The Hobbit (2012)

My recollection from the film is that's the scene (both book and film) where he doesn't want to give it up because of what it's doing to Frodo, not because he's incapable of doing so.

Gandalf saying Frodo is meant to have the ring makes sense in the book because you feel Frodo is the best hobbit for the job and is destined to complete this task. I don't get that from the film at all.

I'm confused, Frodo had the ring because he inherited it from Bilbo. After the council at Rivendell Frodo volunteered to take the ring to Mordor. What's the issue here?

Sure, but I consider that to be inventing new material. There really isn't that much material in those sources from the Hobbit timeline. they are going to have to invent ~95% of it, and I can't think of a single scene that they invented in the LotR trilogy that I really liked. A lot of the scenes where Jackson tried to put some new spin on what Tolkien wrote (like many of the ones that you mention), I also didn't much like. The films were at their best, by far, when they stuck pretty close to the books.

I also definitely agree about how they overdid that Galadriel scene, and missed a big opportunity to make Merry and Pippin and Gimli more like the interesting characters they were in the book and less like Disney-style comic relief sidekicks. And I agree that, on balance, I like the films a lot in spite of their many flaws.

I suspect you'd agree with more of my criticism about the Two Towers if you watched it today. Particularly how badly they overdid Theoden under the influence of Wormtongue.

Well, you're entirely wrong on the first point. That's why the rings "drumming" noise and Frodo's voice was faded when Sam was faced with turning the ring over it was the same type of noise when the ring had a major impact on Frodo before (aka in Osgiliath). Frodo even says right after he gets it back that "the ring would destroy you." It's absolutely made clear in the movie that Sam can't carry the ring for very long. Even though he carried it for a short time, Sam was considered a ring-bearer and allowed to pass over to the Undying Lands on the last ship to leave Middle Earth (though this is *not* in the movie). That's a testament to the internal fortitude required to resist the ring, even in such a short time carrying it.

On your second point, Gandalf says just exactly that in the movie. "There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought." Also, Elrond says something about the ring's lack of effect on Frodo before the meeting.

So it may be that you just haven't seen the movie in a while, but both points are specifically addressed.

I'm intimately familiar with both the books and the movies and I disagree. I like some of the departures from the book. For example, having the elves join the humans at Helm's Deep was brilliant due to the differences between a book and a movie. Simply put, it's a lot easier to paint subtle shades of grey in 1000+ pages of a book than it is in a 3 hour movie. In the book, they retreat to Helm's Deep and think they're going to die, but know it's not ENTIRELY hopeless. Trying to convey that to a movie audience would be virtually impossible. So they do make it entirely impossible and then, just when all hope is lost, the elves show up and there's a glimmer of hope. It's awesome.

Now some people may disagree and that's ok. But I saw the movie 3 times in the theater (a record for me) and in every showing the theater erupted with applause and cheers when the elves showed up.

FYI, the Two Towers is my favorite of the trilogy. I like what they did to Theoden. Again, you couldn't convey the subtle treachery of Wormtongue easily. By making it more overt, it was easier for general audiences to understand.

I think Jackson did well when it came to handling differences in action (the cave troll, the elves at Helm's Deep), but poorly when it came to handling dialogue and character changes (Faramir and Theoden).

I really dislike what they do to Gandalf and Theoden in The Two Towers. Helm's Deep in the book is something Gandalf pushes Theoden into doing because there's no other way Rohan can survive long enough for aid to arrive. In the film Gandalf seems to be pushing some open battle strategy and criticise Theoden for wanting to hide in a dead-end. Considering what an incredible spanking Rohan takes, even with a fortress, it makes Gandalf look a bit inept at grand strategy.

My recollection of Wormtongue from the book (though it has been a long time since I read it) was he had a honeyed tongue which is why Theoden would listen to his council, but in the film it becomes some terrible mind control thing followed by an exorcism.

