The Lord of the Rings: ROTK

[chicken]

-- No shire battle at the end? Why not? Hobbits died, for pity's sake.

Queerish subtexty and texty bits in the books that were left out of the film, who knows why --

-- Sam says to Frodo "I love you." Why cut one little line just because it might sound gay? Come on.

-- Gimli loves Legolas so much that he boards the ship with him at the end. Tolkien used the word love, yes.

Sure, in both cases he probably didn't mean homoerotic love, but leaving these bits out of the film still makes Jackson look a bit homophobic. Esp. as he was the one who made "Heavenly Creatures" which I found to be homophobic.

But, redeemably, Merry and Pippin came off as totally in love in ROTK, which was very cute.

On the whole, however, a great film, worth the having-to-pee feeling after sitting in the theatre for four hours (counting the interminable coming attactions and product huckstering).

In fact, we liked it enough to want to go see it again next week.

Comments

[jwgh]

No shire battle at the end? Why not? Hobbits died, for pity's sake.

I was also disappointed about this, but in order to do it right he probably would have had to add another half hour or hour to the movie ...

I will probably see it again sometime in the next couple of weeks. I may try to see the first two in the interem.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Notwithstanding all these omissions, the movie has still managed to rekindle the "how homoerotic is The Lord of the Rings" debate for a new generation, and creep out some reviewers who don't like these implications.

I think what bothers some of them (whether or not they're complete homophobes) is that they think that any implication of slashy subtext in the books is the same thing as insisting that Tolkien consciously intended these characters to be read as sexual partners. Since he obviously didn't (he was generally very conservative about sexual morality, after all), therefore anything that might blur the bright line between homoeroticism and "homosociality" is Wrong to them, even though it's hard to avoid getting a little of this from the text.

Most likely Jackson knew that any faithful onscreen depiction of Frodo and Sam's relationship was going to bug them one way or another, so he shied away from including lines and incidents that would bother them further.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

I think what bothers some of them (whether or not they're complete homophobes) is that they think that any implication of slashy subtext in the books is the same thing as insisting that Tolkien consciously intended these characters to be read as sexual partners.

Oh dear. People will have emotions and thoughts when reading any book that might not be what the author intended. That is one of the beauties of literature. Sheesh. These people are afraid of this very fact.

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

Totally slashy hobbit action. Agreed.

Also annoyed about the bits left out, grrr.

You thought Heavenly Creatures was homophobic? Why exactly? I was in a relationship that was almost identical to that one (without the killing) and it always makes me feel better to know I wasn't alone in the world!

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

It wasn't homophobic except for the killing part ... I guess the killing part affirmed the killer queer stereotype, is all. The same stereotype that led people to be angry about Willow going on a rampage.

The lead actress, Melanie Lynskey, was interestingly in another lesbian film, But I'm A Cheerleader, a fun little romantic comedy.

[the-automatik.livejournal.com]

I see your point, but wasn't it a true story? I don't watch Buffy so I don't know about that Willow plot.

I wanted to see that Cheerleader movie but I didn't. I heard it was good, though.