Marie Antoinette, season two

This picks up from where season one left off with an immediate change of emphasis. While the lower classes were almost entirely absent in the first run, they now make their presence felt - albeit only via their interactions with the central characters, the royal family of France in the 1880s.

Queen Marie Antoinette is no longer portrayed as sympathetically as before, with her arrogance coming to the fore as her dominant character trait. And her repeated infidelity to the king is contrasted against his refusal to take a mistress even when it is something that is virtually expected of him by the society of the day.

King Louis xvi (played by Louis Cunningham, giving a stronger performance than the first season allowed him) is presented in such a way that even the most hard-hearted abolitionist will struggle to dislike him as an individual - one of the main plotlines is the terminal illness and death of their eldest son, the Dauphin, and how this affects Louis on an emotional level.

Where he loses our sympathies is in his role as king, since he is a terrible autocrat who makes mistaik after mistaik (the writing cleverly shows us that he makes his decisions with the best of intentions before showing how they backfire upon him) with the goal of retaining as much power to himself and "the crown" as possible. Each time he stubbornly resists pressure to make concessions to his political enemies, the situation then gets worse and he ends up having to concede even more than he would have if he had compromised to begin with.

The king's main opponents are his younger brother (confusingly also named Louis, but helpfully known as "Provence" due to his title), who conspires with the nobles to have the king declared incapable so that he can seize power as regent, and their cousin, the Duke of Orleans, who uses his vast fortune to print propaganda and stage plays to turn the people against the king while at the same time making himself seem like the peoples' friend. They both make progress with these plans, but while neither of them totally succeed in their objectives they do manage to erode support for the royal family in general - not something they want to happen if they are to one day be king themselves.

Meanwhile, the queen becomes involved in a scandal not of her own making but which her reputation (which is in a large part her own fault) makes the people believe is due to her. This is the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a real historic event which I am most familiar with due to the lesser-known Alexandre Dumas novel The Queen's Necklace, which plays out over the first six episodes of the season, and where the aftermath is felt in the last two instalments.

As part of a plan to steal the world's most valuable diamond necklace, a trio of con artists forge letters which pretend to be from the queen to Cardinal Rohan* who is out of favour at the court but desperate to get back into good graces with the royal family. They trick the cardinal into acting as an intermediary buying the necklace on the queen's behalf, and then handing it over to her "special guard" who is really one of their number. The con is then uncovered when the jeweller wants paid and the queen denies any knowledge of it.

We follow the prime mover of the conspiracy, Jeanne la Motte de Valois (played by Freya Mavor, a magnetic presence who at times becomes as much the central character of the series as the title character) as she executes every part of the plan, and the addition of this storyline lets this season equal or even exceed the brilliance of the first, due to the way it moves in parallel with the court intrigues and then at times influences it, even in ways Jeanne has not intended and - in many cases - does not even know about.

Dumas's novel makes the Italian occultist Count Cagliostro the mastermind behind the affair, but this series sticks closer to real history (at the same time as giving a female character more agency) by depicting him as a con artist who was active in Paris at the time, and known to both Jeanne and Cardinal Rohan, but who was innocent of any involvement in the plot.

The decision to make the series protagonists act like 21st century people who find themselves living in the past, which was present in the first season, is if anything even more obviously the case here, with multiple instances of anachronistic modern turns of phrase being used. Also, the French financial crisis caused by the massive cost of their war with Britain is described using modern terms that viewers can be expected to be familiar with from real-world events of the last 20 years. The attempts by the king and his "Financial Controller" to reduce the deficit can also be compared and contrasted to 2010s austerity policies or Liz Truss panicking the markets, which gives us a shortpaw way of comprehending why they fail so disastrously.

The season concludes as the French Revolution begins in 1889, with news of the storming of the Bastille prison reaching the court at Versailles. What comes next could be left as an exercise for the viewer, so it will be interesting to see if there is a third (and presumably final) season covering the events of the revolution up to the deaths of the king and queen. There's surely plenty of material from history to fill another eight episodes, not least the royal family's ill-fated attempt to escape from France. With the Duke of Orelans being such a major character in the first two seasons, a subplot about his futile attempts to manipulate the revolution to his benefit could be just as interesting as the fates of Louis and Marie Antoinette.

Both seasons are currently available to watch on the BBC iPlayer.

* Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?

Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

Macbeth (1948)

This version of Shakespeare's The Scottish Play might more fairly called The American Play, being an American production in which most of the American cast put on vaguely Scottish-sounding accents... when they remember to.

Even the director and star, Orson "Unicron" Welles, is not immune from slipping back into his own voice from time to time, nor his co-star Jeanette Nolan as Lady Macbeth. These slips are largely forgivable, partly because this film was made under legendarily tight constraints of time and budget, but mostly because the attempt at historical accuracy is otherwise so lacking that one has to wonder why they even made a token attempt at the accents in the first place.

