If Z and/or others do so, they may be irritated or aggrieved by the tone of many of my criticisms. If so, I am sorry (though not surprised). But I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about. ....

The canons of narrative art in any medium cannot be wholly different; and the failure of poor films is often precisely in exaggeration, and in the intrusion of unwarranted matter owing to not perceiving where the core of the original lies.

This thread has been made in order to compare Letter #210 - which holds the most complete and descriptive thoughts on a movie adapation of the Lord of the Rings books ever written by Tolkien - with the movie trilogy directed, produced, and co-written by Peter Jackson. I hope that this thread will show beyond a doubt that many of the changes made during the adaptation from the books to the big screen were not done within the spirit of the books, justifying the belief among Purists that the movies are merely dentrimental to Tolkien’s works themselves. I believe the first paragraph of Letter #210 found above speaks for itself.

Z .... has intruded a ’fairy castle’ and a great many Eagles, not to mention incantations, blue lights, and some irrelevant magic (such as the floating body of Faramir). He has cut the parts of the story upon which its characteristic and peculiar tone principally depends, showing a preference for fights; and he has made no serious attempt to represent the heart of the tale adequately: the journey of the Ringbearers. The last and most important part of this has, and it is not too strong a word, simply been murdered.

First I will address the issue of "irrelevant" magic. Now, PJ doesn’t have the floating body of Faramir in the movies. But he does like to put in lots of magic where it shouldn’t be. Perhaps the most striking example of this is the fireball that Saruman shoots down at Gandalf during the EE scene in RotK. Absolutely pointless, and it makes it very hard to take wizards seriously - the wizards of Middle-Earth were not, in the words of Gandalf from the FotR movie "conjurers of cheap tricks". There is also the idea that Saruman is somehow possessing Theoden. I don’t know about you guys, but I preferred Satan and Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  There is more, but you get the drift.

Now on to a more important and widespread greivance, the preference for fights. The Two Towers movie made me forget just how long the Helm’s Deep chapter was. I checked the books and it turned out to be 20 in my copy. I found that odd, considering Helm’s Deep in the movies lasts half the movie. Not only was Helm’s Deep relatively unimportant to the story (I’ll get to that later), but it also took away from the far more important story of the Ringbearers, which I will discuss next. But even the most dedicated movie lover, whether they agree with me about Helm’s Deep or not, cannot deny that PJ loved his fight scenes. The warg scene in TTT was unnecessary and contributed to Aragorn "dying" and then making out with a horse. But I’m sure that’s what Tolkien would have wanted. And there were the scenes in Osgiliath, one from TTT with Frodo and Sam, and two from RotK, only one of which (the one where Faramir doesn’t lead a suicidal cavalry charge) was important to the story. Oh yes, and also there was the brawl in Meduseld and Gandalf getting slapped around by the Witchking in RotK. I’m not exactly sure what either action achieved. Regardless, neither added anything to the movie and represented something that Tolkien clearly wanted to avoid.

Now on to perhaps the most important point regarding this part of the Letter: the lack of fair representation for the Ringbearers’ journey. Peter Jackson, as I have inferred from the commentaries, tried to rectify this problem of his own making. By making fight scenes that lasted forever, he had to cut out the Houses of Healing scene and stick it on the EE so that he could get back to Frodo. But for the life of me I can’t understand why he cut out the cliff scene in TTT - that is an important scene in the development of the bond between Frodo and Sam. However, back to my point. PJ screwed this part of the story up badly. Faramir’s character was severely mangled. Instead of being the guy who wouldn’t pick up the Ring even if he found it abandoned on a road, he is the guy that wants to be Boromir and takes the hobbits and Gollum into a warzone. Great, great use of the character. In fact, for most of what we see of Faramir in TTT, he acts like Boromir - which is the exact opposite of the point Tolkien wanted to make. Faramir is not Boromir - and they do opposite things when dealing with the Ring. I wish PJ would have understood and preserved this. And now to everyone’s favorite part of the movies, the scene which more than any other deserves the description of "murdered", the scene in RotK where Frodo sends Sam away. Completely out of character, simply unbelieveable. There is absolutely no excuse for it. I know many of the movie lovers disagree with nearly all of the comments I have to say about the movies. But I have never heard anyone, besides the writers of the scene, defend it. It is, in short, a disagrace to the books and the spirit in which Tolkien wrote them. The reason for it’s very existence? PJ wanted to include more drama in the movie. Pathetic.

[Some extracts from Tolkien’s lengthy commentary on the Story Line:]

Z is used as an abbreviation for (the writer of) the synopsis.
References to this are by page (and line where required); references to the original story are by Volume and page.

2. Why should the firework display include flags and hobbits? They are not in the book. ’Flags’ of what? I prefer my own choice of fireworks.

Gandalf, please, should not ’splutter’. Though he may seem testy at times, has a sense of humour, and adopts a somewhat avuncular attitude to hobbits, he is a person of high and noble authority, and great dignity. The description on I p. 239 should never be forgotten.

