Dumbing it down

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mr Underhill

There is a certain patronizing attitude in the assumption that modern audiences won't get it or will grow bored without an action sequence every five pages and a few belches here and there to funny it up. Yet I don't get the sense that PJ is often intentionally patronizing; rather, I think some of the changes made by him and his partners reflect their limitations as filmmakers.

The other day I watched all three movies back-to-back, & some new thoughts occurred.

I brought this up in the CbC chapter but maybe its also relevant here. What I also find lacking in the movies is mercy. In the movie Gandalf seeks out Saruman for their final confrontation only because he believes Saruman has information which would assist in defeating Sauron. Frodo seeks to help Gollum only because he needs to believe Gollum can 'come back' ie his motivation is selfish - he's worried about himself, & wants to be sure he himself can 'come back'.

Perhaps the thing that really bothers me about these movies, now I think about it, is the much more 'hard-nosed' & cynical attitude the 'good' characters display towards their foes. No-one seems to act selflessly, out of simple compassion & a desire to show mercy - even if that puts them at risk.

Perhaps modern audiences are not 'dumbed down' but simply more selfish & uncaring. I wonder whether if Frodo & Gandalf had been shown as wishing to save Gollum & Saruman audiences would have seen them as being 'weak'.

I also wonder whether one reason the Scouring was left out was that audiences simply wouldn't have understood Frodo's behaviour. Certainly it seems that it was felt necessary to show Frodo struggling over the Ring with Gollum at the Sammath Naur - he has to fight at the end. Would Frodo's offer of mercy to Saruman at the end have been acceptible to a modern audience?

In modern movies it seems 'villains' must be shown as being undeserving of mercy, as 'deserving' all they get. When I read of Saruman's death in the book I get an overwhelming feeling that it is ugly, sordid & 'wrong' that a being once so 'high' should die like that, in those circumstances. Watching his death in the movie I get the feeling Jackson wants me to cheer over the fact that the 'bad guy' has got his comeuppance (sp?).

So, the absence of mercy, & of any sense of tragedy in the death of the 'enemies' - perhaps that is what really bothers me about the movies. I don't know if that constitutes a 'dumbing down' or a 'hardening up' of Tolkien's tale but either way it feels 'wrong'...