Lord of the Rings: Books vs. Movies

[Loony BoB]

"The Age of Men is at hand" is nothing to do with Sauron vs. Middle Earth and everything to do with humans overtaking the Elves in racial dominance of Middle Earth. I don't think I ever felt it had anything to do with Sauron, although perhaps that's just because of how much time I spent reading the books over and over.

The books are far, far, far better than the movies, and that's saying something because the movies were still great, although not "best of all time" or anything. I feel the movies left too much out for my liking, both characters and plot-wise. I do agree with Miriel that much of the aesthetics and (by such a massive distance) the music were so much better in the movies than in my imagination. For the most part, anyway (I wasn't a fan of the look of Elves and Hobbits, but I don't think they could have got them as correct as my imagination feels they should have been without relying on animation, so they did the best they could really).

The books, though, are just incredible. I should read them again someday.

EDIT: Wait, the age of men is at an end? I don't recall that about the movies at all. Whoops. xD

[Jinx]

I've seen Return of the King so many times and they only used the dead army in one battle?

I hate the books. Hate them. I've decided that sometime in 2014 I'm going to give them another go, though, now that I'm older.

Also, part of why I hate RotK is because while the other movies had CGI, the entirety of RotK was leaning on CGI. I hate that. It's boring.

[Slothy]

I couldn't stand the books. I made it to a little past the halfway mark of the Two Towers when I last tried to read them and it was so unbelievably boring. The pacing is awful. I really want to like the Lord of the Rings because there's obviously a very well fleshed out and interesting world in there. It's just a shame it's bogged down by a story that's, overall, as dull as that.

I have to give the nod to the movies because, despite whatever changes from the books they may have and the end of Return of the King being entirely too long, I at least enjoy them enough to get through them. That's pretty significant in my books.

[Ayen]

Couldn't get into the books. Tolkien's writing bored the hell out of me and I could only make it to chapter two of the Fellowship and that was it. I much prefer the movies and this is the first I heard of anyone having complaints about Return of the King. That's okay, I'll continue to enjoy it as some of the best works of cinema.

[Bolivar]

Thr books are better and obviously so immensely more imoortant but I enjoy the films a whole lot, especially for what they achieved.

[Psychotic]

Read through the books three or four times and I do love them, although I shudder to think how many times I've seen the movies. I think I've dedicated more time to the latter so that's your answer.

Tolkien was a great world builder but wasn't a great writer - it's not an easy pick up and read book. Conversely, the Hobbit book is precisely that so it's weird that he could do it with one and not the other, although I suppose The Hobbit was more of a children's thing.

The movies are about more than just the plot. As Miriel touched upon, the music and the visual design are smurfing exemplary. Stylistically the movies are in a league of their own. The Army of the Dead is just a quick shortcut rather than having an extra battle (vs the Corsairs) and then introducing a new set of characters - right near the end of 9 hours of movie, remember - for the Dunedain. Wraps it up in one neat package and I'm okay with that.

[Tavrobel]

"The Age of Men is at an end."

Did you mean "at hand?" If Sauron had won, the Age of Men would have ended before it even started. RIP Men 2003-2003.

The Noldorin Elves who stayed after the end of the First Age definitely screwed themselves, when they listened to Sauron. Sure, he was tricking them the whole time, but the moment they put the Rings on, Sauron just dropped his mic and walked off-stage.

"The Age of Men is at hand" is nothing to do with Sauron vs. Middle Earth and everything to do with humans overtaking the Elves in racial dominance of Middle Earth. I don't think I ever felt it had anything to do with Sauron, although perhaps that's just because of how much time I spent reading the books over and over.

This is correct. The "Age of Men" thing was earned, and it wasn't some great prophecy. It could be compared to a little bit of foresight and reasoning reaching the level of prophecy, but not quite there. This Age was to signify the dominance in population of Men in comparison to Elves, but it would not have happened if Sauron were not defeated; really, it could have been any great non-Sauron enemy, too.

The Age of Men could make more sense in the total mythological context, if Tolkien had ever finished his LotR sequel about the beginning of the Fourth Age. In this extremely incomplete work, the story was to feature King Eldarion dealing with internal politics and a rising threat from further East of Mordor. Orcs never greatly troubled Men again after the defeat of Sauron. Eldarion instead had to deal with those who lived further East, the regions of Rhun and Harad, which had kingdoms of evil Men. From this point on, wars were strictly fought between different populations of Men.

If you treat Tolkien's work as being a legitimate entry into the stories that make up OUR world, these stories were to explain why wars happen between nations now, and all of the Beleriand/Middle Earth stuff happened something like 12000 years ago. Tolkien was aiming for a distinctly English-sourced myth about the creation of the world. "Finding out" about the stuff that happened until present day places it in the same tier as other myth/religion stories, like the Bible's Genesis. This desire doesn't come across very well in the published versions of the Silmarillion, the Hobbit, or LotR, but early drafts of every story had people speaking in old English, traveling to and from England, and exchanging tales and lessons.