Gandalf, I felt, for the most part was within the character of the books. Sure, he bumped his head on the ceiling at Bag End, but that was an unintentional action by Ian McKellen, and I don’t think it in any way hurt the way he portrayed the character, which was marvelous. However, he does do some things that annoyed me - smacking Denethor with the staff, for one thing. That I felt was out of character for Gandalf, as was his apparent cluelessness as to where Sauron would attack. Any fool would realise it was Minas Tirith, but until someone tells him in RotK, Gandalf acts like a chicken with his head cut off. But overall, I felt that Gandalf was handled very well by the script, and most importantly by the actor.

The Eagles are a dangerous ’machine’. I have used them sparingly, and that is the absolute limit of their credibility or usefulness.
The alighting of a Great Eagle of the Misty Mountains in the Shire is absurd; it also makes the later capture of G. by Saruman incredible, and spoils the account of his escape. (One of Z’s chief faults is his tendency to anticipate scenes or devices used later, thereby flattening the tale out.) Radagast is not an Eagle-name, but a wizard’s name; several eaglenames are supplied in the book. These points are to me important.

There is nothing much to say about Eagles, as PJ only has them when they are written about in the books with some minor changes, such as no dialogue with Gwaihir.

Here I may say that I fail to see why the time-scheme should be deliberately contracted. It is already rather packed in the original, the main action occurring between Sept. 22 and March 25 of the following year. The many impossibilities and absurdities which further hurrying produces might, I suppose, be unobserved by an uncritical viewer; but I do not see why they should be unnecessarily introduced. Time must naturally be left vaguer in a picture than in a book; but I cannot see why definite time-statements, contrary to the book and to probability, should be made. ....

As Tolkien says, time in the movies would have to be vaguer than in the books. However, when 17 years are supposed to have passed and Elijah Wood stays exactly the same, it is rather noticeable. Which is odd - as PJ keeps in Bilbo passing the Old Took. Although I don’t think it to be a big deal, Tolkien feels that it is.

Seasons are carefully regarded in the original. They are pictorial, and should be, and easily could be, made the main means by which the artists indicate time-passage. The main action begins in autumn and passes through winter to a brilliant spring: this is basic to the purport and tone of the tale. The contraction of time and space in Z destroys that. His arrangements would, for instance, land us in a snowstorm while summer was still in. The Lord of the Rings may be a ’fairy-story’, but it takes place in the Northern hemisphere of this earth: miles are miles, days are days, and weather is weather.

Contraction of this kind is not the same thing as the necessary reduction or selection of the scenes and events that are to be visually represented.

The last small paragraph above is very significant. It shows that some scenes had to be cut out - the movies could not be made the exact same as the books. This has always been an argument for those who defend the movies. Naturally not everything could be put in, and I think that had everything been put in, the first half of FotR would have been more boring than watching paint dry.

7. The first paragraph misrepresents Tom Bombadil. He is not the owner of the woods; and he would never make any such threat.

’Old scamp!’ This is a good example of the general tendency that I find in Z to reduce and lower the tone towards that of a more childish fairy-tale. The expression does not agree with the tone of Bombadil’s long later talk; and though that is cut, there is no need for its indications to be disregarded.

I am sorry, but I think the manner of the introduction of Goldberry is silly, and on a par with ’old scamp’. It also has no warrant in my tale. We are not in ’fairy-land’, but in real river-lands in autumn. Goldberry represents the actual seasonal changes in such lands. Personally I think she had far better disappear than make a meaningless appearance.

I am not afraid to say that PJ did not screw this part up. He did not try and include Tom Bombadil in the movies, and I applaud him for that. If he had, he would have just caused widespread confusion to most of the audience and probably would have seriously abused the character. The same with Goldberry. So instead of marring the characters, he decided not to include them, which I think was a wise decision.

8 line 24. The landlord does not ask Frodo to ’register’! Why should he? There are no police and no government. (Neither do I make him number his rooms.) If details are to be added to an already crowded picture, they should at least fit the world described.

9. Leaving the inn at night and running off into the dark is an impossible solution of the difficulties of presentation here (which I can see). It is the last thing that Aragorn would have done. It is based on a misconception of the Black Riders throughout, which I beg Z to reconsider. Their peril is almost entirely due to the unreasoning fear which they inspire (like ghosts). They have no great physical power against the fearless; but what they have, and the fear that they inspire, is enormously increased in darkness. The Witch-king, their leader, is more powerful in all ways than the others; but he must not yet be raised to the stature of Vol. III. There, put in command by Sauron, he is given an added demonic force. But even in the Battle of the Pelennor, the darkness had only just broken. See III 114.3

I will first address the idea of leaving the Prancing Pony at night. While PJ never actually shows the 4 hobbits and Strider doing that, we do see them across the street in another building that appears to be a house of some sort. Since it was night time already when the Hobbits arrived in town, logically they moved out of the inn at night, which I don’t think Aragorn would have done. That is a relatively minor point, however, compared to the Nazgul and PJ’s handling of them. I feel they are misused, although not so in FotR except on Weathertop, which is another pointless fight scene. For example, the scene in TTT when Faramir brings the Hobbits to Osgiliath, and Frodo offers the Ring to the Nazgul. That would not happen. Frodo was not an idiot, and the Nazgul could not control his mind or somehow convince him to try and give the Ring to him. That is misuse of the character. As is the scene in RotK where the Witchking fights Gandalf - as Tolkien says, they have no power over the fearless, hence in the books where Gandalf is the only one left to oppose him. This misues of the Witchking was poorly motivated - I think a greater focus on their psychological impact on the warriors would have been much better filmwork and within character for them.

