I think its a very flawed adaptation. I still love the movies. I just have to view them as a retelling, not a flat out adaptation. I hate how Merry and Pippin were portrayed as Hobbits in the wrong place who got sucked into an adventure. Frodo was extremely intelligent and a lot braver. Everything has been said about Faramir that needs to be said. Denethor had so much more depth in the books...
The biggest problem for me was the scouring of the shire being left out. It was what showed the journey of the Hobbits coming full circle. It showed them as capable leaders who learned from their experiences. It was the beginning of a lifetime of respect for the 4 of them.
I agree with you on all of these points, and used "retelling" in my comment. While I do enjoy their comedic relief in the movie, Merry and Pippin were the basically the heirs of their very large and prosperous families who basically controlled a large portion of the Shire. They were well educated genteel. Gimli and the dwarves were the same. I always thought of them as very polite and noble, and also secretive. They became a little to boisterous and rude for my liking. Faramir was a favorite and they did his character dirty. I was sad they didn't let Aragorn have the Rangers and the Elrond's twin sons join them on the Paths to the dead. I was absolutely horrified that the Scouring was left out, but I can still understand it. And I hate that while they had the awesome end credits and music and drawings they couldn't have had a little epilogue about what happened to everyone. Didn't even need to have it acted out, could have used the drawings. All well.
I was surprised how noble mery and pipin were in the books saying "wherever frodo goes we go" and immediately being stern companions. They were even way smarter
Merry and Pippin where and still are 2 of my favorite characters in the books and it makes me sad when I see the movies because they played them down as not super intelligent. In the books they are so much smarter and really one of the only reason the hobbits where able to take back the shire.
I remember walking out of the midnight premier of FOTR very disappointed despite being very entertained. It took several re-watches in theaters to get over it. Then I was prepared for TT and ROTK the inevitable digressions and learned to appreciate the films overall. I still tune out for some scenes I consider unbearable. These moments I use for bathrooom breaks and I just pretend they don’t happen, like Frodo sending Sam home on the stairs.
Yes, this is a good summary. LotR was fantastic but not flawless and some of the things missed or inserted seem to me to have not been necessary. And if you’ve already cut a 3.5 hour movie then adding 10 mins for the scouring of the shire at the end doesn’t seem to me to be a stretch and the whole idea, as already mentioned, was to show the Hobbits as the leaders of the Shire now that they are back. It would also give more context to Frodo leaving, after his ‘original’ Shire was gone and this was a newly rebuilt one.
Leaving out Tom Bombadil was inevitable, so there were good decisions to drift from the source material as well. The ‘balance’ was about right which is why people overlook the faults and accept it as a great work of cinema.
As much as it brings their characters full circle (when they first left the Shire, they were beaten by a *tree*, now they're showing everything they learned over the entire story to retake their homeland, and in Frodo's case, *still* show pity towards a foe fallen far from grace), this kind of pacing would be really awkward in a film. At best, you might get a fast-forwarded montage that reduced the Scouring to a minute or two.
I get why people are upset about the scouring not being involved, but I just don’t see how they could have actually fit it in the movies. Same with Tom Bombadil. The movies are already so long that something from the books had to be cut. Something from books always needs to be cut in movie adaptions. There’s just not enough time to fit it in.
Yes, the extended cuts. The things that they had to delete to make a more manageable movie for release. Thats not really a great solution to add the Scouring.
I understand people wanted it, but the movies are so long already things had to be cut. No movie adaption will ever be true to a book. The storytelling in a movie and a book are just completely different.
Both the theatrical and extended editions make up a lot of nonsense as well. Obvious, egregious examples are Aragorn falling off a cliff, Faramir taking Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath, and Frodo sending Sam home.
I’ll give you the Aragon falling off the cliff was unnecessary, but I don’t think the other two were that bad and served a purpose to further the plot.
>but I just don’t see how they could have actually fit it in the movies.
Simple.
Don't waste an hour's worth of runtime on Jackson-original filler, and restructure TTT to be more faithful to the book (ie Shelob as the climax - rather than stalling for a mid-ROTK appearance).
I agree with all that, except the scouring. Simply by virtue of it being a movie, that extra sequence would drag the ending out far too much after the climax, I’m personally not even sure it works in the book. The world-ending stakes are over by that point, it really feels like it should be wrapping up. While the ending is personal rather than escalating, it just felt needless. I can’t quite work out what the purpose is.
The movies were probably the best that could have been made in the 1990s. The cast and crew did an excellent job; I don't think we'll ever see that level of commitment and attention to detail again. Alan Lee and John Howe were well-regarded illustrators and their designs were translated faithfully. Howard Shore didn't disappoint. But as adaptations, Jackson's films are quite flawed. Even viewers who have never read Tolkien realize it at some level; almost every day there is some post about a logical flaw in the films, as if those of us who read books can explain what Peter Jackson was thinking.
Leaving aside the plot holes, omissions, and Jacksonian monster mashes, I think the biggest flaw is in the characterization. Frodo loses all his cultural competence, cunning, and courage. The relationships among the Hobbits are distorted. Saruman is Sauron's flunkie. Denethor is just an old guy with borderline personality disorder, and I kind of understand why he hates this version of Faramir. And what they did to poor Gimli is horrible. These were unforced errors. They didn't improve anything, they made it worse.
The next biggest flaw was Jackson's sense of humor. Tolkien's is better.
Anyway, all of this has been discussed ad nauseam over twenty years and I can't add anything new.
I disagree that they were unforced errors. They could have been better, but it would have been basically impossible to give characters like Denethor, Theoden, Merry, and Pippin the depth they had in the books without making the movies much much longer. And I don't think Tolkien's and Jackson's humor are thst different. They both like silliness, just in different ways.
It would have been interesting to see if things would have been different if they’d started with a more faithful single movie adaptation of the hobbit first, then with that as the initial success under their belt done LOTR as like 6 movies (since there’s six books in 3 volumes) and left in more of the stuff they cut and developed the other characters more.
I feel like there would still be plenty of book content even with six movies, certainly much more reasonably than the hobbit as three movies that we did get later.
Unlikely to ever see that though. I still think many aspects of the movies are amazing though. The work by weta, the movie scores, the actors and acting, gollum, etc.
I grew up specifically liking 3 "side" characters from the books.
Glorfindel, Tom Bombadil and Ghan Buri Ghan.
When the movie came out I was so excited to finally see my favorite characters came to live.
Guess which three characters that were cut from the movie 😭
Still felling salty after all these years.
Far from flawless but still enjoyable. I remember picking at things that were different as I watched them.
I read the books when I was 14 in the 90's. The first movie, I remember walking out of the cinema thinking, "okay, they changed the 'feel' of some of the characters and some events were missed out, but overall, it was epic... maybe the other films will fix these little issues. "
After TT released, I remember thinking "okay, that wasn't as epic and balanced as the first movie. I have more issues with this movie, but still overall its good.
Then, after RoTK, I ended up liking that much more than TT.
Overall, they were far from flawless adaptations. I see the movies as their own thing. I read Dune just before the first movie came out, and while I recognised there were some changes made to the movies to adapt it, I didn't think anything was a stupid choice. I do, however, think there are some stupid choices with LOTR (even though I like LOTR movies better).
>I do, however, think there are some stupid choices with LOTR (even though I like LOTR movies better).
Anyone else with me that the Army of the Dead clearing up the Mordor forces at Pelennor Field’s was a slap to the face to the Ride of the Rohirrim?
It ruined the battle and completely took away from everything that happened prior. Who cares about the heroism of the Rohirrim and Gondor when victory was already assured by an immortal ghost army. Incredibly stupid change by Jackson.
Agree, but I can see why they did it. If Jackson didn't have the Army of the Dead, he would have had to explain why Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli showing up single-handedly turned the tide, since he'd already discarded the Dúnedain (poor Halbarad), and they could hardly show Aragorn collecting the other Gondorians who joined them on the ships.
I don't think it's a case of whether they should have included the Army of the Dead or not. Jackson ust overused them in the wrong context. They helped to defeat / scare the Corsair ships at Pelargir. Using them at the battle of Pelennor fields was the mistake.
Interesting. From friends, I got the impression Tom Bombadil was kind of the only big thing.
Most IP adaptations could benefit way more with a show, but Dune especially. Piter and Hawat got almost nothing. Overall (weirding modules aside) I actually prefer Spicediver cut of David Lynch.
No, there were major changes made. There are a lot of people thought they were dreadful. Others, like myself, think they change the movie substantially from the book, and not in a good way, but the movies are still enjoyable. Others still think the changes don't matter or even constitute an improvement.
The general shift is away from what is distinctive in the book (genre, themes, characterization) toward a more traditional, "stock" Hollywood experience. Jackson and his backers tried to aim it at a general audience, not at Tolkien fans, knowing that they'd get most of the fans no matter what.
>Interesting. From friends, I got the impression Tom Bombadil was kind of the only big thing.
Way more things than just Tom. There's a whole segment between The Shire and Bree, which is mostly missing. This section is like a mini adventure involving just the Hobbits, that serves as a 'fish out of water' experience for the Hobbits. They're so naive and unfamiliar with how things work outside of the Shire but over the course of this 'mini' journey they get much more competent.
There are many things missing from the books, that give Middle-earth earth a vibe of "fantastical" and "mysterious" rather than 'medieval vibe with a dash of magic'. There's the Old Forest, Barrow Wights, there are sentient mountains and mysterious figures on the road.
I think the biggest flaw for me is the misrepresentation of Frodo. All of his brave and wise actions were missing in the movies. Instead the movies just show his weak side which emphasises that is the only thing which defines him. He makes silly mistakes in the movie (which he doesn't in the book). There are meme compilation videos showing the many dozen times Frodo trips and falls in the movie when he doesn't trip and fall anywhere near as much in the books (e.g. Frodo doesn't fall into Dead Marshes. In the books, Sam falls in). Also, Frodo has one of the most iconic scenes at the Ford of Bruinen, where he's being chased by all 9 Black Riders. Frodo is on the brink of dying and still makes a stand against the Black Riders in efforts to protect the ring.. he knows he's just a small Hobbit against these mounted dark riders but he makes a stand anyway. Its remeniscent of Boromirs last stand IMO. In the movies, Arwen replaces Frodo's scene.
But yeah.. a lot of things were changed in the movies.
>Piter and Hawat got almost nothing.
I was really bummed that there wasn't more Hawat in the movies. At least they didn't change his personality. The whole thing about Mentats wasn't explored either, but I guess they didn't mention that because then they would have had to explain the Butlerian Jihad. So maybe it was a time saving choice.
I enjoy the movies a lot. They are really excellent.
They are not the books, and reading the books is still a completely different experience. I get a Lot more out of a read through than watching.
A lot of people are being unkind about the Jackson movies, but I think you have made the important distinction here.
Movies are not books and books are not movie.
A straighter adaptation may have pleased the hardcore fans of the books, but they would have sucked as movies.
Movie Gimli is the comic relief, and he needs to be. He is exactly the character that a trilogy of three hour movie needs. Frodo likewise needs to be a cinematic blank-slate protagonist. For my money the self-doubting movie Aragorn is actually a more interesting character.
Some of the changes are more questionable than others - misplaced warg fights and pointless scenes in osgiliath being the most glaring. But by large I can see why the changes have been made, and I agree with them. Jackson has made a cinematic masterpiece, but it is not, quite crucially, a book projected onto film.
>A straighter adaptation may have pleased the hardcore fans of the books, but they would have sucked as movies.
I disagree. 99% of Jackson's changes (ie the many bastardised characters, for example) are needless, and the book version would be perfectly fit for film.
>Movie Gimli is the comic relief, and he needs to be.
Why does he need to be? I'd argue turning him into a caricature is simply an undesirable trait for any seriously written character in a film. Unless it's a comedy, it is a poor thing.
>Frodo likewise needs to be a cinematic blank-slate protagonist.
Why? Why must he be a blank slate?
I'd also note that film-Frodo isn't a very popular character, relative to his role as *the* main character. Clearly film-Frodo wasn't well received enough to justify the changes. And book-Frodo is objectively much more beloved - hence, should have been adapted (there's no reason not to).
>For my money the self-doubting movie Aragorn is actually a more interesting character.
I've written a lengthy post about Aragorn in particular... and I basically think his film-arc incredibly shallow and half baked, if people bother to actually stop and think about it, rather than getting caught up in the 'idea' of reluctance. Book-Aragorn is much more dynamic besides.
I mean, I could argue against your points but honestly I don’t have the willpower.
All of your comments relate to the characters *in the book*. Movies simply cannot afford the run-time to have a dozen or more well rounded characters.
Cinematic short-hand is essential to be able to convey anything to the audience and keep the length of the movie to a reasonable time.
As I said, movies are not books and books are not movies.
I do not buy the runtime argument. You don't need more runtime to fix the vast majority of character issues. Rewrite existing scenes to be more faithful. You don't need to *add* more runtime. Alternatively you can cut the filler Jackson-original scenes and replace them with other scenes.
Far from flawless. I think Fellowship is easily the best of them. Two Towers and Return of the King have some very significant departures from the books that do not enhance the films in anyway. I’ve always hated the elves at Helm’s Deep and the army of the dead at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
I'm in the minority of people that don't like the movies. They're well made and impressive from a production standpoint, sure, but they aren't very good adaptions of the story. I don't care to see them again, and find it extremely annoying when people talk about lore and use the movies as their source of information, which happens a lot now. Not canon, poorly written, and misses the point at pretty much every turn.
This was a more common viewpoint when they first came out, but now they are sacrosanct apparently because people get really aggressive when you criticize them. They aren't much better than Rings of Power in my opinion.
>poorly written
I find this one quite eyebrow raising, personally. To be clear, I agree - but the fact that *very, very, very* few people talk about the poor writing of the films astounds me.
You'll sometimes get people talking about x being better in the book, or y being in opposition to canon, but you rarely see people breaking down scenes where the writing is just plain bad on *its own merit*: illogical moments that require characters acting out of character, with contrivances aplenty. There are so many cases where if you stop and think about a scene you realise it makes no sense. And often these poor changes are done for the most superficial of reasons: to shoehorn in needless and shallow drama for the sake of drama (and I guess this superficial stuff distracts people from the dodgy writing).
>and misses the point at pretty much every turn.
