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Comment by scop | Hacker News Reader

I have a love/hate relationship with the movies. While the trilogy brought to life Middle-Earth to a degree I never thought imaginable, there were some elements that just fell incredibly flat.

If I had to pin it on one thing, it was that Peter Jackson and team were extremely good at portraying evil in all of its ugliness but failed to portray "goodness" with equal skill (which admittedly is not an easy thing to do!). While the honest goodness of the Hobbits was wonderful, the portrayals of "good" characters such as Aragorn and Galadriel fell very flat. This is not to blame on the actors at all as I thought Viggo did an awesome job; but the screenplay needlessly muddled the character.

Also, where was the damn poetry?

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It's been almost a couple decades, and I've not watched Return of the King, but I felt Faramir's changes were especially egregious. I've heard Return of the King didn't even have the Scouring of the Shire.

There were too many radical departures from what JRR Tolkien was trying to do for me to still enjoy it.

The Scouring of the Shire would've turned the theatrical cut into a 4 hour movie, and the extended cut into a 5 hour movie.

Perhaps it would've made ROTK the first dual-part series finale movie (like The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Avengers) of its kind.

LotR is a book about hobbits. They start off protected by the rangers, grow and learn throughout the book, and finally use their experiences to liberate their homeland from Saruman.

So, one of the main points (the main point?) is missed, as well as Saruman's proper death.

You're not wrong, but ROTK has already been criticized for having multiple endings in the sense that the post-Battle of the Morannon parts drag on forever, and audiences were satisfied with the hobbits getting a happy ending without having to add an extended coda about Saruman calling himself "Sharkey" and the threat of sovietization coming to the Shire. It wouldn't have flowed well as a movie.

If ROTK had been made into a two-parter finale it could have worked, perhaps. Or maybe a separate spin-off film for the Scouring.

We went to see ROTK 12 hours before my wife was heading to the hospital to give birth. Her poor bladder almost didn't survive the numerous "is it over now?" endings.

When you have that many layers, it takes a while to pop everything off the stack.

Of all those movies LOTR was the only one with a reason to have a dual part finale.

Scouring was key for one of the things that concerned Tolkien the most: that even after the most virtuous war, there are losses and hurts that can't be mended.

I remember being quite shocked when reading that part.

And also, that the oppressed can come together and cast off their oppressors. I've always thought that was a secondary reason _Scouring_ was left out of the movie.

Which is weird given that Return of the King is the shortest book (not counting the appendices).

Some people are also mourning the absence of Tom Bombadil. Maybe Jackson was saving him up for a separate movie.

I think he's said in interviews he just had no idea what to do with Tom Bombadil.

He is a bit of an odd character, especially with no context of the Silmarillion.

Part of his point. :-) (Bombadil's, that is.)

That's the charm of it. The ring has not effect on him because he doesn't covet anything, only see things for what they are.

If Jackson could turn The Hobbit into a trilogy, surely he could turn three chapters of Tom Bombadil into a miniseries or a rock opera or something.

Forget Faramir, their treatment of Elrond was the most egregious.

I loved most of the changes in Fellowship; but that was always the least cohesive and most tangled of the stories, not quite sure what it wanted to be.

I particularly loved the small touches; Boromir teaching the hobbits to use their swords, for example, helped make him a much more sympathetic and tragic figure than Tolkien did.

From Two Towers on the changes became considerably less good though; throwing out much of the plot incolving Saruman in favour of an invented-out-of-whole-cloth side quest for Aragorn was a terrible decision and, as you say, the changes to Faramir were appalling.

One positive, though, was emphasising the point that Frodo failed and the ring was destroyed by chance? That was good, because it was a key moral point Tolkien wished to make.

I never read it as "destroyed by chance". Rather, it was "the pity of Bilbo" (mentioned way back in FoTR, I believe), who did not kill Gollum when he had the chance, that finally catalyzed the destruction of the One Ring.

> Peter Jackson and team were extremely good at portraying evil in all of its ugliness but failed to portray "goodness" with equal skill

I think that's a fair comment. I would go even further--in fact I did, some time ago:

http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/tolkiens-ring.html

I haven't read the whole essay yet, but I'm really glad I caught your comment here. Thank you for writing this back then and for sharing it now!

> Thank you for writing this back then and for sharing it now!

Thank you for the feedback!

