By far, the most disappointing aspect of the film wasn’t that it lacked the delicate complexity of the different narrative forms, but that half the story was missing. For those who haven’t read the book, a very large part of it was set back in history in the shtetl of our main character’s ancestors. That part of the story is incredibly moving and interfaces with the story set in the present in brilliant ways. To me, that was the heart of the story and it gave depth to the heart-rending climax of the story. I don’t know if it was timidity on the part of the filmmakers to open up their version to that level of complexity, an aversion to doing half the movie as a period piece, a limited budget or some other combination of factors, but the movie didn’t include the historical story and consequentially could only ever be a ghost of the novel.

I generally enjoyed the rest of the movie, including the performances by Elijah Wood and Eugene Hutz (who was brilliantly cast as Alex) as well as the cinematography, costuming and music, but the above-mentioned story-thinning was like watching a beheading, and it limited any positive experience I could have.

The film, however, did win some awards, so at least the filmmakers did get points for trying.

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Let’s start with the topic of tone. In general, the filmmakers (Director James McTeigue and screenwriters the Wachowski Brothers) changed the tone to something comic, almost tongue-in-cheek. At times, the tone becomes a sappy, almost nostalgic tone. It’s not just that they created a less dark version, but they created a version that takes itself less seriously.

As far as main characters, I will begin with V. In general, I didn’t dislike him too bad, except for his occasional melodramatic, overly light-hearted and cheeky attitude. When we first hear from Hugo Weaving, playing V in the film, he is delivering a long-winded monologue, apparently for Evey’s sake. Unfortunately, that sort of over-indulgence and phony intellectuality sets the tone for much of V’s presence in the film.

Evey’s character was more destructively altered in the film. In the book, she is introduced to us as completely vulnerable, having barely survived the post-nuclear weather, the loss of her father and a childhood living with her widowed mother in a work camp after the nuclear winter. After all that, she then resorts to prostitution and is saved from rape and potential death by a group of Fingermen. Through the course of the narrative we see her drown in her suffering and self-doubt and eventually, aided by V’s tough love, redefine herself and come out self-reliant. In the movie, she is just like everybody else. She works a normal 9-to-5 job and hides any vulnerability from the world around her. She doesn’t seem vulnerable at all, except for some distant memories of her parents’ abduction by the government, and she might even seem content with her life. There is so much less of a story arc for her to travel in the film. But in an interesting twist, the screenwriters do make Evey weaker in one regard. They make her rat out V and his plan to the Bishop.

The filmmakers also added an epidemic to the back-story, with a conspiracy between a pharmaceutical company and the government as an added plot-point. I may be wrong, but I think a good old-fashioned story about nuclear winter, and the rise of a genocidal regime over a weak and tired people still makes a compelling fable. I’m not ruling out that drug companies could be run by evil-minded people and that they could be in league with governments, but I am saying that they aren’t needed to make V for Vendetta a better tale.

There was also a general difference between the two versions in regards to the outlook towards the citizenry. In the book, Alan Moore’s writing told me that the citizens were complicit in England’s current state of affairs, that they had become weak and lazy and content in their false sense of security, allowing injustices, no matter the cost to their neighbors and friends. In the original V actually delivers a rather explicit public address to that effect. In the film, however, all popular guilt and responsibility was written out and the masses were depicted as having been taken hostage, somehow unwillingly, by the state. In the movie V also delivers a rather explicit public address to that effect.

I will now whine about a few things in the final moments of the movie. Why was there a mass of marching people in Guy Fawkes masks? Sitting through that whole “revolution lives in all of us” schtick was like drinking castor oil. Furthermore, why did the filmmakers have V take on a dozen or less heavily-armed fingermen and Creedy (practically the big bad) during an over-the-top, Matrix-like action sequence. Is Agent Smith behind that mask? Plus, Finch is not supposed to cozy up with V.2 at the end. He shoots V.1 and leaves ecstatic.

