Audio Books/Radio Adaptations

Planning on listening to the rest of Fellowship tonight, will post my thoughts when I do...

{{Look forward to hearing your thoughts Malick- if i find myself with a bit of time might listen to the latter part of fellowship myself so its fresh in my mind. Where you starting from? The Ring goes South? }}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Look forward to hearing your thoughts Malick- if i find myself with a bit of time might listen to the latter part of fellowship myself so its fresh in my mind. Where you starting from? The Ring goes South? }}}

I've listened from 'Flight from the Ford' through to the end of Fellowship.

Initial thoughts ( I'm slighty - so you'll have to forgive me if I go off on a tangent)

- The sparse music continues to be unimpressive (and in the case of Lothlorien sounded a little too... fairytaleish that's not an actual word but you know what I mean), but the main theme has certainly grown on me

- The Rivendell sequences felt a little rushed and confused-many of the actors have similar voices and as a dialogue heavy segment of the book it would naturally be hard to adapt, it wasn't hard to follow per se in this adaptation but it did kinda stop the flow of the narrative, by the end of this version of Fellowship I didn't have much of a grasp of Legolas or Gimili as characters (which is perhaps applicable to the book as well as the characters are often quite broadly written) though I did like the Gimili voice-almost sounded Cockney

- I felt Elrond and Haldir were miscast, this may simply be me nitpicking/biased as both parts are so small, but the actors they chose just didn't sound 'elvish' to my ears, too young and generic posh english, Galadriel was much better and I liked much of this version of the Lothlorien segment better than PJ's.

-Throughout this adaption I've noticed that much (perhaps a majority) of the dialogue is original to the novel, which is commendable but in several scenes the writers commit the radio sin of having characters describe the scenery or talk to themselves (Frodo hearing Gollum following the party, Sam's internal thoughts at the end of Fellowship etc) meaning that I was occasionally taken out of the drama, the frequent mentions of names/places from the book thrown into random conversations is fun as a fan and makes sense in the context of the dialogue, but probably would be confusing/annoying as a new listener (i.e during the Lothlorien scenes we are told Legolas is a Silvan Elf and that they cross the river Nindalf (did I get that right?) none of which is particularly relevant to the key drama) and the absence of the descriptive backstories/history from the book make things feel a little...thin? The use of the narrator was an excellent idea (great voice whoever the actor was) and although the crew understandably had time limitations I couldn't help but think they somtimes narrated the wrong scenes and could have done a bit more 'scene setting'.

- Bill Nighy's Sam continues to grow and impress me, he has a great rapport with Ian Holm and a surprising amount of vocal range considering he's been typecast as a blustery old English man. Robert Stephens Aragorn has grown on me...nothing wrong with the performance but the accent and slightly lispy voice just sounds a little...off? Aragorn was royalty and raised by Elrond so he has something of a privileged background, but he is also a Ranger who spent his pre-crowning life travelling Middle Earth in various clandestine journeys...I hadn't imagined him to sound quite so posh...

- I really liked the sound effects for the Balrog and the Watcher in The Water, nice mix of creepy and loud (actually, the whole Moria sequence was done quite well I thought, though I'm not too keen on the Orc voices), though it was a shame the action sequences were so curtailed, LOTR is far from being a sword and sandals action epic every five minutes, and radio obviously has limitations but the Company have hardly drawn swords in the whole four hours so far, as great as the professor's dialogue can be LOTR is much more than that...I still don't think it's particularly suited to adaption.

- Rather surprised Fellowship ends so suddenly like the book, I still think PJ definitely made the right move in killing Boromir at the end of FOTR rather than the beginning of TT-it simply works better in a adaption, really surprised they didn't do the same here.


So overall, I've really enjoyed this adaptation so far, great acting and script, it's very faithful to the spirit and characters of the book...but the limitations of the medium, running time and 1980's radio technology do occasionally work against it both as a an adaption and stand alone radio play and I still think LOTR is best experienced as a book.

{{ I'm a fan of the Rivendell section as I really enjoy the Council. Im also a big fan of Boromir in this. The cast shares many similarities to Bakshi's and its the same voice actor on Boromir with the difference here he gets a lot more character to do- and I think he does it brilliantly.

I think with Aragorns casting they were trying to get the mix of grim and royal in exile across- it works in certain situations but less so in others for me.

I love Moria throughout, especially retaining Gimli reciting the poem from its glory days- really paints the picture.
Orc voices- yeah tricky to do and make them seem not human at the same time in radio- and it doesnt quite always work.

I feel with the narrator they were trying to use it as little as possible and only where absolutely necessary- in general I agree with this principle as its a dramatization not a reading of the book- the upshot of this is sometimes you have to move descriptive passage into character narration, which can be tricky not sound clumsy or unnatural as speech. Though this adaptation is by no means the only one that hits this problem. And radio is at least a better excuse for it than most.