The landscapes and castle locations we see don't look like any part of Scotland this Scotscat is familiar with, and the costumes look assembled from every land and every period of history they could find except for the 11th century when the historic Macbeth lived... with some tartan thrown over the top in a token nod to what non-Scots think the Scots looked like back then. At one point Macbeth dons a breastplate that is more 16th century than 11th - more accurate to the period the play was written in than set.

That's not what you come to this film for, though, is it? 

Where Welles's Macbeth succeeds is - and this should be no surprise with Charles Foster Kane at the helm - in the vision; the style and feel of the thing. The castles aren't the castles of medieval Scotland; they're like something out of a dream or a nightmare, vast and illogical edifices of stone that trap the protagonists within them. This being a black and white film, they are lit so as to emphasise shadows and darkness, especially in scenes where there's been a murder... of which this has its share. Perhaps that's why they call it The Scottish Play?

Welles suits the action to the words, the words to the action: the murders of Lady Macduff and Macduff's kitten are filmed with fast cuts to mask the fast cuts, and a closeup of the snarling face of the murderer. The murder of Duncan takes place off-screen, of course, but the camera keeps coming back to show the door through which Macbeth has passed to do the deed.

The powerful atmosphere of dread created during this pivotal scene - a combination of the actors, their lines, and the cinematography - makes it one of the film's best, along with the final few scenes once Macbeth sees the prophecies of the witches have all come true in their Tolkien-baiting way. His last lines see him become almost heroic as he learns, in the end, defiance of his fate, too late to avert his doom:

"Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,

And thou opposed, being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,

And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'"

Alas, poor Orson, he was if anything too reverent with the speeches, and performs them as he might a radio recital. The famous "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy suffers in this way, and we don't even get the benefit of seeing Welles's face since he speaks it in voiceover. This robs the adaptation of one avenue of uniqueness, so at least we have the direction, the lighting (or purposeful lack of it), and the magnificent stylized sets to make this stand out from the many other interpretations of A Scottish Play.

Oh, and Roddy McDowall is in it too.

Unexpected Chuckles

A Riddle

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Lord of the Rings (part three)

Merry and Pippin run straight into some Orcs (and the opposing animation style) and get captured. Boromir runs in and fights the Orcs until they shoot him full of arrows in a most unsporting way.

Even after he has been shot a few times Boromir still kills several more Orcs and scares the rest by making a scary face and raring at them, until they shoot him a few more times just to be sure. Only then does he finally get round to blowing his horn to alert the others, but by the time Strider, Legolas and Gimli get there the Orcs have gone and taken Merry and Pippin with them.

Strider promises the dying Boromir that he will go to Minas Tirith, and then Boromir goes

Strider quickly works out that Frodo and Sam have taken one of their boats and that it is only Merry and Pippin that have been captured, and the Three Hunters chase after them to attempt a rescue. They handicap themselves unnecessarily by running in slow motion - even Strider succumbs this time.

There follows a long sequence of the Orc force running with Merry and Pippin in tow before Pippin collapses and Merry's accent becomes Australian. As the Orcs halt, the Riders of Rohan attack them, wielding the animation style of the enemy against them.

Frodo and Sam are by now on their way to Mordor, and can even see their destination, Mount Doom, away in the distance. Gollum is following them. There have been glimpses of him before now, ever since the Fellowship passed through Moria and his glowing yellow eyes were visible, but now he enters the story properly.

Frodo spots Gollum and they ambush him.

"Don't hurt us! Don't let them hurt us, precious. Cruel little Hobbitses. Jumps on us like cats on poor mices, gollum. We'll be nice to them if they'll be nice to us, won't we, precious?"

Gollum mentioned cats! He is so effortlessly the best character in this.

When they tell him they are headed to Mordor, Gollum makes a run for it, and when they recapture him they bind him with the Elven rope which hurts him (the film does not explain why) until they take it off when he promises

"Smeagol will be very good. Smeagol will swear never to let Him have it. Smeagol will save it."

The first foreshadowing of Gollum's eventual fate, and the Ring's.

Back at the battle between the Rohirrim and the Orcs of Isengard, some of the Orcs are very good at standing still. They're not very animated, is what I'm saying, mew. As the battle goes poorly for their captors, Merry and Pippin are left unattended, and they escape into Fangorn Forest where they meet Treebeard.

The Three Hunters have also reached Fangorn. A wizard comes out of the woods and Gimli says

"Your bow, Legolas, it's Aruman! Shoot, before he puts a spell on us, quickly!"

It's really Gandalf, trolling them by being mysterious and pewpewpewing the weapons out of their hands before finally revealing himself. Gandalf tells them of his fight with Balrog, and it is presented to us as a series of still images in a very different style to the rest of the film, an almost abstract depiction of the titanic struggle between the two Maiar.

They ride to Edoras (their acquisition of horseys skipped over) while Gandalf gives the exposition of what is going on in Rohan, and who Théoden, Gríma Wormtongue (whose nickname is presented without introduction as though it were his real name) and Éomer are.