To finish up, here is a list of characters or plot points that I enjoyed in the original, but missed in the film:

• The song and montage in the Prelude to Book 2, The Vicious Cabaret
• The Prologue of Book 3, 1812 Overture and explosion
• The Vox Populi section
• Finch’s hallucinogenic trip at Larkhill and the image of him naked at Stonehenge
• The politics of the different coup attempts
• The look into the mind of the Leader, his heartbreak at the infidelity of Fate and his fall to assassination
• The homeless Guy Fawkes in the tunnel
• Finch walking off on the empty dark highway

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• Absolute V for Vendetta (Hardcover)
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Also, the color palette was overly muted. The color correction or lens filters brought everything into such a monochromatic visual realm and the book was so much more colorful and dynamic visually. This decision may be have been the result of simple stylistic differences or it could have been an accidental artifact of the Zeitgeist, seeing that so many of the modern films are going with heavy use of dominant coloring to heavily suggest moods for their audiences. Often visual effects artists use this sort of extreme color-washing to hide problems with cohesion and consistency among the various visual elements in a shot.

The scenes from the book I missed most of all was the transformation of the bedroom into forest. Not only is it such a defining image from the book, but it also represents to me something from my childhood. How often did my own safe, simple bedroom turn into someplace else entirely. The metamorphosis is also a master stroke of artistic skill by Sendak and it would have been great to see what the artists working on the film could have done with it. The magic was completely lacking in the movie where Max actually runs away from the house, has a tantrum in a deserted lot and arrives at a conveniently located docked boat. Too prosaic for my taste and such a missed opportunity.

The most heart-wrenching part to me in the book is when Max says goodbye to the wild things and leaves the island. I always felt the wild things were getting an unfair deal. Max shows up, gives them a new friend, shows them a new way to live and play, then leaves them behind, carelessly abandoning them to revert to their old wild ways. Despite the lackluster way the filmmakers handled the delivery of the line  “we’ll eat you up – we love you so!”, I felt that the movie carried the same sort of melancholy and unfairness as the scene in the book. I still felt like the wild things got the underside of the bargain. They finally got a king they didn’t eat for goodness sake and then he up and leaves them. And I have to admit, that the final growl, no matter how contrived it may have been, made me blow my nose a few times (because I was tearing up, not because I am allergic to fur and claws).

Overall, the changes I mention above are indicative of a major change in theme. In the book, Max is still a child, albeit a selfish one, but still with much of his innocence intact. He never actually leaves his bedroom (or so most of us assume) and he returns to a nice warm plate of food. He isn’t overtly faced with adult issues, except maybe anger and a general feeling of loneliness. In the film, Max is a character who has been forced to grow up rather quickly before he even leaves on his travels. When he does run away and go to the land of the wild things, he is faced with an even  scarier adult-like existence, where he finds himself in a role of responsibility and fragile leadership and has to deal with questionable issues of right and wrong. When he gets back home, he is left to digest some serious issues and push forward into adolescence and its complications.

Though I applaud Spike Jonez and crew for a brave, thoughtful treatment of such a huge cult classic, the movie and the book are different beasts entirely and I prefer Sendak’s wild things to Jonez’s.

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• Where the Wild Things Are (Hardcover)
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Unfortunately folks, that optimism and bright, sunny, campy crime-fighting is just not Batman’s style. It never has been (well, except for this TV series, the post-Burton/pre-Nolan films and some of the WB animated TV series). Ok, so maybe there are many possible Notasgoodasthebook posts in this mythology.

I don’t really want to throw my hat into the ever-stretching ring of Batman lore (though if you want to, you can start with Batman: The Complete History (link below)). I simply want to say that I like the earlier comics more than the TV series. Let’s consider some simple differences:

Costumes

Batman and Robin from the early comics

Batman and Robin from the 1960s TV Series

Ok, maybe those aren’t that different. Maybe a little later in the comics, but still before the TV series:

Batman and Robin in the 1950's

How many pairs of tights can I compare, right? Obviously the costumes aren’t really that different, but there are some differences. The costumes on West and Ward are less angular, more curved (notably Robin’s shorts and Batman’s mask/ears). This might not seem like a big deal, but it makes me feel like the TV characters are a lot more approachable and, dare I say, “cuddly”. By the end of the show in 1969, DC Comics definitely wanted to bring it back to where it had begun, while distancing itself further from the image lingering from the TV series. So they went in a recognizably different direction from the series. The costume is almost completely covered by the cape.

Batman 1970

Situations and Plots

Well, there were some cheesy things going on in the Batman world before the TV show hit the airwaves. The 50′s and early 60′s weren’t the best of time for our caped crusader, story-wise. Batman and Robin kept finding themselves in weird sci-fi-like situations. But the TV series gave Batman such a bad name that it would take years to get the public to take the Dark Knight seriously again. His gloomy almost anti-social behavior would be developed and explored much more fully after the show, maybe even because of it, but it was already there, as a kernel, in the original comic books.

