Another quibble with PJ movies

[Lalwendë]

Funnily enough, I was only discussing this with davem a couple of weeks ago. We'd decided to watch a DVD and through process of elimination (namely tossing a coin several times) we ended up watching FotR. We were talking about how the introductory sequences act as a kind of 'narrator' for the film's storyline and then we are suddenly plunged back into the familiarity of The Shire. The film opens with Bilbo at his desk and all is well. We were wondering how different the film would have seemed had Jackson decided to begin it with the Hobbits and show us The Ring, and then plunge us into a 'revelation' that this Ring was in fact a very perilous thing for Bilbo to own. It wouldn't have taken up any more time.

Well, we thought it would have worked much better to have it this other way, but for one thing. Jackson was aiming at a particular demographic with the films and it suited that aim better to go right away into 'swords and sorcery' than to begin with Hobbts doing 'boring things' like farming and writing at their desks. Cynical I suppose, but that's the way film-making works these days, and also we remembered reading the books and the sense of shock and horror that dawned on us as Gandalf revealed what this Ring really was, something that was missing from the films.