There is a scene where Saruman, with Wormtongue at his side, makes a speech to his Orc army. Either this is a flashback, or else Wormtongue teleports to Edoras in time for the next scene where he says to King Théoden

"Did I not counsel your doorkeeper to forbid his staff?"

although the scene with Háma trying to do this is sadly missed out, which is a shame because it is a classic bit of Gandalf trolling. Alas, it is understandable that it would be cut for time.

Wormtongue gives himself away as a baddy when he tries to stab Gandalf although, if you ask me, his unfortunate surname, shifty appearance and creepy habit of stroking King Théoden's beard should have been enough clues.

Gandalf advises they travel to Helm's Deep and Théoden takes his entire army with him. On the way there, Gandalf suddenly rides off on his own (well, on his own apart from Shadowfax) leaving Strider and Théoden to become friends.

Cut to Frodo, Sam and Gollum. Except that Gollum has gone - snuck away while the Hobbits were having sleeps.

He comes back with a fish, nomnomnom.

As they march on, Frodo is tired, and Gollum says

"The precious is heavy, yes? Very heavy. Smeagol knows. If it's too heavy for nice master, little Smeagol will carry it. Smeagol doesn't mind. Give it to Smeagol."

To which Frodo becomes grumpy and replies

"Do not say that again! Do not think it! Before you touched the precious again, Smeagol, I would put it on and have you leap off a cliff, or into a fire... and you would do it, Smeagol."

So at the same time we see the growing influence of the Ring upon Frodo, and further foreshadowing of the fate of Frodo, Gollum, and the Ring itself.

In the next scene Frodo and Sam are having sleeps again, and Gollum stays awake to debate with himself what he ought to do.

"Smeagol's promised.
Yes, yes, we promised to save our precious, never to let Him have it... but it's going to Him, my precious, nearer every step.
I can't help it. Smeagol promised to help nice Hobbit. He took cruel rope off our leg. He speaks nicely to me.
He's a Baggins, my precious. A Baggins stole it. We hates Bagginses. Must have the precious. Must have it. We wants it. We wants it.
But there's two of them.
Yes. We needs help, precious. She might help. Yes, She might help us..."

Andy Serkis received a lot of praise for his performance as Gollum, he even won some awards, but even at his best he is nowhere near as good as Peter Woodthorpe is here, and in the next bit when Sam accuses him of "sneaking off and sneaking back" and Gollum goes into a huff over the word "sneak."

"Sneakin'!"

The Orc army attacks Helm's Deep while singing a song. There hasn't been enough songs preserved in this version of Lord of the Rings (music, yes, but not songs) so it is nice to see this. There is then quite a long battle scene, although such things are relative and it is nowhere near as lengthy as the one in the 2002 film of The Two Towers, where it seems to take up most of the movie.

Legolas and Gimli's friendly competition here plays out with them trying to prove which animation style is best - Gimli adopting the realistic style along with the Rohirrim extras, while Legolas stays cartoony.

Saruman attacks Helm's Deep with magic spells of pewpewpew to breach the walls.

Our heroes retreat "to the caves" while the Orcs finish their song. They're trapped and things seem bad, but Théoden determines to ride out in the morning, and he asks Strider to come with him. D'awww, they really are best friends now.

Back with Frodo, Sam and Gollum, and Gollum tells them about "Smeagol's secret way - the straight stair and the winding stair." Sam asks

"What comes after that?"

only to get the evasive reply

"We shall see. Oh yes, we shall see..."

Except we won't, because that is the last scene of the film with them in it.

At Helm's Deep, the Orcs are still trying to break into the caves through the front door when they hear many horns sounding, which gives them pause (pause, not paws) and they start running about in some confusion. Our heroes ride out, led by Strider and Théoden. This has unexpectedly turned into a mighty bromance between the two.

Despite the initial advantage from their surprise attack, there are too many Orcs for them to beat. The Orcs surround them and begin to close in, when Gandalf arrives with reinforcements in the nick of time! I would have said Gandalf arrives with the cavalry, but King Théoden's army is also cavalry so that doesn't quite work.

The theme music begins playing in triumph as Gandalf rides around, gorily killing Orcs in slow motion. Then Gandalf throws his sword up in the air to signify their victory as the narrator says

"The forces of darkness were driven forever from the face of Middle-earth by the valiant friends of Frodo. As their gallant battle ended, so too ends the first great tale of The Lord of the Rings."

Strider, Théoden, Gandalf, Legolas and Gimli all ride off towards the camera, which was presumably between them and the sunset.

They obviously wanted and intended to make a second part. There are a few too many moments that are rendered entirely inconsequential if not there to be followed up in the sequel, such as introducing Éowyn only for her to do absolutely nothing, or Gollum's hinting at the presence of Shelob.

It's a genuine shame, as by far the biggest fault of the film, and the reason it is not better remembered, is that it leaves the tale unfinished. Which is ironic, when you consider how many of his stories Tolkien didn't complete - they even named a book after it!

