Sauron the Eye

[Lord of Angmar]

I read this in an Oscar-related <I>Newsweek</I> interview with Peter Jackson:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>[Interviewer:]<B>We won't pester you with a lot of geeky "Lord of the Rings" questions, but could you just explain one thing? Sauron is the bad guy. He's a disembodied evil eye, and he wants the ring. What's he going to do with a ring? He's an eye!</B> <P>[Jackson:][<I>Laughs</I>] Well, in the book there is a vague reference made to him slowly gaining some sort of physical form. So eventually he'll probably get a finger to put the ring on. He'll be an eye <I>and</I> a finger.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I just found that humorous. Quite a humorous explanation of something we've been debating on this site for some time.<P>-Angmar<P>P.S. Discuss.

[Kransha]

Brings up thoughts from another thread.<P>In the movie, whatever happened to the Ear of Sauron, or the Nose of Sauron, or the Pinky Toe of Sauron.<P>Does Sauron wear underwear? Does Sauron have a nose-ring? and earring? a tongue stud?<P>I;m sure we can all agree that Sauron has contacts, since an eye that big without glasses would need something. That's why he got the customized "lidless flame" contact lense.

[Knight of Gondor]

I'll just repeat a couple of things. First of all, Sauron wasn't just an Eye, he was also a Mouth. Of course, PJ cut his Mouth out of RotK...<P>*Pictures commercial*<P>Ben Stein - "For red, dry eyes, try clear eyes!"<P>Mouth of Sauron - "Woooooow."<P>I kind of thought that the Eye was just the representation. That <I>wasn't</I> all Sauron was portrayed to be, was it, just an eye sitting on top of a tower? There was a spirit inside the tower.

[Kaiserin]

Hilarious! In a silly way so.<P>"The Eye of Sauron" is a synecdoche. I did think it was rather misleading to portray Sauron as a literal, physical, eye. Viewers would probably want to ask why he hadn't made himself "the One Contact Lens of Power" if he didn'thave any fingers.<p>[ 10:48 PM February 03, 2004: Message edited by: Kaiserin ]

[Lathriel]

LOL!!!!!<BR>This should have been "The Lord of the Contact Lens."<BR>But seriously I always thought Sauron would slowly gain his form back and then of course he had a finger on which he can put the ring.

[Silmiel of Imladris]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>I'll just repeat a couple of things. First of all, Sauron wasn't just an Eye, he was also a Mouth. Of course, PJ cut his Mouth out of RotK... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Hmmm... the mouth is in the video game. He looks like a combination between the Witch King and the Easterlings or at least the people PJ considered Easterlings. We might just see him yet for they made the video game at the same time as the movie so they must have based the PS2 mouth on something. Or are my hopes too high?

[Armetiel]

In the book he definetly has a body as Gollum says "he has four fingers, but that's all he needs" or something like that...In the movie he definitly does not have a body...*wonders how long it would take him to grow a finger to put the ring on.*

[Elassar 516]

I know the quote, Armetiel, I believe it's after Frodo says somthing about Isildur cutting the ring from Saurons hand and then Gollum says somthing to the affect of "Only nine fingers he has on the black hands, but they are enough". I always thought it was a contradiction as it is the only time after Isildur cut the ring that Sauron is discribed as anything other than just a big scary eye wreathed in flame. Of course the counter argument is that without any fingers (or toes!) Sauron wouldn't be able to use the ring. The only solution I can come up with is that Tolkien either over looked this or never got around to explaining it (that I'm aware of), As far as I'm concerned it goes into the same catagory as the whole "why didn't frodo take the eagles to Mordor". Also, I have never liked the way PJ did the Eye of Sauron, there is just somthing about it being <I>on top</I> of the tower, besides, how would he use the Palantir? and what happens if he gets a piece of volcanic ash in his eye?

[The Only Real Estel]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The only solution I can come up with is that Tolkien either over looked this <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I think that although Sauron was a spirit, he also had some sort of a bodily form. He couldn't yet take phsyical or visable form, but I think he was there. So once he got the Ring back & put it on his finger, he'd reassume his phsyical form. I don't know if this really counts as supporting evidence, but Gandalf talked about how they 'drove him out' (of Mirkwood), & 'but he only feigned to flee from us'. It does kind've sound like he has a form, just not a visable one. Or I could be waaay off base .

[Sharkû]

Couple of things wrong with the last few posts:<BR>A Wrong forum<BR>B topic is old<BR>C it's in our FAQ for crying out loud

[Reg Pither]

I, too, think that Sauron must have had some sort of corpereal form. To be honest, I think PJ's ridiculously literal interpretation of 'the Eye of Sauron' was one of the worst things in the films. In the books, the Eye was always a simple metaphor for the spread of Sauron's power, will and influence. (Including a bit of palantir use, of course...). So to see it actually depicted as a giant Eye acting as a searchlight was just embarassing.

[Carorëiel]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>"The Eye of Sauron" is a synecdoche.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Are you sure? Seems more metonymic to me.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I too thought that the representation of Sauron was the worst part of the film.<P>It is quite interesting to see that quote from Jackson, <B>Angmar.</B> Apparently he really does not know that Sauron had physical form. Now I'm not going to be too critical of Jackson here. After all, I only found out that Sauron had physical form a short while ago, and there are other things in the story which I just do not know much about.<P>However, it strikes me as strange that no-one who worked on 'The Lord of the Rings' movies seemed to know that Sauron had physical form (which is suggested by Jackson's quote).<P>Other than being disloyal to the books, I feel that the <B>EYE</B> of Sauron failed in its task in the movie. It was supposed to easily show to the non-book audience an idea of Sauron as a threat. What actually happened, was that this vague representation not only baffled film-goers with regards to what Sauron was, but also gave one of the best and biggest films of all time a 'cartoon' bad guy.

[Kransha]

Actually, there have been worse interpretations of Sauron. Think Bakshi, the giant impercievable silhoutte with the horns. But having him as a lone eyeball with no form does make him lose a lot of love as a villain.