Alex Singleton over on the Adam Smith Institute blog does not think much of the cinematic renditions of Lord of the Rings and asks:
Is the Lord of the Rings the most boring series of films ever? I sat through the second in the trilogy, The Two Towers, and just wanted to go to sleep. The pointless dialogue, endless battle scenes and lack of a story made this quite possibly the worst film I have ever watched at the cinema.
Well it takes all tastes but I for one enjoyed both Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers thoroughly and disagree with almost every word of Alex’s critique. The dialogue was true to the story, the battles gripping and best of all for me, the characters were almost exactly what I had in my head for over 30 years since I first read the books. In fact I think the films cut out a lot of the ‘flabby bits’ in Tolkein’s epic (such as editing out the completely superfluous Tom Bomberdil interlude) without doing a great violence to the substance of it.
Although as you may have gathered, I have long been a great fan of Tolkein’s works, the Lord of the Rings has always held deeper meanings for me and the big screen versions have just reinforced my views as to what it all really means.
I eagerly await the third part later this year.
Hear hear. And those so inclined might want to head over to apple.com/trailers to watch the recently-posted Return of the King trailer. (I imagine it’s also available at the link Perry provided).
And while you’re there, why not check out the trailer for The Alamo? Sure it’s hokey – but it’s also the Cradle of Texas Liberty. And that’s something we can all appreciate.
I loved the first film, but the Tolkien must be spinning wildly at the botch of The Two Towers.
Many of the key scenes gutted, to add extra plot lines (as if it needed even more) and — most important — lots and lots of bloodshed.
Very sad.
Larry, you’re not alone. “Sad” doesn’t quite capture it.
The first movie was great, and the changes were more than forgivable (given difficulty of the source material). The second was an abomination of edits, rewrites, additions, deletions, and glib misinterpretations.
Best scene: Dead Marshes.
Worst scene: The rest are a tie.
So, what, was Helm’s Deep settled by a contest of champions? A contest of taunts? After about a hojillion readings, TTT seemed pretty bloody to me.
I thought Jackson’s TTT worked very well on film, its biggest problem was being the middle chapter of the trilogy. It makes it hard to really satisfy an audience since you can’t really have a proper beginning and end. Viewed in the context of the first and third films, I think it will be more appreciated (and the same will go for Matrix: Reloaded too, I think).
The only thing I really regretted was the silly scene where Aragorn goes over the cliff and everyone thinks he’s dead. But that’s small potatoes.
In any case, I could easily claim that Tolkien would be delighted at the film version instead of spinning in his grave. I guess we’ll never really know what he thinks, him being dead for 30 years and all. Alas.
In terms of advancing the plot, Tom Bombidil is only important for one reason: By saving the Hobbits from the Barrow Wights, the undead remains of Numenorean heroes, the Hobbits acquire Numenorean swords. These swords are among the few weapons that can wound Nazguls. Subsequently, Merry or Pippen(can’t remember which) uses their sword to wound the Leader of the Nine, in front of the gates of Minas Tirith.
In the movie Fellowship of The Ring, Aragorn, at the point where the Hobbits should have acquired those swords from the Barrow Wights, hands them out like party favors instead.
Perry, it must be thirty years since you read the book, if you think the dialogue in the Two Towers film was true to the original.
Hey, even major plot items were changed, as the posters above have pointed out.
It was still quite a good film though, if not as good as the first one, and I too am looking forward to the third.
Only slight worry is that there’s so much plot left to cover that I fear something important will be left out.
It was Merry who stabbed the Nazgul Lord, btw.
Tom Bombadil is great!
Perry: “Powerful, corrupting and impersonal. The Ring is of course an allegory for the modern state.”
Tolkein: “I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence”
“It [LOTR] has no allegorical intentions, general, particular or topical, moral, religious or political”
Looks like somebody’s projecting…
Andrew Dufflin:
“Only slight worry is that there’s so much plot left to cover that I fear something important will be left out.”
A new and interesting use of the word ‘important’ here.
