Age change in Théoden

[A Little Green]

Excuse me, all of you, but I must say I just hate the way so many threads seem to end up in the purist/movieist -debate. I see the debate as entirely pointless and indeed ridiculous. As an outside watcher, I find it weird that a question as simple and neutral as Théoden's age should be transformed into insults, anger, and evil jokes.

I, for my part, think Bernard Hill was an excellent Théoden, and the role was nice and whole. Anyway, the question I think was not on whether Bernard Hill succeeded as Théoden but rather why wasn't he made older. Simple as that.

Originally Posted by zxcvbn

BTW, did the books ever say that Theoden had grey hair?

Not exactly grey, but yes, it does say he had white hair and beard. Here's the passage:

Upon it sat a man so bent with age that he seemed almost a dwarf; but his white hair was long and thick and fell in great braids from beneath a thin golden circlet set upon his brow.

[Sauron the White]

from A Little Green

Anyway, the question I think was not on whether Bernard Hill succeeded as Théoden but rather why wasn't he made older. Simple as that.

And why should he be made to be older when Hill as Theoden was already depicted as old?

The implication does not even have to be surmised as the answer is directly in the first post by MatthewM to begin this thread

Why do you suppose Jackson made King Théoden (and in turn his son Théodred) appear about 20-30 years younger than Tolkien described him in the book?

It right there clear as crystal. The poster is comparing the Theoden of the book to the Theoden of the movie. That is his standard and that is the basis upon which he frames his question.

One cannot judge the qualities and success of one medium by applying standards
and qualities of quite another. That is fundamentally flawed and unfair. It serves no end or purpose but one: to continue a debate which you yourself characterize as pointless and ridiculous.

In point of fact, the real question is indeed whether Theoden as portrayed in the film worked in the context of the medium of film.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

One cannot judge the qualities and success of one medium by applying standards
and qualities of quite another. That is fundamentally flawed and unfair

Balderdash! (pronounced to rhyme with 'pullfit').

It's just a threadbare excuse with which to counter all criticism of the films' many failings. Rot. An adaptation's success as an adaptation is fair game.

If you want to give some substance to this nebulous axiom, StW, then tell us *why* this different medium requires this change. Go on, tell us. Otherwise it's just empty handwaving.

[Sauron the White]

WCH - I asked you before, and asked davem also, but you failed to reply. So I ask again. Where can you cite an objective and authoritative source on film who will tell us that the standard to judge a films quality or success is its slavish adherence to the book from which it is adapted?

Where is this found?

What film expert or film critic maintains this absurdity?

You guys do make up your own rules as you go along.

And why the deterioration of civility? You clearly now want to use the more base term for male cow drippings

Balderdash! (pronounced to rhyme with 'pullfit').

MatthewM has to use terms like "hate" and says he would love to resort to vulgarity.

Vulgarity it would be.

Cannot we reason together like civilized persons?

[Meriadoc1961]

I, for one, smiled when reading the SNL sketch, and I have had my differences with Sauron the White regarding the books v. the movie.

I admit, I had not really given this much thought regarding the age of Theoden in the movie. In hingsight, I guess he maybe should have been older.

What I found more disturbing was the total distortion of the ages of the hobbits. Frodo was supposed to be considerably older than the other hobbits, and yet he was the youngest in the films. I do like the films, but I just did not get the necessity of making Frodo the youngest.

Merry

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

WCH - I asked you before, and asked davem also, but you failed to reply. So I ask again. Where can you cite an objective and authoritative source on film who will tell us that the standard to judge a films quality or success is its slavish adherence to the book from which it is adapted?

Honestly, I've yet to hear any pro-movie argument from you that didn't consist of 'They made a lot of money, a lot of people saw them & they won 3,759,3783,798,439 Oscars.'. The only criteria for 'success' you admit is numbers.

There is another (&, some of us would argue, far more important) criteria - & that is faithfulness to the source. These movies are not at all faithful to Tolkien's original work. They cannot be called 'adaptations' - & this is where your argument crashes & burns: the changes were not made out of necessity because of the difference between book & film. They were made purely & simply (whatever nonsense the screenwriters spout) because the writers thought they could improve on the original. What they did was take whatever bits they liked from Tolkien, changed whatever they didn't like - for no other reason than they didn't like it. Unfortunately, the main reason for this is that they didn't actually understand the book.

