Were the Beacons of Gondor lit in the books?

Dáin Ironfoot I said:

Guess what else couldn't have happened that was still enjoyable to watch?
Give me a break 'PJ giveth and PJ taketh away.'

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That a scene is enjoyable to watch isn't an adequate qualification for being included in the films; it needs more than that to deserve its place. That something "could" have happened doesn't make much of a big deal either. Given that a lot of original material had to be, quite justifiably, omitted, anything that is invented, and added, thus taking up time that could have been used for original material, has to have much better qualifications than almost any of the inventions that PJ actually forced in.
There certainly were beacons in Gondor, there could have been falling staircases in Moria, and both are no doubt enjoyable to watch, but that still does not justify their taking the place of original material that could have been equally, or more, spectacular, and enjoyable.
It's literally true: PJ "gives" us his bright ideas, at the expense of "taking away" Tolkien's.
This is a large-scale matter, not one concerning insects.

The problem withg the beacons was not how they were portrayed (actually seeing them happen gave me a better insight to what I read... a purist being helped by the movies?? I'll never be able to live this down!) The problem was:

1) The deception of Gandalf and Pippin trying to 'put one up' on the steward of Gondor - another nail in the coffin of poorly characterized Gandalf
2) The fact that it was redundant because of

a) who they were for - Rohan already knew the time was bad and haste was needed. Why were they so excited by seeing the beacons? And if anyone says that it was for the other armies coming to the aid of Gondor, I ask them, "Where were they?" By cutting out Imrahil and the others coming from the South, the beacons were useless.

b) and when they were lit and that it was too late - the book makes note of this when Pippin asks why they are lit (before they even reach Minas Tirith) and Gandalf says that lighting them when the battle is upon you is too late.

So what were the beacons for in the movie? Oh yeah..PJ's attempt to stay true to the book while trying to make it conform to his own plot devices. No wonder it doesn't work.

Thorin said:

So what were the beacons for in the movie? Oh yeah..PJ's attempt to stay true to the book while trying to make it conform to his own plot devices. No wonder it doesn't work.

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They were there to convey something of the scale and setting of Middle Earth, making it more real once again, and so very different from today's Age of the Cellphone. They were there to emphasise the seriousness and urgency of the coming crisis. They were also there to very effectively cut from Gondor scenes to Rohan scenes. Finally, they were there for their sheer emotional impact, and that certainly worked for me.

Thorin, if you don't mind me saying so, you are a prime example of analysing everything to death. Try watching the films without a mental scorecard for a change, see it as art, you may get more value out of your ticket that way.

Odo

Odo Proudfoot said:

Thorin, if you don't mind me saying so, you are a prime example of analysing everything to death. Try watching the films without a mental scorecard for a change, see it as art, you may get more value out of your ticket that way.

Odo

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Really? I think for a NPW purist, I'm doing pretty good with this movie. Out of all three, I have the least criticism for this movie and that it is the best out of all three (yes all you die hard FoTR fans, even over the first one). As a matter of fact, it is FADs - who seemed to ignore the changes in story in the first few movies and expected PJ to just follow the book on RoTK - that I find the most 'scorecard' and 'analytical' comments from.

When certain movie lovers say things like "It was the worst movie because it strayed from the book the most", that's enough to make even the worst NPW chuckle and then scratch his head when he realises that they are serious. Such statements put the most die-hard purist to shame.

I am FAR from the most 'analytical' person on this forum when it comes to this movie. Again I say that the people criticising the movie the most are people who defended changes in the other two movies and supported PJ. Not the purists.

Well, I guess I'm a FAD, and I like FotR best of the three films, but that is not because of any differences between book and film. FotR is also my favourite part of the book. I just like beginning more than endings, especially when we get introduced to one new marvel after another. I am also a fan of 'road movies'. Call me sad.

My point was that the beacon scene can be experienced at different levels. When I watch it I get shivers down my spine because of the sweeping majesty of the scenery, the urgency it conveys, the altogether strangeness of such a communication tool to us modern people, the epic cinematics, the rousing score. It works for me at an emotional level. I suppose I could sit there and tick off all the reasons why it doesn't make sense, but seeing that I have decided to go to a fantasy movie in the first place, why would I do that?

Odo

Odo Proudfoot said:

.My point was that the beacon scene can be experienced at different levels. When I watch it I get shivers down my spine because of the sweeping majesty of the scenery, the urgency it conveys, the altogether strangeness of such a communication tool to us modern people, the epic cinematics, the rousing score. It works for me at an emotional level. I suppose I could sit there and tick off all the reasons why it doesn't make sense, but seeing that I have decided to go to a fantasy movie in the first place, why would I do that?

Odo

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And there is nothing wrong with feeling the way you did. The actual lighting of the beacons and the spreading of the 'message' was moving. That is not the issue. The problem is not that it didn't follow the books well. Had they shown what they'd shown with G&P riding to Minas Tirith instead of lighting the first beacon, it would have been the same.

