The Most Egregious Change

[Junesong]

Good morning,

I'm currently reading The Lord of the Rings to my daughter for the first time (she's almost 8) and she's loving it! We finished Fellowship right before Christmas so she could participate in our family tradition of watching The Fellowship on Christmas eve.

We're now on a mini hiatus after finishing Towers (we're taking a Hunger Games break while I wait for her to level up a bit before beginning Return of the King)

But we've been watching The Two Towers together here and there and it's gotten us talking about ALL THE CHANGES!

First, she just couldn't understand why they changed anything - and we talked about the different needs of movies and visuals, and commercial box office and run times etc.

Then she asked me what I thought the WORST change was. I told her it was something we could talk about later as it's coming up in the last book.

(My personal opinion, is that Jackson's most egregious change in the books was his decision to have Frodo send Sam away on the steps of Cirith Ungol.)

So I thought I'd throw it out to the group chat. It's been twenty years. We've all had time to marinade.

What change do you guys hate most?

 

[Eldy]

There are at least three different ways of gauging egregiousness that immediately come to mind:

1. An obvious but superficial change, which will be noticed by the greatest number of viewers (ex: Arwen carries Frodo to the Ford of Bruinen, whereas Glorfindel did so in the book).

2. A change that has major implications for a character's arc or the large-scale plot, but is often overlooked (ex: Glorfindel didn't carry Frodo to the Ford in the book, Frodo did it himself, and his reduction to a drooling sack of potatoes is the far more consequential change in that sequence).

3. A change that doesn't work on its own terms, that tries and fails to do something even when assessed independently of the equivalent portion(s) of the book.

I'll go with the third definition. Part of me wants to pick the Army of the Dead, in large part because PJ thought he was being faithful to the book by making them unstoppable killing machines, which ups the egregiousness factor considerably in my opinion. But setting aside meta knowledge of the films' production, I think Arwen's plot in the later part of The Two Towers and in The Return of the King might take the cake for me. I don't like Frodo being so weak to the Ring nearly from the start, but it's at least consistent characterization (though Faramir changing his mind and letting Frodo go to Mordor is hard to explain in light of this). Arwen's characterization, on the other hand, is all over the place.

This is partly due to production drama and her excision from the Battle of Helm's Deep, but if they had stuck with the replacement idea of Arwen watching over Aragorn from afar, I wouldn't have brought her up. But instead, Elrond guilt trips Arwen into agreeing to leave Middle-earth, abandoning her self-appointed mission of watching over Aragorn, only for her to change her mind after having a prophetic vision of her future child. (Motherhood, seemingly, had not occurred to her, despite it being her ambition to marry a future King, who would need an heir.) Then we get her inexplicable illness and "Arwen's life is now tied to the fate of the Ring" to top it off before she disappears from the film until the coronation scene.

Her story is a mess all the way through the second half of the trilogy, and it's a damn shame.

 

[Junesong]

Excellent point. Now I'm mad all over again.

 

[No One in Particular]

I will completely agree about Frodo "firing" Sam. That was a major fail in the change in Frodo's character, but even more than that, it was just dumb. DUMB.

But, at the risk of being cliché, the worst changes for me were the character changes, whether it's reluctant Aragorn, comic relief Gimli, mentally challenged Treebeard, or "we're only going along because we ran across Frodo and Sam while stealing from Farmer Maggot" Merry and Pippin. I get that Jackson was probably trying to make the characters more relatable, but I feel the changes were unnecessary.

On a positive note, I did like the scene with Boromir trying to teach Merry and Pippin some sword technique. It was fun, and displays an emotional connection between the characters that I enjoyed.

 

[DGHCaretaker]

(My personal opinion, is that Jackson's most egregious change in the books was his decision to have Frodo send Sam away on the steps of Cirith Ungol.)

Yes, "Go home, Sam" is mine as well. For the sole expressed reason that a "dramatic reversal" was needed, per formula, at this point in the story. Because that's somehow better than Tolkien.

 

[AshNazg]

“I made a promise… “Don’t you leave him, Samwise Gamgee!” And I don’t mean to. I don’t mean to.”

