Slashdot Mirror
Updated LOTR Nitpicker's Guide
The LOTR Nitpicker writes "A 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. updated to include deviations from the recently released extended edition DVD of The Return of the King. This story originally appeared on Slashdot back in January."
...that building an Apollo guidance computer was a waste of time... ....yawn...
on my gentoo box. Gentoo makes the film sooo much faster, you hardly notice the additional footage at all.
gentoo# emerge -s karma Searching... [ Results for search key : karma ] [ Applications found : 0 ]
Begin the feats of nitpickie strength! Nobody leaves until we decide who among us cannot simply enjoy a movie! =D Oh and Happy Holidays!
Now am I the only person in world that thinks that nitpicking, whilst a fine sport, starts to drag after just a bit. I mean, stuff that had been removed/changed seemed to me like it made the films. True, I'd have loved to have seen the Barrow-Wight (amongst all the others) sequences in the films but hey, you can't have everything.
Whats wrong with just watching the film, and enjoying it...?
(Post not intentionally flame-bait and yes, I DO count myself as a fan).
Those who read the books know the deviations Those who didn't don't care
1. Wait for a slow news day like christmas and resubmit an old story. Even mention, that your story is old. 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!
They're 21st-century movies, not 20th-century books.
The coolest voice ever.
The inaccuracies are obvious when you read some books (especially books written with decades between them , read in a week or so). For example, I did pickup on the color differences of the lasers in the Dune series written by the son of Brian Herbert... (ie purple to orange) or the Bastardization of Holtzmann as a person (read Dune encyclopedia).
Slow news day, eh ?.Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
1) I see Saruman throwing fireballs. Now I believe Peter Jackson didn't want to make *that* kind of movie with wizards casting fireballs when I see the original theatrical releases, but now this? Come on. If they wanted awesome effects they could have gone with something that's actually *in* the books, like Gandalf casting lightning from his staff (Gandalf vs. 9 ringwraiths, on Weathertop).
2) This isn't The Return Of The King, it's "Half Of The Two Towers And The Return Of The King". They could have cut out most of the extraneous scenes from the TTT (like the Arwen ones) and kept stuff from TTT in TTT. Then they could use the Extended Release of ROTK to include the Scouring of the Shire. I realize the reason for not including it in the theatrical release (audience would get tired of a second battle etc.), but come on, the DVD release doesn't have those problems (after all, it's the fans who are gobbling up these Extended Editions).
That said, I welcome the new scenes. I always wanted to see the part where Aragorn calls up Sauron with the Palantir, and gives him the finger.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Yep.
Basic rule of thumb on Jackson's versions: what they took out for time pressure generally was sensible, what they kept was done well, what they added, changed or amplified stunk. Unfortunately the last category covers much of the actual script so as a story the result is a wash out, but it still looks great if you turn the sound off.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
... shields can not be used as skateboards.
Agreed. Whereas some movie adaptations of great novels do suck (Lynch's Dune), some are good enough to make us forgive the changes required by the new medium (Cuarón's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Jackson's Lord of the Rings is simply a perfect interpretation of the books, keeping all the mood, atmosphere and imagination from the original material. Having watched ROTK:EE yesterday, and as a big cinema addict, I can say that few movies have moved me as this trilogy. It transpires the passion of its makers and the soul of Tolkien is omnipresent, in the images, the elvish language, the characters, the epic atmosphere of the whole story.
Nitpicking about adaptation changes is pointless (though the author does somehow acknowledge it is). I cannot imagine anyone making (a) better "Lord of the Rings movie(s)".
Peter Jackson did it, along with an extraordinary film crew, so let's all praise them for it and enjoy these fantastic movies.
theefer
FTFA:
I enjoyed the movies. I enjoyed reading this list. There's no need to start telling people to "get a life".
Because, frankly, I don't care that you (or the six billion plus you speak for) don't care. I liked it.
You don't get it. The Nitpicker's Guides are fun to read in and of themselves. You don't have to be an anal-retentive nerd to enjoy one; in fact, it's postmodern surrealist anti-humor in that the joke is that anyone would notice and catalog such an array of minute flaws. They're something to marvel at, but are also incidentally filled with interesting trivia - like a Guinness Book of Records for dweebs. Lighten up.
I give. And I am not alone...
The deviations are not tiny nor pointless. I indeed agree there are a lot of worse cases around, but for true and purist Tolkien fans the differences between the book and the movie are important issues.
If you don't like just stop trolling and flaming around... stay quiet.
He's lucky he didn't try to list the inconsistencies between the various Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy editions. Now *there's* a task to drive you insane.
