Major Changes from the 📔Book to the Film

Joseph Campbell wasn't the first to point out that the hero must return to his starting place, bringing the skills and wisdom acquired in his adventures to the restoration and renewal of his home.

Imagine Odysseus retuning to Ithaca, and no one much noticing.

Since I only just joined this community, I figure I will also comment on this topic (which I see has been around awhile!) The movies must be taken for what they are--movies. Being designed for the mass entertainment of the public we should never expect them to hold the depth and detail of true literary works. I hope they have inspired millions (or at least thousands?) to pick up the source material to truly immerse themselves in Tolkien's rich universe.

I think PJ did an acceptable job with LOTR, even though I cringe at XenaArwen, especially her introduction. "What's this? A ranger caught off his guard!?" Like Aragorn is such a lousy woodsmen he would be take unawares like that. It makes me mad. Kind of. There are a lot of changes that are acceptable to me and many that I hate. In my opinion, the movies are good, but they get worse as the story progresses. FOTR is quite spectacular, Particularly Moria. TTT begins to fall off the rails a bit: Gimli needing a box to see over the ramparts, Legolas shield-surfing, the bear-looking wargs, etc. By the time of RTOK, PJ went all-in on the Hollywood hype, making the movie almost unwatchable for me. The Paths of the Dead and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields are awful--like a B-rated zombie flick, with even more surfing, this time down and Oliphaunt tusk. Ridiculous.

Omitting the Souring of the Shire was unfortunate, I concur with Shadow. I think it is an important part of the book, foreshadowing growing industrialization and rampant, unchecked corruption of nature. (I know JRRT disliked allegory, but this chapter particularly seems to be an example of how humans have treated the natural world since the industrial revolution.) More people need to feel this in their gut and seeing the hobbits' shock and dismay when they return home may have helped open their eyes.

So in conclusion, the movies are good, but to me they start strong and then diminish in quality. Don't even get me started on the Hobbit trilogy. I can't even watch them. I had high hopes the PJ and co. would do the book justice. But instead we ended up with a video game-like presentation with superhero-like characters. My children are all Tolkien fans. We read the books together (I love voice acting), and we watch the movies and appreciate them. But hopefully others don't simply watch the movies leave it at that. Hopefully they are inspired to delve into the literature itself, for that is where the true beauty lies.

Well, LOTR reappeared on the bestseller lists after the films came out, so that seems to have happened. And, as a bonus, some long-out-of-print critical studies were republished, which I certainly appreciated.

I have to say I did start noticing a lot of (apparently unread) copies of the books at library book sales and charity stores; unloved presents?

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

Well, LOTR reappeared on the bestseller lists after the films came out, so that seems to have happened. And, as a bonus, some long-out-of-print critical studies were republished, which I certainly appreciated.

I have to say I did start noticing a lot of (apparently unread) copies of the books at library book sales and charity stores; unloved presents?

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These are good things: those with less loose change in their pockets can afford their own copies from book sales, or charity and used book stores. And those of us who "overuse" our copies can more easily purchase spares to spare them.

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

I have to say I did start noticing a lot of (apparently unread) copies of the books at library book sales and charity stores; unloved presents?

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I hope they are not simply unloved presents, though it seems mass attention span is falling off a cliff. I was reading a different thread where it was mentioned how difficult is is for some people to get started on Fellowship. The Shadow of the Past is a long, historical exposition that follows Bilbo's birthday party. Modern readers, particularly teens, need a BANG to get the story going and hold their interest. Follow this up a couple chapters later with Tom Bombadil and his "Hey! Come merry dole..." and I can almost hear the book being flung into the recycler. That, I think, is the major benefit of the movies. They help to get people over the hump and realize they are worth their time.
(Kinda like the grandson in Princess Bride -- "But Grandpa! When's it get GOOD?!!")

Thorin said:

Despite my nit-picking weenie, purists tendencies, I thought that other than the 'go home Sam', and the piggish, disgusting Denethor, RoTK was the best movie out of all three as far as the regular cinematic versions go.
FoTR Extended Edition is the best movie out of all of them. Both the movie and EE of TTT was borderline garbage in my opinion.

