Article About Casting

[the phantom]

A friend emailed this article to me the other day and I thought that it made some really good points, so I figured I would post it here to see if there were any other Downers who liked what it had to say about the movies.

August 18, 2005

The Lord of the Rings was a blockbuster. The world-wide sales numbers are as follows- Fellowship of the Ring- $860,700,000, The Two Towers- $921,600,000, Return of the King- $1,129,219,252.

Those are some great numbers. All three of the movies are in the top ten in the world!

But, when you consider that the source material is the greatest novel that has ever been written (I don't think I need to back up that claim- it's a well documented fact), then the movies should have done a lot better than what they did. Surely it should've shot past Titanic to the number one spot. Titanic is based on a true story, for crying out loud! How could a story that has to stay within the bounds of this world ever compete with a story set in an imaginary world? It doesn't make sense.

So, why did The Lord of the Rings not live up to its potential?

Well, the answer is simple, and there is no way to tiptoe around the truth- the casting for The Lord of the Rings was an absolute disaster. Peter Jackson hired bad, unknown actors over experienced actors because he knew he wouldn't have to pay them as much.

Money over quality.

When I first saw the list of names, I hoped that they were all talented people just waiting for their breakthrough roles, but my hope was proven to be misplaced when the movies were released.

Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Sean Bean, John Rhys-Davies, etc; the cast was a collection of obscure actors with not one shred of big-movie experience between them. No movie goer had heard of any of them, and for a good reason- they are terrible actors.

And at the least Peter Jackson should have hired an all British cast since he apparently wanted everyone to have a British accent (which was wrong, of course, everyone should've had a Quenya accent, or Numenorean accent, or something like that). Elijah Wood was the only Brit, and it was easy to tell. While Wood's accent was flowing and effortless, the rest of the cast sounded like an awful Monty Python impersonation. Ian McKellen's fake Brit accent was especially bad, and by the end of the movie Jackson had allowed McKellen slip back into his native Alabaman accent.

And Elijah, despite his good accent, was a terrible fit for Frodo. Frodo was, according to Tolkien, celebrating his 144th birthday in the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. By the end of the book, after his long journey, he is nearly 300. So why in the world would you cast a fourteen year old in that role? It makes no sense.

The part of Aragorn was one of the worst jobs of casting ever. In the book, he is described as extremely whiny and temperamental, but that is completely lost in the movies. In Professor Tolkien's novel, Aragorn spends pages upon pages wishing that Gandalf was still alive and that he didn't have to call the shots, and moping over the fact that his decisions were always wrong. Viggo Mortensen attempts to mope on a few occasions, but he just isn't good at it. A better choice for the role would have been Hayden Christensen (aka Anakin Skywalker of Star Wars). Hadyn could have brought the necessary whininess as well as a bit of extra height to the table (Aragorn was supposed to be roughly eight feet tall- Viggo misses that by over two feet).

Also, the movie seemed a bit old and stuffy (largely because of poor acting). With a few changes in the cast and some extremely minor tweaks to the story line, the movie could have made billions upon billions.

So here is the perfect cast for the movies-

Gandalf- This character was too easy to confuse with Harry Potter's Dumbledore- so obviously a change should have been made. I would've gone with a younger, "hipper" Gandalf. The perfect man for the task- Ashton Kutcher. He could add a bit of humor to the movie by "punking" other members of the Fellowship during their journey.

Sauron- The big baddie, the top nasty man, the epitome of evil... Who should've been cast in this role? A bald-headed Mike Myers.

Galadriel- Powerful and full of pride, someone you either love or hate, and someone who was always on Middle Earth's magazine covers. Who better for the part than Tiger Woods?

Aragorn- Peter Jackson and his staff could've done quite a bit with Aragorn. For instance, to update the movie a bit, Aragorn could be made into a medieval James Bond, and played by Pierce Brosnan.

Eowyn and Arwen- To continue the James Bond theme, these two could be the "Bond girls" of the movie. Otto wasn't bad, but Liv Tyler was just a horrible fit for Arwen. I mean- wasn't Arwen supposed to be pretty? No offense, but Tyler looks horrible. Perhaps Arwen could be played by beautiful, curly-haired hockey star Jaromir Jagr.

Elrond- To further expand the Bond theme, Elrond, Aragorn's authority figure, could be played by Judi Dench.

Saruman- Christopher Lee is too much of an upstart to bring the necessary gravitas to a role like Saruman. I would suggest Rowan Atkinson.

Now there is a great cast! That's a movie that could do billions instead of measly millions.

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien is a timeless classic- one of the greatest works of literature in the history of the world. Its screen version deserves better actors than what it got.

-Pam Hotthen

About the author: Pam Hotthen is much smarter than you, therefore you are in no position to question any facts, figures, opinions, or uses of grammar, punctuation, and spelling in the article above.