Personally, I think him showing Frodo as the weak Hobbit is mainly related to the influence and the power of the ring.Especially not if your name is Peter Jackson. But the other hobbits don't suffer, at least as far as valor is concerned (they are misrepresented in other ways). Merry still stabs the Witch-king and Sam is shown to dispatch orcs (with his Mighty Frying-pan) in Moria. The other hobbits all try to defend Frodo on Weathertop and they all fight in Moria.
Which brings me to Exhibit B: Moria. Again, Peej and the screenwriters thumb their nose at the text. Yes, the situation is different; and one can be reasonably expected to run away from a huge monster with a club if it chases you. But why frame it in such as way to make Frodo look so unvaliant in the first place?
Bakshi vs. Jackson
But it's antithetical to the book.
Exactly. As was PJ's depiction of Faramir; of Aragorn; of the Ents - and the Ent-moot; of Elrond and his Elves leaving Rivendell; of Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch-king at Minas Tirith; Nazgûl becoming aware of Frodo - at Osgiliath; Aragorn's confrontation with the Mouth of Sauron; Denethor not having the beacons lit; this list could get awfully long ... 🤬
Yeah, you could practically go through the whole film trilogy and find something that's a bit off; not all of them worth getting upset about perhaps, but still there.
My father loves and I mean loves LOTR, but he'll never read the books because it's just not something he does. I'm sure there are a lot of people out there like my dad who are just not into reading books. I see a lot of these parts that are done differently from the books be there to clear out some question that would arise for those who are just purely movie fans. Not all of them, of course.
I can probably "understand", purely abstractly, reasons why people ended up being "just not into reading books". Having been able to read before entering school, and a book-worm all my life, I suspect that I would put 100% of the reasons in the "bad reasons basket".
That films seen once in a cinema (but from posts I read especially on my first JRRT site, Council of Elrond, at least several of the people there watched them multiple times in the cinema, to put it mildly) need to adapt to having one shot at "grabbing the audience" (especially in a trilogy having done live shots for all three films before the first one premiered) - no question. But to turn things from the book on their heads - to lie, to put it brutally - does not belong to the needs of telling a story in a film, as the silicate-brained trolls of that industry keep trying to tell us. The needs for them to be able to understand their own product, perhaps - when your IQ equals your body temperature ...
Have you considered trying to read it to him? I read The Hobbit and about half of LOTR to my mother once. Admittedly this was when she was mostly bedridden while recovering from an auto accident, and made for a captive audience *. I'm not suggesting you create a similar circumstance for him! 😳 But perhaps you could catch him in a receptive mood -- or if he brought up a question about an incident in the films, which you could clarify with a relevant passage.
Hmmm... audiobooks. I have never asked if he'd be interested or not. I'll ask him later!😄
thetolkien.forum
One of by nephews, an engineer has reading fiction. But he has been engrossed in the audio book of LOTR and finally see why people love it and some are upset over the movies.
