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Originally Posted by radagastly
In the commentary for "The Fellowship of the Ring," I believe it's Phillippa that says "we don't know for certain that [the hobbits] DIDN'T pass through the Old Forest and visit Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs, it's just not shown." (or something to that effect.) Then, just a few scenes later, Strider gives the hobbits their weapons, a plot change to cover the deletion of those scenes. Later, (in the extended edition) Galadriel gives Merry and Pippin weapons instead of just silver belts, probably to enhance the weapon's specialness (is that a word?) so that a 'special' weapon can be used two movies later to stab the Witch-King. Another change from the original. (Please note that I delberately chose an apparently non-controversial change.)
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This is a good example of where the scriptwriters obviously took care to make sure they had considered the needs of the plot, or even the continuity of the story as it were. Interestingly it is found in the first film, which I found to be the most carefully crafted of the three by a country mile.
But a thought has occurred to me here. In actually taking the care to do this, it is as though the scriptwriting team could have created something of an entirely new version of LotR, one which covers the plot holes, and creates new events which will have an effect on events further down the line. But by not carrying this through in all of the films, they missed a great opportunity. Did they become over confident, I wonder?
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Originally Posted by radagastly
Many of the structural changes were necessary simply because film is a completely different language than literature.
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I agree that some changes were indeed needed, and one of the major changes was to weave the tales of Books 3 and 4 together. Even the most keen cinema audiences might have struggled with a film of two distinct halves. Jackson defended this well, and he also gave perfectly valid reasons for moving the episode with Shelob into the final film. It's the changes which
cannot be justified which I do not like.