How much Frodo grew...

[Amanaduial the archer]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Exactly, most skilled Archer! It came too late in the day. Frodo could really have used some growth in The Two Towers.

Oh, I don't know about that, Eomer. It could have made it rather more difficult for them to slip past the Watchers later on if he grew any taller...

Umwe - you say you back the idea that Frodo should have been a weak character in the film due to his burden of carrying the ring?

I would actually disagree - the way Frodo came out as so very weak seemed, I thought, to make it less believable that he actually was able to carry the ring: surely if he was so weak he would have broken and given into it? I thought they could have played on his character growing to fight the effects of the ring - the ring must have grown on him with time, to strengthen it's effect, so one would think that he would have to grow accordingly to fight it's effects.

(Also Umwe, apologies for not getting the little dots over the 'e' in your name, I have given up trying to work out how to do them on a laptop - and it's a sort of case of start as you mean to go on)

[Umwë]

Originally Posted by Amanaduial the archer

Umwe - you say you back the idea that Frodo should have been a weak character in the film due to his burden of carrying the ring?

Yes, he is the weaker character, at least in the Return of the King. And that is because of the Ring. He grew weaker during the movies, from the start to the end. Yet he got braver even though the ring made him weaker both mental and physical. That's my point!

Originally Posted by Amanaduial the archer

(Also Umwe, apologies for not getting the little dots over the 'e' in your name, I have given up trying to work out how to do them on a laptop - and it's a sort of case of start as you mean to go on)

Hehe That's allright :P

[Rimbaud]

..and the Bebe-licious One as well, of course.

I think the filmmakers did not achieve as intended with regard to character development; this is despite, ironically, upsetting Faramir purists, purely for the sake of 'character development'. This idea of 'growth' through a film has become an obsession for many filmmakers and studios, often to the detriment of movies where it isn't an apt element...but I digress. In this case, as I think has been tacitly accepted above, the true measure of personal growth, in the book, is through the hobbit Frodo.

A case can be made for that of Aragorn, yet it is nto half so finely a drawn development through the text.

Yet although a comparison between the film-Frodo of the opening to FOTR and the closing (one of the many endings ) to ROTK will show what would appear a distinct change in the character, that development is not linear through the film in the same way it is in the book.

In the film, from Weathertop, Frodo is essentially a constant sad-eyed victim; this is patently not the case through the remainder of the novel. This is a great pity, for there are many fine things about the films but this was a central tenet that they were obliged to 'get 'right', and rather reluctantly, I posit that the team did not.

[Essex]

For me Frodo did not show the same 'growth' as the other 3 hobbits. Remember they were younger than him. Hobbit's coming of age is 33.

When they set out

Frodo was 50
Merry 36
Sam 35
Pippin 28

(Note that Frodo was also older than Boromir, Faramir, Eomer and Eoywn).

Our coming of age is usually set at 18. Who is grown up at this age? VERY FEW. So Sam and Merry were barely adults, and technically Pippin was still a child. No wonder we can see their growth in the books and movies. Frodo was a more mature adult at 50.

So I put it to you, book wise, that Frodo himself had very little 'growing' to do as a character. He seems to me, in the book as well as the film, to be a character that seems fully developed once he leaves Bag End with the Ring.

In the film, I think we see him grow somewhat the second he says 'What must I do'. And the melancholy I always feel during Frodo's last scene in Bag End also shows film-wise to me how he has grown.

PS Amanaduial, copy and paste Umwë and it will work!

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

You make a good point Essex, that Frodo actually had little growing to do. In that case, I will have to say that I thought Frodo was missing something important all the way through the films. Elijah Wood seemed to substitute scary eye movement in place of quality acting.

[Bêthberry]

This reminds me that I still owe a reply to Essex on a thread from about six weeks ago when I suddenly had to disappear for a bit. I do enjoy our different perspectives, Essex.

No wonder we can see their growth in the books and movies. Frodo was a more mature adult at 50.

So I put it to you, book wise, that Frodo himself had very little 'growing' to do as a character. He seems to me, in the book as well as the film, to be a character that seems fully developed once he leaves Bag End with the Ring.

Your argument here seems to depend upon the idea that an adult--or hobbit--in middle age has learned about all he or she needs to learn, about the world or about himself or herself.

I would suggest instead that growth in awareness about oneself or about the world comes not from merely living a certain number of years but from intense experience and interaction with people, events, dramas, challenges, tragedies. There are those whose lives are set and so they do not change beyond middle age. And then there are those who experience tremendous change, upheaval, loss, struggle. Here then is the crucible where they discover just how much they know about themselves and grow in wisdom.

