Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
[Gasps and heavy breathing echo in the darkness.]
Gandalf: "We now have but one choice."
[Light appears from Gandalf's staff, showing the startled and frightened faces of the Fellowship.]
Gandalf: "We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than Orcs, in the deep places of the world."
Gandalf: "Quietly now. It's a four-day journey to the other side. Let us hope that our presence may go unnoticed."
[Time passes. The Fellowship enters a great cavern.]
[Gandalf rests his hand upon a rock with a dark, silver veins running through it.]
Gandalf: "The wealth of Moria was not in gold… or jewels…"
[The wizard tilts his staff down towards a pit.]
Gandalf: "…but Mithril."
[The lights illuminates the Fellowship's faces.]
[A vast rock wall drops into the depths below. Row upon row of ladders and scaffolding, old and disused, disappear into the mining shafts below.]
[Merry leans forward slightly to look closer. Pippin puts a warning hand in front of him.]
[Frodo stares down until the light fades.]
Gandalf: "Bilbo had a shirt of Mithril rings that Thorin gave him."
Gimli: "Oh, that was a kingly gift."
Gandalf: "Yes! I never told him, but its worth was greater than the value of the Shire."
[Frodo looks surprised.]
[They then climb up steep steps on the side of a cavern. Pippin loses his footing and slips onto Merry.]
Merry: "Pippin!"
[The Fellowship climbs another flight of stairs to a crossroads in the mine: three doorways loom before them. Gandalf glances from one to the other and back.]
Gandalf: "I have no memory of this place."
[The Fellowship rests. Aragorn sits beside Boromir.]
Aragorn: "Hmm."
Pippin: "Are we lost?"
Merry: "No."
Pippin: "I think we are."
Sam: "Shh! Gandalf's thinking."
Pippin: "Merry?"
Merry: "What?"
Pippin: "I'm hungry."
[Frodo looks down into the cavern and sees a small figure leaping from stone to stone. Startled, he walks over to where Gandalf is sitting.]
Frodo: "There's something down there!"
Gandalf (without surprise): "It's Gollum."
Frodo: "Gollum?"
Gandalf: "He's been following us for three days."
Frodo: "He escaped the dungeons of Barad-Dûr!"
Gandalf: "Escaped? Or was set loose?"
Gandalf: "And now the Ring had drawn him here. He will never be rid of his need for it. He hates and loves the Ring, as he hates and loves himself."
[Dark and dirty fingers clasp a stone implement. From the distance below, Gollum looks up, his large eyes piercing the darkness.]
Gandalf: "Sméagol's life is a sad story. Yes, Sméagol he was once called. Before the Ring found him… before it drove him mad."
Frodo: "It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance!"
Gandalf: [glancing sharply at Frodo] "Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death, and some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo?"
[Frodo looks down, silently.]
Gandalf: "Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise can not see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill…"
[Gollum pulls back into the darkness, wrinkling his nose.]
Gollum: "Gollum."
Gandalf: "…before this is over."
[Gollum slinks off.]
Gandalf: "The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many."
[Frodo sits down next to Gandalf.]
Frodo: "I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened."
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you also were meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought."
Gandalf: [looks towards one of the doorways] "Oh! It's that way."
Merry: "He's remembered!"
[The Fellowship starts down a dark stairway. Gandalf puts on his hat.]
Gandalf: "No, but the air doesn't smell so foul down here."
[The wizard rests a hand on Merry's shoulder.]
Gandalf: "If in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose."
[The Fellowship comes to a more open space. Broken columns lie tumbled across the floor. Gandalf lifts his staff.]
Gandalf: "Let me risk a little more light."
[His staff illuminates a giant stone hall with tall pillars and arched ceilings. Gimli gasps.]
Gandalf: "Behold: the great realm and Dwarf city of Dwarrowdelf."
Sam: "Now there's an eye opener and no mistake."
[The Fellowship walks forward through the hall, peering around a column. Gimli sees a ray of sunlight shining through a chamber.]
Gimli: "Haugh!"
Gandalf: "Gimli!"
[Gimli runs into the chamber. Bodies and weapons scattered about it. The Dwarf stops and kneels by a crypt in the center of the room. A shaft of light illuminates it. Gandalf walks forward and peers at the tomb's surface.]
Gimli: "No! No!" [sob] "No!" [sob]
[Boromir places his hand on Gimli's shoulder.]
Gandalf: [translating the runes on the tomb] "'Here lies Balin, son of Fundin, Lord of Moria.' He is dead then. It's as I feared."
Gimli: [wails]