Sui
Tank
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2004
- Messages
- 5,998
- Reaction score
- 3
Honour. Valour. Pride. Sacrifice. Love. Hope.
These are the things that Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring make me feel. I am inspired by its grace, its beauty, its fragility. It is a downhearted, bleak tale of desperation- to save a doomed populace from inevitable destruction. Shadow covers Middle-earth, and every race living in it feels the depressing, crushing inescapable end that is coming. No army can withstand the shadow. No army can relieve Middle earth of this burden.
But yet, within the chaos and the depression there is a small fraction of hope. Where both men and elves retreat, frightened and repelled by something they cannot see, there is always courage found in even the most unlikely of places- and if it weren’t for this courage, this ignorant, fools hope- everything would be lost. Which is why hobbits are so important in this story- where everything else fails, they are the only creatures who ludicrously daydream of a way out- they blindly believe that things will be all right in the end. And if there weren’t anybody who believed this, there would be no-body to make it happen.
And so I come to the meaning of the story. For me, Lord of the Rings is about hope. Nothing other than hope. It is what drives us forward when the path is dark, and what inspires us when we don’t know what to do. It persuades us that there is a point in trying, and that there is meaning in this life. Without hope, without the valour that it gives us, we would all surely perish in our own despair.
Now, as you have probably guessed, I just watched Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring on special edition DVD again- In perperation for when I get The return of the king on DVD.
My favourite scene has to be the mines of Moria. During that scene, despite the fact that there is no immediate danger, the atmosphere builds a huge amount of tension, leaving you on the edge of your seat. You feel a strange unreast in the air- like something is hiding, waiting for you. The climax of the scene really starts to climb when Gandalf is reading the book he prized from a dead dwarf’s hand… The music is silent and there is nothing but the dramatic, yet deeply faltering voice of Gandalf- repeating the final words of this doomed dwarf. And then, just as the tension has reached it’s highest and Gandalf utters the words, “they are coming”… everything goes silent and Pippin dislodges the skeleton of a dwarf.
Clang.
Clang. Clang.
Clang.
The silence is broken by a terribly loud echo that booms through your ears and puts your hairs on end, before quickly darting back into the gloomy silence.
And then from all around, slowly but surely, drums and snarls and clatters and shuffles rise from the dark and cloud your ears with tension- you are terrified of an enemy you haven’t seen yet- you are uncertain, unaware of what is coming… The doors are barred and the fellowship stand waiting… what is coming? What is scaring me so much? What is-
BOOM.
The doors are flung open, and from the darkness erupts a flood of warriors, who immediately clash with our heroes and duel with our senses. It is an amazing way of keeping the tension built- the climax is at its highest and we are loving it. Truly, for me, this was one of my favourite moments in cinema, and one of the most powerful ways of setting an atmosphere with sound, music and visual uncertainty. Wonderful.
And I will leave you with an interesting fact: Did you know that the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring Extended DVD has HALF AN HOUR of credits? At first I couldn’t believe it, but then I checked and checked again and sure enough there is over 25 minutes of credits. Good music throughout them as well, as the credits are just coming to an end as I write this
These are the things that Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring make me feel. I am inspired by its grace, its beauty, its fragility. It is a downhearted, bleak tale of desperation- to save a doomed populace from inevitable destruction. Shadow covers Middle-earth, and every race living in it feels the depressing, crushing inescapable end that is coming. No army can withstand the shadow. No army can relieve Middle earth of this burden.
But yet, within the chaos and the depression there is a small fraction of hope. Where both men and elves retreat, frightened and repelled by something they cannot see, there is always courage found in even the most unlikely of places- and if it weren’t for this courage, this ignorant, fools hope- everything would be lost. Which is why hobbits are so important in this story- where everything else fails, they are the only creatures who ludicrously daydream of a way out- they blindly believe that things will be all right in the end. And if there weren’t anybody who believed this, there would be no-body to make it happen.
And so I come to the meaning of the story. For me, Lord of the Rings is about hope. Nothing other than hope. It is what drives us forward when the path is dark, and what inspires us when we don’t know what to do. It persuades us that there is a point in trying, and that there is meaning in this life. Without hope, without the valour that it gives us, we would all surely perish in our own despair.
Now, as you have probably guessed, I just watched Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring on special edition DVD again- In perperation for when I get The return of the king on DVD.
My favourite scene has to be the mines of Moria. During that scene, despite the fact that there is no immediate danger, the atmosphere builds a huge amount of tension, leaving you on the edge of your seat. You feel a strange unreast in the air- like something is hiding, waiting for you. The climax of the scene really starts to climb when Gandalf is reading the book he prized from a dead dwarf’s hand… The music is silent and there is nothing but the dramatic, yet deeply faltering voice of Gandalf- repeating the final words of this doomed dwarf. And then, just as the tension has reached it’s highest and Gandalf utters the words, “they are coming”… everything goes silent and Pippin dislodges the skeleton of a dwarf.
Clang.
Clang. Clang.
Clang.
The silence is broken by a terribly loud echo that booms through your ears and puts your hairs on end, before quickly darting back into the gloomy silence.
And then from all around, slowly but surely, drums and snarls and clatters and shuffles rise from the dark and cloud your ears with tension- you are terrified of an enemy you haven’t seen yet- you are uncertain, unaware of what is coming… The doors are barred and the fellowship stand waiting… what is coming? What is scaring me so much? What is-
BOOM.
The doors are flung open, and from the darkness erupts a flood of warriors, who immediately clash with our heroes and duel with our senses. It is an amazing way of keeping the tension built- the climax is at its highest and we are loving it. Truly, for me, this was one of my favourite moments in cinema, and one of the most powerful ways of setting an atmosphere with sound, music and visual uncertainty. Wonderful.
And I will leave you with an interesting fact: Did you know that the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring Extended DVD has HALF AN HOUR of credits? At first I couldn’t believe it, but then I checked and checked again and sure enough there is over 25 minutes of credits. Good music throughout them as well, as the credits are just coming to an end as I write this
