Overextended battles, a powerless Enemy, a friendless wilderness and a safe and incorruptible home. Those are what make Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy not as good as the books....
Yes, let’s just state the obvious. The film trilogy was a master piece, showcasing the best of most of the film-making crafts. One can visit hundreds of sites, and New Line Cinema’s own box-set of DVDs, to read what’s good about the films and reminisce. The movies astonished my senses and connected me with my nostalgia and my desire to see J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings come to life on the giant screen. The amount of dedication and passion put into the movies by everyone involved is heart-warming. As a true geek and fan, however, I have to be honest and remind myself (and you) that all that glitters is not gold.
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)
Excellent analysis. Indeed, there are lots of insults added to injuries here.
The screenwriters should have had more respect for the best selling novel of the 20th century. Tolkien had already made their lives easy with his great writing style – which, in my opinion, was easily adaptable to a screenplay, — buy they decided to change the story altogether! I think it was necessary to trim down the story to fit it all into three movies, but they certainly didn’t have to add so many new, poorly written parts. I don’t think the writers should have been given license to distort the coherence of this masterpiece. It bums me out that they are making so much money for this. I wonder how the Tolkien family feels about it.
Let me make one thing clear: This is no ordinary case of “the book is always better than the movie”. This is much, much worse.
Does Peter Jackson have a NON-fan club? I’d like to join. Why does he take masterpieces like LOL and King Kong, give them awesome special effects and costume design, and then throw the writing into the sewer? I feel for the actors.
Someday, someone will remake LOL much better.
Thanks for such a nice post. I have lost count of the times I hollered at someone in passionate debate over book vs. movie. Here are a few points from me.
1. I love Quickbeam. I feel pretty sure Lindsey only added that because of me (not that he, too, does not also love QB) but I appreciate him doing so all the same. We don’t see much of him in the book, but he is such a lovely character – full of laughter and *haste*- and really gives another layer of dimension to the Ents as he is the only other Ent, other than Treebeard, we see the hobbits interact with. And it’s mightily important that we do see that interaction, to understand just how different they all are from one another. I’m not completely unhappy with PJ’s portrayal of the Ents…seriously, who didn’t love the storming of Isengard? Booting orcs in the pit, stomping on some squealing goblins. If only they could have spent a wee more time on that and not all the swashbuckling and shield-surfing.
2. Oh, Denethor. This is another example of something I suspect Lindsey added for my benefit. I remember crying over him, especially the first time I read it, because it was just all so tragic. And then the movie comes around and he is some whiny, grimacing, drama queen? Really? Sure, Denethor is kind of an a-hole no matter how you look at it, but there are reasons for this that at the very least give his character some depth. Tolkien portrays him as a man of great strength, will, and intellect – equal in these things almost to Gandalf. And though he thinks of himself as stronger than Saruman and incapable of being controlled by Sauron through the palantir, it warps his mind into something dark and damaged. But he realizes his mistakes in the end. And his mistakes are so great, costing him his sons and his people. Was it a good idea for him to drag a living Faramir onto the flaming pyre with him? No. But it was his special way of saying “This is my son and we die in honor together”. Does he look ridiculous running out of the door engulfed in flames, across the hundreds of feet to and then off the precipice? Yes. That alone makes me shake my fist in anger each time I watch it – after I laugh-out-loud, of course. His death should not have been comic relief. Moving on…
3.Scouring of the Shire. What a damn shame. Enough said.
I could say more, of course, but I am finished for the moment. Thank you.
Yeah, Ginger, all you have to say is “The Scouring of the Shire” and the argument is finished! This was the best part of the novel, and it was totally dismissed like George Bush’s knowledge of Al Qaeda’s imminent attack. Shameful.
I just noticed that I wrote LOL instead of LOTR….. interesting. Anyone who remakes this movie in the future is going to have to give the book Lots Of Love (…and Luck, and Laughs)