LotR1-FotR-Seq02

[Cailín]

Originally Posted by alatar

In what way? Do you mean that the characters were recognizable through their actions (i.e. Frodo would act thus, the movie character acts a certain way, and so it must be Frodo) or by their visage (i.e. Frodo looks like Frodo as the Book-Frodo is to have such and such garb, hair, face, stature, etc). To me there was little difference between Merry and Pippin at this point in the movie; surely I knew who was who, but initially we just see two fools.

I was merely talking about Merry and Pippin, not Frodo. Actually, Frodo wasn't at all how I pictured him to be, though there are some moments where I do like him. But that's not for now.

What struck me is that though Merry is the more intelligent one in the books - at least, he seemed quite sophisticated to me as opposed to Pippin - there is not much difference between them. But as a pair, they seemed recognizable to me in such a way that, although their job is not merely making mischief in the books, they are established as carefree hobbits who are perhaps a little more adventurous the regular hobbits. For me, the most important feature of Merry and Pippin at the start of the story was just that, their adventurous side together with their relative ignorance. And I think the movies did capture that. That made them recognizable to me, though their function throughout the first movie is quite different than in the books.