Grr. Return of the King makes me angry.

[barsoomcore]

The main story is about a war.

No, it's not.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

No, it's not.

Yes it is. So, nyah!

 

[Storm Raven]

The point of the Scorging was to show how the four hobbits had changed, and Peter Jackson did that with the scene in the Green dragon at end of RotK.

Umm, no. The point of the Scouging was to show that evil is not defeated by merely throwing a ring into a volcano. And to show that even if you want things to remain the same as they were when you were young, they don't, because you've changed in the interim. Showing that the hobbits had changed was merely a side benefit.

 

[jester47]

As it stands the Movie trilogy in its final form is supposed to be 11.1 hours long. If the normal movie length is 2 hours, you have enough footage for 5 1/2 books. Scouring the shire would only take about 30 minutes, but it does not work in film.

Aaron.

 

[Umbran]

I agree with your points, though. I see the Scouring of the Shire as integral to the story for the reasons you've discussed.

Whether they are integral to the story of the book is largely irrelevant. As moviemaking it would have been a horrible anticlimax. In a movie, the audience doesn't take to having too much stuff happen after the major climax, and doing so would make the movie end on a weak note, rather than a strong one.

 

[Mystery Man]

I totally disagree. JRRT's writing style, for lack of a better word, sucks IMO. I can't get though fellowship, its so slow paced and he has the characters break out into song about something that has NOTHING to do with the plot. He goes on and on describing almost everything the characters see while traveling, but he does not describe major battles, plot points well. The main story is about a war, and IMO you need to describe the action as well as the setting equailly.
IMO Geroge RR Martin strikes the balance between plot, setting, character devolpment and action better.

Maybe you should have your friend Jim help you with it.

 

[barsoomcore]

Whether they are integral to the story of the book is largely irrelevant. As moviemaking it would have been a horrible anticlimax. In a movie, the audience doesn't take to having too much stuff happen after the major climax, and doing so would make the movie end on a weak note, rather than a strong one.

The problem ACTUALLY being that the WRONG story points were made the climactic moments of the film. I agree, that if you make the destruction of the Ring the climactic moment of Return of the King, you have a problem. So don't make it the climactic moment. Make it the BIGGEST moment, but that's not the same thing.

Look at the structure of Fellowship for a good example. The climactic moment is the battle with the Uruk-Hai at the end -- but the BIGGEST moment is the confrontation between the Balrog and Gandalf. And yet the much-less-impressive battle scenes come across as powerful and heart-breaking -- because we care so much about these characters and we're watching something important happen to them.

PJ got seduced into thinking that the BIG moments with all their special effects and whatnot ought to be the CLIMACTIC moments, and that's why the Scouring couldn't have worked.

It's not because of some law of film-making. It's because of the choices the director made.

Put Helm's Deep at the middle of TT, put the destruction of the Ring at the middle of RotK. Wrap up the former with Shelob (or possibly the Paths of the Dead -- I bet that would work) and the latter with the Grey Havens (slightly less sappy, if possible). That'll fly.

 

[Mystery Man]

Put Helm's Deep at the middle of TT, put the destruction of the Ring at the middle of RotK. Wrap up the former with Shelob (or possibly the Paths of the Dead -- I bet that would work) and the latter with the Grey Havens (slightly less sappy, if possible). That'll fly.

Or it will suck hard and you'll have a gozillion fanboys on the interent criticizing your version.

 

[WizarDru]

Put Helm's Deep at the middle of TT, put the destruction of the Ring at the middle of RotK. Wrap up the former with Shelob (or possibly the Paths of the Dead -- I bet that would work) and the latter with the Grey Havens (slightly less sappy, if possible). That'll fly.

And in the meantime, Sam and Frodo do virtually NOTHING during the third movie, until they get to Mt. Doom. Book 5 was the singularly worst part of the series, with the endless descriptions of hill, dale and gorse bush. It was the very epitome of everything that was wrong with Tolkien's work, IMHO.

I agree some trimming could be done, but the scouring of the shire? It seems to me it would break the narrative flow, just like it does in the books. To me it feels more like an afterthought story, and not truly part of the quest. I suspect many audiences would view the movies and say...why are we getting this tacked-on 'mini-sequel' at the end, here? What does this have to do with the Lord of the Rings? He's gone, isn't he? Maybe it works from a literary standpoint, and maybe it doesn't....but I highly doubt it would work in a movie, at all. Folks were bored by the relatively short Grey Haven sequence...adding a whole sub-plot about Sharkey and shire...which requires introducing a whole bunch more characters to do it any sort of justice. Not to mention having to do lots more complicated production work on the established sets, which would further extend shoots, increase cost and so forth.

I'm just not seeing it, personally.

 

[mojo1701]

It seems to me it would break the narrative flow, just like it does in the books.

Peter Jackson himself said that it was anti-climactic.