Mára aurë

Good evening ladies (and gentlemen)!

As I was doing absolutely nothing on my Sunday I had a thought. That thought had to do with the thoughts I’d had while doing the nothing I did yesterday which included writing a letter to Valerie (I posted it earlier today so look out!) and watching Return of the King (two disc edition in full screen because that’s the one I have).

As you may or may not have known, I began working my way through the trilogy following the completion of my week of hell for the first time in I can’t remember how long. My thoughts on the whole thing went in a few different directions.

Direction #1 – North

Wow! Even though I don’t remember the last time I’ve watching these I still know them incredibly well! As in, I know them well enough that I am commonly reciting lines along with the characters and making emphatic hand gestures. You would have been proud if you had seen me giving some of these speeches, I’m sure, but so was I! The power and depth of some of the phrases and pieces are not at all common today and the absolute richness of the language and the world is something we haven’t seen in a long time.

Direction #2 – East

Special effects have come a long way in a few years! I remember very vividly thinking about how much more awesome Return of the King was compared to Fellowship of the Ring back in 2005 or so. Now I was seeing shadows around people where things had been removed with computers, I was being slightly frustrated by elusive camera angles in Fellowship, I noticed obvious stand-ins/fakes, and I noticed how the CG versions of characters didn’t move in exactly natural ways. Don’t get me wrong! I still totally appreciate how awesome it was at the time because I can remember the feeling and it’s still pretty darn awesome now but I couldn’t help noticing and it did take up a bit of my attention when it wasn’t otherwise invested.

Direction #3 – South

Seeing Viggo Mortensen in the armour and colours of Gondor, with the white tree and seven stars across his chest still does things to me that are almost indecent to describe. It is true of most of the time he’s on the screen but the first time he showed up in that costume… shivers.

Direction #4 – West

How have we not been talking about Lord of the Rings in so long when it is so supremely awesome? Seriously! Do you remember grade nine? Do you remember a time when Michele was obsessed with a certain elf and his scuff marks? Do you remember a time when Valerie’s first uttered words in our complete presence were from this trilogy? Do you remember a time when Dawn had us and several others over to her house so we could watch the entire extended collector’s edition trilogy in one day? Do you?

The Lord of the Rings is an enormous literary work (in this case I don’t mean the kind of enormous that makes it take up so much space on your bookshelf, I mean the kind of enormous that influence the revolution of the Earth) and the manifestation of these books into a movie series in a way that actually did them some kind of justice was seemingly equal parts miracle and sensation. This story was a massive part of our lives and of so many other peoples’ lives. I understand the great story and phenomenon in our lifetime has been Harry Potter (in fact, it’s been going on for so much of my life that I’m not sure what will happen when it’s over) but I feel like we really have to pay tribute to the story that came first and how much it is a part of what we do now.

Namárië, melda mellyn, tenn' enomentielva,

Dina