10 minutes later…

“Go home, Sam”

“…k”

[crazy]

 

[Eledhwen]

The whole Frodo/Sam/steps of Cirith Ungol scene has never sat very well with me, although I guess it ramps up the tension later when Sam reappears to save Frodo from Shelob (the Shelob sequence is magnificent though).

The other changes I don't like much, although I'd maybe stop short of 'egregious', are Faramir taking Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath, and Arwen dying. The Faramir stuff diminishes him as a character and I don't think it drives the plot on at all. The Arwen bit also reduces her - I think we did need more of her in the films that we get in the book, where she does pretty much come from nowhere, but she's introduced as a strong, competent woman and then she becomes a bit of a drip.

 

[Saruman]

1. "Go Home, Sam" is definitely at the top of the list of poor film decisions I loathe entirely. Just completely out of Frodo's character and unnecessary drama.

2. PJ skipping over just how far Faramir & company actually took Frodo & Sam out of the way of Mordor by taking them from Ithilien to Osgiliath. That's a long detour and makes no sense as in the book, Faramir is not weak-willed. In the film he's weak, but magically sees the light.

3. I also agree with a former poster that abandoning the "Conspiracy Unmasked" bit was a bummer and a shame. The chances of Merry & Pippin just bumping into Frodo & Sam in Farmer Maggot's crop is unrealistic, unnecessary, and diminishes the bond already established with the 4 hobbits pre-quest.

4. Saruman's death. He's my favorite character. He doesn't fall down Isengard and land on a damn pike. Horrible scene. Not filming Saruman's true fate and skipping "The Scouring of the Shire" not only is unfair to Saruman but also unfair to Frodo, who in the book comes full circle by showing one of his ultimate enemies mercy by letting him leave the Shire unmolested, until Grima steps in.

5. Gimili being a clown. He's one of the least "funny" characters in the book.

I also dislike what others would call trivial changes for the sake of viewers who can't tell people apart, or film changes that cater to people who aren't good with details. For instance, Boromir's hair is DARK BROWN, not light brown/borderline blond. Just because Aragorn is white and has dark brown hair doesn't mean Boromir couldn't have been white with dark brown hair, too. It's not that hard to differentiate between 2 guys. Especially when Tolkien went to great length to describe Boromir's appearance in The Fellowship of the Ring.

 

[DGHCaretaker]

4. ...skipping "The Scouring of the Shire"...

First, I loved the long ending that got complaints. No good movie is long enough, I say. The longer the better. And I'd appreciate the extra half-hour it might take. But to extend it past what was already done would go well beyond tolerance of most people for an already-long movie and ending. And I would not want a second cut to fit it into an arbitrary runtime. And I think it would stick out like the end of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. Not that it would be bizarre like that, but just when you think you're at the end credits, this whole new story opens up. So I understand and accept the omission.

 

[Eldy]

While there were undeniably alterations to Faramir's character in the films, I think his suspicious and uncooperative treatment of Frodo and Sam was not unreasonable in light of the changes to Frodo, who is a far less capable character in the films. The strangest part is Faramir changing his mind and deciding to trust Frodo with the Ring after he nearly got captured by the Nazgûl in Osgiliath.

I'm also less inclined to describe Faramir as weak-willed than as someone with completely understandable and relatable self-esteem issues due to his emotionally abusive father. That's arguably semantics, but I think it's another instance of Faramir's behavior in the films largely being a consequence of changes to other characters (i.e., Denethor being a much worse leader than his book counterpart).

 

[Eldy]

Not that it would be bizarre like that, but just when you think you're at the end credits, this whole new story opens up. So I understand and accept the omission.

I think this is the key element. Even if ROTK had been much shorter (say, hypothetically, if the trend of splitting the final movie of a series in two had begun a decade earlier), the introduction of a new story arc just as the main one is winding down is much harder to make work in a film. For that matter, it would be awkward in most books; LOTR's length and structure make it something of an outlier. But I don't blame the filmmakers for not trying to get experimental with very long story structures when they were already so ambitious, especially in comparison to the state of fantasy filmmaking in the 1990s and earlier.

 

[sevilodorf]

how the heck did you get so much RIGHT and then screw this up?

Tolkien provided maps.... for pity's sake believe them (though if you want to get really picky Tolkien kinda fudged some of those distances as creative license or those were really fast horses and then he lost three days at the Fords of Isen.... I've got a two page essay somewhere about that)

and exactly where the heck was Sam supposed to go in the middle of the Morgul Vale with no food.... yeah that's really saving him.