Though there was a lot of campy fun to be had watching Adam West and Burt Ward, we were never really watching Batman and Robin. Luckily, the Batman franchise, or mythos, was too large to be hurt by the TV show and some of the other misrepresentations of the character.

Some could argue, and argue well, that these less optimal incarnations of the Dark Knight have only slightly harmed the franchise, instead bringing hordes of new fans, some of which moved onward and delved deeper into the darker, deeper Batcaves. That is usually the case with the sort of things posted on Notasgoodasthebook, but the question still remains whether the story is improved or not, whether the characters retain the elements that made them interesting and unique in the first place. In my book, the TV series falls flat in that regard.

For a little more in-depth reading about Batman, here are some links:

• http://www.grouchoreviews.com/features/86
• http://www.grouchoreviews.com/features/87
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman
• http://www.goldenagebatman.com/gabathistory.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_%28TV_series%29

I leave you with an image, for your pleasure. Just don’t be so scared you drop your hula hoop.

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• Batman: The Complete History (Paperback)
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I have to say the love story with Trillian, played by Zooey Deschanel, brought the film down. It was over-done. I was completely shocked with the cheesy galaxy where they decided to bring that sub-plot. This was one of my main contentions with the movie. I know that Hollywood is in a constant quest to insert love stories into every single film they make (thankfully they don’t always get their way), and the book has one baked-in, but I wish they wouldn’t turn the love stories, especially the ones that are already well-written, into unbelievable, dopey, goo-dripping, blah blah blah. Can you thumb me back onto another ship please? Get me away from those sappy eye-gazers. Please!

Also, why were the Vogons so pivotal in the movie’s plot. It has been a while since I read the book, though I read it often, but I definitely don’t recall that sort of Vogon presence. Of course, they appear throughout the series of books, but not so much in the first book. But I guess that was a byproduct of the plot being completely redone and merged with elements from the other books of the “Trilogy”. This was so out-of-whack with the book that I can’t really comment without a lot of boring words. Pick up a good copy of the book and read it as written to see what I mean.

One thing I really loved in the movie was the Vogon eradication of Earth. I always love to see a good Earth-destruction scene and this one was as good as I expected. I loved it. Zap, poof, gone. Perfect.

Now, I know this wasn’t a very deep-delving post, and I may get many comments elucidating my shallow treatment of such a large subject, and I apologize. I may try and thicken the post later on. But for now, this will have to suffice.

Oh yeah, don’t forget your towel!

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Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was co-packaged with Bram Stoker’s Dracula (which I don’t remember playing) for the Sega CD gaming system. It is a side-scrolling game that has been labeled as a “horror action adventure” game. You can see a video of someone playing it at Youtube.

The game itself wasn’t that bad. I actually forgot the music being so cool (check out the youtube video). It was more that it wasn’t as unabashedly Romantic as the novel, and Romanticism was appealing to me as a young teen. The game retained the ambiguities of identity and the tensions of the creator/creature relationship from the book, but those are necessities really, and the game-play was mostly just picking up keys and beating people up. It’s hard to portray the awesome movements of Romanticism in a video game, especially in a Sega CD game, and the game-makers might not have been trying anyway.

Actually, the most frustrating part was that I saved our progress right before the ultimate battle, after countless hours in front of the TV. I was confronting Dr. Frankenstein himself, with only the slightest bit of health, thus making it virtually impossible to survive. It was tragic. I really wanted to walk (or hobble) off into the Arctic waste to die some Romantic death in the giant vastness of nature. I might have even looked like a character in some sort of Shelly novel, drained of all energy, out of my mind sprawled on a couch, bemoaning the loss of my final satisfaction.

The game never brought me to die in the Arctic. So I went back to the book, as usual.

[I am currently reading The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, so Romanticism and Science, the foundations of Shelly's novel, are on my front burner, so to speak]

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I could nitpick and point out many smaller differences between the books and films, but that wouldn’t be very productive and would only seem trivial. So, I have chosen to spend my time writing about only four fundamental kinds of faults I find with PJ’s trilogy.

1:Those bloated, cheesy battles

The battles are too long. They had much less attention in the books. Helm’s Deep occupies only one chapter in The Two Towers, whereas it makes up the backbone of the respective film. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields (the big battle for Gondor) in The Return of the King is a little longer in the book than Helm’s Deep, but yet again takes up way more of the story in the movie version. Not only is this just plain boring, but it is also counter-productive to the character development and pacing of the story.

