What All Was Wrong with PJ's LOTR

[PorterW]

I am very surprised that no one yet has mentioned the portrayal of Gimli in the films. The character Gimli was utterly butchered by the script writers. Gimli, one of the fairest speaking, intelligent characters in the books was turned into, sorry for being blunt, a complete moron. Sorry PJ, Tolkien would have scorned you for your treatment of Gimli the dwarf.

[Morwen]

The only thing I disliked in the movies was the changing of Faramir's character. He was awesome because he wasn't tempted by the ring - he was ultimately stronger than his brother because of that.

[basti]

He was a bit too much of a comic relief character.. But that's movies.

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Wally

Although the LOTR trilogy was pretty good, it was far from perfect and much of it strayed terribly from Tolkien, such as the Elves at Helm's Deep.

IMHO, what really kept the series from being a disaster was the strength of Tolkien's work, a work so powerful that even those two dopey women, Fran and Philippa, couldn't screw it up too badly. In contrast, compare LOTR to PJ's next effort, King Kong, to get a better feel for just how totally incompetent those two screenwriters were (and are).

The question should have been 'What All Was Right with PJ's LOTR. It would be a shorter list. Having recently read through the books again, it really showed how much PJ Boyens & Co glossed over, especially in RotK. I have the EE of all three movies, and have considered casting them into the firey pit from which they came, but will keep tthem for the sole reason that had these movies not been made when they were, I would not have met my dear wife on a Tolkien forum discussing the movies and RP'ng at the time. The pinnacle of these movies for me was 'Trilogy Tuesday' when the EE of FotR & TT were shown in the theatre, and at midnight, RotK. premiered. What did he get right? Well, The Shire.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

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What did he get right? Well, The Shire.

But even THAT was left unscoured!

[Snowdog]

Yes, quite. I should clarify that the look of the Shire was fairly right with my vision. Maybe Bree and the Prancing Pony.... like I said, it would be a shorter list.