Yesterday, after weeks and weeks of planning, the eldest gel and one of her little 5th Grade friends got together to watch the first Lord of the Rings movie. (They plan to watch the other two together in the near future as time permits.)
The gel had never seen LOTR on screen before and I was somewhat apprehensive about what her reaction might be. In our readings of the novels, we are now just short of the attack on Minas Tirith in The Return of the King, and after many hundreds of pages I knew that she had formed some pretty definite opinions about the way things ought to be in Middle Earth. I didn’t want her to ruin things either for herself or for her friend, so for some time now I’ve been counseling her to keep an open mind when she finally saw the movie.
So late in the afternoon I drove over to pick the gel up after it was all over. As we climbed into the ol’ jeep, I said, “Well? What did you think?”
Her response? “It was okay. But why did Frodo always look like he was about to throw up?”
Why, indeed.
I couldn’t get much more reaction out of the gel than that. Apparently, she and her friend spent most of their time drooling over Orlando Bloom and didn’t pay all that much attention to the actual plot after he appeared.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
5 comments
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February 17, 2009 at 8:20 pm
April
Does this confirm the earlier questions about why girls watched the LOTR movies? 🙂
February 17, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Robbo
I think it at least answers the question of why she wants to watch the second and third ones!
MY question is whether Orlando Bloom is cool or not in the eyes of the ladies. I had a vague idea that there was sharply divided opinion on the matter. Perhaps I’m mistaken. Or perhaps it depends on the age group.
February 17, 2009 at 8:56 pm
April
Hmm, it is a sharply divided debate, I can tell you that. But, I am not sure it is an age group thing…being almost 26 (and in my late teens-early 20’s for the LOTR movies) I should be in the right age group to swoon over Orlando Bloom. However, I have never been very impressed with his looks or his ability to act.
Good luck with exploring the inner thoughts of women!!
February 17, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Robbo
Exploring the inner thoughts of women is rather like exploring the Mutara Nebula, including the starship-armed lunatic trying to hunt you down.
February 18, 2009 at 8:15 am
stillers
Curious, what exactly were you expecting from the movies?? I thought Jackson did quite well with it. Putting a movie together based on a book the quality of LoTR’s is damn near impossible. Cuts had to be made, otherwise the movies would have been 3 months long. Some of the acting choices were meh, but not terrible either (well ok, Liv Tyler sucks). I’m biased because I really enjoyed them. The books are great, the movie wasn’t bad either.