How Jackson sold out...

[littlemanpoet]

I'm quoting my brother who at age 16 read to me <I>Riddles in the Dark</I> when I was 8 (34 years ago). It changed my life forever.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> My overall impression: Jackson sold out. <BR> <BR>Not so much on questions of budget, time, and effort (any of which might've been excusable), but on questions of political correctness (my final thoughts on Philppa Boyen's change to Faramir: it's OK for the bad guys to be thoroughly bad - although in Tolkien they weren't, not even the Orcs - but it's not OK for the good guys to be thoroughly good) and dumbing down (for the mass audience).<BR> <BR>And we all know how Tolkien would've reacted to either of those.<BR> <BR>I'm beginning to believe that, after all the hysteria fades, and after people can settle down and get honest about what they've seen, this movie will be recognized for what it is, a virtual travesty. <BR> <BR>Gollum was good, but not all that good (redeeming him, perhaps, is the fact that he's virtually the only character to have remained true to Tolkien's intent). <BR> <BR>And that's not to mention all the changes, the virtual disemboweling, of an incredibly rich depth of story.<BR> <BR>I went back through Tolkien's Letters last night, ransacking them to find some evidence [that] Tolkien himself probably identified most with Faramir.<BR> <BR>I didn't find it. But I *DID* find some very interesting commentary, by Tolkien, on a screenplay written long ago for LOTR. <BR> <BR>What I found most interesting was *NOT* Tolkien's issues with occasional fine points of detail (the most famous, or infamous, of which, probably, and the most ill-used, I suspect, is his complaint about Aragorn pulling out a sword, for example, when everybody knows Narsil, which he was carrying, was broken).<BR> <BR>What *WAS* interesting was his attention to the fine points of thematic development: what it would take to bring an incredibly long novel to the screen, which scenes should go, for example, and which should stay. <BR> <BR>*MOST* interesting, in fact, was his contention that, if there had to be a choice between the Cleansing of Isengard and the Battle of Helm's Deep, then the battle should go, because it was secondary in importance, not just to the themes (and issues) surrounding the Cleansing of Isengard, but also, as a battle, to the *REAL* battles, which were still to come, and for which it was only a foretaste (if not to prove, in fact, an outright distraction).<BR> <BR>The impression one gets from reading Tolkien himself, in other words, is not just that he was a genius with written words - obviously - but that he was also an incredibly visual person (just as obvious from his words themselves, if not additionally from his paintings and drawings), and that, and perhaps above all, he was an artist, a genius artist, a Renaissance Man like few others in the 20th Century (borne out especially in his Letters, where one sees the tremendous depth of thought he brought to his writing), and a Master of Composition, quite capable of moving from one art form to another.<BR> <BR>So I can't buy that the changes that were made had to be made. <BR> <BR>Unless, of course, one felt a pressing need for political correctness, and was afraid that a public that had been dumbed-down by the likes of Star Wars, or Jaws, or Close Encounters, or the Matrix, wouldn't be able to abide something just a bit more intelligent.<P>After watching the Fellowship in the theaters twice, and its extended version at home once, I was still quite willing to forgive the changes that had been made to the books. I didn't mind Tom Bombadil's having been dropped, and I didn't mind Arwen having been substituted for Glorfindel. <BR> <BR>In fact I had to agree with one of the reviewers who'd said that, at precisely the point where Arwen raced the Black Riders to the Ford, that was where a simply great movie transcended itself into epic. And her standing up to the Black Riders at the Ford brought me to tears.<BR> <BR>But I wasn't entirely happy with what they had done to Aragorn. This whole story of being "in exile," of having turned away from the Kingship of Gondor, of *NOT WANTING* the Kingship of Gondor. This was trivializing his character to an unwonted degree.<BR> <BR>One of the greatest parts of the books, at least for me (and for all of my friends), was Aragorn's "sea-green incorruptibility," his having been the greatest Hunter, Tracker, Woodsman, and all around Knight of his age (per Gandalf), his having already served, by the time he was 90 years old, during the War of the Ring, as Thengel's, and later Ecthelion's Captain Thorongil, before having dropped out of site, not to go into exile, but on errands - which may have been Gandalf's - into the East.<BR> <BR>In short, it was his being the last of the Dunedain, the leader of the Rangers of the North, who, in total, were a bunch of guys cooler than almost anything anybody could imagine. Half-elven, Men, Descendents of Elendil, and absolutely incorruptible.<BR> <BR>So far we haven't seen anything of the Dunedain. I doubt that we will. I doubt that we'll see Halbarad, or even Elrohir or Elladen, since their showing up at any point from now on would compromise one of its basic storylines: Aragorn's "filmical" development.