Forever?

[Encaitare]

I shall try to clarify, Essex.

You're right, either way they're never fully appreciated for what they did, but at least in the book they are considered the saviors of the Shire. That's what I was getting at.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bethberry

That said, I think it is quite legitimate to compare the theme of evil as portrayed in the movies with that in LotR. What are the differences in tone between the ending of the book and the ending of the movies? Rather than simply argue them away as deriving from some format of movie requirement, why don't we explore the different depictions of tragedy and of evil?

If there is a difference it seems to me that its that Jackson seems to see evil as an external force more than an internal drive. That's why for me in watching the movies what happens at the cracks of Doom seems wrong - in the book we can see it coming, because we've seen Frodo's inner battle going on & he himself coming more & more under the influence of the desires the Ring symbolises. In the movie, the Ring is simply an external force, so we don't get the sense of Frodo surrendering to something he wants, just of him being overwhelmed by something external to himself. When i read the book, I know that on some level Frodo has said 'Yes!' to what the Ring offers, that some part of him has consented to it. And in the end he is unable to forgive himself for that reason, & exiles himself almost as a punishment (I know other's don't read it that way). In the movie this doesn't come across. Movie Frodo is simply broken by an overwhelming but purely external force, so it makes little sense to me that he feels he has to leave.

Actually, I still don't get why movie Frodo has to leave at all - where's his guilt? What drives him away? The change the writers make in Frodo's words to Sam 'I tried to save the Shire' to We tried to save the Shire' says it all for me. Either they didn't get the point Tolkien was making at all, or they got it & decided it was too unpalatable a thing for a movie hero to say.

[Lalwendë]

I'm approaching this with the words of non-readers in mind; I have had many (oh so many) conversations about the films with non-readers, and went to see the films with non-readers. One opinion I've heard over and over is that many did not see Sauron as such an enormous threat. I have heard several people say that Saruman was the real 'bad guy' in the films. I have heard, as have so many others, that the films ought to have ended at Mount Doom. This all adds up, to me, to show that in some way PJ did fail to convey something very important in the films. Now, I thoroughly enjoyed the films (not least of all to pick over the 'wrong' bits ), and I am actually loathe to say this, but I feel that PJ somehow failed to portray the absolute villainy of Sauron.

How? And indeed, Why? For one thing, the image of the 'eye' eventually was degraded into being an image of a lighthouse; are not lighthouses a symbol of safety to us? Another reason, and one for which you can hold PJ blameless, is that the power of Sauron was entirely psychological; certainly, the power of the ring works on the mind, and PJ did portray this. But as for Sauron's power beyond the ring itself, it is a difficult thing to portray such a power. And to be added to this is the fact that action was something very much grasped upon, and to portray both, especially in combination with trying to portray all the other multifarious fantastical aspects of Middle Earth, and keep a story going, well, I wouldn't have put money on it being pulled off perfectly.

Now this leads into the Why. A book can be put aside, a reader can turn back a few pages if they start to wonder if they have 'missed' something, and most importantly, a book can be read at your own pace. A film has none of these benefits, and it must be pitched at a middle ground somewhere along the line. It must, essentially, find a correct pace. And to do that, it has had to lose something along the way. I think it was inevitable that some of the essence would be lost.

[Imladris]

It all goes back to how Tolkien and Lewis believed that myth cannot be turned into drama.

Did PJ miss a few things, yes he did...I'm sure that we would have missed points as well.

If there is a difference it seems to me that its that Jackson seems to see evil as an external force more than an internal drive.

Not meaning to be polemic, but how do you portray an internal drive on film?

As for Sauron not being evil: he was an eye for pete's sake. It was the feel of him that was evil. How do you portray intangibility into tangibleness?

The Evil of the movie, as many have said, is different from the book. I think that PJ (necessarily) had to simplify the evil...External force (to borrow davem's wording), verses internal conflict....maybe that is one reason they did not show Sam's temptation. It was a truly internal drive, an internal temptation, that could not have been portrayed on film and if it had been attempted it would have come off as ludicrously ridiculous.

The Nazgul was a failure in my opinion. Black cloaks is not what makes them scary, or their fell beasts.

It is the quality of myth. It is a feeling that cannot be described, that cannot be projected.

Ultimately, PJ was doomed to fail in that sense. We would all fail.