I just read you essay myself. That was one of the best pieces of writing that I personally read this year, to the point I found myself nodding my head in agreement the whole time, and even becoming strangely emotional when I read it. Finally I was able to articulate my mild dislike and indifference to the movies. It made the books shine in my mind with an even stronger light than before.

While the last time I read the whole trilogy was around 1988, while still at school, it (and the Silmarillion) are sort of etched into my memory. I've been putting off re-reading it for ages, but maybe it's time to do that. I will be sure to re-read your essay too.

Thank you again.

Thanks for the kudos! I'm glad you liked the essay.

I have lost count of the number of times I have re-read Tolkien's works. I first read The Hobbit in 7th grade, and went right on to LotR. It was some time before I was able to get my hands on a copy of The Silmarillion (the hard cover edition--I still have it), but I remember reading it almost straight through once I got it, because I was so keen to see what was in it after reading the appendices to LotR.

Your site doesn't seem to be loading. I also had a security warning when visiting it. I'm on Chrome, MacOS.

It might be objecting because my site is HTTP, not HTTPS; I don't have HTTPS set up. I probably should go ahead and get a certificate from Lets Encrypt since browsers are getting fussier about non-HTTPS sites.

What kills me the most about the movies, especially the Hobbit ones, is the CGI. I watched 2 of the 3 Hobbit films this past fall and the CGI is so jarring and dated. Worse, it's heavily used and just ruins the experience for me.

For example, when they're going down the river and being pursued from the shore... come on, nearly everything in that scene is CGI and screams "we were hoping to make a theme park ride, here's the trailer!", honestly I could have lived without that scene entirely.

I did not watch any of them when they first came out though, perhaps they were better at the time but watching them now they almost feel The 10th Kingdom quality.

The Hobbit movies are far more egregious in their use of bad CGI than the original trilogy. That river scene is one of the worst offenders in modern movie history for me.

The Hobbit movies were a travesty. But The Lord Of The Rings movies made excellent use of miniature models, full size sets, make-up and costumes, and great locations. They come from a period where CGI was much more limited, and the artists behind it weren't trying to do everything with it. When you use CGI for everything, like in The Hobbit movies, you lose connection with reality and it is jarring no matter how detailed it is.

Smaug in particular is rendered as a different creature across two movies. Shrug.

(Wyrm vs dragon)

The Hobbit films had a troubled production and were terribly rushed. Here's the first video in a small YouTube series on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTRUQ-RKfUs

The Hobbit movies were certainly awful. At least there is a pretty good animated version that has some of the heart of the book.

The animated movie was my first Tolkien experience, and I still have fond memories of it.

They were cursed by the passing fad of 3D and IMAX. It really does not look right when viewed on a regular screen.

The CGI in LOTR was excellent. My wife and I recently rewatched it, and I thought it aged rather well - because it was used very sparingly. There's a few scenes (Pre-balrog Moria, most the battle of Pelennor Fields, The Paths of the Dead) that look quite bad, but they are few and far between.

The Hobbit, on the other hand, was awful. Way too much bad CGI. (Never mind all the other problems with that adaptation.)

And in my mind, the theme park ride started as soon as the dwarves were captured by the goblins, with the mind-blowing minecart sequence. I did not realize I was paying $14 to watch "Goblin Snuff Amusement Park Expert Swordfighter Drunken Master Ride: Part I, The Enpartening".

No poems, Faramir is pretty one-dimensional with no scope whereas in the books his character is much more nobler.

And the worst of all - they left out Tom Bombadil. His character showed what state you need to be in to not be affected by the ring.

Yes, exactly. He effectively mangled the stories of Aragon, Faramir, and Denethor, apparently to be more "cinematic". Good is very hard to portray without being cloying or simpleminded, but geeze, he could have tried.

The weirdest part is Gollum; everyone seemed to like the portrayal in Fellowship, but then Jackson threw it out the window.

Can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by the portrayal of Aragorn "falling a bit flat"?

Perhaps he was a bit too gruff or something, especially in the Fellowship of the Ring? I could possibly see that because in the book he was definitely clear-cut 'rough and ready good-guy'.

No problems with his "gruffness" as you term it; that indeed very much captured his Ranger walkings in Fellowship etc.

What was a tough pill to swallow was the self-doubt infused into the character. I know I know, character development, relatability, etc etc. But, c'mon, Aragorn is the damned KING and a leader with unflinching will (a contrast to many around him).