That is how they fail - as adaptations of Tolkien's work.

[zxcvbn]

Uh oh, another purist-movieist argument. I am weary of this....

Originally Posted by davem

Honestly, I've yet to hear any pro-movie argument from you that didn't consist of 'They made a lot of money, a lot of people saw them & they won 3,759,3783,798,439 Oscars.'. The only criteria for 'success' you admit is numbers.

How about winning awards for best adapted screenplay, and the love of the majority of LOTR fans?

Originally Posted by davem

There is another (&, some of us would argue, far more important) criteria - & that is faithfulness to the source. These movies are not at all faithful to Tolkien's original work. They cannot be called 'adaptations'

They are adaptations in the sense that they are drawn directly from an existing source material. And if you've watched any movie that was based on a book in the past 20 years you'll find that considering the Hollywood standard for book adaptations, the LOTR films were very very faithful.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by davem

- & this is where your argument crashes & burns: the changes were not made out of necessity because of the difference between book & film. They were made purely & simply (whatever nonsense the screenwriters spout) because the writers thought they could improve on the original. What they did was take whatever bits they liked from Tolkien, changed whatever they didn't like - for no other reason than they didn't like it. Unfortunately, the main reason for this is that they didn't actually understand the book.

That's just your opinion. As for the changes, some were certainly made due to creative license, but many were made for genuine reasons(for example, Tolkien himself stated that Bombadil wasn't important to the narrative). You may disregard STW's argument that books and movies are different media but it holds true nevertheless. And IMHO the writers did improve on Tolkien in a few aspects; like, say, Theoden's speech at the Pelennor.

Originally Posted by davem

That is how they fail - as adaptations of Tolkien's work.

No, they don't. Even if they fail the 'faithfulness to plot' test(and IMO they don't), they excel in other aspects, like maintaining the look and feel(Sets, props, costumes) and the music(Howard Shore's score) of Middle-earth.

Having contributed my two cents, I don't think anybody's opinions are going to change, so it would be best to start a new thread from here on.

[Sauron the White]

Why do you continue to harp on the same point when you ignore a polite request to provide an objective and authoritative source to lay that foundation?

The success of a film is generally judged by one thing over all others: how profitable was the film.

This may come as a shock to some here, but the motion picture industry is a business. The purpose of business is profit. Making a movie is not painting a picture in your part time in your basement and then displaying it at the local townhall hoping it matches someones sofa. It is a business. Pure and simple above all else.

The fact is that the three LOTR films wildly exceeded anyones hopes for profit and turned into three of the most successful films of all time in revenue production. In addition to the $3 billion they took in at the box office, they produced another $1billion in ancillary income for a total of $4 billion US dollars. This on a total investment of $290 mil to make and $140 mil to market the films. That is ratio of nearly 10 to 1 in return for dollars invested.

That is the scale that the rest of the world uses to judge a commercial motion picture. You can like it or hate it. But that is the scale.

However, the film industry also keeps track of film success in two other ways. The first is critical reviews. All three LOTR films were among the most positive reviewed by professional film critics for the years they were released. Rottentomatoes.com can provide you with the exact numbers.

In addition to that, the film industry as a busines and professional association has a series of awards to bestow on films that they feel are particularly succesful by artistic standards respected within the industry. The Academy Awards are one example and the best known. LOTR won 17 of those including the highest award for ROTK as Best Film of the Year.

But you know all this.
But you refuse to accept all this.

Instead, you cling to a fiction you created in your own mind about faithfulness of adaption. Slavish page by page duplication from book to screen.

Again, yet again, for the umpteenth time, I ask you not for your opinion on this standard, but please show me where some other objective authority on film says that faithfulness of a books adaption into film is the way we measure a films success

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Isn't that a bit like saying the best beers are those which sell the most? I don't think many here are denying the film's success. The quality is the issue. That is not measured by profit.

But, as usual, it's veered off topic.

[Gwathagor]

StW: feel free to start a new thread which deals with, as you put it, "the real question".