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
Dear Santa,
After nearly spending half an eon watching the extended versions of LOTRs and comparing the text of our beloved JRR Tolkein to each and every sound and syllable of the movies, I am writing you in hopes that you deliver to me this very Christmas the following gifts:
1. A life
2. Liv Tyler
3. Liv Tyler naked
4. The Extended version of Dune on DVD
5. The Dune books
Sincerely,
The LOTR Nitpicker
This story originally appeared on Slashdot back in January.
Not only do you post duplicates, now you also acknowledge that its a dupe in the summary itself?
Think about how the Scouring of the Shire would play out on film. Like ass. Peter Jackson's little "moment" in the Inn replaces it nicely. And shows one of the strenghts of the medium of film over that of a book. All the lessons manifest in the Scouring of the Shire in the book, are appearent in the body language of the actors in the film. Now factoring in the rest of the film, it's an epilogue too many to boot.
Dare I say if you want the book, true to every letter, there are two choices. Having someone read it to you while sitting in a solo spotlight. Or a crappy mini-series with ass special effects, stiff acting, lame looking props, plain cinematography, and horribly stilted dialogue that has to fill for a viewer, what a reader does for themself.
The site author makes reference to four "Major Mistakes" that Jackson made in his adaptation, but then fails to list them together, so they'd be easier to find.
1. Expanding Arwen's role
2. Changing Faramir's storyline
3. Frodo sending Sam home
4. Saruman's destruction of the Shire
Of these, I sort of agree with #2, and that didn't bother me as much as the Elves showing up at Helm's Deep- that was just SO WRONG. In the introduction of Jackson's FOTR, the narrator refers to the LAST ALLIANCE of elves... not the PENULTIMATE alliance, or NEXT-TO-THE-LAST alliance! Grrr.
And I TOTALLY disagree with #4. Jackson already had, like, SIX endings in ROTK. What works so well in the book would just be *torture* on the screen, as much as I'd like to have seen it.
Atmosphere, costume and set design, cinematrography...all are top notch for this triology. Brilliant adaptations of LOTR, perfectly visualised -- a very difficult task indeed.
However...characterisations, plot development and pacing, and dialogue to a large extent are typical hollywood fare, losing alot of the subtley and nuance of the novels.
I couldn't understand why my parents and sister didn't enjoy the movies...they felt it was all noise and action, and a 'typical fantasy hackneyed plot'. I was incredulous, until I rewatched the movies while conciously ignoring what I knew from the novels...and then I realised they were right -- it WAS just another noisy, loud, action-packed, paper-thin plot turned into big-budget spectacle. All the subtley of the novels were not translated to screen. This is particularly apparent in ROTK which moves from action sequence to action sequence for 3+ hours...
I don't blame Jackson too much. At 12+ hours it already is perhaps the longest trilogy filmed by Hollywood. And yet there's so much lost in the film translation... I suspect only an extended 30-60 episode TV series, not worrying about ratings or demographics, could give the novels justice. And the chances of that happening are negligible.
Appreciate the movies for what Jackson contributed to LOTR lore, but recongise its still a minor effort in comparison to the brilliance of the source material.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Arwen's role was critically important and was rightly amplified in the films. Without his relationship with Arwen I find Aragorn a pretty flat character taken as a whole. Placing that relationship in an appendix was hardly a stroke of genius on Tolkien's part. Sorry, but failing to grasp this fundamental point is to fail to understand a primary motive for most human beings: the protection of our loved ones.
BTW, the books are hardly perfect. I personally find them poorly written (see above) and quite hard to get through. And no, it's not that I can't handle my literature (I have a degree in English) it's more that I well understand and know all of Tolkien's primary sources. Given the wealth of world mythology, of which Tolkien's work is part redaction and part recreation, I'll take the mythology myself.
"Das Rheingold" anyone?
Frankly, given the enormous amount of fantasy material out there before and after Tolkien, I am quite surprised that Tolkien is revered as highy as he is today. To me, it's pretty much all "ho hum." I find his use of lengthy appendices and created languages fatuous and self-congratulatory.
Tell your fucking story, Tolkien - don't make us hunt around for it.
Thank you. That's all I'm saying. We all waste time in our own special ways. I did this. I had fun doing it. And, yes, it's not an attack; it's just food for thought.
I don't like it how people see the books as the ultimate truth of how to tell the story... I mean if Jackson didn't make these changes, let's face it... it would be boring. Douglas Adams was still alive when they started making the movie version of his books, and he happily accepted changes, and often made some changes himself. Art should be viewed as something living and organic, not something static.
"Even when stories are passed by word of mouth they get changed a little."
The very process of encoding a story into words alters it. The job of the writer is to try and tell you what happened. Good writers bring you closer to all the truths of the story(as there are many).
