I just finished watching all the LOTR:EE movies and their documentaries and I always wonder about what could have been. The original version of the story versus what they intended versus what they ultimately did. Now, I am a HUGE Tolkein nerd. I have read these things a hundred times. But I don't mind changes. A movie is not a book. They have different requirements. And a movie must satisfy all four quadrants. --the deletion of Tom Bombadil. I have no problem with this. Great for the book, completely superfluous for the movie and undercuts the threat of the Ring. --Arwen joins Aragorn at Helm's Deep. I wish they had done this. If they make the decision to include Arwen as a character, then she needs to be a part of the story and not pining away back in Rivendell. Have her join Aragorn in battle and through the entirety of ROTK. --Faramir takes Frodo back to Osgillith. I have no problem with this. You need character arcs in a movie and you need a climax for Frodo in the second movie. --Frodo vs Gollum at the Crack of Doom. In the book, Gollum falls in because he's an idiot. In the original movie version, Frodo pushes him in. In the final version, they struggle together and he falls in by accident. I would have been happy with either film version. --Aragorn versus Sauron. In the book and movie, Sauron does not appear. But they filmed Sauron returning in physical form to duel Aragorn. I would have been happy with that. Gollumn describes that Sauron physically exists (he has four fingers on his black hand) so I see no reason why he wouldn't come forward to kill Aragorn in his moment of final triumph. Particularly if he suspects Aragorn has the Ring on him! And it would have made for a big climax. I can only imagine the confusion that non-book-readers felt when they saw Sauron in the Prologue and he's just a flaming eyeball for the rest of the series.
Tom: I really don't mind either way, if done right, ramp up the mysterious angle and leave out some of the odder stuff. Faramir: I like his character so leave that as it is. Arwen: Leave her in Rivendell, Éowyn makes up for rest. Gollum: It always seemed to me that he was neither exactly pushed or fell, simply fated by the Ring or TPTB to fall. So him toppling over is fine, we don't need Frodo going homicidal. Sauron: Just no.
From a dramatic point of view, I think it would have made a lot more sense for Sauron to return to physical form in the presence of Frodo, not Aragorn. He would be there in Mount Doom, making one final attempt to take back the Ring. And just when Frodo is about to hand it over, Gollum shows up, and the Ring falls into the fire.
Oh, man! That would have been awesome! Frodo gets to the Crack and walks in and there's Sauron waiting for him! So he puts on the Ring and he grows this golden armor all over him and they have this huge fight!
My opinions: * Tom Bombadil served no real narrative purpose in the novel, IMO, and would've served even less narrative purpose in the film * If you truly analyze the way that the character of Faramir is portrayed in the film versus how he's portrayed in the book, all that the writers did is give him a journey; they didn't do anything to fundamentally alter who he is as a character in any way * I have no issues with the way Arwen's storyline plays itself out in TTT and RotK, but the changes they made do create an incongruity with regards to her actions in TFotR * A giant fight between Aragorn and Sauron really wasn't needed (and I'm therefore glad they changed it), but I do think they could've kept the idea of Sauron appearing to Aragorn in vision in the guise he used to deceive the Elves into forging the One Ring, tempting and taunting Aragorn for a bit before Aragorn just turns around and says "For Frodo", thus rejecting Sauron's attempt at seduction
When he lost his physical body in the Second Age, he existed Voldermort style until he forged the armour we know him in as his only body, a scaled and toned down version of his masters. After that it seems he could never take any other form again, in the physical or wraith/spirit world. Even in the books the armour was essentially him now, even after he was defeated in the Last Alliance before LOTR. But Annatar (his Elvish form, Lord of Gifts) does play a major part in the Shadow of Mordor game that just came out, you get to see a fair bit of that story there.
^^ Gollum saw a physical Sauron when he was tortured. He says he has four fingers on his black hand. There was a Sauron in a body walking around Barad Dur in the novels.
The novels implied that while in Barad Dur in particular, Sauron could walk around as a black spirit. But something similar happens in Shadow of Mordor where Celebrimbor can appear to Gollum as "The Bright Master", implying that whereas both he and Sauron can take a wraith form, few can see them, and fewer still can see them more solidyly. Gollum being a Ring bearer for so long allows him to see the wraiths fully. But nowhere is it really confirmed that either can materialise and touch anything, Celebrimbor's wraith form shows sign of incredible aging, Sauron in the novels to be a shadow with eyes. Even that could have been cool, Aragorn has the sight, Sauron could have appeared to him (seen pretty much only by him) as an immense shadow, taunting him and standing over the battle field until Aragorn broke free of his mental assault. Or one better, as the Ring is destroyed, that Shadow form pulled back through the physical Eye before it "dies".
Dol Guldor is the fortress in the southern tip of Mirkwood that Sauron/the Necromancer hid in during the Hobbit. Gollum was captured by orcs and taken to Mordor where he was tortured in Barad Dur and he saw Sauron face to face. Because Sauron had a body.
Sauron had better hope that's not true — or he'd have some real problems even if he got the Ring back!
yes, thank you! if Sauron doesn't have a body, how was he going to put the Ring on? I always forget that part!