10. Rivendell was not ’a shimmering forest’. This is an unhappy anticipation of Lórien (which it in no way resembled). It could not be seen from Weathertop: it was 200 miles away and hidden in a ravine. I can see no pictorial or story-making gain in needlessly contracting the geography.

Strider does not ’Whip out a sword’ in the book. Naturally not: his sword was broken. (Its elvish light is another false anticipation of the reforged Anduril. Anticipation is one of Z’s chief faults.) Why then make him do so here, in a contest that was explicitly not fought with weapons?

Strider doesn’t even have Anduril until RotK. This is all part of the idea that Aragorn is somehow unwilling to be the Heir of Isildur, that he has to redeem himself for his forefather’s deeds, and that he shuns Arwen because he feels guilty at her giving up her immortality. What a horrible misunderstanding of his character. But I digress. The idea of Anduril being present with Aragorn and then being reforged is an important one. It shows that he is committed to returning the Sword-that-was-Broken and the Heir of Isildur to Gondor, which was the most important reason for him going with the Fellowship in the first place. But PJ does the opposite - he doesn’t give Anduril to Aragorn, and says he is out to help destroy the Ring - which adds nothing to the story and only distorts Aragorn’s character.

11. Aragorn did not ’sing the song of Gil-galad’. Naturally: it was quite inappropriate, since it told of the defeat of the Elven-king by the Enemy. The Black Riders do not scream, but keep a more terrifying silence. Aragorn does not blanch. The riders draw slowly in on foot in darkness, and do not ’spur’. There is no fight. Sam does not ’sink his blade into the Ringwraith?s thigh’, nor does his thrust save Frodo’s life. (If he had, the result would have been much the same as in III 117-20:4 the Wraith would have fallen down and the sword would have been destroyed.)

Why has my account been entirely rewritten here, with disregard for the rest of the tale? I can see that there are certain difficulties in representing a dark scene; but they are not insuperable. A scene of gloom lit by a small red fire, with the Wraiths slowly approaching as darker shadows until the moment when Frodo puts on the Ring, and the King steps forward revealed would seem to me far more impressive than yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings.....

I have spent some time on this passage, as an example of what I find too frequent to give me ’pleasure or satisfaction’: deliberate alteration of the story, in fact and significance, without any practical or artistic object (that I can see); and of the flattening effect that assimilation of one incident to another must have.

On Weathertop in FotR, Peter Jackson changes much of what was in the books and takes a very short encounter and makes it into - you guessed it - another fight scene. Does anyone see a pattern here? And not just any fight scene, but one that includes Aragorn doing all kinds of torch tricks.The ability to kiss horses and juggle torches does not make one a King of Men.

15. Time is again contracted and hurried, with the effect of reducing the importance of the Quest. Gandalf does not say they will leave as soon as they can pack! Two months elapse. There is no need to say anything with a time-purport. The lapse of time should be indicated, if by no more than the change to winter in the scenery and trees.

At the bottom of the page, the Eagles are again introduced. I feel this to be a wholly unacceptable tampering with the tale. ’Nine Walkers’ and they immediately go up in the air! The intrusion achieves nothing but incredibility, and the staling of the device of the Eagles when at last they are really needed. It is well within the powers of pictures to suggest, relatively briefly, a long and arduous journey, in secrecy, on foot, with the three ominous mountains getting nearer.

This is another relatively minor excerpt, as a large part of it deals with eagles. Regarding the time issue though, it does seem like in the movies the Fellowship leaves only a couple days after the Council of Elrond, instead of waiting 2 months and leaving during winter instead of autumn.

Z does not seem much interested in seasons or scenery, though from what I saw I should say that in the representation of these the chief virtue and attraction of the film is likely to be found. But would Z think that he had improved the effect of a film of, say, the ascent of Everest by introducing helicopters to take the climbers half way up (in defiance of probability)? It would be far better to cut the Snow-storm and the Wolves than to make a farce of the arduous journey.

Well, PJ certainly added his own twist to the snowstorm. By making Saruman the one who controls the weather (despite Tom saying in the books that nobody on two legs is a weather master), he adds another magic wizard-fight. Oh joy. While I am not sure whether or not Tolkien would describe this adapatation as a farce, it certainly wasn’t based on anything from the books. In all fairness, PJ did cut out the wolves. I guess they were making a farce out of his snowstorm - or was that Phillipa Boyens?

19. Why does Z put beaks and feathers on Orcs!? (Orcs is not a form of Auks.) The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the ’human’ form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flatnosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.

Alright, so the Orcs don’t look like birds per se. But they don’t look anything like men or elves either. They have 4 limbs, 2 eyes, 2 ears, a nose and a mouth, but other than that they bear no resemblance to the other races. No, in fact they are almost all dark-skinned and look like cockroaches frequently. Although in fairness they were squat. Also, the Uruk-hai apparently come from mud. Go figure.

20. The Balrog never speaks or makes any vocal sound at all. Above all he does not laugh or sneer. .... Z may think that he knows more about Balrogs than I do, but he cannot expect me to agree with him.

