Whenever I watch the Lord of the Rings movies, I need to forget that I’ve ever read the books. Because when I can forget; they are great action movies with hitting and sploding. When I can’t, all I can think is, “Yeah, this is just a fancy-looking Willow.”
Whenever I watch the Lord of the Rings movies, I need to forget that I’ve ever read the books. Because when I can forget; they are great action movies with hitting and sploding. When I can’t, all I can think is, “Yeah, this is just a fancy-looking Willow.”
The Harry Potter movies do a better job at playing true to the moral of the stories; probably because the HP author is alive to complain about interpretation. The fact that the HP movies stay truer to their moral than LOTR makes me mad; because LOTR are better books than HP.
I have read both series countless times. And I’ve seen all of the movies many times. (It’s called Comedy Film NERDS, folks). Intellectually, I know making movies from books changes the experience. It is not easy to do well. But it can be done (read and see To Kill a Mockingbird as a reference). I get that but I don’t care. I love the books. Don’t ruin them.
As literature (and Tolkien is now taught as such), Lord of the Rings is far more respected and respectable than the Harry Potter books. You can actually study it as literature. Granted, we shouldn’t underestimate a future where the complete sentences that J.K. Rowling uses will be hailed as the Pliny of the Idiocracy age.
There are subtle omissions in the HP movies that irritate me but mostly because I want to see more Snape; more Fred and George. They rarely affect the point of the story. Even small characters get their say. Dobby’s tiny speech to Bellatrix sums his character up and gives the reader some satisfaction. I would have liked more exposition of Kreacher’s relationship with RAB but I’m a dork. Hopefully they give him a moment in the second half of the HP7.
The omissions in LOTR are inexcusable. If it’s truly literature than treat it as such. The movies are littered with these scenes of characters doubting themselves in ways that never happened in the books. Sam never doubts Frodo. Not ever. He’s always there for Frodo (except when he thinks he’s dead, and he immediately realizes his mistake) and he never falls for Gollum’s chatter. Aragorn never doubts his destiny. It wears him down a bit but he never thinks himself unworthy. Look at the scene, in the book, when they’re going down the river Anduín, and everyone else is cowed by the statues and he reassures everyone, including Boromir, that it’ s safe because he is with them. And don’t even get me started on Faramir.
No, let’s go there. Faramir, in the book, is the only other character besides Bilbo that has ever released the ring while it is in his power. I don’t forget that Gandalf and Galadriel are offered the ring, but Faramir has a squad of men and knows that his father would like him to bring him this thing but does not. He is a hero. In the movie, he is portrayed as a weaker version of Boromir himself. Uh… it’s freaking criminal.
Let me speak to Aragorn briefly. I get that a romance is needed in an adaptation to film. But turning Aragorn into a dreamy fangirl character is lame. Done.
The point of the books is that the Hobbits are regular folk who do great deeds against all odds and scared for their lives. Sam is the hero. Frodo is the hero. Merry and Pippin are the heroes. They are physically tiny people that fight and achieve great things against great powers. They are the hope for all of us.
Watching Gandalf fight Saruman would be good pay-per-view but it’s not life
changing. Frodo having pity on Saruman is freaking growth. And it’s not even IN the movie. That’s what I wanted in the movies and never got.
I’m not saying the LOTR movies are not great, shiny fun. They are. And I watch them for that, but never for more. Peter Jackson decided to focus on the battles and the look and feel of the world of Middle Earth. It’s beautiful and compelling to watch but the hobbits don’t get to be more than “baggage” that talk.
The characters in the Harry Potter movies show more growth than the characters of the LOTR films. Rowling and Warner Bros. went with the spirit of the magical world rather than the letter of it. It makes the movies less … neat… sometimes when Harry, Ron and Hermione are wearing jeans and sweaters… but the point of the Harry Potter books is friendship, tolerance, learning and family. Those always shine through in each movie.
I’ m sure it was easier with Harry Potter because those books are more lightly written and the message doesn’t have to be found by culling through 900 pages of songs and poems. But I don’t particularly care. I want Frodo stabbing the foot of the troll and Merry piercing the King of the Nazgul’s knee and Faramir making the hard choices in that cave and “showing his quality.” That’s what is missing from the LOTR movies. I could go on forever. Talk amongst yourselves. Next up I rant about Dune – book v movie v mini-series. Or… I get a dayjob.
–Jackie Kashian, venturing deep into the Dork Forest and finding a Cinematic Barrow Mound.