The problem is from a movie standpoint. It was redundant to light them when they did and to me it stood out that PJ was trying to do it faithful to the book in his own way and (like most of his other attempts at this hybrid) it just stood out as a glaring inconsistency.

Thorin said:

And there is nothing wrong with feeling the way you did. The actual lighting of the beacons and the spreading of the 'message' was moving. That is not the issue. The problem is not that it didn't follow the books well. Had they shown what they'd shown with G&P riding to Minas Tirith instead of lighting the first beacon, it would have been the same.

The problem is from a movie standpoint. It was redundant to light them when they did and to me it stood out that PJ was trying to do it faithful to the book in his own way and (like most of his other attempts at this hybrid) it just stood out as a glaring inconsistency.

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Perhaps so, perhaps not. As usual this deviation may well have to do with the translation of book to film. In the book, it is Denethor who commands the beacons to be lit. His madness comes later.

In the film he is portrayed from the outset as already rather twisted, and he refuses to see the danger until it is laid out before his eyes - at which point he completely loses it, especially when Faramir is brought before him more dead than alive. I guess setting it up like this makes it a bit easier in the film to show why he goes off his rocker. In the grand scheme of LotR Denethor is a fairly minor character who shows up late and disappears again quite quickly. The book has far more opportunity than the film to describe and explain what happens with him.

There is not much time in the film to convincingly transform him from sane (light the beacons) to mad (burn himself and his son). Simpler and quicker to portray him as hard-headed and wrong, then confront him with reality so that he goes crazy.

It also gives Pippin another chance to show how even the smallest may change the course of events

Anyway, this is speculation, but I prefer to think that a director who made himself millions by producing the greatest movie trilogy ever knows very well what he does, rather than write him off as stupid and incompetent. I have this suspicion that there is a lot more to converting a book like LotR to film script than a lot of people here think.

To fully evaluate the rational pro's and con's of the way PJ included the beacons in his film one would really need to compare it to an alternative script that stays closer to the book, yet fits into the same constraints as PJ's film, fits in with all the other changes that are required to bring the book to film at all, and still manages to hit us with the same emotional impact. It may be possible, but I haven't seen it yet.

Odo

Someone may have mentioned it, but I think I saw a couple huts next to one of the beacons. I was curious about how most of the people who lit them got there (or if they lived there), too, so I inspected them more closely on my second viewing of the movie.

Thorin said:

The problem withg the beacons was not how they were portrayed (actually seeing them happen gave me a better insight to what I read... a purist being helped by the movies?? I'll never be able to live this down!) The problem was:

1) The deception of Gandalf and Pippin trying to 'put one up' on the steward of Gondor - another nail in the coffin of poorly characterized Gandalf
2) The fact that it was redundant because of

a) who they were for - Rohan already knew the time was bad and haste was needed. Why were they so excited by seeing the beacons? And if anyone says that it was for the other armies coming to the aid of Gondor, I ask them, "Where were they?" By cutting out Imrahil and the others coming from the South, the beacons were useless.

b) and when they were lit and that it was too late - the book makes note of this when Pippin asks why they are lit (before they even reach Minas Tirith) and Gandalf says that lighting them when the battle is upon you is too late.

So what were the beacons for in the movie? Oh yeah..PJ's attempt to stay true to the book while trying to make it conform to his own plot devices. No wonder it doesn't work.

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A little late, but I'm still replying to this one.
1) Thorin, I think you are over-reacting if you say that this is a mischaracterization of Gandalf. He is not trying to 'put one over on Denethor'. He asked Denethor to light the beacons, and Denethor outright refused, because he did not want Aragorn to come and claim the throne (gasp! an element from the books!). Gandalf was then faced with the following dilemna- let Sauron wipe out Gondor, or go against the Steward's wishes in order to try and save Gondor. If you think that book-Gandalf would have elected the former course, then I'd love to start a third "Characterization in the movie was Perfect!!!!" thread.

2 a) The Rohirrim were most certainly NOT aware of the danger to Minas Tirith. The whole scene with Pippin and the Palantir established that- especially the following bit with Gandalf telling Aragorn that if the Beacons are lit, then Rohan must come. Go see the movie again if you don't believe me on that one.

2 b) Gandalf and Pippin could not have lit the beacons any earlier. As soon as they arrived in Minas Tirith they asked Denethor to light the beacons, and as soon as he declined Gandalf sent Pippin up to do it. In any case, they were most certainly not too late- Rohan arrived in time to change the course of the battle.

I was having an in-depth book discussion on another site about the Beacons of Gondor and the Red Arrow, and thought the subject had been covered on TTF in the past. The only thread I found directly discussing the Beacons of Gondor just had to be in the PJ movie forum. It is the latest thread for my erratic deep-dives into threads here. Was cracking up at the old sparring between book purists and movie newbies on the subject.
😆

A point missed by the book-purists here is the beacons weren't actually on mountain peaks, but on high foothill peaks that were much more easily accessible.