Here’s a quick list of elements found in the books that the film-makers might have been able to fit in their version, with all the freedom given after axing half the battle time (and expense).

• Introduce Quickbeam to the Fangorn/Hobbit story
• Show Ghan Buri Ghan and the Wildmen, or at least allude to their resemblance to the statues  we see at the scene in Dunharrow
• Show us the exodus from Minas Tirith of the women and children. In fact, they actually do the opposite of the book and leave the women and children in the city. I imagine that choice was made to raise the stakes of the battle. Like they needed to be raised.
• Let us see the arrival of reinforcements from the rest of Gondor. This point is tied into point 3 below
• Make Denethor a more complex character (see below)
• Mention the Palantir of Minas Tirith, giving the audience a more explicit explanation for the despair of Denethor, while also revealing a dimension to Sauron’s reaching menace
• Maybe give the orcs a little more dialog, like in the books, instead of just grunting and roaring and squealing like animals all the time

The list goes on. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

There is another smelly by-product of the movie battles. They are full of tacky action-flick cliches that glorify the art of battle much more than Tolkien would have ever wanted. The books cut straight to the point, with only an occasional mention of cleaving an orc-helm in two, and the like. The films treat the thick of battle as if it were a game, with a dark-humor seen in so many action movies that came before. Sure, the book has some of that humor in the orc-counting game of Legolas and Gimli, but it’s not the same. It’s everywhere in the movies. Fans of Peter Jackson might love that sort of camp, but I’m not one of them.

Actually, Tolkien via Faramir chimes in on the concept of battle for battle’s sake, when describing the decline of his folk from “High Men” to “Middle Peoples”:

“‘For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts. Such is the need of our days. So even was my brother, Boromir: a man of prowess, and for that he was accounted the best man in Gondor. And very valiant indeed he was: no heir of Minas Tirith has for long years been so hardy in toil, so onward into battle, or blown a mightier note on the Great Horn.’ Faramir sighed and fell silent for a while.” – The Two Towers, Book 2, Chapter 5, The Window On The West

Of course that’s the Faramir of the book. I suppose the Faramir of the movies might like pirate-movie swashbuckling and post-videogame shield-surfing (see point 3). For a little fun, try reading Faramir’s words again, but substitute modern film audiences for Rohirrim, Peter Jackson for Boromir, the 2003 Academy Awards for Gondor, Splatter Films for Minas Tirith and Massive for the Great Horn.

2: Sauron has no muscles

This flaw in storytelling was particularly bothersome to my friends the brothers Carrasco (Bill and Bobby). Bobby almost walked out of The Two Towers because of it, though nobody else seemed to notice or care. The ominous feeling was building steadily during the movie, accelerating once the hobbits met Grumpy Faramir (see below). The storm clouds opened and the rains really started with the screenwriters’ addition of the Osgiliath scene. A scene full of horrors. Basically, the tragedy of the scene lies in the following. We are led to believe (rightfully so, if you follow the main point of the book) that Sauron is extremely dangerous and powerful, that the only way for Frodo and Sam to creep into Mordor and destroy the ring is if our other characters can draw Sauron’s eye to the threat of war from the West and if they can trick Sauron into growing even more paranoid that someone else might have the ring and attempt to use it against him.

In the film, all that is hopelessly (and brazenly) dashed to the rocks when Frodo stands on the bridge at Osgiliath, the ring in the open air, with a Nazgul hovering above him watching the whole thing. What?! This is the single most destructive flaw of writing in the movie, the one that clearly shows the deep misunderstanding the filmmakers have with the book. Firstly, the nazgul would have killed him the instant it saw the ring, with no hovering around to wait. That instantly kills the idea that the Nazgul is anything more than a giant mosquito, that it is dangerous at all. Secondly, if he didn’t kill him, he would at least report to Sauron and the gag would be revealed. All servants of Mordor would be on the hunt, looking for a little fat hobbit in their neighborhood. Sauron would spare no resources on the hunt and nobody would be sent to beat big drums at the gates of Minas Tirith. Period. End of story, literally.

There really isn’t any way to satisfactorily justify the decision to invent that scene and insert it into the film. It is a reckless and destructive edit to Tolkien’s story. I assume the screenwriters might say that they were trying to create tension or interest to keep the audience biting their dirty nails. It was an unlucky attempt, and all they really did was replace a murderous god-figure with a buzzing bumblebee. Why not just hitch a ride on the fell beast, and when it flies over Mount Doom, just drop the ring and get it over with.

