Why are Merry and Pippin so different in the films?

F

Fifi Frumblefoot

The Shire
Hello!
Just to let you guys know, Im new here so if this has been brought up before Im sorry!
I watched the first movie many times, and I watched it for the first time in ages a few weeks ago (only the end part mind you, I only caught the bit where they were in Rivendell. So I cant really remember any parts before that, as I watched it ages before). Then I watched ROTK like week, and became kina LOTR obsessed. I knew I had the book somehwere, and have started to read it. I am now on Book two of the fellowship and I am on the second chapter I think?
I loved merry and pippin in the movies when I watched ROTK, I have became all fangirly over them and have now named my new rabbits after them!
But, after reading the book, I have discovered that these two characters, especially Merry, are very different in the book than the film adaption!
Why is this? Why did they change them so much?
I dont know, I havent seen the two towers and Im not even halfway through the book so I dont know if they change, but I just want to know why they were made different.
Which version of the characters do you prefer (so far I prefer the movie ones but it may be because I saw the movies first?)
And do you like the change or do you think it was bad?
 
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The short answer is that the movies are the movies and the books are the books. I'm surprised to hear this asked about Pippin and Merry though as there are other characters FAR more drastically altered in personality and character quality. For me the worst change was Faramir who was reduced from a noble and honorable descendent of Westernesse to a common and somewhat weak minded (with a hint of self sacrifice albeit) man of Gondor. He was made more like Boromir whereas in the books he stood in stark contrast to his older brother. All of the characters had to be altered at least slightly as is necessary and to be expected in a book to movie transition.

Visually the movies were everything I could have ever hoped for... there were some character changes as well as changes to well known dialogue that I found appalling and indeed distressing at first but I came around and now as long as I keep the above statement clear in my mind, I love the movies as the movies and the books as the books. Trying to compare them is rather like comparing apples to oranges and a futile endeavor. They are both fruit of about the same size and similar in shape but the taste is quite different altogether.
 
Hi, Fifi, welcome to the TORN boards!

My belief is that the filmmakers assumed there needed to be some comic characters. There's romance, there's suspense, heroism, and so forth, so a little comic relief was thrown in. The characters chosen to be comic were not only Merry and Pippin but also Gimli and Treebeard. (We also get the occasional comic bits from other characters and from orcs, but those four are the main funny fellows.) Having read the book first, many years ago, I didn't like these changes, but I understand why the filmmakers thought they had to make them.

In the book, Merry and Pippin become increasingly important in the story after the orcs grab them and try to take them to Isengard. I think you'll find that in Return of the King, they grow a bit and become less comic and more like the characters as portrayed in the books.
 
I think of all the character changes book to movie, I like those of Merry and Pippin the best. I think in a movie, where you've only got a few hours to introduce a huge cast (yes, PJ ended up with 10 hours, but he needed to accomplish the task of helping us get to know M&P in the first part of the first movie), exaggerating some personalities was fine. If they had been left as they are in the book, we just don't get enough time to dwell on them and know them enough to tell them apart - they'd run into a real danger of being "just those other two interchangeable hobbits" to non-book fans.

Even as it is, my two kids - though a bit younger than the target audience - still have trouble telling the two apart after > 5 viewings.

And while, in the movie, Pippin turns into a bit of a comic sideshow, I really like the Merry change to a more knowledgeable, heroic hobbit. And if he was going to move in that direction, Pippin naturally had to move in the other direction to get the character separation PJ needed.

Notta
 
is the conclusion I've come to.... book Merry and Pippin are approx. 20 years younger than Frodo... obviously that is not going to make sense to a movie audience especially given that Elijah was younger than Dominic and Billy....so manipulating the ages a bit resulted in a bit of manipulation in behavior ..... as was said many characters (Faramir) were changed but I'm with you that the altering of Merry and Pippin was shocking with my first viewing of FOTR.
 
I never thought Faramir was that much like Boromir. He keeps a cooler head when Frodo refuses to give him the Ring for one thing. He may come across as weak-minded in the TE but not in the EE. In the books, Boromir is more eager to go to Rivendell, mostly to boost his own prestige. From this behavior, Farmir can infer for himself just how vulnerable his brother is to the Ring's power. Movie Boromir is more modest and is forced by his father to take up the mission. This lack of important information opens the door for Faramir to be tempted by the Ring. This is why whoever decided to cut "Sons of the Steward" from the TE was an idiot.

As for Merry and Pippin, I agree with Notta that they weren't as different from each other in the book than they were in the movie. For me, playing up their differences made their friendship richer. You tend to see friends bringing out the best in each other more when they have a yin and yang quality. I also agree that the changes came from the fact that Billy and Dom were older than Elijah. This is why it made sense to have movie Merry as more intelligent. Still, I don't believe it came from anything not in the book. Tolkien, after all, did say that Merry really liked studying maps. Pippin was still a "fool of a Took," albeit not as much in the film.
 
