Did your View of the Characters change after seeing the films?

[eldomeldo]

Those who are movie fans with no knowledge from the books may not understand this, and i apologise in advance if i have posted this in the wrong place.
In the LOTR trilogy, the characters all play their roles in the destruction of the ring, and each character has different traits, there are characters we like and those we dislike, but did your view of the character change after watching the movie, did you see the character differently, and do you consider this to be a good or a bad thing.
I will not go through every character, i will only make comparisons on a few, and wait to see what other people think;

Sam in the book is loyal, caring, brave and hardly ever gives in to the thought of not returning home, in the film he is still loyal, caring, still thinks he will get home, but is overly angry and jealous of Gollum, whereas in the book he is just more suspicious, he also shows more understanding of the dangers of the ring in the book.

Boromir in the book is a soldier who cares deeply for his people, and sees the ring as a tool to help his people, in the film he just appears as a soldier who desires the ring, and is jealous that such a thing should be entrusted to a hobbit.

Faramir, in the book is completely different to Boromir, he is caring, wise and knowledgeable, in the film he is almost a carbon copy of Boromir.

Gimli, in the book is brave, and has great respect for the hobbits, in the film he is portrayed as comical.

Aragorn in the book is wise, and once he steps on the path to reclaim the crown of Gondor, and fulfil the prophecy, he has moments of doubt, which are soon overcome, in the film he appears doubtful of his path, and unsure that he is right.
These ar just a few, what do others think?

[Aethelwine]

Well, not really.

But about Boromir, the movie did help to change my view on him. I read the books a year or two before the movies. When I read them, Boromir seemed like a real, plain bastard to me ( but then again, I was still in the 'oh-I-love-the-fantastic-elves-so-much!'-stage ).
Sean Beans portrayal of him changed my view forever. Why, I don't really know. I think it's the emotion that he gives to the character. I didn't just viewed him as a 'soldier who wanted the Ring', but perhaps that has to do with the knowledge that I have from the books.
When I read the books again, while waiting for TT, Boromir seemed like a different man to me. That's why humans ( with Boromir on the first place! ) are now my favourite races in ME.

I won't even start about Faramir, 'cause I wouldn't be able to stop ranting...

I never really liked Sam in the movies, don't know why. Perhaps because I didn't like Frodo. But that PJ made Frodo send Sam away in ROTK!!!

I agree with you on Gimli. But remember, in TT, during the battle of Helm's Deep. That battle was so loathed with tension; I can't tell how good it was to be able to laugh, even if it was about Gimli...

About Aragorn, also: no comment...

Well, these are my two cents...

Love,

Aethelwine.

[Liriodendron]

Oh yes! The movie made me think "more" about several of the characters. Before the movie, Arwen was just the sewing elf woman, left waiting.....Saruman and Boromir were just bad guys....and King Theoden was the "old" king (instead of the hottie I now visulize ) The depictions of Gimli, Legolas and Denethor were subtractions from my thoughts though. And, some of the best characters were, of course, missing! (Bombadil, Goldberry, Squinty Eyed Southerner, Imrahil, Sharkey....) I can't decide about the Nazgul...better, or worse?

This is something that I have thought about much... after seeing The Fellowship I ran straight home and reread the entire trilogy to try to erase some of the misconceptions the movie had planted. I can't say that any single character in the movie improved on my own image from some 25 years of reading The Hobbit and the entire trilogy at least once a year... no I would say the movies have ruined many characters for me. Not forever, but for a time. I thought Fellowship was visually stunning in the depiction of the shire... that was the best part of the movie in my opinion, but the characters were different from the outset. However, the more the movie progressed the less enthralled I was. I don't fault the movies. I think that those who can take them as movie versions and forget the books are commendable for their acceptance. I, however, wish I had never seen them. And now I will be compelled to watch all three in extended version once ROTK comes out, but that will be it. I don't wish to watch them over and over again, and I absolutely love reading the books over and over again.

The thing is that the world that Tolkien has created is such a personal and real thing to me, and what the movies give me is such a pale shadow. Unfortunately, now when I read I picture the actors in place of, or almost superimposed upon, the well-imagined characters I created from the books' descriptions. I remember the same thing happening in my teens when I saw a small portion of the animated version and had a heck of a time rewiring my brain to get rid of those images when I reread the book.

So I guess to answer the question of whether the movie changed my perception... oh yeah there was a question!... yes my view of some changed, and none for the better. I didn't feel any real awe or admiration for the good guys, and no real fear of the bad guys. I guess it boils down to I felt the characters were much more superficial than I felt them to be in the books, and the movies just left me feeling very lukewarm in many places. I never feel that way reading the books. Okay, I used some form of the word "feel" in the last few sentences way too many times, but there it is.

