Pro's and Con's

I thought The Hobbit was dreadful, and this one was just insult to injury. All this obsession about "Professor Tolkien's lines"... geez. I reread The Lord of the Rings last year and I thought it was so dry and pedantic. As much as I love The Lord of the Rings, much of the writing is stale and needed some heavy editing. I know that's blasphemy to many fans, but I'm not alone in my opinion either. I think Jackson did a brilliant job of cutting to the core of Tolkien's work and trimming away a lot of the redundant, endless fluff.

Walking walking walking... BRILLIANT MAGICAL ACTION!
Pontificating walking yawn yawn yawn... HEARTSTOPPING SUSPENSE!

If I'm going to waste weeks on reading another long, detailed epic I'll stick to Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast. His writing is infinitely superior and wittier than Tolkien's. JRR was adept at 'world creating' but despite his professorial accolades, he's actually not the best writer.

Here's just a few problems with being slavishly loyal to Tolkien.

1. Tom Bombadil. A character like that has little if anything to do with the rest of the story, and by Tolkien's own admission was included only because he had already included him in bedtime stories for his children.

2. Faramir. The first book is chock-ful of examples of characters who were corrupted to some degree by the Ring. Isildur. Gollum. Bilbo. Boromir. And others who refused it because they know that if they took possession they would be corrupted: Gandalf, Galadriel. The climax of the third book involves Frodo finally falling to its corruption, and the Ring's ultimate destruction is because Frodo and Gollum both wanted it. Now you have this problem in the middle act: Faramir is the only character that Frodo, Sam and Gollum encounter during their quest. Upon hearing of the Ring, he immediately declares his lack of interest in it. Furthermore, his subsequent mission to Osgiliath--a tactically important location--is not shown. This leaves the middle act without any real conflict revolving around the Ring. There is Shelob's Lair, but Tolkien's own timeline places that event closer to the attack on Gondor than anything that happens in Rohan. Therefore, you needed a climax for The Two Towers, and showing Osgiliath is the right place to go if Faramir is not going to immediately let them go.

3. Eowyn. It's great that Tolkien had a strong female character, but the only set-up for her story is a single extended dialogue scene between her and Aragorn, in which she professes her love for him having only met him once before. For this to really be believable on film, PJ and company decided to develop their relationship over several scenes in two films, rather than just a single eleventh-hour speech. For what it's worth, though, virtually every scene on film between them lifts some of the dialogue out of their scene in the book. (Notice Eowyn's "a cage" speech appearing early on in The Two Towers.) And having developed her character this much, and the reasons behind her desire to ride off to war, why would you hide from the audience the fact that it is HER doing it? Given the style of the Rohirrim battle dress, it would be difficult to hide her identity from the audience, and I have to agree with PJ that Merry would look stupid if her didn't recognize her. The only part of this I found ludicrous was the Extended Edition scene in which she openly walks around in armor without a helmet on, and nobody spots her.

3. Arwen. Thankfully PJ scrapped the idea of having her fight at Helm's Deep, but the fact is that if Aragorn is going to marry her at the end of the story, we need to have some idea who she is before that--and why her union with him is so significant.

Bakshi, Rankin-Bass, and Jackson have all made drastic changes to fit the power of dramatization and all get complaints for ways that they have contradicted Tolkien, which goes to show a dramatization can never make everyone happy. If that's the case, then maybe they should just boycott any film adaptation of a favorite book, especially the Harry Potter films. Sacrifices are hard to resist when making a film because some things work well in a text that don't work with film.

Of course, I definitely think Rankin-Bass made a lot of errors that contradict the logic of the book, even though it followed the storyline without any new events or character changes added. For one thing, Frodo puts on the Ring at Mount Doom and stays invisible for days, while the Battle of Pelennor Fields is still underway and the Nazgul hasn't come to get him during that time-frame. Plus, Sam couldn't stay in Mount Doom for days, he'd get really hot or starve just sitting in there that long, so it's ridiculous that Sam is still in Mount Doom for all that time when Gollum comes struggling with the invisible Frodo. Even more amazing that Gollum would be there that long and suddenly be struggling with Frodo. Why would Frodo even be in Mount Doom that long with the Ring on? He should have been somewhere else by that time. Jackson kept the whole Mount Doom sequence in the right chronology and used the same logic as Tolkien, even though he made Frodo fight with Gollum and cause them both to fall over the edge and have to dangle for life.

