A Beren and Luthien movie thoughts

[annathepiper]

I was yakking about this on Twitter tonight, mostly light-heartedly, but I thought I’d delve into this in more depth here: in the Ideal World According to Me, the next Tolkien movie after The Hobbit would be the story of Beren and Luthien.

I think I’ve mentioned before on LJ posts that their story should totally be a movie. It’s got everything that would make a movie great: an epic forbidden cross-species romance, a quest at the behest of an angry king, a great and loyal hound, monsters, magic, and most importantly, the heroine standing up to not only Middle-Earth’s biggest badass ever but even death itself for the sake of her man. I mean, seriously. You don’t get much more classic than this.

Since this is the Ideal World According to Me, I would of course cast Russell Crowe as Beren. (Actually, I’d have cast him as Boromir in Lord of the Rings, but this’ll work too!) Beren is not a young pup in the story; he’s already got several decades of experience under his belt by the time he sees and is absolutely smitten by Luthien. So Russell’s current general age and slightly grizzled look would be perfect. Not to mention that man, just the thought of seeing him do Beren’s being literally struck dumb by the first sight of Luthien gives me delicious shivers. I can see it now: the camera lingering on his awestruck face, so intense that he looks like he’s about to weep on the spot. Yum.

Likewise, it should surprise none of you that I’d totally be casting Alan Doyle as Daeron, who also loves Luthien and winds up betraying her a couple of times to her father, out of jealousy for her love of Beren. He later repents and writes laments for her loss. Wikipedia describes Daeron as “the greatest minstrel of the Children of Iluvatar”; frankly, if there’s any other role that would have “Alan Doyle” written all over it, even more than “Allan a’Dayle” did, I can’t think of it! (And I’m not fangirling for the opportunity to see Alan with pointed ears! Well okay, not much. Though I’ve always found Alan rather more puckish than your typical Tolkien elf would be, I’ve always suspected a touch of the fey about him. :D )

In my Ideal Movie World, they would of course do this movie with all the same loving attention to detail that Jackson’s done with LotR and which hopefully will also be done with The Hobbit. No garishly obvious CGI. Make it look real. Make it look right. The great hound Huan must not under any circumstances look fakey. Nor should Carcharoth, the monster wolf who bites off Beren’s hand that holds the Silmaril. Though I have a hard time visualizing how to do Morgoth–who, as an even bigger badass than Sauron, as in fact the original Big Bad of Middle-Earth, should be even scarier and more intimidating than Sauron was!

And you would of course need a proper Luthien. If she hadn’t already played Galadriel I’d be totally eying Cate Blanchett. But failing that, you’d need somebody who could pull off not only unearthly but even angelic radiance even when rescuing her man from the grimmest, most hellish places on earth. (Since Luthien is not only just an elf, she’s also part Maia.) You would need someone who could sing, or else someone with a heavenly voice dubbed in for when the character must sing–because this is after all a big driving force of the story.

(Side thought: if they dubbed in a classically trained singer for Luthien’s singing voice, one presumes she would be a soprano. Since that would seem fitting for “Tinuviel” meaning “Nightingale”.)

Okay, and in the Ideal Fangirl World According to Me, Luthien would of course be played by me. But I’m thinking of this in terms of the Ideal Movie World, not the Ideal Fangirl World. Mostly. ;)

So many vivid characters to be cast here, overall. I passionately hope somebody writes this into a script at some point and that it gets filmed. And that for the love of all that is holy, that nobody tries to do it in 3-D.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i kind of think my dream luthen might be sinead o'connor. she'd have to grow her hair out, but she might be willing, for tolkien.

[annathepiper]

She certainly has an appropriate delicate beauty.

And I really ought to listen to something by her; what would you recommend?

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

here, try these and let me know what you think :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDW-YQZVLw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFpregq5eJ4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ2tluarzZs&feature=related

Morgoth

[wrog]

I think Morgoth would have to be off-camera, always. There really aren't all that many ways to do Ultimate Evil...

unless one wants to do the whole Fallen Angel thing (seeing as Melkor/Morgoth essentially is Lucifer with the serial numbers filed off), in which case he then needs to be the prettiest face in the room ... hmm ...
... how about Russell Crowe?

