Archetypes galore!

Rating: Null/10 (11 April 2006)

"Lord of the Rings" (2001, 2002, 2003): Fun, exciting, full of action, romance, heart, and enough archetypes to represent the entire history of humans. I'm going to keep it simple here: The entire Trilogy is what is important, and only if you're willing to view it as serious stuff, not merely entertainment (although it's certainly that as well). I read the Tolkien books, and I thought no one could get close to depicting them visually. You know... like what I had in my head? I was WRONG. These three films are masterpieces of visual story telling. The MOST important thing however is this entire Epic was written in Archetypes - that is, the REAL issues are those ALL of humankind has ALWAYS seen as important: honesty, bravery, love, decency, truth, good vs evil, lust, honor... "Lord of the Rings" has it all, as did the Greek tragedies, Shakespeare, lost stories told around campfires, and even a film that at first appears to be very time/site specific, like "Mystic River". This IS the stuff of all Ages. I feel lucky to have been born into a time when a true Epic was written. (My wife and I watched the Trilogy over three sequential evenings. Although demanding much time, this really helps keep the story together, compared to their original release times. Side notes:
"The Hobbit" was written in 1937, with the much larger "Lord of the Rings" trilogy begun soon after WWII. Although Tolkien was obviously referencing ancient lore (mainly from northern Europe and Scandinavia), I have the strong suspicion it was equally driven by conditions of spreading violence and official war in the Pacific and Europe beginning in the early 30's, reaching unavoidable participation by the late 30's. I see no reason NOT to interpret Lord of the Rings as a symbolic, emotional version of our own World War II. (Why, even the water landing crafts used by Orcs in Part Three (of the film) were directly inspired from the American landing crafts used for our soldiers).
The designers must have loved being involved in this project, but also felt lots of pressure to meet the visual expectations of generations of the Book Readers.
Only one reference in the entire trilogy seemed out of place, and that was uttered by Gimli the Dwarf, when he mentioned "tossing Dwarfs". I did not need ANY contemporary, insider-joke references.
I very much liked the logic of architectural, costume, character, and monster designs. Kudos to those artists.
As far as I'M concerned, Liv Tyler can KEEP the pointy ears ON! She wore 'em well. And, if the Elven language (which she spoke perhaps the best of them all) was real, I would learn it just for her. Lovely sounds. Better than French.
Many of the massive military Orc gathering scenes had the appearance of Hitler's Nuremburg spectacles.
NATURALLY, the good monsters were huge Eagles. The bad monsters looked like Mammoths, sea creatures, snakes, Cockroaches, or the genetic spawn of Pork Rinds. The character designs I had a little trouble with were the Ancient Trees (Ents). They didn't have the gritty believability of the others.