The FOTR was tolerable especially in the extended version. TTT was painful. Three major characters were completely against type, Faramir, Theoden, and Treebeard, especially Faramir who, IMO, was one of the most important characters in fulfilling the meaning of the tale as I see it, the bringing down of evil by those faithful to the West. That is the underlying theme of the work and unites everything together. It is really the one theme throughout all of Tolkien’s Middle Earth works from the Elves rejection of the West and their downfall in the Silmarillion on, and the apostasy of the Numenoreans etc. It is what makes it a ‘ripping yarn’ IMO (I am an atheist but such contrivances in fiction are what make fiction worth reading). This faithfulness, and the fictional religious system in general, has been all but expunged from the movies, so far, and is the biggest unforgiveable ‘sin’. The plot elements may be there, and the characters exist, but the theme is gone. It would be like taking To Kill a Mockingbird, cast Tom Hanks, a couple of cute kids, a retard next door, and Meg Ryan as a love interest, fighting corporate big wigs instead of the rape/racial injustice angle. The plot and characters are there but the theme is gone. That is where Faramir, and his characterization, is so important, in cementing the ‘faithfulness’ aspect of the theme. In the novel Faramir starkly contrasts his brother and drives home the whole point. In the movie, hardly. So without the main theme the movies are merely workaday high budget action flicks without anything terribly different about them IMO.
The other major gripe (over both movies) is that at least 30 minutes has been devoted to plot lines not even in the book (aragorn/arwen) crowding out the given, book material and making the second movie a horrible mess. If that time had been better spent a more faithful adaptation could easily have been contrived. As it is, the extended version of TTT had better fix the holes and ROTK had better be one awesome movie reinstating the above mentioned theme, or the whole set is an unfortunate waste of time and money IMO.
Two last comments. 1) On Tolkien and allegory, Tolkien said he disliked allegory but not ‘applicability’, one being in the forceful patronizing of the author and the other in the free interpretation of the reader. Tolkien’s work abounds with anti-statist themes on the one hand (scouring of the shire) and yet is laden with ‘duty’ as part of the religious theme refered to above. I guess it is anarcho-catholicism to use a brief term. 2) It struck me while I labored through TTT the second time, when Saruman whips up the Dunlendings against Rohan, he refers to the Rohirrim displacing them after the Rohirrim came down from the North to assist Gondor in times past. Sort of like Israelis and Palestinians. A stretch perhaps, I don’t know. But casts an interesting light on the subject of the Rohirrim and their claim to their land. Who was Gondor to give Rohan to them? Gondorean imperialism? Are Sauron and Saruman actually fighting the just cause?
I really enjoyed both movies, granted I haven’t read the trilogy since eighth grade. I thought the second movie pulled off the Ints (sp?) rather well and they were always my favorites. Do miss Bombadil and his daughter? wife? Can’t remember. Anyway second movie seemed really timely to me when I watched it, generally how appeasement doesn’t work.
Another vote in favour of Tom B!
In spite of the criticisms raised by hard-core tolkeinites, I would like express gratitude to Peter Jackson for actually bringing LOTR to the silver screen and the fact that he made these books in to quality films.
I’m sure he wanted to keep the movies as true to the books as possible but the target audiance is not the super hard-core tolkenites.
To me, these movies are a great introduction to the books. Someone from this new generation will watch these movies, read the books, and will analyze the movie the way the tolkenites are doing so now (although, It spoils much of the fun when they do).
These movies are a good thing for Tolkein and his world. I wish the faithful would see it my way and just tone down the nitpicking…
Tolkien, shmolkien… doesn’t anyone read Karl Marx anymore?
Max M: I am well aware of what Tolkein wrote about about analysis of his works, but just so you understand my point, let me repeat it with emphasis:
I neither know nor particularly care what Tolkein himself though about his works (though I think I may have read pretty much everything he ever wrote other than a few obscure bits about linguistics), that is my view of what the Ring of Power is really about…
Kim du Toit: Karl who? Was he some relation of Groucho?
I’m a hardcore Tolkienite but I don’t have any problem with the movies (well, okay, a couple) but the thing to remember is that the point of the movies is to make good MOVIES rather then a complete transplant of the book.
Michael Jennings wrote a good post on the corporate dealings behind the making of the films last year which is worth a look.