It did make for good cinema having the beacons on high mountain peaks, but what good is a beacon if it is above cloud level?

Halasían said:

I was having an in-depth book discussion on another site about the Beacons of Gondor and the Red Arrow, and thought the subject had been covered on TTF in the past. The only thread I found directly discussing the Beacons of Gondor just had to be in the PJ movie forum. It is the latest thread for my erratic deep-dives into threads here. Was cracking up at the old sparring between book purists and movie newbies on the subject.
😆

A point missed by the book-purists here is the beacons weren't actually on mountain peaks, but on high foothill peaks that were much more easily accessible.

View attachment 23035

It did make for good cinema having the beacons on high mountain peaks, but what good is a beacon if it is above cloud level?

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Whatever the true-to-life shortcomings of the PJ version of the lighting of the beacons, that entire sequence is breathtakingly beautiful, especially on a big screen. .
And just knowing (from the books) what it represents (again however unrealistically it was done) is one of the more emotional moments of the movies (for me anyway).
Oh, and Howard Shore's music just added to the ethereal beauty of the whole thing.

The answer "yes, they were lit in the books" has been given sufficiently above.
The endlessly cited "needs of films" boils down to one - well - boil.

The "moving picture industry" (big screen, small screen, even smaller screen, tiny screen) has been, decades before the premiere of FotR, in a cookie-cutter rut the size of the Grand Canyon (I can never remember the much larger equivalent on Mars (or was it Venus?) that is more appropriate).
They've become blockbuster junkies, which means that to get to the viewership needed to be "certified" as a blockbuster, they have to scrape the bottom 5% of the viewership barrel - and it's that 5% that their products must therefore be geared to.

To clarify: this is the bottom 5% in the imagination of the board-meeting crowd of the industry (if they ever voiced their cynical views of their "customers" openly at any "com" affair, their lynching would be assured in less than five minutes). That bottom 5% of this imagination probably makes Tom, Bert, and William look like rocket scientists. But this imagination exists only in the silicon brains (with very low (semi-) conductivity) of the true Trollshaws - those boardrooms.

Sure, many things can be made visually spectacular with the advances in CGI to which filming of LotR (Weta Digital!) gave such a boost. But so much of this seems to go into increasingly bloated battle scenes - at least in the genres that pander to them.

But if a scene, here as Thorin pointed out ...

Thorin said:

b) and when they were lit and that it was too late - the book makes note of this when Pippin asks why they are lit (before they even reach Minas Tirith) and Gandalf says that lighting them when the battle is upon you is too late.

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... makes no sense even in the film context - what's the point? Only senseless bombast bloat.

Description from ROTK

Pippin became drowsy again and paid little attention to Gandalf telling him of the customs of Gondor, and how the Lord of the City had beacons built on the tops of outlying hills along both borders of the great range, and maintained posts at these points where fresh horses were always in readi-ness to bear his errand-riders to Rohan in the North, or to Belfalas in the South. ‘It is long since the beacons of the North were lit,’ he said; ‘and in the ancient days of Gondor they were not needed, for they had the Seven Stones.’ Pippin stirred uneasily.

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Well, I see nothing has changed in the last 20 years. Heartening indeed ... or not ... heartening.

Olorgando said:

the size of the Grand Canyon (I can never remember the much larger equivalent on Mars (or was it Venus?) that is more appropriate).

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It is Mars. It's got the biggest mountain AND the biggest canyon in the Solar System.

Velcome to Valles Marineris:

Deimos said:

Whatever the true-to-life shortcomings of the PJ version of the lighting of the beacons, that entire sequence is breathtakingly beautiful, especially on a big screen. .

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Yup
It's couple of great shots Weta studio produced (amongs many others they did)

But, please refresh my memory, wasn't PJ make it in the move like Denethor (for no real reason) is wholeheartedly against it?
One of many scenes where I thought: "What? Why?"... LOL.. his town and whole empire is soon to be attacked, and he refuse free help? For what reason? I never, ever, understood that.

This is why this couple of beautiful shots of beacons set in fire were with bitterness taste.

d4rk3lf said:

Yup
It's couple of great shots Weta studio produced (amongs many others they did)

But, please refresh my memory, wasn't PJ make it in the move like Denethor (for no real reason) is wholeheartedly against it?
One of many scenes where I thought: "What? Why?"... LOL.. his town and whole empire is soon to be attacked, and he refuse free help? For what reason? I never, ever, understood that.

This is why this couple of beautiful shots of beacons set in fire were with bitterness taste.

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Yes.....but when watching that night scene of each peak (foothill? 😉) leaping into flame, it evokes such strong emotions on its own merits that the previous Gandalf/Pippin scene and its attendant illogic doesn't mar my enjoyment in the least.
That is, I am very adept at practicing selective temporary amnesia.
It is a very handy talent, well worth cultivating (for all areas of life, not just the LOTR movie. 😄)