MIddlearth, OZ and faithfulness

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

Bethberry --- your point about both Dwarven humor and the Wizards duel is taken and agreed with. I certainly would not have done it that way myself. However, despite reading many different people criticize the Galadriel sequence over the years, I have read it and reread it and it seems that it is one of the most word for word copied from the book scenes in the film. Even the special effects transformation is there in the book. Could you explain what you see wrong with what Jackson put on the screen with that scene.

Davem - I enjoyed your post looking back, It certainly is cause to think.

Well, it's been some time since I saw the scene (is today a holiday too, and do I have time to go back and watch it?) but as I recall we are shown something as actual which is yet but a possibility.

When Frodo is injured with the morgul knife at Weathertop, he is actually experiencing the wraith world and the special effects priviledge the viewers to show them his experience--and it is clear that this is his experience which the other hobbits cannot see/share.

But Galadriel doesn't actually put on the ring, she only imagines what will/would happen. But the special effects make it appear to have really happened. It isn't just Galadriel's prediction, or Frodo's special sight as a Ring-bearer, it becomes a done deed. It is a difficulty with expressing interiority in film.

And if you go back to read the book--which you are saying is a no-no to experience the movie--it's clear that the only two people in the book who experienced any special sight--the Eye--are Frodo and Galadriel. Sam clearly says he didn't see Galadriel's ring--he saw starlight shining on her finger, so he would not have seen Galadriel perilous and wonderful and terrible. In the book, too, what Frodo sees is the light of the Ring of Adamant, not this terrible vision. Yet that is what the audience sees. It just doesn't work for me as her prediction.

I should say, too, that it made me think of Gandalf's temptation scene. We were given Gandalf's words and Ian's acting there, but Galadriel's temptation relied on special effects rather than acting, rather than seeing the character work out the consequences of her character with the Ring's power. To my mind this drew attention to the presence of the special effects rather than to the actual experience being played out.

So for me it fails both as a movie scene/character depiction and as a "faithful" adaptation of the book. It is possible to take things word for word and still get 'em wrong.