Saturday, Debtember 22, 2001
“Three times for geeks, who will pay.”
Yup. Spring and I saw Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring yet again today, with yet another group of friends. At least this time I actually like the film, unlike Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (which I saw not only three times, but three times on opening day, with various groups of friends, but that's another story).
This movie is likely another maneuver to capitalize on the new found infatuation of visually oriented youth with bright and dazzling display of the occult, witchcraft and evil. It is another presentation of using evil to fight evil. And it presents sorcery as both “good” and bad. Violently. Grotesquely. While the story being based on evil fighting evil with evil is bad enough, it is clear the filmmakers capitalized on extremism. Tolkien certainly described the evil and demonic characters in his novel quite grotesquely but not nearly as hideous and vile as those in this movie. After more than 500 movies I suspect I can say with credibility that any of the imagery of evil you have seen before now does not match the evil in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. And there are two more Lord of the Rings coming.
ChildCare Action Project (CAP) review of The Fellowship of the Ring
So the evil presented in this movie is worse than that of The Exorcist? Or even of Hellraiser (which the ChildCare Action Project does not have a review on, oddly enough)?
Even the scripture they quote in supporting their view is, in my opinion, a bit shakey. Let's see, they use Deuteronomy 18:9-12, but there I'm guessing that Moses is using his authority to make sure none past him surpass his power. The Ten Plagues? The Passover? The parting of the Red Sea? Shall we then condemn Daniel? Need I even start with Jesus?
The rest of the references are from the New Testament, which isn't too surprising since a tenet of Christian thought (from at least the 10th century onwards) is that God has removed Himself from intervention in this world and that any magic done is no longer through Him but through Satan (which, in my mind, clinches the notion that Christianity is a death based religion but that's a topic for some other time). It is also worth noting that J. R. R. Tolkien was an ardent Christian (Catholic I do believe) and even convinced athiest C. S. Lewis to convert (and who later went on to write the Chronicles of Narnia, a Christian allegory).