My biggest problem with the movies is threefold:

1) The excuse many of us were given by movie defenders (including PJ) to justify differences was 'There is too much to fit in. We don't have enough time to make a truly faithful adaptation of the movie'. But what PJ et.al did was add so much of their own creation that most of the time did nothing to help the story and most times took away from it. If you can't fit in all of Tolkien in the movie, why take Tolkien out and add **** in it's place? That is a lame excuse.

2) PJ changed the characters, sometimes drastically, by giving them words of another person, changing their motives and actions, many of which only confused the story and created contradictions. For example, Arwen becomes some warrior princess and takes the thunder away from 4 Tolkien characters in the book, only to become the gentle princess she was written as in the second movie. Faramir becomes a bully like his brother, going against his discerning and noble nature from Tolkien's Faramir only to come back to what he was originally written as. Aragorn denies his birthright, shirks his responsibility and sends Arwen away. A complete 180 from what he was in the book. A king in waiting for the right time to take his crown and get the girl. Theoden is a cowardly jerk who only comes around in the last movie...again, just like Tolkien had written him as to begin with.

3) PJ's use of slapstick humor, buffoonery, ridiculous dialogue and dumbing down some of the story for the audience. Pippin and Merry in the first two movies, Gimli throughout, idiotic phrases like 'Give us the halfing she elf'. 'Let him go or I'll have you Longshanks', 'Don't I get one of those nice, shiny daggers?', 'He's moving because my axe is in his nervous system', 'Nobody tosses a dwarf' etc, etc, ad nauseum.

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Ah yes.... I never bothered to comment in this thread because Thorin said it all pretty well here and through his other posts. Thought I'd dredge this up from the shallows (last posted to in March 2021) and say it would have been so easy to have taken the screenplay and tweaked it to:
A. keep the characters true to their book-selves.
B. have a good theatrical flow without totally re-writing the book-story.

Leveraging a thread not visited for a time here to share one point PJ changed Ent considers very revealing, and also qutie important for two reasons.
First, the change:

Gandalf and Durin's Bane on the bridge in Moria:

Tolkien writes "You Cannot Pass."
PJ has Gandalf say "You Shall Not Pass."

The difference is HUGE. "Shall/shall not" are terms of permission. "Can/Cannot" are terms of ability. Tolkien would in no way have 'not grasped this.'

Gandalf is advising Durin's Bain he does not have the ability, with his 'dark fire', the "Flame of Udun," to pass beyond the Secret Fire, the "Flame of Anor."
He's saying Darkness cannot overcome the light.

PJ's change reduces the breadth and extent of this scene as written by Tolkien. There are many subtle differences at play to the change...not the least of which is the one - "cannot" - is based in Gandalf's understanding of and reliance on Eru's power. The other, "shall not", is based on Gandalf's perception of his own ability to stop the Balrog.

What Gandalf is really saying, is "Flame of Udun, you have no ABILITY to pass beyond the Flame of Anor'. It is the Dark Fire vs. the Secret Fire, or Fire of Light.
The Darkness simply, in the end, has no ability to overcome light. (Consistent with Tolkien's theological background and its infusion into Middle-earth.)

One thing this change may point out, as has been mentioned elsewhere, is it demonstrates either PJ didn't have a clue about the underpinnings of Tolkien's work(s), or he actually did, and intentionally stripped out as much as he could of it for the purposes of spectacle.

That said, many these last few decades... dare Ent say most... don't grasp the difference between can and shall, can and may, etc. - the one being ability, the other permissions. it could be PJ is just acting consistent with his knowledge base.

But the one really wanting to 'know Tolkien' shouldn't let such a difference pass unnoticed as it bears on so much of why Tolkien wrote as he did, and what he did.

Ent said:

Leveraging a thread not visited for a time here to share one point PJ changed Ent considers very revealing, and also qutie important for two reasons.
First, the change:

Gandalf and Durin's Bane on the bridge in Moria:

Tolkien writes "You Cannot Pass."
PJ has Gandalf say "You Shall Not Pass."

The difference is HUGE. "Shall/shall not" are terms of permission. "Can/Cannot" are terms of ability. Tolkien would in no way have 'not grasped this.'

