The Lord of the Rings is one of the most iconic and beloved franchises of all time, and for good reason. Building on the classic work of J.R.R. Tolkien, the franchise has been running for decades and giving excellent stories while it is at it. The world it has created has far outlasted its film series, having several spin-off projects over the years.
While many fantastical creatures can be credited for making the series as immersive and interesting as it is, the most iconic and important have to be elves. Several elves have been part of the franchise, with the most important being Galadriel.
However, it would seem that when the films first introduced Cate Blanchett’s character, things could have been a lot different.
Cate Blanchett was very overwhelmed when she was turning into an elf
If a fan of The Lord of the Rings was asked to explain the essence of elves in the franchise, they could use many words and adjectives to describe them. However, one of the most important parts of any supernatural character is language.
In many iconic projects, the tongue that certain mystical creatures speak is not paid much heed, resulting in viewers getting pulled out into the real world when they are talking in English. The beloved fantasy franchise did not make this mistake, putting a lot of attention into making sure the verbal part of their characters was as accurate as possible.
During an interview with Ain’t It Cool before the release of the first film, Cate Blanchett talked about the process the series was going through to make sure elves were as accurate as possible. The Galadriel actress revealed the film had experts of Old Elvish involved to make sure they achieved their goal.
Dialogue coaches Roisin Carty and Andrew Jack have been very helpful to us. They both speak Elvish beautifully, and they’re on-line to becoming Old Elvish experts. And that in itself really spins me out – that there’s someone who devotes their time to speaking Elvish. It’s like people speaking Klingon. It doesn’t sound like any language I’ve tried to speak before. It’s familiar because of the Celtic influences, but it’s completely unfamiliar at the same time.
Blanchett revealed that the language, on its own, was very overwhelming for her, being nothing like the languages she has tried to learn over the years. She even compared it to trying to learn Klingon from the Star Trek universe.
The Lord of the Rings could have easily made a very big mistake
When one is trying to imitate the arcane, it is very easy to make mistakes. Rather than trying to respectfully and accurately present something, they can often turn into cheap and insulting knock-offs. This could have been a path that Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings franchise could have easily gone down, much like many before them.
Thankfully, they saw it coming. Cate Blanchett revealed that when she was trying to learn Elvish and get into the character of Galadriel, she and the crew, as a whole, were trying desperately to not misrepresent the mythology of elves. The actress even compared it to people trying to speak Shakespearean but getting it wrong.
It’s very important that it’s not bad Shakespearean. Like, ‘My liege. . . the long, pointy-eared elf people have just arrived!’ We’re trying to avoid that. But it’s hard; the language is incredibly formal, as are the relationships and the hierarchy in the community.
She poorly described elves as an example of the same and stated that the creators were desperately trying to avoid it. Thankfully, the franchise nailed the way that they represented elves in their story, and it has certainly led to many writers and creatives going down similar paths because of it.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
