Peter Jackson has improved Tolkien

[markedel]

I think it was worth though-Jackson made the studio bet big-but not so big that he couldn't make the whole thing-could you imagine if he made them in sequence, it flopped and no sequels were made. I'd rather have the good but flawed work, rather then nothing, because as a movie, they're good.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by markedel
I think it was worth though-Jackson made the studio bet big-but not so big that he couldn't make the whole thing-could you imagine if he made them in sequence, it flopped and no sequels were made. I'd rather have the good but flawed work, rather then nothing, because as a movie, they're good.

...plus there was less chance Gandalf would die before it was finished. I wonder who will replace Richard Harris...

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Arwen. Why didn't Tolkien highlight this beautiful love story? Using her in the flight to the ford was a stroke of genius.

Warning: SPOILERS!

I am having a very hard time with this (my problems with Liv Tyler aside). I am in agreement that the love story of Arwen and Aragorn needs to be in place so that Aragorn has a reason to disuade Eowyn's advances later on.

My problem comes with making Arwen part of the ACTION (this is Eowyn's territory,... back off!)

In the book the elf does little more than sit at home and knit the man a banner! While this makes my feminist side twitch, it also empathizes with the side of me that says "this is what Aragorn is fighting for".

In the movie - because they have now allowed Arwen to talk Aragorn into letting her take on all nine of the wraiths in the flight to the ford (how can he so easily put his true love into such peril?), how can Aragorn NOT seem like a hypocrit when later he tells Eowyn (whom he doesn't love) to NOT go off with him to battle?

Yesss, I know... he doesn't have Theoden's or Eomer's permission and yeeess, I know Eowyn has a duty to her people. But he didn't need Elrond's permission to allow his love, his life, Arwen to go riding off with a sick hobbit to face the nine Nazgul! And someone could EEeeasily have been found to look after the people of the Rohirrim in Eowyn's absence.

How will Jackson address this hypocrisy in Aragorn's nature?

[Cirdan]

Jackson will add more "soft side" love scenes for Arwen. I'm sure. Excellent points EoR! Welcome to the 'Moot.

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Thanks Cirdan!
I can be a little long winded at times, but I eventually come to a point if you have the patience to read through it all.
((Heh!! "EoR"... didn't think of that. Ironically was my favorite character from Winnie the Pooh, too!))

[bropous]

Agreed, very good points, Eowyn.

Well met and welcome to the Moot!

[Black Breathalizer]

Originally posted by Eowyn of Rohan
My problem comes with making Arwen part of the ACTION (this is Eowyn's territory,... back off!)

In the movie - because they have now allowed Arwen to talk Aragorn into letting her take on all nine of the wraiths in the flight to the ford (how can he so easily put his true love into such peril?), how can Aragorn NOT seem like a hypocrit when later he tells Eowyn (whom he doesn't love) to NOT go off with him to battle?

Yesss, I know... he doesn't have Theoden's or Eomer's permission and yeeess, I know Eowyn has a duty to her people. But he didn't need Elrond's permission to allow his love, his life, Arwen to go riding off with a sick hobbit to face the nine Nazgul! And someone could EEeeasily have been found to look after the people of the Rohirrim in Eowyn's absence.

How will Jackson address this hypocrisy in Aragorn's nature?

The plot logic here is easily understood. Aragorn was very much aware that the fate of Middle-Earth hung on who should take Frodo to Rivendell. Arwen was a) the fastest rider; and b) told Aragorn that the power of her people would protect her past the Ford. Having grown up with the elves, Aragorn knew that Arwen was right on both points. Part of what makes Aragorn such a wise and noble character is that he is not cut from the same macho, cocky, "man's man" cloth as Boromir and Eomer. Of course he didn't want Arwen to be in peril. But their love was also based on trust and respect. He understood that if they had a chance, Arwen was the answer.

Be honest now. If you had everything at risk and needed to outrun nine speedy ringwraiths with TWO people on your horse, who would you choose: A top female jockey or some big guy weighting considerably more and without the same training?

I rest my case.

[bropous]

BB, with every post you show your complete lack of understanding of the nuances and subtleties contained in the Lord of the Rings. Each time you flounder to cover Jackson's oversized rump you show yourself to be no more than a dilettante presuming to lecture to researchers.

Child, I have read the entire Lord of the Rings book/books TWENTY-SIX times. Do you understand? Most of the others here have also read the books multiple, multiple times, and know them backwards and forwards. Yet you, with your trifling passing knowledge of the books, have the unmitigated audacity to tell us that Jackson was an improvement over the original.

