The Capturing of Myth

[Imladris]

This may sound like a bookish sort of topic but please bear with me.

C.S Lewis (close friend to Tolkien and fellow Inkling) defined myth as follows:

1. It is extra-literary. In other words, someone can tell you the story line or synopsis of the plot and it affects you even though you have not read it. IE, the way it was written is not what moves you, it is the story in and of itself.

2. We don't get tired of a myth. We always come back to it. Each time we read it it is deeper than before. It doesn't become stale. It draws us. We are never bored with it.

3. We don't get to know characters that well. They are like "shapes moving in another world." We don't really know them. (This one isn't a necessity, but a myth can be like that, the story of Orpheus for example, or it doesn't have to be like that, Chaucer's Troilus).

4. It is fantasy, dealing with events that cannot be explained by nature.

5. It is grave. There may be joy, but ultimately it is grave. There is no such thing (according to Lewis's definition) as a comic myth.

6. It is awe-inspiring,

I'm sure that we can all see how LotR is like this, so I won't go and outline how LotR fits all those categories.

A lot of the threads in the movie forum, in my most humble opinion, complain about how Jackson changed the movie, how he didn't get the Grey Havens right, how he brought elves to Helm's Deep, etc. etc. etc.

So my question is this: How well do you think that Jackson captured the essence of Tolkien's myth outlined above?

Think of the Grey Havens. A lot of people thought it was too long. Others thought it was too bright. The thing is, Tolkien didn't really describe it to us (classic myth right there along the lines of moving shape) so it was left to our imagination. But what did Jackson capture? He captured the face that myth is grave, he captured the themes of doom and fate.

1. We don't have to watch the movie to feel affected by Lord of the Rings.

2. Some like to watch it over and over (of course in a different way than reading the books).

3. In the movie we feel sorry for Frodo and for Sam and for Pippin and for the others. But we also feel sorry that it had to be like that. We feel sorry that the good has left. Naturally, in a movie it was difficult to portray this fact so it's not as clear cut as in the book, but at the end we are still feeling sad. We feel sorry for Frodo but the general atmosphere of the movie is bitter-sweet.

4. Of course the movie is "fantastic" in more ways than one.

5. It is a grave movie. It's a sad movie.

6. I'm not sure if the movie could be awe-inspiring...but the cgi was good. The story was still the same story with adjustmants of course but as I said, it's a movie. It's different.

So do you guys think that Jackson did a good job capturing the general mythic feel, or did he fail abysmally?

Please give well thought out reasons for your opinions. Thank you.