Movies and books function differently. They have different constraints, and rules about pacing. You can far more easily lay a book down, and continue it later, than you can a movie. Thus, movies generally have to be watched in one shot, but you can only sit in one place for so long -- no matter how good the movie may seem, or how comfy the seats your ass will begin to hurt after a while. Most people can comfortably sit through an hour and a half, and most of them can make it to three hours.
Most people can't read any of the LotR books in three hours. Even condensing the more static descriptions to pictures, as the movies have the advantage of doing, three hours going to cut it. Certain parts must be taken out, in favor of capturing the overall essence of the story as told by the book. With only one change in the LotR series do I feel the essence was missed, but not it is not enough for me to throw a fit over it.
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
Placing that relationship in an appendix was hardly a stroke of genius on Tolkien's part
I don't remember that it was exclusively in the appendices. Surely the betrothal of Aragorn and Arwen is mentioned whenever Aragorn is in Rivendell and perhaps directly alluded to in other places.
I'll take the mythology myself
Personal preference of storyteller and style doesn't justify bashing Tolkien.
To me, it's pretty much all "ho hum."
After you read enough fantasy and mythology it's all ho hum. The themes are common, the trials are predictable, even solutions can often be seen coming a mile off. Many people who've read enormous amounts of material from a particular genre develop this sort of disillusionment. You can say you've earned your degree in English when you get past the ho hum feeling and get back to enjoying it, no longer for the surprises, but for the appreciation.
I find his use of lengthy appendices and created languages fatuous and self-congratulatory.
It would be if he had written all of it over the course of a few months. In reality it was a work in progress which he devoted significant parts of his life to. I'd be disappointed if it hadn't been this thorough.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
He doesn't make you hunt around for the story; the story of LOTR is very simple and directly told. What you get for hunting around is the backstory- the reasons things are the way they are when the characters encounter them, a better understanding of character motivations and histories, explanations of offhand references made in dialogue, and so on, but all of this is optional. You don't need to read the appendices and Silmarillion to enjoy LOTR any more than you need to read the dozens of Expanded Universe novels and comics that later appeared to enjoy Star Wars.
I agree 100%. The strength of the movies was the look which was true right back to Tolkein's original illustrations. The adaptions in plot and script writing were horrid. Beastly. Despicable.
No "begone foul dwimmerlaik?" What! And this line "I am No Man", that's from the Odessey for criminy sakes. Not LoTR.
it's postmodern surrealist anti-humor
What ever happened to something being just funny?
-Doug
For a fantasy film afficienado, maybe, fireballs are trite, but for the majority of the audience its still cool. And they're well done in ROTK- as opposed to the countless badly done fireball effects in *those* films. Also, fire is a very primal fear- You might as well say- "Oh, no nudity in a movie again, what a drag!" My nitpick- not enough skin in these movies!
Dune: A rewatchable sci-fi classic, by all accounts.
Have you read the book? I doubt it, because it is so much inferior to the original material in every possible way that it has become the top example for horrible adaptations. The book is as rich and deep as the movie is badly paced, acted and has bad SFX (compare to Blade Runner for instance, released two years earlier).
An utterly forgettable movie; ABC; average banal crap. Unlike the 'suck'y Dune, in 20 years I don't expect anyone to remember this film as anything except "the third Harry Potter movie".
It did adapt the original material rather faithfully to the big screen, though, keeping the atmosphere and ideas and cleverly translating them into an enjoyable movie. In other words, if you liked the book, it is a good visual adaptation.
As for people remembering Dune, it is only because it was such a miserable and failed attempt.
Now if you have nothing better to do on Christmas Day than nitpicking on a comment on nitpicking, I suggest that you take as a New Year resolution to learn how to discuss politely on slashdot. Disagreeing does not have to result in lack of respect.
theefer
Das Rheingold is opera, not the same medium at all and thus cannot be compared to LoTR.
As an English major you should realize that Tolkein's work redacts not just mythology, but much of literature including a heavy influence by Shakespeare.
You also seem to miss the point that LoTR is held in high esteem simply because it has outpaced all other efforts in this genre. There is nothing out there that comes close in scope or imagination. Perfect? What work of man is? You can always find some flaw. But is the the best we have? Yes. By far.
But anti-humor is funny. Very much so.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
Comment removed based on user account deletion
that's like saying anti-fun is fun, and the anti-christ is christ.
"It did adapt the original material rather faithfully to the big screen, though, keeping the atmosphere and ideas and cleverly translating them into an enjoyable movie. In other words, if you liked the book, it is a good visual adaptation."
