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Nit-Pickers Guide to Deviations in Jackson's LotR
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."
That dude missed a few glaring deviations.
Fellowship of the Ring
75. In the book, Gandalf isn't the one saying "You shall not pass!", It's the Black Knight. King Arthur subsequently hacks off all of the Knight's arms and legs leaving a limbless knight protesting on the ground.
The Two Towers
107. In the book it isn't an army of Orcs that decimate the army of the good guys, it's a bunny with "a vicious streak a mile wide". Also, the magical fellow warning them in the book is an Enchanter named Tim, not a Wizard named Gandalf.
The Return of the King
77. In the movie, Gollum falls into the lava of Mt. Doom and dies. The book clearly states that John Cleese carries him to a cart while Gollum protests "I'm not dead!" Eric Idle then crushes his skull with a club then runs off to the Robinsons' as "they've lost nine today."
damn slacker..
Trolling is a art,
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.
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.
Here is another site which lists out the differences:
Linky
Links are at the bottom for differences in each of the three movies.
I suppose this was bound to happen but frankly, the movies are long enough already, if they added in all this other crap you'd need a damned diaper to make it thru 1 movie.
If you're wondering how he eats and breathes
and other science facts (la la la),
Then repeat to yourself, "It's just a show,
I should really just relax"
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.
This story has an amazingly low number of posts, given its topic and age. Then I realized: These geeks are actually reading it!
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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Who would have thought? The book had to be adapted so it can be shot as a movie! I'm speechless.
Tom Bombadil is the one who suggests the Hobbits make for Bree. Jackson has Gandalf make this suggestion though, having left Bombadil out of the film entirely, this is somewhat understandable.
Erm, yes of course. Because a character has been completely removed from a theatrical adaptation of the book, then his absense in making a small suggestion elsewhere in the book is only somewhat understandable...
By the sounds of these, I feel they were on a mission to reach point number 1000 or somewhere near that. Pedants! Bah!
..the books don't start with the words: "based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien"
All that and he didn't mention the ommission of my favorate minor character: Radagast the Brown.
I swear, the first one who calls him simple or a fool or a bird-tamer is getting a punch in the mouth. : )
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
Here is another list of changes. We have had this one up for a couple years now. Some of it has not been updated in a while, but, it is rather complete.
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
Is a dissection always necessary? The films aren't verbatim renditions of the books and I don't think there are too many people that would have wanted them so. I for one am glad that some things were dropped (eg, Tom Bombadil) and that other things were added.
Quite frankly, the LOTR trilogy is perhaps the best fantasy/sci-fi book to film adaptation of all time. I mean, you only have to look at how Hollywood managed to screw up Dune to see how bad it can get: nobody who hasn't already read the book has a chance of following what's going on and why because the film leaves out vital chunks of the storyline. (Yes, I know about the history behind the making of that film. Let's not go into that here please.)
In contrast, Peter Jackson's adaptation left out few things that anyone but a die-hard fan would call vital. Where he did cull the story was where it was needed if the story was to translate onto the silver screen successfully. And when he did cull, he culled gently.
Remember, the Extended Editions contain a lot of extra scenes and footage and flesh out the story further, but even then they aren't everything Tolkien wrote; if they had been then the films would have lasted five to six hours minimum, at which point they become more tour de force and less entertainment.
As I said, Jackson's trilogy is fantastic. Personally, I'd like to thank him for giving a literary classic the respectful treatment it deserves.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I just think it's fantastic that people like Tolkien are finally writing books based on movies these days. It really helps out people who leave a movie wanting more.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
You mean LoTR was based on a book or something?
They don't diviate from the books - at all, except skipping entire chapters, and leaving out lots of Quiditch (+/- spelling). VERY boring. At the premiere of the first movie, I was reciting lines for the characters, before they did themselves - it's that bad. If you want something that sticks that close to the books - READ THE DAMN BOOKS!!!
So LotR doesn't follow the books like canon. They take liberties. They interpret. Good! Books are NOT the same media as films, just as radio is not the same media as books. Look at the H2G2 discussion for what I mean. "Waa waa waa, they won't follow the books to the letter, waa waa waa." Get a grip - the books didn't even follow the radio show that closely, as Douglas Adams, creator of both, knew that they are entirely different media.
Sometimes I wonder if the universe wouldn't be better off, if the Vogons actually destroyed earth.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
"But as the theme progressed, it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Iluvatar; for he sought therein to increase the power and the glory of the part assigned to himself."
"He now wove the new thoughts into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew dispondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had first."
-- J.R.R Tolkien, The Silmarillion
I honestly do not undestand the apolegtic attitude for Peter Jackson expressed here on Slashdot. Especially I do not understand the claim that all the changes Jackson made were neccessary for the film to be succesful. In fact I say that most of the changes were not needed: Peter Jackson just had to make the story "more American" and "more dramatic" by changing the delicate web of characters, events and themes created by J.R.R. Tolkien. It appears that Jackson thought that he could create a better LotR than Tolkien by introducing exaggerated battle scenes and gut-wrenching folk psychology -- the problem is Jackson's overgrown ego, not the structure of the book.
