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Originally Posted by radagastly
Yes, Tolkien seems to have decided (according to Christopher Tolkien) that two days was not enough for Gandalf to escape Orthanc, get to Edoras and have Wormtongue get back to Orthanc from Edoras to inform Saruman. In the final version, it was the "Slant-eyed Southerner" who betrayed Saruman to the Witch King.
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Time.
Another major inconsistency in the movies.
Obviously, in converting a book to a movie, there will be a reduction in the time you have to show something. Obviously, you can't convey nearly as well the enormous amounts of time spent doing nothing. It isn't important to the film that there are 17 years between the Farewell Party and Gandalf's return. Nor is it important that Frodo "really" leaves Bag-End half a year later, and not the next morning.
And yet.... and yet....
It doesn't feel right.
The
Lord of the Rings is a great, world-changing epic, and like most world-changing events (by world-changing I mean in middle-earth, not the real world), it takes TIME.
Does it feel right that a Ring that lay lost for 3000 years, and then right under Gandalf's nose for 60+ years is discovered by Gandalf to be THE One Ring in the course of, what the movie shows, as about 3 months? It doesn't feel right.
However, this is rather piddly stuff, and as such, it isn't much of an issue for me. Jackson does a great job in moving the Fellowship along its course to show the passage of time. Two weeks from Rivendell to Caradhras feels right. Three days in the Mines feels right. A month in Lorien feels possible (especially in light of Sam's queries on the River). A good job was done in the Two Towers of showing the elapsing of time.
Then, in the Return of the King, Jackson shoots his own work down, and has Elrond make it to Dunharrow in what appears to be a matter of a couple days, after establishing how long it took Aragorn to get there (if by a slightly longer route) from Rivendell. The journey of Frodo and Sam across Mordor, and the parallel journey of Aragorn's army also doesn't work in the same way the previous movies did. And the journey back to the Shire? What journey? It isn't even HINTED at.
Then, what REALLY baffles me: the amount of time from Frodo's return to the Shire until his departure to the Grey Havens. Jackson LENGTHENS the amount of time. After his shortening of time elsewhere, why on earth is he doing this? (Evidence: as Frodo is leaving for the Havens, we have a voiceover by him that it is four or five years, I forget which, since some event at the start of his quest. I apologise for the vagueness of the quote, but it was very clearly TOO much time. Frodo left in 1421. His quest occurred in 1418-1419. It wasn't four years since ANYTHING in his life. Let alone five.)
Has this distortion of time, more especially the inconsistency in its usage, and the lack of any apparent reason in some places, annoyed anyone other than me? I think that it constitutes a very genuine "dumbing down" of movies. Not because it was a change from Tolkien, but because it was done inconsistently, sometimes with no real reason, and quite often for the benefit of "the audience".