them deceived". I even used it in my werewolf game.

4.As far as the implode/explode of Sauron after having his fingers and ring removed (yes, it should have been only the ring finger), it kind of shows really how greedy for absolute power he was to the detrimant of himself. Sauron had tunnel-vision and didn't stop to think 'maybe I'm putting too much of myself into this object, man that would suck if I lost it'.

5.I think the biggest disservice of the prologue is that Bilbo really did come off looking like a thief. He finds a ring and someone is yelling 'lost, lost, my precious is lost'. So what does Bilbo do? Hurries and puts it in his pocket with a look of 'I hope I don't get caught'.

[Anguirel]

I generally agree with Boromir on this one. The introduction looks, sounds, and feels fabulous, and to ask questions like "where did Sauron come from?" or "surely the Elves would have different swords from each other?" seems somewhat over-pedantic.

I don't mind Galadriel's poaching of Treebeard's lines at all. They are a dramatic opening, Galadriel is far more interesting (and better portayed in the films) than Treebeard, and the refernce to "feeling it in the water" works perfectly with the Mirror, and perhaps Nenya, both of which we will discover later. Filmically speaking, it's better to set up a major character throughout all the films and especially the first than a fairly major character in the second film.

Besides, both Galadriel-the survivor of the House of Finwe-and Ms Blanchett are made for the narrator's role. Personally I was hoping for an ending with her voiceover, finishing with Legolas and Gimli taking ship...

The introduction of the races seems a bit token, with the Men and Dwarves identical to each other, but given its symbolic nature I don't mind it. I liked our glimpse of Gil-galad and Cirdan here.

The Last Alliance-I'm intrigued alatar got an impression of greenness; I overwhelmingly recall gold and blue. These are wonderful scenes. I love the line "But there were some who resisted" and the music and marching Elendil which accompany it. It really captures the spirit of the Free Peoples in LOTR.

The only disadvantage is the murder of Gil-galad on the cutting-room floor. His appearance wielding Aiglos is very tricky to catch. Why not have shown more shots of him in the fighting? It needn't have cut Elrond's appearances if they'd fought side by side. I don't especially mind the absence of Cirdan though.

I think Sauron is tremendous, if perhaps not as I'd quite imagine him; a bit too in-your-face and Gothmogish. Nevertheless, his sweeping away of the Elven and Human lines is amazing. Once again, Gil-galad's contribution to killing him is elided, sadly. Isildur deserves a little less credit than he gets.

Unlike alatar, though, I felt sympathy for him during the Gladden Fields EE scene-an extremely wise addition. The EE of FOTR is less radically different from the other EEs, but still debatably the best them; a very intelligent director's cut.

"The creature Gollum" seems a fair enough description, and yes, the Ring's hopping sets a nice, sinister tone...

[Essex]

Quick post to start with, as I'm off to see Fish tonight in Norwich (ex Marillion front man - who, yes, were once called Silmarillion but had to drop the Sil for trademark purposes!)

Anyway, it's all about the Ring. I never noticed this until I listened to the director's commentary, and I think Fran Walsh states this. It's amazing to listen to their discussion on how the prologue came about - who to actually narrate it (Gandalf/ frodo/ or galadriel) - how long it should be (new line wanted 2 mins max!) - and the viewpoint itself - I think it works superbly having the Ring as the main viewpoint.

Look at the extra dvds you get with the EE - another version of the Prologue is in there (in storybook form) with frodo narrating the history of middle-earth rather than the Ring. - this would not have had the same impact as the Prologue as it stands.

couple of things -

jackson has never mentioned it, but he stole the shot of the ring bouncing
on the rocks from Ralph Baski's version of the Prologue! There are other places whre jackson has 'borrowed' from baski, and I'll explain these as we come to them

it looks like to me that cate blanchet DID actually narrate a closure to lotr trilogy that anguirel (and myself) wanted - listen to fran walsh's commentary at the start of the next scene (as the commentary usually follows over to the next scene by a few seconds!) - she says cate blanchett would bookend the movies - and there's a clue in the ROTK ee inasmuch as jackson states they did film some scenes of the fellowship after the events of LOTR.

more later!