<BR> <BR>And this brings us back to Faramir, and, perhaps, back to much of your own point. It's as if they tried to do too much, and, in doing so much, did too little justice to what they did. I thought a lot about the movie last night and this morning, and I was able, finally, to boil my dissatisfaction down to one thing: there was too much in it that was gratuitous.<BR> <BR>The scene with Frodo and the Black Rider in Osgiliath, for example: Utterly gratuitous. Unnecessary. Aragorn's disappearance after the attack of the Wolf-riders. Unnecessary. Again, gratuitous. Most of the Battle of Helm's Deep: overlong, overdeveloped. The appearance of the Elves: absolutely, irredeemably gratuitous (especially in view of what it's such a poor substitute for).<BR> <BR>More than all of that, though, and perhaps worst of all, because it's a sop to the critics for whom Tolkien (rightly) felt such scorn: a finally gratuitous "trivializing" of character, an inability to recognize that character can be more or less static (just as it is in real life), and that True Story can be just as much about the development of inter-character tension (as is so much of the development in the LOTR itself), as about intra-character tension. <P>Is it really right to say that Tolkien "never wrote for the visual medium, not once"? <P>I would suggest that perhaps he did, unconsciously (or maybe even absolutely consciously), since one of the uniquenesses of Tolkien's work, as judged apparently by everyone who's ever actually read it (unlike most of the critics), is that reading his books is like watching a movie in your head.<P>Developing this theme further, one might even argue that one of the reasons LOTR has been so incredibly successful is because it is, in fact (or at least could be considered as), one incredibly long, eminently readable screenplay.<P>There is not, within the nature of things, fundamentally and necessarily a difference between page and screen.<BR>My biggest issue, I think, is that they've changed the story, and they've changed some of the most important characters. Boromir was great. Gandalf and Galadriel were great too, and very close to the way they were presented in the books. And one could even say the same about Arwen.<P>But Elrond, Aragorn, Faramir, and, to a lesser degree, Theoden, are not the characters Tolkien wrote about. They're different people. <P>And this is where I would argue that there is a wonderful amount of material in the books - material practically begging to be developed, material that certainly could have been (cinematically) developed, material that should have been developed, if the intent was really to stay faithful to the spirit of the books - that could have been used to support the people that Tolkien actually wrote about.<P>In the books Aragorn is Elrond's adopted son, to whom Elrond has "granted" his only daughter, on condition that Aragorn rise to the doom before him. Aragorn has served in Gondor, and is known, resented, and feared there, by the Steward whom he would displace. <P>And while the Faramir of the books is certainly the Steward Denethor's loyal son, and like him in shrewdness and foresight, he is even more (and has been for many years) the Wizard Gandalf's loyal pupil, and in this as in many other things displeasing his father.<P>Better material for cinematic treatment (a Kurosawa-like treatment) I can hardly imagine. <P>And here we return to the first and final points of my previous letter. <P>Having just read Shippey's book, JRR Tolkien: Author of the Century, and having encountered there arguments echoing many of my own (more than 25 years ago, while a junior in college, I had the temerity to suggest to some of my friends, who came from a literary background, that Tolkien's work would one day be recognized as the greatest books of the 20th century: they looked at me like I was crazy, and wouldn't even answer me), Philippa Boyen's comments reminded me too much of what too many people (who don't know any better) have been saying about Tolkien for far too long.<P>Hence, perhaps, and in part, the intensity of my reaction, notwithstanding the fact that I know the movies have brought Tolkien's work to many people who might never have otherwise experienced it.<P>But there might be something else, which I just remembered. My brother and I, like many others we know, have "adopted" certain characters in the books. My brother is Imrahil, Prince of Amroth. I'm Faramir. <P>I've always admired and related to his character. In many ways he's the person I would like to be. And I suspect that there are many, many others like me out there, including, if I can be so presumptuous, JRR Tolkien himself. <P>If this (i.e. what I suspect) is correct, then changing his character so fundamentally could certainly be viewed as having been a very, very big mistake, sure to have caused more disappointment than anyone at New Line would ever have wanted (or agreed to, if they had anticipated it). <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I realize this was a lot to digest. I'd be interested in your feedback and comments. Blood being thicker than water (or whatever), I find myself agreeing with all of it. Your thoughts, anyone?