Into the Wardrobe

To help get things started, I thought that I would ask what people thought of the Peter Jackson movie version of The Lord of the Rings. In my household we have quite a range of opinion. My son (loyal Episcopalian though he is in temperament and training) comes very close to arguing for “verbal, plenary inspiration” of Tolkien’s final text (although he has read Christopher Tolkien’s History of Middle Earth with great interest). He has no use for the movies – and sees the fact that others of the household enjoy them (in varying degrees) as something of a sell-out.

In brief, for myself:

“I found them enjoyable,” but they could never come close to the books. I would say that Gandalf, Sam Gamgee, and Boromir were well played and presented; Theoden and Gimli were well played (but I regretted the extent to which Gimli was reduced to comic relief); and the Ents visually were very striking.

I regretted the elimination of Saruman after Helm’s Deep (especially the “showdown” with him at Orthanc, after the battle); the presentation of Faramir (in my view, simply off the mark); the elimination of the Houses of Healing (even in the “Extended” version one misses the key role of Aragorn as Healer). The lack of the Scouring of the Shire compromised both the structure and content of Tolkien’s work. I recall Lewis’ letter to his friend after reading the completed typescript: “the long coda after the eucatastrophe…has the effect of reminding us that victory is as transitory as conflict.” (cited in J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, H. Carpenter, p. 206-207).

This should get us in practice for December (the release of TLWW).

Regards.

Adam Linton

When they first came out, I really liked them even though there were some omissions and changes that I disliked. But now, the more I watch them, the more I dislike them and want to go read the books again. They really worked hard and put allot of love into what they did. There were moments of brilliance. Gollum was pretty good, some of the scenery was breathtaking, I can't complain about the music. But most of the characters, though the acting was almost always quite good, were just off enough to bug me and the stuff they messed with in the plot was really annoying. Some times I am glad they left out so many of my favorite side characters and scenes cause it means they could not mess them up. There are scenes that I thought were better in the movie then in the book (Boromires death scene is one) but they were much fewer than the scenes in the book that lick the movie hollow. I think Fellowship was the best of the three movies, or maybe just the least disappointing.
*sigh* long live the books!

I did enjoy the movies very much (and was obsessed enough to see the three of them during one night, or one afternoon, one night and one early morning to be precise) when our local movie theater showed them all together. But I realise that the reason I liked the movies was rather me being enthusiastic about somebody finding the books interesting enough to make a movie of them and how popular the whole story became. If I like something a lot, I just want to have it in every way: books, movies, music etc. I especially liked the music in the movies.

I don't really expect movies to be as good as books, and with that approach, I think the movies were adequate. Jackson was telling the mainline story found in LotR, and all the little off-tangent stories and characters (like Bombadil) had to be sacrificed.

There were elements where I thought them too reliant upon special effects.

All in all, I'm not going to complain, but I think someone who has watched the movies and not read the book will walk away with a very superficial version of the story.

One frustration I have had with all novel-to-movie adaptions is that it puts faces with names. Now I cannot read LotR without seeing Viggo when I read Aragorn or Strider. And, although I think Sean Astin nailed Samwise, I hate seeing his face every time I read about Sam. I have always enjoyed drawing my own mental pictures, and movie adaptions destroy my ability to do this.

Incidentally, this is my only reservation about the LWW movie. But children are ambiguous, and most of the other characters will have the mere appearance of an animal, with only size variations. So maybe it won't be so bad. But I am sure the appearance of characters like Tumnus will stick.

From a strictly purist standpoint, I also could make an extensive list of Jackson's many omissions and alterations. Nonetheless, taken in its entirety rather than its details, I found the film deeply moving. I am well aware that in my literary scholarship I was regularly criticized for being too intuitive (a judgment validated by my Myers-Briggs score), but in the end is not art itself more than the sum of its parts. For me Jackson achieved what Aristotle in his Poetics required of all the great dramatists, the evocation of "fear and trembling and a catharsis of the emotions." I think the film is a masterpiece!

I think the movies are terriffic, but I still value them primarily for the way the reflect ("through a glass darkly" or something like that - what's that from anyway?) the books.
The change to Faramir and Denethor is my primary problem with them.

surprisedbyjoy,
"Through a glass darkly" is from the Bible.

1 Corinthians 13:12
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known."

It speaks of the Christian reaching heaven and finally understanding.
Maybe when I get to heaven I'll finally understand why PJ messed up the movies so badly! :P hee. hee.

Wow! Thanks a lot...I really should have known that. However, I think I must have seen it somewhere else, as the title of some book, and that's what's confusing me.
Actually, now that I look, I think the reason I didn't recognnize it is that in the translation that I generally use, the NIV, the verse is translated as:
"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face."
With humility,
SbyJ