I've also been trying to get my thoughts together for a few days. And now that
Huey has given a baseline it's given me a few ideas.
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Originally Posted by Huey
And all of those can work! I strongly believe that any story concept can be well-written, however outlandish it seems. But to do it properly, you have to know the canon well enough to see exactly what changes you need to make - and to make only those changes, and know what the consequences of them will be.
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I agree and a few examples to show good changes from poor (imo)
Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring. I remember from the extended commentaries Jackson stating when making decisions on what needed to be cut, or not, they went by the general guide of "if it's not about Frodo and the Ring it needs to advance the story to have a reason to stay in." So, obviously he brings up having to cut out Bombadil, but also interesting that he mentions cutting out the scene when the Fellowship was attacked by wolves at night. He said Frodo, the Fellowship, and the Ring had to get from point A to point B and the wolf attack wouldn't add anything extra to advance that story. But he made the decision to keep Gandalf's imprisonment in Orthanc, because that was an ancillary scene so we knew what happened to Gandalf when he never showed up in Bree. This is why I think Fellowship of the Ring was the best film Jackson did, because he stuck to a pretty clear purpose in making the choice "this story has to be about Frodo and the Ring. If it does not involve Frodo and the Ring, then it has to advance the story to stay in." Like the audience would want to know why Gandalf wasn't where he said he was going to be. If only he showed this kind of clear thinking and vision in The Hobbit movies. Instead of throwing in everything with the kitchen sink, and Bilbo getting lost in his own movies.
If you haven't watched the extended commentaries, I think they would be quite helpful in understanding the questions you raise here. I don't agree with all the changes Jackson made, but he explains a reason for a lot of them, and gives a better understanding of their own creative thought process.
Now, perhaps a bad example. Again, at least in my opinion, but others might feel differently. I really enjoyed Bakshi's
Lord of the Rings (even viking Boromir and pantsless Aragorn) but I didn't like either of the Rankin/Bass's
The Hobbit or
Return of the King. It wasn't so much there was no Beorn or Arkenstone story. Sometimes just cutting something out is a good thing for fanfiction writing. I just didn't get it, The Rankin/Bass
Hobbit left me with more questions than it should have because of a poor conclusion. Like for some reason we are told 8 dwarves died, but besides Thorin and Bombur we don't know who died and who survived, because Bilbo never says bye. Gandalf just says Thorin and Bombur died, ok time to go home. I feel like they could have just cut down the number of dwarves in the Company, because apparently the rest aren't important enough to know what happened to them. At least tell us which ones didn't make it!