Disagree. While I found the first two to be a little flat, the third is easily my least favorite Harry Potter movie despite being one of my favorites of the book. The look was fine but all of the reasons why a character behaved in a particular way were left on the cutting room floor.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ah, so now they just say its "updated". Least they admit its a dupe, and admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I believe the reason Tolkein was so revered was because he created a world with a depth to it rarely seen before. The made up languages and lengthy appendices werent there for the story in itself, so much as the people who read the book and wanted to be more fully immersed in the world of Middle-Earth.
"Im such a nonconformist I'm going to not conform to the rest of you!"
"Dude I think we just got goth-served"
Sarcasm. Missed. Yes.
;)
The oversimplification of your comment into just the word funny was an attempt at humor, poking fun at your obtuse attempt at description. Try not to take things so seriously
-Doug
Did he? I didn't know, I must admit. However, even David Lynch himself had lost the control of the movie in the end, and it was the producer Dino de Laurentiis who put pressure on the director to finish the movie, change the storyline and make a lot of things the way they appeared on the screen. Lynch only really realized and acknowledged that a few years later, but this remained the only movie he is openly "ashamed" of.
I am still hoping for a new adaptation that would be as rewarding as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Time will tell...
theefer
It's kinda funny. When I tried to read the books I gave up after I fell asleep the 26th time, about halfway through FOTR. But I read these nitpickings and it turns out that most of the things I thought sucked about the movies were things that were changed from the books. Peter Jackson just sucks that much, it was obvious to me what he changed without even having read the books. :P
Hey - exactly. It's a long time since I read the books and I don't think I ever really completed them or even appreciated them fully at that age. I'll get round to the Tolkien canon some time but I've got quite a pile of books forming so I look to these articles to fill in and summarise until I have the time.
Thanks for publishing your list. There are more than a few areas you mention where I was thinking along the same lines but didn't have a reference to hand. None of which greatly detracts from my enjoyment of the films, but as a fan, it's interesting to see how much license the director takes and another fan's informed opinions.
ROTK was the only one of the three I saw on the big screen, and let me tell you- after nearly three hours, I had to piss like a frigging racehorse. The multiple endings with the super-long fades in between them were torture. Agonizing. Annoying as FUCK. I'm a picky bastard, but some of the audience was groaning by the third fade... and absolutely nobody stuck around for the credits.
:|
The multitude of endings would have worked great on DVD, but it was pure torture in the theater, at least for me and several of my friends.
The ring didn't 'float' on the molten lava. It instantly 'cooled' a section of the lava, so there was a solid portion it was sitting on. Then, as the 'coolness' went out of the ring, it's little float-tube re-melted and it sank.
:)
Gollum didn't sink, he melted...but it certain looks like sinking.
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
Maybe Iam the only erson with this opinion, but I didn't like the books or the movies, I thought they were really boring. The ring is evil, everyone wants it, no one should have it, and how do we monitor the person who does have it??? Let's go find more pipe-weed!!! Seriously, I thoght the entire story should have been a short film. It also maes an annoying amount of drug references. Seriously. "We smoked weed, and now this tree is walking and talking?!?!? What the hell!?!?!"
Douglas Adams was still alive when they started making the movie version of his books, and he happily accepted changes
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really not!
He rewrote the screen adaptation many times, never finding a balance between his genius and the hollywood lowest-common-denominator dogma, and wrote one last draft that he believed was the best compromise.
He then died, and the studio REWROTE the script, AGAIN, probably to re-insert the stupid changes he fought against.
Do NOT let yourself be fooled when the vultures say he would have liked it. It is their contractual obligation to bullshit us and hype the project as much as they can. When they say it's going to be good, ask yourself: Is it in their financial best interest to lie to us about the quality of the product? Does this person stand to make MILLIONS from those lil' white lies?
Look at the EarthSea thing that happened recently, the producers made a comment that the author really wanted to say what their bastard monstrosity says, forgetting that she's alive and able to tell the world otherwise. She was able to defend herself and her original works from the slander it was subjected to, but Asimov can't, Adams can't, Roddenberry can't...
Look at the hype for Will Smith'S I, Robot! The fresh prince was actually saying in interviews that is was very faithfull to the spirit of Asimov's robot stories, and then he explains "everyone on earth trusts the robots, but my character is the only one that suspects the truth: they are up to no good", followed by rampaging hordes of killbots. That is the OPPOSITE of Asimov's stories! Only the USRobots people trusted their creation, the mundane people of earth didn't trust 'em one bit! They had laws forcing them to be manually operated, and to not be within a certain distance of schools, etc! And not only that, but the whole "robots are not to be trusted and will turn on their masters" is exactly the precise sort of stories that Asimov did NOT write. He made up the 3 laws to get away from that frankenstein crap, dammit!
