Quote:
Originally Posted by tirsales
Why?
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One of the worst failings of the movies was the way in which they misrepresented the original characters:
- Book-Faramir vows to not be tempted by Isildur's Bane and keeps his word, movie-Faramir not only makes no such vow, but immediately falls prey to the Ring literally seconds after encountering it.
- Book-Denethor has the nobility of a great ruler before his reason succumbs to his cares and worries (even Pippin thinks of him as more like to Aragorn than to Boromir); by contrast, movie-Denethor is a corrupt, demented imbecile from the get go. He can also run a quarter of a mile while on fire, but I try to pretend that scene never took place.
This lack of nobility extends everywhere in the movies:
- The Council of Elrond becomes a shouting-match
- Treebeard has to be tricked into attacking Isengard
- Elrond Half-Elven is portrayed as a racist pig
- Movie-Gimli lacks any of the original character's wonderful traits and is simply the butt of a crapload of stupid jokes.
- even Arwen, for Pete's sake, is introduced onscreen by bringing a blade up to her fiancee's throat
- And the most beloved character of all, Gandalf, is not immune to Jackson's idiotic treatment either. He beats the hell out of Denethor with his staff, for example, in one of the most despicable scenes in the entire trilogy of films. He goes to confront Saruman after he was defeated by Treebeard not to extend a chance for Saruman to turn from evil and onto a path to redemption (as does book-Gandalf), but to get the skinny on Sauron's next move.
All of these changes were made for one reason - Jackson wanted to make an action flick
very loosely based on Tolkien's work. He was never interested in making an adaptation, in spite of repeatedly claiming that he would be true to the source material.
Note, too, that the changes mentioned above are only a
fraction of what Jackson did wrong in these movies. I could really go on for hours on this topic, but I fear that even the above is too long for a single post.