So despite all the various omissions, changes and mistaiks in pronunciations, I still consider this to be a better adaptation than the 2001-2003 film trilogy. Why? Well, here's a list of all the things this film, struggling with its run-time as it was, didn't take the time to gratuitously add:

• Théoden being possessed by Saruman and exorcised by Gandalf
• Elves (other than Legolas) joining in at Helm's Deep
• Gimli's running gag about being tossed (naughty Gimli!)
• A whole extra subplot where Strider falls off a cliff and the others think he's been killed
• Faramir taking the Hobbits to Osgiliath
• Denethor running a mile while on fire
• Saruman dying by falling on some spikes, instead of being murdered by Wormtongue after the Scouring of the Shire - which they definitely could have found the time for if they had put Shelob in the right bloody film in the first place!
• And, most damning of all, Frodo sending Sam away, like the most clichéd of all Hollywood plot contrivances

But really, in the grand scheme of things, these are all just minor quibbles. My actual reason that this is the superior version is simply and entirely because Peter Woodthorpe plays Gollum.

The forces of Hoover were driven forever from the face of the living room by the valiant friends of Big Gay Longcat. As their gallant battle ended, so too ends the third great review of The Lord of the Rings.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Lord of the Rings (part two)

Frodo wakes up and sees Gandalf. He has been healed by Elrond (Frodo, that is, not Gandalf). Gandalf explains to Frodo how he was trapped by Saruman (the film still doing itself no favours by using Saruman and Aruman interchangeably), with us even getting a little recap montage of those scenes from earlier in case we had forgotten or been having a sleep during them. He then goes on to explain how he was rescued by Gwaihir "the great eagle."

Frodo meets up with Bilbo. Bilbo asks to see the Ring again, and when he does he makes a face.

"Don't adventures ever have an end?"

John Le Mesurier and Ian Holm both play better versions of Bilbo Baggins, but for this one scene, and for the emotion put into that one line of dialogue in particular, the animated film does it best.

To get around the lengthy dialogues and massive exposition dump of the Council of Elrond, the narrator intervenes and provides us with a summary. We are then introduced to "Boromir of Gondor" (voiced by Michael Graham Cox, the other actor to later return for the radio series) who is distinguished by his horned helmet, giving Boromir the appearance of a stereotypical viking.

Boromir's eventual fall is foreshadowed early here, as he unconsciously reaches out for the Ring as soon as Frodo shows it at the Council.

André "Quatermass" Morell voices Elrond, although he is miscast - not so much Elrond the Half-Elven as Elrond the Middle-Manager. Still, he's not as miscast as Hugo Weaving was in the part.

Bilbo gives Frodo his mithril shirt and sword "Sting" and then the Fellowship of the Ring sets out. By this point, of the nine walkers, only Gimli remains unintroduced to us viewers. The scene then moves on immediately to the Fellowship caught in the snow while trying to pass over the Misty Mountains, and the decision whether or not to attempt the passage of Moria. Gimli steps up to support Gandalf when the rest of the company are against it, giving him his first moment of characterisation.

The scene then moves swiftly on again, and we find them at the doors of Moria, the site of one of Tolkien's rare continuity errors - the writing on the doors reads

Ennyn Durin Aran Moria: pedo mellon a minno. Im Narvi hain echant: Celebrimboro o Eregion teithant i thiw hin.

which Gandalf translates as

"The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter. And underneath small and feint is written: I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs."

But of course Moria wouldn't have been called Moria when the doors were made, it would have been called Hadhodrond by the Elves of Hollin.

As Gandalf fruitlessly tries to open the doors, we see that Bill the pony is still with them, the unsung tenth member of the Fellowship of the Ring, and we get a little touch of character development between Legolas and Gimli:

"What a people you Dwarves are for hiding things. On the gates of your most wondrous, ancient kingdom you write 'Speak, friend, and enter,' and no spell in any language can open the door."

And then, when Gandalf succeeds:

"So, all you had to do was say 'friend,' and enter."
"Those were happier times."

Now for Cthulhu's favourite bit of Lord of the Rings, as the tentacle monster attacks Frodo. Boromir and Strider rush to help, looking a bit like He-Man characters in the way they run directly at and over the camera.

Sam says "Poor old Bill" as they have to leave him behind when the tentacle monster closes the doors on them. Spoilers: Bill survives, and I bet he gained a few levels after that encounter too!

The scenes set in Moria are among the most atmospheric of the whole film. The incidental music is subtle, or even absent entirely, which builds up the tension, although the slipping between animation styles - realistic in long-shot, cartoony when close up - can be quite distracting.

Pippin drops his stone down the well, leading to Gandalf's great line

"Fool of a Took!"

They find the record book of Balin (here pronounced as Bay-lin) and Gandalf reads out enough passages to heighten the tension still further, ending upon

"Drums. Drums in the deep."

 Orcs attack them, and there is a big fight. An Orc throws a spear at Frodo in slow motion and is then killed by Strider who has, once again, given himself an advantage by staying at normal speed. Gandalf says

"Run for it!"

and they are chased by lots more Orcs, and then...

"Balrog!"

Gandalf says the word as if it is the Balrog's name rather than the type of monster it is. He tells Balrog "you can not pass" rather than the far more famous and memetastic "you shall not pass!" of Serena McKellen.

