What 5 things would you change in the movies?

Halasían said:

Five huh... I'll limit it to the Lord of the Rings movies, and I'll limit it to the screenplay.
1. Arnor - Give back the whole reason Aragorn was not King of Gondor. Because he was of the line of the northern sister kingdom. The PJ Boyens script totally destroys the basis of the whole story with this one thing. It never answers why Aragorn was not king of Gondor and why the Kingdom of Gondor was ruled by the Stewards. Basically the impression was he 'couldn't handle' being king and ran off to chase elven tail in the north where, oddly, his mother was buried. It would have been a simple fix to adhere closer to the actual story.

2. Dunedain Rangers - This too could have been easily done when the Black Riders were riding into the Shire. Also later when they are making their way through the bush and swamp to the Weather Hills they could have met Halbarad instead of Arwen 'catching a ranger at unawares'.

3. The Sons of Elrond - They could easily have been at the Council of Elrond, and later when the Rangers were mustered to ride south, they would have gone with the Standard. Simple. They could have arrived at Helms Deep with an army of elves from Rivendell and Lorien along with Haldir.

4. Faramir - I mean, seriously? HirilElfwraith said it perfectly so I'll just quote them. "Faramir my beloved. Cut out the scene where he does the exact opposite of his actions in the book, and instead show his honor and steadfastness by remarking he wouldn't take this thing if he found it by the side of the road, and then keeping his word once he finds out what it is. That's the biggest thing that bothers me."

5. Army of the Dead - Keep them true to the book. Have their oath be fulfilled after taking the ships, and dispose of the whole luminescent green hoard of green ants swarming Minas Tirith. The way it was shown was the ships had Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas with just the green ants coming to the rescue.

And a few honorable mentions:
Denethor. Make him the honorable man who was worn down and broken by his use of the Palantir.
Saruman. Oh great searchlight of Mordor. PJ and team missed a perfect chance at doing some worthy CGI with Sauron.
Aragorn and the Palantir of Orthnc. Instead of Aragorn get electrocuted by the Palantir, have him take it and challenge Sauron.

Anyway, I could probably go to ten...

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Yeah, atleast the Hobbit sequels did not use searchlight Sauron when he appeared.

Ealdwyn said:

Why stop at ten?

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Two reasons ... because Þráinn Þórhallsson said "...only 5..." in the thread title, and I didn't feel like writing a Novella. I'd still be writing my original post

I just need one: Erase The Hobbit trilogy.😥

Goku da Silva said:

I just need one: Erase The Hobbit trilogy.😥

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I'm wondering: could imagining it to be a spin-off from G.R.R Martin's stuff (about which I am totally ignorant) help? 🤔

1. Switch Arwen out, though I'm unsure for whom since it's narratively difficult for a film to introduce a character so briefly.
2. Make Galadriel less creepy.
3. Don't change the Ents decision.
4. Don't have the Elves at the battle of the Hornburg.
5. Don't have Faramir kidnap Frodo.

5 things, this is a hard one!

1. Remove Tauriel, and everything about her, from The Hobbit.

2. Just make Faramir like Faramir in the books. It suits as well, and even better, in a movie adaption. They strayed so fare away from his character and it annoys me so much.

3. Drop alle callbacks to LOTR in The Hobbit. Meaning remove that stupid "dragon sickness" thing that Thorin had. Dwarfes are greedy for gold and treasures, thats enough.

4. Frodo never sent Sam away in the book, and him doing so in the movies is one of the worst deviations. He always trusted Sam(Except when Sam suggested he could carry The Ring, but thats very understandable. Frodo felt so bad after those two times as well).

5. Drop the whole of Dol Guldur stuff from the film. (This along with removing Tauriel would easily make it into two films).


Obviously so much more, but if these five things were made the movies would be so much better! At least to me.


Bonus: No army of the dead ghost army at Minas Tirith.

Copia said:

5 things, this is a hard one!

1. Remove Tauriel, and everything about her, from The Hobbit.

2. Just make Faramir like Faramir in the books. It suits as well, and even better, in a movie adaption. They strayed so fare away from his character and it annoys me so much.

3. Drop alle callbacks to LOTR in The Hobbit. Meaning remove that stupid "dragon sickness" thing that Thorin had. Dwarfes are greedy for gold and treasures, thats enough.

4. Frodo never sent Sam away in the book, and him doing so in the movies is one of the worst deviations. He always trusted Sam.

5. Drop the whole of Dol Guldur stuff from the film. (This along with removing Tauriel would easily make it into two films).


Obviously so much more, but if these five things were made the movies would be so much better! At least to me.


Bonus: No army of the dead ghost army at Minas Tirith.

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Unique changes.

I had loads of problems with the movies, but after I watched the making of the movies and saw how hard it was to actually make them, and how much work went into them, most of my problems went away. However these are the ones that still bug me.
Changing Glorfindel for Arwen.
Getting rid of all the rangers and Halbarad, and the sons of Elrond.
Elrond delivering Anduril, when it would have made so much more sense to reforge it straightway.
Aragorn not wanting to be king.
The siege of Gondor being so short and one sided.