Jackson was good at nailing the big moments though, and I thought he captured the look and feel of the world perfectly. Excluding the army of the dead.

Why couldn't he? That doesn't seem like a terribly difficult thing for a talented filmmaker to pull off. And why is it important to make Wormtongue's treachery easy to understand? Jackson wasn't writing stereo instructions, he was writing about a hidden plot that wasn't easily understood in the book until Gandalf outed him as Saruman's servant. The whole point of the Wormtongue thing was that only a few people close to Theoden even suspected that Wortongue was to blame for the King's inaction. Wormtogue was sly and clever and good at manipulating things from behind the scenes. In the film, they effectively make the whole court of Rohan out to be idiots who don't even notice that Theoden is under a magic spell that has transfigured him to look like he's about 400 years old. And the "exorcism" was just clumsy, awkward filmmaking that is difficult to watch without groaning.

Yeah, definitely.

"You have elected the way of pain!"

Sorry, but you're not correct.

According to the Tale of Years (Appendix B): "He is called Théoden Ednew in the lore of Rohan, for he fell into a decline under the spells of Saruman, but was healed by Gandalf, and in the last year of his life arose and led his men to victory at the Hornburg, and soon after to the Fields of Pelennor, the greatest battle of the Age. He fell before the gates of Mundburg. For a while he rested in the land of his birth, among the dead Kings of Gondor, but was brought back and laid in the eighth mound of his line at Edoras. Then a new line was begun."

FYI, the decline of Théoden started in 3014 and Gandalf released him in 3018. So Saruman was weaving his spells (partially through Grima) for 4 years. Hence the advanced age shown in the movie is correct as the spells had taken a heavy toll on Théoden. But make no mistake, it was the Voice of Saruman that did the damage, not just Grima's treachery.

Falling under the spell of someone is also a turn-of-phrase which does not mean a literal spell.

Right, 'cause that's exactly the innocent turn of phrase you are going to use when there are two wizards involved.

What if 'someone' is a wizard? Also, 'spells' in the plural suggests that Théoden wasn't enthralled to Saruman like a besotted teenager :-p

Damn you MrMolecule!

The advanced age--which is ridiculously advanced in the film, and magically vanishes when Gandalf performs his exorcism, has no analogue in the book. Or in your quote. Sorry, it just doesn't. Theoden was an old man, and remained an old man when Gandalf brought him to his senses. His frailty, however, was very clearly in his mind--a result of Sauruman's (and Grima's) influence. This exchange:

'It is not so dark here,' said Théoden.
'No,' said Gandalf. 'Nor does age lie so heavily on your shoulders as some would have you think. Cast aside your prop!'

Is not meant to make us think that Sauruman and Grima have magically, literally made Theoden older. He has merely been made to believe that he is through the poisonous influence of Sauruman and his agent. Jackson made a conscious decision to portray that very literally, though, and it was a dumb decision. Because Bernard Hill was easily among the best actors in the trilogy, and was more than capable of pulling off that scene as it was written in the books. But instead of asking Hill to portray a broken man, bereft of hope, made to believe that he is frail and weak, Jackson was just like "Fuck it. We'll do it in makeup and CGI." What a missed opportunity.

I feel the same way about Galadriel's "You would give me the Ring?" scene in Fellowship. Just ridiculously over the top, for no good reason. In the book, when she tells Frodo what she could do with the Ring, she's just, like, talking to him, sans the special f/x, and it's not entirely clear (to Frodo, or to the reader) whether she is serious or just messing with him. Until the end, when she holds up her ring and Frodo gets a brief glimpse of her power. That could have been a really cool scene on film, handled with more subtlety and less heavy-handedness.

Same goes for Bilbo snarling at Frodo at Rivendell. Should've just let Ian Holm do the scene without CGI.

Honestly, the film trilogy is simply chock-full of Jackson's ham-fisted decisions.

