I really ought to be sleeping...

...since I have to go to work tomorrow. So of course, I'm sitting up late engaging in totally unproductive websurfing. In the course of such, I've been reminded of a jewel from my long-bygone sci-fi days...

The Eye of Argon

For those of you who don't know, Eye of Argon is arguably* the worst fantasy story every written. Really. It is eye-searingly horrible, beyond anything that we in the sci-fi community had imagined up to the time I first encountered it (the late 70s) and for quite a long time after that. I have seen people fall over in convulsions from hysterical laughter at it.

And since I just can't have something this godawfully wonderful brought to mind without wanting to, um, spread the joy, here are some choice bits:

( A sweeping blade of flashing steel riveted from the massive barbarians hide enameled shield... )

*No, come to think of it, I don't think there is any argument about it. It is the worst fantasy story ever written.

OK, I'm getting a little pissed off here.

Where did all this about PJ, Philippa and Fran making Frodo somehow less than he could have been come from? That poor Elijah was directed into coming off passive, or weepy, or uninteresting, etc., etc., etc.? What Frodo is it in FOTR that we somehow lose along the way (other than the happy kid in the Shire who never survived in the books anyway)?

I don't know about anybody else, but I have no problems with Elijah's performance as Frodo. Yeah, there were some odd roads taken with the story, but Frodo himself? Was FINE. Other than the quirks that came along with those deviations (like the three and a half minutes he spent being pissed off at Sam in ROTK), he comes off, if anything, far more dynamic and interesting than the Frodo in the book, who always seemed to me a burdened sacrifical lamb more than anything else. There, Sam was the one who became truly interesting and traversed a real arc, while Frodo spent all his time carrying what amounted to a boulder fifty times his size for four hundred miles. In the film, Frodo got to go through a far greater range of emotions and reactions - fascination, desire, lust, anger, madness. In the book, he just seemed, more than anything, tired.

So how come suddenly I'm seeing people claiming that there's "so much more" Elijah could have done, if it hadn't been for the holding back and substandard writing/direction he was burdened with? What the heck more did you want from Frodo? Screaming, yelling, tearing out his own hair? Wasn't it just a few months ago that people were complaining there was too much of that?

Poor Elijah. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. For my money, his Frodo is just amazing, and hardly a picture of passivity or uninteresting flatness. He brought to life a complex, well-written (and well-adapted) characer with delicacy, strength and skill, and under the guidance of an excellent director. Because if all that is "lacking" in Frodo is the fault of the director, all that is FANTASTIC in Frodo is also the work of the director. You can't say "the bad is his fault, but he didn't have anything to do with the good". This was a group endeavor, and everybody shares in both the glory and the blame.

So make up your damn minds here, 'cause you're giving me a headache.