Enjoying a movie for what it is is fine, really. But you can do it without the delusion that they are faithfull to the spirit of the original when they are virtually raping the author's corpse.
Here's a tip: If you hear of a movie being made that is based on a book, and you haven't yet read that book, wait until you've seen the movie, then read the book. The book is always better, so this way you get to like the movie, then love the book. If you read the book first, you like the book, then hate the movie.
Movie, like. Then: Book, love.
The other way only leads to disapointment.
You can't take the sky from me...
they just say its "updated". Least they admit its a dupe
Now includes comparison of the extra special edition DVD footage, which wasn't there to be nitpicked a year ago.
You can't take the sky from me...
Almost every fantasy story since has been a rewrite of Tolkien's work...
I find his use of lengthy appendices and created languages fatuous and self-congratulatory.
You can't take the sky from me...
How wonderful it is to see so many complaints, so many nitpicking complaints, about how horrible nitpicking is ... and I, who enjoys nitpicking, and holds these nitpicking complaints (I refer to TFA nitpicks about the movies) as especially worthwhile, am in fact required by the nitpickers' guild rules to applaud the movie nitpicking while laughing at the /. nitpickers who are quite openly violating their own non-nitpckers' guild rules by nitpicking the movie nitpickers.
How many nits should a non-nitpicker pick, if a non-nitpicker picked nits?
Infuriate left and right
Whereas some movie adaptations of great novels do suck (Lynch's Dune)
It doesn't suck if your attention span is greater than that of a gnat.
You can't take the sky from me...
characterisations, plot development and pacing, and dialogue to a large extent are typical hollywood fare
OMG you can't POSSIBLY be complaining that they didn't keep the "realistically as slow as walking from one country to another on short hobbit legs" pacing of the books!
I think about 40% of the books were dedicated to describing how long it takes to walk from the Shire to Mordor!
Something happens, followed by 20 pages of description of walking, then they see Gollum a bit, 12 pages of walking, etc.
All the subtley of the novels were not translated to screen.
That isn't specific to LOTR, no movie has EVER translated all the subtleties of a book! How could it? They have only 2 (or 3) hours to sum up hundreds of pages of text!
Never expect an adaptation to keep the subtleties: It is impossible. The best they can do is stay faithfull to the spirit.
You can't take the sky from me...
"postmodern surrealist anti-humor"
Do you even know what the fuck that means.... !!!
> Tolkien was heavily influenced by the Mabinogion, the Beowulf and Old English fragments (Finnsburh etc), and the Norse Eddas; I see nothing in his works that draw heavily on Wagner of all people.
Yeah, tell me what I don't know. My oblique reference to the hoard was just shorthand for your list. And yes, I have read extensively the many works in old and middle English. But hey, you seem a little more feverish on the subject - so maybe you know or care more about it all than I do.
Let me ask you this: Why go on foot? Why not fly some giant eagles to Mount Doom and fling the ring in? Frankly, I don't recall the last sections of the book that well, but in the movie the eagles make short work of those dragons.
Fuck, it's all nonsense really.
The mythology is better and has more internal consistency. And I'm sorry, but I have tried several times to like Tolkien's work more than I do and failed. I don't come to works of fiction with the idea that I should have to scrutinize or learn invented languages and read appendices and so on - that's just bad writing. Everything I need to know should be in the body of the text.
I agree with you on one thing though: the old works are great: Beowulf, The Wanderer, The Dream of the Rood, etc. Good shit. Better than Tolkien.
while i am a lover of the books and was disappointed not to see the scouring of the shire and tom bombadil my biggest disappointment with the films was the lack of GORE!!! this is peter jackson directing this, the director of Braindead (aka dead-alive) and bad taste, yet the movie had almost no gore, oh what it could have been... imagine all those huge battles with blood and severed limbs and brain juice spurting everywhere. *sigh* it could've been beautiful...
www.TECHNETIUM.net.au
So it's the extended edition of the Slashdot story, huh? Not a dupe! Maybe they included the never-before-seen CowboyNeal scene.
Serious question.
Do you really believe adapation started with Hollywood?
Throughout history, Adaptation has been used to attempt to retell a story to a new audience using a new medium. The Iliad was an adaptation of an orally transmitted poem, parts of which were adapted (and heavily changed!) by Tragedians such as Euripides, parts of which were heavily changed in re-adaptation to epic by later poets (e.g., Vergil), parts of which were heavily changed with translators adaptations.
Even in the stage, Plautus and Terrence (Roman Dramatists) essentially built careers off of re-adapting earlier greek works into new plays. These are hailed as some of the heights of Roman Theater.