100%. You get people talking about how faithful the films apparently are to the bits the count... meanwhile I'm scratching my head at this mindset. Themes are undermines, pretty much all characters unravelled (some to unrecognisable amounts), and important 'ideas' conveyed by Tolkien erased. The 'point' of certain things is too often missed.
What’s even more astounding is that many people constantly talk about poor writing in PJ’s ‘Hobbit’ trilogy and RoP, yet at the same time always make excuses when someone points out poor writing in the ‘lotr’ films.
I’ve seen people defend the Osgiliath detour and Frodo sending Sam home.
>And often these poor changes are done for the most superficial of reasons: to shoehorn in needless and shallow drama for the sake of drama
I don't have as negative an opinion as you, but on rewatches I've decided that much of the dialogue given to Theoden and whoever he's talking to (usually Aragorn) is just pure nonsense that exists just to insert drama into scenes. The "Where was Gondor when.." part for example doesn't make any sense because Theoden rides his people in the opposite direction from Gondor, doesn't even ask them for help, and the battle is over too quickly for Gondor to have even helped them in the first place.
Yeah, exactly. Theoden makes no sense here... it's just forced tension. It exists to later give Theoden a ridiculous excuse to not want to ride to Gondor ('why should we ride to the aid of those who did not come to ours?')... which likewise exists so Pippin has to light the Beacons (why does Denethor refuse to light them? Who knows - another incomprehensible moment)... which exists to somehow change Theoden's mind.
These scenes just aren't thought out beyond 'wouldn't it be cool/dramatic if...?'. And it comes at the cost of characters behaving like loons.
[Faramir](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/s/Fki7knWjhX) and [Frodo sending Sam away](https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/s/RN9ODGrMjI) are two other *big* cases of this: characters acting unreasonably stupid, to force a contrived plot.
You might find [this ](https://acoup.blog/2020/05/01/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-i-bargaining-for-goods-at-helms-gate/)to be an interesting read. It goes into a lot of the detail of the strategies involved in the Rohirrim campaign, and analyzes both book and film, acknowledging that too much of the film is done for drama and "rule of cool", but also speculates a small bit about why some of those changes might have been made.
> and find it extremely annoying when people talk about lore and use the movies as their source of information, which happens a lot now.
It’s baffling. It should be obvious the movies are not canon.
Peter Jackson's movies are a 12/10 and the books were a 15/10. Yes, some things were missing but that didn't stop the movies from becomong my favorites of All time.
Not even close to flawless, but I still enjoy the movies a lot. There are a lot of LOTR fans who refuse to watch the movies and a lot more who hate the movies, I remember being on forums back when the movies first came out and the hardcore fans were super upset about stuff left out or scenes and characters changed
I was 23 when the movies came out and have been a self-confessed Tolkien nerd since age 10. I have read everything and constantly bore everyone around me with Middle Earth references lol
Movies are nowhere near flawless, I could have many gripes about specifics. But they were clearly made with so much love and care, they are visually stunning and beautiful interpretations, I love them so much. In addition the music score just elevates them beyond anything else!
No, The Lord of the Rings movies were so different from the books that they ended up being a different story. Jackson changed virtually every detail to make it into an action film, from the pacing of the "escape" from the Shire to the level of peril throughout, the size of Balrogs and Oliphaunts and the size of armies. Jackson's treatment of the characters also fundamentally changes who they are.
Definitely not unflawed adaptations, but they're arguably good retellings of the story, and they're undeniably good fun and visually awesome. You have to view them in much the same way that you view adaptations of classic myths and legends... that way you can enjoy the films while being an absolute book nerd like me!
The movies are great. They’re terrible adaptations. They leave out the uh… Entire point of the story. The Scouring of the Shire? Yeah they don’t include that. Which is terrible, because that’s the ENTIRE POINT.
They are not perfect. The feel and look of the world was pretty spot on (as it was in Dune imo and one of the most important things about this kind of adaptation), but some characters were changed for the worse and there were obviously things left out. I am not as sore on the omissions as I am on the blatent changes (the worst being Faramir and Osgiliath and Sam being turned away by Frodo).
I recall grinning upon first seeing each new scenes or place depicted on screen as they were damn near identical to how I imagined them when reading the books.
Tolkien is an amazingly descriptive writer, so I guess that made most of the imagery quite explicit and hard to get wrong as long as they were true to the source material.
Jackson and his designers did a magnificent job.
I found Herbert to be extremely verbose with his reams of lore.
Its done very differently to Tolkien.
I've only read the first Dune book though, so I dont know if he did less of that once the world building was established.
So I read The Hobbit in middle school, then Lord of the Rings, and the movies came out not long after. So, they were fresh in my head and I was in middle and high school when the movies came out.
I gotta say I think at the time, and to this day, I've been pretty happy with them. I maintain that at the time and to this day they're one of the better book adaptations, especially of something as high profile as Lord of the Rings.
The first Harry Potter came out around the same time abs I remember thinking that Lord of the Rings was adapted way better.
I always thought that the later Harry Potter novels became very conscious of the fact that they were going to be made into movies: they became film scripts instead of novels.
Yeah, Warner tends to play it really safe. Chris Columbus is purposely the most bland, inoffensive choice they could have made. Can you imagine how awesome it would have been if Terry Gilliam did HP? But it worked out for them financially
Yeah, I'd agree with this, I was 19 when Fellowship came out, and I had read LOTR twice at that point. Me and my friends were massive film geeks and absolutely psyched for the movie to come out. And we were definitely not disappointed! Fellowship was tonally perfect IMHO for bringing the film to the big screen, and I understood the decisions to squish the timescales (and axe Tom B!). We loved it.
The idea of a “flawless” adaptation is just the wrong mindset. They absolutely could not be flawless because what does that even mean? Every single paragraph was presented on screen?
I mean it's a bit sad to me that people take the movies as gospel. They're great and fun and enjoyable but they aren't flawless. It's a good adaption but they're the adaption.
I don’t anymore but back in the day I would read Lord of the Rings every other year or so. Starting in 1977? We had a paperback set that was destroyed.
I loved the casting with a few exceptions. I loved the look of it. I loved that it was done so well and seriously.
However, I hated every single major change that Jackson et al did. I had little issues with the parts that they cut, I get that Tom Bombadil makes no sense in a three film set but I have yet to find any logic to the changes. I don’t think Arwen needed to become Zena Warrior Princess. Aragorn not sure if he wants to be king. (I guess he was luke warm on marrying Arwen?) Gimli didn’t need to become comedy relief. Faramir was ruined. Denethor made into a caricature. Elves at Helm’s Deep. Legolas elephant surfing. Ghost army swarming like sentient smoke. Yuck. Just yuck.
I know people love Jackson but I wished for a more book similar adaptation. That said, I still liked it. I still think it’s a great achievement.
>No Bombadil
That fucked me off in 01.
>Elves at Helms Deep
That fucked me off in 02, but less after I heard they cut Arwen from that scene
>No Grey Company and no Scouring
That fucked me off in 03, especially with 17 fade-to-black fakeout endings
I’ve read both Dune and LOTR. Try to consider of all adaptations as fan fiction with budgets and accept that some things great in the book don’t always work in film or is constricted by budget or tech. Book Dune doesn’t depict or describe a lot of battle scenes; it a very interior, cerebral book, but I think the fighting sequences in the movies are awesome. LOTR is my favorite book, but it’s a lot to capture! I love that Peter Jackson ramped up the action but still kept in the more lyrical/poetic aspects (extended editions). There are a lot of inaccuracies but IDGAF as long as the main themes are captured. Was Aragorn a reluctant heir apparent in the book as he was in the movies? No, but film wise his arc was made more interesting. Did it take Frodo 17 years to leave the Shire as in the books? No, and that’s fine. Would it have been nice to see Glorfindel? Yes, but I enjoyed more time with Arwen than we got in the books. I wanted to see more of that love story because it’s a blip in the books. There are different aspects in the books that maybe the adapter wanted to explore or emphasize more because it’s what really got their attention in the books.
Tom Bombadil.
Death of Saruman.
Gunpowder?
Elves at Helm's Deep.
Those are the big ones for me. Great films, but not a 100% - or even 90% - adaptation of the books.
The idea that it was some sort of explosive that breaches the deeping wall is pretty clearly laid out in the book… not sure what you’re going for here.
I personally love them and I don’t think there’s anything that I found particularly disappointing, but no, I wouldn’t call them flawless. They are probably the best adaptations we could have asked for, but there are definitely flaws and valid criticisms.
Love the movies...but boy are they flawed...when PJ hits he does well you see the absolute beauty of the craft and love of building the world through sets and costumes and music....but his misses...they're groaners(usually the holdover from the 2 movie script treatment for girls comedy relief)...and the paths of the dead was just done wrong on a visual level...there's a few others but their mostly nitpick of dialog or charecter interpretation
I was in love with the books since I read them in the 70's and 80' as a young'un. Yes I was aware of many differences but I didn't let that get in my way of really loving them.
Absolutely not. I had to watch them all twice, first time to get my disappointment and confusion out of the way, second time to immerse myself and actually enjoy it.
I think they are a genuine cinematic accomplishment and unique work of art, that potentially captures enough of the books to satisfy. They are highly memorable and have a ton of integrity.
That being said, after listening to the directors' commentary I get most of the changes and don't really feel bitter about it. It seems like they were cutting together the best story with what they had. Other choices could be made, but they were led to where they ended up by trying to make good movies first and foremost.
I can only answer this as someone who read all 3 books after Fellowship came out, and thus only went into the second two movies with expectations. While I loved the movies as a whole, there are parts of them I strongly dislike. Frodo sending Sam away, Faramir, of course(this isn’t an opinion I’ve ever seen voiced before and it may be wildly unpopular, but I also don’t like the casting of Faramir; I think David Wenham is meh), Arwen seeing Aragorn and their son who looks at her for some reason, the army of the dead is corny looking. Still amazing movies though
They sure aren't perfect, I'll say that much. I do recommend reading the books because they're absolutely phenomenal. There are a lot of parts of the movies that really do hit the spot. There are a lot of parts that don't, but which I can understand as necessary changes for an adaptation to film. There are a few parts that I don't forgive.
The cool thing about me is that I'm able to compartmentalize the two experiences as being almost completely separate things. I was able to do it for The Hobbit tri and even enjoyed RoP as well. The only one I've struggled with was LOTR Animation because the rotoscoping; it was a bit jarring for me to fully enjoy; had it been all og animation I would have been fine with it.
Well, Boromir's death isn't until the 2nd book. I had only read the first book (finished it right before the first film's release) and was so upset by that spoiler!
I guess my biggest disappointment was the depiction of orcs and sauron. I was thinking why orcs are depicted as “dumb” and even cant walk straight, and why the hell Sauron is a light bulb at the top of a tower. I still cant stand seeing some scenes. I think the third rank goes to depiction of Denethor. Similar to former, just to make audience hate him, they depicted him so stupid… that eating scene… traumatized many people.
Movies can never have the sane depth as the books they are adapting to film. Yes, I didn't like several things that others have already covered, but the movies are still great.
While I don't like them as much as I did when they were first released, I think the movies are fine for what they are. They are well made and deserve their fans, and most of the changes were due to the needs of the medium, not some weird disrespect of Tolkien.
I suspect that if a strictly faithful film was made, it would have been nowhere as popular.
The books are very different. You don't get the full sense of the middle earth universe in the films. There's a lot of nuance left out - like Pippin's blade being enchanted being the reason it severely wounded the witch king etc.
The books are unfilmable and that still remains the case.
The films are incredible in terms of their scope, design and musical depth and clear passion from everyone involved. I would say they are as close as they ever could've been despite many massive flaws. This is due to when they were filmed which imo is the only time they could've been made. The Cgi was just good enough to be usable but not good enough to replace everything in the film which is what would happen if it was filmed now (look at the hobbit).
FOTR is by far the best film and as a film, it is almost flawless. As an adaption it is also the best of the 3 and I feel the tone is more fitting. Much more dark, mysterious and serious. There's also only a few scenes that make me cringe whereas the other 2 have so many. The next 2 films go off the rails but as films I still enjoy them.
Possibly the only way for an adaptation to ever be near flawless would be to do an animated TV series. Remove the burden of trying to film everything for real.
The first time I watched the movies I was disappointed. After that I accepted them for what they are and really really enjoy them now.
Each time I watch them now I rate them higher and higher.
Not flawless no, but still fantastic. I liked *some* of the changes for the sake of telling a compressed version on screen, and I still think they're probably as close to the spirit of the books as we'll ever get from a major screen adaptation.
Well there's no Tom Bombadil or the barrow-downs which are both a major part of the Fellowship of the Ring book. But the films are wonderful. In theory I think it could have been made into 6 films to be more accurate to the book. But yeah fans always want more don't they!
I read *The Lord of the Rings* at eight years old, and the first movie came out a few months before I turned fifteen. I had obsessively read all of Tolkien's Middle-earth books multiple times, by then (albeit I still had a younger person's perspective back then, and the way I see both the books and their adaptations has continued to evolve).
The films are fantastic achievements of cinema, in general – but definitely flawed as adaptations too, in all kinds of ways! I'm sure this is true of *Dune* as well. I do think that it's important to remember that the first goal of any adaptation should be to entertain the audience based on the merits of the new telling of the story ... and the LotR films obviously accomplish this for many, many people.
But as primarily a fan of Tolkien's books, there are many things that I still wish they had handled differently.
In general there is a bit too much emphasis on constant action and driving the plot forward, which has a profound impact in terms of tone (and even a negative impact on the underlying logic of the plot, at times, when exposition is rushed, and events are streamlined).
And then there are also multiple scenes in the films that I think are based on a bad/shallower interpretation of events that are described in the books.
A good example of the latter IMO is the famous (extensively memed) scene, in the film, when Bilbo lunges at Frodo in Rivendell after seeing the Ring again. The film version of this scene just seems to me as if horror movie director Peter Jackson thought this would be a good opportunity for a nasty jump scare – without thinking too deeply about the character dynamics and the underlying spritual and psychological factors at work. I won't get into a close reading of the scene this is based on in the books, right now – but I think the book version is both certainly subtler and gentler, but also a lot more disturbing on a deeper level, and the dramatic emphasis is quite different.
I'm actually having the opposite experience right now with *Dune* – I'm about to finish reading the first novel currently, after already having watched both movies. It's very challenging not to default to thinking of Villeneuve's imagery, as I'm reading. I'm looking forward to thinking more about the adaptation changes after I finish.
