Goro Shimura said:
People that do not accept the premise of Moral Absolutes will not be bothered by the changes. I am beginning to wonder if they can even understand the depth and significance of the changes-- sort of like
Sauron being unable to imagine the free
peoples destroying
the Ring.
Contrariwise, people that share with
Tolkien the fundamentals of his world view will be extremely irritated by the changes.
I am not at all sure that your first statement is correct. I suspect you are trying to assert your
moral superiority over those who do not share your opinion again. Moreoever, there is a big difference between understanding the changes, and agreeing with you about their depth and significance. Again, your starting point is that there is, in your mind, only one way of interpreting the text (or at least only one that is 'correct'). And similarly, only one way of comparing movie and text. It is my observation that the dissension on this issue (and so many others) shows this to be false. You believe in absolute moral values; I observe that moral values are culturally produced, and are not the same in all cultures and all times.
As I observed, in my original piece, there is a tendency to try to use the author as arbiter. But of course, you cannot actually put a question to the author, only interpret his words. You interpret his words as meaning that you (and all who agree with you!) share 'the fundamentals of his world view'. But do not agree that this is knowable by you, as this requires you to interpret the text of his letters to extract what you believe to be 'the fundamentals'. But it is your value system and cultural assumptions that lead you to select one aspect as fundamental and not others, and then to
map those percieved believes onto your own (and those of others). This is a highly subjective exercise. This is readily attested to by the Patrick Curry book 'Defending
Middle Earth' in which he extracts the 'fundamentals' to be a kind of deep environmentalism and rejection of organised religion. This is not what I understand your views to be (but if you have read that book, it would be interesting to hear your reaction to it).
Mrs Maggott: I am quite ready to accept that you feel strongly about the characters. I too would have created a different set of movies, were I in the directors chair. Leaving aside my lack of technical ability, it is evident that we all see the characters differently. While I find these differences interesting, even fascinating, you are 'annoyed', and find it 'painful'. When you describe the sorts of characters you dislike ('anti-heroes or politically correct types postulating psychobabble, p.c. drivel or self-absorbed navel gazing') your words seem highly value-laden, which was of course my main point.
Joxy and nthman, your exchange is interesting and worth a reply. How could making a movie from a book be seen as anything other than a change? In making a movie, Peter Jackson is making a wholly different work. To ask 'were changes necessary?' is to ask 'was a movie necessary?' This is rather an empty question to my mind, lending itself to mainly economic analysis. To argue there are no changes dictated by the form is evidently nonsense: the addition of moving pictures and music, sound effects and so forth would be the first few
items on a very long list. The moment you cast someone in the role of
Frodo, you change an aspect. You remove the ability of the reader/viewer to create the imaginary Frodo in their head. I could argue that this was absolutely central, and decide to shoot my movie from Frodo's viewpoint, and never actually show his face. Others would view this as preposterous. But then I could go further and say, that fundamentally the story is about Frodo's journey; in which case the encounter with
Tom Bombadil, and the Barrow Wright should stay, but I may lose all the less important stuff about
Rohan,
Saruman, and
Pelennor Fields. Am I wrong?
Of course the answer is that it is a seperate work, and to the extent that my imaginary version 'speaks' to you, and you draw from it something that is satisfying then that is good (for you). And if not, then the answer is maybe another story/text will resound more. Why do teenagers like Peter Jackson movies so much? Teenagers spend much of their lifes feeling trapped and bored, wanting some excitement with their friends. And they are often idealistic, and the notion that the relatively unimportant can do some good in the world is therefore highly appealing. This is drawn from the
books, and carries over very well.
But my version might decide that what I wanted to explore was temptation, solitude, singularity and love. I might decide to emphasise
Bombadil's strange uniqueness, how he manages to find happiness through his love for
Goldberry and his love for his land. I would contrast this with Frodo's estrangement from
the Shire and his desire to escape its prosaic life. I would also draw out how he is, because of the ring and the need for secrecy, unable to be wholly open with the other
hobbits, and how his relationship with
Sam starts out with a divide based on class origin. Through my tale I would then show him seeing others in the Fellowship learning friendship and companionship, and gaining an insight into how the
elves also 'belong' somehow to
Arda, and I would show him desiring that affinity and love ever more, but then he has to break the Fellowship in order to go to
Mordor. And so on... introducing new aspects, as the journey continue and
Gollum is introduced.
Now all of this is only to illustrate that I can take as my starting point the text of Lord of the Rings and create my own text based upon it. It is of course open to all of us to like or dislike each version. I suspect that my version would appall Mrs Maggott with its 'navel-gazing' - but I maybe wrong! I doubt it would have so much teen appeal as Peter Jacksons. But I have to insist on the impossibility of recreating the book as a movie. To say that it is not the same is a truism. It could not be the same. If someone who sincerely believed that they had the same 'fundamental beliefs' as Tolkien undertook this task, they too would make a movie that other people would be not like. Indeed, I am fairly sure that Peter Jackson and his team DO believe they have captured the essence of the books. What they have in fact done, is created something based on their interpretation of the text.
I quite like what they have done.
Joxy, I find it interesting that you are so eager to deny the perceptions of others. Greenwood and other observe what they percieve to be extreme behaviour, but you deny that it takes place. The most likely explanation is that what you perceive to be normal and reasonable, is not seen that way by others. This again is suggestive of the ability of people to view the same texts in radically different ways based on their perception of what is normal.
Perhaps there's a newspaper or magazine that would publish this as an article! 
