The Hobbit Movie Forum

[B'arelyn Dwarf]

You have a point there Astar, I also like the sense of security that Tokien had built up surrounding the house on the hill, what I maybe meant to say I suppose that his character is often very hard to come across in reality, his character is some what difficult to understand because I don't really know anyone like him in real life. He also has an impossible optimistic attitude about him (I know, I know this is middle earth were talking about not the Earth), its just a bit hard to associate to and its difficult to read what his inside personality is like if you know what I mean. I do agree with you though Astar that parts in the book, in which include Tom Bombadil, are very enjoyable and that the Characters Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are two very fitting personalities for the occasion and the situation of which the parts include. I feel that if I understand a personality, I can understand the characters relevance to the story.

[Astar]

I'm hearing what you're saying BD, and truthfully I'd have to agree with you about Tom seeming a bit far off at times. Even when the hobbits are with him he's off singing and bouncing and jumping about! And I definitely know what you mean by unrealistic. Maybe the reason I don't mind his optimism so much is because my life is so un-optimistic. Hahah.
Even if he's over cheerful, I'll never get tired of him.

[Odo Banks]

One of the things that separates Tolkien from most writers I have read is his capacity to draw larger than life characters who one can instantly either love or hate. They are clearly drawn and don't have the "complexities" of personality and "realism" that most current fantasy writers strive to instil in their characters (usually in vain!)

And this is not to say Tolkien's characters don't have depth, it's just that depth is only ever hinted at, largely left to the reader's imagination. Tolkien respected his readers. He knew they could go as deep or as shallow as they want with his characters. He was a Story teller - and not a social commentator - which is what most modern 'serious' fantasy writers are nowadays (I cite Phillip Pullman! Yuk!)

To suggest that something is loved in a book but shouldn't be incorporated in a movie seems daft to me. Either the Tom Bombadil's of fiction are acceptable in both books and movies, or they're not. If they're not, it means only so called "realistic" stories would be left to be read. And that would be sad.

Both T and CS wanted to write books they liked to read. I'm glad they did. Hey! There are not enough Tom Bombadil's or Puddleglum's in the world as it is!


Odo

[Shane333]

Well I'm coming into this late, but would like to cast my hat into the ring.

I generally agree with Eldorion. I felt that PJ took too many liberties in changing the characters from the book. I was less than satisfied with PJ's depiction of Faramir. I feel that he dumbed down the character for the movie and portrayed Faramir as having a weaker character. Made Faramir more petty. In the extended edition he rectified this a tiny bit, but still too petty in my mind compared to the Faramir from the books.

PJ also watered down the greatness of Aragorn's character. Aragorn left Rivendell knowing full well what he was out to accomplish, in the big picture, and he was motivated to accomplish both (help Frodo destroy the One Ring, and become ruler of Gondor and Arnor). Like Faramir, I felt that PJ's depiction of Aragorn made him more petty than the character from the books.

Then there's Arwen. Oh boy, where to begin. First off, there was no way in "Angband" that either Aragorn or Elrond would allow Arwen to put herself at risk. If she so much as stepped foot outside of Rivendell or Lothlorien, she'd have a heavily armed escort accompanying her, ensuring that she not so much as stub a toe. The idea of her being some kind of warrior princess is proposterous. For "Valinor's" sake, when Frodo sees her seated at the table in the House of Elrond (in the book), doesn't she sit under a canopy...indoors! This is one of the most cherished persons on Middle Earth!

At least PJ listened to the LOTR fans and refrained from including Arwen at Helms Deep.

Gimli was a bit too unrefined and dirty in the movies. Had Gloin from the book seen his son behave as crudely as was portrayed by the movies, he'd probably have beat him like a redheaded stepchild. Not suggesting that Gimly should be dressed in nothing but silks nor am I suggesting that Gimly should prance around like some short fop. Just saying that burping, using his beard as a napkin, and babbling drunkenly about hairy dwarf women wasn't appropriate for the Gimli from the book.

