Watching The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers last night I was struck by how many times the movie seemed like it ought to be coming to an end but instead kept chugging along. The third movie suffers from the same kind of awkward pacing at the end, as I recall. It might simply be an unavoidable consequence of having so many story lines to tie up.
I also have to say that, having come to expect more diversity on the screen, it is now a strange experience to watch a film in which nearly everyone has blue, gray, green, or hazel eyes, fair skin and light-colored hair. The story was written by a white guy about white guys, but even so, it seems wrong now for it to be so full of white guys. I wonder if the movie would be cast differently if it were made today, and how people would react either way.
There were some eye-color exceptions, though, including one very interesting one: Legolas, played by Orlando Bloom. I amused myself by monitoring Legolas’s eye color throughout the film and yelling “Gotcha!” when we finally reached a scene in which his eyes were brown. I had noticed the eye-color shift the last time I watched one of the LOTR films, and I looked it up on the Internet. Apparently the blue contact lenses bothered Bloom while filming, so he didn’t always wear them. Consequently we are treated to glimpses of his perfectly beautiful brown eyes from time to time.
These criticisms might make it sound as if I don’t like the movie, but that’s not the case. I’m still a fan. As with any film that you watch over and over again, you’re likely to notice different things about it during each viewing and to have evolving opinions.
I’m looking forward to the third film, which we plan to watch later this week.