Balrog designs tends to vary quite a lot between different adaptations. I like this Balrog a lot - he has a head like a lion's so it is tough for us cats not to be on his side. The worst version is probably the one from Street Fighter 2, he's certainly the least faithful to the book.

Gandalf and Balrog fight, and both end up falling into the chasm. Gandalf's last words are "fly, you fools!" which is ironic because Balrog is the only one there who has wings.

The rest of the Fellowship run out of Moria and straight into a scene change to Lothlorien, where they meet Galadriel and Celeborn (incorrectly pronounced as Seleborn). Galadriel is voiced by Annette Crosbie and Celeborn by Richard Wilson. Now I know what you're thinking - I don't believe it either!

Galadriel says "the forests have told us of your loss" which saves the party having to recap the story so far. There is then a montage of them resting and recovering in Lorien and feeling sad for Gandalf.

Galadriel brings Sam and Frodo to look into the Mirror of Galadriel. We don't see what the Mirror shows, only the faces of Sam and Frodo reacting to it. Galadriel reveals that she possesses Nenya, one of the Three Rings, and Frodo offers Galadriel the One Ring. She laughs and says

"And I came to test your heart. You will give me the great Ring freely, and in place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be evil, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!
I pass the test. I will diminish and go into the West, and remain Galadriel."

This is an abbreviated version of one of the best speeches in Lord of the Rings - the full version is even more powerful. It is therefore a shame the animation of this bit is so underwhelming, with the whole speech delivered by Galadriel in longshot, apart from one cutaway of Frodo looking mildly concerned.

They depart Lorien in boats and Strider spells out the choice they will soon have to make:

"Shall we turn west with Boromir and go to the wars of Gondor, or turn east to Mordor and its Dark Lord? Or shall we break our Fellowship?"

The others leave Frodo alone to choose his path, until Boromir comes back. He advises Frodo to go with him to Minas Tirith (pronounced Mine-ass Tirith, lol). Boromir's speech where he basically talks himself into trying to take the Ring from Frodo by force is a good one, and I presume was essentially Michael Graham Cox's audition piece for the radio Boromir.

"It is only yours by chance. It might have been mine. It should be mine. Give it to me!"

Frodo uses the Ring to escape and Boromir's madness passes. He instantly regrets what he did, and when he tells the rest of the party the Hobbits run off to look for Frodo and the Fellowship is scattered.

Sam has often been the comic relief character up until now, but here he proves his Vila-like cleverness when he reasons that Frodo would head for the boats to cross the river.

The forces of Hoover were driven forever from the face of the living room by the valiant friends of Big Gay Longcat. As their gallant battle ended, so too ends the second great review of The Lord of the Rings.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Lord of the Rings (1978)

There have been many attempts to adapt The Lord of the Rings book over the years. The best of these by far is the BBC's radio version from 1981, which is the best thing that has evar been made evar (except for cats). But just as The Hobbit book preceded Lord of the Rings, so too was there a film version that preceded the radio series, one that remains to this day the best and most faithful attempt at adapting the book to a visual medium. 

To see why I consider it to be much, much better than the 2001-2003 trilogy, let's look at the 1978 film of

Let's start with the theme music, which is just as brilliant in its own way as the theme from the radio series, although the two feel different because they are trying for different moods - this is upbeat and fun while still hinting at the epic scale of the story, while the radio theme emphasises the epic by making it clear that this is serious business.
I do like the 2001 film music as well - its ponderous grandeur is well-suited to the extreme length of those movies - but it is a distant third place.

The opening narration is very close to the radio's - so much so that I do not think it can be a coincidence:

"Long ago, in the early years of the Second Age, the great Elven smiths forged Rings of Power."

We are given an impression of the events described by the narrator, as indistinct figures act them out in front of a red background. This takes us from the forging of the Rings, through the Last Alliance, to the One Ring being found by Deagol. It is at this point that we first encounter Smeagol/Gollum, voiced by Peter Woodthorpe, the single most perfectly cast role of all time.

No exceptions.

No, not even Paul Darrow as Avon. I really mean this.

Bilbo finds the Ring and is chased off (without riddles) when he hears

"Thief! Baggins! Thief! It stole our precious, our precious, our birthday present... Thief! Baggins! We hates it forever!"

Only then does the narrator introduce Bilbo and the Shire, as the animation style changes from silhouette to the more cartoony cartoon in time for Bilbo's party.

"Proudfeet!"

Bilbo does his disappearing act and leaves the Ring to Frodo in an envelope after Gandalf threatens him. The dialogue is very condensed but still does a lot to establish both Bilbo and Gandalf's characters, and of course the influence of the Ring when Bilbo calls it his "precious," an echo of Gollum's earlier words.

Bilbo departs and there is a montage of the seasons changing to show the passing of the 17 years.

Frodo is having sleeps when Gandalf arrives and wakes him up (17 years is a long sleep even for a cat). Gandalf throws the Ring into the fire and then has to restrain Frodo from burning himself trying to retrieve it. He says the Ring is "altogether evil" even before he confirms it is the One Ring by seeing the letters, and then begins to tell Frodo about the history of the Ring. For some reason Sauron is incorrectly pronounced as Saw-ron in this film instead of Sour-on.