Likewise, one could say: ’PJ may think that he knows more about Balrogs than I do, but he cannot expect Elenhir to agree with him’.

It would seem that as one’s art improves, one’s lore declines. This is certainly true of John Howe, who dazzles us with his wonderful visuals. But in almost all of his paintings, instead of following the lore of the books he chooses to make up whatever suits him and use that instead. Such is his many depictions of Balrogs, completely against any conception that Tolkien ever wrote about. To quote Howe from an interview here about the Balrog, "I don’t know if it had wings either, but I thought wings would be great!" Sadly, the ’Balrog’ from PJ’s films was modelled after Howe’s, essentially only receiving a solid coat of flame, another inaccuracy. So while PJ didn’t have his ’Balrog’ fail in the same way Zimmerman did, he indeed did fail.

21 ff. ’A splendid sight. It is the home of Galadriel ... an Elvenqueen.’ (She is not in fact one.) ’Delicate spires and tiny minarets of Elven-color are cleverly woven into a beautiful[ly] designed castle.’ I think this deplorable in itself, and in places impertinent. Will Z please pay my text some respect, at least in descriptions that are obviously central to the general tone and style of the book! I will in no circumstances accept this treatment of Lórien, even if Z personally prefers ’tiny’ fairies and the gimcrack of conventional modern fairy-tales.

The disappearance of the temptation of Galadriel is significant. Practically everything having moral import has vanished from the synopsis.

The only thing I think that bears comment here is that Cerin Amroth is missing. Tolkien says that it is this hill where the heart lies, and considering PJ’s emphasis on the Aragorn/Arwen relationship, I am quite frankly astonished he did not include it here. Not only does it have (in my opinion) the best writing in the books, but it also is a key to the Aragorn and Arwen story - it is where they plighted their troth, and where Arwen lays herself to rest later. I think PJ missed out on a great opportunity by keeping it out. As for the temptation of Galadriel, Peter Jackson left it in. Finally. It was actually cut out of the movie first, and then restored a month later in time for the theatrical version. Great work PJ. At least you knew all along where the moral import of the story was.

22. Lembas, ’waybread’, is called a ’food concentrate’. As I have shown I dislike strongly any pulling of my tale towards the style and feature of ’contes des fées’, or French fairy-stories. I dislike equally any pull towards ’scientification’, of which this expression is an example. Both modes are alien to my story.

We are not exploring the Moon or any other more improbable region. No analysis in any laboratory would discover chemical properties of lembas that made it superior to other cakes of wheat-meal.

I only comment on the expression here as an indication of attitude. It is no doubt casual; and nothing of this kind or style will (I hope) escape into the actual dialogue.

For only the second time in this commentary, I have to admit that PJ is on top of things - when dealing with lembas.

In the book lembas has two functions. It is a ’machine’ or device for making credible the long marches with little provision, in a world in which as I have said ’miles are miles’. But that is relatively unimportant. It also has a much larger significance, of what one might hesitatingly call a ’religious’ kind. This becomes later apparent, especially in the chapter ’Mount Doom’ (III 213-5 and subsequently). I cannot find that Z has made any particular use of lembas even as a device; and the whole of ’Mount Doom’ has disappeared in the distorted confusion that Z has made of the ending. As far as I can see lembas might as well disappear altogether.

There is no apparent portrayal of lembas bread near Mt. Doom in the movies. Not that I can see this makes much of a difference to the story, but Tolkien seems to think so. The most important thing of note here is the comment Tolkien makes about the ending of the movie. Considering how many times the screen went black for a moment or two during the last 30 min of RotK, I think "distorted confusion" applies pretty well to PJ’s handling of this.

I do earnestly hope that in the assignment of actual speeches to the characters they will be represented as I have presented them: in style and sentiment. I should resent perversion of the characters (and do resent it, so far as it appears in this sketch) even more than the spoiling of the plot and scenery.

This is one of my favorite passages in this Letter. Let’s start out with speeches that actually belonged to the characters they were given to in the movies: Sam with the "what we’re fighting for" speech, and Theoden with his little call before the charge of the Rohirrim. Other notable speeches were changed or cut, like Gandalf’s description of "death" (i.e. Valinor) to Pippin, which wasn’t a speech at all before, and most of Saruman’s great speeches are cut out. But what makes this passage a favorite of mind is that Tolkien resents the perversion of his characters. Where do I begin with this one? I’ll just make a quick list: Aragorn not wanting to be King of Gondor, Arwen is a warrior, Frodo sends Sam away, Sam leaves Gollum alone with Frodo, Faramir acts like Boromir, Denethor goes absolutely psychotic, Gimli is nothing more than a clown, Legolas is super-elf, Treebeard doesn’t act until Merry and Pippin make him, Sauron is a giant Eye that says "I see you!", and others. But that list will do for now. The drastic change of these characters has always been a major point of criticism for me of the movies, as they take away from the story and mangle a great deal of the spirit of the books in the process.

