Amph One Thread To Rule Them All: The Rings of Power, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings & Middle-earth films

Tolkien: "Ha ha! You thought you were reading The Hobbit 2 but actually I'm going to tell you to grow the **** up now. I did it before Rian Johnson!"

 

Don’t forget Gollum gave Bilbo the ring in the originally published The Hobbit, and only published the “special edition” version when LOTR was about to come out.

 

I read the original version of the Hobbit when I was about 12. Then dove into Fellowship knowing nothing about the plot. Not even that Bilbo’s ring is the titular ring. Fellowship got off to a bad start walking back how Bilbo got the ring and makes him a liar before writing him out of the story as a main character.

I stopped reading when Frodo and company got to Rivendell. It was the stone trolls that did it in chapter 12. They turn to stone in chapter 2 of the Hobbit. I wasn’t down for the slow retelling of the Hobbit.

About a decade later I read the books before the movies were released and found the story picks up not long after they reach Rivendell. After that it’s hard to put down.

 

new lord of the rings television series where the first season spends 3 episodes in tom bombadil’s house and ends after frodo cuts off that wight’s hands and they run around naked in the foggy ghost hills

 

The books are better than the films on every imaginable level.

 

That brings up an interesting question: What parts of the films were better than the books?

For me, the death of Boromir was far more powerful on film. Big kudos to Sean Bean's acting and the way the fight was choreographed, especially the impact of the arrows. Every one of them hurt and looked like a death blow.

 

I think Aragorn overall comes across better.

I think Theoden does too.

Putting the Arwen stuff as an ongoing subplot was really nice, and I liked her role in Fellowship especially. Their subplot in inspired mostly by one of the appendices, not in the proper story, but it’s literally one of my favorite things about the movie trilogy.

I also really like the focus on Saruman in Fellowship (as well as Two Towers). He really felt more like the main antagonist than Sauron for the first 2 movies. It’s a shame they cut him out of ROTK.

I also think compressing the timeline in the beginning really works. Instead of like 13 years of Gandalf reading about the One Ring, then 10 months between Frodo learning he has the One Ring before leaving and then 3 months in Rivendell getting ready, and a month in Lothlorien. They really added to the urgency.

I don’t know about a change, but Sam, Gandalf, Galadriel, Gollum, Eowyn, and Aragorn all feel like they couldn’t have been better cast or performed.

Knowing they have to be 3 movies, most of the cuts make sense.

Also, some dialogue was moved around, and I think it’s more impactful for Gandalf to say his line about “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us” quote being in the Mines of Moria in a quiet moment before his death, instead of in the middle of exposition when telling Frodo about the One Ring while at Bag-End. There’s other examples of that too. Another one is another Gandalf one, instead of describing Valinor shortly after his resurrection (or was it at the very end at the Grey Havens?), saying it to Pippin in a quiet moment during the battle when death might soon come is much more meaningful use of that language.

 

Sour Ron proposing to his wife was the best thing in Rings of Power. In terms of the film--I don't know. Maybe the Eagles coming to the rescue? Their majesty onscreen exceeded the book, I think.

 

ok boomer

 

You might be all caught up with swiping right in your "Hook Up" culture right now, but as the glamor fades and you want someone to spend your life with, you will realize how beautiful it was that Sour Ron reached across millennia of existence to forge an all-powerful instrument of death for his beloved.

 

That might be the only example of a moment that has more impact in the film than in the books. Not sure it’s better, though, as I think a big emotional scene of that kind in the book would’ve felt out of place, in terms of style and tone. I also liked the movie’s prologue. Best part of the series, maybe.

 

I hope we'll get more mainstream adaptation of this version of the Balrog... it's not only another Maiar, in the books Gandalf talks about it uttering curses and having to mutter counter-curses in response.


https://prouser.me/flame-of-udun-by-manuel-castanon/




https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rJv0oL

 

I'm totally with Ghost on one point: replacing Glorfindel with Arwen is a good choice (in general beefing up Arwen's role and moving it out of the Appendix purgatory is the right call, although the "She's dying except lol no she isn't" thing from Two Towers is weird). Don't get me wrong, I like that the books are not a perfect precision construction, I like that there are characters exceeding the number necessary to move plots along, but that's like... precisely where you have her be more of a character, and skip having a disposable elf who may or may not be dead depending on which draft of Fall of Gondolin you prefer this week, Ronnie.