[Boromir88]

As far as the implode/explode of Sauron after having his fingers and ring removed (yes, it should have been only the ring finger), it kind of shows really how greedy for absolute power he was to the detrimant of himself.~Holby

I have to disagree (though it's not a bad thing), but I think this is pretty clearly shown without having Isildur crawl up and cut off one of Sauron's finger. That is, I think it's shown fairly well (and more later on), how greedy Isildur was when it came to wanting the Ring. (Isildur's scroll, Elrond's account...etc).

"But there were some who resisted" and the music and marching Elendil which accompany it. It really captures the spirit of the Free Peoples in LOTR.~Anguirel

I too love that line.

(And I just realized upon watching it, we don't see Isildur at Mount Doom with Elrond until much later. I forgot that this part wasn't until later, sorry about that alatar).

[Lalwendë]

Argh, it's hard not to pick out those book-to-film differences, but I have decided I shall resist!

Anyway, this has finally made me look at some of the commentary tracks, which i have never bothered with until this point as I tend to find them very tiresome after a few minutes. I do like to simply enjoy a film without having someone telling me all about it; it's like going to the cinema and having some idiot talk his wife all the way through the film...

Did anyone else notice how some of the Orcs would later be seen on the Pelennor Fields? I liked this. Some might accuse PJ of being a cheapskate and recycling his footage, but no, in this context it works. Orcs, like Elves, have endless lives, maybe they even have their own 'Halls of mandos' and keep on coming back after death, so to have them reappear (or make their first appearance?) does in fact work.

I did like the way that light was used. The Ring glowing on Sauron's finger was interesting; I wonder if they intended that this might demonstrate how it was his Ring alone? How it could only truly be used properly by its maker? It was as though they wanted to show how the Ring's power tapped into either Light or some Dark version of it. Of course then Sauron's bodily destruction is represented by a blast wave of light.

Incidentally, in this blast wave, if you watch on freeze-frame you can see that nobody is actually felled by it. Other freeze-frame oddities I noticed included an elf with an uncanny resemblance to Legolas with brown hair, and Alan Lee as one of the Kings. And as for the other two Elven ring-bearers, they are Gil-galad and Cirdan (with grey hair, too).

I realised how much I like the design of the films while watching this Prologue again. Listening to what the people from the design team say on the commentaries it is clear that they are real fans of the books, as they attempted to make use of Tolkien's own designs as much as possible, even if those props were hardly seen. I think this is the area where the real Tolkien nerds were let loose, and it shows. Happily.

[Mister Underhill]

I have to agree that overall, the Prologue sequence does do a good job of establishing Middle-earth, the Ring, and the history of the Ring. I notice that fire is quickly established as a visual theme linked with Sauron and the Ring, foreshadowing the fiery climax of the trilogy.

It's hard to fault Jackson & Co. much here in terms of sheer transmission of information. There's a lot of exposition compressed into these few minutes; it's clear, easily understandable even to the uninitiated, and not boring. Still, there are seeds here of future discontent:

An overall very stylized presentation. I didn't much care for the shots of the various races and their rings. In the very moments that we're establishing Middle-earth, its credibility, and its rules, those shots signal, "It's just a story." On the other hand, I can appreciate the need for brevity.

The "mass-produced" Elven arms and armor, and their coordinated drill-team chop (as noted by alatar) also detract from the film's "realism", though I hasten to add that overall I think the design of the films -- props, costumes, sets, VFX, etc -- are one of their strongest and most successful aspects, as Lal mentioned.

I wonder if the narrative could have gotten away without this prologue, or at least with shifting some of the history to the Council scene.

Galadriel is something of an odd choice for our narrator, at least from the point of view of the books. She represents more or less pure Elvishness in Middle-earth, and in many ways is outside of and disconnected from its human concerns.

Bilbo is not an unikely candidate, but the film plays him as especially eccentric and comical -- I suppose he isn't right for the high historical tone of the prologue.

