I watched it again last night with Fionn, and halfway through, I noticed that all the elves had blue eyes. Then I looked a little closer and realized that EVERYONE in the damned movie had blue eyes. What’s the deal with that?
Actually, there were about three people who didn’t. Gimly had brown eyes, and for some bits, Sam’s eyes were green, as were the eyes of the princess (okay, I’m really horrible with names, forgive me), but they always seemed to revert to blue whenever important things happened (like Sam’s speech about the stories and what made characters so great). And Legolas had brown eyes for ONE SCENE!! (when he’s talking about how everyone’s going to die in Helm’s Deep). Aside from that, every main character, and virtually every character with spoken lines (including generals, random soldiers and trolls/goblins/orcs) had blue eyes.
Is there some big meaning here, or just one big freaking coincidence?
obviously, the filmmakers were hoping to start an aryan supremacy movement among the geek set who idolize their favorite fictional characters. Come to think of it, Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Anakin Skywalker all had blue eyes, didn’t they?
Nah, I think it’s a coincidence.
Actually, almost every time eye color is mentioned in Tolkien, it’s gray eyes. Most of the Dunedain and elves had gray eyes.
It was a conscious decision by the filmmakers for the elves to have blue eyes, which is why Orlando Bloom (Legolas) wears contacts throughout the movie. As for the non-elven characters, it seems to me a disproportionate number of actors and actresses in general have blue eyes, so it could just be a coincidence.
According to an unattributed IMDB factoid, elves’ eyes change color with their mood, although I’ve never heard such a thing before.
Elves have mood-ring eyes? :rolleyes:
I was thinking, while watching the movie, that many of the dark-haired characters seemed to have light eyes and many light-haired characters’ eyes were dark. I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but I noticed it again and again.
I thought it was just an aesthetic move to make certain characters’ appearances seem more striking.
My assumption (and mind that this is merely my opinion and is not explicitly substantiated in any of Tolkien’s works, although it is hinted at) is that since Middle-Earth is essentially a romanticized, idealistic vision of northern Europe in the ancient past, its people would for the most part be of a Nordic complexion (light hair, blue/grey eyes, light skin, etc). If intentional, the casting of the movie would suggest that Peter Jackson had that in mind during the planning stages.
I know it sounds kind of silly, but most sentences of the form “Elves have _____” sound kind of silly, when you think about it.
Smapti, IIRC the Silmarillion and some of Tolkien’s other works actually describe the appearance of the peoples of M.E. Let’s see how I can do from memory, and some other Tolkien geek is welcome to jump in with corrections.
The Noldor elves (as well as the Dunedain, Aragorn’s people) had fair skin, gray eyes, and usually dark brown/black hair, although there were a few blondes and redheads among the Noldor. The Vanyar elves (who don’t come into the story much, since they stayed in the West) were mostly blondes – most of the blonde Noldor (e.g Galadriel and Glorfindel) are probably half-Vanyar, half-Noldor. The Sindarin and Sylvan elves mostly had brown hair, although some (e.g. Celeborn) had silver hair, and Legolas and his father may have been blonde.
Speakng of Celeborn’s hair…was anyone else annoyed at the HORRIBLE roots that guy had? I mean, they managed to make it look like Orlando Bloom actually had blond hair in these movies, and Celeborn is half-and-half! Its just kind of creepy looking.