3: We’re all alone Mr. Frodo

So now that we (the filmmakers) have castrated the Enemy, let’s get rid of all the friendly faces of the world as well.

The choice to make the film’s Faramir a mean-spirited, untrustworthy, fragile-willed man has been brought up before, and defended by the film-makers, as were the decisions to gloss over Tom Bombadil and to transform Bree into a menacing rest stop. I still don’t agree with either decision; not just because I liked the characters, but because the screenwriters yet again harm the story on a deeper level. In fact, you can add their treatment of Denethor to the list. By making their decisions about Bombadil, Bree, Faramir and Denethor, the screenwriters created a cold cold world, where, once you leave the beaten path, there is nobody to be trusted at face value. This is at odds with Tolkien’s books and his underlying philosophy. What the first three of these elements reflect is the balance between light and dark, that there may be help in dreadful places, by characters unexpected.

Tom Bombadil presented a specific problem to the film-makers. If they kept Bombadil, they would have to include the Old Forest, Old Man Willow, The Barrow Downs and Goldberry. Of course, they didn’t have that sort of time to work with. Or would they? See point 1. Furthermore, as the theory goes, that would be too many characters that distract from the story and might confuse the viewer. But the feeling of relief and rest granted to the reader (and our heroes) through Bombadil is like a breath of athelas, a kiss from Arwen, or any of the other elements that add dynamics to the story and illuminate the present danger of our heroes with a vastly older healing power which inhabits the world. Also, maybe most importantly, we see a character on which the ring wields no power. In fact Bombadil has a genre of power that no other character in the story possesses. He saves the hobbits on two separate occasions from very different foes. He and Goldberry shed a waterfall of hope to the reader, and a deeper knowledge of the world. Could we have had less of the MASSIVE-created battle montages and used the time for a more dynamic story? That’s mostly a rhetorical question.

Bree is another example in the book of a point of rest for the hobbits, a light in the wilderness. Well, at least for a little while. They arrive to a cheerful inn full of merriment and travelers of all sorts. For a moment, the reader rests. This is also the first place of friendliness for the Hobbits outside of the Shire, and the world they are trying to save includes other peoples than only hobbits. In the movie, The Prancing Pony is a urine-colored, claustrophobic tavern, stuffed into a row of rotting buildings on a damp, ominous street. I don’t think the cinematic hobbits could care less about saving the place, or ever desire to return. This just doesn’t tell the same story, and the change is detrimental to the understanding of the mythos, not to mention we don’t get to see the generosity of Butterbur, Bob or Nob. Shucks!

Now let’s skip ahead a few hours (or weeks) and we come to Ithilien. We meet a Faramir who is easily corrupted by the ring. Or so say the film-makers. This is another example where you lose the dynamics of good/bad and tension/release. This loop the screen-writers lost themselves in by creating the whole Faramir-taking-ring-to-my-dad thing is not only ludicrous, but also disastrous to the story (see Osgiliath in point 2). Also, we lose a character that is distinctly different than any other in the book. The original Faramir knows his weakness, his responsibility and his precarious position with his father, yet swiftly uses his intelligence to see the peril in trying to take the ring, something his brother Boromir did not see. He showed wisdom and set the hobbits free, risking his own life. In the movie, he still makes that decision (sort of) and “proves his quality”, but much later in the story, after the added trip to Osgiliath. Am I drilling this in yet? That weakens his character extremely. He is a shell of the man he is in the book, both weaker in will and slower in mind. The revision of his character yet again chips away at the idea that the wide world contains unexpected aid from good-hearted, strong people. On that note, let us read what Frodo (aka Tolkien) says about Faramir in the The Two Towers, Book 2, Chapter 7:

The hobbits bowed low. ‘Most gracious host,’ said Frodo, ‘it was said to me by Elrond Halfelven that I should find friendship upon the way, secret and unlooked for. Certainly I looked for no such friendship as you have shown. To have found it turns evil to great good.’

In the movie meeting Faramir was to the hobbits more like a hindrance than a great good.