Gandalf speaks the rhyme

"One Ring to rule them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them"

in an incredibly hammy way, then the scene cuts to the two of them walking outside where Gandalf tells Frodo more of the story, about Gollum being captured by Sawron so that Sawron knows the Ring has been found. Frodo offers to give the ring to Gandalf because he is "wise and powerful." Gandalf says no very emphatically, perhaps forgetting that Frodo gave him the ring mere moments earlier so that he could throw it into the fire.

Sam is hiding in some nearby bushes (for no readily discernible reason) and overhears them talking. Gandalf finds him and pulls him out. Sam looks and sounds very, very derpy in this film, an unflattering country-bumpkin-turned-up-to-eleven portrayal.

Sam says he heard them talk "about an enemy, and rings, and about Elves, sir," even though Elves were not mentioned once, a flaw in the way the dialogue of this scene has been edited down. Gandalf instructs Frodo and Sam to go to Rivendell while he goes "to consult with the wizard Aruman, the head of my order."

This is the first instance of Saruman being called Aruman within the film, possibly the single most baffling decision on the part of the filmmakers - vying only with the fact that sometimes they do call him Saruman! I have heard a theory that they thought the names Sauron/Sawron and Saruman were too similar, something that was joked about in the old webcomic DM of the Rings, and so tried changing Saruman to Aruman to make them a bit more different (although, if you're doing that, why would you not at least be consistent about it?) but if this is true then how stupid are these mannys if they get confused just because the names both start with S and end in N and both have As, Us and Rs in them? Did they also wonder why our heroes are fighting against Superman?

When Gandalf meets with Saruman at Orthanc (where he calls him Saruman not Aruman - the film has taken less than a minute to confuse itself), Saruman the White is dressed in red and purple robes. He reveals he is now "Saruman of Many Colours," the most fabulous of all wizards, and he attacks Gandalf with a special effect and traps him. Gandalf then calls him "Aruman" as he departs, the film contradicting itself within the space of a single scene.

Gandalf is suddenly not in the room anymore, the camera pulls out to reveal he is trapped on a high place - this scene is weirdly trippy but effective, especially aided by the dramatic music.

When we rejoin them, Frodo and Sam have already acquired Merry and Pippin, and they montage their way out of the Shire until the first encounter with the Black Rider. The four of them and their pony hide just out of camera shot as the Rider comes in.

The Black Riders are very scary in this film, shadowy and sinister with glowing red eyes, and aided by the incidental music that plays whenever they are present. The music is really pulling its weight in building up the atmosphere in this film.

Where has the pony got to? Is it like Optimus Prime's trailer and can just vanish when not needed?

After this encounter the scene skips on to the town of Bree, thus establishing the age-old tradition of completely excising Tom Bombadil from all adaptations of Lord of the Rings.

At the Prancing Pony inn there is an uncomfortable mixing of two animation styles, as the local extras do not match up with any of the named characters. Frodo sings his song and falls off the table to put his finger in it, and when confronted by a grumpy Barliman Butterbur they run off to their room to find Strider already there waiting for them.

Strider is voiced by John Hurt, who adds some much-needed class to the part to help distract from the fact that they have animated Strider without any trousers. However he's no Robert Stephens (the radio Strider), and here you are left with the constant nagging worry that Strider is always on the verge of warning the Hobbits not to die of ignorance.

Strider's first scene is a crucial one as he introduces himself and wins the Hobbits (and us) over to trusting him, overcoming the suspicions of Sam and Butterbur. The dialogue here feels authentic to the original book, although some omissions and rearrangements have been done to speed it up.

The Black Riders enter Bree on their horseys, and then they teleport to the room in the inn - do the nine rings also function like teleport bracelets?
I suspect this was just easier for them to animate, similar to the reason teleporters were first introduced into Star Trek.

They make the background go all red as they attack the beds, which only serves to make this scene even scarier, but of course Strider has outwitted them and they are very grumpy once they discover the deception. Though they sure showed those bedsheets a thing or two.

The film cuts to the party making their way through the Midgewater Marshes. Here we learn their pony is called Bill, although the reason for this is left out and, if we didn't know better, Bill would appear to be the same pony they have had with them all along.

There is a short montage of them travelling to Weathertop. For all the condensation of this film, there is still time for some world-building if it helps develop the characters, so as they camp we hear Strider tell a few lines of the tale of Beren and Luthien, with all its parallels with the present situation of Aragorn and Arwen... which is odd, considering Arwen has been cut from this film completely and there is no other reference to Strider's subplot.

"And Beren was a mortal man, but Luthien Tinuviel was the daughter of a king of Elves, and she was the fairest maiden that has been among all the children of this world. Yet she chose to be mortal, for him. And when he died, she followed him. And so he was her doom...
...But he was her love as well."

As Strider says that last line, Frodo and Sam look into each other's eyes in such a way as to launch a thousand ships.

