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Comment by jdshaffer | Hacker News Reader

Tom Shippey, a very well known and respected Tolkien scholar gave a talk about the book vs the Peter Jackson movies. It also ended up in an edited version in one of his books (I cannot remember if it was "Tolkien: Author of the Century" or "The Road to Middle Earth".)

In short, he argues that Jackson actually did the best he could to present the book in a format that movie studios would accept, and even then was able to press through on some typically non-Hollywood elements (such as having at least nine main characters split across two to three major story arcs).

Here is an online transcript of his talk, "Tolkien Book to Jackson Script: The Medium and the Message":

https://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/tolkien-book-to-jacks...

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Jackson was the anti-Tolkien. The book and movie stories had the same character names, many of the same events, but otherwise were completely opposite. A few things off the top of my head, great and small:

Tolkien's books were primarily about the corruption of power, and showed that the Good and Wise avoided it. There's the Ring, of course, but also Gandalf traveled around motivating people, rarely showing any magical ability at all. Aragorn's sword was broken until the great test required it. Jackson glorified power.

Tolkien's magic and world were places of beauty, darkness, and art beyond human experience; Tolkien never visualized Sauron, who was left to our imaginations. Jackson's world was of commonplace, manipulative horror film techniques and action hero tropes.

Heck, Tolkien's Gandalf had supreme confidence (for good reason); Jackson's was an anxious old person. Tolkien's Aragorn was the epitome of duty and commitment, always putting life and limb on the line for it; Jackson's didn't want the job!

> Tolkien's Aragorn was the epitome of duty and commitment, always putting life and limb on the line for it; Jackson's didn't want the job!

There's a reason for it. A movie requires the protagonist to undergo a character arc, where their perspective on the world changes.

... Except that in this story, Aragorn already dealt with all those issues, and by the time of the Fellowship is just doing what he's spent his whole life working up to.

Like Beowulf, which Tolkien was famously pretty engaged with.

Beowulf’s already a brave badass at the beginning, and that doesn’t change, nor does he waver or second-guess his course or duty.

> Jackson's world was of commonplace, manipulative horror film techniques and action hero tropes.

Totally agree. The movies failed to evoke for me any sense of magic and mystery. I guess the what-you-can't-really-see and what-defies-your-expectations are not most people's cup of tea.

I like to compare Jackson's LOTR intro to that of the (often mediocre but brilliant in some parts) Ralph Baskshi's. The projected shadows, the choice of colours, are much more evocative than Jackson's literal storytelling.

https://youtu.be/AT18OJEPU9Q?si=3-TwFyybz_493nVD

Go Wolverine876! It sounds like you have actually read the books! You have my appreciation and support.

Jackson's LotR is probably about as good as you could get mass-market movies made at the time; the Hobbit, of course, was about as bad as you could get at the time (likely if it had been compressed back down to one or at most two movies, it might be salvageable: so much so that various competing "cuts" now exist, search "hobbit cut").

More and more I come to realize that the things we argued about so much at the time are actually pretty good; especially removing Bombadil - because there's no way that would have worked correctly. The elves barely worked some of the time; Bombadil would have failed utterly.

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