 

Return of the King but yes

After thinking about it, the “out” for them is that now that Arwen chose humankind and mortality, her fate is now tied to the Ring because she can no longer leave Middle Earth except through death. She is “dying” because all humans are always dying, we’re mortal. At least that’s the only way it makes sense to me.

 

Oh was it RotK? Yeesh regardless. I think they wanted to give Aragorn more personal stakes in the final outcome but he didn't need any more so it's just a weird moment.

 

Agreed.

 

it was very telenovela

 

"Ella está enferma. Está... muy, muy enferma..."

 

we just needed some increasingly dramatic digital zoom on aragorn and elrond’s closeups

 

OK...things the films did better then "my imagination" did of visualizing them from reading the books:

1) The Ringwraiths...I pictured them as much more ethereal and ghost/lich-like. They are significantly more "physical" in the films, including the clanging armor...made them much more menacing and threatening IMO.

2) Moria...I pictured much more claustrophobic and cave like, with it opening up more into a vast maze, rather then expansive cathedral like spaces. Really impressive to see.

3) As @Sarge mentioned above, the betrayal and redemption of Boromir. In truth, that whole fight sequence was great, though I feel it was significantly increased in size compared to my readings of it in the book. In the films, it's like the fellowship take on a whole regiment of Uruks. Very Powerful. And Sean Bean's final words with Aragorn...just fantastic stuff.

4) Helm's Deep. They consolidated a lot and dramatically raised the stakes by making the fortress the last stand for all of Rohan, essentially. Mix in the most incredible cinematography and effects of the entire trilogy, it blew away my expectations and made the sequence my absolute favorite in the series, and the film my longlasting favorite, while the Two Towers book is little more then the decent middle chapter between giants of fantasy literature.

5) Gollum...I NEVER pitied Gollum in the books...I did in the films...that is a credit to writing adjustments and performance. Well done, Andy.


That said...if we reverse this discussion...the list is much more expansive.

 

i pretty much take these points except for the Ringwraiths. i don’t think they’re very scary in the films precisely because they’re so corporeal. nothing does more damage to their fear factor than viggo’s firebrand toss to the face.

 

Also, Moria was indeed described as having such cathedral-like spaces in the book.

 

It is a bit hard to compare a book to a film and say which does it better as you are comparing two different mediums of story telling.

What works in a book might not work in a film and vice versa.

Ex, I like the Council of Elrond scene in the book but I also know that if you would try to film it as is, it would be a mess.

Moria in the book got my imagination fired up, thinking about all the places that was sort of mentioned but we never saw.
Moria in the film works really well because of what we do see and the music that comes with it.

Showing more of Saruman was a good choice, esp when they have the great Sir Christopher Lee in the part.
In the book you could get away with him being talked about in flashbacks and the first we see of him is the "Voice of Saruman" bit in Two Towers.

Aragorn and Boromir were made a bit more well rounded as characters in the films and the actors did a great job with them.

Having more of Arwen also makes sense because the first time I read the book and she showed up and married Aragorn, I was like "Who is this person?" She does get mentioned a bit and the app. flesh her out. But that was a bit jarring the first time.
Her life being tied to the Ring I am iffy on. The vision of her end, with Aragorn's death and all that, worked well.

I overall liked Gimli better in the books as he was a bit over used as comic-relief in the films. He has some good moments to be sure. The actor makes a good point about the scene where he asks Galadriel for a hair from her head and she gives him three. That works in pade but doing it in a scene in a film could be cumbersome. So they had him simply tell it.
The friendship with Legolas worked fine in the film but the book worked better.

A small bit I liked in the book that the film skipped, is the wolf attack in Fellowship, where Gandalf grows huge and creates fire. That made showed that Gandalf was not just some guy with fireworks.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

Oh yeah, I know...but it didn't click for me in the fashion it appeared as when Gandalf turns up the light.

I guess I thought of Moria more like everything we saw up to that point. Wandering stairs, tunnels left and right, etc.

I knew when they got close to Balin's grave it would be bigger...but nothing like THAT big. I was thinking like one large nave...not a vast space that stretched out so far the light faded before you saw the far wall.

Like...how does the mountain not collapse?

Add to that the collapsing stairs over the lave pits...nevermind the thousands of years the Balrog has lurked those halls and the stairs survived it...only to give way just as the fellowship need to make their escape...

but it worked!