I read the WHOLE tread and I applaud
Saucepan Man's defense of the movies. I totally agree with everything he said.
The problem with LotR is that it has a huge plot plus a huge package of moral virtues.
Now you also have some obligations to the fans and to the company who gave you all the money.
I mean PJ couldn't have gone of and done whatever he liked just to please the fans because there could have been a greater possibility that the movie could have been a flop which would cause New Line to lose lots of money and they would have to fire people etc.(People who work on set design,visual effects and so on)So he had to change some things.
About the characters being diminished.This is not an uncommon occurence,I have seen it before in other movies and I understand. In a book it is simple, the writer is able to bring the reader inside a character's head. However, with a movie that is more difficult. You can't write down a character's thoughts and long dialogues can get rather boring.
Also portraying Aragorn as a man with a shining star on his forehead sounds beautiful on paper. But it could look sissy or gaudy on screen. Plus how would you explain it without making it confusing or longwinded. Besides when I read the book I would always read over those parts of Aragorn and I always saw his human side. The side which they chose to show in the movies. However, I like it when I am able to connect to the characters because that is part of what makes the book special to me. There is a magical world with magical creatures and yet the people who inhabit it make human mistakes and are almost like us.
As for dumbing it down. I also don't like the phrase it makes us all sound so stupid. Rather it is the process of bringing a book to the screen and then put in things for the fans while also putting in things for a widely varying audience plus keeping in most of the moral messages. That is a daunting task.
As for Faramir. I was upset about the change untill I saw the EE,thought about it for a bit and heard the explanation of the screenwriters. Now I am okay with it and it makes sense to me. It takes a long time for some of the audience members to realize how evil the ring is and if Faramir had just done nothing all the work that the screenwriters did would have been in vain. Really some of my friends just didn't seem to get it. They used to tell me,"Its so stupid. They go through all this trouble for a stupid little ring." I heard these remarks all the time while the 1st and 2nd movie were coming into theatres.
I don't mind the change in Gimli's character because he is actually rather flat in the book as well. Although he is there during most of the LotR there is little you can do with him. So I can see that the screenwriters would give him the job of cracking jokes just as Legolas is left to the task of explaining the obvious for the dim-witted members of the audience.
As for another adaptation of LotR, I think it will be quite some time before it is made.
There was a comment earlier on in this thread saying that the movies might also have been dumbed-down and have more battles added for the teen audience. I find this offencive since I am a teen who watches movies like Amelie (French), The Pianist and A Beautiful Mind. Plus a whole bunch of foreign movies that my dad enjoys and watches all the time. Imagine a teen watching The secret Ballot, an extremely slow Iranian movie. Well...That's me.