"Faith to the Book" is a touch silly when you start talking in terms of historical value or "the author's original wishes". Asimov didn't have hundreds of evil killbots, but modern audiences don't want to watch actors talk about pedantic philosophy for three hours. That doesn't make the base of it any less Asimov's original story. It's an adaptation to the screen.
Adapatation has been going on far longer than hollywood. The version of the story you mentioned in your post is an adaptation. So long as audiences know that they're watching an adaptation - which most of them do - adaptation is a fair and reasonable way to bring interesting stories to a new audience. It's been going on for thousands of years, you're not going to stop it now.
Let me ask you this: Why go on foot? Why not fly some giant eagles to Mount Doom and fling the ring in? Frankly, I don't recall the last sections of the book that well, but in the movie the eagles make short work of those dragons.
Maybe because of thousands of Orc archers? And what happens if you miss the lava? Better swoop in and pick that baby back up.
I don't come to works of fiction with the idea that I should have to scrutinize or learn invented languages and read appendices and so on - that's just bad writing.
Maybe Tolkien wrote his books to suit someone else's tastes instead of yours.
Everything I need to know should be in the body of the text.
That is really lame. In the first place, you don't need to know any of it, unless there is an exam afterwards. The appendices supplement the text for the interested reader.
I emailed Weta asking if they stuck to Tolkien's numbers, but I got a generic reply saying how the film was made with Massive.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
No, Arwen's original relationship with Aragorn was important and symbolic of the risks and meaning of the whole story but the version of it put on by Jackson was shit from start to end. It made no sense, was boring and intrusive and involved mangling Elrond's character to the point where one had to wonder if Jackson had ever actually read any of Elrond's parts in the books. "I've waited thousands of years to see Sauron overthrown...Fuck it, I'm SO depressed - I'm off. Sorry about all that giving you false hope and all, but hey: so sue me!" Utter crap.
Arwen's part constantly undermined the other characters (not just Elrond but Aragorn and Frodo suffered from this tedious sub-plot) and the plot itself. It was a total mess and the current vogue for saying "ah, well it was all in Appendix A, you know" doesn't wash: Tolkien's version was in the appendix and was a powerful and moving final end to the saga, not a load of Hollywood clap-trap.
Sorry, but failing to grasp this fundamental point is to fail to understand a primary motive for most human beings: the protection of our loved ones.
Just as you fail to see the point of Aragorn's story: he's not "most human beings", he has a destiny that presses him beyond the normally small circle of friends and family and encompasses his nation and people too. "Duty" is the key word here. His personal love affair is important enough to be placed into the appendix but is a side-show in his saga.
the books are hardly perfect
True.
poorly written
False.
I have a degree in English
Oh, that must have been hard.
Given the wealth of world mythology, of which Tolkien's work is part redaction and part recreation, I'll take the mythology myself.
That's a fair point, but I personally find that the original myths do not speak to me either clearly - due to the masses of various translations of various levels of ability - nor as a British person, whose own mythos was largely destroyed by the Roman and Christian invasions. The Ring of the Neibeling (spelling guess) is a great story but very, very German. LotR is much more about where I come from, and I like that about it.
I find his use of lengthy appendices and created languages fatuous and self-congratulatory.
Tell your fucking story, Tolkien - don't make us hunt around for it.
He did: the appendices were not at all required reading to follow the story (that's why things like Arwen ended up there: they add to it without being required). As to the language thing: the language came first and the stories later, so it would have been a different book with less depth the other way around; just look at the masses of Tolkien-wannabes that followed with huge volumes of shallow crap. Also, Tolkien was a linguist, not a professional writer, so you're attacking him for using his personal area of expertise in writing his first major book. That seems petty and self-indulgent to me.
There certainly has been a log of oh-hum stuff since Tolkien but LotRs was pretty unique when it came out. There's not much Tolkien can do about what followed him, is there?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I don't come to works of fiction with the idea that I should have to scrutinize or learn invented languages and read appendices and so on
Man, you're either just a big fucking troll or a big fucking whiner. Where are you getting this crap from? You don't have to even glance in the direction of the appendices to understand what's going on in the book, nor do you have to know a lick of any of the invented languages.
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
Only a true fanboy nerd would nitpick a nitpickers guide. Doing so goes beyond pedantry all the way to Aspergers-like symptoms...
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
"But I have Asperger syndrome, you insensitive clod!", he said as he opened a bottle of Strattera.
Even when stories are passed by word of mouth they get changed a little.
