Did your View of the Characters change after seeing the films?

[Lobelia]

When I first heard they were going to make a film of LOTR, I thought what a brave man PJ was, because no matter who was cast some would complain about the casting being wrong and others would complain that the way they had imagined the characters was now contaminated. This has certainly happened, including in this discussion forum. And fair enough, everyone has their own vision.

To tell the truth, if there's any "contamination" for me, it's with the radio play rather than the film.When reading the book, I still hear Robert Stephens' voice as Aragorn and Ian Holm as a more mature Frodo than Elijah Wood, who was really too young for the role, wonderful as he was. Ian Holm's Frodo was more like the one in the novel, but he had a script that allowed him to do that.

I think the film made visual some of the things we read about in the novel, and it humanised some of the characters - Aragorn may have been less wise, but he was more human, and ditto Faramir. It's kind of hard to love a character who has no flaws and is never afraid or doubting. When Aragorn knelt to the hobbits in that scene of the film, you could believe it, perhaps even more than in the field of Cormallen scene in the novel. Arwen was not so very different, just gutsier, but all this did was make it clearer that this was a woman Aragorn could love. Gimli and Legolas both acted as comic relief in a way they didn't in the book, yes, but at least you could see they were friends and why - in the novel, they entered Lothlorien still bickering and left it as dear friends, no explanation. You knew they would be - all the film did was show it happening. So, no, my interpretation didn't change, not really. Things were just clarified for me.

And for the record, I thought the casting perfect. The actors may not all have been the way I imagined them when reading the book, but while I watched the films, I believed. They convinced me they were Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, etc.

[Vanya]

The biggest change for me is visualisation of characters. Now, I can see them only like cast from the movie. But I don't think that's so bad, since I liked the cast in the first place (except Galadriel who is not pretty and delicate enough). Elves in background were like dragqueens, mostly (with blond hair and black eyebrows), with some exceptions. I missed Glorfindel, Eladan and Elrohir.
I liked Lothlorien, which I immagined very similar, but Edoras was disappointment (it looked like some russian village).
I can draw the strict line betwen book and movie, and they don't interfire. That helped me overlook improvisations in screenplay, and I could wach LOTR totaly openminded. And strangely, the more I read and wach, the bigger is the gap between them.

[Essex]

re reading lotr after fanatically watching the cartoon, films and listening to the bbc radio adaptation, my brain automatically hears the voices from these adaptations. ie usually I hear elijah and sir Ian now as frodo and gandalf, but a lot of my 'voices' come from the bbc radio adaptation, as this had a lot more dialouge taken straight from the book. I definately hear treebeard, theoden and elrond as their voices from the bbc adaptation. for some reason I hear John Hurt's cartoon Aragorn a fair bit, but then sometimes it's the radio voice, and then sometimes viggo...... but (and even though he's one of the biggest stars of the films) I never hear andy serkis's voice as gollum. I always hear Peter Woodthorpe (I think that's his name) because he played him both in the cartoon version and the radio adaptation.

the only character I think jackson got wrong was Merry. I'm not dissing Mr Monahan (even though he IS a man utd fan), as he acted superbly well, but Merry (to me) wasn't as much of a 'street wise' figure as Dom plays him. I saw him as mild and meek up until the point he finally 'comes of age' when he helps defeat the witch king. I always well up at this point of the book, but don't have the same emotion when seeing it on screen.

[Gothmog]

To start with, I can´t agree with you about Boromir beeing a bad guy. I´ve always thought of him as a victim of the evil powers of the ring and its master. He didn´t want to hurt Frodo or take the ring, but he´s just a human and couldn´t resist its powers. I pity him more than think he´s a bastard. Of course I´m not saying that you´re wrong, it´s only my opinion...

There are two characters that I´m really disappointed of in the movies: Gimli and Faramir. Gimli is like a dwarf on a cirkus, always to short, can´t ride a horse without falling of and making rude noices in front of Eowyn . Thats not how I pictured him before I saw the movies (well, I´m not picturing him like that afterwards either).

I might have the wrong impression (it´s been over a year since I last read the books), but as far as I remember, Faramir believed the hobbits quite quick, and I know that he didn´t drag them all the way to Osgiliath. He seems more proud, less friendly and helping in the movie. I don´t think Faramir is the sort of man that wants to keep the ring for himself, or his father.

Well that´s my opinion...Even if I´m not too happy with some of the characters, I think that the movies are GREAT. PJ has succeeded in making the greatest adventure ever to a real good movie-triology...Good work!!!

