To those LOTR fans who hate Jackson's LOTR cycle, how would YOU have done it better?

Cafe Society
21

The Scouring would have only worked as an added bonus segment on the EE-it simply wouldn’t have fit into the flow of the final movie, which already had enough “false” endings.

Too often PJ gets criticized for sins of commission-but there’s a lot he took out that wouldn’t have worked for modern-day audiences, and on top of that there was a lot which had to be trimmed even to fit into the EE’s running time. Some things had to go and in the main he made good decisions in that regard. Do you really want Legolas squealing like a girl when the Balrog shows up? His fearful look said more than mere words would have. We had a few lively hobbit songs, but do you really want to have the film interrupted every fifteen minutes with Frodo or Merry crooning about whatever?

Faramir was redeemed from the point of his change of mind onwards into ROTK. You have to remember that he and his men were under a tremendous amount of stress, but if Book Faramir was in the film it just wouldn’t have worked (“Yeah my kingdom is going to hell in a handbasket, starting with my father, but don’t worry be happy!”).

That said, there are several things which do bug me, some of which have already been mentioned (Scrubbing Bubbles of Death, Denethor, shieldsurfing). But the worst has to be Treebeard and his ludicrous decision not to fight, combined with his cluelessness about destroyed trees in his own forest, and then in a heartbeat he changes his mind, when it had already been established that ents take a lonnggg time to make a decision. In one asinine scene PJ destroys this character 3 different ways from Sunday. My biggest general criticism is that the last two movies were too overpaced, in a similar way to latter-day Simpsons eps-this material demands that you let it breathe, and not choke it with every mad rush from one plot point to another. Fellowship was much more balanced in that regard, but of course PJ would then have to trim even more stuff.

So they’re not the movies I would make, but they are about 90% there, which is good enough for me (even if I have to close my eyes and go “lalala!” at certain points). Perhaps it deserved four films (which we may yet get), tho I’m not sure where I’d make the breaks between them.

22

There’s a problem in that I disliked the films enough that I’ve no inclination to go through them again, so my memory of particulars is not great.

I’m no purist, but I think Jackson should have followed the books except where not following the books would improve the film. I’m happy that Bombadil got the axe, but I’m very unhappy that Faramir became Boramir redux.

My biggest objection to the films is that Jackson embraces cliches instead of side stepping them. It’s like watching Who’s The Boss versus watching Seinfeld. You can see what’s coming in the dialog and the short term action five or 10 seconds before it happens.

Well, let’s check the memory banks:
The unstoppable army of the dead. Why change that? It sucks.
The brave men hopping off a ship to face the horde (right before the dead pop out). Trite imagery.
Legolas bringing down the oliphant with ridiculous acrobatic moves. This ain’t supposed to be Spiderman, Pete.
The silly elven queen freak out scene (when she covets the ring.) Cheesy.
Aragorn driving off a bunch of Dark Riders by waving a torch around. Maybe the extended versions explains things more but in the theatrical versions it pretty much made the Riders look ridiculous.

More:
The cultural differentiation between elves and dwarves was weak; I’d say that they seemed closer to each other than a French Creole seems to a Boston Brahmin.

The art direction was generally unimaginative. One example that stuck in my memory was the two giants sculptures flanking the river. They were just boring, realistic, sculptures with their arms extended in a manner that would break anything made of stone. But, they were 300 feet high! Unimaginative, unbelievable, devoid of totemic power, but BIG!

The polychromatic orcs seemed overdone. They were too weird and comic booky to be perverse and scary. The kid from Mask was scarier than Jackson’s orcs.

I don’t necessarily want a Brothers Hildebrandt based LOTR movie, but they did dozen’s of paintings that were more visually striking than almost any scene in Jackson’s films. The movies were just not well art directed. In Alien H. R. Giger came up with a heap of fascinating visuals; LOTR cries out for the touch of an inspired artist. (And I’m very happy that the Pan’s Labyrinth guy will be directing the Hobbit.)

Here’s a little thing:
I recently reread the books and was moved to tears by Eowyn battle with the Witch King. In the books she was fearless and crying, and that was an incredibly emotionally affecting combination. In the film she is terrified and shaking and crying and then suddenly fearless. I found it not nearly so effective. (I did like the way the Nazgul tossed Theodan horse aside in the movie. Neat. I didn’t like how wimpy the Witch King was that it took him three or four mace swings to hit his target…)

Jackson did do the siege scenes very well, but other than that… trite direction with mediocre art direction.