Yeah, that's another good example. Tolkien had a habit of speaking figuratively--that scene where Frodo shows Bilbo the Ring is a great example--and Jackson has a habit of portraying those moments very literally. "Oh, I guess we need to make Bilbo a shrunken, greedy creature... Better call Weta." When really, he just needed to trust his actors a bit more.

So, I just stumbled onto this thread, and since it's only four pages, I skimmed though it all. And since my day isn't complete unless I ruin someone else's:
(actually, it just caught my eye)

Stolen shamelessly from The Wheel of Time.

Jackson frequently annoys me with his improvements: because he wanted Arwen in the scene he removed Frodo getting witchslapped at the Ford. He utterly ruined the introduction to Strider. Barrow wights: gone, as are the barrow blades (though I understand the absence of Bombadil). Then, presumably because he had a hard enough time justifying the play time of the movie he removes the scene between the mountain scaling attempt and Moria where Gandalf explodes a pack of wolves. He even could have made it warg riders, it's more the principle that he removed several action scenes from the beginning of The Fellowship of the Rings.

Yeah, but as you say, he has limited time and it's already a pretty packed movie. When it came to cutting stuff I think he generally made the right calls, excluding the cutting of the entire Saruman element from the third film.

I thought Jackson's LOTR was really, really, great and improved on the books in some ways -- all the cuts were a-ok with me -- I really want a "Cleansing of the Shire" coda though. Oh well, Jackson ended all chances of that until someone's reboot. The adjustments to dialog, I thought, all worked well. The casting was really quite good. (Not just because I'm attracted to men, although rawr.)

Many of the outright changes pissed me off. Particularly Faramir. And the ents. And Aragon falling off a cliff so he can have visions. WTF there wasn't enough going on already? All of the CGI "ring lust" scenes were over the top IMO and could have been done with acting and maybe some subtle CGI and/or voice filtering to ensure the uncanny valley effect.

Overall I love them and am looking forward to The Hobbit strongly enough that I'm beginning to worry I will be disappointed no matter how good it is.

'Stolen shamelessly' generally doesn't mean 'shares some of the the same words'.

I haven't watched the trilogy in a long time, but the only things I can remember being really irked about were the cliff scene that you mention and the army of the dead. The cliff scene was unnecessary, particularly since you already had one character returning from apparent death in the same damn film. And of all of the things that have been described as 'ham-fisted' in this thread, the army of the dead is probably the only one that I would agree is deserving of that criticism.

What was the problem with the ents? I don't recall them being particularly problematic compared to the books.

Sheepherder - what was wrong with the introduction to Strider? That always struck me as one of the things that was pretty true to the book.

The way they decide to attack Isengard is changed. In the book, they meet, discuss, and come to a reasoned decision to attack Saruman. In the film they meet, choose NOT to attack, but then the hobbits trick Treebeard into going close to Isengard. He sees the devestation, gets angry, and attacks.

I generally like the films, this is the only change I flat-out hated.

The ents issue is the pointless change to the outcome of the ent council, for which a new scene had to be added so they could change their minds less than five minutes later. And also all be hanging out on the edge of the wood so they can emerge as one. Almost like it was planned. At their council.

Right, the change with the Ents was just transparently so that Merry and Pippin could be something more than luggage during the second movie. But as Quitch says, it makes no sense whatsoever, since all the Ents marched along with them to Isengard right after deciding not to go to war.

The super special FX-y version of Galadriel's speech is probably the worst implementation of an actual scene from the book, IMHO (as opposed to stuff they just made up, like Aragorn falling off a cliff). I'm sure that scene would have been much much stronger if we got to listen to the words and watch Cate Blanchett act.

But these are, in the end, minor quibbles when put in context of the whole 9+ hours. The whole thing turned out better than I would have ever expected. And it's unlikely that any remake will ever do a better job overall.

Aragorn trolling Sam is gone in it's entirety.