If you have to shuffle so dang hard to cover up your steps you should have watched where you trod originally.

It doesn't matter how much fancy footwork you try, we AIN'T watching the other hand while you pull the rabbit up through the hole in the table and swear to us all you created it out of thin air.

WE CAN SEE THE CARDS UP YOUR SLEEVE, GOODGULF.

[Black Breathalizer]

Originally posted by bropous
Child, I have read the entire Lord of the Rings book/books TWENTY-SIX times. Do you understand?

If you would bother to read these posts EVEN ONCE, you'd know you were going down the same, old tired road for the umpteenth time.

By the way, I'm 47 years old and have read The Lord of the Rings every year since I first came across them at age 14. You do the math, mister smarty pants.

[markedel]

I hope you didn't have to take a university english course...that must have sucked man. All those argumentative essays.

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Originally posted by Black Breathalizer
The plot logic here is easily understood. Aragorn was very much aware that the fate of Middle-Earth hung on who should take Frodo to Rivendell. Arwen was a) the fastest rider; and b) told Aragorn that the power of her people would protect her past the Ford. Having grown up with the elves, Aragorn knew that Arwen was right on both points. Part of what makes Aragorn such a wise and noble character is that he is not cut from the same macho, cocky, "man's man" cloth as Boromir and Eomer. Of course he didn't want Arwen to be in peril. But their love was also based on trust and respect. He understood that if they had a chance, Arwen was the answer.

Be honest now. If you had everything at risk and needed to outrun nine speedy ringwraiths with TWO people on your horse, who would you choose: A top female jockey or some big guy weighting considerably more and without the same training?

I rest my case.

Hmmmm.... a liethe lanky beauty having to balance 60 or 70 lbs (?) of dead weight on top of a racing horse, or a skilled horseman strong of cunning and strength, who has already proven that he can fight the Nazgul??
BTW - you say Aragorn "doesn't have the same training"? Funny! What then was he doing as a Ranger out and about all those years?? Hmmmm....
Also, - ARWEN DIDN'T HAVE TRAINING!!! She is the fair elf maiden, delicate and beautiful. She wasn't trained for battle, even though I'm sure that she had plenty of time over her long years to go racing around for fun on horseback. So your theory is obliterated.


re: your point "b", told him that her people would protect her past the ford:
Yes, that's what she TOLD him, but if that were so, then the waters should have started to rise upon the first wraith horsesteps into the ford, for it was Elrond's magic combined with some nice flourishing touches from Gandalf that saved Frodo from the nine. Her speaking an incantation made it seem like she possessed that power.
Thank you for bringing that up, because you have now raised a NEW complication in my mind. Are we to believe now, as an audience, that Arwen possesses powers for spells? This makes her more of a wizard than an elf, for the only elves (that I recall) that have powers of some kind are Elrond and Galadriel, and THEY have powers because those two carry two of the three Elven rings! Arwen doesn't have unnatural powers!
Arwen is the fairest and most treasured possession of the Elves, the Evenstar of her people. Would they really leave her so unguarded as to go off for lengths of time in a growingly dangerous world to face unknown perils?? It doesn't ring true.

Plus, I'm sorry, but when I read The Battle of the Pelennor Fields and Dernhelm was reveled as Eowyn I literally threw my hands up (almost dropping the book) and did a touch down dance! What a wonderful revelation after histories of struggle and years upon years of men fighting men that a woman has been found to run into the battle, and she is facing one of the biggest baddest evil warrior leaders of the last ages!!
Some of that wonder and revelation will be dimmed now in the knowledge that other women are off doing the same thing! Arwen is already standing up to the Witch King now long before Eowyn. That sucks.

"Their love was based on trust and respect"
So??? .... sooooo, that makes it okay for her to go off and face the nine? "Okay, hunny! See you back at home! I TRUST they won't have killed you."

Plleeeease.

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Continued from my ranting in the last posting regarding the Arwen warrior fighting qualities added by PJ
----------------------------

Don't change the story just for the sake of appeasing radical feminists who would blanch at the idea of the "pretty little girl sitting at home sewing her man a banner". I consider myself a feminist and I have NOooo problems as to how the women were portrayed. A woman doesn't have to be a warrior to be loved and respected and admirable for other women. Arwen, in all her fairness and guardedness and high esteem, serves her purpose. That is gone now. How do you replace those qualities that have now been replaced by warrior skills?

