Faramir and other changes

Mrs Figg wrote:nope. He is just an ordinary Hobbit in Fellowship, no more wimpy than any of the Others.

I dunno, in the movies, Frodo is the only one of the Hobbits on Weathertop to not even try to stand up to the Ringwraiths.

cos he had the Ring on  and it hurts.

He is nothing like the character in the books who does much more on the journey between the Shire and Rivendell, enough to be in a position where he chooses to take the Ring on (not excluding of course the Rings growing hold), but book Frodo by that point is more prepared mentally.
Book Frodo went through the self doubt and cowardice thing in the Barrow and overcame it.
Book Frodo let self importance and ego get the better of him in Bree and nearly blew the whole thing, and learnt from it, book Frodo never fell before the Nazgul, he defied them even though he was absolutely terrified, thats what makes it brave. Same at the Ford.

Film Frodo does none of these things.

Mrs Figg wrote:cos he had the Ring on  and it hurts.

Frodo drops his sword and tries to stagger away before he puts the Ring on, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Kkr2vyXU8&t=52s

dont care. I loved Elijahs performance, it was gentle and sensitive and he did a great job.

hi forest ^^ i absolutely agree with everything u say

Okay but everything includes forest disagreeing with something that I did not mean. Granted, forest did not know that at the time.

To be clearer perhaps: I don't mean 'Legolas' from the films as Jackson cast him or had him act. Sort of like when I say: the scouring of the Shire should have been included in my opinion, I do not mean simply 'fitted into' the Jackson films however.

I mean, in theory, in some film version that might have been, Legolas can meet Aragorn -- on a horse just as Glorfindel did. Let's say I am working on an adaptation before even one frame is shot, and I'm thinking about how to do this section of the book on film.

Granted in this thread it's in response to something specific Jackson did in his film, but my imagined film also contains very, very [very] many differences, both minor and major.

I personally never really cared for Frodo in the books or the Films that much-in the book to me he is a empty slate of a protagonist too perfect, too underdeveloped in his character arc. That said at least he had brains and courage in the book...in the film Frodo came across as a whiny wussy drug addict-Elijah Wood did give quite a good performance, but even before reading the books I found Frodo in the film to be too 'innocent' and very, very annoying.

I'm late to the party as usual.

I'd say either you get Arwen feeling protective of Frodo during the long ride to the ford as you have in the movie (in which case her attachment to him does not feel out of place: how long does it take to get attached to a kitten?) or Frodo has to make the final leg of the ride alone and challenge the Nazgul.

I can definitely see the attraction they had to the long chase scene: something Frodo in his state (even in the book) would never have been capable of. And it would have been logistically awkward to have Frodo take over at the end (maybe as Arwen jumps off to hold the Ford with Aragorn).

Given how well Liv Tyler played her role, this is one of the cases where I forgave the movie makers. Yes, it left us with a weak drooling Frodo, but the audience reaction to the chase scene was so strong and positive I have to forfeit this hand to them.

(And I admit when I see Arwen fiercely muttering her spell at the Ford of Bruinen, with whatever the hell it is she's doing with her eyes, I totally want to roll her in the hay that very second before the mood passes. Any woman who does that to me, she owns me.)

Malick: Tolkien himself wrote that Frodo was almost intentionally boring. He's the symbol which has to be kept plain and clear. I don't think Tolkien liked him much either.

I agree with you Halfy. Arwen was magnificent, and Sam was always the more interesting strong character, rather like the tough stalwart batman to the effete and helpless gentleman.

Sam is the heart and soul of both the book and the films, I do agree with PJ for once when he thought Sean Astin should have been recognized for ROTK, in general his casting is excellent.


I seem to recall in the FOTR EE appendices they stated the Nazgul chase was edited down from over 9 hours...

Elthir wrote:
Arwen could have spoken in Elvish in the flashback too. Maybe even some actual Elvish instead of fan-made stuff [apologies, as a fan of Tolkien's languages I find it difficult not to point this out even in this admittedly annoying fashion]!

You mean that skinny watchamacdougal guy they used for translations is not an actual authority on translating elvish? I thought they had at least gotten that part right.

David Salo (I assume that who's you're referring to) was part of a very long, very heated debate over whether or not it was appropriate for scholars of Tolkien's languages to try to expand on them to "fill in the blanks" left by Tolkien.  This was done by inventing new words and grammatical rules as well as trying to iron out inconsistencies that arouse from mixing and matching different versions of Tolkien's work, which spanned decades.  Salo argued that this was appropriate and as a result much of the Elvish (and other languages, especially Khuzdul) in the films is of his own (and other fans') invention.  These languages are sometimes termed neo-Quenya, neo-Sindarin, etc. to differentiate them from Tolkien's own work.

