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Don’t attack an elephant head-on. This is
the tactical piece of information that I learned from watching
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,, the
last installation in the Rings trilogy, directed by Peter
Jackson. The next time you find yourself engaged in mortal
combat with an elephant (is it Thursday already?), aim for
the rear. Elephants are much larger than you are, and you
will not survive a direct assault on one. They’ve got
long tusks. Trunks. Very large feet. And you are much smaller
than the average elephant. You will lose. There’s a reason
why elephant guns were invented. How else do you think J.
Edgar Hoover got his famous elephant testicle barstools?
I loved this film. I loved all “Lord of the Rings”
films. I think they should be shown every weekend. Twice on
Christmas. All in a row. I’m not one of those geeks who
speak elvish and knew the entire lineage of the princes of
Gondor, but I sure did like the movies. Jackson and crew deserve
any sexual favor they want from anyone that they choose from
now until the end of time, just because they were able to
pull off these cinematic miracles. There were a thousands
ways they could have fucked these films up. And they didn’t
do a damned one of them.
Okay, they could have been a tad shorter. Don’t get me
wrong, I loved every minute of these films. I just think that
Jackson was a little too in love with his native New Zealand
countryside. Sure, all that greenery and those mountains are
quite beautiful. But do we really need another 5-minute montage
of midgets on horses riding past a stream near a tree? Apparently,
we do.
But really, The Return of the King wasn’t that
long. The three and a half hours goes by quicker than you
might think. And once you hook up the catheter to your urethra,
you barely notice it at all. And I didn’t even mind the
extra long ending. A filmed story that totals over 9 hours
of screen time deserves a half-hour dénouement. Absolutely.
It needs a dénouement with false ending after false
ending, every one fading to white so the audience claps; only
to discover that Jackson needed to show us another midget
on a horse near a river next to a tree. Don’t argue with
a genius.
Of course, there was that one bit when, during Aragorn’s
coronation, he started. That made total narrative sense. I
now want all elected and appointed leaders to start doing
that. When Howard Dean wins the election in 2004 (it could
happen) I want him to sing. Then he can get on a horse with
a midget near a river next to a tree.
But, that’s such a minor, minor quibble. Really, Return
of the King was as impeccable as the two films that preceded
it. The story, the acting, the directing, the cinematography
were all flawless. And such attention to detail! Do you know
how much chain mail was made specifically for these films?
A lot! Jackson and crew had all of New Zealand making armor
and chain mail and swords for this film. Unfortunately now
that the shooting is over, the entire Kiwi economy is going
to go belly up; just like the Dutch and those fucking tulips.
These movies were works of art. Great epic tales of good versus
evil, wrong versus right, action versus inaction, man versus…
a giant evil eye in the sky. Okay, that part just confused
me. The big bad, the terrible evil thing that everyone was
scared of was an eye? “Gandalf, it’s looking at
us, again.” “Ignore it an it will go away, Pippen.”
And what the hell kind of use does an eye have for a ring,
anyway? Eyes don’t have hands! “We must prevent
the ring from falling into Sauron’s hands!” “Sauron
doesn’t have any hands, Gandalf.” “Shut up
the fuck up, Pippen.”
But who am I to argue with genius? The Lord of the Rings:
Return of the King is the final chapter of the greatest
movie series of all time. It is full of action, emotion, action,
majesty, magic, and most importantly, homoerotic subtext!
I’ve had enough longing looks between midgets on horses
riding near streams next to trees. I want hot midget sex!
Samewise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins are the queerest characters
of the year. And this is has been a damned queer year. There’s
been “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” becoming a
television phenomenon, Massachusetts repealing a ban on gay
marriage, and Howard Dean declaring that he is metrosexual
(a metrosexual is basically a straight man that moisturizes).
But all of these queer folks are overshadowed by Sam and Frodo,
a pair of midgets who like to go camping. Their bond is threatened
when Frodo becomes attached to Gollum, his man-slave who runs
around in nothing more than a fur g-string. But, at the end
of the movie, true love prevails, and Sam and Frodo have a
modest ring ceremony.
Think my analysis is wrong? Watch the movie again and see
for yourself. It’s only three and a half hours long.
Go ahead. I dare you.
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Above:
My halloween costume for the next 10 years
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