Dumbing it down

[radagastly]

Essex:

PS thinking of the UT book, wasn't the wormtounge scene incompatible with the final plot and changed inasmuch as the witch king did NOT meet up with wormtounge, but went straight to saruman instead? (ie wormtounge did not give gandalf away) - that's the problem in adding in work from the UT into any adaptation of LOTR

Yes, Tolkien seems to have decided (according to Christopher Tolkien) that two days was not enough for Gandalf to escape Orthanc, get to Edoras and have Wormtongue get back to Orthanc from Edoras to inform Saruman. In the final version, it was the "Slant-eyed Southerner" who betrayed Saruman to the Witch King.

This brings up a point about this adaptation and about the 'knock-on' effect that Saucepan mentioned (though, of course, that scene itself has nothing to do with it since it was in neither the book nor the movie!) Tolkien crafted his story with as much care as was possible, and to make changes risks creating problems down the line that need even more explanation, thus creating more changes etc.

In the commentary for "The Fellowship of the Ring," I believe it's Phillippa that says "we don't know for certain that [the hobbits] DIDN'T pass through the Old Forest and visit Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs, it's just not shown." (or something to that effect.) Then, just a few scenes later, Strider gives the hobbits their weapons, a plot change to cover the deletion of those scenes. Later, (in the extended edition) Galadriel gives Merry and Pippin weapons instead of just silver belts, probably to enhance the weapon's specialness (is that a word?) so that a 'special' weapon can be used two movies later to stab the Witch-King. Another change from the original. (Please note that I delberately chose an apparently non-controversial change.)

Obviously, there are basically three things you can do to any story to adapt it into a different art form. You can add to it, you can change it or you can delete from it. In 'Fellowship,' the primary tool used was deletion, excepting, of course, Arwen's part which was enhanced for reasons that, I believe, were previously discussed. For the most part, in 'Fellowship' this works well, and only seems to disappoint because we look forward to favorite scenes and characters that are now missing. For example, I would have loved to have seen the Barrow-downs scenes intact, ("intact" is a dangerous word on this thread,) but I didn't expect to. My disappointment came and went before the movie was even released.

In 'Two Towers' we have a different animal altogether. "Wargs attack the people of Edoras!" "Aragorn dragged off a cliff!" "Elves at Helm's Deep instead of Eomer!" "Frodo shows the Ring to the Nazgul! (in Osgiliath, no less)" etc. I know these changes seem gratuitous, and some of them are, but imagine a truly loyal telling of the plot of 'Two Towers.' The entire battle of Helm's Deep would have to be over and done with in the first forty-five minutes to an hour, and we'd spend the first ninety minutes without knowing what may have become of Frodo and Sam. In the book, this delay helps to build tension and enhance the epic qualities of the story. On the screen, it would have had even loyalists like us walking out of the theatre. Many of the structural changes were necessary simply because film is a completely different language than literature. In a movie theatre, we spend nearly half our time sitting in complete darkness staring at a blank screen, waiting for the next frame to pop up. We just don't notice the gaps, because they happen so fast. A book can be studied and reviewed and re-read for detail that is simply not available to a film audience sitting in a theatre.

Fordim:

I think I'm most like Saucy here. I just don't see the film and the book as the 'same' in any way; they are separate works, best regarded as separate. To claim that the movie is a dumbed down version of the book is like saying that an apple is a dumbed down version of an orange.

I must say, I agree, but with certain reservations. I much prefer Tolkien's carefully crafted plot choices to Peter Jackson's visually exciting ones. Not the structure of their telling, mind you, just the plot elements themselves. Jackson's changes did create plot-holes that were not present in the book and need not have been present in the movies, if more care had been taken in making the changes he made. I wouldn't necessarily say he was 'dumbing down' the book so much as he was occasionally 'dumbing down' his own story without covering it later. Still, that's an analysis after many viewings and I have to say I was still swept along by the films when I first watched them, and enjoyed them immensely.