EDIT:

They aren't really luggage in the books by that scene: Treebeard is sitting alone on that hill pondering what to do about Saruman, the Hobbits show up, and confirm that yes, Saruman is definitely a turncoat. Treebeard is, presumably, thinking "Oh, that's good, I was wondering how the rest of the wizards and elves would take the news if I decide to wreck his shit." Then they get to talking about their hardships, and Treebeard gets a little upset.

Nuance, you know?

Jackson removed a lot more character depth than he added, turning Merry, Pippin, and Gimli from the interesting, three-dimensional characters that they were in the books (arguably Merry and Pippin more so than Gimli) into little more than Disney sidekick comic relief characters. I understand that he had limited time with which to develop so many characters, but still, he somehow managed to find time to give more major roles to tertiary characters from the book, like Arwen.

Poppycock. Aragorn was hardly a perfect hero in the book. He was plagued by self-doubt, and constantly questioned his ability to guide and protect the Fellowship. His relationship with Arwen had a tragic edge and was a far sadder tale than the films' love-conquers-all romance.

The one thing he didn't do was to shy away from his duty and destiny, and I personally felt that the films diminished his character by adding that irritatingly-emo "But what if I don't wanna?!" element. Aside from that one thing, I thought Jackson did pretty well by his character. But that one thing = Meh.

I've heard this argument before, but I disagree completely. It didn't diminish its threat in the books, so I'm not sure why it would do so in the films. It did diminish Faramir's character significantly, though, which was a shame.

The scene in which he offers it to Aragorn was an invention of Jackson's, so why not leave that one out?

The cool thing about Faramir in the book is that we, the reader, can see that he was the son that truly deserved his father's respect. In many ways, he was a stronger and wiser man than Boromir, and we see that encapsulated in the scene in which he "passes the test" of denying the Ring, the same test that destroyed his brother. In fact, IIRC, there were only three people in the books that directly refused the Ring--Gandalf, Galadriel, and Faramir. That put Faramir in some pretty distinguished company, and gave you a profound sense of respect for his character's strength of will and purpose, in addition to feeling sorry for him. In the films, you mostly just feel sorry for him.

Even if I agreed with this, which I don't, the matter was in doubt for all of two minutes, as Quitch pointed out. So mission not accomplished. It just came across as a pointless, manufactured bit of drama, which is exactly what it was.

And Bilbo and Sam are the only two characters to actually be in possession of the Ring and willfully give it up, making them even more better than those other 3 losers. It's easier to eat no potato chips than it is to eat just one, is all I'm saying.

Jackson's not even eternally consistent with his own cinematic version of the story. Elrond grouses and snarls over his perceived weakness of mankind in scene after scene, and vehemently opposes Arwen's marriage to Aragorn, yet at the wedding in RotK is shown standing there with a huge smile on his face. . .the proud, joyous father. And nothing brings a smile to a father's face more than knowing that his otherwise immortal daughter is going to die in a few 100 years, and that once you depart you'll never see her again.

Did Frodo ever willingly give up the Ring, though? He didn't at the end, certainly. He handed it to Gandalf for a minute once, but only reluctantly, and he knew that he was going to get it back. He offered it to a couple of people, but nobody took him up on his offer, so we don't know if he really would have given it up.

I think that Sam is the only person to ever really willingly give up the Ring. And Bilbo. Whoops! Don;t want to forget him.

Well Bilbo gives it up seventeen years earlier. My understanding (which this thread shows is pretty wonky) is that the ring grows in power as Sauron does.

Yes, how dare a father be happy that his daughter has found happiness herself.

No offense, but I would suggest you work on your reading and comprehension skills.

Yeah, I hated the changes to Faramir until I heard the scriptwriters' justification for them. Now I'm pretty much onboard with them, even though one of my characters was changed to become kind of a putz.

