Frodo v's Elijah

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Lathriel

All in all I think Elijah did well with the material tha was given to him.

On the whole, it is customary for people here to excuse performances that they did not like by reference to the material (aka the "blame it all on Jackson, Boyens and Walsh" approach). In general, I think that this approach is justified. For example, I think that John Noble turned in a great performance but, given the way the character was written, he was never going to be anything like the Denethor of the book.

There are, however, two notable exceptions to this in my view. Orlando Bloom's performance was good, but (largely in view of his inexperience) he appears poor next to such accomplished actors as Messrs McKellen, Hill, Bean and Rhys-Davies. I can't see that being any different, even had all his lines come straight from the book.

I would say the same about Elijah Wood, but for two things. First, he is a far more experienced actor than Orlando. And secondly, in view of the (to my mind) stunning performance that he turns in during in most of the Mount Doom/Sammath Naur scenes, it seems to me that he was more than capable of putting in a better performance throughout the entire film trilogy than he in fact did.

I agree that film Frodo is, in many respects, a markedly different character to book Frodo and that this accounts for many of the issues raised here. But I do think that he was capable of doing, and therefore should have done, better (regardless of the material).