More on the LOTR, RotK
From the January 5th, 2004 New Yorker:
“…plus, I am to thrilled report, a herd of mumakil. These are what the hobbits call oliphaunts, what Piglet used to call heffalumps, and what I would call a good excuse to take the next available flight out of Middle-earth. A mumak, to judge by the spikes on the ends of its tusks, is made by crossing a double helping of mammoth with a porcupine, and each one bears a company of archers on its back. Legolas, a fit fellow, takes one look and sees his chance for a workout. He shinnies up a back leg, hangs on to the hide, fells half the riders with a ping of his bow, chops a rope holding the rest, shoots an arrow into the presumably tiny brain of the animal, feels it slump to its knees, and then trips lightly down its trunk like Fred Astaire descending a staircase. Unconfirmed reports suggest that this is the coolest single activity ever recorded on film, and the audience around me went into spasms of worshipful hilarity. Somebody to my left actually stood to applaud, as George II is said to have done when he first heard the Hallelujah Chorus.”
“And so it is with Jackson; when I watch Legolas scrambling up the mumak, my mind turns not to Tolkien (who wrote no such scene, anyway) but to Douglas Fairbanks, scaling the side of a ship, in “The Black Pirate,” with monkeyish ease and delight. Peter Jackson has not really made a movie of “The Lord of the Rings”; he has sprung clear of it to forge something new. He has drawn a deep breath, and taken the plunge.”
Written by Anthony Lane, in The Current Cinema section.
Very cool. Check out the article, the whole thing is great.
Later.
:: Matthew 3:11 PM [+]
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