BTW - that whole argument that I have seen out there soooo many times that they had to have a strong female in the first movie or women wouldn't be able to relate and so wouldn't come see the movie, is ABOUT the most chauvinistic remark that you can make and is even MORE offensive when offered up by a woman.

I loved loved LOOOvved these books and the movie, and it wasn't because "Oh good! They've finally brought a girl onscreen. Now my raging estrogen has been appeased! Thank you Peter Jackson for supporting and upholding the current popular and politically correct standing of 'what a real woman should be',.. because my one goal in coming to see ANY movie is to be sure that the "strong woman" theme is supported as much and as often as possible regardless of whether it strays from the original authors intention of the plot and of the character."

Go BLOW it out your pipe!

(But save that South Farthing pipeweed first,... that's good stuff!)

[Earniel]

Arwen was a) the fastest rider; and b) told Aragorn that the power of her people would protect her past the Ford. Having grown up with the elves, Aragorn knew that Arwen was right on both points. Part of what makes Aragorn such a wise and noble character is that he is not cut from the same macho, cocky, "man's man" cloth as Boromir and Eomer. Of course he didn't want Arwen to be in peril. But their love was also based on trust and respect. He understood that if they had a chance, Arwen was the answer.

What was she doing there in the first place? Elrond would never have let his only daughter wander around the wildernesse like that.

The so called 'lack' of women in LOTR never bothered me. Okay so some see LOTR as 'not politically correct' but that never bothered me. In fact, I'm starting to get a strong dislike about politically correctness. But what does bother me is the seeming fact that a woman can only be strong if she goes around waving an oversized knife and deliver awefull lines. Surely even in the visual medium PJ could have found another way of expanding Arwen's role and showing her strength without resorting to the Xena-approach. Still, I'm willing to give PJ the benefit of the doubt since I haven't seen TTT and ROTK but from what I've seen and heard I doubt it's going to improve.

So I agree for the most part with Eowyn of Rohan, except about Arwen's magic. She is a decendant of Lúthien Tinuviel and although it wasn't explicitly stated I wouldn't be surprised if she had some magic in her fingertops so to speak.

By the way, I'm 47 years old and have read The Lord of the Rings every year since I first came across them at age 14.

47 huh? I never would have guessed......

[Maedhros]

Peter Jackson has improved Tolkien

This is sacrilege.

Some of you purists may disagree, but in writing the screenplays to his movies, I think it's clear that PJ actually improved on The Master's great work.

Hmmmm. No.

Boromir's character. PJ made him much more "human." In the movie version, you could actually empathize with Boromir in a way you didn't in the book. Who didn't like the way he related to Merry and Pippin?

Hmmmmmmm. I will give you one point for PJ in this.

The Breaking of the Fellowship. PJ's version tied things together in a way that Tolkien wasn't able to do.

No. I rather like the way that Frodo slip away from the rest of the Company, and the decision that Aragorn had to take to finally follow Merry and Pippin.

Arwen. Why didn't Tolkien highlight this beautiful love story? Using her in the flight to the ford was a stroke of genius.

Arwen, warrior princess, elven enchantress? It seemed very ridiculous to me, that Elrond would send his only daughter when he has people like Glorfindel, who can do a better job of it. I wonder if we will see Galadriel in Helms Deep or Defending Minas Tirith, or even her team up with Arwen to take out Sauron.

I can't wait to see what improvements Jackson and Co. make to TTT!!!

Like the fact that he changed the Name of Bilbo's Book. Why the hell did he changed it, some things are sacred in LOTR. Totally uncalled for.

[bropous]

Cheese and onions, Breathalyzer, I had you pegged for 17 or 18 based on your moronic attempts at debate. you'd think someone would have a little more sense living on the planet nine more years than me.....

I stand by my assertion. Your addiction to the facile, "Weekly Reader" version of Lord of the Rings indicates an inherent lack of capacity to imagine for yourself what Tolkien writes, "because it's too hard," and that until Jackson's altered version came along, you never really understood the books. Unfortunately, you are trying to convince a bunch of folks who CAN appreciate written material that the transmogrified version of Tolkien's world cannot emulate that our understanding is somehow flawed because we adhere to the original script set forth by Ronald himself.

Again and again, you facile, moronic, dimwitted and addle-pated pultroon, you try to shift the field of battle which you orignally booked to search for ground better suited to your shifting, malleable and vacuous loyalty to your own words and assertions.

Eowyn, delightful reinforcements of your positions. Well done.

Black Breathalyzer, how freakin' PATHETIC.

[Eowyn of Rohan]

Originally posted by bropous

Eowyn, delightful reinforcements of your positions. Well done.