Now, for personal taste, I would have liked someone else for the part of Galadriel. Cate Blanchett has a great presence about her, but in my opinion she is nowhere near beautiful enough for Galadriel. Galadriel is supposed to be one of the two most beautiful people in Middle Earth, and unfortunately Cate Blanchett just doesn't come close to cutting it in that regard. That said, she did relatively well in her acting and I recognize that beauty is subjective.


I'll continue on with another post in a little bit. This one is getting long already.

[Shane333]

Part 2:

Wargs are supposed to be large, intelligent wolves, not mutant hyenas.

I'm really conflicted about the Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil, and the Barrow Downs. It'd be hard to include any one of them (correctly) without including all of them. That would have tacked another hour onto the film. Shame though, because if done properly the Barrow Downs would have rocked.

Denethor is an interesting character. In the books he is actually a great man that has simply been beaten down from going will-to-will against Sauron so many times. I thought he could have been portrayed a little better, especially in his treatment of Faramir, but otherwise I can understand how they portrayed him in the movies.

As for other odds and ends, I thought it was silly showing the orcs of Moria climbing down walls like cockroaches, the collapsing stair scene in FOTR (as if Aragorn and Frodo would have enough weight to influence which way that massive slab of stone would lean), a blue-ish Lothlorien, and a few other tidbits.

On the other hand, I thought Minas Tirith, the Shire, Moria, and Rivendell were pretty well portrayed. I also enjoyed the portrayals of Bilbo, Frodo, Pip and Merry, Gandalf (though I think he needed a bit more beard when he came back in The Two Towers) Wormtongue, Gollum, and especially Shelob.

[Garindalf]

I generally really enjoyed the three movies. Went to see them all at the cinema and bought the extended DVDs for each as and when they came out.

I have watched them all at least a couple of times and it was only when re-viewing them that I realised one or two things that I thought, at best, could have been done better and at worst, actually made me cringe!

Most of my problems relate to the first of the three films - FOTR.

I thought the battle at the end between the fellowship and the Uruk-hai just seemed wrong to conducted on a beautiful, sunny day amidst lush green surroundings.

I'm not saying that it should have been a dark night battle but perhaps a bit more overcast and moody? I dunno... monsters just seem less scary in the day!

The second thing is Legolas. I thought Bloom pulled the part off pretty well and he looked as close to how I imagined him as any human could be made to look but some of the dialogue he was given left something to be desired.

His lines largely consist of him staring into the middle-distance and saying some profound one-liner before the camera breaks away to something else entirely.

It's been a few years since I last watched the film but one of the lines I seem to remember is him running up a bit of a hill, looking into the middle-distance and saying something like, "There is a fell voice on the air".

It's not so much the dialogue I suppose but the way it is delivered and then left as if it's the most Middle-Earth shattering statement anyone has ever uttered.

I think it is supposed to give it this kind of gravity - I just felt that it made him look cheesy.

Then there are some other bits of dialogue, there are several throughout the films where I just can't believe nobody took PJ over to one side and said, "Do you REALLY think he would say this?" and the biggest culprit is Aragorn's closing sentence in FOTR - "Let's go kill some orc!"

Hmmm... would Aragorn REALLY use those words?

Talking of orcs, why did they all have to be given some dodgy Cockney accent? I half expected them to break into a rendition of "When I'm cleaning windows" at one point.

Apart from those minor quibbles, I thought the films were great.

I do go along with all the people on here who mourn the loss of Bombadil and the Barrow Wights and the bit in the book where Merry and Pippin become military captains (or whatever rank they are given, I can't remember), one of the befriends a boy I seem to remember and that is a little storyline all of its own and then they go back to Hobbiton as the big war heroes and there's a bit of a scrap when they get back in.

All of this stuff wouldn't have made much sense in the cinema release of the film and it probably needed to be cut but I can't believe that filming that stuff for the extended DVDs wouldn't have been financially worthwhile.

LOTR is a masterpiece of fiction, the likes of which may never be written again, surely the films will never be made again either so you might as well give them absolute A1 everything at the time of making because the opportunity probably won't ever come around again.