Also, Sauron used to be a cat. This is the sort of storytelling permutation that Tolkien thought other people would pick up on and add on to (like actual myths), but then he abandoned his work about the Fourth Age, knowing it couldn't match people's expectations. Politicking and a full fading of magic does not make a very interesting high-fantasy work.

[Forsaken Lover]

Does nobody remember that the head orc dude was like how men are over and orcs will rule? I'm positive that's in one of the damn movies. And it doesn't make any sense because Men serve Sauron just as much as orcs do.

[Elskidor]

I recall that line, and although men served him as well, it seems there were a lot more orcs.

[Tavrobel]

Does nobody remember that the head orc dude was like how men are over and orcs will rule? I'm positive that's in one of the damn movies. And it doesn't make any sense because Men serve Sauron just as much as orcs do.

Gothmog says it in the third movie after they take Osgiliath. "The Age of Men is over, the time of the Orc has come." No such statement is ever included in the books. Such a statement would have implied that the Age of Men had started and would end in the near future. It hadn't started, yet.

The Age of Men is specifically a version of the Fourth Age where Sauron loses.

In related prophecies, the way the Witch King would be disposed of ("not by the hand of man") was really emphasized in the movies. Since the movies removed the source of the prediction (Glorfindel), the prediction takes full prophecy form. For some reason, the Witch King seems aware of this fact, too, though in the books, he is only as vulnerable as any other of the Nazgul.

Glorfindel says that the Witch King will not die to a Man/male to make sure that Earnur, King of Gondor, wouldn't get himself killed during a battle in the middle of a war with Angmar. If Earnur had chased after the Witch King to try and kill him, he may have succeeded, but he would have most likely died, the battle of Fornost would not have happened, and Angmar would have survived into the late Third Age.

The movie makers really go to town with references that they, the reader would be aware of, but not the characters themselves should ever be aware of. Both of these are full on mistakes in understanding by the filmmakers. Your response is understandable.

[The Captain]

Without the books you wouldn't have any of the movies so I suppose that's the simple answer.

However, I also think that the books were written from a wonderfully fleshed out "World-Building" point but as for overall storytelling and such, they are dense, slow and sometimes hard to stay engaged in.

A quick, obvious defense about movie changes: They are made for time, budget and also, for interpretation. To me, complaining about a movie that makes changes to a storyline, be it to cut time or to make it simpler, is the same logic that people have when they hear a band play a song live and expect it to be exactly like a studio recording. The spirit and overall feel of the song may still be the same but it has to change because it is being created anew and in a slightly different medium or setting.

For the LOTR movies, what is spot in is the feel and spirit. To me, it feels EPIC, it feels magical, the stakes feel real and earned. It's the music certainly and the costumes, the settings, all of it help create a Middle Earth that is alive with possibility.

So, will some characters be cut, even ones that might be somewhat pivotal and their storylines added in to other characters' backstories? Of course, otherwise the movies would each have been 7 or 8 hours long. Rather than introduce a whole other slew of characters, they just use already existing characters (The Dead Army for example) to help get to the next point in the story.

As a filmmaker myself, that's where some of the fun comes in actually and what helps make it an art form. How do we interpret this story for the screen? What makes the most sense thematically, which is much more important in a film than a book which can take chapters and tangents to prove a point since you usually read it in chunks and not all at once, as opposed to a movie?

Movies can overwhelm us with emotions and themes since we can get swept up in the storyline all at once without a break. With a story as overreaching as LOTR, to even get close to some of these feelings is a miracle. To actually follow through and arrive at a conclusion to this journey that feels deep, rich with adventure and romance all in less than 10 hours is nothing less than remarkable.

I think it also helps to look at the LOTR's movies as one long movie as opposed to three films, since they were shot all at once and essentially are meant to be viewed like a long winding journey. The books sometimes, with its strange pacing and structure of splitting the characters up for entire books rather than intertwining the plots, just don't feel nearly as epic. The world that was created and the story WERE, but the execution of it wasn't.

So I guess I'd say, the books were more important, but I enjoyed the movies more.

Take care all.

[blackmage_nuke]

For LoTR I enjoyed the movies more. The books felt like they dragged on not just with the over descriptions but with the endless tea parties with elves. The Hobbit on the other hand I prefered the book. It was a succinct exciting adventure with intresting tea parties, the things the movie inserts break the pacing for me.

[Skyblade]

"So, at any point, this army of the dead could have just come and wiped out the enemy, right?"

They could have wiped Mordor clean on that same day. If they were going to fight more than one battle, why would they not stick around an extra hour or two and fight one more?

