Thread: Dumbing it down
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Old 03-02-2005, 04:13 PM   #208
davem
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davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Essex
Davem, yes the readio dramatisation was good, and worked well in the way you said above, but it also tinkered with tolkien's text and added stuff in where Brian Sibley felt appropriate. i.e. just 2 examples off the top of my head, he added in the witch king meeting up with wormtounge, and more text at the havens to make it even more weepy than it is. so it's not as faithful as one may seem.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'faithful'. Certainly Sibley (& Michael Bakewell, his co-adaptor who always seems to be forgotten) left out certain episodes, changed the order of events at the end at the end of the story & added in some bits - though the one of the ones you cite - Wormtongue encountering the Black Riders - is taken (mostly word for word) from 'The Hunt for the Ring' in UT, as is the earlier encounter of Saruman with them. But it didn't change the characters or their behaviour & motivations. These facts, along with so much use of the original text make it what I would consider a 'faithful' retelling.

I did have a lot of problems with the Bakshi version - not in terms of content but in terms of quality. I can't help wishing Bakshi had had Jacksons financial backing & access to CGI because it would have been interesting to see what he would have produced.
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