Things We Love To Hate About The LotR Trilogy

[Andúril]

I just got a bit annoyed with the timing/editing of the fellowship's encounter with Galadriel and Celeborn. I much preferred the theatrical version's editing in that particular scene.

[me9996]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

I hate the part in TTT where that Dunlending guy with horrible teeth slices his palm to swear alliegance to Saruman -
"We will fight... " *gross-looking teeth, gross-looking teeth* "for Saruman!"

Also, I hate the stupid over-used cliche of the-bad-guy-always-has-bad-teeth that PJ relentlessly used. If Sauron were embodied, Sauron - evillest of all, right? - I think he'd probably have dazzlingly perfect teeth. What's with the f-ng teeth?!

Um, I didn't see that part...

[tomstheman]

What irritates me the most is that PJ didn't set up in any way the healing of the shire. He didn't have Galadriel give Sam the box. When the hobbits return to the Shire its still in good shape. That was one of my favorite parts in the book was the fight to regain the shire. I can understand why PJ cut the part but it is still irritating that he had to do it becuase it was a fairly large part of the book becuase it shows how Frodo has changed and evolved as a hobbit. How he has grown to quote Saruman. Well that and the fact that they cut Tom Bombadil out of the FOTR. Those are just a few of my irritations.

[rohirrim TR]

the way they handle the mouth of sauron in the film really made me mad

[Tar-Surion]

First of all I have to say that I loved the movie all in all. It is virtually impossible ever to do complete justice to a book as grand as LOTR and they did a splendid job.

I don't pretend I could have done a tenth as good.

I realize too that movies are a different art-form from literature with its own conventions and imperatives.

That being said I do have some criticisms. Three stand out: Galadriel, Faramir and the Winding Stair.

The whole Lothlorien episode was dark and gloomy both physically and psychologically. It was dark as Moria almost, not golden, green and magical as I had always imagined it. Cate Blanchet's Galadriel was cold and sinister. She was without the warmth and compassion that I imagined her to have. If she was the sort of person PJ made her perform as, then there isn't any reason why she should have refused the Ring. Psychologically and motivationally this took a lot out of the scene. Too much Queen and not enough maiden.

Similarly in TTTs Faramir was portrayed as a military thug. Little of nothing of the engaging nobility of his character was permitted to shine forth. Again there was no reason why he should have refused the Ring. Sam's Great Speech would scarcely have touched the heart of such a man.

It is as if PJ, for all his undoubted talents, has no real understanding of goodness. He's very comfortable with evil, as his earlier ugly "splatterfest" movies demonstrates, and I believe that as a person he is as fine and honourable a man as you could meet, but he certainly has a blind-spot here.

My final gripe is with the scene in ROTK when Frodo, mislead by Gollum, dismisses Sam. Nothing like this happened in the book and it was wholly out of character for both of them. I was very disappointed with this scene. It didn not quite ruin my appreciation of the movie as a whole, but it came close.

Apart from these major and a number of minor concerns I loved the movies and have watched them (director's cut, of course) many times and will continue to do so in future.

[Curubethion]

Originally Posted by tomstheman

What irritates me the most is that PJ didn't set up in any way the healing of the shire. He didn't have Galadriel give Sam the box. When the hobbits return to the Shire its still in good shape. That was one of my favorite parts in the book was the fight to regain the shire. I can understand why PJ cut the part but it is still irritating that he had to do it becuase it was a fairly large part of the book becuase it shows how Frodo has changed and evolved as a hobbit. How he has grown to quote Saruman.

I wanted to see that part too...it's too bad he had to cut it.

P.S.: Hi Tar-Surion! (newbies usually post on the "Welcome Thread" in "General Messages", just to let you know )

[jan-u-wine]

Hi, I'm new here, and this will likely be my only post.....I was just browsing and happened to see this thread and just had to respond to it (VERY ancient thread, by the way...)

First, let me say that I read LOTR when I was thirteen (that would almost be way back in the First Age) and immediately fell in love with ME. I was NOT (NOT! NOT!) going to go and see PJ's movies.