[bilbo_baggins]

I enjoyed both the movie and the book. I believe you're right in thinking that the movie changed some things about the book, and vice versa.

When I read the book, I always pictured (now this can get weird) Aragorn more as a symbol of the letter "A", and Gandalf as a "G", and Gimli as a short "G", Legolas as "L", so forth. Kinda weird, but I never really put a face to the names, I just sort of imagine the names walking around as 3-d figures.

The movie changed that, in that it placed faces over the names, and it morphed some of the dramatic scenes for me. I don't dislike either one, but it has a strange clash.

Nice topic, by the way

[Failivrin]

i tried to read the book aged about 9 but i got scared around the Barrow Downs so i stopped.

When i heard there had been a movie made i decided that i shouldprobably read the books before seeing the film. However, before reading the books i read the short picture guide to FOTR and the first i ever knew about Aragorn was the picture of him in that book. Therefore i have never visualised Aragorn as anything but Viggo's portrayl of him, although the accent is obviously better in my head.

The film changed my vew of Pippin in that it made me like him less; PJ portrayed him as stupid and kind of the clown of the first film, which really annoyed me. i find Pippin very funny in the book, but not in that was; in a more gentle way. So it has changed my view of Pippin.

I categorically refuse to acknowledge much of the film-version of Faramir. when i watch David Wenham i hear his voice but i see book Faramir and i see the bok storyline too.

[ArathorofBarahir]

Mine didn't change. After I saw the trilogy my views of each character was the same as it was when I finished reading the books.

[elle]

In the books, Merry and Pippin were more serious about the journey, and seemed to fight more. In the film, they are a little more comical than I thought they were in the book, and seemed weak, and a little stupid at times. Don't get me wrong I still love the two.

[ElberethVarda]

It changed mine a lot. I imagined Gimli and Leholas a lot different, for the most part. And I always thought of Frodo as older and wiser than the other three. I had just read the books before I saw the movie, and the movie blew me away. They changed it a lot, but I still liked them. I love them now. I guess you get used to it.

[The Only Real Estel]

Now that I think about it, the movies really have impacted my view on a few of the characters:

*Treebeard- I never could really imagine how he looked, or make sense of the description, although the movie's version of him is obviously not exactly to the book, I have a lot more to go on when I try to visualize him.

*Frodo- I imagined him as the typical hobbit, a bit less hefty because of his frequent walks that he liked to take, but still more or less the typical hobbit. I've got to admit that I like his movie look a lot better, PJ really did a good thing when he aged Frodo down to about 20 something (in the movies of course).

*Orcs- I always imagined them as these dark, hairy creatures, but you couldn't really see anything except their red eyes, very steriotypical of me . When I first saw them in Fellowship of the Ring I thought two things:
Oh yeah, this is definitly how Orcs should look...
-&-
This is going to be an awesome movie!

[Kitanna]

There are really only two characters that changed so much from the books it bugged me.
Faramir is such a jerk in TTT that I wanted to kill Peter Jackson. In the book he was so different from Borormir and so wise too. But in the movie he acted like Boromir did only wanting to take the Ring to bring honor back to Gondor.
The other character was Eowyn. I loved her in the books. She was so strong and valiant. But in the movies up until she defeats the Witch King I thought she was whiny. I think they overplayed her love for Aragorn and didn't bring out anything about how she falls in love for Faramir. But my biggest problem was just how annoying she got everytime she talked to Aragorn.

[Eowyn Skywalker]

My views of the book characters did not change, as I still have them in my head, if you know what I mean. So when I read the book, I hear them as I think they should sound, not the movie characters. I see the characters as they should've looked, in my opinion. Some of them are like the movie characters, some are like the FotR game characters... though I still have trouble invisioning Old Man Willow, as I see willows... as... well... willowy.

The cartoon also never changed anything to me, though I see my orcs as similar to them, glowing red eyes... tee hee.

But the movie never really changed my outlook on the books, as there are so few scenes that match up. Sure, it corrected a few things, like hobbit holes, but I still see Lothlorien as a shining place, not dark, unless it's where Frodo looks into the mirror, which I still see as more of a lake. I see hobbits as more, well rabbity creatures.

The movie didn't change my views, not even of Faramir, though for a while I would've killed to see him as Tolkien portayed him. Although at times I will see Elrond as Agent Smith, and I still can invision Saruman with a lightsaber, saying 'join with me, Gandalf, and together we shall defeat the Sith'. But other then that, when I read the books, the characters are as I originally seen them.

Well, that's all I have to say for now.

-Eowyn Skywalker