Thanks!
Hey! Remind me never to get on your bad side! ;P

[GRONK!!!]

Awww.. and poor GRONK here was starting to think that he'd successfully steered the argument away from bitter flaming and onto friendly flaming. Oh well, he tried.

[Black Breathalizer]

Eowyn of Rohan: Hmmmm.... a liethe lanky beauty having to balance 60 or 70 lbs (?) of dead weight on top of a racing horse, or a skilled horseman strong of cunning and strength, who has already proven that he can fight the Nazgul??

BB: That's an easy one. the lithe lanky beauty. They were TWO DAYS from Rivendell!!! Having that poor horse race for two days with a large man AND a dead weight hobbit would have been a recipe for disaster.

Eowyn of Rohan: BTW - you say Aragorn "doesn't have the same training"? Funny! What then was he doing as a Ranger out and about all those years?? Hmmmm....Also, - ARWEN DIDN'T HAVE TRAINING!!! She is the fair elf maiden, delicate and beautiful. She wasn't trained for battle, even though I'm sure that she had plenty of time over her long years to go racing around for fun on horseback. So your theory is obliterated.

BB: Let me get this straight: Arwen is a fair, elf maiden, delicate and beautiful and therefore can't be a faster rider than Aragorn?!?!?!? That's sounds pretty sexist to me. The bottom line is that we have one single fact to go on in assessing the plot logic of Arwen's flight to the ford: Arwen says she is a faster rider than Aragorn and he doesn't dispute her. Anything said to the contrary is pure conjecture.

Eowyn of Rohan: your point "b", told him that her people would protect her past the ford: Yes, that's what she TOLD him, but if that were so, then the waters should have started to rise upon the first wraith horsesteps into the ford, for it was Elrond's magic combined with some nice flourishing touches from Gandalf that saved Frodo from the nine. Her speaking an incantation made it seem like she possessed that power.

BB: She did possess the power--in the movie. When you watch the movie you have to appreciate it for its own plot logic and not get twisted up into knots because "that's not the way it was in the books!" I swear if you people would open up your closed minds a little bit you'd come to appreciate the brilliance and beauty of some of Jackson's changes.

Eowyn of Rohan: Thank you for bringing that up, because you have now raised a NEW complication in my mind. Are we to believe now, as an audience, that Arwen possesses powers for spells?

BB: yes.

Eowyn of Rohan: This makes her more of a wizard than an elf, for the only elves (that I recall) that have powers of some kind are Elrond and Galadriel, and THEY have powers because those two carry two of the three Elven rings! Arwen doesn't have unnatural powers!

BB: She does in the movie and it works. Jackson needed a way to visually "explain" the water horse flood.

Eowyn of Rohan: Arwen is the fairest and most treasured possession of the Elves, the Evenstar of her people. Would they really leave her so unguarded as to go off for lengths of time in a growingly dangerous world to face unknown perils?? It doesn't ring true.

BB: The fact of the matter is that if Tolkien were alive and involved in this project, the odds are he would have supported Jackson's change with Arwen. Tolkien was ahead of his time in developing a character like your namesake, Eowyn. If Tolkien's treatment of Eowyn rang true for you, then why in the world is it so difficult to believe that Arwen could disobey her father (as Eowyn disobeyed her uncle) and slip away without permission to find her beloved?

[cassiopeia]

Originally posted by Black Breathalizer
BB: Let me get this straight: Arwen is a fair, elf maiden, delicate and beautiful and therefore can't be a faster rider than Aragorn?!?!?!? That's sounds pretty sexist to me. The bottom line is that we have one single fact to go on in assessing the plot logic of Arwen's flight to the ford: Arwen says she is a faster rider than Aragorn and he doesn't dispute her. Anything said to the contrary is pure conjecture.

EOR said that Aragorn could FIGHT better because Aragorn had the training. What if the Nazgul caught Arwen and Frodo? Wouldn't it be better that a trained Ranger would fight them (and he already did fight and defeat them at Amon Sul)?

BB: The fact of the matter is that if Tolkien were alive and involved in this project, the odds are he would have supported Jackson's change with Arwen.

Do you want to bet on that? I really don't believe that Tolkien would like to see his work be changed just so that men could get more of a look at Liv Tyler.

[Sister Golden Hair]

This thread has really turned into a pointless on again off again flame war. So what I am going to do for now is close it.The fate of this thread I will leave in the hands of gdl96. But to prevent any further outbursts of flaming it will remain closed until the forum moderator decides if and when it should be reopened. Closing.