Adapting Lord of the Rings

'If I recall correctly you did and it worked'- Ringo

{{ I did indeed- and thanks, I thought it worked pretty well too- better than I even suspected it might when I began.

But it is an interesting thought experiment- would folk have accepted four film, with TT split in two following two different story lines-it would be unique and brave thats for sure- but actually I think folk would go for it- the Aragorn story, which they would get first is exciting, action packed and full of new places and characters. The ext film would be insular, somewhat claustrophobic, solely focused don three characters as a a charterer piece- but again new places, new monsters and one hell of a ciffhanger climax- so again I think whilst audiences might resent the initial idea they would in fact have enjoyed the result.
And the Frodo/Sam line in particular could have got the attention it deserves if it were its own thing rather than the messed up, badly thought through version of events we do get.}}

I feel certain that this has come up before. But, if not, I've been reading through and enjoying these blogposts quite a lot:
https://acoup.blog/2020/05/01/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-i-bargaining-for-goods-at-helms-gate/

Wow, thanks Forest! He had me from the title on ("a collection of unmitigated pedantry"), and there's hours of good reading in there. I don't think it has come up before. This guy knows his stuff.

He has a good one on the siege of Minas Tirith as well.

A lot of information about the swap of Viggo for Stuart Townsend that I have never seen before - kept under wraps.

They should have just replaced Frodo in Jackson's films with the shire-fox*. Frodo could have fallen off a nearby cliff while he was having a wee, and then when the hobbits wake up they find the fox in Frodo's place. He'd probably do just as good a job as Frodo did. I mean, Sam could hide him under his cloak, and one hobbit is harder to see than two. Without Frodo around, movie!Gollum wouldn't be able to over-power Sam and get him kicked out. The fox would wake up and see that the lembas was gone and that Sam was covered in crumbs, and would just bite off three of Gollum's toes and eat those.

(He wouldn't complain about the lack of lembas and wouldn't tell Sam to go home for being a fatty, as the fox actually prefers toes.)

*This has given me an excellent idea for an internet browser...

Huh, Gandalf the Grey is meant to have white hair and eyebrows and a silver beard. He is the "oldest" of the wizards, after all. So it makes little sense that he should be grey and Saruman white.

Not that I'm complaining necessarily. Gandalf in his grey hair Jackson version is lovely.

I had this idea that Jackson and Co. intentionally simplified the prologue of FotR, but in The Council of Elrond chapter Elrond clearly says that the last battle was fought on the slopes of Orodruin, and it was there that Gil-galad and Elendil fell.
There is no mention of the siege of Barad-dur.
So as an adaptation of LotR, Jackson and Co. were accurate, largely

Jackson got an awfully lot right, which makes the occasional major fails something of a conundrum.

{ In my view where PJ got stuff right he was being constrained, either by his writing team, the hired Tolien experts, or by technology. Had PJ had his way we'd have had cgi Black Riders and orcs, thankfully the tech wasn't there for all that. The Hobbit films are in my view a much truer representation of PJ's own tastes and likes and love of over the top spectacle. As the LotR's films go on he adds more and more of it, and the drama and spectacle itself becomes ever more contrived and simplified too - Frodo sending Sam away, Denethor being a pantomine villain, Legolas taking down a Mumakil- these are the real PJ in my view. }}

To do him justice he did rein it in a bit in LoTRs.

They did say outright that they kept trying to stray from the story, but as they worked through all the ramifications they'd usually find just following the book worked out better. The Nobbit was a rush job, so they didn't have time to discover how much better it was to just follow the damn book.

{{ Dont see why you need time for that Halfy. Took me about 0.02 seconds to know they should follow the damn book. }}

First of all I'm not trying to defend them, but they saw themselves as "adapting" a book for the screen.  There's all sorts of shit-headed rules for doing this, and they just assumed they had to do them.  Most of us would have taken the approach of "how do I make this screen version as close to the book as possible?"  Their orientation was "how do I make this book as friendly for the screen as possible?"

So if you start off in the wrong direction it takes time to find your way back to the proper path.

True, true.

But filming the book as-is only really works if you do it as a series.
(Which someone should do.)

They destroyed the fairy tale atmosphere of the Hobbit book. That's what irks me the most. It ended up a charmless blockbuster.

agreed. They could have saved themselves a lot of money and trouble if they just stuck with the book. The long expected party largely captured the feeling, but after that they wandered and lost the ball.

I wish they had the balls to have carriages taking away the well-to-do hobbits after the party.

The oldest of the four actors plays the part of the youngest Hobbit.

Hm, unless Samwise is younger than Peregrin.

https://www.veed.io/view/0ee97867-5acf-4c81-8402-993de5fd347b


Andy Serkis? More like Andy He-Belongs-In-a-Circus. Step aside and let the real talent act.

I liked his Gollum and thought the extra scenes they wrote for him worked well; but there seems to be division on this point.

Is the link I posted not working?

I thought Serkis was great. I hate the decades of bad imitations that he spawned, but I thought his Gollum was very good.

I'm making a joke!

the link worked, but your intent was unclear.

{{ I dont think he is bad as Golllum, I think his script as Gollum is very bad in very many places, that the character is simplified, dumbed down and made simple to understand, that it lacks the vocal nuances a good script might have allowed him- I very much am keen to here his LotR's audio reading just to hear if he can get a lot more of that pity, pain and human sadness that often comes out of Gollum unexpectedly (a good example is a favourite bit in the BBC version of Gollum in the Dead Marshes where Smeagol is telling the tale of the battle and adds a very wistful "so they told him, when Smeagol was young, when I was young, before the Precious came." The way the actor adds on from 'When Smeagol was young' is filled of such regret and longing its painful and pitiable to hear. For me there is not a single moment in PJs version brings me that emotional connection to the character because Pjs version doesnt feel real to me as a character thanks to the script. }}