Elanor, I agree. It seemed out of character and unnecessary. T didn't give Gollum a 'pay-off' so why did the movie makers need to?

Odo

I'm new, and I'm not going to read the previous 11 pages before posting, so what I have to say might have been said.

I was one of those who read the books after seeing the movie (because I'm young) and what I thought of when I read the fellowship was that Merry was portrated in a totally different way. He showed the way to the ferry, but in the book he arranged alot of things in Frodos new house. I think I'd give him a bigger part. Merry, Pippin and Sam are also presented as they knew nothing of the ring.

Another thing..I know they mentioned it, but if I could change, I would've put Tom Bombadil back in the story. The whole chapter, even!

Welcome to the forum Emiss . I hope you read the last 11 pages now that you've made your point.

Your thoughts on Merry are the first to appear on this thread. But you will find some that agree and some that disagree on your Bombadil point .

GB

Welcome Emiss! I agree with you about Merry (and I think to a greater degree Pippin, he seems even more foolish than Merry in the films). They are of course among the lighter characters in the book, but in the film (especially Fellowship they clown around with few breaks (the Dragon firework, stealing from Farmer Maggott, eavesdropping on the Council of Elrond but not even knowing where they were going - in Pippin's case at least, etc.). I think they got somewhat better as the trilogy progressed though.

By the way, if you're interested in talking about Bombadil you might want to join in the discussion about him in another thread.

I also agree that Merry and Pippin were completely in the film, although I have to admit I quite like the change, I really loved the Merry and Pippin that Domanic Monaghan and Billy Boyd played. They were mischievous but good hearted Hobbits. They were very funny and ammusing at points in the film.

I do however think that alot of other characters were changed for the worse, especially Gimli, looking back now at film Gimli I feel the character was done no justice at all. He was almost meant to be thought of as some kind of joke in the film and his stubborness was emphasised way to much. He was portrayed a glorious hero, a dwarf of great stature and strength who had some knowledge and interlectual whereas in the film he was portrayed as (EDIT) being careless, and at times clumsy. He was good hearted but he was portrayed as being some kind of simple fool who only ever thought about food and beating Legolas.

I liked him but I would preferred much more of a Tolkien-Gimli, the rivalry between him and Legolas was overdone which also leads on to how Legolas should have been portrayed!

I don't mean to be a grump but the film Gimli and Legolas could have been along Tolkien lines alot more.

I agree with this. Gimli is not even allowed to be an idiotic barbarian in true D&D fashion but is simply a bumbling clown from start to finish. His "exploits" in the Warg battle consist of being nearly crushed under a pile of corpses and his main accomplishment at Helm's Deep is being tossed by Aragorn. It is slight consolation that he beat Legolas in their competition, but most of his prowess is left offscreen, whereas Legolas gets at least two (ostensibly) heroic moments: shield-surfing and rescuing Aragorn and Gimli from the causeway. At the Pelennor Gimli does almost nothing except react petulantly to Legolas taking down a mumak.

End of rant.

I think it's indicative of the filmmakers' general approach to making TLotR, at least after the first film. They were no longer as concerned with adapting Tolkien's book as they were with telling the story they wanted to tell. They genuinely thought (based on their comments to the EE DVD commentaries) that the changes they made - such as Frodo sending Sam away - were improvements and more dramatic. As if one of the best-selling books of the XX century wasn't good enough and further that they were qualified to improve it

I keep having a recurring thought.

Tolkien sold quite a few copies of LOTR - in fact long before any movies were made, if I'm right!

Well, if you listen to the writers etc on the LOTR extended DVD's, you'd think LOTR had such a lot of shortcomings. So many, It might not get past an editor nowadays. I'm not keen on editorial fashions in that case!

You know, I refuse to believe a great and enjoyable and exciting movie could not have been made keeping more strictly to the script. Surely the same delights that are in the book (whether editorially correct or not) could have been translated into the films.

An example: apparently a modern publisher would have made serious mincemeat out of the chapter: "The Council of Elrond." You can't do that in books. It's wrong! But, while I actually like PJ's take on it in the movie, I refuse to believe it could not have stayed truer to the text - it was one of my favorite chapters. All those characters talking about things going on could have been very interesting to fantasy fans, if done with skill.

Which raises another thought (to me at least!): how many casual fantasy fans will ever watch the movies time and again? And how many die-hard buy-the-extended versions type people (like me) watch them (for all their flaws) time and again. I even watch the "boring" appendices more than I do the movies!?

And!!! I think the movie has driven a lot of former non-readers of the book to actually read it. I wonder, how many of them would now prefer the book even after seeing the movies first? (OMW, TB and the B-W's are a delight - whether worthy of being filmed or not!)

I guess my (meandering) point is: PJ would have made his money back looking after the Purists and Fundamentalists, surely!

Sorry for waffling...

Odo

I'm not going to repeat myself pointing out why I thought film Gimli was great etc .

But, I would like to point out that Tolkien's books are more popular than ever because of Jackson's films. And there are a few old codgers like me who have read the books many times over the decades, and still think Jackson's films captured the books brilliantly.

Yes there were some changes, but seriously, most film adaptations are DRASTICALLY changed from the original sources. As a Potter fan I can attest to how much film-makers have been forced to leave out due to time constraints (the Potter books are laaarge books). Some of the Potter films seem to have less than 50% of the original material.

Jackson's films (particularly the Extended Editions) on the other hand, keep 70-80% of the original material relatively intact, though some of the various actions are shifted around. As far as I'm concerned that's pretty faithful and sets a new standard for adapting fantasy books.

And the fact is Tolkien took a lot of heat from book critics in his own day. And it;s not that the writers in their commentaries on the EEs think that Tolkien's work had shortcomings, it's that they knew some things that worked in print for Avid Readers, wouldn't necessarily work so well in a film that would also be seen by a GENERAL audience, half of which haven't read the books, and half of that group would NEVER read the books because they just don't read period.

GB

Oh my goodness GB, you're not comparing JKR to JRRT are you?

Nah! Just gagging. Harry is excellent too!

Hey! I don't know if I'm becoming a romantic old fuddy duddy, but I really like Ron and Hermione's burgeoning romance like I did Aragorn and Arwen's love affair.

Yes, this is not the thread for this. I just want to let you know that JKR is cool! (Not quite up to JRRT standards, of course - but what is? )

Odo