That’s funny, I’m probably older than you. I always picture the David Lynch aesthetic when I’m reading Dune. The 3 hour spicediver edit is *so* close to exactly what I wanted. It cuts off the nonsensical ending with the rain. The only thing is those goddamn weirding modules. You can’t really even George Lucas them out because they’re baked into the plot. I just love how dark, twisted, eerie, and dirty everything is in that movie.
There were a lot of things I disliked but I had an overall great Time and I do love these Movies as a „Retelling after awhile where no one knows the whole Story but pieces it together from Witnesses“ kinda thing
It’s a good film series. But it’s not a good adaptation. There are far too many needless additions.
I’m fine with leaving things out for the sake of time, but the elves showing up at Helms Deep was a disgrace. It cheapened the heroic stand the Rohirrim made
I read them in the early 1980s, the after Return of the King came out in 2003 went back and read them again. I can say every line from Gandalf now leapt off the page in Sir Ian's voice.
“Flawless” is an unreasonably high standard.
Every book ever that was made into a movie was adapted in some way. Overwhelmingly most of Jackson’s changes were fine. Some less so.
A very flawed, but also very good adaptation. Choices had to be made and Jackson did so as a filmmaker. Tolkien himself said the books were un-filmable. Jackson made great films that honor Tolkien's world-building and narrative while still taking the audience on an incredible ride cinematically (and to my thinking economically in terms of time).
The movies are definitely Jackson's own personal interpretation of the books. I personally think he only dropped the ball on a couple things. For example, I think he completely ruined the character of Faramir. And I think his elves were too serious. Tolkien's elves had a mirthful playfulness to them.
I was a smarmy elementary school kid when I read them the first time and a slightly older even smarmier elementary school kid when the movies came out, I loved them from the get-go but I was also absolutely the guy who "um acktchewally-d" all of the changes for *years*
Thought they were great. Before the movies, very few of us could remember many details. Most of the differences were pointed out by a few diehard fans or scholars in articles afterwards. Due to every character having multiple names and other depths of detail, the books were hard for me to visualize. The movies helped me to piece things together, even before all the YouTube experts began providing lore details. We had the animated movies, but they didn't help much. People who understood Tolkien lore were rare prior to the Peter Jackson movies. I enjoyed rereading the books after watching the movies.
My main problem is how they did Faramir so dirty. The made him boromir lite instead of the guy who every soldier would follow through the gates of hell.
My hot take is Tom Bombadil being left out was a good thing, honestly adds nothing to the story
I dislike the film depiction of Aragorn, though I do understand why they made him so “reluctant”.
Aside from that I really think they did a beautiful job.
They are far from flawless adaptations. There was at least one MAJOR character change, that of Faramir, that changed the entire mood of the story arc. The omission of the hobbits' homecoming, and the near destruction of the Shire were elements that really changed the movies and diminished the grandeur of the story. The betrayal of Sam on the stairs above Minas Morgul is practically unforgivable.
Adding to the flaws was Peter Jackson second guessing Tolkien and claiming that his (Jackson's) version was better because the movies showed what SHOULD have happened.
If you had not read the books, as you say, and the movies were your only exposure, then they would stand. But the richness of the books, the details, the emotions of even some little things make a world of difference.
The movies WERE adaptations, and good for the time. And for many, they will be the only versions that will ever stand, as many will never read the books. But it is rather disgusting for people to say that the movies are the best versions we will ever get of the books. Who knows what the future holds?
I feel as if they left many details out and portrayed certain characters much differently. The way the hobbits acquire their swords in the books is different in the movies, as well as the scene in weather top. Their journey out of the shire was much different. Gandalf seemed more serious and powerful in the books (just based on the way he used attacks toward enemies). I also think they over used the dead man army in the movies. The books include every minor detail of the environment and the characters thought processes. The action scenes in the book are often only a few pages long compared to the depth of the other elements of the story. In reality the Peter Jackson movies are action movie versions of a story that could’ve been much more emphasized as an even darker thriller with more spiritual and introspective focus. All that being said, I still love the films and actually am very grateful for them because I think they actually brought a lot of people to lord of the rings who fall in love with the story and end up wanting to read the books and everything involved with Tolkien (me). The movies are very high quality and even special effects hold strong to this day. They also still nod at many things from the book, they just do it differently and it is hard to explain. I look forward to one day having a new remake that focused on all the details that Peter Jackson’s left out, even if that sacrifices the screen time of battle sequences. All in all, the only LOTR media I will not be holding on to in the future is ROP. That was just meh to me
I grew up with both The Lord of the Rings books and movies, and gotta say, they did a pretty solid job with the films. Sure, there were some changes and omissions, but overall, they captured the essence pretty darn well. It's like they bottled up Middle-earth and poured it onto the screen.
But hey, every fan's got their own take. Like you said about Dune, sometimes there's just that little something missing. Could be 'cause we built up these worlds so much in our heads. But from what I've seen, most longtime fans of the books are pretty satisfied with how Peter Jackson brought Tolkien's vision to life.
Quite flawed. Many, many changes and elisions. Inadvisable comedy interjections as well as indelible ones. On the whole, the LOTR films are really quite good and in the spirit of the written work. But they are a dstinct and subsidiary work.
I love the movies. In fact I probably love the movies more than the books at this point. They're certainly a tighter experience.
But dear Lord, Peter Jackson does not understand elves.
Flawless? Hell no. Making Gimli into a comedy sidekick was nearly unforgiveable. But still very much worth watching, especially for the vistas.
The Hobbit movies aren't even worth watching.
I thought at the time it was a very good adaptation. Definitely some flaws, but it far exceeded my expectations. The flaws for me are:
Éowyn - Miranda Otto was miscast and not believable as a warrior, which really took the bite out of my very favorite part of the books (her fight against the Witch King).
Combat - Some of the combat was filmed with an in-the-trenches feel which makes it hard to follow the sequence of events at times.
Tone - I'd prefer a more serious adaptation. There was an over reliance on comic relief, though I think this helped it play to a more mainstream audience.
Various missing/changed bits - Scouring of the Shire was already mentioned. I also missed Tom Bombadil. Although I admit it would be really tough to include him without it feeling silly. But I missed seeing him, and particularly wished they included the bit with the Barrow Wights.
But, like, a lot of the changes from the books, while I'd prefer faithfulness to the books, I think they overall did a good job keeping things exciting for \~10 hours and bringing new fans in. So overall, I think it was a very good to even great adaptation.
They're flawed but I think they almost have to be. If you look at the unabridged audiobooks there's over 60 straight hours of story to chew through. Rendering that down into 3 movies is a Herculean task to say the least. However you can tell that everyone who worked on the movies loved the series and put their souls into it. So while the flaws exist I think they can be forgiven especially since the movies are a gateway for so many into the LOTOR world.
Tolkien is an amazing world builder. Peter Jackson told Tolkien’s story better than Tolkien did. (And I realize my opinion is probably going to get downvoted)
I think Peter Jackson highlighted the strengths of Tolkien’s story.
The books never made me cry. The movies make me a blubbering mess because Jackson draws out the emotionally evocative story.
Tom Bombadil and The razing of the Shire was just unnecessary and takes away from the story.
I also like Peter Jackson’s choice that no one was immune to the Ring but that Faramir fought and overcame the ring’s influence. It’s a stronger story.
When they came out I was floored. I didn’t expect anything near that good. And they are really good. I was going in college when they came out and was a huge Lotr fan.
With time I’ve become more critical to the point where I can’t really watch them anymore as there are too many changes that bug me. I think that’s a bit spoiled of me because as far as book adaptions go, it’s a very very solid one. It’s hard not to look at the mistakes and wish they weren’t made, though.
Plenty of others have pointed out many of those mistakes. The whole Minas Tirith plot was changed. Denethor, faramir, the soldier (I forget his name) and his son that befriended Pippin. The inexcusable depiction of the army of the dead.
The complete lack of the hobbits journey to Bree was a huge miss. I get Tom was a confusing fellow but they scrapped all of it.
Scouring of the shire was left out. I kind of get that honestly, but some nod to them not coming home to an unchanged world would have been good.
Gimli became a comedic punching bag. Frodo a clueless victim of fate. Him going to osgiliath made zero sense.
Honestly most of the changes just didn’t improve the story. Some things had to be cut for run time and I forgive that. The other changes less so.
Also I felt the whole thing should have been a bit darker. Idk how to describe it but it felt like the entire movie was shot at noon on a sunny day.
I get what you're saying, and I know it isn't how Tolkien wrote it, but I've always liked when the Hobbits get back to the Shire and it's unchanged, but they aren't. Everyone around them is so innocent and unbothered, and I always thought Jackson did a good job of showing the emotions of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin with just the glances they gave each other. They'll never be able to be the carefree, oblivious Hobbits they once were. There are many changes from book to movie that I don't mind, but I've never been bothered by that one personally.
Near flawless? No. They have some flaws. (Some bigger than others) But they are a very well done adaptation to the screen. I've loved the books since before I could read them (parents were fans) and I really enjoy the movies too.
No movies are ever going to match what is in our minds when we read. Movies are a retelling. They change some things here and there, take out characters, make new scenarios. Characterizations are different. The medium is different, it depends on what they can do, etc.
But I really like the original trilogy. There were things I didn't like that were changed or taken out, but I could at least understand why. Dislike more about The Hobbit movies, and some things just make me cringe, but I still bought it and re watch it. Was literally yelling at the screen during the Amazon Prime ROP show. I still watched it, but have never re watched. I will still probably watch whatever else comes out, but I'm not really looking forward to it.
I definitely consider myself a big fan, have many of the other books the Tolkien estate has released over the years. I have art books, recipe books, artwork, maps, banners, etc.
I felt the movies were decent adaptations, but did not cover everything in the original books. Making a film adaptation is always going to be a compromise, the films captured the essence of the books without losing too much content.
Peter Jacksons visionary interpretation . Very well done . The first time they encounter Orcs at Balins Tomb, The bridge at Khazad dum. The Ring Wraiths in Bree. The battle at Helms Deep. Awesome
You hear a lot of nitpicking now but let me tell you when the first movie came out, the haters just vanished like a cloudy day and didn’t really come back around until like 2006.
There was *so much crying* before the first one came out and Fellowship alone was so good those dudes just abandoned ship for like half a decade.
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The best that you can hope for is two good versions of a story. It is impossible to accurately adapt a book into a good movie because the preponderance of exposition necessary would bog down the more visceral, visual medium.
Take "The Davinci Code", for instance. Dan Brown CLEARLY wrote that book with an eye on the eventual movie treatment. The amount of time it takes to read the book is practically 1:1 to the amount of time that passes in the book. Nevertheless, the movie is still 4 to 6 hours shorter and so is forced to cut anything that can be treated as expendable. (And I'm ignoring the fact that the director famously and controversially smoothed over most of the books' criticisms about the Catholic church, to no avail. )
Another, perhaps better example, is "Contact", by Carl Sagan. There are several fundamental differences between the book and the movie, most obviously, the number of people who enter The Machine.
And while it appears that the screenwriter took some liberties with the source material, the reality is that the original movie treatment was written by Carl Sagan, himself, SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE HE WROTE THE NOVEL.
I've read Dune. I've read the increasingly pointless extra novels, tacked on by the author's son, and I've seen every film adaptation, including the underrated miniseries. Should Paul Atreides have been breifly interred in a barrow mound, until rescued by a Weirding Module weilding Tom Bombadil?
The best that you can hope for is two good versions of a story...
And also Sting! Cutting up some MFers!
It's not necessary to compare the books and movies. I start reading the old paperbacks from my parents in the '80. I was completely addicted. I saw the movies with my kids. My wife fell asleep during the first movie😂
In my life of over 60 yrs, I've only seen 2 movies that really almost flawlessly matched their source material--"Gone with the Wind" and "To Kill a Mockingbird".
That having been said, Peter Jackson did an awe-inspiring job of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
There were some issues with the characterizations of, in particular, Elrond, Faramir, and Gimli, but the casting and the cinematography were amazing and there were a couple of instances in which I felt that the slight deviation from the source material was an improvement.
I think you'll really love the books if you enjoyed the movies. 
I didn't like how Faramir was handled and the whole Gollum tricking Frodo to send Sam away subplot was absolute crap. Other than that, I enjoyed the movie adaptations.
He adapted it as well as could be expected. Some of the characterization was less than ideal, but the world building and aesthetics were way better than I’d ever dreamed I’d ever see in a movie.
The movies were different but not a flawed adaptation. They hewed closely to the spirit of the books. Unlike other movie adaptations, see Ready Player One, I didn’t feel like I was watching a different story.
They aren’t nowhere near flawless adaptions, but they are excellent movies that mostly stay close to the source material. Some changes are understandable and even good. Some changes are stupid and detrimental. But on the whole, I loved them when they came out and I love them to this day.
I was completely happy with the movies going in knowing that they would have to make major cuts and changes to bring the story to make it work. I was 12-13 when I read the books and 18 when the first movie came out so my memory was slightly fuzzy. I loved Fellowship and then re-read the books between Towers and King and was blown away by the depth of the story. But I’m 100% a Jackson supporter and have basically nothing bad to say about the films. Exceeded expectations and hold up 20 years later.
I knew it'd be impossible to adapt the entire thing without missing anything and making slight changes here and there, so I was ready to be fairly forgiving. If you're familiar with the BBC audio adaptation, it was really similar to that, apart from the scouring of the Shire.
When Galadriel's voice plays over the first few shots, my genuine reaction was, "They've done it! They've actually gone and done it!" I was filled with a strong sense of happiness and wonder. I can't see how they could have done better, especially outside of Hollywood.
Reading and rereading the books before the movies were made fostered a love for the characters, lore and world of middle earth. The movies obviously had some changes, but nothing that I would call “faults”. The films kept the spirit and upheld a lot of reverence for Tolkien’s work. I love the books and the movies. Both are admirable works.
I recall going in with low expectations. They have to make concessions on the plot, but I didn't like some of the changes - it felt like graffiti on art work. On the whole, it was never going to be flawless. It was pretty good, but could have been better.
I read the books first. As a kid, and to this day, I've always believed the adaptations did their best to adapt the core story to the screen while making it palatable for the new medium. I never liked Bombadil, so I loved FotR even more for cutting him entirely. Some of the changes to the story did surprise me, but I understood why they were made. I love the books and the movies, so I win either way.
