Lord of the Rings Movies

I am a great fan of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien. There is too much to say about his writings to get it all into one post, so I foresee writing several on the subject. This comment is about the movies that have been made on the Lord of the Rings saga. The movie versions of the Lord of the Rings are uniformly a great disappointment. In general, they are not true to the story the way Tolkien wrote it. They leave out important parts and sometimes invent and insert material that was not in the story at all. It seems to me effrontery for moviemakers to suppose that they can tell the story better than Tolkien did. I understand that there are always difficulties in transforming a printed story into a visual story. Sometimes accomodations are necessary. The feeling of narrative words can be difficult to convey in a visual mode. I am not saying that every word of the book has to be reproduced in the movie. But I do feel that the movie should be as faithful to the narrative and feeling of the book as possible, and not take gratuitous liberties.

Tolkien himself did not believe in film or stage adaptations of fantasy works. He felt that theater was already one step removed from reality, and should not be further removed by attempting to depict fantastic situations.Years ago, back in the seventies, there was a cartoon version of The Hobbit. I do not think that I ever saw it all, but I seem to remember it as one of the better adaptations of Tolkien's work.

Then there was Ralph Bakshi's version. It was animated: part cartoon, part rotoscoped from live action. It was an impressive work, but again fell short. It purported to be a portrayal of the entire trilogy, but stopped after the victory at the battle of Helm's Deep. It ended with some statement like, "Just as the forces of good triumphed at Helm's Deep, so the ringbearer successfully fulfilled his quest." That seems pretty lame to me. I guess the producers ran out of money, or time, or both.

Some years after that, I saw a children's cartoon version of The Return of the King. I did not like it at all. For one thing, it substituted songs for story. That might not be all bad, since Tolkien's work is permeated with song and poetry. But this cartoon used cute songs, such as a marching column of orcs singing, "Where there's a whip, there's a way," to repetitive, monotonous background action. The portrayal of Aragorn was all wrong. He came across as a gruff, ignorant pugilist who just wanted to go beat up Sauron. None of the high nobility in Tolkien's portrayal of him showed. It showed Frodo losing his mind and running around madly in Mount Doom with Gollum chasing after him. When the ring is finally destroyed, it shows eagles carrying away all the troops of Gondor from the battle before the Black Gate to save them from a giant earthquake. At the end, Gandalf tells Merry and Pippin that hobbits are getting taller and men are getting shorter, and that eventually the two races will merge. All of this is so out of character.

Peter Jackson's movies of the trilogy are not much better. I think that he should have made six movies. Each volume of the trilogy contains two books, so there should have been one movie for each book. Then maybe he could have done the story justice. As it is, he left out so much, but he also modified and inserted. Plus, he left out most of the music and poetry. Essentially, he turned Tolkien's masterwork into a Hollywood action movie.

Gone is the encounter with Gildor Inglorion and his elf band in the flight from the shire. Gone is the meeting with Farmer Maggot. Gone are the stay at Crickhollow, the passage of the Old Forest, the encounter with Tom Bombadil, and the rescue from the Barrow Downs. Gone is Frodo's song at the Prancing Pony. Mistold are the revelation of the ring and the encounter with Aragorn, as well as the attack on the Prancing Pony (made not by the Nazgul, but by their henchmen). The encounter at Weathertop and the flight to the Fords of Bruinen do not fare too well either. Totally gone is Glorfindel, whose place is taken by Arwen Evenstar.

I can tell that I am running on and on with this. I have not even catalogued all the deviations in the first movie of the trilogy yet. I had better let it rest a while and then maybe say some more.

I begin to doubt that a good, accurate film version of Tolkien's work will ever be made. Maybe it is impossible to make. Perhaps that is as it should be. The wonder is in reading Tolkien's masterful prose and poetry.