The problem with Jackson's LotR is that, yes, while there are numerous occasions where some minor detail gets changed for dramatic purposes, there are several points where a character does the exact opposite of what they did in the books. Examples: Faramir trying to take Frodo and the Ring back to Gondor (in the movie) versus immediately realizing that the ring is unvarnished evil that must be destroyed (in the book). Treebeard and the other Ents understanding that they must take action against Saruman now, because eventually the destruction will reach them as well (in the book) versus saying the concerns of men are not their concerns (in the movie). Even Aragorn allowing the Mouth of Sauron to pass back through the gates because the rules of honor demand that an emissary be left unharmed (in the book) versus the completely unnecessary, dishonorable, and out-of-character beheading (in the movie).
What's amazing is that Jackson (though I have a sneaking suspicion that Walsh and Boyens are at least as much to blame as Jackson, if not more) spends so much time trying to develop certain characters, but by doing so changes them to be the polar opposite of what they're supposed to be!
Devoting so much time to finding such inconsistencies is a pathetic waste of life in the extreme.
As for all those doing the whining, I'm sure you could single handedly direct the trilogy and be completely faithful to the original books while conforming to Hollywood production constraints right? So please do, I'd love to see your work.
And for those that can't understand sarcasm please direct your attention to the IMDB top 10. No one has ever achieved anything quite like what he has with the LOTR trilogy. PJ is a legend and sites like this don't even deserve to be mentioned on Slashdot let alone double posted.
Rips.
So the movies are a different medium as well and therefore cannot really be compared to the books?
Acting, cinematography, screenplay, direction? These do not exist in books. There really is no significant way to compare the two.
He wishes for the Extended version of Dune on DVD and as if that is not enough he wants Liv Tyler naked? Geez.
Can I just have the easy gift - naked Liv Tyler and skip the other hard stuff?
You can't handle the truth.
My only real complaint... here it is... So there I was, a naive little girl pouring through a magnificent leatherbound copy of Lord of the Rings. It's the battle of Minas Tirith... all hope is lost... when suddenly, a black fleet appears on the horizon, and all eyes, man and orc alike, are drawn to it... a great horn rings out, and with the first light of dawn, the banner of the White Tree is unfurled... the black fleet has come indeed, but it is the fleet of the king! That is one of the most vivid memories I have ever acquired, and that was just from words on a page. "Wooooooooow can't wait to see that in the movies" I said. "It will be sooooo awesome!" .....Sooo... years go by... Return of the King comes to theatres... and I am absolutely CRUSHED when the ship simply slides up to port and Aragorn jumps over the side.
"oh but there's still the extended edition" I tell myself, trying to hold back the tears...
I saw the extended edition last night. ("This morning" would be more accurate.) They STILL didn't fix it. They added the scene explaining where he went and found a black fleet, but it was still totally, terribly ruined. *sob*
There it is. My Great Complaint. Other than that, I salute it.
o o ooo zero to root in two seconds
NB: Long, indulgent post follows.
Whilst many have made the point about the visual elements of the films helping personal visualisation upon re-reading (and I shan't digress into arguments about personal imagination etc), it seems to me the case that the book could inform the film as we watch it too, and not in a negative way. Instead of taking the two media as separate units to be compared, can they not exist together? Can we not, for instance, recall that Faramir is unequivocally good in the book, notice that he is not on screen, and instead of commenting on the difference as wrong in itself, a Hollywood sellout, a time-constraint, dumbing-down, or any other accusation, rather see it as an interesting interpretation?
And here you might being to accuse me of being a pseud (to use the Private Eye term). Take, for instance, the varying accounts of Judas Iscariot in the Gospels; how in one (I forget which) he is possessed, and that it's the devil's fault, but in another he must betray Jesus as part of God's plan. Then think of Jesus Christ Superstar, and the portrayal of Judas as a realist. Perhaps the case is slightly different because these are interpretations of actual events (and please no subtle debates about the existence of Jesus), but each new interpretation helps aid the old one. To become REALLY wanky, let me cite T S Eliot in Tradition and the Individual Talent:
"...what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves,which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions values of each work of art towards the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new."
Extremely wanky, but it's Christmas - indulge me. Of course, the counterargument is that an adaptation is NOT "really new" - but perhaps this injection of novelty is technical artistry, rather than thematic/story. As regards Faramir, can we not reshape him as a character in and of himself, without recourse to "faithfulness" to Tolkien, and transcending chronology? Given the zeal of some of the really hardcore fans, I'm surprised they don't think these characters are real and atemporal anyway!
Merry Christmas - just trying to justify being bought the 12-disc boxset to myself!
That's fair enough but every change Jackson made made things worse, not better. A quick example: the nazgul could have been made more impressive in the movie; instead they were reduced to figures of fun (highly inflamable figures of fun). If Frodo had really shown a Nazgul the ring then the game would have been over within the hour.