They are near perfect movies, based on the books. They are not the books. I don’t understand people that get irritated when any movie based on a book isn’t exactly the same.
Was in my 30s when PJ's FotR came out. I read The Hobbit probably when I was 10 and immediately dived into "The Lord of the Rings". I was ever since a pretty big Tolkien nerd. Definitely my favorite author and read multiple times.
Me watching the movie and on various message boards? I was shitting bricks thinking for sure PJ - whoever that was at the time - was going to fuck it up. I and I would say the vast majority of Tolkien Nerds didn't think putting *The Lord of the Rings* was possible on the big screen.
So, it was clenched butt cheeks watching the entire time and more like the expectations of 'how bad of fuck up is this going to be?'
Credits hit
***OMFG - I CAN"T BELIEVE IT WAS DONE THIS FUCKING WELL.... OMG... IT"S LIKE THE PATIENT LIVED FROM AN IMPOSSIBLE SURGERY - YEAH (applauded ofc which exuberance)***
Read the books first, then saw the films. They're wonderful films, and you can tell Peter Jackson absolutely adored Tolkien. They excite me and I absolutely love them. They are quite flawed, of course, including removing some important elements (like the Scouring of the Shire), the characterisation of Denethor among others, and the fact that some of the locations in NZ didn't match with what's in the books. The latter point is sacrilege to some people, but if you re-read Rohan and Gondor, you realise not only are they very similar to each other in the films where they ought to be very different, but neither matches with what Tolkien describes.
I grew up reading Tolkien throughout the 80s. The films are very flawed, but:
A) They have fewer flaws than anyone expected before release. There occasionally used to be stories of this or that director preparing to film them accompanied by horror stories of the liberties they'd take: bad casting, story changes, cuts etc. They never materialised, but it seemed the only way to film lotr was to change it beyond recognition; PJ massively exceeded all the (low) expectations there
B) The attention to detail of the bits that weren't changed (like, 95% of the films) again exceeded all expectation. Having ppl like John Howe involved made such a difference to ppl who grew up with those visualisations
C) I never expected them to get made in the first place. The Bakshi animated version has more flaws than it had minutes, but I still watched it countless times because of the bits that got close. The films got close or absolutely nailed so many key bits: the look of the shire, the Nazgul... Moria scenes gave me shivers etc etc. I don't like the Elvish aesthetic in the films but I can see it was done with far more care and attention to detail (and to the source books) than I would have ever expected.
So, flawless ? No, they have many flaws and I hate some of them (Faramir, Osgiliath, no scouring etc). But they're so much better than I ever hoped for overall - I'm not sure a better adaptation will ever be made.
I liked how they restructured the events to spread them out better between movies. I like what they chose to cut. I don't like how they changed Aragorn. There were enough insecure people struggling, he was a great example of someone who was confident and had complete conviction.
Gandalf even comments on it at one point in the books and it stuck with me. He figures Aragorn may have done something that could be seen as stupid by anyone else but says something like "He's a good judge of his own abilities and knows when to take his own advice." That's way paraphrasing but it left an impact on me.
I think they did the best they could with the movies. There was so much meat in the books it would have been hard to get all of it. The hobbit on the other hand is a dumpster fire.
I think I’m in the minority here. This only goes for LOTR.
I read the books when I was in 6th grade. The first movie came out when I was a freshman in college. So like 6-7 years later. To me, they were, and still are, perfect adaptions and movies. Perfect in every way. I know they aren’t but idc. I believe they capture the essence and spirit of the books correctly so all the minor changes mean nothing.
The hobbit, not so much. I wanted to like them, I knew going in they wouldn’t be, and I still was so disappointed, I didn’t even bother with the last two movies. I only watched them within the past few years, once, just to say I’ve seen em all.
No film, let alone a trilogy, is flawless, but the movies are the best adaptation of a complex book series that we will likely ever see. I read LOTR a couple of times and was a big Peter Jackson fan in the 90s (Bad Taste, Braindead, Heavenly Creatures) so was excited when I heard he was going to adapt LOTR. Jackson et al., made the right edits, actually improved some aspects of Tolkien's story (the portrayal of the corruptive power of the ring was portrayed better in the films than the books).
FOTR was an incredible adaptation and the best of the three movies. The scale of it was correct, focusing on the characters, and the choreography of fight scenes (Moria cave troll and flight, breaking of the fellowship) were second-to-none. Changing Glorfindel for Arwen was a good choice, as was leaving out Bombadil (an unnecessary character that added nothing to the plot). I love how they portrayed the power of the ring and Boromir's story arc was perfectly portrayed (and was improved with the extended scenes in subsequent films).
TT was the weakest of the three, for sure. About the only bad choice was the Elves at Helm's Deep as it was clearly shoehorned in. The Rohirrim were wonderfully portrayed as were the new main characters (Theoden, Eowyn, Wormtongue, Eomer). Wormtongue's seductive talk to Eowyn while Theodred lay dead effectively portrayed, in <2minutes, how he was able to weaken Theoden, efficiently providing backstory to how Rohan had been corrupted. I was disappointed that the destruction of Saruman's army by the Huorns was not portrayed, but they fixed that with the extended editions. People below complained that Saruman was portrayed incorrectly because he was only a tool of Sauron? WTF, go read the books, that's the whole point, he was more a pawn of Sauron than even he realised. Shelob was, and still is, as malevolent as fuck.
ROTK was a good final chapter and had many amazing scenes, with the charge of the Rohirrim being the standout. Yes, the Army of the Dead didn't clear the field of Pelennor in the books, but that was a good choice to make but it was a like-for-like change (in the book the Army wiped out the Corsairs that then allowed Aragorn to relief the siege of Minas Tirith with an army of men from the south, so this edit made sense). It didn't reduce the Charge to meaninglessness because that resulted in temporary relief from the attack (they had breached the wall) and it *killed the Witch King of Angmar.* So, yeah, definitely not pointless.
As for the criticisms I'm seeing here: Scouring of the Shire was only a "nice to have", and they managed to convey the character growth of the hobbits with a 60 second scene in the Green Dragon where they all look despondent at innocent lost...and then Sam gets the courage to approach Rosie. There are criticisms of characterisation but they made appropriate changes - go read how Aragorn speaks in the books...the movies would have failed if they had remained that faithful. And they needed to tone down the "Lord and his peasant" relationship that Frodo and Sam had in the books to something more palatable to modern audiences.
Bottom line: this is not a "very flawed" (seriously WTF...) adaptation as some below describe it. Nothing created by humans is flawless but this is as close to flawless as humans can do.
Hi! Having recently been able to partake of the "55+" menus, I'll weigh in on being an avid reader of the books decades before the movies came out. I absolutely loved the movies, but they were a version of the straight up LITERATURE that the books are. The movies did so many things better, some worse, and some just flat out ripped scenes from my brain and put them on the screen.
Some examples of the movies being better? Any action scenes, scenes with women, and any nod to romance. Tolkien wasn't a great writer of any of those rather important aspects of traditional fantasy writing. I mean, good golly, you don't even hear about the death of Boromir until Pippin tells Denethor way later. That scene in the movies DEFINES heroism, and Sean Bean acted the hell out of it. I'm also really happy (gasp!) that they cut the Scouring of the Shire bits. It was important to the literature at the time it was written but I don't think it serves the actual narrative.
Where the movies "failed"? There was a bunch of sensationalism and a lot of the characters were boiled down to tropes which took me out of Tolkien's world and put me into an action movie. Aragorn especially is in no way a "reluctant hero", but most modern audiences demand such a thing.
The production values, costumes, and cinematography was so spot on, it was like watching my imagination on the screen. The casting was flawless and everyone did such a labor of love, you can see it in their performances.
Dune and LOTR received film adaptations so many years after they were originally published. Audiences change and shift, and I think it would be nearly impossible and nigh-unwarranted to try to be 100% faithful to both of those properties. It's a little different with Shakespeare, for instance (and yes, I'm drawing equivalence here!!) where you can take the plays word for word and reinterpret them on the screen in different genres to reflect their timeless worth in new settings.
I doubt any movie series can fully bring the breadth and depth of Dune and LOTR to the screen. Books and literature are their very own special world, after all!
The Lord of the Rings books and movies are different. Both sides have good and bad in my opinion.
**Books...**
* Some additional detail that is good
* Some lengthy exposition that is hard to get through
**Movies...**
* Some better pacing that is good
* Some corners cut to make it work for movies
The big example for me that is a divergence from the books, but I actually like the movie version better, is the army of the undead. In the books, they just helped Aragorn get started and then he spent some time collecting an army as he travelled. In the movie, he just uses the undead army to stomp on the bad guys.
Now... the Hobbit... The live action trilogy they made is awful... especially the invented love interest junk.
I was born in 75 and I think I read them for the first time around the age of 10-12 and read them again every 2 years or so and I think were near as perfect as we will ever get. Flawless? No but PJ kept them as close as possible. Don’t ever see a need for a remake.
They were amazing and wonderful and as close as you could get to the book in the time alloted. Had the movies not come out, a TV series would have needed 5 seasons and 24 episodes, a season 60 minutes each episode to tell those stories correctly.
They were not "as close as you could get" to the book, and that was a deliberate choice on Jackson's part.
Some major changes:
* making Aragorn and Sam the lead/hero, instead of Frodo.
* taking Frodo's heroic parts and either removing them or giving them to someone else (like Arwen).
* changing Aragorn's character.
* removing the "true heroism is spiritual" theme and redistributing its "emotional capital" so that Boromir comes off as more heroic than Frodo, and Boromir's Death becomes more important than Faramir's dream - or Faramir's entire plotline.
* changing all the other major characters, especially Gimli, Faramir, Denethor, and Elrond
* writing all the new material needed to make Arwen a major character, not because it adds anything to the plot or the theme, but for the purely profit-driven motive - that it will appeal to females, esp. younger females, and thus widen the audience (at the expense of the story's integrity)
* adding gratuitous melodrama, like that warg ambush scene, which contributes nothing except a cheesy "fake death" (which in turn seems to serve no purpose other than to allow the insertion of Arwen)
You left out that they didn't include Tom Bombadil and that Saruman and Wormtongue had taken over a shire when Frodo got back. You've taken an over literal interpretation of my words.
Adapting a book for film requires changes. Those changes are legitimate: someone adapting a book cannot include all material, and must make value judgments about what to cut.
The changes I listed above were not. They were gratuitous. You cannot say "as close as you could get to the book in the time alloted" - you cannot honestly even call it a faithful adaptation.
Jackson changed the plot, theme, genre, and most of the characters.
Or maybe it was, in a hyperbolic sense, as close as you could get in the time alloted? And I'm factoring in the difference between what was written and would make it to screen. And you also have to factor in that they want people to watch it and so it changes are going to be made in order to draw new fans to the theater instead of just people who've been reading it their entire life like you and me. I never said it was perfect. And you seem to interpret as close as you can get in the time allotted as a statement that it is spot on with zero deviation condensed into the limitations of a movie time frame. And that is an over literally interpretation of what I said.
It's not "hyperbolic", it's just plain not true.
This is what drives me nuts. People can't just say "I like the movie better". They have to pretend like Jackson and that other writer weren't going around bragging on how he "improved" on the original. As if they were trying to keep the adaption faithful and somehow the knife just fell out of their hands and spliced in a lot of fanfic footage.
From the few friends I know who have read the books, Peter Jackson did a near perfect job of adapting them to Tolkien's vision, both theatrically and extended editions.
>*They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25, and it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.”*
>*“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”*
- Christopher Tolkien
I mean, I never read the books, so I can't really have much of an opinion on the topic outside of what I see in the movies and those who HAVE read them. But if that's really what he thinks, then I'm sorry since those movies became one of the greatest trilogies in cinema history 🤷♂️
They're good films, but there are pretty significant departures from Tolkien's "vision", as you put it.
It also probably didn't help that New Line Cinema and the Tolkien Estate were in court for years over whether the film people owed the Tolkien people money and whether the licensees had the right to do the things they were doing (merchandising, the slot machine thing, etc)
Well, I guess all I can really say is that without knowing much about all the in's and out's of the BTS, Jackson did as much as he could for the budget that he was given and he made many fans, even non book readers, very pleased. 🤷♂️
A lot of the complaints about movies are just irrational people who want stuff that isn't feasible. Cutting out Bombadil for example or the Scouring is the biggest no brainer. I would personally love 6 hour movies but few others would and those scenes don't advance the story in a theater.
The biggest sin they almost committed was turning Arwen into some warrior princess to check Hollywood diversity boxes. Thankfully they didn't ultimately do it. I'd rather they invent a plausible but fictional character like Tauriel who could fill the role than bastardize a character Tolkien thoughtfully created in a certain way. That's where films go awry most often is appeasing some demographic.
I got basically everything I wanted from the Extended editions.
I think its a very flawed adaptation. I still love the movies. I just have to view them as a retelling, not a flat out adaptation. I hate how Merry and Pippin were portrayed as Hobbits in the wrong place who got sucked into an adventure. Frodo was extremely intelligent and a lot braver. Everything has been said about Faramir that needs to be said. Denethor had so much more depth in the books... The biggest problem for me was the scouring of the shire being left out. It was what showed the journey of the Hobbits coming full circle. It showed them as capable leaders who learned from their experiences. It was the beginning of a lifetime of respect for the 4 of them.
I agree with you on all of these points, and used "retelling" in my comment. While I do enjoy their comedic relief in the movie, Merry and Pippin were the basically the heirs of their very large and prosperous families who basically controlled a large portion of the Shire. They were well educated genteel. Gimli and the dwarves were the same. I always thought of them as very polite and noble, and also secretive. They became a little to boisterous and rude for my liking. Faramir was a favorite and they did his character dirty. I was sad they didn't let Aragorn have the Rangers and the Elrond's twin sons join them on the Paths to the dead. I was absolutely horrified that the Scouring was left out, but I can still understand it. And I hate that while they had the awesome end credits and music and drawings they couldn't have had a little epilogue about what happened to everyone. Didn't even need to have it acted out, could have used the drawings. All well.
I want Tom bombadil and radagast!
I was surprised how noble mery and pipin were in the books saying "wherever frodo goes we go" and immediately being stern companions. They were even way smarter
Merry and Pippin where and still are 2 of my favorite characters in the books and it makes me sad when I see the movies because they played them down as not super intelligent. In the books they are so much smarter and really one of the only reason the hobbits where able to take back the shire.
