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Originally Posted by Elladan and Elrohir
I certainly don't disagree with you and CT that the book is unfilmable. It is. That's why all these changes are required if you want to make a movie version. You can't convey the meaning of a dark form wreathed in flame and shadow in a film like you can in a book. You can't convey the meaning of an evil thing in spider-form in a film like you can in a book. And so, when you make your movie, you have to turn those into monsters, essentially.
But yeah, that's why the movie will never be able to touch the book, is because of stuff like that. Stuff that film will never, ever, ever be able to capture.
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But that's the point. I've never thought of LotR as a 'fantasy' novel (I'm not a fantasy fan & find most fantasy juvenile & pointless as well as unreadable), yet the movies are fantasy movies - possibly why I dislike them. Fantasy novels are full of giant spiders & giant fiery demons & the like. LotR is not like that. The point of Shelob (& the only way in which she is bearable to me) is that she is 'an evil thing in spider form'. Reduced to a 'giant spider' she is just another D&D type 'monster'. It is the 'explanation' of her true nature (which as you say can only be communicated by a narrator) which gives meaning & depth to the encounter & raises it above the level of 'sword & sorcery'.