Parts II & III. I have spent much space on criticizing even details in Part I. It has been easier, because Part I in general respects the line of narrative in the book, and retains some of its original coherence. Part II exemplifies all the faults of Part I; but it is far more unsatisfactory, & still more so Part III, in more serious respects. It almost seems as if Z, having spent much time and work on Part I, now found himself short not only of space but of patience to deal with the two more difficult volumes in which the action becomes more fast and complicated. He has in any case elected to treat them in a way that produces a confusion that mounts at last almost to a delirium. ....

The narrative now divides into two main branches: 1. Prime Action, the Ringbearers. 2. Subsidiary Action, the rest of the Company leading to the ’heroic’ matter. It is essential that these two branches should each be treated in coherent sequence. Both to render them intelligible as a story, and because they are totally different in tone and scenery. Jumbling them together entirely destroys these things.

Here is where the format of the movies must be called into question. PJ goes back and forth between the two branches of the story (which in the books are divided and described separately, without interruption), instead of leaving them separate. While I am by no means suggesting that we should have had 6 movies instead of 3, the change from Frodo + Sam to Aragorn and company was apparently at random, and muddled the story a bit. I myself do not object that much to it, but Tolkien kept them separate for a reason, and PJ chose to ignore this. The more important point about this passage is that in the movies, the "Subsidiary Action" of the other 6 members of the Fellowship often takes precedence over the "Primary Action" of the two Ring-bearers. Case in point: Helm’s Deep and Pelennor Fields last a huge amount of time, while very little time is spent on the idea of Gollum’s repentance and the journey in Mordor, which was hell for Frodo and Sam, but was portrayed very little in the movies.
 

31. I deeply regret this handling of the ’Treebeard’ chapter, whether necessary or not. I have already suspected Z of not being interested in trees: unfortunate, since the story is so largely concerned with them. But surely what we have here is in any case a quite unintelligible glimpse? What are Ents?

The handling of Treebeard I intensely disliked in the movies, both on the actor’s and screenwriter’s parts. John Rhys-Davies(sp?) handled the voice poorly, on account of "ents didn’t have lungs". That’s great - neither did Sauron, and he still talked like a normal person. Ents don’t talk like severe asthmatics. They talk like normal beings. But on the screenwriters part, Treebeard is far too hesitant and naive. For example, he somehow doesn’t realise that a quarter of his forest has been cut down by Saruman, and he only calls the ents to follow him when Merry and Pippin "show him the light". Very poor handling of it - Treebeard was not an idiot and he himself was not hesitant to go to war. And Ents are never really explained during the movies either.

31 to 32. We pass now to a dwelling of Men in an ’heroic age’. Z does not seem to appreciate this. I hope the artists do. But he and they have really only to follow what is said, and not alter it to suit their fancy (out of place).

In such a time private ’chambers’ played no part. Théoden probably had none, unless he had a sleeping ’bower’ in a separate small ’outhouse’. He received guests or emissaries, seated on the dais in his royal hall. This is quite clear in the book; and the scene should be much more effective to illustrate.

31 to 32. Why do not Théoden and Gandalf go into the open before the doors, as I have told? Though I have somewhat enriched the culture of the ’heroic’ Rohirrim, it did not run to glass windows that could be thrown open!! We might be in a hotel. (The ’east windows’ of the hall, II 116, 119,6 were slits under the eaves, unglazed.)

Even if the king of such a people had a ’bower’, it could not become ’a beehive of bustling activity’!! The bustle takes place outside and in the town. What is showable of it should occur on the wide pavement before the great doors.

My hats off to everyone who designed and built the Meduseld. The set was superb, and the artists deserve a round of applause. That was truly a great feat which they achieved. But a minor point about the scene in Meduseld is the brawl. Totally inappropriate for the setting. But compared to the wonderful job the designers and artists did for Meduseld, that is barely worth mentioning here.

33. I am afraid that I do not find the glimpse of the ’defence of the Hornburg’ this would be a better title, since Helm’s Deep, the ravine behind, is not shown entirely satisfactory. It would, I guess, be a fairly meaningless scene in a picture, stuck in in this way. Actually I myself should be inclined to cut it right out, if it cannot be made more coherent and a more significant part of the story. .... If both the Ents and the Hornburg cannot be treated at sufficient length to make sense, then one should go. It should be the Hornburg, which is incidental to the main story; and there would be this additional gain that we are going to have a big battle (of which as much should be made as possible), but battles tend to be too similar: the big one would gain by having no competitor.

So, on to Helm’s Deep: the huge, hour-long battle in a three hour movie that didn’t mean much to the story as a whole. We can see that if the ents and the battle at the Hornburg cannot both be given enough time to make sense, that the Hornburg should go. As a matter of fact, it would actually improve upon the Battle of Pelennor Fields if that happened. But were the ents given due time in the movies for their stories? I am inclined to think not - there is no entmoot, there is very little about the entwives and the nature of ents themselves (and most of these are in the EE), and overall it is primarily concerned with Merry and Pippin trying to convince Treebeard to attack Isengard, which only happens under flimsy circumstances. So instead of actually taking the time to explain more about the ents and their situation, PJ replaced them with elves that die en masse and had no business there in the first place. Not a good trade. As the quote clearly shows, the ents take precedence over the Battle of the Hornburg - at least in the real story. Too bad PJ didn’t realise that. 

