LotR1-FotR-Seq03

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Tuor

It seems to me, I don't have a copy of LOTR at the moment, that the scene of the Ring showing letters after a pause was taken from the book.

In the book, the writing is visible as soon as the Ring is taken from the fire.

'It is quite cool,’ said Gandalf. ‘Take it!’ Frodo received it on his shrinking palm: it seemed to have become thicker and heavier than ever.

‘Hold it up!’ said Gandalf. ‘And look closely!’

As Frodo did so, he now saw fine lines, finer than the finest pen-strokes, running along the ring, outside and inside: lines of fire that seemed to form the letters of a flowing script...

The writing is visible when the Ring is heated up, and fades when it cools -- and this is exactly how the Ring is portrayed in the movie in this very sequence: at 00:34:06, after Sauron has gone nova and Isildur picks up the Ring, now separated from the heat of its master, the writing begins to fade.

It's a small detail, I know, but I believe in the saying, "God is in the details". Jackson might as easily have had the letters appear after a delay in a shot of the Ring in the fire, but I think he wanted to pull it out so he could have that fancy shot of the fiery writing glowing on Frodo's face. There's another saying, used mostly by writers, that goes, "You must kill your darlings." In other words, if you have some fancy writing -- or in this case a really cool fancy idea for a shot -- that is awesome on its own, but detracts from the whole, then you must cut it out.

I think the power of the reveal of the letters in this scene is greatly weakened by the Prologue and the Gandalf-research bit. When the letters appear, we are not surprised. The audience already knows all about this One Ring, and we've seen the writing a few times. The scene would have played more effectively without that information: Gandalf has Frodo dig out the Ring, tosses it into the fire -- what's he doing? When he pulls it out, this secret writing appears -- whoa! What does it mean? It means this Ring is more than it appears to be. Well just what is the story behind this thing? Etc.

BTW, one explanation for Gandalf's premonitory flash when he reaches for the Ring is that he also wears a ring of power. You could argue that this is why he has that foreboding glimpse of the Eye and Frodo does not.