When the first Lord of the Rings movie came out in 2001, it introduced itself in a tremendously captivating way, one that felt unlike any movie that came before, with a soft voiceover introduction leading into the title and score, then proceeding to explain the backstory of the trilogy.
But unlike more awkward uses of exposition to open a movie, this one feels like it delivers relatively little actual information and instead instills a distinct tone of the story to our ears while our eyes are being shown these delicious images that seem like they come from a completely different world than what we’re used to. The tone for the trilogy is largely set by Blanchett’s striking voice, both in the introductory voiceovers and later when she is portraying Galadriel and communicating mind messages to the characters and audience in a manner that is utterly haunting.
She’s done little other voiceover work to my knowledge, aside from narrating a recent documentary on the rise in prominence of women and girls on the international stage, as well as a TV series on the British monarchy. The quality of her voice and accent could really be put to greater use.
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