It is obvious that the book needed to be edited into a script, and that is OK to me. That editing, however, should have taken place by cutting away some scenes and spoken lines from the book. To corrupt the basic ideas and themes of an original work can not be forgiven. Peter Jackson made (especially in TTT) compeletely inexplicable choices, and for instance perverted Theoden's character from a great warrior king to a mindless follower of others.
Tolkien himself commented an early non-filmed script (1958) by Zimmerman in his letter to Forrest J. Ackerman. Some of his comments are very thought-provoking, and seem to be directed straight to Peter Jackson. I urge everyone to read the letter and see what Tolkien really thought about movies based on his books.
- Ismo
but funny. Don't remember where I grabbed this list, but here's 12 Things Not To Say Watching ROTK in the theatre:
1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait...where the hell is Harry Potter?"
2. Block the entrance to the theater while screaming, "YOU.....SHALL....NOT..... PASS!" - After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."
3. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time someone says, "the Ring."
4. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.
5. Ask everyone around you if they think Gandalf went to Hogwarts.
6. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mis..ter Ander-sonnn."
7. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"
8. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off someone's finger and fall down the stairs.
9. Dress up as old ladies and reenact "The Battle of Helms Deep," Monty Python style.
10. When Denethor lights the fire, shout "Barbecue!"
11. In TTT when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and shout, "RUN FOREST, RUN!"
12. Every time someone kills an Orc, yell: "That's what I'm Tolkien about!" See how long it takes before you get kicked out of the theatre.
13. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Waldo?"
14. Talk loudly about how you heard that there is a single frame of a nude Elf hidden somewhere in the movie.
15. Start an Orc sing-a-long.
16. Come to the premiere dressed as Frankenfurter and wander around looking terribly confused.
17 When they go in the paths of the dead, wait for a tense moment and shout, "I see dead people!"
18. Imitate what you think a conversation between Gollum, Dobby and Yoda would be like.
19. Release a jar of daddy-long-legs into the theater during the Shelob scene.
20. Wonder out loud if Aragorn is going to run for governor of California.
21. When Shelob comes on, exclaim, "Man!Charlotte's really let herself go!"
Look, they even took liberties with the story when they made "The Ten Commandments" and no one complained about that. If you can get away with not following the Bible exactly, I think we can forgive a few liberties with LOTR.
Of course, Christians and Jews aren't nearly as fanatical as some of Tolkien's fans.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
The purpose of the edit is to make the movie follow more closely to the original books. "It's amazing the work the editor has done by selectively removing scenes and rearranging them - without messing up the sound synchronisation. Now there are no longer any elves in Helm's Deep, Faramir is a good guy again, and the ents aren't idiots anymore." (tangent3)
Major changes (out of about 30 changes totally):
Ents don't refuse to attack Isengard
Elves do not come to Helm's Deep
Gimli is no longer a dwarf clown
Faramir does not decide to take the Ring to Gondor as a "mighty gift"
Frodo does not attempt to give the Ring to Nazgul
Arwen stays in Middle-Earth
Aragorn doesn't fall from a cliff
e rs-The_ Purist_Edit.avi|729462784|ec0671172619e490d7b0ea6b 5278468c|/
E dit-Traile r.avi|14997504|965c013e991ee246d63d45ea71954c4d|/
Here's the ed2k link:
ed2k://|file|Lord_of_the_Rings-The_Two_Tow
Here is the trailer:
ed2k://|file|The_Two_Towers-The_Purist_
Alternatively, get the trailer from here.
More information in the ShareReactor forum.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I had the good fortune to attend a lecture at Local University by Professor Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle Earth and Tolkien: Author of the Century. He currently sits in St. Louis, but in times past he held the same chair as Tolkien did academically. The topic of the lecture was exclusively directed at what Tolkien might have thought of Jackson's work. Shippey served an advisory role during the making of the RotK film.
Shippey's treatment was incisive, particular, thoughtful, and thoroughly illuminating. He mentioned a couple of specific points that Tolkien, in his estimation, would have focussed on to judge the quality.
First, Tolkien would have disliked habitual carelessness. Mispellings in the script, etc. Not a big deal in the movie, but there you have it.
Second, Tolkien would have been most concerned with what Shippey called "failing to adhere to the narrative core of the original." He noted that there was a great expansion of Aragorn et al's adventures after the Fellowship split up, but that on the whole the story remained faithful to the core of Frodo, Sam and Gollum's journey.
