Lord of the Rings: Did PJ lose the plot?

[barsoomcore]

It seems, Sir Whiskers, that your primary argument is that the movies do not possess the depth and power of the books. To this I make no argument whatsoever. That's self-evident.

The books are masterpieces, surely among the great literary works of the century. The movies are pretty good movies (even, for Fellowship and RotK, great movies). In terms of sheer artistic power, I happily agree that there is no comparision.

But I don't agree that the changes made to the story in the film have resulted in dramatic change to either the plot of the primary themes of the books. Now we may disagree on the notion of what constitutes a dramatic change, but let's try and find some middle ground.

1) As you already indicated, the idea that to defeat evil, sacrifices must be made. But the sacrifices were so much greater than the movies indicated.

Agreed that the movies did not show the depth or the history of what was happening. But that's only a difference of degree, not of kind. Differences of degree do not form a dramatic change.

2) The time of Men.

It is entirely clear from the films -- from Fellowship on -- that the time of Men is at hand and that the influence of the elves is fading. Again, I agree that there are questions of degree, but I do not consider such difference to justify the use the term "dramatic difference".

3) Power corrupts.

Again, the movies show this again and again. That it takes Faramir longer to come to the understanding of true wisdom does not mean that he does not come to the understanding.

AGAIN, you seem to be saying that the movies do not provide the same amount of emotional impact, the same amount of intellectual investigation, the same amount of philosophical insight.

And I agree. Absolutely, no question. What I disagree with is the notion that movies present a drastically different story or view of human nature than the novels.

One added theme in the movies, which does not exist in the novels, is that no one on the side of Good seems able to do anything right unless a member of the Fellowship did it for them.

I'll only address this for completeness' sake -- that's not a theme, that's a function of the narrative. And, for completeness' sake, I'll repeat that I'm not saying that there were no changes to the narrative, nor that all changes were good ones. I am saying that the changes to the narrative did not drastically alter the plot or the theme of The Lord of the Rings.

I do agree that if one reduces the story to its most basic elements (weak little people take powerful artifact to volcano to destroy great evil), then the movies' changes were only cosmetic. If one, however, views the trilogy as more than just the story of the Fellowship, then a great deal was lost.

Here is my position on the subject:

It is the story of the Free Peoples destroying the Ring of Doom. The key of the plot is that the Ring is utterly corrupting and thus cannot be defeated though positive action -- only resistance supported by the action of grace can bring about its destruction. The key theme of the story is that sacrifice is required to defeat evil -- real sacrifice, not the sort where your best friend dies but in the end you get the girl and Ewoks dance happily.

Of course there are many DETAILS in the books that are of greater or lesser importance, but they don't change the PLOT of the story. Obviously you can take any point of view as to what details are or are not important, and of course any movie made from a book will include certain details and exclude others -- the question isn't "How many details were included?" but rather, "Do the details that were included support the plot and key theme of the story?"
I agree that certain key details were missed, or clumsily handled, but I do not agree that the details used undermine the plot and key theme of the story.

While I don't claim to read minds, I can only conclude that PJ et. al. simply couldn't resist making changes they felt would improve the story told by the movies.

I guess you are claiming to read minds then. There exist literally an infinite number of reasons why they might have made those changes, but you're concluding it must have been the one you find easiest to believe. But it doesn't matter.

Why the changes were made is utterly immaterial unless you're just looking for ad hominem reasons to attack PJ's work. All that matters is the substance of the changes themselves.

And I don't see that any of the changes (which may have been good or bad in and of themselves) drastically altered either the plot or the theme of Lord of the Rings.

 

[KenM]

*The hobbits "tricked" Treebeard into getting involved in the War.

Well, if Merry and Pippin did not get the ents to join the war, they would have done nothing major in TTT, just escape from the orcs and sit in a walking tree for the whole movie. Like someone else said, PJ made a movie, not an excat translation for JRRT fanatics.
One of the changes that I think makes sense is in the movie, once they find out they have the ring, they immedatly start out for Rivendale. They don't wait years before taking action, like in the book, to me that did not make sense.

 

[Umbran]

One of the changes that I think makes sense is in the movie, once they find out they have the ring, they immedatly start out for Rivendale. They don't wait years before taking action, like in the book, to me that did not make sense.

In the books, it takes years for them to figure out that they have the One Ring, and Sauron was not making obvious moves at the time. Waiting until they are sure is a good thing, when you don't know where Sauron is or what he's up to. And in the books, Gandalf isn't sure until the ring gets put into the fire at Bag End....

 

[Vocenoctum]

*The hobbits also sacrificed, as we read in the Scouring of the Shire, yet that was completely cut from the movies. The whole sense that Frodo was permanently scarred by his ordeal was barely touched upon in the movies.

