by Stanley Anderson » May 12th, 2008, 12:02 am
There are of course many important points and aspects to the book. But if one were to name the single aspect and primary reason for the story's existence, it is the Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time. It is what all the other chapters before the chapter with that name were leading up to (consider for instance, the idea leading to it of Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time), and from which the chapters after descend from and derive their importance.
It is this aspect out of all the lesser ones that the director chose to remove, and yet did so in a somewhat "hidden" manner so as to disarm, if it were possible, criticism of the "slaughter".
Sorry, but it is exactly the sort of thing the world tries to do to Christian doctrine -- ie, declaw, water-down, turn bland and make impotent. To be sure, the film still had some degree of "power" here and there, but it was a blurring or fogging over of important things Lewis was trying to do and to get across "past watchful dragons".
--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.