Gandalf is advising Durin's Bain he does not have the ability, with his 'dark fire', the "Flame of Udun," to pass beyond the Secret Fire, the "Flame of Anor."
He's saying Darkness cannot overcome the light.

PJ's change reduces the breadth and extent of this scene as written by Tolkien. There are many subtle differences at play to the change...not the least of which is the one - "cannot" - is based in Gandalf's understanding of and reliance on Eru's power. The other, "shall not", is based on Gandalf's perception of his own ability to stop the Balrog.

What Gandalf is really saying, is "Flame of Udun, you have no ABILITY to pass beyond the Flame of Anor'. It is the Dark Fire vs. the Secret Fire, or Fire of Light.
The Darkness simply, in the end, has no ability to overcome light. (Consistent with Tolkien's theological background and its infusion into Middle-earth.)

One thing this change may point out, as has been mentioned elsewhere, is it demonstrates either PJ didn't have a clue about the underpinnings of Tolkien's work(s), or he actually did, and intentionally stripped out as much as he could of it for the purposes of spectacle.

That said, many these last few decades... dare Ent say most... don't grasp the difference between can and shall, can and may, etc. - the one being ability, the other permissions. it could be PJ is just acting consistent with his knowledge base.

But the one really wanting to 'know Tolkien' shouldn't let such a difference pass unnoticed as it bears on so much of why Tolkien wrote as he did, and what he did.

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As an English teacher obsessed with rhetoric, linguistics, and the subtleties of language, I got much joy out of this post. I never noticed this before in all of my readings of the books and viewings of the films. Thank you for sharing this insight! I have nothing more to add to it at the moment, but it is fascinating and appreciated.

Ent said:

The difference is HUGE. "Shall/shall not" are terms of permission. "Can/Cannot" are terms of ability. Tolkien would in no way have 'not grasped this.'

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I recently ran across this Ent, and thought you might be interested. . .

. . . but for myself, I kept running!



Noro lim, noro lim, Elthir!

That, I need to see! 😄

Ent said:

Leveraging a thread not visited for a time here to share one point PJ changed Ent considers very revealing, and also qutie important for two reasons.
First, the change:

Gandalf and Durin's Bane on the bridge in Moria:

Tolkien writes "You Cannot Pass."
PJ has Gandalf say "You Shall Not Pass."

The difference is HUGE. "Shall/shall not" are terms of permission. "Can/Cannot" are terms of ability. Tolkien would in no way have 'not grasped this.'

Gandalf is advising Durin's Bain he does not have the ability, with his 'dark fire', the "Flame of Udun," to pass beyond the Secret Fire, the "Flame of Anor."
He's saying Darkness cannot overcome the light.

PJ's change reduces the breadth and extent of this scene as written by Tolkien. There are many subtle differences at play to the change...not the least of which is the one - "cannot" - is based in Gandalf's understanding of and reliance on Eru's power. The other, "shall not", is based on Gandalf's perception of his own ability to stop the Balrog.

What Gandalf is really saying, is "Flame of Udun, you have no ABILITY to pass beyond the Flame of Anor'. It is the Dark Fire vs. the Secret Fire, or Fire of Light.
The Darkness simply, in the end, has no ability to overcome light. (Consistent with Tolkien's theological background and its infusion into Middle-earth.)

One thing this change may point out, as has been mentioned elsewhere, is it demonstrates either PJ didn't have a clue about the underpinnings of Tolkien's work(s), or he actually did, and intentionally stripped out as much as he could of it for the purposes of spectacle.

That said, many these last few decades... dare Ent say most... don't grasp the difference between can and shall, can and may, etc. - the one being ability, the other permissions. it could be PJ is just acting consistent with his knowledge base.

But the one really wanting to 'know Tolkien' shouldn't let such a difference pass unnoticed as it bears on so much of why Tolkien wrote as he did, and what he did.

Click to expand...

This. A seemingly minor PJ change that changes the whole scene in perspective. Another example of a PJ change...

Éowyn (book): "But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter.
Éowyn (movie): "I am no man!"

Squint-eyed Southerner said:

That, I need to see! 😄
View attachment 39084

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That is creepy...like it could be right out of The Exorcist 😬