Faramir is the worst change they made. The whole POINT of the character was that he was the complete opposite of Boromir, and wasn't tempted by the Ring.
It's been ages since i read the Red Book so my memory is very hazy when it comes to detail but i don't mind the changes in the movie because a movie works differently than a book and it's a bad screenplay/writer/director who doesn't take that into account. As some have already mentioned it was good they cut Tom Bombadil.. while being a fun and quite mysterious character (i've read many theories as to who or what he actually is) he really serves no grander purpose and movie audiences would just be confused because he doesn't make any appearance or is not mentioned anymore as soon as the Hobbits leave him. The same goes for some tertiary characters such as Glorfindel who saves Frodo in the book from the Ringwraiths (the chase through the woods and through the Bruinen river).. that event was given to Arwen because she's much more present in the movies and Glorfindel has this one appearance. While it may infuriate Tolkien purists i say it was the right choice for the movie. Everything considered i love both mediums.. the books for their rich history and epic story and the movies for their visual splendour and awesome casting (pretty much pitch perfect casting and effort by all the actors).
I'm happy you mentioned Glorfindel, I really missed him in the movie, but knew of course they would just have him for one scene so he had to be cut. It's just like when they mushed the Witch of the North, the Mouse Queen, Glinda the Good Witch of the South into Glinda the Good Witch of the North. So they gave Glorfindel's function to Arwen, ok. What I didn't like was how she showed up as if she was about to kill Aragorn and some attitude about if I was this you'd be dead. That's (and a few dozen other little things) is what bothered me about that. Not that Glorfindel was not there, but because the person who took his place acted so differently that he did or how she did as I would never expect that behaviour from the Arwen I read about, either. I also missed Gildor, too, but his scene wasn't even in the movie so it's logical he wasn't in it. Iirc that as Tolkien was reading his book to his other writter friends that when Glorfindel appeared he exlaimed about not another elf to loosely paraphrase, so I'm sure they wanted to eliminate some of those Elves for that reason, plus less actors, plus for people that didn't read the books to make sense of it all without name cards. So while I understand the changes and the need for some of them, I don't really approve. Re: Sauron. I don't know enough to say for sure, but I think that he was a wraith. A wraith can have an appearance and if you look at it it can seem to have four fingers on it's hand. I think the One Ring would have been the only thing to let him regain a "physical" form and that would have been the only thing he could have "touched" anything else would have passed through him but touching the ring would have reunited his power to him and he would not only be able to hold it but anything else from that point.
I don't mind much about most of the changes made in the film in many cases there was either no real reason to include is or including it would not "enhance" the viewing experience. The big one that does get me is not including the "original" return to the shire in the books, for me it was the ultimate pay-off of their journey (from just existing in the shire to being willing to fight for it), though I think you would have had to cut a lot out of the film to include an additional at least 20mins to half hour to tell it right.
From what I recall, the whole last half of the "Return of the King" novel is pretty much absent from the movies. I think it probably makes more sense the way the movies handled it. The whole tale is about Frodo destroying the ring; it's weird for that to happen, for the good guys to win, only to get back home and find even more shit to deal with.
I would have preferred Faramir's original personality -- but that would be far too many characters the Ring has little to no effect on. An untutored audience, especially, would start wondering why this Ring is such a big deal. Aw, she was just having some fun with him. In Bakshi's version, it was Legolas who showed up. I'm still trying to decide if that's a handy narrative shortcut for a movie that had to condense a lot of things, or if it's just a narrative cheat. Possibly it's both. My whole problem with the Arwen scene and pursuit is that Frodo didn't have to resist or do anything. No cries of "You shall have neither the ring, nor me!" He just lay there like a sack of potatoes while others took care of him. That was a little too prevalent through all the movies. That makes sense! Although I prefer the yuks engendered by Sauron only realizing the flaw in his plan at the last minute. "WHAAAT? Now what shall I do?" (Meanwhile, behind him, the Ringwraiths are all rolling their eyes and snickering.)
The LOTR movie series lost me with some of the changes (sure, a lot of it was cut for timing reasons and has been restored back in for home video releases, but the principal of the theatrical version missing out certain crucial plot stuff like Sauron's death irks me, just like it does when some of the Harry Potter movies are equally as 'fluid' with their faithfulness to the source text also). And then The Hobbit took this self-indulence on director Peter Jackson's part even further by basically reinventing the wheel. I keep feeling he started out trying to be faithful to the source in the first movie, but as the years passed and the critical acclaim came, it's like he cultivated a sense of unhealthy 'ownership' over the property, and I think that's pretty uncool. But I appreciate my viewpoint isn't shared by many.
Tom: While I don't mind him in the books, he wouldn't have fit with the movie, and would have just dragged it out anyway. Faramir: I liked his stuff well enough, I think the movie did it right. Arwen: She didn't need to be there. She definitely wasn't a fighter, and her role was explanded enough from the books as it is. Gollum: I like the way the movie did it, it seemed to fit how frodo and Gullum were acting at that point. Sauron: Sauron vs. Aragorn would have been cool.