I'd known and loved the books a long time when I saw the films but I never noticed a change to Merry and Pippin. A heightened perspective, yes - filmmakers have to exaggerate because they need to establish character in a short space of time and there were made-up incidents like the stolen firework near the beginning of the film. But in terms of their characters, I can't think of very much in the film Merry and Pippin that doesn't have some basis in the books. Merry was always my favourite and he came across pretty much as I'd imagined.

As some others have said, Faramir was a change I minded far more, though I've forgiven that within the context of the film because he does come good in the end.
 
Sorry, I cant comment on other characters drastically changed as I saw the films quite a while ago and need to watch them again, and Im not even halfway through the book!
I noticed it with Merry and Pippin because I liked those characters, though I understand that Arwen seems to have a bigger role in the films and Frodo seems more... whimp-ish? (just from what Ive seen and read)
 
I thought Merry was a lot more adventurous and smart in the books?
Maybe Im wrong though, its been a while since Ive seen the films!
 
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Yeah, changes in Merry and Pippin are to highlight age difference I think. I just think they could have done it without altering the characters that much!
 
.....but that it was the difference in age between Merry and Pippin that was crucial. In the book Pippin is 11 at the Long Expected Party while Merry is 19 (if I remember rightly). Given the slower rate at which hobbits mature Pippin was a small child while Merry does a magnificent job in fending off the Sackville-Bagginses even before he has reached his tweens. Seventeen years later, in the book, they embark upon their adventure when Pippin is 28, still five years short of coming of age, and Merry is 36, a mature young gentlehobbit. The differences between them are partly due to character but mainly due to maturity I think. I see Pippin, on the quest, as like an eighteen year old about to go to college while Merry is like someone who graduated a few years ago and is making their way in the world.

The film, no doubt for good reason, gets rid of those seventeen years and has Merry and Pippin both as young men (hobbits?) at the party. Indeed I believe they cast an older actor to play Pippin than Merry. The quest seems to start a matter of months after the party and none of the protagonists have had any opportunity to mature much. Given those choices I do not really see how the film makers could have replicated the characters (and their "character arcs") as portrayed by Tolkien.

By the way I believe Jackson's film to be a masterpiece. It is just a different masterpiece from the book.

Pryderi.
 
in the book. Once he's on his own without Pippin he starts to find the whole thing too much for him. "... now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire." (The Muster of Rohan).

He is smart though, a can-do guy who's always ready to step up and try to solve the practical problems, in contrast to Pippin who's impulsive and plays the fool.

But I think those character traits come through in the movie characters too - Merry is the one who thinks of the Bucklebury Ferry, for example, and leads the way. With the ents (in the movie), Merry is the leader, trying to convince the ents by persuasion and logic. It's typical of Pippin's fool's luck that he has the sudden impulse to get Treebeard involved through an emotional reaction instead.

I think there's a big difference in the way the characters speak in book and movie - the book characters use an old-fashioned English schoolboy style, while the movie characters talk like modern young Brits (Pippin being Scottish instead of English, of course). But their relationship isn't that different between book and movie, I find - a kind of teasing rivalry turning to complete support of each other when things get tough.
 
You guys have explained it really well.
I will need ot fully read the books and watch every movie again to see the differences :)
I think the hobbits talk quite old fashioned still, just with more country-ish accents.
I am scottish lol, and compared to most Scots Pippin talks extremely articulately and has greta pronounciation!
I am starting to see they arent all that different in the books and movies ;)
 
Welcome to TORN, Fifi! I'm not sure how far you've got reading LoTR now, but I think you will find the portrayal of Merry & Pippin in RoTK very interesting and rewarding.

As I see it, the portrayal of Pippin didn't differ so much from book to film, if you only allow for the films' tendency to exaggerate the use of some characters as comic relief. Pippin is an obvious character for such a purpose. Pippin gets more attention than Merry in the films, consequently the development of his character is also much more pronounced in the last film.

Merry isn't a character you can easily fit into a ready-made character type and consequently his characterization in the film suffers quite much as I see it, while Pippin's doesn't. This is enhanced by the fact that the films often choose to portray them as a pair instead of looking at them more like two different persons. In the last film Merry also has to share his time with several well-developed and pronounced characters among the Rohirrim.

The situations and scenes from the book focusing or exhibiting Merry's characteristics and his development and growth as a person are by and large not included in the films. Partly this is because there isn't enough time and some things need to be cut, as is the case with the start of FoTR, but partly also because these scenes do not fit the style and storyline of the last film in particular.
 
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