Mental Imagery
 

Has anyone who has re-read the book since watching the film, found that they now always see Mr. Jackson's imagery? I don't. I was reading it [again] recently, and I realised that even after seeing the film, on going back to the book, I reverted back to MY OWN mental pictures.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Owain son of Urien ]

An interesting topic, Owain. Yes I re-read the books following the movie and found, like you, that my mental images remained. At least to some extent. I found the movie helpful to my limited creativity, in that, Although I had clear mental images of the CHARACTERS, I did not have those same clear images of PLACES. I'm hoping TTT will help me to better understand Helm's Deep. I never could pull up a real good idea of what it lookes like. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

I agree. The characters, for me, remain the same in my mind as before I saw the movie. I do not think PJ will match up to my mental image of Treebeard at all.

But, Raefindel, I am as excited as you over his depictions of the background scenes - what khazad-dhum might have looked like, the immensity and splendor of the dwarven city; the settings of the cities; and especially, the battles - what the fortifications might have looked like, how the troops might have been deployed, etc. These are the scenes I can barely wait for in TTT and ROTK!

<font color=white> The movie has helped me form better mental images of the characters and places. Before the movie the characters etc. were kind of vague and fuzzy, but since the movie now i'm rereading the books again it's much clearer. When i read about Gandalf I see the Ian McKellen Gandalf. I think it makes reading the book much more enjoyable and I can't wait to see the Ents - I've never had a clear mental picture of them.

~*Varda Elentari*~

Some yes, some no... Bilbo and Saruman, Aragorn and Boromir,yes. I like the actors portrayals so much, I have no problem slotting them in. Bilbo is better than I imagined, the other three, I was just fuzzy on. Now PJ's orcs are all wrong for me, Tho I love the movie Gandalf, my imaginary one was just as good, I like my Legolas better (less "human") and my Gimli is shorter, cuter, tho the movie one is great. I like the movie Elrond cause I really hadn't conjured up much of an image for him, I don't know what to think about Arwen, Liv Tyler is very pretty, I like her, I just don't know what to do with that enhanced character when I read the book! I like all the hobbits, but picture them a little less "human" in my mind. Enough! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
[img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Liriodendron ]

Isn't that funny! Gandalf is portryaed exactly as I imagined him to be. However there is not an Elf in the entire movie that looks like I imagined.

I thought that about Gandalf, too. but then he's always the best-described character, certainly most artists agree on his looks as well. Otherwise, I have my own mental images, but i find that with things that were films first (like star wars),if i thinkabout the characters they gradually change to how i think they should look instead of how they do. maybe i'm just wierd... [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

My experience is a little different since I saw the movie before reading the book. When I started reading the book, I kept the descriptions of characters and places from the movie that I liked and altered those that I did not think really matched the character. For example, I kept the images of Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Gimli, Bilbo, Elrond, Sauron, the Nazgûl, and Boromir but somewhat changed my opinion on the appearances of Merry, Legolas, Galadriel, Celeborn, Haldir, Arwen, and Gollum.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: ElanorGamgee ]

In the book Boromir and Faramir both have dark hair.

Hi. I think that so far we seem to be roughly in agreement. When reading, we supply our own vision of the characters,[which may or may not coincide with the film version]; and are happy to have the film fill in backgrounds, settings, and battles, which most of us only had a hazy image of anyway.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Owain son of Urien ]

Welcome to the Downs, Owain.

Well, I actually see the movie caracters when I re read it. I only read LOTR once before, and had it read to me once before. It was very confusing because I was pretty young. When I saw the movie it had been I think 5 years since I last read the book so I only see the characters from PJ's version. I have also emursed myself so much in them that I have trouble seeing any memory at all that I had made before in my head. Oh Well! I have no problem at all with PJ's version!

Hi Arwen Imladris. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with having the film version as the images YOU see when you read the books. THEY ARE GREAT IMAGES and I don't have a problem with them either. My original query was simply to see if anyone who HAD already formed their own strong ideas, found them superceeded by the film.

On that note, I remember commenting to my hubby that the "bad" places were done better than I imagined them, (Moria, Saruman's war factory, Nazgul ) and the beautiful elvish places weren't as wonderful as I imagined them from the book. (Lorien, Rivendell...Rivendell was actually very nice, I just didn't see any elves that lived there running around, or singing, or poetry in the great halls, so it didn't seem real!)

[ July 13, 2002: Message edited by: Liriodendron ]

Hhhhmmm. I guess I'd have to agree with you on that, Liriodendron. The Elvish places weren't as magical or ethereal as they might have been.

I didn't have any problem, but most of the characters in the movie lived up to my standards. I found Gandalf, Boromir, and Legolas exactly the way I pictured them. The only character I have superimposed would be Elrond, because I liked the movie image much better than my image of him. Rivendell was magnificent and surpassed my imagination, but Lorien was different than I imagined.

The thing with me is that I never see things which I read about. It sounds a bit wierd, but I mean that I can never actually visualize places and people I read about. I don't know why, but it's always so with me. That's why I like all sorts of pictures.
As for the film, most everything in it was to my liking. But when I started re-reading the book, all the inages from the film were left outside it.
The only character whom I actually see and even hear while reading is Gandalf. All other characters are left in the film.

After the three years of the movie trilogy, I went back and read the books again, and I still had my own mental images I had created from my many readings in my head. A couple notable exceptions where the imagery was enhanced by the movies was the scene of the town of Bree and The Prancing Pony. Of the characters, only Sean Bean's handling of Boromir enhanced my mental image of that character. Now I don't see Sean as Boromir, but I see a more dynamic Boromir when I read of him now.

My mental imagery has generally remained the same. The characters are still, for the most part, bodies with indistinct blobs for faces, especially the Hobbits and Legolas. I think PJ and the team did a really good job for the backgrounds and the landscapes, but even these failed to influence me beyond a point. For me, the Hobbits will always be brown-haired, brown-eyed, slightly sun-tanned little people, despite PJ's odd insistence on fair eyes in his cast.