recently playing: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
I was watching The Two Towers today. As I watched it, I thought about the fact that I like The Empire Strikes Back better than I like A New Hope or Return of the Jedi. I realized that I like The Two Towers best of The Lord of the Rings.
I started contemplating why that might be, and I think it's truly because the tension builds to the highest point during the second movie. At the end of Empire Strikes Back, there is very little hope for Luke and friends. It's hard to see how things are going to work out. I think I remember hearing George Lucas describe his story arc as "In ANH, you introduce the characters; in ESB, you get them into the worst possible situation; and in ROJ, you get them out of it." At the end of Two Towers, granted there is a victory, but the victory pales in comparison to the war about to begin. And Frodo and Sam get away from Faramir, but they've been held up royally. (Aside: Tolkien actually did a better job than Peter Jackson in creating a cliff hanger... At the end of the book, Frodo's KO'd from a spider bite IIRC... just awesome. If you didn't have book three, you'd just lose your sanity. /aside)
So, my conclusion is that readers, or at least myself as a reader, like tension. They like it when the characters they like are challenged and put into stressful situations. Maybe that'll help me be a better writer. Or maybe it'll just help me to find more books that I like.
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3 comments:
i agree. Except i wonder if transfer that desire for tension into our lives...
From my recent experiences, I'd have to say that although I enjoy watching frodo and sam experience lousy day after lousy day, I truly do not wish it for myself. An interesting human phenomenon, to be sure.
I agree with the notions of story flow, and your opinion of the Star Wars films...but without going into the inevitable quibbles over this, I will simply state that I believe the middle FILM of the LOTR trilogy to be by far the weakest, judgeing primarily from a Tolkien purist perspective.
1. It not only makes significant breaks from the events of the book, it makes significant breaks from the spirit of the book.
2. They are, for the most part, entirely unneccesarry for the pace and needs of a film.
3. Both of the previous points are in contrast to the other two films which are less errant and, in my view, more entertaining.
As one person I read said well, I think;
"In the Fellowship film it is Tolkien with a Peter Jackson cameo and with the Towers film it is Peter Jackson with a Tolkien cameo." I don't know why I put that in quotations it was totally a poor paraphrase.
Anyway. This is sounding very harsh and judgemental and like fighting words, which I didn't mean it to be so... Now I need to think of nice things to say to you...
um. I like your blog a lot. I like your wiffle-ball skills. I'm glad you are marrying my sister. I like your taste in movies, music, books and...uh, toothpaste. Umm...You spell a lot better than me and you know all the rules about quotations and grammar (which, I'm sure, include how you should not pretend to quote an unnamed source which you are paraphrasing). Anyway, just my arrogant thoughts...
Note: Also, I realize you are not reffering to TTT film for it's deviation or not of Tolkien's books.
Note: I agree with your thoughts about tension.
Note: I did not inhale.
Note: Check that, I did.
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