Frodo, as author of the Red Book, at first glance seems an attractive possibility -- but to have him here as the one who explains the Ring and Middle-earth, then a few scenes later have him be the one who is explained to -- well, it just doesn't work.

Sam is a very strong candidate. His earthiness often puts him into the position of being able to comment on events as if it were all a story that he was watching and only sort of coincidentally also involved in. Of course, there's the same tension you have with Frodo -- at the start of the films, Sam knows nothing, has never even been outside of the Shire. But I wonder what a prologue delivered by a much older and wiser Sam -- maybe we don't even recoginize his voice at first -- would be like.

I wonder that they didn't use Elrond as the narrator, since he has the advantage of having been a participant in the Ring's history and is also a pivotal character in the films' tension between Men and Elves. But perhaps having him narrate and also appear in the early scenes is too much Elrond -- it establishes him as a central character when he's really only a supporting player.

Of course there was also the option of an anonymous narrator, some unknown person relating a tale of events long past.

In the event, I agree that Blanchett did a good job in a less than ideal situation, and I really like Treebeard's lines opening the trilogy. As a rule, the filmmakers never misstep by using direct Tolkien quotations -- the contrast between Tolkien-crafted lines and those crafted by the filmmakers often highlights how much Tolkien's prose style contributes to the feeling -- the magic, if you will -- of Middle-earth.

Other things I love:

The sound design is great. Shore's score works well in establishing a mystical, mythical atmosphere, and the effects go a long way towards establishing an involving and credible Middle-earth: the hissing, almost electrical crackling sound when Isildur raises Sauron's severed finger with the Ring still on it, and the low, moaning, vvvwwoooommmm of Sauron's shock-wave are two notable examples.

The shots of the Misty Mountains are great. Jackson's use of real landscapes in the movie starts here, and strongly contributes to evoking Middle-earth.

I love the shot of Sauron's smoking helm.

One miscue that always throws me a bit: the shot of Isildur right before he puts on the Ring and disappears during the ambush. The visual effects of the films are almost without exception of an extremely high quality, but something about this shot, the lighting being off, something, makes you feel you're seeing an actor in front of a green-screen who was matted in.

Overall, I agree that the Prologue is effective and well done, but it's interesting how it contains, in microcosm, the foreshadowings of many of the things I dislike about the films.

[Kath]

I thought the prologue was done wonderfully. As has been said the filmmakers needed to capture their audience in the story as quickly as possible, and yet cater for so many different people. I think this was achieved. The narration over the actions on the screen gave enough of the history so that those who had not read Tolkien could understand without getting too bogged down in details, but it had enough to satisfy the Tolkien fanatic that these people knew what they were talking about.

As to who should have narrated it:

Galadriel is something of an odd choice for our narrator, at least from the point of view of the books. She represents more or less pure Elvishness in Middle-earth, and in many ways is outside of and disconnected from its human concerns.

I agree that she is somewhat disconnected, but in a way that makes her a good candidate. It could be considered that she is then telling the history in an unbiased way, from all points of view. Her way of narrating, softly but with feeling behind the words worked for me and I think the ethereal quality that comes from Cate Blanchett, even when you don't see her, reinforced the idea that this was a long time ago, and that she (Galadriel) had lived through all the time in between.

The actual imagery on the screen was amazing as well. I went with my mum the first time I saw it and I had to drag her to the cinema (I only took her so she'd pay) because she isn't a fan and she thought she wouldn't enjoy it. 7.5 minutes in and she was hooked. To me the prologue is one of the best bits in the film because it manages to incorporate the essence of the books and what the next 3 hours will hold without really detracting too much from what Tolkien actually wrote. It also shows the beautiful scenery that we come to know and love, something that really made the films what they are. The prologue could almost have been a film on it's own if they'd just added the ending on!

I can see problems in it, especially the one that Mr Underhill mentioned, with Isildur putting on the Ring. It did seem slightly out of place, or out of sync somehow, as though the editors hadn't put it in quite the right place. But they did get all the story in and as a beginning to a film, or as in this case three films, it was excellent.