...

Also, where was the damn standard w/ the White Tree, Elendil when Aragorn arrived at the boat?!

As someone who had not read the books before seeing the movies (I know, I know) it added a lot of context when I found out why the elves were leaving at the end. I remember wondering why everyone was leaving if they had won. I know it was already long, but I wish they'd explained the ring's connection to magic better. It also would have explained why everyone was so willing to take the rings of power in the first place, and given more weight to the somber tone at the end.

murdering an ambassador is a little beyond "falling a bit flat"

wow, I honestly forgot about that. I'll leave my original comment untouched, but per your reminder let the record show that "falling a bit flat" fell a bit flat.

In the books, he's a confident, charismatic leader. He has self doubt when things go wrong, but he knows who he is and he has a plan - reforge Narsil, go to Gondor, unite all men, fight Sauron. In the books, he fights off 4 ringwraiths with nothing but a couple of flaming sticks (he didn't have a sword at this point). He was courage incarnate - he looked into the Palantir knowing Sauron was looking back, and he beat him. He led his men through hell - they literally go to a crypt and recruit a bunch of undead - and it was only his will and his courage that kept all of them except legolas (who doesn't fear the dead) from losing their shit.

In the movies he's a blubbering wuss. He whines about how weak he is and how weak men are, he talks about how he doesn't want to lead, he can't lead, blah blah blah. It takes Elrond saying, "you're not getting any elf strange if you don't act like a leader," for him to shape up.

Yeah but in the first movie someone accidentally threw a real knife at him, which you can see Aragon (Vigo) unscriptedly deflect it with his sword so I think that notches him up a bunch

Elf strange?

Totally agree, glad you brought this up. The actor was good but the script and the direction didn't fit with the original character at all. It felt like a modern take on the role.

I'm pretty sure Elladan and Elrohir were perfectly comfortable traveling the Paths of the Dead as well.

The problem with Aragorn in the films is that he is... An important protagonist.

And Storytelling 101 tells us that an important protagonist needs to have a character arc.

The thing is, Aragorn doesn't have a character arc in the LOTR books. His character is largely static. His entire arc was in the backstory, prior to the events of the books. By the time the book starts, he knows exactly what he wants, he knows exactly what he's willing to do to get it, and he does it.

The film, in order to give him an arc, muddied those waters. He turns from being a noble, confident, driven man, into a wishy-washy one-foot-in-one-foot-out wandering stoner, who spends most of his time moping, and the rest with no idea of what he wants, or what he should do to get it.

It makes for character development, but it is not an accurate portrayal of his book character. Much of his nobility in the books comes from him not having these kinds of hangups - he knows what the right thing to do is, and he does it, and people around him are awed by his conviction and charisma.

I usually don't like 'great man' stories, but I have a soft spot for his part in the LOTR books.

> His entire arc was in the backstory, prior to the events of the books.

Not only that, but even the character arc in the backstory (the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen) is nothing like the arc portrayed in the movies. Even as a young man, Aragorn is noble, confident, and driven: he is only twenty years old when he returns from great deeds in the company of the sons of Elrond and is told his true name and lineage, and from that point he knows he wants to fulfill that lineage; he is never in any doubt about it. His character arc is about all of the things he has to do and all of the knowledge he has to gain in order to be able to fulfill his lineage when the time comes.

That too.

In the film, he hemms and hawws, and can't make up his mind of whether or not he wants to be king, but he never actually articulates a single reason for why he would not want to be one.

The film:

* Expects the audience fill in the blank for why he doesn't want to be a leader.

* Tries to make him more sympathetic as a leader, by turning him into a reluctant leader, as opposed to a guy seizing power because... Something something nobility, something something hereditary monarchy is how things are done in Middle Earth, but doesn't fly super-well for modern audiences..?

As I said in the essay I posted on my blog some time ago (link upthread), I think Jackson simply didn't understand Tolkien's conceptual scheme, and couldn't parse the idea that Aragorn is simply a man who is able to make the right choices because they are right, and to help others to make right choices too. Jackson is certainly not alone in this in the modern world.

Yes and no... For some reason he didn't take reforged Anduril when he started his travel with Frodo. He must have doubts about his abilities, as a wise and practical man he might have been afraid to believe in legends. To believe that he is the legend.

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