Aethelwulf said:

The siege of Gondor being so short and one sided.

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Those Scrubbing Bubbles Deadmen again. 😄

I'm going to list 5 MAJOR Gripes (but, be warned , there will be "sub-gripes" under those five)
1) The Hobbit Movies... I would permanently exile the entire Trilogy to The Void.
(no sub grouping needed for this....just do away with them, please, "forever and a day"...'nuff said
2) The mis-casting, mis-characterization in LOTR,
Mis-cast: Frodo, Aragorn, Faramir, Arwen
Mis-characterization: Aragorn, Denethor, Faramir, Arwen, Gamling, the Mad-eye Moody look of the Eye of Sauron gazing from Barad-dur, especially in ROTK ...utterly laughable.. and cringeworthy
3) The totally made up scenes:
"Sam go home"... Aragorn going over the cliff... Frodo offering the Ring to the Nazgul at Osgiliath... The Green Army swarming Minas Tirith...Merry arguing with Treebeard about the necessity to fight
4) Altered scenes that there was no reason to change
Arwen , aka warrior princess, carrying Frodo in Flight to Ford... Aragorn receiving Anduril at Dunharrow, not Rivendell... Pippin offering his services to Denethor and then Gandalf just shoves him aside indicating that he didn't think much of Pippin's very honorable act.... The coronation scene that has Aragorn bowing to the Hobbits (a coronation is not the place for it)
5) Annie Lennox's "Into the West" . Whatever one's opinion is of Annie Lennox , the vocals were a jarring dissonance to Howard Shore's symphonic and choral music. Yes, I know it was tribute to a staff member/ one of PJ's friends who died of cancer... but, again, not the place for it.

The best thing that PJ did was to hire Alan Lee and John Howe. The movies were visually fantastic. However, there are many things that really bother me:
1. The wimpification of Frodo. They took away almost all of the brave things he did. He was similar to Bilbo in that he was afraid, but he rose to the occasion many times. Taking away his defiance at the Fords of Brunien is one example of many. How many times did he fall?
2. Sending Sam away at Cirith Ungol. I almost walked out of the theatre it so upset and angered me.
3. The character assassination of Faramir. When asked which character that Tolkien most identified with, he said it was Faramir. Going to Osgiliath? When Sam said at that scene, "By rights we shouldn't be here", I almost shouted out in the movie theartre, "You're damn right!!!!"
4. Aragorn's doubtfulness and change of why he wasn't claiming the throne. Too confusing and undermining his character.
5. Frodo snapping at Sam and then not apologizing completely. It undermines their relationship. Also Frodo worrying more about Gollum and almost seeming he's putting him above Sam.

Just a few things.

The major thing that troubles me about the films is that there is so much that is good. As I mentioned, the visuals were wonderful. I adored Bag End and Hobbiton. I actually cried when I first saw Gandalf and Pippen riding on Shadowfax coming upon Minas Tirith in the distance. ( the person sitting next to me in the theatre was looking at me strangely lol) When Gandalf shed more light on the halls of Moria, it was breathtaking. The paddles on the small boats of Lorien were actually leaf shaped as described in the books. So many great things.

But when I was lulled into feeling I was in Middle Earth, there would be a shocking departure mostly having to do with changes in our beloved characters. I understood some changes in the story line. I guess I am one of the few who actually understand not visiting Tom Bombadil (although I missed him and Goldberry), but it was better to omit than making horrible character assassinations like with Frodo and Faramir.

Here's a related thread:

As with other answerers, there are a myriad of things that I dislike about the films (I'm just going to ignore the existence of the Hobbit films; they are not much better than RoP, which I am also trying to expunge from my brain), but there are certainly major points to which I can narrow down the list, mostly characterizations:

1. Frodo: The main main protagonist of the story who commits several acts of bravery throughout the book. Yet not only does he not do any of these things in the book, he does practically their opposite in the films (except in the case of the Barrow-downs, which is absent). I still can't think of any logical reason why PJ did this. I also don't understand how this seems to go unremarked upon by book readers who also like the movies; how can they tolerate Frodo being turned into a callow, whimpering milksop? I can't figure out the reason for the "Go home, Sam" scene either and the lembas strewn about. What was wrong or 'unfilmable' about the corresponding section of the book?
2. Aragorn: The hand-wringing about being Isildur's heir. This serves no purpose and never comes up again. So, why? And for all the screenwriters' doting on Arwen and Aragorn, they seem not to have understood the story in the Appendix A.
3. Treebeard: This will forever be a major sticking point for me. Evidently, it doesn't bother most people but Treebeard being "tricked" into action by Pippin is just too stupid, I don't care how many people accept it.
4. Faramir: One of the screenwriters said filming the book here would be "cinematic death" or something like that. Maybe, but why was their solution making Faramir a humorless jerk? And contriving a ridiculous scene where a Ringwraith on a flying mount sees Frodo with the Ring!
5. Elves at Helm's Deep: Another stupid, impossible, scene that didn't need to be included.