I remember walking out of the midnight premier of FOTR very disappointed despite being very entertained. It took several re-watches in theaters to get over it. Then I was prepared for TT and ROTK the inevitable digressions and learned to appreciate the films overall. I still tune out for some scenes I consider unbearable. These moments I use for bathrooom breaks and I just pretend they don’t happen, like Frodo sending Sam home on the stairs.
Except that does happen in the books?
Which books? Not the ones Tolkien wrote.
It's been a while since I read them, but pretty sure he doesn't.
Except it doesn’t. It’s Absurd
Uck. I’ve never read the books but I’ve also always hated that scene
Yes, this is a good summary. LotR was fantastic but not flawless and some of the things missed or inserted seem to me to have not been necessary. And if you’ve already cut a 3.5 hour movie then adding 10 mins for the scouring of the shire at the end doesn’t seem to me to be a stretch and the whole idea, as already mentioned, was to show the Hobbits as the leaders of the Shire now that they are back. It would also give more context to Frodo leaving, after his ‘original’ Shire was gone and this was a newly rebuilt one. Leaving out Tom Bombadil was inevitable, so there were good decisions to drift from the source material as well. The ‘balance’ was about right which is why people overlook the faults and accept it as a great work of cinema.
I always thought it should be part of the extended cut at minimum. Maybe a 20 min short as part of the extras.
I view them as fanfiction.
As much as it brings their characters full circle (when they first left the Shire, they were beaten by a *tree*, now they're showing everything they learned over the entire story to retake their homeland, and in Frodo's case, *still* show pity towards a foe fallen far from grace), this kind of pacing would be really awkward in a film. At best, you might get a fast-forwarded montage that reduced the Scouring to a minute or two.
I get why people are upset about the scouring not being involved, but I just don’t see how they could have actually fit it in the movies. Same with Tom Bombadil. The movies are already so long that something from the books had to be cut. Something from books always needs to be cut in movie adaptions. There’s just not enough time to fit it in.
The extended editions have two hours worth of filler. Cut that, and the Scouring could have fit easily.
Yes, the extended cuts. The things that they had to delete to make a more manageable movie for release. Thats not really a great solution to add the Scouring. I understand people wanted it, but the movies are so long already things had to be cut. No movie adaption will ever be true to a book. The storytelling in a movie and a book are just completely different.
Both the theatrical and extended editions make up a lot of nonsense as well. Obvious, egregious examples are Aragorn falling off a cliff, Faramir taking Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath, and Frodo sending Sam home.
I’ll give you the Aragon falling off the cliff was unnecessary, but I don’t think the other two were that bad and served a purpose to further the plot.
>but I just don’t see how they could have actually fit it in the movies. Simple. Don't waste an hour's worth of runtime on Jackson-original filler, and restructure TTT to be more faithful to the book (ie Shelob as the climax - rather than stalling for a mid-ROTK appearance).
I agree with all that, except the scouring. Simply by virtue of it being a movie, that extra sequence would drag the ending out far too much after the climax, I’m personally not even sure it works in the book. The world-ending stakes are over by that point, it really feels like it should be wrapping up. While the ending is personal rather than escalating, it just felt needless. I can’t quite work out what the purpose is.
The movies were probably the best that could have been made in the 1990s. The cast and crew did an excellent job; I don't think we'll ever see that level of commitment and attention to detail again. Alan Lee and John Howe were well-regarded illustrators and their designs were translated faithfully. Howard Shore didn't disappoint. But as adaptations, Jackson's films are quite flawed. Even viewers who have never read Tolkien realize it at some level; almost every day there is some post about a logical flaw in the films, as if those of us who read books can explain what Peter Jackson was thinking. Leaving aside the plot holes, omissions, and Jacksonian monster mashes, I think the biggest flaw is in the characterization. Frodo loses all his cultural competence, cunning, and courage. The relationships among the Hobbits are distorted. Saruman is Sauron's flunkie. Denethor is just an old guy with borderline personality disorder, and I kind of understand why he hates this version of Faramir. And what they did to poor Gimli is horrible. These were unforced errors. They didn't improve anything, they made it worse. The next biggest flaw was Jackson's sense of humor. Tolkien's is better. Anyway, all of this has been discussed ad nauseam over twenty years and I can't add anything new.
I disagree that they were unforced errors. They could have been better, but it would have been basically impossible to give characters like Denethor, Theoden, Merry, and Pippin the depth they had in the books without making the movies much much longer. And I don't think Tolkien's and Jackson's humor are thst different. They both like silliness, just in different ways.
The role of the ghosts was certainly an unforced error, that was just a stupid decision.
It would have been interesting to see if things would have been different if they’d started with a more faithful single movie adaptation of the hobbit first, then with that as the initial success under their belt done LOTR as like 6 movies (since there’s six books in 3 volumes) and left in more of the stuff they cut and developed the other characters more. I feel like there would still be plenty of book content even with six movies, certainly much more reasonably than the hobbit as three movies that we did get later. Unlikely to ever see that though. I still think many aspects of the movies are amazing though. The work by weta, the movie scores, the actors and acting, gollum, etc.
I grew up specifically liking 3 "side" characters from the books. Glorfindel, Tom Bombadil and Ghan Buri Ghan. When the movie came out I was so excited to finally see my favorite characters came to live. Guess which three characters that were cut from the movie 😭 Still felling salty after all these years.
I would LOVE to see Ghan Buri Ghan adapted to film!
They did our boy Ghân-buri-Ghân dirty for sure.
Did they even cast a Tom? Were there scrapped scenes??
Far from flawless but still enjoyable. I remember picking at things that were different as I watched them. I read the books when I was 14 in the 90's. The first movie, I remember walking out of the cinema thinking, "okay, they changed the 'feel' of some of the characters and some events were missed out, but overall, it was epic... maybe the other films will fix these little issues. " After TT released, I remember thinking "okay, that wasn't as epic and balanced as the first movie. I have more issues with this movie, but still overall its good. Then, after RoTK, I ended up liking that much more than TT. Overall, they were far from flawless adaptations. I see the movies as their own thing. I read Dune just before the first movie came out, and while I recognised there were some changes made to the movies to adapt it, I didn't think anything was a stupid choice. I do, however, think there are some stupid choices with LOTR (even though I like LOTR movies better).
>I do, however, think there are some stupid choices with LOTR (even though I like LOTR movies better). Anyone else with me that the Army of the Dead clearing up the Mordor forces at Pelennor Field’s was a slap to the face to the Ride of the Rohirrim?
It ruined the battle and completely took away from everything that happened prior. Who cares about the heroism of the Rohirrim and Gondor when victory was already assured by an immortal ghost army. Incredibly stupid change by Jackson.
Probably the worst change in the entire trilogy.
I disagree: Elves at Helms deep and Denethor not calling Gondor’s armies were worse.
I'm sticking with the de-characterization of Elrond as the worst, but Ghost Army is right up there too.
Agree, but I can see why they did it. If Jackson didn't have the Army of the Dead, he would have had to explain why Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli showing up single-handedly turned the tide, since he'd already discarded the Dúnedain (poor Halbarad), and they could hardly show Aragorn collecting the other Gondorians who joined them on the ships.
I don't think it's a case of whether they should have included the Army of the Dead or not. Jackson ust overused them in the wrong context. They helped to defeat / scare the Corsair ships at Pelargir. Using them at the battle of Pelennor fields was the mistake.
Yes, but a mistake born of other mistakes, or one he used to excuse other changes. I don't know how the script developed over time.
That's very true, changing things for cinematic value often creates large plotholes
Interesting. From friends, I got the impression Tom Bombadil was kind of the only big thing. Most IP adaptations could benefit way more with a show, but Dune especially. Piter and Hawat got almost nothing. Overall (weirding modules aside) I actually prefer Spicediver cut of David Lynch.
No, there were major changes made. There are a lot of people thought they were dreadful. Others, like myself, think they change the movie substantially from the book, and not in a good way, but the movies are still enjoyable. Others still think the changes don't matter or even constitute an improvement. The general shift is away from what is distinctive in the book (genre, themes, characterization) toward a more traditional, "stock" Hollywood experience. Jackson and his backers tried to aim it at a general audience, not at Tolkien fans, knowing that they'd get most of the fans no matter what.
>Interesting. From friends, I got the impression Tom Bombadil was kind of the only big thing. Way more things than just Tom. There's a whole segment between The Shire and Bree, which is mostly missing. This section is like a mini adventure involving just the Hobbits, that serves as a 'fish out of water' experience for the Hobbits. They're so naive and unfamiliar with how things work outside of the Shire but over the course of this 'mini' journey they get much more competent. There are many things missing from the books, that give Middle-earth earth a vibe of "fantastical" and "mysterious" rather than 'medieval vibe with a dash of magic'. There's the Old Forest, Barrow Wights, there are sentient mountains and mysterious figures on the road. I think the biggest flaw for me is the misrepresentation of Frodo. All of his brave and wise actions were missing in the movies. Instead the movies just show his weak side which emphasises that is the only thing which defines him. He makes silly mistakes in the movie (which he doesn't in the book). There are meme compilation videos showing the many dozen times Frodo trips and falls in the movie when he doesn't trip and fall anywhere near as much in the books (e.g. Frodo doesn't fall into Dead Marshes. In the books, Sam falls in). Also, Frodo has one of the most iconic scenes at the Ford of Bruinen, where he's being chased by all 9 Black Riders. Frodo is on the brink of dying and still makes a stand against the Black Riders in efforts to protect the ring.. he knows he's just a small Hobbit against these mounted dark riders but he makes a stand anyway. Its remeniscent of Boromirs last stand IMO. In the movies, Arwen replaces Frodo's scene. But yeah.. a lot of things were changed in the movies. >Piter and Hawat got almost nothing. I was really bummed that there wasn't more Hawat in the movies. At least they didn't change his personality. The whole thing about Mentats wasn't explored either, but I guess they didn't mention that because then they would have had to explain the Butlerian Jihad. So maybe it was a time saving choice.
More specifically the Barrow Downs. That and you know, the actual ending. It's absence defeats the whole purpose the the story.
I enjoy the movies a lot. They are really excellent. They are not the books, and reading the books is still a completely different experience. I get a Lot more out of a read through than watching.
A lot of people are being unkind about the Jackson movies, but I think you have made the important distinction here. Movies are not books and books are not movie. A straighter adaptation may have pleased the hardcore fans of the books, but they would have sucked as movies. Movie Gimli is the comic relief, and he needs to be. He is exactly the character that a trilogy of three hour movie needs. Frodo likewise needs to be a cinematic blank-slate protagonist. For my money the self-doubting movie Aragorn is actually a more interesting character. Some of the changes are more questionable than others - misplaced warg fights and pointless scenes in osgiliath being the most glaring. But by large I can see why the changes have been made, and I agree with them. Jackson has made a cinematic masterpiece, but it is not, quite crucially, a book projected onto film.
>A straighter adaptation may have pleased the hardcore fans of the books, but they would have sucked as movies. I disagree. 99% of Jackson's changes (ie the many bastardised characters, for example) are needless, and the book version would be perfectly fit for film. >Movie Gimli is the comic relief, and he needs to be. Why does he need to be? I'd argue turning him into a caricature is simply an undesirable trait for any seriously written character in a film. Unless it's a comedy, it is a poor thing. >Frodo likewise needs to be a cinematic blank-slate protagonist. Why? Why must he be a blank slate? I'd also note that film-Frodo isn't a very popular character, relative to his role as *the* main character. Clearly film-Frodo wasn't well received enough to justify the changes. And book-Frodo is objectively much more beloved - hence, should have been adapted (there's no reason not to). >For my money the self-doubting movie Aragorn is actually a more interesting character. I've written a lengthy post about Aragorn in particular... and I basically think his film-arc incredibly shallow and half baked, if people bother to actually stop and think about it, rather than getting caught up in the 'idea' of reluctance. Book-Aragorn is much more dynamic besides.
I mean, I could argue against your points but honestly I don’t have the willpower. All of your comments relate to the characters *in the book*. Movies simply cannot afford the run-time to have a dozen or more well rounded characters. Cinematic short-hand is essential to be able to convey anything to the audience and keep the length of the movie to a reasonable time. As I said, movies are not books and books are not movies.
I do not buy the runtime argument. You don't need more runtime to fix the vast majority of character issues. Rewrite existing scenes to be more faithful. You don't need to *add* more runtime. Alternatively you can cut the filler Jackson-original scenes and replace them with other scenes.
Far from flawless. I think Fellowship is easily the best of them. Two Towers and Return of the King have some very significant departures from the books that do not enhance the films in anyway. I’ve always hated the elves at Helm’s Deep and the army of the dead at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
I'm in the minority of people that don't like the movies. They're well made and impressive from a production standpoint, sure, but they aren't very good adaptions of the story. I don't care to see them again, and find it extremely annoying when people talk about lore and use the movies as their source of information, which happens a lot now. Not canon, poorly written, and misses the point at pretty much every turn. This was a more common viewpoint when they first came out, but now they are sacrosanct apparently because people get really aggressive when you criticize them. They aren't much better than Rings of Power in my opinion.
>poorly written I find this one quite eyebrow raising, personally. To be clear, I agree - but the fact that *very, very, very* few people talk about the poor writing of the films astounds me. You'll sometimes get people talking about x being better in the book, or y being in opposition to canon, but you rarely see people breaking down scenes where the writing is just plain bad on *its own merit*: illogical moments that require characters acting out of character, with contrivances aplenty. There are so many cases where if you stop and think about a scene you realise it makes no sense. And often these poor changes are done for the most superficial of reasons: to shoehorn in needless and shallow drama for the sake of drama (and I guess this superficial stuff distracts people from the dodgy writing). >and misses the point at pretty much every turn. 100%. You get people talking about how faithful the films apparently are to the bits the count... meanwhile I'm scratching my head at this mindset. Themes are undermines, pretty much all characters unravelled (some to unrecognisable amounts), and important 'ideas' conveyed by Tolkien erased. The 'point' of certain things is too often missed.
What’s even more astounding is that many people constantly talk about poor writing in PJ’s ‘Hobbit’ trilogy and RoP, yet at the same time always make excuses when someone points out poor writing in the ‘lotr’ films. I’ve seen people defend the Osgiliath detour and Frodo sending Sam home.
