Dumbing it down

[Essex]

radagastly, totally agreee, especially

and to make changes risks creating problems down the line that need even more explanation, thus creating more changes etc.

In the commentary for "The Fellowship of the Ring," I believe it's Phillippa that says "we don't know for certain that [the hobbits] DIDN'T pass through the Old Forest and visit Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs, it's just not shown." (or something to that effect.) Then, just a few scenes later, Strider gives the hobbits their weapons, a plot change to cover the deletion of those scenes. Later, (in the extended edition) Galadriel gives Merry and Pippin weapons instead of just silver belts, probably to enhance the weapon's specialness (is that a word?) so that a 'special' weapon can be used two movies later to stab the Witch-King. Another change from the original. (Please note that I delberately chose an apparently non-controversial change.)

The changes Boyens, walsh and jackson made do tend to give us plot holes in certain cases. In your point above, boyens was wrong in saying that 'pretend that they DID pass through the old forest etc' not just for the sword (which to me is one of the most pivotal plot lines in the whole trilogy) but also Merry mentions to Pippin as they're brought to fangorn by the orcs that 'you remeber the stories of the old forest, etc?' remember the stories, phillipa? you reckon they passed through there a few weeks ago! god, that bump on Merry's head must have caused some amnesia!

I find it interesting that a lot (perhaps most) people say that the Fellowship is the closest adaptation to the book. if we're talking about the number of deletions and changes, I would hazard a guess that it is the LEAST faithful to the books, even more so that TT (yes in TT we had the 'biggest' ones, faramir, etc). for example, at the begining we have gandalf meet Frodo. no he doesn't! but this is the curse of trying to be faithful to the books. How can we, unless we have a narrator talk over the film, which DEFINATELY wouldn't work for film. But the scene itself with gandalf and frodo was excellent, just transposing the narration to the characters instead. (Just like Frodo infront of the Nazgul at Osgilliath was transposed from the scene in the book where Frodo is tempted to show the Witch king the ring at Minas Morgul)