Another quibble with PJ movies

[CSteefel]

Although I thought that Jackson did the best job in The Fellowship of the Ring, including the flight from Bree to Rivendell, and then a great great job in Moria, I do have yet another quibble with the way the beginning was handled.

For me, part of the attraction of FOTR (the book) was that the reader only gradually becomes aware that the magic ring of Bilbo is the one ring. To me, this gradual unfolding provided the real dramatic tension of the first part of the book, with full explanation coming really only with the Council of Elrond. But the prologue provided by Peter Jackson effectively destroys this suspense by letting the viewer know right up front that this is the one ring.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by CSteefel

But the prologue provided by Peter Jackson effectively destroys this suspense by letting the viewer know right up front that this is the one ring.

Had The Hobbit been made as a prequel to the film trilogy, then there might have been some mileage in Jackson slowly revealing the true nature of the Ring.

However, since non-book readers will be unfamiliar with the Ring's recent back history and book readers will know the true nature of the Ring anyway, I am not sure that there is much to be gained, in terms of suspense, by gradually revealing this.

[CSteefel]

The events concerning Bilbo's finding of the Ring are repeated in Tolkien's prologue, so that was covered even in the book. I was thinking more about whether the reader already knew the full history of the Ring, which they don't in the book.

Many people saw the movies first, as we saw in the posts about when people first read the books. It seemed like about one half actually saw the movies first. In any case, there is such a thing as literary suspense even where the plot is known. One plunges oneself in to the story and follows the growing knowledge of the characters, even if the reader knows the plot. It isn't a simple matter of "plot spoilers", which would imply that there is no reason to see a movie or read a book a second time (actually, many people think this)...

[The Saucepan Man]

But it seems to me that the real sense of suspense, for a book reader who has read The Hobbit, comes from the gradual realisation, during a fairly lengthy chapter, of the true nature of the seemingly innocent magic ring that Bilbo discovered on his travels.

A film viewer who has not read The Hobbit does not have the background knowledge to make such gradual realisation effective as a means of suspense. Even had the prologue merely told of Bilbo's discovery of the Ring, rather than revealing the true nature of the Ring, the film viewer would not have had the familiarity with the back story to make the revelation, when it came, particularly striking. Moreover, given the need to move the story on more quickly, the film would not, in any event, have had the book's luxury of being able to dwell on the revelation.

[Lalwendë]

Funnily enough, I was only discussing this with davem a couple of weeks ago. We'd decided to watch a DVD and through process of elimination (namely tossing a coin several times) we ended up watching FotR. We were talking about how the introductory sequences act as a kind of 'narrator' for the film's storyline and then we are suddenly plunged back into the familiarity of The Shire. The film opens with Bilbo at his desk and all is well. We were wondering how different the film would have seemed had Jackson decided to begin it with the Hobbits and show us The Ring, and then plunge us into a 'revelation' that this Ring was in fact a very perilous thing for Bilbo to own. It wouldn't have taken up any more time.

Well, we thought it would have worked much better to have it this other way, but for one thing. Jackson was aiming at a particular demographic with the films and it suited that aim better to go right away into 'swords and sorcery' than to begin with Hobbts doing 'boring things' like farming and writing at their desks. Cynical I suppose, but that's the way film-making works these days, and also we remembered reading the books and the sense of shock and horror that dawned on us as Gandalf revealed what this Ring really was, something that was missing from the films.

[CSteefel]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

But it seems to me that the real sense of suspense, for a book reader who has read The Hobbit, comes from the gradual realisation, during a fairly lengthy chapter, of the true nature of the seemingly innocent magic ring that Bilbo discovered on his travels.

A film viewer who has not read The Hobbit does not have the background knowledge to make such gradual realisation effective as a means of suspense. Even had the prologue merely told of Bilbo's discovery of the Ring, rather than revealing the true nature of the Ring, the film viewer would not have had the familiarity with the back story to make the revelation, when it came, particularly striking. Moreover, given the need to move the story on more quickly, the film would not, in any event, have had the book's luxury of being able to dwell on the revelation.

I still don't understand here, because The Hobbit doesn't reveal anything about the true nature of the Ring. And the prologue recapitulates what you learn in the Hobbit.

But I see the point about moving the story forward more quickly. The movie prologue was certainly good for this, since as I say, the full story is only learned at the Council of Elrond (this was a great section in the book, with its recounting of the full background, while in the movie it focuses only on the issue of who will take the Ring).

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by CSteefel

I still don't understand here, because The Hobbit doesn't reveal anything about the true nature of the Ring. And the prologue recapitulates what you learn in the Hobbit.

Forgive me. We may be talking at cross-purposes here. I had understood you to be suggesting that the suspense might have been increased to good effect by the contrast arising from the audience first being introduced to the Ring as Bilbo's seemingly innocent discovery and only learning of its true nature during Gandalf's explanation to Frodo at Bag End. To my mind, that would only have had any significant impact if the audience had had some "emotional attachment" to Bilbo's adventure, either because they had previously read The Hobbit or because they had seen a Hobbit film prequel. Otherwise the length of time between the audience's introduction to the Ring and the revelation of its nature is insufficient to have any major impact, in terms of suspense.

As I understand it now, however, you are suggesting that suspense could have been built up to good effect by gradually revealing the true nature of the Ring during the scene between Frodo and Gandalf at Bag End. True, I suppose, but, while The Shadow of the Past is a wonderful chapter and works exceptionally well in literary terms, I do not think that its equivalent as a lengthy scene in the film would have worked well on screen. It would have required long passages of dialogue and, even with flashbacks, this would have affected the pacing of the film (very different from the pacing of a book). And it would simply have taken up far too much time. I think that they spent just about as much time as they could on this scene. The story had to move on and could not do so without the true nature of the Ring being revealed, since this was the reason that the Hobbits set out from The Shire.