Third, it was noted that Tolkien had no objection to abridgement, as he understood to some extent the limitations of the different medium of film. Some things work on film, some don't -- internal monologue is one example I can think of. In a book, you can have a lot of it. In a film, you have to do it right, or drop it completely and express the core another way.
In relation #3, Tolkien objected to *compression* -- crushing thousands of years of history into a single chunk, whipping through it for only the sake of mentioning it, and moving on without it having impact. In this case, Shippey thought (and reflecting on it, I agree) that having the ring's history explained at the very start was a really smart move for the films.
This is not to say that Shippey wasn't confused at some of Jackson's inclusions. Legolas skateboarding and the multiple dwarf-tossing jokes were eyebrow raisers for a lot of people, I think. The weird death/ressurrection of Aragorn in TTT was described as a "narrative zag" in that it had no effect on the plot or character. You make a good point on theme, but depending on what you consider to be the vital them of the trilogy... well. Shippey said that one theme that didn't make it was the role of providence. I'd like to go more into that, but this is getting long and I need to wrap it up.
Shippey mentioned Tolkien's observations on the scripts for the animated films. I didn't know he had lived long enough to see them, so that's a new one on me. Something to keep in mind though is that even the medium of film has changed dramatically over the past 30 years. It's hard to take the critique of three-generations-back and apply it to what Jackson did. The scales are just too disperate.
In the end, I think Shippey's opinion was favorable overall.
Finally -- I appreciate the Silmarillion quote. But you should remember yourself that no artist creates in a vaccuum. Tolkien claimed, twisted, adjusted, and applied numerous myths and themes from stories past in order to create LotR. I find LotR to be a more engaging read than, say, Beowulf or the Viking Sagas, so I guess you can count me as one of those detracting voices in the song. I guess it depends on which song you sing first.
But I understand why Jackson gave Arwen such an expanded role, and I think it was justified. I adore Tolkein as much as the next nerd, but he really had a blind spot for female characters. You could count the number of significant female characters in The Hobbit and The Rings combined on the fingers of one hand. As the article writer himself points out, Arwen only had one line in the books. And the women weren't exactly well-rounded I-can-identify-with-her characters. They were mostly just archetypes. (Yeah, a lot of the men were too, but the key (male) protagonists had some depth to them.)
I'll grant you that getting to see Orlando and Viggo strut about gives the films some female appeal. (They were certainly a treat to these guy-loving eyes.) But having another substantial woman character acting among the men makes it seem less like Middle Earth is a world where not only the dwarves' women look like men, but the other races' as well.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I saw it twice, and I'm fairly certain that Gollum wasn't pushed. He was dancing about with glee at recovering "his precious" just as in the book.
I agree with you completely about Denethor. Its really the only grievance I have left about the movies. Every other complaint I had (and I was seriously unhappy with the Two Towers theatrical version) has been mollified by the extended versions. In the extended editions, deviations like Aragorn's fall, and Faramir's Osgiliath make much more sense and flow better. In nearly every case I found that, while the movies departed from the narrative of the book, the purpose was usually to reveal some facet of the characters that was true to the book, such as Aragorn's facility with animals, or Faramir's conflicted sense of duty.
I'm quite confident that Denethor's character will be much more developed in the Extended RotK.
The next time my wife dares to tell me "You have too much free time on your hands," I will show her this guy's site.
She will never be able to use that line again, for it will have lost all meaning.
What bothered me the most was that in the movies the elves are portrayed as being alien--a sort of unnatural creature of Middle-Earth. Even the cadence of their speech in the movies is unnatural.
By contrast in the book the elves are "supernatural" meaning that they are extremely natural. Their magic is one that is in concert with the earth, not alien to it. In the books the elves are characterized as more at home in Middle Earth than other races.
From the article: 69. Saruman enjoys the pipeweed of the Halflings (ROTK p.324). Jackson has Saruman tell Gandalf that his wits have been dulled by Halfling leaf as if he doesn't smoke it himself and, it might be added, even though there is pipeweed amongst the flotsam and jetsam of Isengard.
If I'm not mistaken, this line was actually lifted from Unfinished Tales, the rambling colletion of bits and pieces that Tokien never hammered into stories worthy of publication. I recall this line being spoken by Saruman to Gandalf in the presence of the other members of the Council of the Wise when they were meeting to discuss the matter of the Rings of Power.
From The Encyclopedia of Arda: When the Council debated the Rings of Power, Saruman claimed that his researches showed that the One Ring had been lost forever. It was later shown that he did not believe this, however, and was searching for it himself, having secretly rebelled against the Council.
Saruman was attempting to discredit Gandalf (they were in disagreement on this matter) by exposing his affinity for hobbits. The quotation was something like: "Your wits have been dulled by your love of the halflings' leaf."
I might be wrong about the timing, but I'm pretty sure I had read the line before I heard it delivered in FOTR. In the end, it ended up being one of my favourite lines :)
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill