Script Discussion S06E10

No worries, it was a good suggestion. I don't think it quite fit with the descent into hell situation, but it would have been a shame to not even consider a way to reference the original Tale of Tinuviel here.
 
No worries, it was a good suggestion. I don't think it quite fit with the descent into hell situation, but it would have been a shame to not even consider a way to reference the original Tale of Tinuviel here.

While I've missed the episode - have to watch it yet - I hereby completely support any and all suggested "Hell's Kitchen" excursions - just for records' sake.
 
We decided that 'horror kitchen' would be too campy - like a haunted house. Gross, but nothing actually dangerous. Instead, we are going to tell the story of how you break slaves and force them to work for the enemy....with an undercurrent of finding hope even in that bleak situation.

References for this type of story include:
Andor
Bridge over the River Kwai
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3.01 - Anne

Descent into hell scene:
Consequences for not acting like a slave:
Slave revolt:

Naturally, that is waaaaaaay more campy/silly than we are going for with Angband! Buffy is working as a waitress in a diner named "Helen's Kitchen", among other things. And she spends about 1 day as enslaved labor, being able to fight back and overcome the guards/demons who have enslaved them. So, while they introduce the concept of lack of hope, and show how this place has used up many other people (100 years in hell = 1 day in the real world, so no one will even miss the victims), the protagonist does not experience the full weight of being trapped in hell. The dead bodies decorating the place are set dressing. Lots of quips and cheesiness.
 
Last edited:
I have managed to sleep 10 hours since the script discussion (7 hours last night, plus a 3 hour nap), and so I went back and filled out some of the descriptions in the outline to try to reflect what we discussed.

I've also been giving some thought to the logistics of the mostly unsuccessful slave uprising. Díriel's decision is self-sacrificial, and so there should be a moment where it is clear that they are letting Beren and Lúthien go, while holding off pursuit themselves. And Guilin needs to be the person who the action can be pinned on at the end. So, I was thinking that at first they might simply be fighting the orc-pursuit off with their mining/tunnelling tools, but there may come an opportuity (after Díriel dies) to let Beren and Lúthien flee through an opened gate...and then shut the gate behind them to continue blocking pursuit. If Guilin is the one who closes the gate, that would explain why he is being singled out for punishment at the end, instead of just executing the lot of them.

Naturally, other scenarios could also work.
 
Breaking my heart with Díriel! Sad I couldn't be there for the discussion. (Guess this is my last chance to observe that Díriel began as a boy's name as an early name for the later Amras)
 
Breaking my heart with Díriel! Sad I couldn't be there for the discussion. (Guess this is my last chance to observe that Díriel began as a boy's name as an early name for the later Amras)
I hear you Dillon. I think we've given her a very noble death though. Her self-sacrifice is testament to her estel, despite long years of slavery. She dies to ensure that the Silmaril is liberated to eventually become Gil-Estel. In ensuring that the Silmaril gets out of Angband, she is doing something that her husband and her brothers cannot do by virtue of their oath. Perhaps she hopes for redemption for Curufin at some point?
 
Naturally, that is waaaaaaay more campy/silly than we are going for with Angband! Buffy is working as a waitress in a diner named "Helen's Kitchen", among other things. And she spends about 1 day as enslaved labor, being able to fight back and overcome the guards/demons who have enslaved them. So, while they introduce the concept of lack of hope, and show how this place has used up many other people (100 years in hell = 1 day in the real world, so no one will even miss the victims), the protagonist does not experience the full weight of being trapped in hell. The dead bodies decorating the place are set dressing. Lots of quips and cheesiness.

ha! yes, more buffy references. Ofc it should be less 'monstery of the week' for obvious reasons, but that i found an excellent reference because of how buffy arrives in there and finally succeeds by inspiring that hope and agency in the prisoners again, where the prison works to dominate and break their spirits.
 
Yes, it's not a bad depiction of visiting hell (in this case, a particular hell) and then escaping. But...the whole point of hell is that there is no escape. 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here' and all of that. So, while there are some relevant parallels, that story is both a bit too campy and a bit too save-the-day for what we are going for. 'Take up your hammer and sickle, for you have nothing to lose but your chains!' is not exactly the rallying cry in Angband.

There is a moment in the castle attack in Prince Caspian where it becomes clear that time is running out for the castle raid, and the castle's defenses will be too much for the attackers. Some characters find themselves trapped within the castle courtyard during the retreat. The gate comes down, and the drawbridge goes up. Because of this, there is a moment where those who are trapped behind the gate realize that they will be left behind to die, so they turn and fight rather than continuing trying to escape. It is...quite clear...that they will not survive. (Naturally, all the named characters escape first). But that moment of acceptance and decision is closer to what we are going for with this story.

Timestamp 2:32 for the gate coming down


The depiction of 'the plight of the slaves' from The Ten Commandments (1956)

And the plight of the concentration camp prisoners in La Vita Bella:

The Middle Passage, as depicted in Amistad

Hope, or the lack of hope, is a key feature in all of these stories. Yes, it is horrible, and you have to endure and cannot escape.
 
Last edited:
I have added a reference to 'the Lúthien effect' to the descent into Angband scene in the outline. Naturally, this did not come up during the script discussion, so I'm inviting feedback and suggestions on this idea.