34. Why on earth should Z say that the hobbits ’were munching ridiculously long sandwiches’? Ridiculous indeed. I do not see how any author could be expected to be ’pleased’ by such silly alterations. One hobbit was sleeping, the other smoking.

The spiral staircase ’weaving’ round the Tower [Orthanc] comes from Z’s fancy not my tale. I prefer the latter. The tower was 500 feet high. There was a flight of 27 steps leading to the great door; above which was a window and a balcony.

The only time that Orthanc is really seen close up is once in FotR, once in TTT, and once in RotK. There is no balcony over the main entrance, but there is one on another side of the building. Although in the RotK extended edition when Legolas kills Grima it seems like 2 miles up, overall I think the design was handled rather well.

Z is altogether too fond of the words hypnosis and hypnotic. Neither genuine hypnosis, nor scientifictitious variants, occur in my tale. Saruman’s voice was not hypnotic but persuasive. Those who listened to him were not in danger of falling into a trance, but of agreeing with his arguments, while fully awake. It was always open to one to reject, by free will and reason, both his voice while speaking and its after impressions. Saruman corrupted the reasoning powers.

I can’t really comment on this either, as Peter Jackson decided not to include this. I will say that this represents one of the biggest faults I have with the job he did - he did not include much of the true drama lying within the books and replaced it with self-invented and sub-par drama, such as the infamous Frodo-Sam scene in RotK.

Z has cut out the end of the book, including Saruman’s proper death. In that case I can see no good reason for making him die. Saruman would never have committed suicide: to cling to life to its basest dregs is the way of the sort of person he had become. If Z wants Saruman tidied up (I cannot see why, where so many threads are left loose) Gandalf should say something to this effect: as Saruman collapses under the excommunication: ’Since you will not come out and aid us, here in Orthanc you shall stay till you rot, Saruman. Let the Ents look to it!’

All one needs to do is read the first sentence of this excerpt and replace "Z" with PJ. Then everything seems clear. PJ did not want the Scouring of the Shire in, because of time constraints and also because he thought it was anti-climactic. So he changed Saruman’s death around completely - while he doesn’t commit suicide he is killed by Grima on the top of Orthanc after a scene that totally perverts part of the essence of the "Voice of Saruman" chapter from the books. The RotK EE scene with the death of Saruman was not only an unflattering perversion of the books, but it also includes Saruman shooting a fireball at Gandalf - the very embodiment of "irrelevant magic".

As you may have noticed, this post was not written with an objective mind. You can clearly tell that I am against Peter Jackson and the job he did with the movies, and I very clearly side with Tolkien in this instance. It is in no way intending to be rude or as a personal attack on anyone or their beliefs - I am simply presenting what Tolkien thought in full, adding some commentary of my own showing what PJ did and some of my own personal views, and posting. There was one paragraph of commentary that Elenhir wrote (no need to guess which one ), but other than that I wrote it all. I got the idea from a post BB made in this thread.

A question that no doubt will pop up is whether or not Peter Jackson actually knew of this letters existence. I can safely say that he did not when the movies were in production. In the commentary from the FotR EE DVD on the scene in which Gandalf is rescued from Orthanc, PJ asked why the Eagles could not simply carry the Fellowship to Mt. Doom, drop the Ring in there, and then leave. His co-writer, Phillipa Boyens, referenced this letter in her answer, not by name but by content. So I am safe in saying that although one of the co-writers did indeed have knowledge of Tolkien’s thoughts and feelings and chose to ignore them, PJ and Fran Walsh remained oblivious to it. Ahh, the benefits of doing no external research.

I hope that I have shown everyone just how far off PJ’s adapatation of the books was, and demonstrated just how perverted many of the scenes and occurances in the movies are from the books. The movies may have some pros, but on the whole they were not within the spirit of the books, and Tolkien almost assuredly would have disapproved of them. But you are not here to see what I have to say, so I will let Mr. Tolkien conclude the thread with his own final thoughts:

Part III .... is totally unacceptable to me, as a whole and in detail. If it is meant as notes only for a section of something like the pictorial length of I and II, then in the filling out it must be brought into relation with the book, and its gross alterations of that corrected. If it is meant to represent only a kind of short finale, then all I can say is: The Lord of the Rings cannot be garbled like that.

since BB’s post about this, I have been looking foreward to this thread.
although I have no acces to the letters myself, I have often explained many of the "errors" of PJ to friends, and this thread will prove verry usefull for that, I think

Got Melkor? - I think you did a fine job on the comparison, and fully agree with the conclusions in your post

got melkor, and all who were involved, a wonderful thread, and well put together.  I have a few things to add in myself in which drags down the movies.  Mostly it’ll just be to reinforce the important aspects of the movies that Jackson failed to accomplish.

You can tell movies now adays have gone spiralling down hill.  We got Hollywood running the show, with big action scenes, fire-blasting magic, and illtimed/illused humor.  They replace things like camera angles, character developement, tension/suspense, with huge fight scenes that serve no purpose.

I mean compare the movies we got today to Eight Men Out, or any of the Hitchcock movies, 12 Angry Men, Citizen Kane, and so on...and you’ll see the downward trend of movies today looking to appeal to a wide audience.  There are many things Jackson change which bring down the movies (from a movie perspective not when comparing it to the books).