Good to know. But I have to feel they had no choice the moment they stepped away from using exactly the text that was in Tolkien. I think it was appropriate in some places to include extra elvish since the books don't have the advantage of captioning.

Tolkien's languages have never been my area of expertise so I'll let others address the question of whether or not the filmmakers' actions were necessary here. It's not a huge sticking point for me, though.

I'm not sure Jackson had no choice but to use Neo-elvish. In any case I find this commentary interesting.

Almost none of Tolkien's actual Elvish dialogue is retained. I can think of only one instance, in fact: half of the opening spell that Gandalf tries. Instead, we get multiple muffled, breathless tracts of entirely fabricated Elvish, for fabricated dialogue (such as Arwen(!) raising the Bruinen against the Nazgul).

Carl Hostetter from his review of film one

Carl also explains about the 'kind' of language employed.

But this provides yet another example of how little appreciation Jackson had for the tone and "feel" of Tolkien's work. Yes, Jackson went to considerable length to include Elvish in the movie: but he did so mostly by discarding Tolkien's own Elvish exemplars -- which, please note, are almost entirely in the form of songs, poems, spells, and exclamations made in crisis or de profundis that are used sparingly so as to punctuate the story and to not cheapen the effect of the Elvish -- and instead substituting for them long passages of made-up "Elvish" (however skillfully) constituting (mostly banal) dialogue of the sort entirely missing from Tolkien's own application of Elvish in his story (or anywhere else).

Carl Hostetter

So, whether one agrees with Mr. Hostetter or not... well there it is, from an actual Elvish expert. The underlining is not mine.

I note Carl's 'however skillfully' here, which (I would guess) does not endorse the accuracy of the Sindarin in the films necessarily, but rather sets the issue aside.

I think its pretty clear Pj has neither the understanding or the love of language that is required to do Toilkien justice.
His use of elvish in the films is just another example of this.

And yet, I think if subtitles were a workable literary device Tolkien would have been thrilled to use them. He resorts to it for poems because it's the most beautiful use of Elvish and he can't bear to not reveal some of it, but it would weigh things down if used for casual speech. I hazard he would have been happy to have long passages in his many languages if he felt he could have gotten away with it.

I'm sure to someone who is deeply familiar with Elvish the movie passages felt like made-up Homer compared to the original. But I think it added something for most people.

Humpf. That's twice in one day I've defended PJ. Doesn't sit easily.

My guess is that Jackson thinks Quenya or Sindarin can be learned like Spanish or German, and so he hinks he has Elvish in his films. Did he ever note the distinction Mr. Hostetter notes? I've haven't heard Jackson, or any of the filmmakers, comment much about the languages.

In any case Carl makes a good point in my opinion. I'm a fan of the languages and would much rather have heard Tolkien made examples.

"I'm a fan of the languages and would much rather have heard Tolkien made examples."- Elthir


Mind you Elthir, that could be said of all the dialogue elvish and non in the films. There is very little of anything actually written by Tolkien in them save sound bites.

And that's a much wider problem Petty!

Here I'm scratching my head about the Elvish specifically -- all you would have needed to do is pay someone to know about the languages, to help the actors know what they are saying and how to say it, not pay someone to invent Elvish.

I would have made Viggo speak up too

Talking of mumbling Viggo- have you ever managed to catch the elvish he sings as the opening of the Lay of Luthien? Is it at least accurate? I can never make it out.

Most people cant read Elvish, and the films at least tried to use Elvish sounding words, it sounded authentic and beautiful, however accurate or not. It gave a certain atmosphere to the films which would have been lacking without it. I think its great that PJ included it, he didnt have to bother.

It doesnt matter if you can understand it in the films anyway as PJ isnt brave enough to use any of the elvish to say anything of any importance at all in.
All the elvish is basically forms of rhubarb, as soon as the script wants to sat anything important it switches straight back into English.
Begging the question is is really worth having lengthy bits of elvish that are really just wasted bits of dialogue and time in which you cant risk saying anything crucial in-case illiterate audience members miss out on important info.
It might have been better just to have used the elvish Tolkien does in the books, in the forms he uses it and in the circumstances he uses it.

That way we'd get more Tolkien and Elthir wouldn't need to be heartlessly made upset by the lack of Lore and scholarly prowess (they are very sensitive creatures Lore Masters you know)

The funny thing is that they have a linguist commentating on Elvish in the Appendices, which always lead me to believe that they actually had consulted one. From what Elthir and Petty have been saying, I'm starting to thing he was only hired for the Appendices... Because that guy seemed pretty, shall we say, into languages.