23

There are numerous things that could have been made better/differently. I lump them into three categories:

  1. Failure to maximize use of the already written dialogue from the books. This was, and remains, my #1 pet peeve. Almost any other major literary work, when adapted for film the first time or two, ends up contributing the lion’s share of the dialogue. A Christmas Carol? Check. Jane Austen novels? Check. Shakespeare plays? Check. Tolkein by Jackson? Not so much. :frowning:

  2. Stupid additions to the story line for no other purpose than to try and prove I’m a better storyteller than the author was. This includes that idiocy about falling Aragorn falling off the cliff. Hell, you are already cutting things because if you don’t, the damn thing’s too long as it is. Why the heck would you try to add things?? And what in the world made you think they would make the films better by doing so?? Oh, I forgot, you have an ego that isn’t sufficiently suffancified by simply filming the first and best complete live-action version of the best fantasy epic of all time. :rolleyes:

  3. Outright changes to the storyline (not talking the elisions, here, which I thought were actually pretty well handled; I always knew that Tom Bombadil would never make it into a movie version, because he’s not necessary, and he slows things down considerably). We are talking things like Faramir deciding not to trust Frodo and let the Ring go on. It not only doesn’t add anything of appreciable importance to the film, it takes away one of the major points that Tolkein tries to make about Mankind with the book: that Man, flawed as he can be (see Boromir) still can rise up at times and exceed expectations, achieving that to which, in calmer, better times, we aspire. In short, vindicating everything Gandalf is working for in the first place, dammit!

In short: don’t add anything, don’t change as much, and use more (not exclusive, but much more) dialogue from the book.

24

Um, Baal? Aragorn in the books chases the Nazgul off by waving a torch at them. Not sure what you expected; it’s actually done in the movie much like the book is written. :wink:

25

One of the weird things I noticed: the tabards on the guards of Minas Tirith. They were perfect. Tiny things like that just jumped out at me like happy stars.

If I had to pick only one thing to change, I’d hate leaving Gimli as comic relief, but I’d have to just to give Eowyn her big scene with the right damn words. Say what you will about the Rankin-Bass Return of the King, but Eowyn was my hero in there, enough that my seven year old self memorized that passage, rewinding the poor tape and fastforwarding it until I remembered every word. I still do.

I watched all the movies and sat through all of Return of the King waiting for the lines that never came. :frowning:

26

I think Jackson did a fine job and it was a commercial success. If I had an unlimited budget and no need to make the money back, I would have done it differently, and I would be humbled to get it anywhere near as good as Jackson did. That said, here goes.

Divide the thing into six movies, not three. Stick closely to the six books Tolkien divided it into and do the whole thing, including Tom Bombadil, songs, poems, etc. Slow the pace down. Linger on Elf stuff and Dwarf stuff. I don’t care if anyone else likes it. Make it far more clear that the weapon of evil really is only fear and lots of it. The evil characters are weak if they are not feared or backed up by armies of fearsome weaklings.

Recast much of it. Legolas and Elrond need other actors. Gimli is not a character centered around humor, although he has a sense of humor. Glorfindel. Barrow Downs. More Rivendell. More Lothlorien. No cave troll in Moria, big orc. Stick to Moria as Tolkien described, no endless columns. (Balrog was damn good, no changes except obscure the wings better.)

No Aragorn thought dead. Andruil done at Rivendell. Witch King looking to get out of fight with Gandalf (unlike EE where he smacks Gandalf). No Frodo taken towards Gondor. Faramir played by someone else with echoes of Gandalf’s tuteledge all over, not the jerk from the movie.

Army of the Dead fearsome, not invincible, much like forces of evil. Different effects, perhaps zombies a la Werewolves of London.

Denethor using the Palantir in the White Tower, less crazy and more despair. No flaming off the end of the cliff after doing 100 yard run to end of prow.

Gollum played by actor whose body is CGI withered, but it is a real body before CGI effects.

Gollum slips at the end, Frodo does not push him.

Scouring of Shire, death of Saruman.

