December 27, 2002

GET IN THE RING: Caught

GET IN THE RING: Caught "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" over the holiday. It's unquestionably a masterfully created picture, under the skilled thumb of Peter Jackson (director of one of my favorites, 1994's "Heavenly Creatures"). But as someone who never read any of the books, I repeat my objection to the first film, which was that I had no idea what was going on half the time- which bearded hero was which, which grotesque villain was which (I just call them all "the evildoers"), and in the climactic battle scene, which army was where at any given time.
Funny- I always thought I was a geek growing up- but I never read or collected comic books, I never played Dungeons & Dragons, never was into that renaissance/role playing stuff, and I never as much as opened a Tolkien book. Is that why these movies were made- to make non-LOTR readers such as myself feel better, in retrospect, about their high school experiences? I'm reminded of an exchange from a "Friends" episode:

Chandler: Didn't you ever read "Lord of the Rings" in high school?
Joey: No, I had sex in high school.

Oh, and one other thing: Frodo and Sam. They're gay. Don't even try to deny it; not that there's anything wrong with it, no question about it- gay. Whether it's Sam's jealousy over Frodo's flirtation with Gollum, Frodo mounting him with sword drawn, or the scene at the end where they almost kiss and have make-up sex, this subtext couldn't be more obvious. Why doesn't he just give him the damn ring already?

Posted by Stephen Silver at December 27, 2002 02:05 AM
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