Re: Morgoth

[annathepiper]

Morgoth can't be off-camera, he is actively on-camera when Luthien goes in to take the Silmaril from him. That's part of the whole point of the story; Beren's been ordered by Luthien's father to go take back a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth himself to prove himself worthy of his daughter, and that'd be kind of hard to do without Morgoth on camera. ;)

[wrog]

another possibility here is to treat Tolkien's version as The Myth/Legend (which, of course, is as it was intended) and do the Real Story Behind It.

Luthien then does not have to have perfect, angelic beauty -- she's First Daughter at the Sindarin court, so every bard in the place is going to be sucking up to her no matter what. Being conventionally pretty or otherwise easy on the eyes is probably enough.

Obviously she's going to have some abilities inherited from her mom, which the Sindarins would doubtless put to use where they could. But Melian was of Yavanna's kin, so her magic is mostly about Growing Stuff. Which is great if you need a ring of Blackberries From Hell to surround the margins of Doriath and persuade the orcs/whatever to go elsewhere, but it's not by any means foolproof and, suffice it to say, it's somewhat lacking in offensive capabilities.

And yet, she's able to take down Sauron (yes, Sauron! granted, a younger, stupider version of Sauron, but still...), rescue Beren, break into Angband and get out alive again. Twoo Wuv only goes so far. I mean what the fucking fuck??!? Something is missing from this picture.

My best guess is that her more unconventional (read "unwomanly") attributes will inevitably get glossed over or ignored by the legend. If she spent any time talking to the resident dwarves and/or playing with various kinds of weapons in the deeper caves of Menegroth or if she did her own rounds accompanying the Girdle Patrols (remember Elwe and Melian didn't have any sons), or if she's the one who's actually in charge of the Security Forces or the Spy Network, there'd be a substantial disincentive for anyone to write/sing about that.

Thus the tale-spinners have no choice but to attribute everything to her magic no matter how implausible. If it so happens that she completely kicks ass in other ways, e.g., if she happens to be incredibly sneaky, studied fortifications, or knows how to assemble an effective strike team, has the fortitude and the fighting skill to survive on her own when they all get killed... well that has to get left on the cutting room floor. No patriarchal society worth its salt is going to allow for the possibility that some stupid girl succeeded where they all failed.

anyway, there's a story here somewhere.

[wrog]

so I'm thinking Michelle Rodriguez or Angelina Jolie

[annathepiper]

*cringe* Angelina Jolie?! Oh god no.

[annathepiper]

She goes after Morgoth. Not Sauron. This story is set early enough that it's either pre-Sauron, or else Sauron's busy elsewhere; I'd have to doublecheck the timeline. But it's definitely Morgoth himself, not his better-known ring-making lieutenant. :)

Luthien's on record in the story as transforming herself in ways great and small, but her greatest power is in fact her singing. And when she "takes down" Morgoth, it's less "offensively" and more "her singing is just that damned wonderful that she temporarily lulls him" long enough for Beren to swipe the Silmaril, and then they run like hell. They never try to offensively engage him, which they shouldn't, since he is after all Morgoth. ;)

Making their opponent Sauron instead of Morgoth might seem a trivial change, but this is one of those things that ardent Tolkiengeeks would get very upset about. And while I was down with several of the changes Jackson made to Lord of the Rings, this I would not be down with, sorry. :)

Personally, I don't see a need to do a 'real version of the story' version of this either. I want to see them film the story that Tolkien wrote.

[wrog]

Making their opponent Sauron instead of Morgoth might seem a trivial change

This is not a change; it's in the original Tolkien. She goes after both of them.

In a bit more detail: Sauron is running a random outpost for Morgoth and captures Beren on his way north. Luthien, with the help of her bad-ass wolfhound, completely destroys Sauron's defenses, drives Sauron off, and rescues Beren. While she's recovering from the fight, Beren — aparently some combination of feeling inadequate and not wanting to put her further at risk &mdash sneaks off to Angband and continues his quest to steal the Silmarils, gets captured again, and then Luthien has to break into Angband and rescue him once more.

Seriously bad-ass.

[annathepiper]

Ah, thank you. I was misremembering that then, I'm wrong!

All of which just generally points back to my original assertion that Luthien is in fact the best heroine Tolkien's ever written. Still, though? Angelina Jolie? No. Sorry. ;)