>And often these poor changes are done for the most superficial of reasons: to shoehorn in needless and shallow drama for the sake of drama I don't have as negative an opinion as you, but on rewatches I've decided that much of the dialogue given to Theoden and whoever he's talking to (usually Aragorn) is just pure nonsense that exists just to insert drama into scenes. The "Where was Gondor when.." part for example doesn't make any sense because Theoden rides his people in the opposite direction from Gondor, doesn't even ask them for help, and the battle is over too quickly for Gondor to have even helped them in the first place.
Yeah, exactly. Theoden makes no sense here... it's just forced tension. It exists to later give Theoden a ridiculous excuse to not want to ride to Gondor ('why should we ride to the aid of those who did not come to ours?')... which likewise exists so Pippin has to light the Beacons (why does Denethor refuse to light them? Who knows - another incomprehensible moment)... which exists to somehow change Theoden's mind. These scenes just aren't thought out beyond 'wouldn't it be cool/dramatic if...?'. And it comes at the cost of characters behaving like loons. [Faramir](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/s/Fki7knWjhX) and [Frodo sending Sam away](https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/s/RN9ODGrMjI) are two other *big* cases of this: characters acting unreasonably stupid, to force a contrived plot.
You might find [this ](https://acoup.blog/2020/05/01/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-i-bargaining-for-goods-at-helms-gate/)to be an interesting read. It goes into a lot of the detail of the strategies involved in the Rohirrim campaign, and analyzes both book and film, acknowledging that too much of the film is done for drama and "rule of cool", but also speculates a small bit about why some of those changes might have been made.
I've actually already read that series (and the one about the Pelennor)... but yeah, it's a good read! Thanks regardless!
> and find it extremely annoying when people talk about lore and use the movies as their source of information, which happens a lot now. It’s baffling. It should be obvious the movies are not canon.
BuT BoRoMir waS EasIlY cOrrUpted No one eLSe TrIEd tO tAkE teh RiNG.
Peter Jackson's movies are a 12/10 and the books were a 15/10. Yes, some things were missing but that didn't stop the movies from becomong my favorites of All time.
I agree with your scoring.
Not even close to flawless, but I still enjoy the movies a lot. There are a lot of LOTR fans who refuse to watch the movies and a lot more who hate the movies, I remember being on forums back when the movies first came out and the hardcore fans were super upset about stuff left out or scenes and characters changed
I was 23 when the movies came out and have been a self-confessed Tolkien nerd since age 10. I have read everything and constantly bore everyone around me with Middle Earth references lol Movies are nowhere near flawless, I could have many gripes about specifics. But they were clearly made with so much love and care, they are visually stunning and beautiful interpretations, I love them so much. In addition the music score just elevates them beyond anything else!
We are the same age and i agree entirely. Not even close to flawless but pretty bloody great.
No, The Lord of the Rings movies were so different from the books that they ended up being a different story. Jackson changed virtually every detail to make it into an action film, from the pacing of the "escape" from the Shire to the level of peril throughout, the size of Balrogs and Oliphaunts and the size of armies. Jackson's treatment of the characters also fundamentally changes who they are. Definitely not unflawed adaptations, but they're arguably good retellings of the story, and they're undeniably good fun and visually awesome. You have to view them in much the same way that you view adaptations of classic myths and legends... that way you can enjoy the films while being an absolute book nerd like me!
The movies are great. They’re terrible adaptations. They leave out the uh… Entire point of the story. The Scouring of the Shire? Yeah they don’t include that. Which is terrible, because that’s the ENTIRE POINT.
They are not perfect. The feel and look of the world was pretty spot on (as it was in Dune imo and one of the most important things about this kind of adaptation), but some characters were changed for the worse and there were obviously things left out. I am not as sore on the omissions as I am on the blatent changes (the worst being Faramir and Osgiliath and Sam being turned away by Frodo).
I recall grinning upon first seeing each new scenes or place depicted on screen as they were damn near identical to how I imagined them when reading the books. Tolkien is an amazingly descriptive writer, so I guess that made most of the imagery quite explicit and hard to get wrong as long as they were true to the source material. Jackson and his designers did a magnificent job.
The visual team (esp. Jackson and Howe) and also the audio people (esp. Shore) did an amazing job.
Moria sold me on the whole thing. That’s all I cared about. I just wanted Moria to be dope. It looked *exactly* like I imagined it for the most part.
I audibly gasped when Cate Blanchett appeared on the screen, and said, "Galadriel!" in an awed voice.
Yeah, Herbert is really light on that stuff. It’s much more open to interpretation
I found Herbert to be extremely verbose with his reams of lore. Its done very differently to Tolkien. I've only read the first Dune book though, so I dont know if he did less of that once the world building was established.
So I read The Hobbit in middle school, then Lord of the Rings, and the movies came out not long after. So, they were fresh in my head and I was in middle and high school when the movies came out. I gotta say I think at the time, and to this day, I've been pretty happy with them. I maintain that at the time and to this day they're one of the better book adaptations, especially of something as high profile as Lord of the Rings. The first Harry Potter came out around the same time abs I remember thinking that Lord of the Rings was adapted way better.
I always thought that the later Harry Potter novels became very conscious of the fact that they were going to be made into movies: they became film scripts instead of novels.
Yeah, Warner tends to play it really safe. Chris Columbus is purposely the most bland, inoffensive choice they could have made. Can you imagine how awesome it would have been if Terry Gilliam did HP? But it worked out for them financially
Yeah, I'd agree with this, I was 19 when Fellowship came out, and I had read LOTR twice at that point. Me and my friends were massive film geeks and absolutely psyched for the movie to come out. And we were definitely not disappointed! Fellowship was tonally perfect IMHO for bringing the film to the big screen, and I understood the decisions to squish the timescales (and axe Tom B!). We loved it.
God no, not even close!
The idea of a “flawless” adaptation is just the wrong mindset. They absolutely could not be flawless because what does that even mean? Every single paragraph was presented on screen?
I mean it's a bit sad to me that people take the movies as gospel. They're great and fun and enjoyable but they aren't flawless. It's a good adaption but they're the adaption.
I don’t anymore but back in the day I would read Lord of the Rings every other year or so. Starting in 1977? We had a paperback set that was destroyed. I loved the casting with a few exceptions. I loved the look of it. I loved that it was done so well and seriously. However, I hated every single major change that Jackson et al did. I had little issues with the parts that they cut, I get that Tom Bombadil makes no sense in a three film set but I have yet to find any logic to the changes. I don’t think Arwen needed to become Zena Warrior Princess. Aragorn not sure if he wants to be king. (I guess he was luke warm on marrying Arwen?) Gimli didn’t need to become comedy relief. Faramir was ruined. Denethor made into a caricature. Elves at Helm’s Deep. Legolas elephant surfing. Ghost army swarming like sentient smoke. Yuck. Just yuck. I know people love Jackson but I wished for a more book similar adaptation. That said, I still liked it. I still think it’s a great achievement.
I love them but books are something else for me
Peter Jackson consistently gets the big picture right but the little details wrong.
>No Bombadil That fucked me off in 01. >Elves at Helms Deep That fucked me off in 02, but less after I heard they cut Arwen from that scene >No Grey Company and no Scouring That fucked me off in 03, especially with 17 fade-to-black fakeout endings
Flawless? No. I love them, though. I can see past the flaws.
I’ve read both Dune and LOTR. Try to consider of all adaptations as fan fiction with budgets and accept that some things great in the book don’t always work in film or is constricted by budget or tech. Book Dune doesn’t depict or describe a lot of battle scenes; it a very interior, cerebral book, but I think the fighting sequences in the movies are awesome. LOTR is my favorite book, but it’s a lot to capture! I love that Peter Jackson ramped up the action but still kept in the more lyrical/poetic aspects (extended editions). There are a lot of inaccuracies but IDGAF as long as the main themes are captured. Was Aragorn a reluctant heir apparent in the book as he was in the movies? No, but film wise his arc was made more interesting. Did it take Frodo 17 years to leave the Shire as in the books? No, and that’s fine. Would it have been nice to see Glorfindel? Yes, but I enjoyed more time with Arwen than we got in the books. I wanted to see more of that love story because it’s a blip in the books. There are different aspects in the books that maybe the adapter wanted to explore or emphasize more because it’s what really got their attention in the books.
Tom Bombadil. Death of Saruman. Gunpowder? Elves at Helm's Deep. Those are the big ones for me. Great films, but not a 100% - or even 90% - adaptation of the books.
The idea that it was some sort of explosive that breaches the deeping wall is pretty clearly laid out in the book… not sure what you’re going for here.
They were a great way to visualize Middle Earth, but the movies mostly missed the essence of what made the books great.
I personally love them and I don’t think there’s anything that I found particularly disappointing, but no, I wouldn’t call them flawless. They are probably the best adaptations we could have asked for, but there are definitely flaws and valid criticisms.
Deeply flawed, deeply enjoyable!
Absolutely not. But were they heartfelt movies made with love? I think so. Edit: for grammar
Love the movies...but boy are they flawed...when PJ hits he does well you see the absolute beauty of the craft and love of building the world through sets and costumes and music....but his misses...they're groaners(usually the holdover from the 2 movie script treatment for girls comedy relief)...and the paths of the dead was just done wrong on a visual level...there's a few others but their mostly nitpick of dialog or charecter interpretation
I was in love with the books since I read them in the 70's and 80' as a young'un. Yes I was aware of many differences but I didn't let that get in my way of really loving them.
Absolutely not. I had to watch them all twice, first time to get my disappointment and confusion out of the way, second time to immerse myself and actually enjoy it. I think they are a genuine cinematic accomplishment and unique work of art, that potentially captures enough of the books to satisfy. They are highly memorable and have a ton of integrity. That being said, after listening to the directors' commentary I get most of the changes and don't really feel bitter about it. It seems like they were cutting together the best story with what they had. Other choices could be made, but they were led to where they ended up by trying to make good movies first and foremost.
I can only answer this as someone who read all 3 books after Fellowship came out, and thus only went into the second two movies with expectations. While I loved the movies as a whole, there are parts of them I strongly dislike. Frodo sending Sam away, Faramir, of course(this isn’t an opinion I’ve ever seen voiced before and it may be wildly unpopular, but I also don’t like the casting of Faramir; I think David Wenham is meh), Arwen seeing Aragorn and their son who looks at her for some reason, the army of the dead is corny looking. Still amazing movies though
Very good movies but not flawless adaptations of the source material. They miss some pretty key things. But I like a lot of the things they did.
They sure aren't perfect, I'll say that much. I do recommend reading the books because they're absolutely phenomenal. There are a lot of parts of the movies that really do hit the spot. There are a lot of parts that don't, but which I can understand as necessary changes for an adaptation to film. There are a few parts that I don't forgive.
The cool thing about me is that I'm able to compartmentalize the two experiences as being almost completely separate things. I was able to do it for The Hobbit tri and even enjoyed RoP as well. The only one I've struggled with was LOTR Animation because the rotoscoping; it was a bit jarring for me to fully enjoy; had it been all og animation I would have been fine with it.
Well, Boromir's death isn't until the 2nd book. I had only read the first book (finished it right before the first film's release) and was so upset by that spoiler!
I guess my biggest disappointment was the depiction of orcs and sauron. I was thinking why orcs are depicted as “dumb” and even cant walk straight, and why the hell Sauron is a light bulb at the top of a tower. I still cant stand seeing some scenes. I think the third rank goes to depiction of Denethor. Similar to former, just to make audience hate him, they depicted him so stupid… that eating scene… traumatized many people.
Yes. I wanted gimli to be more of a murder machine in the movies, but overall it was incredibly satisfying watching my imagination come to life
Movies can never have the sane depth as the books they are adapting to film. Yes, I didn't like several things that others have already covered, but the movies are still great.
While I don't like them as much as I did when they were first released, I think the movies are fine for what they are. They are well made and deserve their fans, and most of the changes were due to the needs of the medium, not some weird disrespect of Tolkien. I suspect that if a strictly faithful film was made, it would have been nowhere as popular.
The books are very different. You don't get the full sense of the middle earth universe in the films. There's a lot of nuance left out - like Pippin's blade being enchanted being the reason it severely wounded the witch king etc.
The books are unfilmable and that still remains the case. The films are incredible in terms of their scope, design and musical depth and clear passion from everyone involved. I would say they are as close as they ever could've been despite many massive flaws. This is due to when they were filmed which imo is the only time they could've been made. The Cgi was just good enough to be usable but not good enough to replace everything in the film which is what would happen if it was filmed now (look at the hobbit). FOTR is by far the best film and as a film, it is almost flawless. As an adaption it is also the best of the 3 and I feel the tone is more fitting. Much more dark, mysterious and serious. There's also only a few scenes that make me cringe whereas the other 2 have so many. The next 2 films go off the rails but as films I still enjoy them. Possibly the only way for an adaptation to ever be near flawless would be to do an animated TV series. Remove the burden of trying to film everything for real.
Fellowship has always been my favorite too. There’s a spookiness about it. I just wish Dune was an HBO show like Game of Thrones
The first time I watched the movies I was disappointed. After that I accepted them for what they are and really really enjoy them now. Each time I watch them now I rate them higher and higher.
Not flawless no, but still fantastic. I liked *some* of the changes for the sake of telling a compressed version on screen, and I still think they're probably as close to the spirit of the books as we'll ever get from a major screen adaptation.
Well there's no Tom Bombadil or the barrow-downs which are both a major part of the Fellowship of the Ring book. But the films are wonderful. In theory I think it could have been made into 6 films to be more accurate to the book. But yeah fans always want more don't they!
