Grr. Return of the King makes me angry.

[Umbran]

Umbran: I guess I'm not being clear. OF COURSE in the movies that PJ made, you couldn't just tack on another hour of The Scouring and expect it to work. I'm trying to say that I believe there's a way to create films in which the Scouring IS the climax. The existing films are not those films, I grant you, and so the setup they provide is not going to give us what we want.

No, I think I am the one not being clear. Let me try again...

The problem lies in one of the differences between film and literature. In a work of literature of length, you don't have a single climax. You have, in fact need, multiple climaxes. In LOTR, the greatest climax is (perhaps arguably) the destruction of the One Ring. Then, given some time and slow prose after that, the reader is ready for another, smaller climax in the Scouring. It works (for some) in a written work of length.

Film doesn't have the same luxury. Films are but a few hours, fleeting by comparison to the time it takes to read the written work. And that brings up the problem.

The destruction of the One Ring must be one of the climaxes of the film. The event is important, the most important of the age. You cannot understand why the hobbits go through the trials, and understand the changes they've undergone, unless it is made important, and that makes it a climax point. You cannot notably reduce the emphasis of that point - it is built too strongly into the plot and character development.

Having done that, anything else would be a letdown. I'm sorry, but dramatically the Scouring simply isn't as strong, because it isn't as important. Yes, it means a lot to the hobbits, but if you set it and the One Ring side by side, as they must be with a film's time constraints, the Scouring loses in the eyes of the audience.

I simply don't believe the best of spin doctors could change that, and still have the characters be plausible. I'm sorry, but it is in the nature of the beast that is film.

 

[Umbran]

in many ways Peter Jackson and the other individuals who adapted the screen play missed what was important about the books.

Let's be a little more precise - Peter Jackson and the other individuals who adapted the screenplay thought differently than you did about what was important, and what should have priority in a mass-media movie.

There is no one objective "this is what is important about this book". Each reader or audience member can and will think different things are "what is important". If it were otherwise, there would be no such thing as literary analysis - if there were one Truth, you wouldn't need umpteen people dissecting a work. There is only "What I find to be important".

 

[Onos T'oolan]

There is only "What I find to be important".

Although I do agree with you, I think you also need to consider the author's intent -- what the author intended to be important -- and if it can be argued that there is something resembling a Truth-with-a-capital-T, then surely it would be that intent ..

With respect to the film - any attempt to make a movie based on a book is both a transformative and translative effort. As such the director becomes an author-by-proxy as well as an author in his own right (after all, a film is a unique creation in itself). So in this case PJ's intent must also be considered.

I am surprised in all the discussion about the Scouring that no one mentioned Tolkien's blatant metaphor for his dismay at the loss of pastoralism and the rise of industrialism. For indeed that was what the hobbits were to him the ideal of a pastoral life that he pined for and saw diminshing everywhere.

But 50 years can change perspectives and as others have pointed out waht works in a book doesn't always work in a movie.

I think this is an excellent point, and one that needs to be considered. PJ's intent was not to tell this story, because in the end this 'message' is ridiculously irrelevant today.

For those arguing that the point of the Hobbits' journey is diluted by the absence of the Scouring, I would say that the message of the Hobbits' heroism, selflessness, etc. has already been pounded into the audience ad infinitum by the time the Scouring would have occurred

There is only so much 'weight' a single film can carry before it buckles under.

 

[Onos T'oolan]

Personally, even in the books the Scouring always seemed like 'another' story -- an unnecessary addendum, as though a short story was somehow grafted on to the end ..

 

[David Howery]

Amal> hmm... well, most of what you mention was in the movie... Eowyn beheading the pterodactyl, Eowyn making the big stab into the witch king, Merry stabbing him in the leg, Eowyn's arm and shield getting broken... and the whole Aragorn healing them will be in the EE. As for the 'moment of doubt'.. it worked in the book, because you didn't know that Dernhelm was actually Eowyn, while everyone watching the movie already knew it. You're right though, in that it would have been neat to somehow include that moment of doubt. Still, most of what you mentioned was in there.. or are you saying it should have been done differently?

 

[Onos T'oolan]

I don't think Amal had an issue with 'Content' - the basic elements were all there. The issue was with the 'Presentation' and 'Execution' of said 'Content'

 

[David Howery]

ok... I personally didn't have any qualms about that scene (unlike some others), but to each his own....

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Really, I agree with Amal (How could you not? Wow!). However, I think that that scene could have been vastly improved simply by not telling the audience that Dernhelm is Eowyn.

 

[ValamirCleaver]

If anything the changes and additions that have no basis in preexisting writings that were made to the story, especially those made to adhere to modern movie convetions, bother me much more than any omissions.

While I do see valid points and the likely reasoning behind them on both sides of each argument, can we at least agree that the one person who would have best to adapt the story for the screen has been dead for over 30 years and that the one living person that would have been most capable of the aforementioned adaption widely known to have desire that these films had never come into existence.

Tom

 

[Berandor]

Really, I agree with Amal (How could you not? Wow!). However, I think that that scene could have been vastly improved simply by not telling the audience that Dernhelm is Eowyn.

And how would that be done in a way that it is remotely believable? After all, we *see* Miranda Otto on the horse, don't we?