Peter Jackson's unequalled masterpiece fantasy achievement of a thrice-blessed trilogy, Lord of the Hugs, er, Rings was the ultimate realization of the fabled Tolkien story. (Or is it storied Tolkien fable?) That hulking beast of a narrative will not have to suffer interpretation again until some new medium is invented, like when we all start watching little plays produced by tiny nano-Peter Jacksons, nano-actors and nano-costume designers who'll live in the nano-Hollywoods we'll all have implanted in our optic nerves by Sony.
The universally lauded epic had only one fairly major flaw. It had...what must be...the longest...most drawn out... epilogue...in the...hissss-tory of cinema. Almost like, everyone involved knew that they had done such a good job that no one would mind sitting through a 25-MINUTE POSTSCRIPT!
Much of this lengthy coda was taken up by — there's nothing else for it — a hobbit hug orgy. After being rescued by giant eagles from the rock in the middle of Mt Doom's lava river, Frodo awakes in a soft-focus fluff cloud of a bed. After a few choice words with a weirdly giggly old Dame Maggie Smith, er, Gandalf the Wizard, he's accosted by his two giddy hobbit buddies in a cringe-worthy slow-motion hug frolic...in bed.
For an eternity it seems, minutes even, Frodo and Pinkus and Marty, or whatever their names, are in full-out fur-flying hug-o-rama-lama, while one-by-one the rest of the Fellowship, the adult faction, wander in, to leer regally at the spectacle of these child-like creatures coming this close to losing it and getting it on — whatever it is that hobbits might do.
Gimli, the strapping dwarf, is first, and seems to be casting his gimlet eyes with a special appreciation for frolicking with smooth hobbit flesh — that which is not covered by fur, that is. He's been there, it appears.
Then comes Legolas, the elf, and the only one in the room who looks remotely — or legally! — huggable...since he's also the one that most resembles an actual GIRL.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Aaman
Funny, enjoyed the spin - of course, our Duke De Mondo has had similar thoughts in the past - the Sam/Frodo connection is deep
2 - Eric Olsen
thanks Billy, very nice - there's a lot of damn hobbit-hugging in that extended denouement
3 - Bennett
Nice laughs, this is. I agree with your son. Way to much license was taken at the end of the story.
Wholesale hug-and-cry-o-ramas, but none of the great stuff from the third book.
No "Rousing of the Shire", man I was pissed off at that. Instead, we got weepy weep.
Feh!
Bennett
4 - Nancy
Oh, & I thought I was the only one in the world thought there was too much sweetness & light in ROTK. Thank god!
5 - Temple Stark
:-0
Of course, you forgot the new imminent stage version.
No, seriously.
I envison, appropriately, another "Ring of The Nibelung" (a la Wagner)
6 - Nancy
...a ... a STAGE version? What next, LOTR On Ice? Maybe I should have rooted for the bad guys after all...?
7 - Eric Olsen
don't forget the puppet version - but will they be able to rise to the vertiginous level of Thuderbirds?
8 - Temple Stark
The Thuderbirds fell flat. You must have meant something else :-)
Thunderbirds are go !!!
9 - Eric Olsen
hee hee - Freudian slip?
10 - Phillip Winn
Billy, don't let your insecurities spill out so publicly next time.
There, there, it's okay. Want a hug?
:-)
11 - Eric Olsen
those advocates of the Hug Principle should keep in mind the lessons presented in "Of Mice and Men"
12 - bhw
All I remember is the Looney Tunes version: "I want to hug him and squeeze him and call him George."
13 - Eric Olsen
exactly: he didn't mean to squish the (insert small furry creature here)
14 - Tan The Man
Most of my friends hated that scene. But I liked it because I felt it was really that rare moment in the entire trilogy that everyone was at peace. After what turned out to be an almost 10 hour epic, how could you not appreciate the serenity of knowing that your friends survived alongside you. I'm getting chills thinking about it.
15 - Eric Olsen
that's a good point too, Tan
16 - Bennett
Yeah, but in the book, the return to the Shire is where Merry and Pippen show some of the steel they earned in battle, and a very poignant confrontation with a much reduced Sauruman (Sharkey).
One of my favorite "post Mt Doom" moments.
17 - Eric Berlin
I sat through RoTK for the first time during a midnight showing and had had about three hours of sleep the previous night, working on my grad school thesis.
I was like, Come On Already!
18 - Natalie Davis
I liked the hug scenes for exactly the same reason. Made for a great time to weep tears of joy and relief; my son and I both hugged and cried throughout. Still, given a choice, I would have rather seen the Scouring of the Shire.
19 - Eric Berlin
Was is Scouring or Razing ?
20 - Natalie Davis
Scouring.
21 - Eric Olsen
me too, that's where we found out that part of the "purpose" of the great journey was to prepare the other three hobbits to lead the Shire beyond the idyllic, passive provincialism of the past and to take charge of their own destinies.
I understand the time and attention constraints facing Jackson, but the absence from the movie of any ass-kicking back home was my only real disappointment with the whole trilogy
22 - Aaman
Yep, returning war heroes cleaning out the closet (and local heroes) might have been a bit uncomfortable, perhaps:)
I read the LOTR once a year or thereabouts, and generally feel misty-eyed when the ships sail for the West
23 - Eric Olsen
unlike most modern myths, it's a myth that is actually mythic
24 - RJ
I agree with the original post. I loved the entire trilogy (watched it all in one sitting, on DVD, all nine hours or so worth). But the last half-hour or so of the last movie was so...lame.
All we saw were hugs and tearful goodbyes. Are these hardened warriors, fresh from a great, incredibly violent, victory over pure evil? Or are these weepy pussies, possibly all homosexual, who want nothing more than to grasp each other in special places and plant sloppy wet kisses on each other?
Epilogues should be brief, not endless and treacly. That is, if anything, the one failing of this magnificient trilogy.
25 - Aaman
Anyone else see the google-ad up there "Frodo has failed:The Fellowship failed - Bush has the ring - free t-shirts,cards and stickers"
Funny - never thought of John Kerry as a hobbit