Yeah, that was kind of glaring, like a Joss Whedon lens-flare-fest, but in audio.
I was most bothered by the treatment of Faramir. He was a completely good individual in the book. He was one of the people tempted by the ring who turned it down – he knew he could take possession of it, and could use it to rule the world, and instead, he gave Frodo and his little band aid and comfort, and sent them on their way. In the movie he’s a rough man in a rough job. In the book, he is an exemplar of virtue.
This. If you read poetry from the time, (not Tolkien, other stuff) there’s tons of allegories about the evils of industrialization. This is when beautiful landscapes were being cluttered with smoke-belching factories. When people were leaving farms and families to work in those crowded unsafe factories that were little better than mines. And when modern technology created toxic gas to kill masses of people on the battlefield – a battlefield Tolkien experienced as a young man. Industrialization eventually brought us lots of good stuff and longer lifespans, but it’s early manifestation included a lot of early mortality and ugliness and pain. And that’s the phase Tolkien saw.
This confused me too, the first 5 or 6 times I saw the films. But what actually happens: Elrond assumes that Arwen only has 2 choices: go to the Undying Lands, or live with Aragorn as an elf. He presents her a vision of what that would be like – Aragorn dies, she’s immortal, wandering the earth after everything she loves is gone. Pretty bleak.
But then she springs a 3rd option he hadn’t considered: she becomes mortal.
(In actuality – ie, in the books – this makes no sense. Elrond and all his descendants have the choice of being elves or men. He knows this perfectly well: he chose to be an elf; his twin brother Elros became the first king of Numenor.)
Elrond and Elros certainly had that choice. But the sons of Elros did not have that choice, and resented it. And Arwen’s claim is the only source supporting that the children (or any further descendants) of Elrond ever had that choice.
Now, Arwen just might still be correct. There’s nothing that says that the situation must be symmetric: Maybe, for instance, anyone with any human ancestry is allowed to choose the path of mortality, but that the choice of Elvish life is limited to only a few. But I don’t think it can be taken as a given.
It’s the thing that Jackson did that I hated the most. Not just because it screws with Faramir, but because it shows he failed to understand the basic premise of the whole damn trilogy!
The Lord of the Rings is, in essence, the story of how the torch was finally handed off from the mythological elves to the real-world men. Gandalf’s whole purpose in Middle-Earth is to help make that happen, by bringing about the end of the ages of wonder, where elvish and angelic influence shape the goings on. If you will, he’s the exit plan for the Valar, who have come to realize that Middle-Earth has to be left to the Second-born Children so that they can finally realize their potential.
And all around you at the end of the Third Age, you see so many reasons why that shouldn’t be allowed to happen. Whole tribes of men who are corrupted by Evil (Southrons, Easterlings, Dunlendings, etc.). Leaders who cannot act as their noble ancestors would have (Denethor, for example). Saruman gives up on the whole notion of trusting that Men will get things right and decides to take things into his own hands, setting the snare for himself that traps him as a pawn of Sauron. But Gandalf plugs away, because he sees the potential of Man, and he knows Man can rise above these examples and be noble and good.
No aspect of the story shows this better than the intentional contrast drawn between Boromir and Faramir. Boromir is the anointed heir, the natural leader, the bold, brave man, who eschews a life of book learning for the call of action. Faramir, by contrast, is the quiet scholar, who as needs be can lead, but who harks to Gandalf’s influence, and sees a value to “good” and “noble” behavior, even if it appears to work short-term harm on him and his. And, of course, it is Boromir who succumbs to the temptation of the Ring, and Faramir who refuses that temptation, soliloquizing that he has the option of taking it, and maybe doing great things with it, but recognizing that it will just lead to a bad end. In that moment, he is everything Gandalf believes Man can be, given the chance.
And Jackson totally screws it up. When Faramir lets Frodo go, it’s only because he is afraid that by not doing so, Sauron will simply end up with the Ring, or that terrible things will befall Gondor. Nothing noble about it, just naked fear that he’s screwed up. :smack:
No.
Tolkien is quite explicit that the children of Elrond were given a similar choice as that which Elrond had. No where is it said in canon that I’m aware what choice was made by Elrond’s sons, Elladan and Elrohir. Interestingly, none of Elrond’s children were yet born at the time of the ending of the First Age, so it’s not like this grace was offered because they already existed. One supposes that Tolkien made it be this way so that he could justify the story line about Arwen; I’d have to go back and look through the volumes of the History of Middle-earth that deal with the writing of the trilogy and, specifically, the development of the Arwen-Aragorn story line to be sure.
If only Thorin had given Bilbo a mithril hoodie…
While we’re on kinda missing the point:
Tolkein says Eru gave Gollum a small shove. When God intervenes, Jackson…you find a way to make it work.