Today I am going to talk about Lord of the Rings. It's a topic I often get upset with, especially with the movies. Now people will remember not the book, which founded a whole new genre of writing; but this crappy knock off. I came to Lord of the Rings probably a little different then most. I have come across a lot of books in strange ways; the Belgariad by David Eddings I had picked up with the Castle of Wizardry, the fifth book in the series...I bought it at a second hand book store for fifty cents or something like that and the cover was missing; and I was lost as to what was happening and it wasn't until years later when I started working that I learned that it was the fifth book in a series of books. Now Lord of the Rings I discovered in a similar manner, only with the Lord of the Rings the book I had bought Return of the King, it had a cool cover but I have long since lost that paperback version. I fell in love with the story at once. I'd never read the Hobbit before this point, so keep that in mind (however as a child I did see the cartoon the Hobbit many times as my older brothers loved it). My first step into Lord of the Rings (as literature) was Return of the King, which by the way Tolkien was right. It's a stupid title given that much of the book is set up with the question, "Will Aragorn return from the Passes of the Dead?" I was not lost at all in it for some reason as I read it, unlike Castle of Wizardry. It had everything I loved at the time, wizards, warrior women (eowyn), the nazgul, and great battles. There are a lot of characters in it I felt were not given the justice in the movies that Tolkien gave them in the books. I think this might have been because in truth there are two reasons for the failure. The first is that perhaps it was still not ready to be filmed yet. The second being that it was foolish to take on a project of this scale, scope and epic portions and have it be only three movies. Tolkien divided up the Lord of the Rings into six parts and in my mind it should have been at least 6 movies (3hours each roughly in length).
Denethor was a great disappointment to me. I had loved the character in the book; but for me they had only given him a shallow and superficial personality. The character of Denethor is so much more complex in the books. Here is a man who dearly loves his city/kingdom above all else, even his own sons. But the only thing he loves as much as Gondor is his sons, both of them equally. He wants his son to be his own man and not the puppet of a wizard no matter how lofty and noble that wizard's goals. The movie seems to forget that it was not Denethor that sent Boromir to claim this "mighty gift." but that it was Faramir who had a dream/prophecy and was bent on going until Boromir took the task for himself after having the same dream/prophecy once, that Faramir had multiple times. Going back to Denethor as I have diverged from him. He is a man that dared to wrestle with Sauron for control of the Palantir, and who had been in the counsel of Saruman the White/Many Colors. It is obvious that Denethor favored Saruman, who treated him with the proper protocol over Gandalf who comes into his city, uses his vaults and doesn't even give the proper functions of court protocol by paying a visit to him. When Saruman turns traitor what is to think of another of his wizards in his court, especially one that offers him little of the respect he feels he deserves. But when Gandalf comes he does welcome Gandalf's counsel. He sees Minas Tirith as the last stronghold for the humans against the Dark Powers in the East, namely Sauron. He knows he cannot allow the city to fall so long as he rules as Steward, since it was given into his care. he even tells soldiers to go back to their posts and burn not to flee. That is how dedicated he is to the defense of the city. He is in chainmail much sooner in the books then ever in the film. And it annoys me that in the extended cut where Saruman reveals his palantir, that is the knowledge of Denethor that he reveals. Knowledge that pushed Denethor passed the breaking point and into madness. Those lines of the dark fleet belong to Denethor not Saruman!
And speaking of Saruman I hate how they changed him from the books. Saruman's most powerful weapon was his voice. He was a stateman and they took all that out of Saruman's character. They turned him into a puppet of Sauron, when in the books this was not the case. Saruman was another deep character that got neglected in the films in it's own way. That is why the scene in the Voice of Saruman is so powerful and important that the title of the chapter is the Voice of Saruman. There he tries to use his statecraft to save his ass; but he has lost almost all his powers save his voice and in the end he loses that as well as having his staff broken and being cast out of the order.
The misquote Gandalf and Tolkien by suggesting that the Stewards of Gondor are lesser men greatly annoys me. The blood of Numenor flows as well in their veins and it is because of this fact that Faramir has the visions he does in the books. When Gandalf is speaking of the rule being given over to lesser men he's not talking about bloodlines but of the quality of the later Kings of Gondor before the Stewards had to take over because of their rash and sometimes foolish actions.
(I just want to get the basic ideas and then I'll post up more later....with quotes from the book to prove my points.)
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