I have here a recent issue of Outre Magazine that features an article about LOTR projects that never got off the ground. Besides touching on the Beatles' interest (John was the the driving force, apparently), and an attempt by Heinz Edelmann-art director on 'The Yellow Submarine'-to do an animated version, the article focuses most of its attention on the aborted Boorman project.<BR><BR>Here's a portion of the article, which was written by Ross Plesset. The gentleman quoted in it is Rospo Pallenberg, who co-wrote the script with John Boorman.<BR><BR>----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>"The chore that was given to us by United Artists was one movie and, at the time, they produced long movies with an intermission. [The script] is 176 pages with an intermission on page 81, after the fellowship goes down the rapids, and you have a sense that they have now reached a great landscape as the river widens." The musical theme for "The Road Goes Ever On" accompanies this closing scene.<BR><BR>The script's first half, then, would have depicted most of The Fellowship Of The Ring. Following the intermission, "we accelerated as we continued the story, and dropped things out. We were propelled by what we liked, and invented as we went along."<BR><BR>The screenplay takes liberties with the book, which would have upset Tolkien purists. Perhaps the most provocative change occurs in Lothlorien where, before gazing into Galadriel's mirror, Frodo must become intimate with her (this does not cause friction with husband Celeborn because he is not featured.)<BR><BR>The adaption is also highly creative and inventive (ideas which Pallenberg still hopes to use in some other epic project). The history of Middle-earth is told in an interesting way, although the writer would do it differently today. "I devised kind of a Kabuki play in which the story of Sauron and the creation of the rings was explained to a gathering in Rivendell. [Reading the script] 'A play has begun. The stage is the table (a huge round table). The acting is stylized, emphatic. As in Kabuki Theater, the costumes are flamboyant, and symbolize beings and entities of Middle-earth.' In other words, with this device, we tried to simplify the backstory. But I think if I were to revisit the scene now, I would think of a faster way of doing it."<BR><BR>New material for the dwarf Gimli came from Pallenberg's fondness for the character. "I remember liking him a lot. I knew quite a bit about Wagner's operas and the German literature. I was sympathetic to him, and I tried to work him in wherever I could. I believe it was I who came up with idea where they bury Gimli in a hole, throw a cape on him, and beat him up to utter exhaustion to retrieve his unconscious ancestral memory." This ancient knowlege allows Gimli to know the word for entering Moria, and to find insights about the ancient dwarf kingdom.<BR><BR>Pallenberg contributed another original idea to the Moria sequence. "I had a rather fanciful idea involving these orcs that are slumbering or in some kind of narcotic state. The fellowship runs over them, and the footsteps start up their hearts. John liked that a lot."<BR><BR>He mentioned another change. "There's a duel between the magicians, Gandalf and Saruman. I was inspired by an African idea of how magicians duel with words, which I had read about. It was a way of one entrapping the other as a duel of words rather than special effects flashes, shaking staffs, and all that. I tried to keep away from that a lot, and Boorman did too. [Reads from script]:<BR>GANDALF: Saruman, I am the snake about to strike!<BR>SARUMAN: I am the staff that crushes the snake!<BR>GANDALF: I am the fire that burns the staff to ashes!<BR>SARUMAN: I am the cloudburst that quenches the fire!<BR>GANDALF: I am the well that traps the waters!<BR><BR>"John Boorman and I didn't give too much importance to the Christian component of Tolkien's work. It came across as a tad heavy-handed at times. It is a story of redemption, and that seemed to be enough."<BR><BR>{jumping ahead to elswhere in Plesset's article}<BR>Pallenberg continued, "Because it had to be one movie, and we couldn't waste time with too many complicated effects, I was an advocate of eliminating all flying creatures. I thought it would make it too rich, and it would depart too much from the ordinary. John Boorman agreed on that. At Minas Tirith, instead of a flying steed, the Nazgul Chief rides a horse that 'seems to have no skin. Its live, raw, bleeding flesh is exposed.' I still have this feeling that the dazzle can take away from the fundamental drama. We always tried to do things on the cheap, simply. When you saw a castle in the distance, it could have been made out of anything, even gleaming, high-voltage transmission towers. You saw those in the distance between the trees and then, suddenly, you were inside it. John Boorman is tremendously clever at that."<BR><BR>{jumping further ahead to the article's concluding paragraph}<BR>The script ends with Gandalf, Frodo, Bilbo, Galadriel, Arwen, and Elrond leaving Middle-earth on a sailing ship. A rainbow arcs over the vessel. Legolas, who is watching from shore with Gimli, says, "Look! Only seven colors. Indeed, the world is failing." "I think that's the ideology of the picture," said Pallenberg. "That is from me, not Tolkien. From a physics standpoint, it's incorrect to say that there could be more than seven colors, but what it's saying is, 'we live in a diminished world.'"<BR>----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>The entire article can be found in issue #26 of OUTRE: The World Of Ultramedia (with Ian Mckellan as Gandalf on the cover).<BR> I wonder what those who don't like Frodo solving the riddle instead of Merry think of Place Gimli In A Hole And Paddle Him Until He Starts Talking. <img src="http://www.tolkienonline.com/mb/i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif"border=0> The image is particularly amusing if you put JRD's rather blustery Gimli in it. <BR><BR>I thought the verbal exchange between Gandalf and Saruman was pretty intriguing, although there's the risk it would seem ridiculous in execution. Then again, old men using force powers to throw each against the walls, not to mention the break-dancing, strikes a lot of people as ridiculous. Given the option of either approach, I think I would have said 'let's have our accomplished actors here put those great voices to work.'<BR><BR>The bit at the end with the rainbow sounded pretty good to me.<BR> But I don't like this business of retaining the character of Arwen, only to put her on the damn ship at the end. Curious, to say the least.
by Lord_Baltimore » Wed Jul 10, 2002 7:49 am
