Why Can't Movies Be Like Books?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Bethberry - how else could you take the very idea of the Higgins song except to make fun of the singer for being so myopic? I see that as rather obvious. But maybe thats just me.

Sauron the White, it is an abiding temptation in the teaching profession to delight in explanation, explication, expoundification, nay, even pontification. To that end, I find the advice of Laurence Sterne positively invaluable, and so I here call upon him in reply to you:

Originally Posted by The Narrator in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all;--so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding, would presume to think all: The truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself. For my own part, I am eternally paing him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.

To my mind, Jackson wanted to add a little dark mystery, a bit of byronic appeal, to Aragorn/Srider, so he made the introduction of Strider dangerous. Appealing to the set who dotes on pirates, I believe.