We have, last but not least, Denethor, Faramir’s father. My wife was rather upset by the way the film-makers whittled away most of the positive qualities of this last Steward of Gondor. Ok, so he’s not the most sympathetic character in the books, but he is redeemable in part and highly complex. In the story, we learn of his extreme intellect, comparable even to a wizard’s. We also learn of his use of the palantir, thus we can understand what has slowly driven him desperately mad. We see his desire to save the city from what the palantir tells him is a truly suicidal cause, and we see his deep love of family. We miss that with the removal of the Minas Tirith palantir from the films. In the movies, we almost only see his negative qualities; he seems to have lost touch, become old, inefficient, stubborn, proud, and the only source the viewer can find for these faults is some sort of character flaw, as if he has just always been that way. His deaths are also very different in the two versions. His film death is more spectacular (and cliche), but shallower and less significant. I imagine the audience might almost be happy to get rid of him, as they would a villain or an annoyance to the main characters. In the chapter The Pyre of Denethor, the caved-in ruin of the family tomb and the palantir forever seared with the image of Denethor’s hands are lasting reminders of his final pitiful madness and the power of Sauron in the ending days of the Stewardship of Gondor.

It has been said that these examples were purposeful, to create a feeling of growing tension, to keep in line with the feeling that the ring is corruptive and dangerous (see point 2 above where the screenwriters prove the opposite) and that there is nowhere to turn for help, except for our established characters like Gandalf and Aragorn. That is misleading, because in truth the story just gets flattened, along with the characters. The friendly faces and places represented in the book by Bombadil and Faramir are needed to remind the readers that you can stumble upon unexpected help, of a pure sort, even in dark places, and that evil (the ring) does not corrupt everything. The point of Bree is that you CAN find a good place to drink a pint or two and sing and dance, with dwarfs and men, even while being chased by druids or dementors or whatever.

4: Will this be on the test, Gandalf?

Many tears have been shed about the writing-out of the Scouring of the Shire from the movie. Insult was added to injury when one of the hobbits even points out, upon returning to the shire, that nothing has changed. I must say that after watching the movie, I can see why the film-makers wanted to avoid adding another conflict after creating such sweeping resolutions to the other, larger conflicts. Nevertheless, something important was lost in translation when the film-makers revised the trilogy’s ending.

By leaving out the scouring of the shire, the audience misses one of the most heart-wrenching realities of the book, a fact that slaps and challenges to a duel anyone who calls The Lord of the Rings escapist literature. That reality is that you can never go home. No corner of the world is safe, no matter how many strawberries grow there. The world changes, sometimes for the worst, and you have to roll with the punches. Even more bitter to swallow is that sometimes that change is brought about by someone who has been let off the hook, maybe even by the compassion of the wise, someone like Saruman.

Another critical theme lost by removing the scouring of the Shire is that the application of learning is most useful without your teachers watching over your back, that when it’s important to you and those you hold dear, you might have to do it alone. The hobbits go away, learn who they are and return just in time to come to maturity back in their own home fields. They put what they have learned in their travels to good use, saving their own people, withouth Gandalf, Aragorn, Eagles or Treebeard. In the film, they just return to being normal hobbits, drinking beer at the Prancing Pony, remarking on how nobody in the inn seems to even know or care about them or their journeys. What a different moral for the end of our story!

As Sam says in The Two Towers, Book 2, Chapter 8, comparing their journey with those of the “old tales and songs”:

Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into?

If you haven’t read the books, at least read the last three chapters of The Return of the King. You will be pleasantly surprised.

The End

In conclusion, Peter Jackson’s film trilogy is great, except that the screenwriting is riddled with bad decisions. Decisions made, it seems, to create some sort of clearer and more present danger, a constant menace. At the best times this just flattens out the story, making it monotonous. At the worst times, it completely destroys the reason for the story at all. One finds the film-makers writing themselves in circles, justifying one mistake as a remedy for a mistake they made earlier.

In the DVD special features, one will hear lots of talk about the story’s central themes of hope, fellowship and sacrifice, and it is true that everyone involved in the films put their heart and soul into their jobs and are great actual examples of those themes in action. It would have been great if we could have seen a few better decisions by the film-makers as well, giving some of the book’s deepest themes the respect they deserve.

Hey, at least we still have the books!

I want to thank Bill, Bobby, Morgan and Ginger for bringing these issues to my attention and discussing my further extrapolations of them with me.

** Random Sidenote: While researching for this post, I found this funny Middle Earth Name Generator.

Purchase these titles from Amazon

• The Lord of the Rings Paperback Box Set
• The Lord of the Rings – The Motion Picture Trilogy (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition) (2003)

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