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Nit-Pickers Guide to Deviations in Jackson's LotR

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the one-for-comic-book-guy dept.

bcolflesh submits "A lengthy list of deviations to be found when comparing the text of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and the translation of those texts to film as undertaken by Peter Jackson, et.al."

10 of 712 comments (clear)

  1. Needless amounts of effort! by dswensen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is great work, but you could make this article much shorter in one easy step:

    1) Peter Jackson's work is a movie, not a book.

    Done.

    1. Re:Needless amounts of effort! by Golias · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The question I have is this: Is there any change from the book that actually bothers people?

      Nobody I've spoken to is even the least bit troubled by the skipping of Tom Bombadil's chapters, the compressing of a couple dozen elf jobs into Arwen's character, the burning of the shire becoming a dream sequence, etc. What few nit-picks I thought I had about TTT turned out to be included in the Special Edition after all. Frankly, I think the majority of the changes were slight improvements, and all very faithful to the spirit of the work.

      So, is there anybody out there that can name a change or two that they actually considered a major let-down?

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    2. Re:Needless amounts of effort! by fireduck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, is there anybody out there that can name a change or two that they actually considered a major let-down?

      yes. Aragorn falling off the cliff in TTT and "dieing" was pointless. We already had enough "fake-out" deaths in the first movie that were actually in the text (frodo w/ the cave troll, gandalf at the bridge) that Aragon's "death" just seemed like too much cliche. Especially since it was no where to be found in the text.

      I'm still unsure whether the whole "take Frodo to Osgilith" scene was necessary or not. I understand Jackson's purpose (Faramir is human and corruptable by the ring, so that *needs* to be shown explicitly to drive the point home), I'm just not sure if I liked how it was handled.

    3. Re:Needless amounts of effort! by bpo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, there is one that really bothers me.

      In TTT, why do the Ents decide not to go to war at the Entmoot? It is even less believable that when the hobbits show them a lot of tree stumps, that they suddenly change their mind (and just happened to be standing at the edge of the forest to respond to TreeBeard's call). If Treebeard didn't know how much his own forest was being cut down, well, pretty bad tree-herder IMHO.

      With dramatic music and sound effects etc, Peter Jackson could probably have done a fairly good job of the tension in the hobbits while waiting(will they help or not?), then the cry for war coming from the Ents.

      Such a simple change, with large repercussions. Why did he have to make it?

    4. Re:Needless amounts of effort! by jallison · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I'm still unsure whether the whole "take Frodo to Osgilith" scene was necessary or not. I understand Jackson's purpose (Faramir is human and corruptable by the ring, so that *needs* to be shown explicitly to drive the point home), I'm just not sure if I liked how it was handled.

      I didn't like it, myself. In the book Faramir is corruptible but not corrupted. I thought Faramir was a much better character in the book than in the movie. Ditto for Denother, who is just a crazy old man in the movie. He's much more tragic in the book.

    5. Re:Needless amounts of effort! by kclittle · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Right now there is plenty of buzz about these movies, but in a few years I know they will be picked on hard. Once the hype wears down, people are going to laugh (or be disgusted at the extremely low quality) of these movies.

      You couldn't be more wrong. The movies, by virtue of being very good movies in this age of visual information, will in fact become the standard telling of LOTR. The books will become the "other, harder to absorb" telling, and be relegated to college courses taught by anally retentive old men.

      I'm not saying I approve of this outcome, but it is inevitable.

      --
      Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
  2. Translations are always tough by superpulpsicle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I can't think of a perfect translation from book to movie or video game to movie etc. Give Jackson some credit, he came pretty damn close to perfection.

    Worst translations ever is still mortal kombat2 and double dragon the movie. LOTR could have ended up that bad, thank god it didn't.

    1. Re:Translations are always tough by millahtime · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And Remember if he had made the book exactly into a movie it would have been 100 hours and had long drawn out peroids that would be oh so boring. He did a great job of making that story into a great movie.

      --
      Evolution or ID?
  3. This is nice, but... by neiffer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who cares? Name me a movie that really does follow a text adaptation tried and true? It's nearly impossible because most great books are rarely good screenplays automatically.

  4. well... by CGP314 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Gandalf first grabs Sam by the shoulders outside the window of Bag End and scolds him, then he carefully lifts him through the window (FOTR p.97-98). Jackson has Gandalf pull Sam quickly through the window and onto a table. Unnecessary and poorly handled. Why did Gandalf need to treat poor Sam so violently? It was also an obvious stuffed dummy prop.

    I think because this is a movie, and we need to quickly show that this is a very serious matter that Gandalf is talking about. Plus it gives more punch to the '...and something about the end of the world.' line.

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