Good Adaptations? (Essay)

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

I promised certain people on the moot that I would post my essay on the Bakshi and Jackson adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. (Not sure if this is right place to post?!), so, here it is!
Opinions, thoughts, criticsms, etc. greatly welcomed!
I shall post this in 4 Parts.
1st Post = Introduction
2nd Post = Part 1 - Animated Adaptation
3rd Post = Part 2 - Jackson's Adaptation
4th Post = Conclusion

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INTRODUCTION
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As part of my Key Skills Communication portfolio, I have been asked to write an essay on any of a list of topics produced by my lecturer. The topic which I have chosen is ‘The Film was good, but the Book was better’. The aim of this essay shall be to create an appraisal of the Lord of the Rings (animated Version), as directed by Ralph Bakshi, an appraisal of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, as directed by Peter Jackson, and an evaluation of how well they follow the story as written by J R R Tolkien. In addition to ‘The Lord of the Rings’, I have cited ‘The Hobbit’, ‘The Silmarillion’ and ‘Unfinished Tales’, all by J R R Tolkien, as they provide vital background information to the plot of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, and I will assess to what extent this background information has been transferred to the films.
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‘THE LORD OF THE RINGS’, BY J R R TOLKIEN
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‘The Lord of the Rings’ is an epic tale of good versus evil, in which the Hobbit Frodo Baggins must achieve what seems like an impossible task: to destroy The Dark Lord Sauron’s master Ring, which was forged by Him in Oroduin, The Mountain of Doom, in the midst of the Land of Mordor, aided by a fellowship consisting of Gandalf the Wizard, Aragorn of the North, Boromir of Gondor, Legolas the Elf, Gimli the Dwarf, and Meriadoc Brandybuck, Peregrin Took and Samwise Gamgee, three of Frodo’s Hobbit-companions, from the sleepy land of the Shire. Pursued by Orcs, Nâzgul and the mysterious ‘Gollum’, their task seems unachievable, yet they meet unlikely allies along the way, and take part in the War of the Ring, consisting of a number of battles fought across the realms of Middle-Earth.
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[Last Child of Ungoliant]

PART ONE: AN APPRAISAL OF RALPH BAKSHI’S ANIMATED ADAPTATION IN RELATION TO THE BOOKS
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The adaptation of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, as directed by Ralph Bakshi, begins with an account of the forging of the Rings of Power, and the Battle of the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, from c.1200 – c.3441 of the Second Age of Middle Earth, although the account given in the film differs from the account in the books, in that the film states that The Last Alliance actually fell beneath the power of Sauron’s might.

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ J R R Tolkien
Appendix B: The Tale of Years.
Second Age
3434 – The host of the Alliance crosses the Misty Mountains. Battle of Dagorlad and defeat of Sauron. Siege of Barad-dûr begins.
3440 – Anárion slain
3441 – Sauron overthrown by Elendil and Gil-Galad, who perish. Isildur takes the One Ring. Sauron passes away and the Ringwraiths go into the shadows. The Second Age ends.

The period of the film where Gandalf is relating the story of the forging of the Ring to Frodo differs from the book in that, according to Tolkien, all of this takes place inside Frodo’s Living room at Bag End, whereas in the film, the room apparently becomes too confining for the over-gesticulation put upon the characters by the animators, and so Frodo and Gandalf take to walking in the lane. With these modifications, the next paragraph seems to lose a meaning, had the dialogue been placed directly into the film:

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ J R R Tolkien
Book I; Chapter II: The Shadow of the Past
Suddenly he [Gandalf] stopped as if listening. Frodo became aware that all was very quiet, inside and outside. Gandalf crept to one side of the window. Then with a dart he sprang to the sill, and thrust a long arm out and downwards. There was a squawk, and up came Sam Gamgee’s curly head hauled by one ear. ‘Well, well, bless my beard!’ said Gandalf. ‘Sam Gamgee is it? Now what may you be doing?’ ‘Lor bless you, Mr. Gandalf, sir!’ said Sam. ‘Nothing! Leastways I was just trimming the grass-border under the window, if you follow me.’ He picked up his shears and exhibited them as evidence. ‘I don’t,’ said Gandalf grimly. ‘It is some time since I last heard the sound of your shears. How long have you been eavesdropping?’