These movies are a good thing for Tolkein and his world. I wish the faithful would see it my way and just tone down the nitpicking…
Gutting a work of its elemental theme is harldy nitpicking. It is my assertion that underlying theme of the book was the religiosity contained in the system of Middle Earth, from the light in the Phial of Galadriel to Aragorn’s need to find the sappling tree descended from the Trees in West. It may take several readings of the books to draw this conclusion, but it is the elemental theme IMO, and it is not a small matter to be shoved aside for expediency, especially by folks such as Jackson who profess to be so steeped in Tolkien. It leaves me with the impression they entirely missed the point at the get go. And as far as plot elements, the new material may have been relished in addition to the ‘existing’ plot elements, but instead of, was a bit hard to swallow. I was left with the impression they were so taken with their material that the other, faithful material, got short shrift, and was included in a string-of-pearls, haphazard manner. Translating the books already had a challenge relative to time compression, they had little cause to make it even worse with their own additions. So from the beginning I accepted small differences, even lifting Bombadil washed off my back, but the missing cohesion of the West and those faithful to it as the story unfolds, is the context in which I read the books, and it a mortal flaw that the movies disregard it.
Site contains a good essay on the movie/book differences under movie goer’s guide-The Two Towers
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/
Just to add to Toolkien’s interpretation of the film’s faults.
He is entirely correct in the way that Faramir, Theoden and Treebeard were all portrayed. In the novel all three overcame their weaknesses following an internal dialog. In the film, Faramir made a wholy unlikely about turn in Osgiliath having made the wrong decision in the first place. Theoden never overcomes his fears at all and Treebeard is simply “tricked” into doing the right thing.
I felt that this cheapened the whole film. This was a particular disappointment given the superb job Jackson did on the first film.
As for Tom Bombadil. I didn’t mind him in the book, but back then I was able to skim over his songs. If I saw him on the screen doing that I may have been tempted to leave the cinema.
On a final note, for any anime fans out there. “Spirited Away” is extraordinary. I highly recommend it.
Eamon
Comic Book Guys (and who know who you are): film != text. Some things that work in print don’t work on screen, and a smart director knows that. I think Jackson is a smart director. The box office certainly says so.
I try to imagine what a LOTR film would be like if it were up to the Faithful to make it. Either it would be turgid, unwatchable crap or (more likely) they’d kill each other off arguing over the most trivial details and over who was more faithful to Tolkien’s text and ideas.
Treebeard may have been “tricked” into seeing the damage, but he changed his mind due to seeing and feeling the evil of Saruman, rather than just hearing about it. The way it was done in the movie isn’t true to the spiritual connection of the Ents to the Forest – the Ents would have “known” about the damage, feeling it in their souls – but it is true to the character of the Ents – until they knew the evil was in their realm, they wouldn’t act, or would act slowly. Theoden and Faramir are treated weakly, but to some extent, what we see happen in the movie isn’t all that different from how their actions in the book would appear to someone without access to their thoughts and private conversations (as the reader of the book is).
Comic Book Guys (and who know who you are): film != text. Some things that work in print don’t work on screen, and a smart director knows that. I think Jackson is a smart director. The box office certainly says so.
I try to imagine what a LOTR film would be like if it were up to the Faithful to make it. Either it would be turgid, unwatchable crap or (more likely) they’d kill each other off arguing over the most trivial details and over who was more faithful to Tolkien’s text and ideas.
But can you concede that if the elemental theme of a book is ignored at the very least one might be put off? Once again I’m not talking about minor plot elements I’m talking about the underlying, cohering theme of the book. Plot elements can come and go, it would be nice if they were as the book were, but small changes are likely necessary. The two unforgivable sins remain, hogging the time available for unnecessary additions leaving the rest to be a confusing. illogical mess within Jackson’s reinterpretation, and the loss of the main driving element to telling the story in the first place. Without the elemental theme the material does not rise above anything else within the dungeons and dragons motif that personally I can’t stand. 90+% of what I read is history, not fiction. Cliched tales that fill the sci-fi/fantasy section at the bookstore are a bore. LOTR rises above due to its historical nature (contrived though it is) and its complete, logical system. So I refuse to be dismissed as a purist grinding an ax over the color of a shoe, or how some other element was transcribed, I don’t care, but jettisoning the main theme leaves the rest threadbare and hardly above the Tolkien clones that fill the shelves in the sci-fi section.
I am a hardcore Tolkienite – The Lord of the Rings was about the only book I read when I was eleven, and i did that every fortnight – but I love the films. Compared to the book and the original story, which is what all Lord of the Rings fans will be bound to do, they disappoint in some places, but as films compared to other films they are great.
I much preferred the FOTR, but preffered that part of the book, too. It just introduces me to a world I love, to characters I grew up with, and gives me a sort of homecoming feeling.