1. Bad Time use.  A big problem in the movies creating inconsistancy within the films.  As mentioned by got melkor, Frodo doesn’t age while Bilbo does.  No regard to the 17 year period.  How are Elves able to get to Helm’s Deep in a matter of days?  How is Elrond able to get to Dunharrow in a matter of days?  How is Isengard 10 seconds away from Fangorn?  When on the map (created by Jackson in the Movies) it is where it’s placed in the books.

2. Bringing down the Characters.  I think this is one of the most important aspect of a film and book, more so then huge fight scenes, more so than the plot line, or the suspense.  It might be just me but the Characters in stories (and movies) is what I enjoy looking at and finding out about.  How people react to situations, whether their round flat, and what causes them to do what they do.  This is a big reason why I like Tolkien.  While many of his characters are said to be predictable and flat (which there is a case for), he still does a good job on the Characters.  He gives them their own personality, with their own ideas, and their own weaknesses (even Aragorn).  He supplies us with some of the most interesting, amusing characters to figure out (Saruman, Denethor, Boromir, Grima...etc) and some of these are ruined in the movies.

Jackson compromises good character developement with big fight scenes and people’s argument is "there wasn’t enough time in the movies."  As argued by myself, and others, if Jackson had cut down a lot of the unnecessary stuff, that are in the movies for no reason, there would be time to do more things. 

Denethor- As mentioned above, Denethor and Gandalf’s interactions are just unnecessary in the movies.  There is no reason for Gandalf to treat Denethor like a punching bag.  The confrontations between Gandalf and Denethor (which could have turned out good) ended in Denethor laying on the ground.  This is extremely out of Gandalf’s character.  He is not one to force people to do things.  He is good at getting people to do what he wants, but when it comes down to it, he always leaves it up to the person in charge (in this case Denethor).  Having him force people to do things only makes him another Saruman. 

I do not think the scene with Denethor screaming to his men to "flee," should have been in there, but it was and it could have worked but it’s all ruined by Gandalf slapping around the Steward.  This scene could have worked if Jackson had not overused Gandalf’s abuse.  If Gandalf simply had whacked Denethor once, Denethor could have come back to his senses, but no Jackson has to go beyond.  He has to have Gandalf give him a blow to the stomach, another whack across the head, and I was expecting Gandalf to kick him once he was down.  Absolutely useless.  A bad scence could have been made tolerable by a good director is only made worse by Jackson.

Gimli- There is no reason to make him a laughing stock.  I can understand some of the comedy in the movies.  I enjoyed Gimli’s character in the first movie, and it only got worse from there.  Jackson could have made Gimli a funny character, and still stay in the bounds of the dwarf’s character, but...no, he doesn’t.  For example I enjoyed the scene with Gimli and Eowyn talking about dwarf women.  But Gimli character turns into a cry-baby, scared, slow dwarf, which has non-book people saying "what’s the point of Gimli?  All he does is drag Aragorn and Legolas down."  There is no need to make Gimli a slow, slob (TTT burping when Theoden is talking), and comical fighter.  I can understand some comedy from Gimli, but in a battle, while fighting, there is no need for comedy, and sometimes touching in the Audience’s emotion works as well as comedy.  So in Gimli’s case you can say Comedy was also illtimed as there is a place for it, and there isn’t. 

Theoden’s death scene could have turned very emotional, very sad, but I didn’t even have time to notice "wow, he’s dead" by the time Aragorn showed up.  It’s like Jackson doesn’t even give you a chance to sympathize for what could have been a great scene (because it’s a good scene), when he drags in the green slime and I’m like "wow, that’s ruined."

On a closing not (for I would go longer but just don’t got the time), I agree with you got melkor about the exorcism scene.  I think by making Theoden under Saruman’s power, and needing the "demon" cast out of him, actually makes Grima a pointless character.  What’s the point of Grima being there if Saruman has Theoden under his control?  Grima plays a much bigger role in the books, and in the movies it’s like he serves no purpose. (Atleast in this scene)

Elenhir:

Lord Salazar: My personal hatred against PJ? Can you find a specific place where I call PJ an idiot, or illiterate, or any other insult? I am strong in my criticism, which I actually say in the post in my summation, but I do not resort to name-calling or other base attacks on PJ himself. I have presented what Tolkien thought, and what PJ did. I think it is abundantly clear that what PJ did goes against the spirit of the books and the will of the author. I am not complaining - I am proving to everyone in the movie forums the point that I have tried to make for the last year and a half. And if anyone wants to disagree with me, thats fine. But I notice that nobody has stepped forward to do that yet. Only three people that agree with Tolkien’s words and my post, and you, complaining about my "hatred" of Peter Jackson, which I have been unable to locate anywhere in this thread. But since you did not anything constructive to this thread and are not returning anyway, I guess none of that matters to you.

got Melkor, I pretty much agree with your critiques of the movies, to one degree or another.  I find this especially so in relation to the characterization.  Yes, PJ spent far too much time turning Legolas in super-elf (I do like the term, by the way ) and reduced the hobbits (especially Merry and Pippin) almost to minor characters.  Absolutely, far too much time was spent on the action/battle sequences, considering their role in the books.  Yes, I fundamentally disliked the portrayal of Faramir in TTT and Gimli over the course of the the latter two movies.  Yes, the denouement of the film (no scouring of the Shire) completely reverses the message of the movies vs. the message of the original book.  I fully agree that Tolkien himself would have been horrified at PJ’s screen treatment of his work.