Frodo, the reckless tween who would cheekily steal mushrooms, assumes a quest when he has not 'settled down into regular hobbit habits' and without at the time quite understanding what burden he is accepting. At the very least, he must learn how to stay true to his decision in the face of terrible odds. Or, he must learn what the cost is of his decision.

[Lalaith]

To go back to Essex's point about the ages of the hobbits and also that the 'coming of age' was 33. At the time of Tolkien's writing, our coming of age was actually 21.
So how would we translate the ages of our hobbits into 'man years'?
By my reckoning, the actors playing Merry and Sam should have been, or at least look, in their early twenties, and Pippin in his late teens.
Obviously Frodo should not look like a fifty-year-old man, but he should look older than the other hobbits, in his early thirties perhaps.
In the film, I think Pippin looked about right to me, but Merry and Sam were a shade too old and Frodo much, much too young.
And to go back to the original question of the thread (of course! ) movie-Frodo did grow somewhat, but should certainly not have started out giving the impression of being a schoolboy. Which, I agree, he did.
Because (as I said before somewhere else) would Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond really have entrusted the most dangerous thing in middle-earth to a schoolboy?

[elfwishes999]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Elijah Wood seemed to substitute scary eye movement in place of quality acting.

I wouldn't say that exactly. Elijah was just simply acting the way that he acts. I think he did a VERY WELL JOB on the movie, and when we talk about Frodo here, we talk about how Elijah Wood portrays him and i think some (or most people) would agree that Elijah did a very nice job as Frodo. (he did a good job of memorizing the lines) and frodo AS THE CHARACTER THEY WROTE i thought was the one who grew. Just from watching parts in FotR and RotK i kinda saw a change in character in frodo..

[Kransha]

I haven't posted in 'The Movies' in a VERY long time. But, this topic's a-callin'.

I very much disliked the movie 'growth' of Frodo. Book-Frodo was older, more experienced than the other three hobbits. He was the oldest indeed, and thus, on technicality, one of the wisest. He was jovial, somewhat naive about the surrounding world, but all Haflings were. In the movie, his original personality was somewhat lost, since so much time was 'left out' from before his first scarring incident. As an example of what I'm trying to say here, I'll just put forward this book reference, which seems more than a little relevant.

In the books, Frodo, and all the Hobbits, were still relatively innocent, ready beings for a portion of their journey. Suddenly, their jollity, or just Frodo's dissapeared after he was forced to face the Barrow-Wight threatening his friends. Then, with Tom Bombadil, he remained jocund, but Tom makes everyone jocund, so that's no excuse. His innocence was diminished, but Sam's, Pippin's, and Merry's was not, since they had not had to 'deal' per se, with the Wights. In the movie, this whole transition was lost in the shuffle. As a character, Frodo's book personality shrinks, but is still 'growing downwards' not retreating into himself. He becomes a new person. In the films, he simply shrunk, remaining the same person, but more of a shell than a Halfling. Not one of the aspects I liked. The character of Frodo, both in terms of lines, writing, acting, and personaality, was not the character I loved in the book like, say, Gandalf or Merry (I could rant about Meriadoc's character developement overwhelming Frodo's, but I won't).

elfwishes999, I think Elijiah Wood can be credited with many things, but line memorization is not one, unless you're being sarcastic, considering the fact that he had more than enough takes during filming to make countless mistakes. Also, on the subject of the 'VERY WELL JOB' (forgive me, I'm a bit of a Grammar Nazi) I rather disliked Wood for the part of Frodo, one of my least favorites in the movie. I still don't entirely understand why Frodo was morphed from a 50-year old to a 17-year old. Yesm definate dislike.

Post Script: BTW, as per to Fordim's comment: The 2.3 centimeters grown by Frodo was not a measure of height, width, hair length, or otherwise. It was obviously a measurement of the radius of his pupils. Did anyone else notice that in the third film, his eye size had reached near bibical porportions?

Post Post Script: elfwishes, technical apologies about my bashing of your opinion, though it is, of course, all in good fun. An interesting debate topic you've manufactured here.

Post Post Post Script: Yes, I realize that I am a total and complete cynic, but I have my reasons. I am forced, though, to revert back and agree with our resident Saucepan Man. If any scene in the trilogy actually felt like Frodo to me it was the final speech, as a credit to both Elijiah Wood and Sean Astin, on Sammath Nuar, that Saucepan mentioned (that is the one I'm thinking of, yes?"