Did your View of the Characters change after seeing the films? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

mollecon · 04-20-2004, 06:06 AM

Actually, I thought (some of) the characters in PJ's movies were more interesting than the ones Tolkien himself describes! That's got nothing to do with Tolkien being a bad writer (I love the books, have read them many times!), but a lot to do with the particular style and tradition Tolkien is writing 'on'. PJ and his co-writers probably realised that if these persons were gonna live on the screen, and have an appeal to an audience that didn't know the books - they had to make them more 'modern', and less mythological, in terms of their psychology/personality. For instance, in the books it seems reasonable enough that you have a person coming out of nowhere who's totally immune to the Ring's power - that wouldn't have worked in the movies (I'm referring to Faramir, of course

). I also like the Aragorn in the movies - the one in the books is rather two-dimensional.

I guess it is true that some of the other characters in some way payed a penalty for this change. Both Gimli & Legolas are to an extend 'non-characters' - comic relief yes, but not much beyond that. But if you look in the books, they aren't really much more developed there.

04-20-2004, 06:06 AM	#11
mollecon Wight Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 188	Actually, I thought (some of) the characters in PJ's movies were more interesting than the ones Tolkien himself describes! That's got nothing to do with Tolkien being a bad writer (I love the books, have read them many times!), but a lot to do with the particular style and tradition Tolkien is writing 'on'. PJ and his co-writers probably realised that if these persons were gonna live on the screen, and have an appeal to an audience that didn't know the books - they had to make them more 'modern', and less mythological, in terms of their psychology/personality. For instance, in the books it seems reasonable enough that you have a person coming out of nowhere who's totally immune to the Ring's power - that wouldn't have worked in the movies (I'm referring to Faramir, of course ). I also like the Aragorn in the movies - the one in the books is rather two-dimensional. I guess it is true that some of the other characters in some way payed a penalty for this change. Both Gimli & Legolas are to an extend 'non-characters' - comic relief yes, but not much beyond that. But if you look in the books, they aren't really much more developed there.