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Rereading The Lord of the Rings gives me even more sympathy for some of the choices Jackson made.
After Weathertop, the hobbits and Strider hang out and listen to Sam recite poetry. While Frodo is being slowly killed by poison and the group is chased by evil riders. This just destroys all tension in the narrative.
Don’t get me wrong: these excursi are of course part of what makes the books so charming and the world-building so rich. But Tolkien, as an amateur, broke basically every rule of storytelling in writing this book. He was a genius, and he caught lightning in a bottle.
But the idea that filmmakers should have tried to imitate him in this is absurd.
There had been *nothing* like LotR when it came out. That’s why it spawned an entire genre. This kind of thick world-building just didn’t exist. That was such a radical and enthralling concept that he could get away with bad storytelling & pose & still blow people’s minds.
But the idea that Jackson should have made an unwatchable movie to imitate Tolkien’s terrible pacing is absurd. It’s not just dumb blockbusters that have clear narrative structures with clear obstacles for the protagonist to overcome.
Some of the complaints by fans are just factually false. I heard several times on this website that Frodo was a mature man when he set out on his quest and not a young leading man like Elijah Wood. Except: when Frodo gets the Ring, he is 33, which is the coming-of-age for ...
... hobbits, whose life expectancy is 100, so he would look like a teenager/young adult. He sets out many years later, but because he has the Ring he hasn’t visibly aged, and Tolkien *explicitly describes him looking like a teenager*.
The movies have flaws, some serious, but the list of things that not only went right, but more right than anyone had a right to expect (Andy Serkis!) is much much longer.
And there can be no doubt that the movies were a labor of love, with so many extremely talented people, while not always hitting the mark, going above and beyond to be true to the books as they understood them.
Two small things--and therefore significant--that show how above and beyond they went. When Aragorn finds the brooch that Merry dropped during the Uruk-hai chase, he says, as if to himself: "Not idly do the leaves of Loren fall!"
"Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall!"
"Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall!"
There's no way that a normal Hollywood movie allows a character to say a line that explains a plot point in grammatically-complex old-timey English.
Hollywood employs *hundreds* of people whose *full-time job* is to veto anything that *might* be confusing to a 85 IQ spectator.
Hollywood employs *hundreds* of people whose *full-time job* is to veto anything that *might* be confusing to a 85 IQ spectator.
Normally, there should be a meeting where somebody decides that Aragorn's line will be "This didn't get here by accident" or whatever.
Second example: Gandalf gets to Gondor. Someone calls out to him: "Mithrandir!" The movie never establishes or explains that in Gondor, ...
Second example: Gandalf gets to Gondor. Someone calls out to him: "Mithrandir!" The movie never establishes or explains that in Gondor, ...
... Gandalf is known as Mithrandir. It just trusts you to figure it out from the context. Which isn't hard, but again, there's no way that in a normal Hollywood movie, there isn't a meeting whose agenda is for some rich guy to say, look, the guy's name is Gandalf. Just have...
... the characters call him Gandalf, ok? What's the harm? You're just going to confuse people.
In retrospect, perhaps the most aggravating fail, in part because it's intervowen everywhere, is Aragorn's ambivalence towards his own role, which is clearly a product of the screenwriters' own ambivalence towards the concept of (essentially) divine-right hereditary monarchy.
Reading the book again right now, I'm struck by how self-assured--almost to the point of cockiness--Aragorn is.
Tbf, having Aragorn be self-effacing makes it clearer that Frodo is the main protagonist we should care about.
Eh. As such, I don't care. It doesn't make much sense for book-Aragorn to fight with a 1/3-length sword. But I agree that they used that to symbolize this invented character trait which makes for an inferior character. https://twitter.com/tolaatseforim/status/1339939778662379522?s=20
For Isengard, they built a model the size of a rugby field. (I know this because, being Kiwis, that's how they described it, because Kiwis rule.) Again: just imagine Disney making this movie & count your blessings. https://twitter.com/pegobry/status/1339919828472246274?s=20
This is a good example of what I'm talking about. This is an indisputable thematic fail, one which I am sorry about. At the same time, it's impossible to have a movie where the main quest is resolved and then there has to be this entire new mini-adventure. https://twitter.com/mjpost/status/1339942362534076421?s=20
A related thing I dislike: they never attempted to show Saruman the Many-Coloured. I never managed to picture it reading the book and it's something where smart use of excellent special effects could have done something great.
Internet Tolkien Experts have informed me that LotR's wonky narrative structure is (a) excusable because he was making it up as he went along; (b) masterfully patterned after the Nordic Sagas and we suck for not appreciating it.
Again, to be clear, I'm not trying to diss the book, whose unconventionality is clearly (albeit mysteriously, perhaps) part of its genius, just explaining that any watchable film would have taken liberties with the material.
I am now at Elrond’s Council, an entire chapter made up of just people sitting and talking. What a genius.
The point is that enormous amounts of plot happen via a character talking about them, which *can* work in a book but definitely not in a movie. https://twitter.com/Jagiellonius/status/1340145028182716421?s=20
Some of the criticisms of the movie seem downright bizarre to me. Yes, the Frodo-Sam relationship is the officer-batman relationship, which was personally important to Tolkien because of his war experiences and is part of Tolkien's creation of Hobbits as an hommage to ...
... Middle-English culture. What I'm struck by is not that they made the relationship more egalitarian than in the book, which they did, but how much of it they preserved: Sam calls him "Mr Frodo" for 80% of the book, and the class difference and deference aspect of the ...
... relationship is clearly portrayed. Meanwhile, we all know Sam is the real protagonist of the book, but in the early stages, now re-reading them even *I* (not exactly an egalitarian) cringe at how frankly dog-like he is in his simple-mindedness and devotion to Frodo.
When Frodo is hanging out in Elrond's Hall, Sam comes to sit by his feet, and then falls asleep. And that's the information we're given. I'm surprised he's not wagging his tail and chewing on a bone.
Yes, it's correct that an English country squire wouldn't be having beers down at the pub with his gardener, as is portrayed in the film, but there needs to be some way of portraying their friendship. Sam's mix of motives for following Frodo--friendship, fidelity to his ...
... master, wanting to "see the elves", understanding of the importance of the quest--is actually quite well done in the movie, and *within the constraints of the movie* makes for a deeper and more relatable character while being 87% faithful to the book.
And incidentally Sean Astin delivers such a smashing, perfect performance in that role, and if we're going to ding PJ for his screenwriting choices, we should also give him credit for his casting & actor's direction choices.
And yes, some things are lost. There's a great little moment: towards the end of the party at Elrond's Hall, Sam comes up to Frodo and asks "Will you be needing anything, Sir?" and Frodo laughs and says something to the effect: "You mean it's getting late and I should sleep ...
... before the council meeting early tomorrow morning." It's almost a Jeeves-Bertie moment, and it's delightfully English. We don't get it in the movies. It's impossible not to feel some sadness or regret at that.
But an expectation that the movies should check every little box is an absurd standard, especially without an awareness of the extent to which an attempt to do so would have made the movies incredibly disjointed and dull to all but autists.
I mean, Tolkien came from a somewhat impoverished middle-class background. He *wasn't* an English country squire, but like many of his class he tended to idealize that world. And so while there's elements of inauthenticity to the Frodo-Sam relationship as portrayed in the ...
... movie, so too in the book.
Lmao "Hitler (or a Frenchman)". O Englishmen, never change!
Still at Elrond’s Council!