Besides, when I see some of the dross that comes out of the film industry all the time, surely they could have sacrificed one of those crappy movies and spent the budget making LOTR even better?

Anyway, thanks for reading.

[Eldorion]

I'll be back with some more thoughts when I have a bit more time but I wanted to make a brief comment now.

LOTR is a masterpiece of fiction, the likes of which may never be written again, surely the films will never be made again either so you might as well give them absolute A1 everything at the time of making because the opportunity probably won't ever come around again.

I'm not sure why we should give the films a perfect score just because they were a massive project, for one. Also, I highly doubt that a franchise as lucrative as The Lord of the Rings will never again be adapted at any point. Maybe not for a few decades, but eventually the Jackson/Del Toro series will be less in the forefront of people's minds and technology will improve. I think there could be another series made out of LOTR within the lifetime of some of us younger folk.

[Eldorion]

I agree with most everything that Shane333 mentioned, but there were a few parts I'm not sure about.

I'm really conflicted about the Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Tom Bombadil, and the Barrow Downs. It'd be hard to include any one of them (correctly) without including all of them.

Personally, I don't feel the Old Forest/Tom Bombadil/Barrow-downs should be prioritized when making an adaptation. I hate to try to rank different parts of the book, but given time constraints some parts will have to be cut or condensed (and in that vein, I don't much anything should be added). I don't mind too much that Bombadil got cut.

otherwise I can understand how they portrayed him in the movies.

I disagree about Denethor, I thought he was done horribly in the films. He was supposed to be a noble but proud leader of Gondor who eventually lost his mind following the apparent death of Faramir. In the book he called for aid from the fiefs and from Rohan before Gandalf showed up in Minas Tirith. In the movie he did neither and for Rohan to come Gandalf and Pippin had to resort to sneaking around behind Denethor's back. Denethor was a literally drooling madman from the first time we meet him in RotK instead of only towards the end.

Frodo, Pip and Merry, Gandalf

I strongly dislike movie-Frodo for being a wimp. Obviously Frodo in the book was eventually weighed down by despair and "failed" in the Quest, but movie-Frodo starts succumbing much earlier on and would have ended the Quest by surrendering the Ring to a Nazgul in Osgiliath if not for the timely intervention of Sam and Faramir.

Merry and Pippin I thought were okay, but far too trivialized, especially in FotR where they do little more than provide comic relief (and undergo both the Fireworks scene and drop in on the Council of Elrond and start scampering around at the end, taking the kernel of Sam's interruption and making it almost a circus of hobbits who are clearly annoying Elrond - and some members of the audience ).

I loved Ian McKellen's performance as Gandalf the Grey, but I was a bit let down by his Gandalf the White, mainly because of his smack-down of Denethor in RotK. Leaving aside the ridiculousness of the Gondorians following his orders after he beat up their leader, it was the sort of violent and domineering intervention that Gandalf was supposed to avoid (and the sort that Saruman succumbed to).

Just some of my thoughts on the matter.

[Eldorion]

I agree with you, Garindalf, on your points about dialog. Aragorn's "let's hunt some orc" struck me as a bit blunt out of place in the somewhat distant and more noble setting of The Lord of the Rings. It's almost something you might hear a professional wrestler say, but not the Heir of Elendil.

Legolas' almost mystical demeanor was rather annoying to me, but two lines really stood out. The first was "the Uruks have turned northeast ... they're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!" (though the music video is pretty good in my opinion). The reason for my dislike was the fact that the Uruks were actually heading more or less due west in the direction of Isengard and there wasn't much of anything in the north-east for a very long distance. The other line I disliked was "A diversion" in RotK. The plan had already been laid out and it was obviously a diversion, so Legolas' statement was redundant and made him seem a bit slow (to me at least).

[Odo Banks]

I say, Eldorion, I almost always agree with you. And it saves me from having to collect my thoughts and put them into words. Good on you.

Odo