Sam goes on to make a rather confused excuse, in that he hadn’t been eavesdropping at all, which in the book makes perfect sense. In this film, however, Gandalf pulls Sam out from behind a bush, and asks if he had been eavesdropping, to this, of course, there can be no reasonable excuse from Sam, as he must have been eavesdropping, hiding behind a bush.
There are more sections of the film, which whilst keeping the general plot similar to the original, small parts, sometimes important, are either changed, or missed out completely. Later on, at the village of Bree, the Innkeeper, Barliman Butterbur, says to Frodo something along the lines of “Right you are Mr. Bagg … err … Underhill, is it?”, but as the filmmakers had not filmed the part of the story when Mr. Butterbur produces the letter from Gandalf, explaining that Frodo would be using the travelling name of ‘Underhill’, it appears as if the actor had just not bothered to read the script properly. A phrase used by the Flying Moose website is ‘Tolkien’s Greatest Hits’, and this seems to make sense, the film had taken the best parts of the story, and left out the bits in between, quite often taking out parts of the story which add background to the general plot.
Another good example of ‘Tolkien’s Greatest Hits’ is at the Council of Elrond. Aragorn produces the ‘Sword that was broken’, and claims to be Elendil’s descendant, with the narrator hastily jumping in to state that this proved that Aragorn was Isildur’s heir. However, the filmmakers made no attempt to explain who Elendil was, or why the sword was broken, and what any of this had to do with Isildur, who we know only as the person that cut the ring from Sauron’s hand. Later on, at the Mines of Moria, Aragorn once again produces his sword, and, lo and behold! It is no longer broken. How or why it has now been reforged we are never told, and so we come away with the impression that the animators had made a mistake, and they had got their continuity wrong.
Inside Moria, we find yet more instances of where the filmmakers had not bothered to read up on the basic material, on which the film is supposed to be based:

'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ J R R Tolkien
Book II; Chapter V: The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm
[On the Balrog] What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it.

From this, the image in the film is quite different, a being of approximately the same size as a large man, with the head of a lion, the wings of a moth, or butterfly, and rather large feet. The Balrog also seemed to make rather a lot of noise in the film, an idea quite at odds with Tolkien’s original conception of the being:

Tolkien’s Letters
#210 to Forrest Ackerman
The Balrog never speaks or makes any vocal sound at all … [he] may think he knows more about Balrogs than I do, but he cannot expect me to agree with him.

Throughout the whole of this film, there appear to be a number of separate motifs, the first is that anything in the least bit magical must be immensely sparkly and glittering, secondly that wizards have an unspeakably croaky voice, more akin to a child’s fairy-tale witch, and also that any battle in the whole film must have overtly dramatic swordplay, or in fact any gesturing must be immensely overdone. This last idea is particularly at odds with Tolkien’s work, in that many of the characters in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ conduct themselves in a subtle way most of the time, and the characters also show a great deal of depth to themselves. Subtle gestures, and depth of character, are two ideas which, unfortunately, are extremely hard to commit to animated film; it is much easier for an animator to create a large, sweeping gesture, than a subtle, slight-of-hand.
My main criticism of this film has to be that it ends approximately halfway through the story, at the Battle of the Hornburg, and the fact that major characters and events were missed out, or completely changed. Although, in essence, this film is a fairly good adaptation, not only for the time at which it was made, but also for the fact that it can quite easily be viewed by children, we have to remember that even Tolkien began writing ‘The Lord of the Rings’ as a children’s book, a sequel to his earlier work, ‘The Hobbit’, it is only during the writing process that it became the epic that we now know it to be.
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[Last Child of Ungoliant]

PART TWO: AN APPRAISAL OF PETER JACKSON’S THREE-PART ADAPTATION IN RELATION TO THE BOOKS
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This adaptation, directed by Peter Jackson, also starts with a version of the Forging of the Rings of Power, and the Last Alliance, but this time the film version more-or-less follows the account as written by Tolkien, with a few minor exceptions. One is that the Siege of Barad-dûr has been removed, but the film compensates by having the Second Age end at 3434, and so the time anomaly that would have existed is therefore erased.
This film, for the most part, does seem to stick with Tolkien for most of the journey. This is one of the benefits of creating the movie in three parts, mirroring, though not exactly, the sections of the story. Some of the film ending points, however, are put in place at different points to the splits in the books, for instance, ‘The Two Towers’ finishes with Frodo having been taken to Cirith Ungol by the Orcs, after having been stung by Shelob, however the filmmakers decided to end the film much earlier than this, and have their ending before Frodo, Sam and Gollum had even entered the Imlad Morgul, or the Morgul Vale. In the general scheme of things, these changes do not matter as much, as it merely means a different starting point that would occur in the next film.
This adaptation, like the animation, does take some points and change them. Sometimes these changes are drastic, and sometimes they do not change things a great deal. One major change for the film was the increased role of Arwen, the daughter of Elrond. In the books, we see little of Arwen until Aragorn has been made King in Gondor and Arnor, and her first appearance is at the House of Elrond, in Rivendell:

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring’ J R R Tolkien
Book II; Chapter I: Many Meetings
In the middle of the table, against the woven cloths upon the wall, there was a chair under a canopy, and there sat a lady fair to look upon, and so like was she in form of womanhood to Elrond that Frodo guessed that she was one of his close kindred.