I agree that LotR could actually be improved but it would take someone with talent, not Peter Jackson.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
It does, and a lot of Scandinavian culture can be found in Britain, but the framing of that and the mingling of it with other threads such as the Woses and Rohan makes for something much more of the rolling Downs than of the fjords.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I would indicate that the change from "No living man am I!" to "I am no man!" is rather slight. At the very least, the idea for such a statement on Eowyn's part is pure Tolkien.
"What's the use in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?" --Fourth Doctor, "Robot"
What was that about trolling?
"What's the use in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?" --Fourth Doctor, "Robot"
I'll add a vote: I read and enjoyed the list too. I can see why many of the changes had to be made, I wasn't fussed about changes to Faramir (I can't remember him much from the books, probably because he's one character in a cast of thousands) and I thought David Wenham was great in the part. (Actually, the cast were terrific right across the board. If you don't think so, just start a thread listing the actors you'd LEAST like to see in a particular role. E.g. Tom Hanks as Aragorn.)
I didn't miss the Taming of the Shire - I can read the books for that. What the films have done is to put the scenery and characters firmly in my mind, so that when I do read the books again I'm expecting to enjoy them even more.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
http://zalus.koga.hu/lotrdvd.gif
_ 1161x1024.jpg
Said tongue in cheek since I'm buying all the LOTR DVD's...
Here's a nice map for fans...
http://www.aloha.net/~shaug/pix/lotr/middle-earth
--
Peace
I, Robot certainly *was* an Adaptation, a retelling of an Asimov story on the screen. That doesn't mean it was *good*. But it's an adaptation.
There's no guarrentee or neccessity of faith to the original author. Either the director thought that the adaptation he made was worthy of film for artistic merit, or felt that he read something into the Asimov stories that wasn't explicit on paper, or the point of taking the Asimov stories and putting them on the screen wass that they'll make money when sold to a new audience. None of these are a movie-making sin.
The movie started out as "Hardwired", but then the Fox lawyers realised they were sitting on the Asimov option rights, and they were about to expire, so they glued on the copyrighted names and themes to the rampaging killbot flick once called Hardwired, and passed it off as "I, Robot", which it wasn't, neither in spirit, nor in intent. It was only I, Robot in marketing and legal use of copyright.
You can't take the sky from me...
"Knave! Methinks thine attire doth explain why thou hast not lain with a wench in many a fortnight."
"Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand." - Mark Twain
Of course not. To do that, you would have needed one movie just to introduce us to hobbits.
He had to cut a lot of things, and they are still much longer movies than most. I read a lot more books than I watch movies, and when I do see a movie where I've already read the book, I expect to be disapointed.
With LOTR's, I was pleasantly surprised. Jackson did a great job. Sure, there were changes, there were parts left out, and I would have done some things different. But the movies were still quite enjoyable, much better than most I've seen in recent years, and MUCH better than I'd expected.
To all those purists who bitch about Jackson cutting Bombadil or the Scouring - consider what might have happened if Tolkien had done the adaption, e.g in one of his letters discussiing selling film rights he suggests cutting the entire Helms Deep scene as unnecessary.
Tolkien was a pragmatist, I suspect him and Jackson would have got along just fine.
The version in the movie is fairly close to the Aragon and Arwen appendix, and even closer in many ways to the Beren and Luthien chapter in the Silmarillion, both of which influenced Jackson's/Boyen's script.
If Tolkien had been a better writer, I'm sure that his primary love story would have been included in the primary text, rather than sitting in an Appendix which hardly anyone reads, or in a book so inpenetrable that even I have yet to read all of it.
Go read these two chapters - they're not long and they're worth it. But then again, that's not the Slashdot way, is it? ;)
Andrew van der Stock
I have read the whole of both books; that material is "nice to know" and rounds off the life stories of the cast but it is not relevant (beyond the amount it is mentioned in the main text) to the story of the War of the Ring. Aragorn's main motive is as the King Who Will Return. As I said, his love interest (which, thank god, Tolkien left out of the main text) is largely symbolic of the cost to the elves of Frodo's success and, as you imply, is largely a rerun of Beren and Luthien.
If Tolkien had been a braver writer I think the Aragorn and Arwen stroy would have been dropped altogether from the back of the book but Jackson has shown the folly of trying to shoehorn it into the main action. Although someone with more talent might not have made quite such a hash of as Jackson, I still think it distracts from the significent "King Arthur" story line that lies at the heart of Aragorn.
You seem to be forgetting that the moronic version of the story that Jackson put on the screen bears little resembance to what is in LotR. Jackson's "light of the Valar" guff is total nonsense both in terms of the characters and in terms of adapting the original work.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"