Regards Boromirs death- been awhile but does Fellowship not end on the whistling of the arrows towards him? In which case they did technically move it to end of fellowship, just his whole death speech with Aragorn is at start of TT.

Keen now when you get to it to see what you think of how they handle Rohan and Helms Deep- not to mention Frodo and Sam's journey.

'I still think LOTR is best experienced as a book.'

No arguments there, no matter the medium its adapted too thats still true! }}

Still listen to the cd when i go to bed, helps me nod off. Merry and Pippin have just escaped from the Orcs and entered Fangorn.

{{Good part that- I really like Treebeard in that version }}

I'm going to try and get round to listening to the rest of the BBC Adaptation soon and will post my thoughts, my leisure time has been distracted by various other things since (ironically including an ever increasing pile of Big Finish Doctor Who audio) hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of it, I think of the three parts of the novel The Two Towers is the one I've read the least so my thoughts on some of the changes will probably be less detailed than they were for the FOTR episodes.

{{{ Looking forward to that Malick- some of my favourite parts of the radio adaption are form TT- dead marshes/Helms Deep among them. }}}

As a young listener, the Watcher in the Water bit and the Balrog were terribly confusing. All that stretch of Moria was a muddle to me until I got around to reading the book. Mainly I remember weird ffffsshhh noises like a firework battle.

{{Several of the action scenes are unclear in my view as to what is going on without book knowledge- a Knife in the Dark is another good example- one of the reasons I like the Helms Deep section however is I feel that was a very inventive, effective, moody way to do the action which worked really well for me.
Although I do like the dialogue in the Moria section- particularly that we get Gimli's song (all be it a verse or two shorter). }}}

This is the best I've heard so far. Great character voices great background noises the lot.

I really should listen to the rest of the BBC Adaptation eventually, loved FOTR but I kept postponing listening to the rest of it, I never have the time or in the mood to listen a 4 hour drama atm, and I prefer to listen to audio drama in one sitting.

Anyone listened to the American 'Mind's Eye' version of LOTR? how it compare to the BBC version?

{{I seem to remember trying to listen to the Minds Eye version and not getting very far! Beyond that cant actually remember much detail about it- not sure if thats my buckied memory or a testimony to how bad I thought it!
Hope you get round to the rest of the radio 4 adaption- you've loads to look forward to such as a Denethor with a real character like the book! I also love how they choose to do Helms Deep given the medium.}}

{{ Playlist for the BBC radio version of LotR's. Enjoy if youve never heard it before.}}

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpRwTLTml_g&list=PLWdIQronRkymuuf_-2xK7QlBC-KM5Q3pt

Not heard this version

can't say I think much of the pedestrian music and the narrator sounds like he cares more about clarity than delivery.  But the village hobbit voice characterizations are wonderful.  Haven't gotten to a main character yet, though.

Edit: ACK!  skipped around and Aragorn is terrible.  Sounds like your clean-cut and boring next door neighbor. Gandalf sounds like a bit part character actor who drops in to make some foreshadowing comment then disappears. Only he doesn't, and that voice can only be listened to for about 30 seconds.

I'm not familiar with it either, but the narrator and style is intimately familiar from the Mind's Eye production of The Hobbit.

Many actors are recycled. Treebeard is played by the man who played Thorin, for example.

{{ Grab it while you can it'll probably disappear sharpish. }}

{{ These are great, Jackanory for adults, I had no idea they'd made these. These are part of the BBC annual tradition of doing classic ghost stories at xmas, the Gatiss one based on Conan Doyle's Mummy story was this years, but these are older ones.
The premise is simple a Don at a nobs uni sits down of an evening to tell a tale to some students, and that's it, there's some visual stuff to accompany the tale, but basically it's just the reader and the story, and what a reader they got, Sir Christopher Lee. The ghost stories are those of Victorian writer M.R. James, of whom I was already a fan. Far as I can tell there are four of them, at least that's all I've found so far. All worth the listen. }}

Slightly different take on the story. Supposed to make you sleepy. My favourite chapter in the book.

That Barchester video had me captivated. Theres something about Christopher Lee's persona, he had a strong aura, when he spoke you listened. I cant imagined he ever lied. He didnt see it necessary. He was indeed a great man and had me mesmerised.

{{ The other three are just as worth a listen/watch Az, in fact of the four stories that one is probably my least favourite (I just grabbed one at random to post) but they are all mesmerizing to listen to.
The ash tree is very typical of the style, its just stuff that happens, no real explanation, but lots of atmosphere and mood. }}