Dumbing it down

[davem]

Originally Posted by Essex

Yes I read the hunt for the ring section, so let's add another new scene added in - the capture of gollum by the witch king and his torture in mordor. also, the first hobbiton scene where we have bilbo talking to frodo. (and many others) so the radio adaptation is exactly that - an ADAPTATION - if you want the book word for word, we must listen to the 54 hour narrated version.

PS thinking of the UT book, wasn't the wormtounge scene incompatible with the final plot and changed inasmuch as the witch king did NOT meet up with wormtounge, but went straight to saruman instead? (ie wormtounge did not give gandalf away) - that's the problem in adding in work from the UT into any adaptation of LOTR

Of course the radio series was an adaptation. I'm not objecting to adaptations per se. I like the radio adaptaion because its faithful to the book in spirit & very nearly in letter. The movie is not anywhere near as faithful & in some scenes the changes made alter characters & events out of all recognition. I think what it comes down to is that Sibley & Bakewell wanted to tell Tolkien's story in the best & most faithful way they could (which would inevitably - & much to the adaptors' regret - require excisions & new connecting/establishing scenes) while PJ & the scriptwriters wanted to produce a blockbuster movie series using LotR as their raw material.

Whatever you think of the movies as opposed to the radio series I defy anyone to compare them both to the book & say the films were more faithful to the book , or comunicated the spirit of it more effectively.