The Black Riders manifest out of the night and attack Weathertop. Frodo is compelled to put the Ring on. Strider tries to stop him with a "No!" that wouldn't pass for a Big No among self-respecting action heroes in our postmodern world.

Frodo disappears into the trippy shadow world of the Black Riders where he can see them but they can see him. They have a slow-motion fight until Strider, still in the real world so still at full speed, chases them off with fire. But he is too late to stop Frodo from being stabbed by the Morgul-knife.

The next day they meet Legolas.

Now I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that they don't meet Legolas at this point in the book. They meet Goldilocks Glorfindel instead. The BBC radio adaptation preserved this, while the 2001 film The Fellowship of the Ring chose to replace him with Arwen. I would suggest that all of these approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.

Using Glorfindel is, of course, the truest to the original author's vision. It also adds an extra character who is both interesting (not to mention pretty cool) in his own right as well as drawing out character traits of our heroes by his interactions with them, plus he serves as a further bridge from the smaller-scale Book 1 stuff to the larger, more epic scale of the later Books.
On the other paw, for adaptations with restricted run-time, adding an extra character is not necessarily a good thing, so swapping in a preexisting character means one less that you have to introduce and spend time on (and one less actor you have to cast and pay).

Replacing Glorfindel's role with Arwen is a fine example of this. Arwen is a notoriously underdeveloped character, so swapping her for Glorfindel at least gives her something active to do in the story, and the fact that she shares all of these scenes with her love interest Strider is a bonus. Glorfindel is also a very minor character, so can be changed or removed without making a massive change to the overall plot - much less than if, say, Arwen had replaced one of the Fellowship of the Ring.
(As I have mentioned before, I think it would actually have been better if they had done it the other way around and replaced Arwen with Glorfindel throughout the remainder of the story.)

Given that the 1978 film appears to have cut Arwen as well, replacing Glorfindel with Legolas seems a sensible alternative. It helps introduce Legolas to us now, thus spreading out our meeting the rest of the Fellowship from what would otherwise be a single scene at Rivendell.

The Black Riders catch up with them just as they get to "the ford of Rivendell." They send Frodo ahead on the one horsey they have (I have to assume this is still Asfaloth and they haven't substituted Shadowfax in to keep the number of horsey characters down) but the Riders attack him with distorted landscapes and scary music to hold him back - actually representing how the influence of the shadow world is growing upon Frodo even without him having the Ring on.

...And if you weren't scared before now, you will be when they speak:

"Come back, to Mordor we will take you."

I'm going to need Scary Cat to help me with this bit for sure.

Black Riders on the storm.

The landscape goes even madder, replaced with a stormy sky. Frodo hears Gandalf's voice say

"Run, you fool, run!"

Is that maybe a bit Ben-Kenobi-telling-Luke-to-run-on-the-Death-Star? It's certainly not from the book, and this film could - just - have been influenced by Star Wars given its 1978 release date.

Frodo is pursued in and out of the real world until all nine Riders are behind him. He crosses the ford and still bravely defies them, so they begin to cross after him. Even their horseys have scary red eyes, the Black Riders are pretty impressive as baddys go. Although you could argue that perhaps it shouldn't take all nine of them to go after one Hobbit, that's less impressive. However it is necessary for the plot as that way they are all of them caught by the river rising against them, a pretty impressive sequence visually and a solid conclusion to Book 1.

The forces of Hoover were driven forever from the face of the living room by the valiant friends of Big Gay Longcat. As their gallant battle ended, so too ends the first great review of The Lord of the Rings.

The Young Aragorn Son of Arathorn Chronicles

So are they still making this Lord of the Rings TV series that is supposed to be about the adventures of young Aragorn? If they are, I hope it is actually a detective series set in Middle-earth, where Aragorn uses his ranger skillz of tracking and herblore to solve crimes, a bit like Catfael used to.

Maybe they could pair him up with a several-thousand-years old elf in a classic chalk-and-cheese, rookie-and-veteran double act?
"I'm getting too old for this shit," says Glorfindel. And of course Elrond is their chief, which also works because of the awkward budding romance between rookie Aragorn and the chief's daughter Arwen.

Actually, what I really hope is that they are secretly making a series of Quenta Silmarillion, which could be truly great and genuinely epic if done well. I mean, who doesn't want to see Fëanor fighting a squad of balrogs, or Fingolfin's single combat with Morgoth, or the fall of Nargothrond and Gondolin, or Sauron getting beaten up by a doggy?

Once Upon a Time-Lord...

Once Upon a Time~Lord... (the comics love ellipses so much they're even making their way into titles now) is a direct continuation from the end of Polly the Glot, with the Doctor pursuing the renegade Time Lord Astrolabus who has penguinnapped Frobisher.

The TARDIS scanner proves to be useless, showing "an empty world, devoid of life" while we can see it has countryside, buildings, hot air balloons, Little Red Riding Hoods, and Black Riders.

As soon as the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS he is attacked by a Black Rider and cries out

"By Elbereth and Luthien the fair, you shall have neither the ring nor me!"