It's stated pretty explicitly in the books that the curse only bound them for one battle. In the books, there's only one they needed to fight in, at Pelargir, which gave them an effective way of transporting Northern reinforcements. There were more defenders at Minas Tirith in the book, so there wasn't much of a need for the Dead Army there. Maybe if they had not removed 90% of the country, things could be different.

The magic is also not strong enough to clean out Mordor. Consider the source of the level of sorcery required to keep these figures in check: a noble/king of Gondor cursing a few thousand men for about a thousand years, the source of which is dead, versus a Maia enslaving an army of living people on his own and maintaining nine Nazgul and their Rings of Power. It does not compare.

Oh, I know. The problem is that you get none of this, at all, in the movies. There is no indication that there is any limits to the duration, or power, of the curse. The army of the dead is specifically described as "an army more deadly than any that walks the Earth", and is shown mowing over essentially half of Mordor's forces without even pausing. Further, the movie actually implies that the curse could have held them longer, had Aragorn not chosen to release them, as his word is needed to release them and let them be at piece.

And, yeah, I agree that there was a lot more need for the magical cure-all army in the movies, but that's because they did remove all the defenders, allies, and other forces that were present. And, I'm sorry, but those should not have been removed.

Prince Imrahil was NOT a minor character. He's the uncle of Boromir and Faramir, and I believe he's also Eomer's father in law. He was the guy who was in charge of the city with Denethor and Faramir...disqualified (since he was related by blood to Stewards). And the Knights of the Silver Swan were responsible for a number of really important turning points in the battle.

There was no reason to cut any of that, and there was nothing (in the movies) to explain why the Army of the Dead weren't used more than they were. If they were counting on everyone to have seen the books, they failed because they didn't represent the books properly, and if they were forming their own version, they failed to make their story as complete and consistent as it should have been.

In addition, they also had to compress the timelines. What is supposed to happen over the course of a few days is instead, told in the span of less than an hour. No amount of altering the background to give the impression of passing time can change that, and it is a flaw of movies as a form of media. If they wanted to portray it accurately, the actual battle would have been extremely slow, plenty of downtime, no sense of urgency at all. Most wars are not started and ended in the span of a few hours. I don't know how much you liked the Faramir scenes where he's actually shown strategizing attack patterns, but Return would have been littered with them, and the movie would have risked feeling like a History Channel documentary.

I can dream.

One thing about the movies that have bothered me, is that the Middle Earth that's painted in Peter Jackson's vision feels extremely underpopulated. It isn't. Sure one can point out "hey it's a movie," and that it is difficult to fill in that information for the viewer at a glance, but there was a lot more that the crew could have done to fill in some of the blanks.

This gives this impression that the world will end even if Sauron loses, simply because the Elves are going away. Very "this is the final battle" sort of feel. Only some of the Elves are going away. The native Elves of Lorien and Mirkwood have no reason to travel West. because that's not where home is for them. Granted, this makes life a lot easier for the filmmakers, and I am not sure they could have pulled off such an adaptation otherwise. It definitely would have compromised how Arwen was portrayed in the trilogy, and taken a significant amount of emotion from the character and her decision-making process.

If it makes anyone feel better, I actually liked the Appendices more than the actual movies.

I think they do a fairly decent job of making the world seem populated, mostly through the second movie. The refugees and towns of Rohan helped to give some much needed depth to the world. We also know that the Southrons and Easterlings are still around (though we do miss Aragorn making peace with them), as are the Dwarves and men. It didn't feel as huge as it could have been, true, but I still think it was ok. Maybe that's one thing that The Hobbit will fix (even though it ruins so many other things).

[Niale]

Oooh, the almighty books. I have read it, it is some really heavy reading stuff, but a great world. I would recommend reading LOTR, before reading "The hobbit", its a breeze if thats done first. But movies and books usually have changes, because of directors portrayal, while in books you can kinda imagine it yourself. But i did notice changes from book to movie, for example:

Frodo was more portrayed braver in "Fellowship of the Ring" and the movies made it more right on the books on his character in "Two Towers" and "Return of the king"
For example:
In the movie, Frodo dropped the sword when he saw the nazguls on weathertop, while in the book he showed courage by fighting them before he got stuck.
Also: In the movie an female elf comes to escort frodo to safety.
In the book, a male elf Glorfindel met Aragorn and let Frodo use his horse, when the nazguls came he rode himself, and the river was due to Gandalf and Elrond who could control it from where they where.

I could go on about many changes from book to movie, but in the end, it still potrays the main story ok. Even if they switch what role some play. The same can be said about The hobbit movie aswell. I personally think its ok movie, and the book is old now, but is still a classic for anybody to read.

I say, entertainment is entertainment. It does stay true to the story, so thats all i need. Aslong as it is fun, then i consider that pretty good.