Although the scene was invented, it was showing an implicit reality from the books. Aragorn knew all along what Frodo carried, and showed no interest in taking it for himself, even though he could have easily done so in the wilderness around Weathertop. True, you don't have the act of Frodo actively trying to give it to Aragorn, but I don't mind that particular modification in the service of demonstrating that Aragorn was resistant to the ring.

No.... he accurately captures the silliness of that particular criticism. His reading comprehension is A-OK.

So it's narratively consistent for Elrond to show nothing but disdain, if not outright bigotry, toward the race of man, and to disapprove of this union in the extreme, throughout 99% of the theatrical releases only to then, without transition, without any scene explaining the changed frame of mind, shoot the actor standing there beaming? Because that makes no sense whatsoever to me. You can play fanboy and disengage critical thought processes all day long to excuse the glaring inconsistency--oh, he's so happy for her happiness that he's willing to overlook that he's never going to see his daughter again, that she's forsaking 99% of her life expectancy--but that doesn't gel for me. The books state that among all the sorrows of the 3rd age the parting of Elrond and his daughter was among the most grievous, because the father knew the Doom of Man was going to be a hard cup to drink when her time came and that he would never see her again once he set sail. And Arwen's final days years later consisted of riding to a forsaken woods, Lothlorien, lying down alone on the hill of Cerin Amroth, and shuffling off her mortal coil.

Just how many viewers have that take-away from the relationship between Aragorn and Arwen? Probably damn few. It was yet another example of Jackson diminishing the story because apparently wedding scenes require smiles all-around. No time to shoot a troubled father or for a subsequent expository scene between father and daughter to explain to the audience the extent of what Arwen was truly giving up for Aragorn. But time enough for hobbit bed-jumping and innumerable fade aways.

Elrond was shown to be ambivalent about trusting Men due to Isildure's betrayal regarding the ring. That's not the same as despising Mankind, and it's not "99%" of his appearances in the film. He sends elves to stand with Theoden at Helms Deep. He reforges Andúril and coaxes Aragorn to step up and be king. These are not signs of an inability to see the quality of Man.

Yeah, he had "issues" due to his history and he wasn't keen on his daughter giving up immortality, especially when victory for that world still hung on a bare sliver of hope. But the films gave his character enough depth to overcome it by the end.

Also, as long as you're throwing in non-film lore, wasn't Elrond himself a half-elf? (Been years since I've read any Tolkein but a quick look at Wikipedia confirms it.)

He and his brother got the choice, for reasons too involved to go into. He went with the Elvish option. His brother, Elros, chose Men. And founded the line of Kings of Numenor, which of course went father to son* to end with Aragorn. Elrond is thus Aragorn's great^a-hell-of-a-lot uncle!

Perhaps the fact that Aragorn had claimed the crown and Sauron had been destroyed had something to do with his change of heart.

Frankly, the film does a far better job (to the point of repetition) of showing Elrond's divided mind than the book ever does, where it's reduced to a throwaway about all the courses of the war being fraught for him, and a couple of lines about how their parting was so terrible. We've covered the ground by the end, so to just have him smile at his daughter's genuine happiness is quite enough.

*edit for extreme pedantry: it's not quite a straight father-to-son lineage the whole way, there is one daughter in there. Still uncle, though.

Speaking of 99%, that's how certain I am that there is a scene in one of the films where Elrond explains to Arwen what will happen if she gives in to her love for Aragorn, so it's not like that stuff is glossed over or not explained to the audience. On the other hand, when Aragorn and Arwen marry, hasn't Aragorn proven himself and cleansed Isildur's shame?

In other words: incest! :)

There is, and in that scene it's describing her long lonely years if she remains behind as immortal, doomed to haunt the world till the dominion of Man has fallen and faded along with all her loved ones. The choice to live a mortal life (which AlanT 's post puts into a new perspective for me) fixes that by trading the Elvish method of persistence for the mortal one. (The child she envisioned on her march to the sea.)