Also, Gandalf isn't supposed to be on the Pelennor Fields when the Rohirrim are fighting; he was too busy dealing with Denethor, but Rankin-Bass decided to have Denethor kill himself much earlier before the Battle of Pelennor and giving Gandalf time to enter the battle and fight alongside the Rohirrim. In fact, it was Gandalf's absence on the field in the book that gave the Witch-King the advantage to attack Theoden and crush him to death.

It's stupid that that Theoden simply falls off his horse and dies instantly because the fall didn't look that bad and fatalistic. Jackson made it look more sense in how Snowmane falls on top of Theoden, crushing his body, even though the horse was hit with a dart in the book and Jackson had the Fell-beast seize the horse with its jaws.

Also, Eowyn and Merry barely have a scratch after killing the Witch-King; Merry stabbed the wraith without a jolt in his arm from the wraith, which contradicts how the wraiths are filled with poisonous energy and any attempt to kill them can bring great harm. So Jackson made it better sense by showing Merry and Eowyn express pain after their attack on the Witch-King and later show them unconscious (for Eowyn at least in the Extended Edition).

Another thing with Sam is the way he uses the power of the Ring to scare off that Orc and drive him to fall of the stairs because the Ring isn't supposed to have that kind of magical energy to help fight enemies. Sam is supposed to scare off Orcs with his fierce attack of Sting, not by relying on the Ring. Jackson avoided showing any great contribution the Ring could make to the hobbits, even though Frodo had to put it on justifiably to escape Boromir, and Rankin-Bass fell into the trap of making it look glorious, especially with that stupid song "The Bearer of the Ring".

On a smaller note, Barad-dur shouldn't look like just another medieval castle; this is Sauron's fortress and illustrations have always made it look very dark and imposing with its jagged structure. The White Tower in Minas Tirith should look like a "spike of pearl and silver" and Rankin-Bass just made it another tall thin castle tower in white stone. The White Tower has to stand out in order to acknowledge that that is where the Steward or King of Gondor would sit close to as a sign of their authority over the City.

I personally hate the way Frodo tells Gandalf he wishes to leave at The Grey Havens and Pippin and Merry seem to take it well by just smiling when he's telling him of what's good of them staying in the Shire. Not only that, Merry and Pippin are so ugly in how they were animated, with Merry being short and round and Pippin being tall and lanky, which doesn't fit in with the look of a hobbit.

Bakshi even made the characters look worse with Boromir wearing a Viking helmet, the men wearing no pants, and Gimli reaching the same height as Legolas, Aragorn, and Boromir. The whole abstract animation of Middle-Earth made it hard to really see what the different locations look like individually. We never see Edoras in its entirety on the hill or the beauty of Rohan or the glittering trees and fleets of Lothlorien or see the green and luxurious sights of the Shire.

So in comparison to Bakshi or Rankin-Bass, Jackson adhered closely to what the places, the creatures, and the peoples of Middle-Earth should look like, even though he only changed some of the hair-colors of the characters. Who cares about hair color?! He would alter the story in significant moments, from the inclusion of Arwen at the Ford of Bruinen, to the Warg attack, to the corruption of Faramir, to the separation between Frodo and Sam in the Morgul vale, to the participation of the Army of the Dead at Pelennor. However, these changes in events didn't prevent the story from reaching the outcomes of the book, they just added more drama and excitement. At least Jackson didn't make Frodo fall into the lava or have Aragorn choose Eowyn over Arwen or Gollum just abandon the Ring in the end, then it really would have upset the fans. Bakshi and Rankin-Bass just kept rushing their versions of the stories without any time to flesh out characters or explain events, made everyone look unattractive, and kept the beauty of Middle-Earth from shining through the abstract darkness they covered it all up in. Jackson kept the characters alive, took time with the story, followed the details of the books, and let Middle-Earth shine in its beauty. However much liberty he took with the story, liberties are always taken and sometimes you just have to accept it as a movie, not a literal copy of the source material, otherwise it's always going to be about being a purist.