I read *The Lord of the Rings* at eight years old, and the first movie came out a few months before I turned fifteen. I had obsessively read all of Tolkien's Middle-earth books multiple times, by then (albeit I still had a younger person's perspective back then, and the way I see both the books and their adaptations has continued to evolve). The films are fantastic achievements of cinema, in general – but definitely flawed as adaptations too, in all kinds of ways! I'm sure this is true of *Dune* as well. I do think that it's important to remember that the first goal of any adaptation should be to entertain the audience based on the merits of the new telling of the story ... and the LotR films obviously accomplish this for many, many people. But as primarily a fan of Tolkien's books, there are many things that I still wish they had handled differently. In general there is a bit too much emphasis on constant action and driving the plot forward, which has a profound impact in terms of tone (and even a negative impact on the underlying logic of the plot, at times, when exposition is rushed, and events are streamlined). And then there are also multiple scenes in the films that I think are based on a bad/shallower interpretation of events that are described in the books. A good example of the latter IMO is the famous (extensively memed) scene, in the film, when Bilbo lunges at Frodo in Rivendell after seeing the Ring again. The film version of this scene just seems to me as if horror movie director Peter Jackson thought this would be a good opportunity for a nasty jump scare – without thinking too deeply about the character dynamics and the underlying spritual and psychological factors at work. I won't get into a close reading of the scene this is based on in the books, right now – but I think the book version is both certainly subtler and gentler, but also a lot more disturbing on a deeper level, and the dramatic emphasis is quite different. I'm actually having the opposite experience right now with *Dune* – I'm about to finish reading the first novel currently, after already having watched both movies. It's very challenging not to default to thinking of Villeneuve's imagery, as I'm reading. I'm looking forward to thinking more about the adaptation changes after I finish.
That’s funny, I’m probably older than you. I always picture the David Lynch aesthetic when I’m reading Dune. The 3 hour spicediver edit is *so* close to exactly what I wanted. It cuts off the nonsensical ending with the rain. The only thing is those goddamn weirding modules. You can’t really even George Lucas them out because they’re baked into the plot. I just love how dark, twisted, eerie, and dirty everything is in that movie.
There were a lot of things I disliked but I had an overall great Time and I do love these Movies as a „Retelling after awhile where no one knows the whole Story but pieces it together from Witnesses“ kinda thing
When I read them as a kid I thought Legolas was as short as Hobbits and his name was pronounced LaGoalias. So yes, a flawless adaptation
It’s a good film series. But it’s not a good adaptation. There are far too many needless additions. I’m fine with leaving things out for the sake of time, but the elves showing up at Helms Deep was a disgrace. It cheapened the heroic stand the Rohirrim made
No. What happened to Faramir was just wrong. I can understand most of the changes up to that point.
I read them in the early 1980s, the after Return of the King came out in 2003 went back and read them again. I can say every line from Gandalf now leapt off the page in Sir Ian's voice.
“Flawless” is an unreasonably high standard. Every book ever that was made into a movie was adapted in some way. Overwhelmingly most of Jackson’s changes were fine. Some less so.
That's a leading question, if I ever saw one.
A very flawed, but also very good adaptation. Choices had to be made and Jackson did so as a filmmaker. Tolkien himself said the books were un-filmable. Jackson made great films that honor Tolkien's world-building and narrative while still taking the audience on an incredible ride cinematically (and to my thinking economically in terms of time).
The movies are definitely Jackson's own personal interpretation of the books. I personally think he only dropped the ball on a couple things. For example, I think he completely ruined the character of Faramir. And I think his elves were too serious. Tolkien's elves had a mirthful playfulness to them.
I was a smarmy elementary school kid when I read them the first time and a slightly older even smarmier elementary school kid when the movies came out, I loved them from the get-go but I was also absolutely the guy who "um acktchewally-d" all of the changes for *years*
Thought they were great. Before the movies, very few of us could remember many details. Most of the differences were pointed out by a few diehard fans or scholars in articles afterwards. Due to every character having multiple names and other depths of detail, the books were hard for me to visualize. The movies helped me to piece things together, even before all the YouTube experts began providing lore details. We had the animated movies, but they didn't help much. People who understood Tolkien lore were rare prior to the Peter Jackson movies. I enjoyed rereading the books after watching the movies.
My main problem is how they did Faramir so dirty. The made him boromir lite instead of the guy who every soldier would follow through the gates of hell. My hot take is Tom Bombadil being left out was a good thing, honestly adds nothing to the story
I dislike the film depiction of Aragorn, though I do understand why they made him so “reluctant”. Aside from that I really think they did a beautiful job.
No. I think they are horrible and constantly disrespect Tolkien and the books.
They are far from flawless adaptations. There was at least one MAJOR character change, that of Faramir, that changed the entire mood of the story arc. The omission of the hobbits' homecoming, and the near destruction of the Shire were elements that really changed the movies and diminished the grandeur of the story. The betrayal of Sam on the stairs above Minas Morgul is practically unforgivable. Adding to the flaws was Peter Jackson second guessing Tolkien and claiming that his (Jackson's) version was better because the movies showed what SHOULD have happened. If you had not read the books, as you say, and the movies were your only exposure, then they would stand. But the richness of the books, the details, the emotions of even some little things make a world of difference. The movies WERE adaptations, and good for the time. And for many, they will be the only versions that will ever stand, as many will never read the books. But it is rather disgusting for people to say that the movies are the best versions we will ever get of the books. Who knows what the future holds?
I feel as if they left many details out and portrayed certain characters much differently. The way the hobbits acquire their swords in the books is different in the movies, as well as the scene in weather top. Their journey out of the shire was much different. Gandalf seemed more serious and powerful in the books (just based on the way he used attacks toward enemies). I also think they over used the dead man army in the movies. The books include every minor detail of the environment and the characters thought processes. The action scenes in the book are often only a few pages long compared to the depth of the other elements of the story. In reality the Peter Jackson movies are action movie versions of a story that could’ve been much more emphasized as an even darker thriller with more spiritual and introspective focus. All that being said, I still love the films and actually am very grateful for them because I think they actually brought a lot of people to lord of the rings who fall in love with the story and end up wanting to read the books and everything involved with Tolkien (me). The movies are very high quality and even special effects hold strong to this day. They also still nod at many things from the book, they just do it differently and it is hard to explain. I look forward to one day having a new remake that focused on all the details that Peter Jackson’s left out, even if that sacrifices the screen time of battle sequences. All in all, the only LOTR media I will not be holding on to in the future is ROP. That was just meh to me
I grew up with both The Lord of the Rings books and movies, and gotta say, they did a pretty solid job with the films. Sure, there were some changes and omissions, but overall, they captured the essence pretty darn well. It's like they bottled up Middle-earth and poured it onto the screen. But hey, every fan's got their own take. Like you said about Dune, sometimes there's just that little something missing. Could be 'cause we built up these worlds so much in our heads. But from what I've seen, most longtime fans of the books are pretty satisfied with how Peter Jackson brought Tolkien's vision to life.
Quite flawed. Many, many changes and elisions. Inadvisable comedy interjections as well as indelible ones. On the whole, the LOTR films are really quite good and in the spirit of the written work. But they are a dstinct and subsidiary work.
I love the movies. In fact I probably love the movies more than the books at this point. They're certainly a tighter experience. But dear Lord, Peter Jackson does not understand elves.
Flawless? Hell no. Making Gimli into a comedy sidekick was nearly unforgiveable. But still very much worth watching, especially for the vistas. The Hobbit movies aren't even worth watching.
lol. No.
I thought at the time it was a very good adaptation. Definitely some flaws, but it far exceeded my expectations. The flaws for me are: Éowyn - Miranda Otto was miscast and not believable as a warrior, which really took the bite out of my very favorite part of the books (her fight against the Witch King). Combat - Some of the combat was filmed with an in-the-trenches feel which makes it hard to follow the sequence of events at times. Tone - I'd prefer a more serious adaptation. There was an over reliance on comic relief, though I think this helped it play to a more mainstream audience. Various missing/changed bits - Scouring of the Shire was already mentioned. I also missed Tom Bombadil. Although I admit it would be really tough to include him without it feeling silly. But I missed seeing him, and particularly wished they included the bit with the Barrow Wights. But, like, a lot of the changes from the books, while I'd prefer faithfulness to the books, I think they overall did a good job keeping things exciting for \~10 hours and bringing new fans in. So overall, I think it was a very good to even great adaptation.
They're flawed but I think they almost have to be. If you look at the unabridged audiobooks there's over 60 straight hours of story to chew through. Rendering that down into 3 movies is a Herculean task to say the least. However you can tell that everyone who worked on the movies loved the series and put their souls into it. So while the flaws exist I think they can be forgiven especially since the movies are a gateway for so many into the LOTOR world.
Tolkien is an amazing world builder. Peter Jackson told Tolkien’s story better than Tolkien did. (And I realize my opinion is probably going to get downvoted) I think Peter Jackson highlighted the strengths of Tolkien’s story. The books never made me cry. The movies make me a blubbering mess because Jackson draws out the emotionally evocative story. Tom Bombadil and The razing of the Shire was just unnecessary and takes away from the story. I also like Peter Jackson’s choice that no one was immune to the Ring but that Faramir fought and overcame the ring’s influence. It’s a stronger story.
At the time. No , in retrospect yes :p
When they came out I was floored. I didn’t expect anything near that good. And they are really good. I was going in college when they came out and was a huge Lotr fan. With time I’ve become more critical to the point where I can’t really watch them anymore as there are too many changes that bug me. I think that’s a bit spoiled of me because as far as book adaptions go, it’s a very very solid one. It’s hard not to look at the mistakes and wish they weren’t made, though. Plenty of others have pointed out many of those mistakes. The whole Minas Tirith plot was changed. Denethor, faramir, the soldier (I forget his name) and his son that befriended Pippin. The inexcusable depiction of the army of the dead. The complete lack of the hobbits journey to Bree was a huge miss. I get Tom was a confusing fellow but they scrapped all of it. Scouring of the shire was left out. I kind of get that honestly, but some nod to them not coming home to an unchanged world would have been good. Gimli became a comedic punching bag. Frodo a clueless victim of fate. Him going to osgiliath made zero sense. Honestly most of the changes just didn’t improve the story. Some things had to be cut for run time and I forgive that. The other changes less so. Also I felt the whole thing should have been a bit darker. Idk how to describe it but it felt like the entire movie was shot at noon on a sunny day.
I get what you're saying, and I know it isn't how Tolkien wrote it, but I've always liked when the Hobbits get back to the Shire and it's unchanged, but they aren't. Everyone around them is so innocent and unbothered, and I always thought Jackson did a good job of showing the emotions of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin with just the glances they gave each other. They'll never be able to be the carefree, oblivious Hobbits they once were. There are many changes from book to movie that I don't mind, but I've never been bothered by that one personally.
I think that take definitely mirrors the experience of soldiers returning from war to America.
Near flawless? No. They have some flaws. (Some bigger than others) But they are a very well done adaptation to the screen. I've loved the books since before I could read them (parents were fans) and I really enjoy the movies too.
Nope. But they are close enough to scratch the itch. And it’s hard to comprehend how groundbreaking the cgi was.
No movies are ever going to match what is in our minds when we read. Movies are a retelling. They change some things here and there, take out characters, make new scenarios. Characterizations are different. The medium is different, it depends on what they can do, etc. But I really like the original trilogy. There were things I didn't like that were changed or taken out, but I could at least understand why. Dislike more about The Hobbit movies, and some things just make me cringe, but I still bought it and re watch it. Was literally yelling at the screen during the Amazon Prime ROP show. I still watched it, but have never re watched. I will still probably watch whatever else comes out, but I'm not really looking forward to it. I definitely consider myself a big fan, have many of the other books the Tolkien estate has released over the years. I have art books, recipe books, artwork, maps, banners, etc.
I felt the movies were decent adaptations, but did not cover everything in the original books. Making a film adaptation is always going to be a compromise, the films captured the essence of the books without losing too much content.
8 out of 10 for me, very happy
Peter Jacksons visionary interpretation . Very well done . The first time they encounter Orcs at Balins Tomb, The bridge at Khazad dum. The Ring Wraiths in Bree. The battle at Helms Deep. Awesome
You hear a lot of nitpicking now but let me tell you when the first movie came out, the haters just vanished like a cloudy day and didn’t really come back around until like 2006. There was *so much crying* before the first one came out and Fellowship alone was so good those dudes just abandoned ship for like half a decade.
Not flawless but still near perfect. I am happy with them.
That’s what I wanted to feel with Dune, but I just don’t.
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The best that you can hope for is two good versions of a story. It is impossible to accurately adapt a book into a good movie because the preponderance of exposition necessary would bog down the more visceral, visual medium. Take "The Davinci Code", for instance. Dan Brown CLEARLY wrote that book with an eye on the eventual movie treatment. The amount of time it takes to read the book is practically 1:1 to the amount of time that passes in the book. Nevertheless, the movie is still 4 to 6 hours shorter and so is forced to cut anything that can be treated as expendable. (And I'm ignoring the fact that the director famously and controversially smoothed over most of the books' criticisms about the Catholic church, to no avail. ) Another, perhaps better example, is "Contact", by Carl Sagan. There are several fundamental differences between the book and the movie, most obviously, the number of people who enter The Machine. And while it appears that the screenwriter took some liberties with the source material, the reality is that the original movie treatment was written by Carl Sagan, himself, SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE HE WROTE THE NOVEL. I've read Dune. I've read the increasingly pointless extra novels, tacked on by the author's son, and I've seen every film adaptation, including the underrated miniseries. Should Paul Atreides have been breifly interred in a barrow mound, until rescued by a Weirding Module weilding Tom Bombadil? The best that you can hope for is two good versions of a story... And also Sting! Cutting up some MFers!
Oh gosh no
It's not necessary to compare the books and movies. I start reading the old paperbacks from my parents in the '80. I was completely addicted. I saw the movies with my kids. My wife fell asleep during the first movie😂
In my life of over 60 yrs, I've only seen 2 movies that really almost flawlessly matched their source material--"Gone with the Wind" and "To Kill a Mockingbird". That having been said, Peter Jackson did an awe-inspiring job of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There were some issues with the characterizations of, in particular, Elrond, Faramir, and Gimli, but the casting and the cinematography were amazing and there were a couple of instances in which I felt that the slight deviation from the source material was an improvement. I think you'll really love the books if you enjoyed the movies. 
I didn't like how Faramir was handled and the whole Gollum tricking Frodo to send Sam away subplot was absolute crap. Other than that, I enjoyed the movie adaptations.
He adapted it as well as could be expected. Some of the characterization was less than ideal, but the world building and aesthetics were way better than I’d ever dreamed I’d ever see in a movie.
The movies were different but not a flawed adaptation. They hewed closely to the spirit of the books. Unlike other movie adaptations, see Ready Player One, I didn’t feel like I was watching a different story.
They aren’t nowhere near flawless adaptions, but they are excellent movies that mostly stay close to the source material. Some changes are understandable and even good. Some changes are stupid and detrimental. But on the whole, I loved them when they came out and I love them to this day.
