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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 ]
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).
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
... 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
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?"
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
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--
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...
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
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...
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"
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!
I have no qualms with the adaptations made for the LOTR: I think Jackson knew what he was doing, and that fidelty to JRRT would not have made a good film.
That said, Hollywood does rip the heart out off good stories in order to fit within formulae all the time. I'm getting a good look at this first-hand, as I see my friend's first screenplay change under pressure from the studio he's working with; much that was interesting, challenging, and thought-provoking being replaced with formulaic tropes and reassuringly familiar elements.
The thing is, the public - the market - doesn't really want work that is challenging or thought-provoking. It wants to be told that its prejudices and beliefs and values are good and true, that the enemies are bad, that you are on the side of virtue, that history is made by A Few Good Folks Just Like You, and that the world is pretty much like you think it is, only fast-paced and exciting.
And the screenwriter friend in this case half recognizes that his original vision is being castrated, while at the same time being swept away in the excitement of actually breaking into Hollywood. The mainstream movie industry is often filled with clever people who spend much of their time trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance of creating entertainment for people who, frankly, are not as smart or sophisticated as they are. That's part of the SoCal ethic, really: act dumb, even if you're smart. It's an adaptation that comes of serving a market of people that you, secretly, have little but contempt for.
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