But.....obviously I *did* go see them. And I am very, very glad that these movies were made, for many reasons. The spirit of what Tolkien said is there, I think, if not the exact essence. Many people who might not else have bothered to read his work now have, with all sorts of interesting results.

There were SO many things that bothered me about the movies. A few:

Sins of ommission: Bombadil and Goldberry, The Scouring of the Shire, The Old Forest and the Barrow Downs. Legolas and Gimli's visit to the Glittering Caves and Fangorn. The flight from Crickhollow and what REALLY happened when the hobbits met the elves in the forest. And ELVISH. Written, spoken, sung. We NEED, we want MORE Elvish, darn it!

The events of Aragorn's coronation being altered so that Gimli, not Frodo, brought the crown to Gandalf.

Sins of commission: The portrayal of the Elves in general, Galadriel and Arwen in particular, Gimli as comic relief, Faramir as a *bad* guy, stripping Frodo of his masculinity, putting one character's important lines into another character's mouth....

The Fellowship leaving Imladris (ext version) and Frodo asking which way to Mordor, left or right? Cute.

The entire sequence of the hobbits at Osgiliath makes my blood BOIL!!!!!

A thinking person would know that, at that point, the Quest was already *done*. Sam had solved Frodo's moral question for him, and PJ had told the world that this person would never be able to even *try* to give up the Ring at Mt Doom.

Gandalf resorting to violence to 'quiet' Denethor....Aragorn looking into the Palantir only to be thwarted by Sauron's "ace in the hole" depicting Arwen dead/dying. (along with the whole nonsense of her *fate* being tied to that of the Ring).

All of the *charming* elf 'stuff'....like the skate-boarding of Helm's Deep....right up there with Dwarf-tossing, imho. That's Pimpin' and Panderin', PJ......

And it really annoys me that things they could easily have left alone, they changed. The one that sticks out in my mind the most is when Pip finds Merry on the battle-field. Movie-Merry asks: "are you going to leave me?" Book Merry says: "Are you going to bury me?"

How dramatic would that have been????!!!!!!!!!


Speeches which made little or no sense, such as the one between Aragorn and Gandalf in ROTK ('no news of Frodo?'........) or the one between Eowyn and Merry where she assures him it will "be over soon". Comforting, that.

Or consider the one from Gandalf to Frodo in Moria where the wizard tells him that he was 'meant to have the Ring, and that is a great comfort.' Really? To whom was it a great comfort?

Galadriel's transformation scene......though it all becomes understandable, if not forgiveable, when one understands PJ's passion for Ray Harryhausen.

Frodo sending Sam home. Sheesh. NOT even the Frodo that PJ created would have done *that*.

The reunion of the hobbits in Frodo's "suite" (what an impact that scene would have made, played out upon what had, of late, been a field of battle... .....

what WAS all that gamboling on the bed about, anyway? Your 52-year-old cousin has just spent the last three months in abject terror, been starved, beaten and just two days ago had his finger bitten off and you are bouncing about on his bed? P.A.P again (Pimpin' and Panderin')

Frodo living in the Shire for FOUR years before deciding to go over the Sea?
Guess he didn't feel ALL that bad.....

because.....

Rosie having a boy child (named Frodo) with almost-black hair though both she and Sam were in the blonde range, apparently immediately before his departure.

The depiction of the sailing of the Ring-bearers.....not only is the Straight Road NOT for mortals, it is apparently beyond the ability of mortal film-makers to explain, as well. How many people in the audience thought that all those people on the boat *died*?

Even the very last shot of the movie proper teed me off: Sam, after all Frodo's care in wishing him to pursue the life that he (Frodo) could not have, comes home to........

Bag-shot Row, not Bag End.

For *shame*, PJ.

why?

The movies are like Gollum with the Ring....loved them.....hated them....can't stop watching them....and wishing....there was something more..........

geez, it felt good to get all that off my chest.....

let me sign off in some good ol' Georgia-style Elvish:

No Maul Yay

jan

[Lotesse]

THAT was a killer post! Please don't leave the moot, jan-u-wine! You've only just arrived, I for one would love to see you here more often.