I reread the section a week ago. (I waited until after the movie's to reread the books)

I gotta say, the Scouring is horrible.
1) it's not brought by the War, it's a hobbit's doing. Until Saruman comes at the end.
2) Saruman TELLS them he's going to go cause trouble. They then procede to go to Rivendell to visit Bilbo!
3) Frodo is a wuss. I can understand if he does stuff and ensure's that no harm is done that is not needed, but he doesn't. He just whines.
4) Merry & Pippin are lawless bullies.
5) Sam must have kept The Ring, since he seems mostly invisible through the events. The pony does more than Sam.

Okay, so that's a little harsh, but that's what I got out of the Scouring. YMMV.

I do think they made a point of Frodo's morgul blade injury, but don't recall seeing anything that wuld be Shelob's bite. (though, not sure why that should leave a yearly pain)

The entire movie has a different pacing than the books, they don't contradict the time span on most counts, but they certainly dont mention 17 years passing between party and leaving. IIRC.

 

[shilsen]

The entire movie has a different pacing than the books, they don't contradict the time span on most counts, but they certainly dont mention 17 years passing between party and leaving. IIRC.

The movie specifically says "13 months to the day after we left...". As for your points about "The Scouring of the Shire", all I will say is YMMV all right. You are a funny, funny man

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I'll only address this for completeness' sake -- that's not a theme, that's a function of the narrative. And, for completeness' sake, I'll repeat that I'm not saying that there were no changes to the narrative, nor that all changes were good ones. I am saying that the changes to the narrative did not drastically alter the plot or the theme of The Lord of the Rings.

Well, perhaps one man's narrative is another man's theme...

Obviously, we'll have to agree to disagree on the importance of the changes. What we do agree on is that the movies are quite good.

IMHO, they're just not as good as I think PJ could have made them.

 

[Wormwood]

PJ did a great job with his "Classics Illustrated" version of the Lord of the Rings.

That's what I expected when I heard of the project, and that's what I got.

I dearly love the movies, but I maintain it would be folly to expect them to be a faithful adaptation of the books.

They are what they are.

 

[reapersaurus]

Whenever I hear him or Phillipa talking about script changes and how they think they improved on the story makes me want to puke. They improved nothing about LotR. The original story was far better than the BS they decided to add. It just made the characters seem less like the characters all us fans know and love.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion.

And I am so sick of this Tolkein-fanboy opinion that _I_ could puke.

I have a question for anyone who thinks that PJ did a bad job in adapting an unfilmable, meandering, mistake-ridden book like LotR:

Do you really think that JRR Tolkein didn't make mistakes in the book that needed to be fixed to be able to make a film out of it?

And I'm not just talking about omitting Tom Bombadil either.

I'm talking about things that Umbran conveniently omitted in his reply to KenM - that Frodo was told that he had the One Ring, and that he should pack and leave.... and he promptly waits months in packing and leaving.
His overdescriptiveness and ridiculous dialogue make it painful to read in comparison to the crisp efficiency of the movie's scenes.

I REALLY wish I could find a webpage that details the things the documentary/featurette mentions.

Here's a page that is pretty close to my (overall) opinion on LotR book (minus his 'state of fantasy writing' bit): http://www.theferrett.com/showarticle.php?Rant=69
"But his writing also meanders. He spends a lot of time focusing in on things that better writers would discard. His plots are filled with side-trails that wind nowhere, just like real history, and interchanges that really don't matter much at all. But like a man with no editor, Tolkien regurgitates it all so that you can see it.

There are those who will say that part of the charm of Tolkien is that his books read like history books. To which I say: This isn't real life. And worse yet, he commits the fatal flaw in that a lot of these sidelines are boring."

Meanwhile, Tolkein purists concentrate on anal differences between the books and films...
Here's what "True Tolkein Fans" think are mistakes in the movies: http://groups.msn.com/LordoftheRingsTrueFans/moviemistakes.msnw

 

[Hypersmurf]

Here's what "True Tolkein Fans" think are mistakes in the movies:

I give up... how is a Director's Cameo a mistake in the film?

It's not like he was giving last minute directions to the actors and accidentally didn't get out of frame!

-Hyp.

 

[demiurge1138]

Personally, I agree with those who have said that the movies and books are two very seperate entities. The movies are good movies and the books are good books (most of the time). That doesn't mean that one has to be better at the expense of the other.

A movie that was exactly what Tolkien wrote would be practically unfilmable, and certainly unwatchable. Although I do disagree with a few choices that Jackson made, that is not reason to despise the movie and anything remotely related to it. Nor is it reason to constantly complain about every detail that was changed.

And besides, there's already an example out there of how not to do Tolkien on film. People who whine about Jackson's LoTR need to watch the animated LoTR, which was absolutely terrible. Perspective is key.

Demiurge out.