Tolkien was a phenomenal world-builder, but he wasn't that great a writer.
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Replying to @RidleyDM @rockybird23 and
I find the LOTR books extremely hard to follow in their detail in places and lacking emotion in others (e.g., the death of Boromir always seems too hastily played out to me). I re-watched the movies and re-read the books in early lockdown days, and found the movies more rewarding
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Replying to @WilliamBHoenig @RidleyDM and
There are many things the movies did very well, and Boromir’s story was definitely one of them.
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Replying to @rockybird23 @WilliamBHoenig and
And there were things the movies screwed up badly, and Faramir’s story was definitely one of them.
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Replying to @gorskon @rockybird23 and
What didn’t you like about what they did with him?
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Replying to @JonathanJanz @rockybird23 and
Jackson changed him from a wise brave soldier to the stereotypical whiny younger brother desperately seeking his father’s approval reserved for the eldest son.
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Replying to @gorskon @JonathanJanz and
Too many sentences could be started with "Jackson changed ..." :-) I like the movies but the changes irritated me constantly. When stories and characters are as beloved and well known as LOTR, modifying them requires excellent reason (time constraints, usually). I didn't see it.
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Replying to @cabinloon @JonathanJanz and
Other reasons include the acknowledgment that books, which rely on language and imagination, are a much different form of media than movies, which are so much more visual. That’s why I understand why Jackson chose not to include Tom Bombadil
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Replying to @gorskon @cabinloon and
Basically, the chapters including Tom Bombadil were not essential to the overall story and would have been a nightmare to film, as it would have been very difficult to do it in such a way that Bombadil, in a visual medium, wouldn’t have come across as ridiculous.
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Replying to @gorskon @cabinloon and
Similarly, I understand why Jackson chose to start The Fellowship of the Ring with a prolog describing the Ring, its history, what it was, and the story of Isildur.
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Having Gandalf tell the story of the ring in The Shadow of the Past made sense in a book, but would have been less satisfying in a movie. With a movie, the audience needs to know early what the stakes are and why the Ring is important.
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Replying to @gorskon @JonathanJanz and
Agree about need to leave things out (many things). It's just necessary, and I don't begrudge that. One might feel a loss over some particular aspect that is special to them, of course, but I'm pretty forgiving about removals.
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Replying to @cabinloon @gorskon and
There were some changes (like Faramir) that I disagree with, but by and large I thought the changes (and deletions) were sensible to make them work as movies. Even accounting for the difference in medium, the books are a bit of a slog.
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