[radagastly]

The world is changed.I feel it in the water.
I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.

or:

When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificance, ther was much talk and excitement in Hibbiton.

Just a warning, this is a bit of a rant!

I have silently watched this thread with much interest, trying not to post because I had already seen it in the Dumbing Down the Books thread, subsequently closed by the esteemed Barrow Wight because of assorted personal vehemence about this topic (at least, I assume that's the reason-i.e. it became too heated and personal.)

In all of this, no one has mentioned the use of the prologue, a very tricksy device.

The first quote above is followed by twenty minutes (the producers stopwatch, not mine), of film depicting the Battle of the 'Last Alliance', including Gil-Galad and Aiglos, as well as Elendil's death and the severing of the Ring from Sauron's hand ( (Never mind that the BOOK indicates that Sauron was already dead when Isildur cut the ring from his hand. Even that's debatable.) and the death of Isildur. The fact in this is that as much debate as there is about "Wimpy" movie-Frodo compared to "Brave" book-Frodo or Arwen the courageous she-elf or the demure and unattainable princess of Imladris, no one seems to question the beginning of each telling of this story. Now, any financially successful author (and certainly any good editor) will tell you that a strong opening is essential to a successful project. Yet, no one seems to wonder that these two tellings of this story start almost three thousand years apart from each other.

Now, please don't think that I'm completely satisfied with the film as it is. There are many flaws, mostly when it diverges from Tolkien's thoughtful plot. I was also disappointed when the characters were radically changed from what Tolkien envisioned. I wonder, why is it that no one questions Peter Jackson's use of such an extensive prologue when Tolkien found no need for such a device? Even Bakshi summarized 'The Hobbit' with a prologue of sorts in his animated version some years ago. I have very little memory of the Bakshi version, except that the Black Riders were very frightening, and that he used a lot of 'live action' animation (Filming Live actors and then animating over top the negatives of that film).

So, what was wrong with Tolkien's opening of the story, his attack, as it were, that film-makers seem to avoid it? Why do they feel the need to 'explain' the Ring before we even encounter the main characters? Even in most films, we meet the main characters before we are confronted with the crux of the story. This is even more frequent in novels. So, why change from one device to another?

The answer lies in two DIFFERENT art forms. Film is not the same as literature! It's a different form of art. Tolkien had paragraphs or even chapters available to him to expound on characterization or plot details that were simply not available to Jackson. Even Jackson admitted that Tolkien's books, as written, were not filmable. This is absolutely true. Imagine "The Council of Elrond" filmed straight through. Fran and Peter origanally wrote it that way. The New Line producers said "no." It was nearly twenty minutes of talking with no action at all. TWENTY MINUTES! So, why would they put up with twenty minutes of prologue, when it was not present in Tolkien's book?

Because a good film exists visually. At it's best, a good film can have the sound turned off, completely silent, and still hold up. It doesn't need words. It shouldn't need words. It's about the pictures. Novels are all about words. That's more of a difference than most people seem to realize. One cannot worship in a painting of a cathedral, no matter how inspiring. You can worship before it, but you cannot enter in. You cannot touch the stone-work or smell the candles. Even if the picture can move and change as it does on film. It's still just a static picture until the next picture is edited in. It doesn't need dialogue. It's all about the visual images and how they are edited. And this editing plays on the psychology of the audience. Film-makers know this. It's their job to know how people will receive and interpret it, based on how they edit it and what specific images they are editing.

Getting to specifics, do most people realize that up until Elijah Wood's second to last day of filming, (and Andy Serkis's very last day!) the scene at Sammath Naur had Frodo pushing Gollum over the edge into the lava, after his finger was bitten off, just to get rid of the Ring? They (the film-makers) changed it at the last minute to be more like Tolkien's version of how it was portrayed. They decided it would simply not do to have a film about the internal struggle between Good and Evil end with a triumphant act of Murder. (and it probably would have elicited cheers from the audience, if they had left it with what they had already filmed.) Given another few years, they probably would have changed everything they altered to fit Tolkien, but that just wasn't practical.

One of the problems people seem to have with the film stems from the fact that Peter Jackson is also an artist, as was J. R. R. Tolkien. But they are artists working in two different media.

And as for "Moral Obligation," I think that when you are spending three hundred million dollars of someone else's money, you have a moral obligation to bring as much as your own artistry into the project as you can. P.J. went to the hospital out of sheer stress during the filming of this movie. He has been a fan of Tolkien since Junior High School (or New Zealand's equivilant) and wanted desperately to make these films. How much obligation would one expect him to morally expend?

There are many specific complaints addressed in this thread, most of which I frankly agree with. I wanted a braver, older Frodo. I wanted a nobler Aragorn and Faramir, especially Aragorn. I wanted a less gratuitous, more moral tale with more talking and less action. I got some of the talking back in the Extended Edition (the real version of the films), but not as much as I craved.

All in all, though, they are good movies. When Bakshi's version came out, they were the best filming of this story yet attempted. Granted, they were, at that time, the ONLY version of this story yet attempted on film, but it was nice to know that someone would even attempt it at all. Twenty-odd years later, P.J.'s effort is a vast improvement, with some flaws. The next attempt, probably twenty-some odd years from now, will succeed even more.

It is, I think, possible to film this story with considerably more loyalty to the way Tolkien portrayed it, and make a better film in the process. I can't prove that. I have only my faith in Tolkien's genius to say that. But so far, it's the best we have, and it's a lot. It's visually stunning (Thank you New Zealand, John Howe and Alan Lee!) and it's (mostly) loyal to Tolkien's themes. It's possible that some of the subtler themes that Tolkien conveyed escaped P. J.'s mind (Frodo's and Sam's relationship comes immediatly to mind, though there are others), or that he was aware of them (far more likely, considering how much time he spent on this project, and his world-wide search for experts) and chose to ignore them in order to make a good film in the space he had, but that is something we will never know.

What I want to know is, what's wrong with starting the story with Bilbo's birthday party? Is the exposition of the Ring that difficult to fit into the text on film as opposed to in a book?

The world is changed.

Of course it has. How could it not?