I just saw the third Lord of the Rings movie. I am no LOTR nerd, found
the books excruciatingly boring, and was not blown away by either of
the previous films. But this movie does have the greatest line of the
decade. On the eve of battle with the forces of evil, king-in-waiting
Aragorn declaims to his assembled troops, “I bid you stand, men of the
West!”
I don’t know if the line appears in Tolkien, but it obviously has
amazing resonance today. It’s bitterly ironic that the actor who speaks
it, Viggo Mortensen, is very, very, very bad on the War on Terror and
Iraq.