LotR1-FotR-Seq07

[Boromir88]

This is probably one of the scenes I picture Tolkien not liking. In his rant against Zimmerman, Tolkien seems to criticize the same things that Jackson ends up doing:

11. Aragorn did not ’sing the song of Gil-galad’. Naturally: it was quite inappropriate, since it told of the defeat of the Elven-king by the Enemy. The Black Riders do not scream, but keep a more terrifying silence. Aragorn does not blanch. The riders draw slowly in on foot in darkness, and do not ’spur’. There is no fight. Sam does not ’sink his blade into the Ringwraith?s thigh’, nor does his thrust save Frodo’s life. (If he had, the result would have been much the same as in III 117-20:4 the Wraith would have fallen down and the sword would have been destroyed.)

Why has my account been entirely rewritten here, with disregard for the rest of the tale? I can see that there are certain difficulties in representing a dark scene; but they are not insuperable. A scene of gloom lit by a small red fire, with the Wraiths slowly approaching as darker shadows until the moment when Frodo puts on the Ring, and the King steps forward revealed would seem to me far more impressive than yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings.....

I have spent some time on this passage, as an example of what I find too frequent to give me ’pleasure or satisfaction’: deliberate alteration of the story, in fact and significance, without any practical or artistic object (that I can see); and of the flattening effect that assimilation of one incident to another must have.(Letter 210)

Now grant it this is Tolkien going off on Zimmerman, however I can see a lot of similarities between Tolkien's rant against Zimmerman, and what Jackson did. Because, he did turn it into a scene of "scream and slashings." Where to Tolkien that's not the significance of the scene, the significance is the quiet, suspense, and terror of Nazgul closing around. Where Jackson turns this Weathertop scene into a fight to appease to pleasure and satisfaction.

I bolded the last paragraph specifically, because Tolkien says he can see and atleast accept artistic license, but he hates seeing his story changed for the purposes of "pleasure." With this scene, I'd say Tolkien would not have liked seeing if he watched the movies.

For me, I'm kind of mixed. Because, I think there's just way too much fighting throughout the movies. At many points I felt like characters and meaning was sacrificed with large-scale fight scenes. As an old-timer (and yes I know people will disagree) I'm not too big onto fight scenes and special effects, I like the old movies. So, for me, I'm not too happy seeing Weathertop turn up into "screams and slash."

However, the problem still remains as to how to solve this scene, and get the Nazgul to go away without all the slashing? Because, I do agree with Essex in shouting "Elbereth Gilthoniel" and having the Nazgul run away, not only would most be confused, but I think a lot of people would view it as humorous...and think...Nazgul are afraid of words?

[Lathriel]

The only thing that realy bothered me with weathertop was that Strider just left the hobbits for no apparent reason. He's like,"Here are your swords,bye." He doesn't even tell them to keep a fire going since ringwraiths are afraid of it. I think this is a crucial point, so why didn't Strider inform the Hobbits about it?
Even if the ringwraiths didn't make any noise in the book their screams in the movie worked for me. Especially inROTK I found them to be very creepy.
Also as I mentioned in the other thread, I don't like the orc-breeding.
One thing that I dol ike of the Isengard sequence is the moth, especially because the music that accompanies it is gorgeous. I also like the industrialization part because it illustrates one of Tolkien's major concerns and at least PJ and crew drew attention to that aspect.
More later,if I have time.

[Essex]

Originally Posted by Lathriel

The only thing that realy bothered me with weathertop was that Strider just left the hobbits for no apparent reason. He's like,"Here are your swords,bye."

Yep. Change the story and that's what you get! 'I'm going for a look around' - doesn;t sound very Tolkien does it? That's what you get when you mess with the plot. Where on earth did he get 4 hobbit sized swords from? not in movie Bree, as there were no other hobbits there. How did he know there were 4 hobbits travelling? He didn't - if Gandalf had somehow got news to him then he would have had two swords for frodo and sam.

I'm moaning about this as they really got their swords from the barrow wights via good old Tom Bombadil - Bring back Tom! that's what I say. When my mini series get's made, he's gonna be one of the biggest stars!

[Lathriel]

I don't neccessarily think Tom had to be in the movie although it would have been nice if he had. I would simply like to have had a better explanation from Aragorn. For example he could have told the hobbits that The Ringwraiths are afraid of fire and don't make too much noise. That is another little peeve of mine, the hobbits make enough noise to attract attention from any creature who happens to be 5 minutes away from weathertop..

[alatar]

Can't really justify placing Tom in the movie just to give the swords their lineage, but on the other hand the fact that Aragorn just happened to have four 'long knives' just laying around is a bit silly. And though some of us have gone round and round regarding Merry's W-K bane, the fact that Aragorn chases *five* of them away with a little more than a no name sword and a torch begs the question: so just how hard is it to defeat these wraiths?

One was put off by thrown luggage, another or the same wasn't able to make any headway after surprising four hobbits in darkened woods while on horseback, and the Lord of Angmar himself simply sticks Frodo to the ground instead of killing him (like Saruman taunted Gandalf with) and fails to recover the One Ring because some Ranger just happens to show up with a torch.

I would conclude that PJ lessened the mystery of these creatures and erased much of their backstory so that they could be dealt with by Aragorn, around whom much of this action movie centers.

Bring on the mini-series!

[Essex]

i'm in an argumentative mood here!

'justfy' tom? OK, understand this point from a point of view of cutting down time in the movie, but if we're talking about cutting characters out - let's start with Galadriel.

what did she add to the movie? yes, she gave frodo the light, but he could have picked it up elsewhere (hey aragorn or elrond could have given him it) - what else did she 'add' - yes she shows that the temptation of the Ring nearly takes her but she passes the test - so adds more drama to the Ring - but so does Tom by his reaction to the ring - he is not controlled or tempted by it -

could go on for ages about this, but I've got a conference call to join so must dash!

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Essex

i'm in an argumentative mood here!

'justfy' tom? OK, understand this point from a point of view of cutting down time in the movie, but if we're talking about cutting characters out - let's start with Galadriel.

...but so does Tom by his reaction to the ring - he is not controlled or tempted by it

Before we begin cutting Galadriel, assume that we have time to include Tom or another Pippin joke, and have to decide between the two. I'm PJ (I'll even wear shorts for the exercise) and you're one of the writers. Convince me that within the flow of the story that we have, and using the PJisms noted in the SbS (i.e. elevating Aragorn, making Pippin silly, etc) that we could include the character of Tom Bombadil. You can even suppose that he would only appear in the extended edition.

My argument is that any appearance of Tom would only slow the pace and confuse the average viewer, and PJ endeavored to avoid doing both. Since first seeing the Ring, we've only observed *bad* connected to it. Sauron, its first bearer and maker, gets a finger-ectomy. Isildur goes for a face-down float, Déagol gets strangled (though we see that later), Sméagol gets an extreme makeover and Bilbo starts to get really odd and is not content in Paradise. Gandalf won't take the thing. Frodo is pressed by the wraiths to place it on, and when he finally does, he not only sees the Eye full screen but also has to endure its moronic rambling ("I'm a He-Eye, and I SEE YOU! "). And the next time Frodo places the Ring on his finger, he gets stabbed.

So if we had Tom, who is immune to the Ring, appear and caper about, I think that the audience would wonder (1) who Tom really was, (2) why he was immune (3) why the Ring was so important and (4) why Tom did not keep the Ring.

Anyway, maybe others have more pros and cons.