Even the Doctor is confused why he said that, but then Frobisher arrives and starts speaking in a strange way:

"I've been having a lovely time, Doctor! Come and meet some of my merry chums!"
"Merry chums? You're a guttersnipe from a slum on some backwater planet... you've never had a merry chum in your life!"

I can just imagine Colin Baker shouting "merry chums?" three times if it had been him delivering this dialogue. The Doctor seems to accept that this is the real Frobisher, but he doubts that the other things in the land are real, including the talking tree they meet. The Doctor has plenty of experience with illusionary landscapes, such as in The Mind Rober, The Deadly Assassin, or The Penalty, so he knows they have a "dark side" as well (although he may be thinking of The Force there).

Astrolabus is watching them and decides to let the little mannys and aliens in his audience choose their fate:

"Only you can decide, children! So on with your thinking caps... and let the story commence!"

Astrolabus is so powerful that he changes the very nature of the comic strip. For the next three pages the Doctor and Frobisher are trapped in a six-panel strip with rhyming couplets beneath each picture, and the main story told in text form at the bottom.

The perils they face are those of old-school adventure stories. The badger is friendly enough, although my friend Longdog is still suspicious of him, but the eyes in the woods are sinister.

"It's only the little people who live in the woods." "Yes, Doctor," replies Frobisher. "But what kind of little people? It seems to me that they're the kind of p-people who like to p-pick up a p-penguin!

Lol! Although a possibly trademark-infringing lol at that. Frobisher tries to run away and gets captured by primitive little mannys from before the era of Political Correctness, who intend to nom him.

"Don't they know they can't do that?" gasps the Doctor. "It would be too horrible, too tragic. Why, penguins taste awful and give you terrible heartburn!"

The Doctor is too busy making this joke to rescue Frobisher, but luckily Frobisher gets rescued by a passing Tarzanalike. The comic goes back to normal as the Doctor and Frobisher run towards a castle and get chased by a giant, but now Astrolabus has taken over the caption boxes.

While it seems as though the Doctor and Frobisher are escaping from the successive perils pretty easily, it is revealed that this is because the Doctor is mentally fighting Astrolabus for control of the story - when Astrolabus is dominant there is a new threat, but when the Doctor is in control they can get away.

In the castle, the Doctor finds Astrolabus and challenges him. They swordfight until the Doctor uncovers one of Astrolabus's arms, where he sees "the missing star charts" have been drawn. Astrolabus runs away and the Doctor chases him across a number of panels depicting different genres until Astrolabus gets even more meta and says

"Got to... get through... door. Short cut to... next page..."

"Made it! I'm in the clear! Out in the open! Untrammelled! Unshackled! Free!

If I can just make it to the next episode!"

"But what's this? I feel a power greater than my own! I'm losing control! It's taking over! By Odin's beard... que pasa?"

"Oh no! It can't be!! Not at this stage of the game! Please! Say it isn't so!"

On a minimalist page showing only Astrolabus and his footprints against a white void background, we see Astrolabus's costume has changed. Voyager arrives upon a ship of the desert (Clever. Clever. Clever.) as the Doctor uncovers Astrolabus to reveal his body is covered in the charts.

Voyager finally explains what the plot has been about.

"You stole the sacred charts for the secrets and the power they contained. For access to the last, the most mysterious dimension of all...
The dimension of death! 

You shall have your wish!
Death will be your dominion!"

He blasts Astrolabus with "a hurricane force" and then turns his camel around and leaves, telling the Doctor

"I have claimed that which is mine... you are free now, Timelord... you are free..."

Although Astrolabus is also a Time Lord, so there is an ambiguity as to which one of the two Voyager is talking to there.

The Doctor asks Astrolabus the question that's insoluble for manny or machine. The final exchange between them, as Astrolabus lies hidden behind a rock except for his withered hand, hints at something even more epic in scope than even that which we have seen.

"Such a shame... Doctor... that you had no interest... in my powers. You would have made... a worthy... successor...
You were just getting... the hang of it!"
"I follow nobody, Astrolabus. I'm free... I go my own way!"
"Aah, Doctor... How can you know?
How can you know... how long... I have been writing your life?
What will you do?
Now that I'm...
Gone?"

Astrolabus's castle explodes, in accordance with the rule of No Ontological Inertia. The Doctor and Frobisher find themselves back at the Ridgway Ringway Carnival, where Frobisher suggests visiting "the tattooed man" but the Doctor declines, saying

"I'd much rather go somewhere else."

and looking sad to show that he regards Astrolabus's death as a waste, and that this is not a totally happy ending after all.

Once Upon a Time~Lord... completes the story arc begun back in Voyager by tying up the Astrolabus-Voyager conflict. The sections where the different characters are playing with the medium of comic-strip storytelling is fantastically meta, and ensures that this is like nothing that could be done in the TV series (which would have a go at playing around with its own medium in Vengeance on Varos about the same time). As a result this a very distinctive, memorable conclusion to the plot, and sends off the characters of Astrolabus and Voyager in style.