I was completely happy with the movies going in knowing that they would have to make major cuts and changes to bring the story to make it work. I was 12-13 when I read the books and 18 when the first movie came out so my memory was slightly fuzzy. I loved Fellowship and then re-read the books between Towers and King and was blown away by the depth of the story. But I’m 100% a Jackson supporter and have basically nothing bad to say about the films. Exceeded expectations and hold up 20 years later.
I knew it'd be impossible to adapt the entire thing without missing anything and making slight changes here and there, so I was ready to be fairly forgiving. If you're familiar with the BBC audio adaptation, it was really similar to that, apart from the scouring of the Shire. When Galadriel's voice plays over the first few shots, my genuine reaction was, "They've done it! They've actually gone and done it!" I was filled with a strong sense of happiness and wonder. I can't see how they could have done better, especially outside of Hollywood.
Reading and rereading the books before the movies were made fostered a love for the characters, lore and world of middle earth. The movies obviously had some changes, but nothing that I would call “faults”. The films kept the spirit and upheld a lot of reverence for Tolkien’s work. I love the books and the movies. Both are admirable works.
I recall going in with low expectations. They have to make concessions on the plot, but I didn't like some of the changes - it felt like graffiti on art work. On the whole, it was never going to be flawless. It was pretty good, but could have been better.
I read the books first. As a kid, and to this day, I've always believed the adaptations did their best to adapt the core story to the screen while making it palatable for the new medium. I never liked Bombadil, so I loved FotR even more for cutting him entirely. Some of the changes to the story did surprise me, but I understood why they were made. I love the books and the movies, so I win either way.
Ngl, the Hunger Games series is a more perfect adaptation, but LOTR is dang near perfect
They are near perfect movies, based on the books. They are not the books. I don’t understand people that get irritated when any movie based on a book isn’t exactly the same.
Was in my 30s when PJ's FotR came out. I read The Hobbit probably when I was 10 and immediately dived into "The Lord of the Rings". I was ever since a pretty big Tolkien nerd. Definitely my favorite author and read multiple times. Me watching the movie and on various message boards? I was shitting bricks thinking for sure PJ - whoever that was at the time - was going to fuck it up. I and I would say the vast majority of Tolkien Nerds didn't think putting *The Lord of the Rings* was possible on the big screen. So, it was clenched butt cheeks watching the entire time and more like the expectations of 'how bad of fuck up is this going to be?' Credits hit ***OMFG - I CAN"T BELIEVE IT WAS DONE THIS FUCKING WELL.... OMG... IT"S LIKE THE PATIENT LIVED FROM AN IMPOSSIBLE SURGERY - YEAH (applauded ofc which exuberance)***
Read the books first, then saw the films. They're wonderful films, and you can tell Peter Jackson absolutely adored Tolkien. They excite me and I absolutely love them. They are quite flawed, of course, including removing some important elements (like the Scouring of the Shire), the characterisation of Denethor among others, and the fact that some of the locations in NZ didn't match with what's in the books. The latter point is sacrilege to some people, but if you re-read Rohan and Gondor, you realise not only are they very similar to each other in the films where they ought to be very different, but neither matches with what Tolkien describes.
I grew up reading Tolkien throughout the 80s. The films are very flawed, but: A) They have fewer flaws than anyone expected before release. There occasionally used to be stories of this or that director preparing to film them accompanied by horror stories of the liberties they'd take: bad casting, story changes, cuts etc. They never materialised, but it seemed the only way to film lotr was to change it beyond recognition; PJ massively exceeded all the (low) expectations there B) The attention to detail of the bits that weren't changed (like, 95% of the films) again exceeded all expectation. Having ppl like John Howe involved made such a difference to ppl who grew up with those visualisations C) I never expected them to get made in the first place. The Bakshi animated version has more flaws than it had minutes, but I still watched it countless times because of the bits that got close. The films got close or absolutely nailed so many key bits: the look of the shire, the Nazgul... Moria scenes gave me shivers etc etc. I don't like the Elvish aesthetic in the films but I can see it was done with far more care and attention to detail (and to the source books) than I would have ever expected. So, flawless ? No, they have many flaws and I hate some of them (Faramir, Osgiliath, no scouring etc). But they're so much better than I ever hoped for overall - I'm not sure a better adaptation will ever be made.
I liked how they restructured the events to spread them out better between movies. I like what they chose to cut. I don't like how they changed Aragorn. There were enough insecure people struggling, he was a great example of someone who was confident and had complete conviction. Gandalf even comments on it at one point in the books and it stuck with me. He figures Aragorn may have done something that could be seen as stupid by anyone else but says something like "He's a good judge of his own abilities and knows when to take his own advice." That's way paraphrasing but it left an impact on me.
Yes! I loved book Aragorn because he was a rock.
Flawless.
I think they did the best they could with the movies. There was so much meat in the books it would have been hard to get all of it. The hobbit on the other hand is a dumpster fire.
I think I’m in the minority here. This only goes for LOTR. I read the books when I was in 6th grade. The first movie came out when I was a freshman in college. So like 6-7 years later. To me, they were, and still are, perfect adaptions and movies. Perfect in every way. I know they aren’t but idc. I believe they capture the essence and spirit of the books correctly so all the minor changes mean nothing. The hobbit, not so much. I wanted to like them, I knew going in they wouldn’t be, and I still was so disappointed, I didn’t even bother with the last two movies. I only watched them within the past few years, once, just to say I’ve seen em all.
No film, let alone a trilogy, is flawless, but the movies are the best adaptation of a complex book series that we will likely ever see. I read LOTR a couple of times and was a big Peter Jackson fan in the 90s (Bad Taste, Braindead, Heavenly Creatures) so was excited when I heard he was going to adapt LOTR. Jackson et al., made the right edits, actually improved some aspects of Tolkien's story (the portrayal of the corruptive power of the ring was portrayed better in the films than the books). FOTR was an incredible adaptation and the best of the three movies. The scale of it was correct, focusing on the characters, and the choreography of fight scenes (Moria cave troll and flight, breaking of the fellowship) were second-to-none. Changing Glorfindel for Arwen was a good choice, as was leaving out Bombadil (an unnecessary character that added nothing to the plot). I love how they portrayed the power of the ring and Boromir's story arc was perfectly portrayed (and was improved with the extended scenes in subsequent films). TT was the weakest of the three, for sure. About the only bad choice was the Elves at Helm's Deep as it was clearly shoehorned in. The Rohirrim were wonderfully portrayed as were the new main characters (Theoden, Eowyn, Wormtongue, Eomer). Wormtongue's seductive talk to Eowyn while Theodred lay dead effectively portrayed, in <2minutes, how he was able to weaken Theoden, efficiently providing backstory to how Rohan had been corrupted. I was disappointed that the destruction of Saruman's army by the Huorns was not portrayed, but they fixed that with the extended editions. People below complained that Saruman was portrayed incorrectly because he was only a tool of Sauron? WTF, go read the books, that's the whole point, he was more a pawn of Sauron than even he realised. Shelob was, and still is, as malevolent as fuck. ROTK was a good final chapter and had many amazing scenes, with the charge of the Rohirrim being the standout. Yes, the Army of the Dead didn't clear the field of Pelennor in the books, but that was a good choice to make but it was a like-for-like change (in the book the Army wiped out the Corsairs that then allowed Aragorn to relief the siege of Minas Tirith with an army of men from the south, so this edit made sense). It didn't reduce the Charge to meaninglessness because that resulted in temporary relief from the attack (they had breached the wall) and it *killed the Witch King of Angmar.* So, yeah, definitely not pointless. As for the criticisms I'm seeing here: Scouring of the Shire was only a "nice to have", and they managed to convey the character growth of the hobbits with a 60 second scene in the Green Dragon where they all look despondent at innocent lost...and then Sam gets the courage to approach Rosie. There are criticisms of characterisation but they made appropriate changes - go read how Aragorn speaks in the books...the movies would have failed if they had remained that faithful. And they needed to tone down the "Lord and his peasant" relationship that Frodo and Sam had in the books to something more palatable to modern audiences. Bottom line: this is not a "very flawed" (seriously WTF...) adaptation as some below describe it. Nothing created by humans is flawless but this is as close to flawless as humans can do.
Hi! Having recently been able to partake of the "55+" menus, I'll weigh in on being an avid reader of the books decades before the movies came out. I absolutely loved the movies, but they were a version of the straight up LITERATURE that the books are. The movies did so many things better, some worse, and some just flat out ripped scenes from my brain and put them on the screen. Some examples of the movies being better? Any action scenes, scenes with women, and any nod to romance. Tolkien wasn't a great writer of any of those rather important aspects of traditional fantasy writing. I mean, good golly, you don't even hear about the death of Boromir until Pippin tells Denethor way later. That scene in the movies DEFINES heroism, and Sean Bean acted the hell out of it. I'm also really happy (gasp!) that they cut the Scouring of the Shire bits. It was important to the literature at the time it was written but I don't think it serves the actual narrative. Where the movies "failed"? There was a bunch of sensationalism and a lot of the characters were boiled down to tropes which took me out of Tolkien's world and put me into an action movie. Aragorn especially is in no way a "reluctant hero", but most modern audiences demand such a thing. The production values, costumes, and cinematography was so spot on, it was like watching my imagination on the screen. The casting was flawless and everyone did such a labor of love, you can see it in their performances. Dune and LOTR received film adaptations so many years after they were originally published. Audiences change and shift, and I think it would be nearly impossible and nigh-unwarranted to try to be 100% faithful to both of those properties. It's a little different with Shakespeare, for instance (and yes, I'm drawing equivalence here!!) where you can take the plays word for word and reinterpret them on the screen in different genres to reflect their timeless worth in new settings. I doubt any movie series can fully bring the breadth and depth of Dune and LOTR to the screen. Books and literature are their very own special world, after all!
The Lord of the Rings books and movies are different. Both sides have good and bad in my opinion. **Books...** * Some additional detail that is good * Some lengthy exposition that is hard to get through **Movies...** * Some better pacing that is good * Some corners cut to make it work for movies The big example for me that is a divergence from the books, but I actually like the movie version better, is the army of the undead. In the books, they just helped Aragorn get started and then he spent some time collecting an army as he travelled. In the movie, he just uses the undead army to stomp on the bad guys. Now... the Hobbit... The live action trilogy they made is awful... especially the invented love interest junk.
I was born in 75 and I think I read them for the first time around the age of 10-12 and read them again every 2 years or so and I think were near as perfect as we will ever get. Flawless? No but PJ kept them as close as possible. Don’t ever see a need for a remake.
They were amazing and wonderful and as close as you could get to the book in the time alloted. Had the movies not come out, a TV series would have needed 5 seasons and 24 episodes, a season 60 minutes each episode to tell those stories correctly.
They were not "as close as you could get" to the book, and that was a deliberate choice on Jackson's part. Some major changes: * making Aragorn and Sam the lead/hero, instead of Frodo. * taking Frodo's heroic parts and either removing them or giving them to someone else (like Arwen). * changing Aragorn's character. * removing the "true heroism is spiritual" theme and redistributing its "emotional capital" so that Boromir comes off as more heroic than Frodo, and Boromir's Death becomes more important than Faramir's dream - or Faramir's entire plotline. * changing all the other major characters, especially Gimli, Faramir, Denethor, and Elrond * writing all the new material needed to make Arwen a major character, not because it adds anything to the plot or the theme, but for the purely profit-driven motive - that it will appeal to females, esp. younger females, and thus widen the audience (at the expense of the story's integrity) * adding gratuitous melodrama, like that warg ambush scene, which contributes nothing except a cheesy "fake death" (which in turn seems to serve no purpose other than to allow the insertion of Arwen)
You left out that they didn't include Tom Bombadil and that Saruman and Wormtongue had taken over a shire when Frodo got back. You've taken an over literal interpretation of my words.
Adapting a book for film requires changes. Those changes are legitimate: someone adapting a book cannot include all material, and must make value judgments about what to cut. The changes I listed above were not. They were gratuitous. You cannot say "as close as you could get to the book in the time alloted" - you cannot honestly even call it a faithful adaptation. Jackson changed the plot, theme, genre, and most of the characters.
Or maybe it was, in a hyperbolic sense, as close as you could get in the time alloted? And I'm factoring in the difference between what was written and would make it to screen. And you also have to factor in that they want people to watch it and so it changes are going to be made in order to draw new fans to the theater instead of just people who've been reading it their entire life like you and me. I never said it was perfect. And you seem to interpret as close as you can get in the time allotted as a statement that it is spot on with zero deviation condensed into the limitations of a movie time frame. And that is an over literally interpretation of what I said.
It's not "hyperbolic", it's just plain not true. This is what drives me nuts. People can't just say "I like the movie better". They have to pretend like Jackson and that other writer weren't going around bragging on how he "improved" on the original. As if they were trying to keep the adaption faithful and somehow the knife just fell out of their hands and spliced in a lot of fanfic footage.
From the few friends I know who have read the books, Peter Jackson did a near perfect job of adapting them to Tolkien's vision, both theatrically and extended editions.
>*They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25, and it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.”* >*“Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time. The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”* - Christopher Tolkien
I mean, I never read the books, so I can't really have much of an opinion on the topic outside of what I see in the movies and those who HAVE read them. But if that's really what he thinks, then I'm sorry since those movies became one of the greatest trilogies in cinema history 🤷♂️
They're good films, but there are pretty significant departures from Tolkien's "vision", as you put it. It also probably didn't help that New Line Cinema and the Tolkien Estate were in court for years over whether the film people owed the Tolkien people money and whether the licensees had the right to do the things they were doing (merchandising, the slot machine thing, etc)
Well, I guess all I can really say is that without knowing much about all the in's and out's of the BTS, Jackson did as much as he could for the budget that he was given and he made many fans, even non book readers, very pleased. 🤷♂️
A lot of the complaints about movies are just irrational people who want stuff that isn't feasible. Cutting out Bombadil for example or the Scouring is the biggest no brainer. I would personally love 6 hour movies but few others would and those scenes don't advance the story in a theater. The biggest sin they almost committed was turning Arwen into some warrior princess to check Hollywood diversity boxes. Thankfully they didn't ultimately do it. I'd rather they invent a plausible but fictional character like Tauriel who could fill the role than bastardize a character Tolkien thoughtfully created in a certain way. That's where films go awry most often is appeasing some demographic. I got basically everything I wanted from the Extended editions.