The Havens: everyone, especially elves, look very human, not ethereal, same with sets.

Sauron. Something needs to be done with the “eye”. It just sucks.

What Jackson did really well:

Casting: Ian McKellan was perfect. Hobbits were very good. Cate Blanchett was perfect. Christopher Lee was excellent, but no hook nose. Art direction was A+, Balrog was really scary.

He didn’t try to make the movie too short. He stuck a lot to the books and kept it an action series.

27

The only thing that really annoyed me was the last half hour or so, with all those false endings. Long live the King! Married at last! (let’s go) - oops, hobbits returning home (let’s go now) - wait a minute, one of them is getting married - wait, Frodo is finishing his book (let’s go now, I mean it) - wait, they’re taking a journey to the ship, sad goodbyes all around,(I really mean it now, let’s go!) - wait, Sam is going home alone. OK. Door closes. The End. NOW let’s go. Seemed a lot of story got crammed into 5 minute vignettes there.

28

I enjoyed the books as a kid, but never bothered reading them multiple times. Utterly hated the movies because the characters just kept talking and would not shut up. If they’d had anything interesting to say, I could have dealt with it, but so much of the dialog in the first film (never bothered with any of the others) seemed to be made up of one character describing exactly what we’re seeing on screen! Hello! This is a movie, not an audiobook. Yes, I can see that its the great scrotal tick of Gnraf, I don’t need you to describe how he limps to me, its obvious that the thing is limping. Are you going to kill it? No, you’re apparently going to show me in real time how he spends all day going from the left nut to the right nut, and then back again, all the while talking about the limp and how it augers ill for the weeds in Franikft, which is some place we’ll apparently never go. (Yes, I know, this isn’t in either the movies or the books, but it best describes how I felt about the film. I am sooooo not rewatching it to give detailed examples.)

I’d have also cut or redone the scene with the elf king and the other guy in the crack of Mt. Doom, where dude holds the ring (which they just barely managed to capture), looks at the lava and says, “Eh. I think I’ll keep it.” I don’t care who you are, if you’ve just watched your friends and countrymen be slaughtered by the zillions, all to capture this one item so it can be destroyed, you are not going to casually let the guy who says he’s decided to keep the thing walk out of there unmolested. You’re going to at least make the attempt to kill him, and you’re not going to let him get out of your sight, if you think that its too risky to whack him here.

29

I would have not made it just another typical hollywood movie. I wouldn’t have had the dwarf be the R2D2 of the group with whacky one liners and I wouldn’t have had ridiculous action sequences and I wouldn’t have had them facing such ridiculously big odds of 12 against litterally thousands. I would have also dialled the Sam/Frodo sexual tension way down.

30

Easier said than done when he’s holding a Ring of Invisibility.

31

Yes, I know, but the guy’s got family. Start sticking pointy things into them and it won’t take long for you to get him to rethink a few things. Said ring will only let him be invisible, not hundreds of places at onces. Besides, if I’ve learned anything from watchn Scooby Doo documentaries, its that if there’s an invisible guy running around,you can find him in seconds by filling the air with flour. :smiley:

32

I would have made it an animated movie.

I would not have changed characters (Faramir and Gimli are two examples that stand out to me as being fundamentally different people in the books as compared to the movies).

Really the biggest problem with the movies in my eye is their tone. The Lord of the Rings is a story about the End. The sun is setting on a mystical time, and nothing will ever be the same, and the characters in the story know that (or learn it soon enough). The movies just felt too raw and too ‘now’ to me. I feel like I’ve said this before here, but the movies lacked the ‘once upon a time’ feel that makes the book work. The films just felt like an action/adventure set in a fantasy world, while the book(s) feel like a fantasy.

I didn’t hate the movies; I thought they were ok. They didn’t, however, capture my imagination.

33

In general I loved, loved, LOVED the movies. I agree that Gimli shouldn’t have been used so much as comic relief, though.

And there was one subplot that I think didn’t get as much play. In the books, the elves and the dwarves are, well, I wouldn’t call them sworn enemies, but they are not on the friendliest of terms. And it was an interesting subplot how Legolas and Gimli went from being suspicious and untrusting of each other to best buddies which I wish Jackson had made more of.

34

Yes … rather underwhelming that in the end, the Witch King was killed by semantics.

