Why Can't Movies Be Like Books?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sir Kohran

I think it's an improvement. It shows that anyone, no matter how honourable and tough, can be corrupted by the Ring. On the other hand, Tolkien's Boromir is a crude, ignorant thug who's marked for betrayal pretty much from the start and is hard to feel much sympathy for when he's killed.

Again, that's a matter of opinion. StW's point was that movie Boromir's death was more moving than book Boromir's. My point was that if you completely re-write the character to make him more sympathetic/likeable its not difficult to make his death more moving, & that if you re-wrote Sauron's/Saruman's/Wormtongue's/The Balrog's characters to make them more sympathetic/likeable then their death's would be more moving than in the book. And if you rewrote Theoden's character to make him a nasty piece of work his death would be less moving.

And if you gave the Ring the voice of a little girl with a cute lisp we'd all be a little sad when it went into the fire - but that's not what Tolkien wrote. As far as Boromir goes, Tolkien gave us a very specific type of person in order to explore the effect of power on someone like that. The scriptwriters basically took the easy way out in order to get an emotional climax to their movie.

Do you really think people go to the movies to see half an hour of people talking? No, they go to see drama, action and emotion. And of course the producers and directors are eager to cater them. Believe it or not, that's how successful movies are made - they cater to the audience.

Well, that's only true if the audience you're aiming at is a spotty 17 year old ...