[Lobelia]

When I first heard they were going to make a film of LOTR, I thought what a brave man PJ was, because no matter who was cast some would complain about the casting being wrong and others would complain that the way they had imagined the characters was now contaminated. This has certainly happened, including in this discussion forum. And fair enough, everyone has their own vision.

To tell the truth, if there's any "contamination" for me, it's with the radio play rather than the film.When reading the book, I still hear Robert Stephens' voice as Aragorn and Ian Holm as a more mature Frodo than Elijah Wood, who was really too young for the role, wonderful as he was. Ian Holm's Frodo was more like the one in the novel, but he had a script that allowed him to do that.

I think the film made visual some of the things we read about in the novel, and it humanised some of the characters - Aragorn may have been less wise, but he was more human, and ditto Faramir. It's kind of hard to love a character who has no flaws and is never afraid or doubting. When Aragorn knelt to the hobbits in that scene of the film, you could believe it, perhaps even more than in the field of Cormallen scene in the novel. Arwen was not so very different, just gutsier, but all this did was make it clearer that this was a woman Aragorn could love. Gimli and Legolas both acted as comic relief in a way they didn't in the book, yes, but at least you could see they were friends and why - in the novel, they entered Lothlorien still bickering and left it as dear friends, no explanation. You knew they would be - all the film did was show it happening. So, no, my interpretation didn't change, not really. Things were just clarified for me.

And for the record, I thought the casting perfect. The actors may not all have been the way I imagined them when reading the book, but while I watched the films, I believed. They convinced me they were Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, etc.

[Vanya]

The biggest change for me is visualisation of characters. Now, I can see them only like cast from the movie. But I don't think that's so bad, since I liked the cast in the first place (except Galadriel who is not pretty and delicate enough). Elves in background were like dragqueens, mostly (with blond hair and black eyebrows), with some exceptions. I missed Glorfindel, Eladan and Elrohir.
I liked Lothlorien, which I immagined very similar, but Edoras was disappointment (it looked like some russian village).
I can draw the strict line betwen book and movie, and they don't interfire. That helped me overlook improvisations in screenplay, and I could wach LOTR totaly openminded. And strangely, the more I read and wach, the bigger is the gap between them.

[Quirkette]

I'm glad the 4 hobbits are handsome men in their 20's and 30's! When I first read the books, I pictured them as being vaguely middle-aged, and sort of dumpy and quirky looking.

[Lobelia]

Originally Posted by Quirkette

I'm glad the 4 hobbits are handsome men in their 20's and 30's! When I first read the books, I pictured them as being vaguely middle-aged, and sort of dumpy and quirky looking.

Actually, go back and have another read. I think you'll find Frodo is the only middle-aged Hobbit and his youthful appearance has been preserved by the Ring. Pippin, the youngest, is 29. Merry and Sam are in their 30s and coming-of-age in Hobbit society is 33, so, really, it's quite appropriate to have them played by young men (and poor Sean Astin took all that trouble to put on weight so he could be a fat Sam only to have you call him handsome! ) [g]

Have a look, too, at the paintings by the likes of the Hildebrandts and Alan Lee and you'll find that they, too, portay their Hobbits as youthful.

That said, though I think Elijah Wood was very good in the role and I am happy to accept him, it was hard for me to imagine his Frodo as having the life experience of the one in the novel. I still play my recording of the BBC play and listen to a 24-years-younger-than-today Ian Holm in the role, and think, yes, that's Frodo!

[Quirkette]

Wow, that makes sense. Maybe I got my impressions of what hobbits look like from the animated "The Hobbit". I must protest, it is my belief that fat guys can be handsome, too!

[Lathriel]

I agree Quirkette sometimes you see pictures that are drawn the hobbits do look rather unattractive and dumpy looking. I guess hobbits must be difficult to draw because they are so small and it may be difficult to keep the proportions straight.

[Pippin Pondlily]

The one character that I absolutely adored in the books was Eomer and I was somewhat disappointed to see that he had much less of a role in the movie than he did in the books and it wasn't really the same Eomer.

I thought they did a fantastic job with Eowyn, she was definitely not, in my opinion, giggly or whiny. And her whole scene with the witch king was absolutely brilliant. I am very glad to hear that there will be some House of Healing scenes in the extended edition of Return of the King and I really hope that they elaborate Faramir and Eowyn's relationship--in the book that was one of my favorite aspects.

The hobbits I thought were all very well done. I loved Pippin and Merry in the books but I liked their movie characters, eh, not better, but they were certainly pretty fantastic. Pippin, in the Return of the King movie, I mean wow, Billy Boyd really did a brilliant job.

But my absolute favorite character in the movies that I was very very pleased with how he turned out since he was my favorite character in the books too, was Gandalf. Sir Ian McKellen absolutely took that role to its most extreme level of total brilliance and I loved him!

But to actually answer the question, when I read the books now, I am completely visualizing the cast from the movies instead of my original, imagined characters, and it is not a disappointing thing.

- P. Pondlily