35

That was the biggest problem I had with the adaptation. I can see making Faramir more visibly tempted (seeing him reject temptation as coolly as he did in the book could have undercut the Ring’s aura of menace) and visibly hostile to Frodo for putting that temptation in front of him, but the way Jackson did handle it was his least justified major departure from the source.

36

One other bit: Ok–I see why there was the wizard smackdown scene in Orthanc…but holy shit Jackson–instead of crappy “Telekinesis” effects, go with the BOOK. It’s the one moment where Tolkien gets close to traditional “magic missiles” sort of magic. The “I am no longer Saurman the White but Saurman of Many Colors” bit–which A) would have provided for a flashy “6 d8 prismatic spray” effect and B) is an important metaphor in the story. Tolkien (I believe) was playing with Keat’s idea that Newton’s experiments with prisms had destroyed the beauty of the rainbow–in other words, Saruman had moved from magic to science which, per Tolkein was bad.

It would have been a visually stunning sequence–and he passed it over for the wizard equivalent of a World Wrestling Foundation cage match
.

37

Hello Mr. YoungEsq. I’d say it was inadequately rationalized in the books, and that this was a scene the movie could have improved. Instead it came off worse.

I’ve reread the books within the last six months and believe that Aragorn mentions that Dark Riders don’t like fire. Tolkien implies that the Riders’ biggest power is the fear they inspire, but that Aragorn is one of the few humanoids in Middle Earth able to stand up to that power.
So, again, a weak part of the book that became much weaker in the film… because of the literalness of film and the lack of the book’s (poor) rationalizations.

38

You realize that both John Howe and Alan Lee, longtime JRRT illustrators, were very much involved in the art design? They and the guys who adapted their work did an excellent job by me.

39

He DID let Frodo go, dammit! Film Faramir was not like film Boromir, and the EE’s make that even more clear. If they had switched positions, Faramir is dead and full of orc arrows, and Boromir is our new Dark Lord.

40

Jackson took some things too literally, and departed from the story too much in other places.

Ian Holm’s freakout when seeing the ring in Rivendell, and Galadriel’s freakout in Lothlorien are both examples of scenes that struck me as odd, yet are actually very close to the book.

I would probably leave out Tom Bombadil, and definitely all of the more serious (and tedious) songs. I’d counsel my actors that they don’t need to overact. Sean Astin was just too over the top in certain scenes, while he was perfect in others - perfect when Gandalf catches him spying, annoyignly over the top when he carries Frodo up Mt Doom.

I wouldn’t make putting on the ring make things so frightening - Tolkien implies that it is a little spooky, but I think Jackson went too far.

I prefer the scenes in Bree from the book - its a mostly familiar place, where bad things start happening, not a scary unfamiliar place.

Weathertop was just fine as is. I have not problems with Elrond, and even Arwen is fine, although the whole “Arwen is dying” subplot from RoTK was utterly stupid. Gimli was a disappointment. I liked Legolas just fine, but the over-the-top acrobatics got a bit strained, especially in the Pelenor Fields.

Which was the biggest screwup in the movies. The battle for Minas Tirith was my favorite bit from the books, and Jackson just blew it 100% for me. The charge fo the Rohirrim was far better in the book, as was the manner of Aragorn’s arrival (I want to see the flag of Gondor unfurled on the damned corsair ships, turning defeat into victory!). Miranda Otto was not up to the part of Eowyn - they needed someone who could plausibly wield a sword - she was not allowed to fight because she was a woman, not because she was incompetent.

Cut the stupid goonie orc leader. Give me back the Witch-King. Give me the confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch-King at the gates, and do it right, instead of blowing it in the Extended Edition. The Witch-King breaks Gandalf’s staff? Gandalf - especially Gandalf the White - could eat the Witch-King for breakfast, and he knows it.

I can understand leaving out the Scouring of the Shire. I’d have loved to have seen it, and I think its important, but it would be tough to do in movie format.

I liked most of the movies. I would have given the all 8/10 ratings at the time, although my grades for TT and RoTK have gone down since, as I got more annoyed by some of the dumber moves noted above.

In my dream world, I’d do a mini-series version of LotR on cable, going as close to verbatim as possible, treating it like folks treat Dickens or Shakespeare, although I would leave out a lot of the songs.