As you might imagine, there is a "but" in all this.  Nonetheless, despite all the issues I might have with plot, theme and characterization in the movies compared to the book, I still find myself thrilling to the theatrical canvas painted by Jackson.  Even while screaming (among other epithets), "Frodo would never send Sam away!" or "Gimli is not a drunken buffoon!" or "That’s not Faramir!", I still found something magical about the film treatment.  I still found a remnant of Tolkien’s power despite all the issues I had.

Yes, Legolas killing the mumak and surfing down its trunk is ludicrous, yet somehow still appealing on a visceral level -- especially with Gimli’s comment "That only counts as 1!"

My suspicion in regard to the movies as to the reason behind the alterations that did frustrate us lies in the almighty dollar.  It seems clear the PJ concluded that a film giving as much depth to the hobbits as Tolkien did would be sufficiently profitable to warrant the making of it.  I suspect he was correct in this assumption -- while the films drew those of us who had been Tolkien lovers for years on end (Gosh, it’s been more than 35 years since I first read LOTR), it also drew those who had never heard of him before. 

So, while I agree with the criticisms raised, and admit to my own frustrations at the film treatment of my favorite literary work, I also accept that probably no one would (not could but would) make the film I’d want to see.  Or the film Tolkien would want, for that matter.  So, I accept what is, enjoy what I can, and recognize that the film is really PJ’s vision, not Tolkien’s.

Got Melkor?- I never said you called PJ names.

Elenhir- I choose not to argue with you. I foresee that it will go nowhere. And please refrain from calling me names or blurting spaztic insults at me. If i ofended you for merely liking a movie, then im quite sorry you think that way of me.

Alright im done so no need to argue with me i will not be returning.

got melkor? - thank you for taking all those thoughts that tumble about in so many of our heads and organizing them so that they make sense. While I can enjoy the movies, I still come away saying, "It’s not the same."

One point that I was expecting you to make, but didn’t see (correct me if I simply missed it), was when you referrenced Tolkien’s comment about Tom Bombadil.  The ’Old scamp’ paragraph makes me think of Aragorn at the end of the FotR film when he says *shudder*, "Let’s hunt some Orc!"  This is the only instance that comes to mind at present (due to the late hour), but I’m curious to know how many other lines of modern language usage has crept into PJ’s work.  This one in particular had me livid in the theater -- right at the end of the movie! -- which I had been critiquing the entire time, of course.  I was quite thankful that there was a drop of redemption immediately afterward in the Frodo & Sam scene as they turn to tackle the Emyn Muil.

Now I must go back up to that link regarding BB -- more fun reading, I imagine.

Bors: A very good post, and one that brings up an excellent point.  The movie is an admitted adaptation by Peter Jackson - Tolkien was not making the movie as he would have wanted it or as the purists would hve wanted; it was a director 30 years after his death who was doing so, for a mass audience. I don’t think that Tolkien himself thought that a perfect picture could have been made - and I think that he accepts that at least some differences need to be made: Time must naturally be left vaguer in a picture than in a book

But although the movies are PJ’s vision, I believe that it is this vision of PJ’s that is dentrimental to the books. Don’t get me wrong - the movies had their own unique contributions to the world of Tolkien, but primarily to me they represent something that is greatly opposed to many things Tolkien wrote: I have spent some time on this passage, as an example of what I find too frequent to give me ’pleasure or satisfaction’: deliberate alteration of the story, in fact and significance, without any practical or artistic object (that I can see); and of the flattening effect that assimilation of one incident to another must have.

And since it is above all the vision of Tolkien that we were brought here by, I think that the point must be accepted that the movies - regardless of the benefits that they have brought - are not in the spirit of the books. I do not think that everyone should be forced to accept this view, but after reading Letter #210 it seems to be the logical conclusion.

Lord Salazar: Then where does my personal hatred of PJ make itself evident?

Elanor Evermind:  Thanks. In point of fact the idea of PJ "updating" much of Tolkien’s language in the book and turning it into more "modern" English had not occured to me. But as you so pointed out, that is exactly what happened. I think that the PJ’s justification for this is relatively adequate - these movies were made for the younger generation and as such, the words need to be plainer and easier to understand (an example PJ didn’t use would be ghost instead of wight). I think this would have made Tolkien furious, if only because he was a professor of philology and hand-picked every word in the books. But I think he would have been irate if he heard the "Let’s hunt some orc" comment, as with things like the dwarf humor and the EE scene from TTT where Legolas shoots a dead orc and claims he was "twitching". The justification for this I think is less valid - PJ wanted to include more action and comedy then was to him evident in the books. I strongly hold the belief that if he had held on to more dramatic lines such as "Forth the Three Hunters" and kept in the Eomer - Gimli exchanges over Galadriel, he would have been better off. Thank you for bringing that point to my attention.

A brilliant thread. I’ve been hoping someone would give a thorough analysis of Letter 210. Fantastic job.