[drigel]

If PJ would have secured film rights to the Silm, and had planned a series of films on the book, there would have been a lot of chances to tie in or hint at that theme, since Sauron was a mere Lieutenant back in the day... sigh, one could only dream...

[Lush]

Well, I just think the original line that Son of Númenor quoted, the whole "destroy evil forever" crap, is just bad. I view it more as an instance of an unfortunate screenwriting decision. It's silly and melodramatic. Later on in the film, Elrond harps on about the Ring in the same fashion, "evil was allowed to endure..." Blah blah blah. Here too is the seeming notion that if you destroy the Ring, you destroy everything evil.

I think if anything the films tend to suffer from a number of unfortunate utterances that periodically break the melancholic spell. They take this notion of evil that Tolkien cultivated in the books, and sap the magic and mystery and terror out of it. Having said that, for me the FotR (from which both the "bad" lines are quoted) worked best as a movie about defeat. It wasn't, a few mis-steps aside, particularly, er, bouncy. The other two didn't do it for me so much on that level.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Imladris

It is the quality of myth. It is a feeling that cannot be described, that cannot be projected.

Ultimately, PJ was doomed to fail in that sense. We would all fail.

Well, I wouldn't have 'failed' 'cos I wouldn't have attempted the thing in the first place. Its that very impossibility to convey the inner battle - a central theme of the work - that doomed the whole thing to failure as an adaptation.

I'm not saying the movies don't work as a depiction of the external battle between good & evil - they are a modern Star Wars in that sense (though I have to admit that the inner, moral, battle came across better in Star Wars than in LotR. I'm just saying that while, superficially, they put Tolkien's story on screen, they don't (because they can't) put the whole thing on screen - the most important themes are missed, or substituted by lesser themes which have been done to death by innumerable other movies.

[Bêthberry]

I think davem is on to something here, something which helps me put into perspective some of his points in the Chapter by Chapter discussion about internal and external battles.

Originally Posted by davem

If there is a difference it seems to me that its that Jackson seems to see evil as an external force more than an internal drive. That's why for me in watching the movies what happens at the cracks of Doom seems wrong - in the book we can see it coming, because we've seen Frodo's inner battle going on & he himself coming more & more under the influence of the desires the Ring symbolises. In the movie, the Ring is simply an external force, so we don't get the sense of Frodo surrendering to something he wants, just of him being overwhelmed by something external to himself. When i read the book, I know that on some level Frodo has said 'Yes!' to what the Ring offers, that some part of him has consented to it. And in the end he is unable to forgive himself for that reason, & exiles himself almost as a punishment (I know other's don't read it that way). In the movie this doesn't come across. Movie Frodo is simply broken by an overwhelming but purely external force, so it makes little sense to me that he feels he has to leave.

Actually, I still don't get why movie Frodo has to leave at all - where's his guilt? What drives him away? The change the writers make in Frodo's words to Sam 'I tried to save the Shire' to We tried to save the Shire' says it all for me. Either they didn't get the point Tolkien was making at all, or they got it & decided it was too un
palatable a thing for a movie hero to say.

Over and over in the book, we see how the Ring's power is that it can pervert even the best of intentions. This is certainly Gandalf's understanding of the Ring and, I would venture to say, the purpose of showing his temptation. It would appeal to Gandalf's best instincts and desires but still lead him into intolerable tyranny. The book plays out in agonizing detail Frodo's slow decline to the Ring. That is, it is not so much Absolute Evil (nor are Morgoth and Sauron, according to Tolkien's Notes on Auden's review of LotR, #183 in the Letters) which, when destroyed, will mean that people never again need fear the rise of tyranny. For Tolkien, evil is something inherent in mankind's nature--well, maybe that is stating it too strongly. Evil is something we are all susceptible to. And the long defeat means that there is never a final victory but that each Age or each generation must be aware of its own susceptibility to tyranny. Tolkien's astonishing position is to show how his hero, the man--halfling--who enabled events to come to the point where the Ring could be destroyed--was himself overcome by the Ring's appeal to him. When even heroes fail in this way, readers, I think, must consider the psychological or mental or spiritual (whichever word one would personally use) state of mankind to be always and ever temptable.