My hope here is that, as Lúthien and Beren descend into Angband, we see the journey through Lúthien's eyes. She still has the bat cloak of Thuringwethil wrapped about herself, but she is not unrecognizable. And so...when she has to pass through an area where the enslaved elf prisoners are hard at work in Morgoth's war machine...we see her horror at their plight. She knows she cannot save them, or even help them. But, she's Lúthien - she would find some small act of kindness to perform to ease their plight in some minor way. Provide a cup of water, help someone who has fallen/dropped something heavy, etc. She's not going to sing or dance. She is sneaking. So, her usual healing effect will not take place. But she does something to help make one person's day a little less terrible, easing their burden in whatever way she can without drawing attention.

This carries over into our next scene with the prisoners. As we return to Guilin and Díriel, we see that some of the prisoners are similarly finding small things they can do to help one another. Lúthien's small action has a ripple effect, and each elf who has this touch of light is 'paying it forward' to the rest of the group. So...turns out this is a slightly-less-horrible-than-usual day to be a slave of Angband. Because, unbeknownst to them, Lúthien is there.

The idea is that we are priming the group for action when Beren and Lúthien try to escape with a silmaril. There is a reason they choose to spend their one free action on helping Lúthien escape - Estel.

Thoughts?
 
I have added a reference to 'the Lúthien effect' to the descent into Angband scene in the outline. Naturally, this did not come up during the script discussion, so I'm inviting feedback and suggestions on this idea.

My hope here is that, as Lúthien and Beren descend into Angband, we see the journey through Lúthien's eyes. She still has the bat cloak of Thuringwethil wrapped about herself, but she is not unrecognizable. And so...when she has to pass through an area where the enslaved elf prisoners are hard at work in Morgoth's war machine...we see her horror at their plight. She knows she cannot save them, or even help them. But, she's Lúthien - she would find some small act of kindness to perform to ease their plight in some minor way. Provide a cup of water, help someone who has fallen/dropped something heavy, etc. She's not going to sing or dance. She is sneaking. So, her usual healing effect will not take place. But she does something to help make one person's day a little less terrible, easing their burden in whatever way she can without drawing attention.

This carries over into our next scene with the prisoners. As we return to Guilin and Díriel, we see that some of the prisoners are similarly finding small things they can do to help one another. Lúthien's small action has a ripple effect, and each elf who has this touch of light is 'paying it forward' to the rest of the group. So...turns out this is a slightly-less-horrible-than-usual day to be a slave of Angband. Because, unbeknownst to them, Lúthien is there.

The idea is that we are priming the group for action when Beren and Lúthien try to escape with a silmaril. There is a reason they choose to spend their one free action on helping Lúthien escape - Estel.

Thoughts?
love it!
 
Disguises!

Based on the podcast discussion of Episode 9, the depiction of the disguises in Episode 10 is going to need to show the transformations as more than simply a glamor. Beren and Lúthien become Draugluin and Thuringwethil...and yet remain themselves. They are disguised, not transformed into these characters. So, I thought of two other examples on film where this happens.

Hermione 'disguised' as Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter via Polyjuice Potion:

Loki speaking to Thor as Captain America:

In both of these scenes, they first filmed the 'disguised' actor performing the scene, and then allowed the actor playing the disguise to mimic the performance. Ie, Emma Watson did the Bellatrix scene before Helena Bonham Carter, and Tom Hiddleston put on the Captain America costume for the scene before Chris Evans filmed it. In the Harry Potter scene, it is not at all difficult to tell that it's really Hermione - the final scene is a blend of both performances. Similarly, there's very little of Steve Rogers in Loki's impersonation of him.

The first scene is tense, while the second one is more humorous...obviously, we are going for tense during the descent into Angband! But it's fine if it's obvious at times that this is Beren and Lúthien, not Draugluin or Thuringwethil.
 
Last edited:
Disguises!

Based on the podcast discussion of Episode 9, the depiction of the disguises in Episode 10 is going to need to show the transformations as more than simply a glamor. Beren and Lúthien become Draugluin and Thuringwethil...and yet remain themselves. They are disguised, not transformed into these characters. So, I thought of two other examples on film where this happens.

Hermione 'disguised' as Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter via Polyjuice Potion:

Loki speaking to Thor as Captain America:

In both of these scenes, they first filmed the 'disguised' actor performing the scene, and then allowed the actor playing the disguise to mimic the performance. Ie, Emma Watson did the Bellatrix scene before Helena Bonham Carter, and Tom Hiddleston put on the Captain America costume for the scene before Chris Evans filmed it. In the Harry Potter scene, it is not at all difficult to tell that it's really Hermione - the final scene is a blend of both performances. Similarly, there's very little of Steve Rogers in Loki's impersonation of him.

The first scene is tense, while the second one is more humorous...obviously, we are going for tense during the descent into Angband! But it's fine if it's obvious at times that this is Beren and Lúthien, not Draugluin or Thuringwethil.
Could try it with a certain scar missing on Draugluin while Beren is disguised as him, similar to Darryl Revok, the main villain in Scanners; Revok has a scar on his head from a botched suicide attempt with a drill. When (spoiler alert) Cameron Vale takes control of Revok's body at the end of the film, the scar is gone.

When the project had not decided on Beren losing Dagmor, my idea had been to have Draugluin with metallic claws while Beren is disguised as him, similar to how in the film Minions: The Rise of Gru where one villain, Stronghold, has metal gloves that become a pair of horns when he transforms into a bull, or how the roller skates worn by another villain, Svengeance, becomes a set of claws.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top