In the film, however, Arwen is seen earlier, in the wilds before Aragorn and the Hobbits reach Rivendell, Aragorn is tending to Frodo’s wound, that he received at the hands of the Nâzgul, and Arwen appears, claiming that she had been sent to look for them by her father. In the book, it is in fact Glorfindel, a mighty Elf-lord who had seen the light of Valinor, who comes to find them, but he has been sidelined by the filmmakers, to make way for what they see as the much more important love-story between Aragorn and Arwen.
Another drastic change from the books is during the Battle of the Hornburg. A minor change being that the filmmakers renamed it the Battle of Helm’s Deep. The major change is that, before the 10,000 strong army of Orcs reaches Helm’s Deep, an Elven horn is heard, and a large contingent of Elven archers, from Lothlórien, come to the aid of the people of Rohan. Théoden, quite naturally, is astounded at this, and yet Aragorn seems to act as if armies of Elves go wandering through Middle-Earth as a normal occurrence.
For the rest of the film, it does seem to follow the books for the most part, with a few minor exceptions, for instance the fact that Denethor of Gondor had not lit the Beacons, whereas in the book the beacons had of course been lit, at the first signs that Sauron was preparing to strike against Gondor. Another minor departure from the books is that Merry rides off with the host to the Black Gate, whilst, in the book, he had been much too injured after assaulting the Witch King of Angmar, in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
A rather major change in the film is that the Grey Company, Aragorn’s men from the North, do not feature in the films, and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli then take The Paths of the Dead alone. Whilst this may not seem a very important feature, it is in fact rather decisive. In the books, Halbarad, the leader of the Grey Company, presents Aragorn with a banner made by Arwen for him, this banner he later uses as the standard on the ship which he captures from the Men of Umbar, who support Sauron in the War, and so when the Orcs and Men of the East and South see their enemy’s standard upon what they thought to be their ships, it disheartens them. Also, with the loss of the Grey Company, various Men of Gondor have been omitted from the film, and so this theoretically cuts the size of the National army of Gondor quite dramatically. Another consequence of the loss of the Gondorians and the Grey Company is that Aragorn now does not have the manpower to take over the ships, and so the Dead Army now travels with Aragorn up the River Anduin, and then they play a much more crucial role in the War of the Ring. A possible reason for the loss of these two bodies of Men is that the filmmakers may not have had sufficient resources to employ yet more extras, and so they made a decision to cut what they saw as a rather unimportant part of the film.
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[Last Child of Ungoliant]

CONCLUSION
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In conclusion, I can say that, whilst both films had good and bad points to consider, it must be noted that committing the entire ‘The Lord of the Rings’ to film was an epic task, and both directors must be admired for their efforts, although, in my personal opinion, Peter Jackson and his team did a far better job at adapting ‘The Lord of the Rings’ into a modern movie. Overall, I have to say that I feel that the books were much better than the films. I am of this opinion because of a two main reasons, firstly, that both filmmakers had changed parts of the story, sometimes quite considerably. Also, that when you read any book, you finish off with your own impression of how things look, or how people speak, and the such like, whereas on a film, you are left with quite a clear view of how something looks, or how someone looks and acts, and so the original impression you might have had has been wiped away, and replaced with an idea from the director’s imagination.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

Source Listing

Books:
The Hobbit J R R Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring J R R Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers J R R Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King J R R Tolkien
The Silmarillion J R R Tolkien [Edited by Christopher Tolkien]
Unfinished Tales J R R Tolkien [Edited by Christopher Tolkien]

DVD Films:
The Lord of the Rings Directed by Ralph Bakshi [Animation]
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Directed by Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Directed by Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Directed by Peter Jackson

Websites:
Entmoot: A Comprehensive website message board, for the discussion of J R R Tolkien’s works.
An online critique of Ralph Bakshi’s animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

I will also post here the mark/grade/comments that I
eventually get for this essay, so look out for that one!!