I thought that TTT was good, but I hated that scene with Aragorn falling off the cliff and that soppy dream sequence which was only there to remind us who Arwen was. Smeagle/Gollum was brilliant, though it was slightly annoying that his schitzophrenia was exagerated for comedic purposes, and Jackson tried too hard to make us sympathise with the character (make him evil – it makes the fact that he was so necessary to the eventual destruction of the ring more meaningful).
Saruman did not use Gun powder at Helm’s Deep. Come on – I know it may help us relate to the film if you use items we recognise, but magical fire isn’t too great a stretch for us. Big, massive magical balls of fire – That’s what the “fires of Isengard” were, not Gunpowder.
I realise that the Ent scene could have dragged on too long to be cinematically helpful, so I’ll forgive some of the rewriting that went on there.
And Faramir… OK, he turns out to be a bit of a wimp in the last book (he spends most of it flat on his back out cold), but in TTT he is strong – He isn’t even tempted by the ring even slightly being stronger willed than his brother, so that bit just dragged the film out needlessly.
The Two Towers was by far the best of the three books, imho. Unfortunately, Peter Jackson raped it in film. Were he still alive I suspect Tolkien would long since have beaten Jackson senseless with his cane.
It’s a shame really. Given the intended epic scope of the films and the budget, there was no need to adapt TTT for Short Attention Span Theater.
Loved FOTR. Loved TTT. Will almost certainly love TROTK (yes, I am VERY easily pleased.) If you like the books, great, read the books. If you don’t like the films, great, don’t watch ’em. Given that Mr Jackson had a maximum 3 hour limit on TTT, and had to get our heroes from the splitting of the Fellowship, through to the end of the defeat of Saruman’s army, with Hollywood producers breathing down his neck the entire time, I reckon he did a magnificent job. And I can’t wait for him to make the Hobbit, if his make-up artists can get all the appropriate actors to look young enough, and then of course, the 26 episode filming of The Silmarillion, at an HBO outlet near you, sometime in the next fifty years! 🙂
(or maybe sooner if Mr Jackson can recover from filming this epic trilogy and the world viewing audience can write him a large enough cheque)
As for allegory, the freedom-loving peoples of the west seeking against all the odds to overcome the almost invincible collective hordes from the east, led by the Red Eye of the Kremlin, sorry Barad-Dur, and his commissars, sorry, Nazgul? All written around the second world war, and continuing into the 1950s?
Hmmm… I wonder Miss Moneypenny? 😎
Right, it’s gin and tonic time. Cheers! X-)
What’s the big deal over Lord of the Rings? I always found the books turgid. Of course, I thought the same about Moby Dick, which is also supposedly a great work of literature.
I feel soooo sorry for those who didn´t enjoy the film, it has everything one looks forward too. I do feel that they let important parts out, like when Gandalf humiliates Saruman, but what can you do, they HAD to leave some parts out… Plus, who gives a shit about theoden, treebeard and Faramir, GIVE ME MORE FRODO, ARAGORN AND LEGOLAS!!! and Gollum of course.
Did anybody else here thought, the ent that catches fire (during the battle) and runs to the water was funny, i cracked up over that one. I also feel Sam is played as gay…i dont remember him lusting over Frodo on the book, just the thought of those two together is disturbing, and if you think its not, make it a threesome and add Gollum, EEEEEWWW!!! Does anybody here thinks that there are any gay hobbits??? I wonder…
socialism sucks too!!!!
I generally enjoyed both films but FOTR was far truer to Tolkien’s vision, both in terms of plot and characterization. By compressing Merry and Pippin’s saga with the Orcs in TTT much of the rivalry between Saruman and Sauron over the One Ring is lost. Odd, because Jackson did an excellent job elsewhere making explicit the villainy of Saruman that Tolkien alludes to or implies in the text.
The baneful influence of studio executives seem to have seeped into the TTT what with Elves appearing in Helm’s Deep and the artificial dramatics with Faramir and Aragorn – the changes scream ” Hollywood” bigwigs complete with ostentatiosly expensive suits and receding hairlines but sporting earrings making script change ” suggestions”.
But visually, Jackson stays right on target. I can think of outcomes that would have been infinitely worse with other directors.
On Tolkien and power, see:
http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=899
could you tell me what was smeagle otherwise known as
thankyou
Lord of the Rings III is the geatest movie. it doesn’t happen very often when a screen version of a book is as powerful as the book itself… It’s more than words can say, and it deserves the best of awards.