This sense of our human failing it, for me, missing from the movie, for many reasons. Son of Numenor attributes it to the voice over. dave attributes it to the fact that we are not shown Frodo succumbing to the Ring. I don't buy the argument that a movie cannot show tragedy or evil. I can name many movies which do, movies which employ symbolism and not merely realism. This, I think is the point to be considered here on this thread: Does the movie depict evil as some physical force which can through action and battle be removed? Or does the movie depict evil as a condition into which people and cultures can fall? The second perspective of evil will require a very different kind of 'defense' than the first.

Evil for Tolkien was intimtely connected with the human desire for Power, Domination, and control over one's own creation. (Letter #131 in particular discusses this.) This is a psychological appreciation of evil as something we are all capable of feeling or succumbing to. It is not a bad guy or bad object which, when once removed from the scene, will lead to our liberation.

I think I've rambled on long enough. I hope this makes sense.

Oh, and HI, it is not by accident that I have not named anyone else here. It was deliberate. I know you can have only so much patience for long posts from me.

[Rimbaud]

Beebonic,

evil is something inherent in mankind's nature--well, maybe that is stating it too strongly

Not sure if it is, really. What we would see as a reasonable desire for dominion, control, resides happily within all of us. We want control, quite naturally, over our thoughts, our physical selves, our 'personal space', our homes, our lifestyles, our friendships...the bubble expands to varying degrees. Pushing the envelope too far, as encouraged by Tolkien's device, is the true folly. Not the 'evil' desire itself, but the failure to moderate and temper it.

More cinematically, I’m not sure any but one or two of the actors had anything close to the talent required to display what some posters wanted to see. McKellan showed flashes of insight, but as with most of the better elements of the film, they are swiftly washed away in a maelstrom of FX laden set-pieces.

Don’t misunderstand your humble correspondent, I would have enjoyed a thoughtful film more dependant on the internalised struggle as well, but it would have simply been an entirely different experience, and not the choice made either by the studio or the director. Not to harp on the same point, but the film made the choice to be what was considered to be the easier sell.

Absolutely, trivialising the evil is a sad failure to explore the theme of the book, but neither could it have been displayed effectively in its true guise (internal, everlasting, the strand of sorrow that stems forth from it), in my opinion - and certainly not with that cast.

Basically, some want cake, and they got it. Some wanted an altogether more difficult-to-bake sort of biscuit - and they have that too, it's just on the page, not the screen.

[HerenIstarion]

If there is a difference it seems to me that its that Jackson seems to see evil as an external force more than an internal drive

On personal level he may have seen it otherwise, we don't know, but when the medium is basically 'visual', without sort of subtitles as to depict characters thoughts and emotions, it should be so. And even if, as my previous post shows, I believe there were means of putting a hint of it into the movie, there is not much one would be well-advised to expect from form of art which usually depicts 'will' as clenching of one's fists and teeth, manly chin and resolute stare .

movies which employ symbolism and not merely realism

Unfortunately, not in this case. Seems we have 'GDI first, else over it' situation here.

BTW, Boethian vs Manichaean view, anyone?

PS (or disclaimer) Slightly sarcastic flavour of my few recent posts must be due to overwork and cold I've caught yesterday. So it is not deliberately aimed at anyone, just a mood, I hope)

cheers

[HerenIstarion]

Basically, some want cake, and they got it. Some wanted an altogether more difficult-to-bake sort of biscuit - and they have that too, it's just on the page, not the screen.

Men may long remember your words, Iore... I mean, Rimbaud . Actually, it was a cross-poster up there, so let it stand as it is, else, seing these first, I would consider not posting at all

cheers

[drigel]

ill pick up on another one of Davem's good points - the Star Wars series

If you read the plot lines for the final trilogy of the series (and im not sure how valid they are - being spy reports and such), you can see (although formulaic) how Lucas is relaying that theme. While there are peaks and valleys, victories and defeats, the struggle continues. While admittedly the final movie sees the end of the dark side of the force, Lucas does a decent job with portraying in movie format the endless struggle.

[Rimbaud]

Well, I'm not sure about that either. If you are familiar with a wider SW universe, then sure, the fact that the struggle endures is apparent. From the films alone, however, you'd be hard pressed from the exuberance of the finale of RotJ not to think it was all over. As indeed with the LotR films.

[drigel]

aaahhh that is until the lights go down, and Episode 7 The Fallen Hero begins to play