Arwen can pine all she wants but she's a little old (want to talk cougar) to try to pull the I'll die Daddy without him bit.....

uhhh.... how exactly did you have a sewer system under that river.....the logistics....

Scrubbing bubbles of Army Dead replace the men rescued from the Umbar corsairs.... matter of not wanting to introduce a whole new set of characters so late in the game.... but I did not like them on the walls of Minas Tirith though I did enjoy their arrival at the docks.

Face it.... if Jackson managed to stretch the Hobbit into THREE movies... he really needed at least one more to do LOTR.... hey Harry Potter took 8 movies to do 7 books and Hunger Games took 4 to do 3.

 

[uncle Iorlas]

Boromir and Aragorn should look like brothers. Thorongil and young Denethor were said to look nearly alike (which also means Denethor looks just like Elendil, per eyewitness) and Boromir is said to look like his father.

Especially agreed with one of yours, though--as one who's spilled a lot of ink over the years mostly about other ghastly misdeeds of theae movies, there's really none that burn my heart more than reducing Gimli to an imbecile for no reason.

 

[squire]

I am reminded of a passage in LR V, "Minas Tirith", where Tolkien gives one of his vanishingly rare descriptions of a character's facial features:

Then [Denethor] looked up. Pippin saw his carven face with its proud bones and skin like ivory, and the long curved nose between the dark deep eyes; and he was reminded not so much of Boromir as of Aragorn.​

This agrees with your note about Thorongil/Aragorn looking much like Denethor, which reinforces Gandalf's words that Denethor carries within him much of the nobility of the line of Kings, not just the Stewards. But it seems to go against the idea that Boromir resembled his father, and so should have been shown in the films as also resembling Aragorn.

Not that I begrudge the New Line films for ignoring details like this. The violence done to Denethor's character in the service of some cheap and vulgar dramatics would not be eased had they made John Noble up to look a little more like Viggo Mortensen!

 

[Hamfast Gamgee]

That this thread would have been a bit more argumentative and angry had it been written around 15 years ago! Might be back with some opinions later.

 

[DGHCaretaker]

That this thread would have been a bit more argumentative and angry had it been written around 15 years ago! Might be back with some opinions later.

Fifteen years ago, the entire forum probably *was* all like you characterize this one thread could have been. History has a way of making older things look better when the newer things come along, such as The Hobbit or fears about Rings of Power. The Wizard of Oz wasn't well-liked in 1939. Now, a classic. Star Wars prequels? Looking a lot better now, eh?

 

[uncle Iorlas]

[replyStar Wars prequels? Looking a lot better now, eh?[/QUOTE]
This is a point of view I have heard from no one.

 

[DGHCaretaker]

[replyStar Wars prequels? Looking a lot better now, eh?

This is a point of view I have heard from no one.[/QUOTE]
Kirk to Saavik: "Well, now you have something new to think about. Carry on."

 

[Junesong]

My thoughts exactly

 

[Eldy]

...has been underway for some time. The common talking point is that it's because the Sequel Trilogy makes it look better in comparison, but I think the tone of Prequel discussion had already shifted by December 2015, when The Force Awakens was released. In my view, the more important factor is the generation* who grew up with the PT, and thus has nostalgia for it, becoming a larger and more vocal percentage of the online population. I'm in that demographic, and while I don't think the prequels are good, I do have many fond memories of them: both the movies themselves and the broader experience of following along with all the SW media that was coming out at the time. I may have spent more hours playing the 2002 Clone Wars video game than I did the LOTR movie tie-in games; it was close either way. We shouldn't underestimate the influence of r/PrequelMemes in getting people to remember and talk about the PT. I think that's contributed to them being remembering fondly, even if much of the appreciation is ironic. Also, the enduring cult success of the 2008–14 Clone Wars TV series, and its revival and spin-offs, has done a lot for the popularity of that era of Star Wars lore.


* The youngest Millennials (including yours truly) and older Zoomers (Generation Z) were the right age to uncritically enjoy the Prequels as they came out. Later Zoomers and whatever we call the generation after them have also watched the Prequels at a very young age, just not in theatres.