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It's
as if the whole Lord Of The Rings thing has got out of hand; as
if the story dreamed up in the outsized mind of an Oxford academic
is simply too big.
Simon
Tolkien, grandson of the creator of hobbits and Middle Earth, saw
the final film in the trilogy at its first preview screening in
London.
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LISTEN
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Hear
moments from The Return Of The King as actor Billy Boyd, who
plays
Pippin, gives his view.
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One
of the actors, Billy Boyd, told the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ he thought The Return Of
The King was the best of the three. But
Mr Tolkien disagreed.
"I
think it's an amazing spectacle," he told ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 4's Today
programme. "It's amazing to watch - some of the architectur
and the landscapes are quite staggering.
"But
I actually thought it was was the weaker of the three.
"The
problem is really that there are so many things going on in so many
places that unlike The Fellowship Of The Ring, where everyone was
together on the journey, you get very confused as to who is doing
what."
He
found it frustrating that just as he was becoming absorbed by what
was happening with a particular group - the hobbits, say - the action
would cut to somewhere else.
"You
can't get into each individual episode," he said.
"I
think there's wonderful things in it but I would have liked to have
cut much more of the battle scene and special effects in this one,
and had more development of the characters."
He
also said his grandfather might have had trouble with the way parts
of the story have had to be cut to transpose it to the screen -
and also with promotional Frodo crisps.
"I
think anyone who writes a book like this, which is really your whole
life, couldn't really cope with the film treatment of it, but that
doesn't mean he would have felt that a film in itself was wrong.
"I
think he would have found Frodo crisps very alien, but my hope is
that that is very transitory."
Mr
Tolkien also admitted that having a famous literary name initially
stopped him becoming a writer.
"It
was very, very diffuclt for a long time and put me off, and I didn't
write a word until I was 40.
"When
I came to be 40 I thought, 'I've got to reconsider this,' and now
I write."
The
Return Of The King opens at cinemas across the UK on Wednesday,
17 December 2003, including at the following venues:
•
,
Horse Fair, Banbury
• , George Street, Oxford
• , Magdalen Street, Oxford
• ,
Grenoble Road, Greater Leys, Oxford
• , 57-58 Walton Street, Oxford
• , Boroma Way, Henley-on-Thames
• ,
2 Newbury Street, Wantage
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