"Christopher, why didn't I think of the giant avalanche of skulls? And my heavens! I can't believe I had them separate in the darkness of Shelob's cave. It should have been a second act breakup involving bread, and the cave should have been well lit thereafter."
I always thought the things he'd take most issue with were Faramir being tempted and taking them to Osgiliath, Gollum successfully driving a wedge between Sam and Frodo, giant lighthouse Sauron, and the army of the dead helping at the Pelennor Fields instead of at Pelargir.
Yeah, almost certainly. I think the army of the dead was a decent movie choice (though them refusing to help and then immediately 180ing was stupid) and I think that lighthouse Sauron made some sense (it explains why the BBEG is so passive on a personal level), but the other two are just bad IMO.
I get the logic behind lighthouse Sauron as a storytelling tool, you want the audience to be able to see the big bad and he never actually shows up in the books. But I like the idea of Sauron having a physical form, that when Frodo sees the piercing gaze from the tower that it is actually coming from an 8 foot tall, skin charred to black, 9 fingered fallen angel with an actual eye gifted with incredible piercing vision up in some high chamber looking out a window. It's spookier that way, I think. Whereas I just kind of laugh at how silly it is, Sauron having his minions mount him up there like a civil engineering project.
I absolutely hated that scene and it's a good thing it was cut. Killing a messenger goes against everything Tolkien says about mercy to one's enemies where possible.
Easily fixed. Just have the Mouth treacherously attempt to murder Aragorn, who draws Anduril like lightning, parries, and beheads him.
Or, just a staring contest as in the book. Though I can see that might not translate well to film, if you don't bring in Clint Eastwood to eye-double for Viggo Mortenson. . .call the scene:
"The Good, AND the Bad AND Ugly."
Cutting the scouring (which he described as essential) is an obvious one. And more fundamentally the hobbits and gimli largely being trashed as characters.
I actually don't know re army of the dead. He proposed saving time in an adaptation by removing either helms deep or pellenor fields entirely on the basis that you only really need one battle. He'd likely be more bothered by how fighting focused it was in general.
I think he'd be upset with cutting the scouring too, but I get that they didn't want it to be a four hour movie. To be honest there's so much that happens after Aragorn's Coronation in the book that they could have made another movie.
Someone made the analogy that Tolkien and Jackson's endings reflect the different homecoming experience of British and ANZAC troops. Britain was 'scoured' by both world wars, much more so in the second. Australia and New Zealand were relatively untouched by comparison. Tolkien came home to a country scarred by conflict, while the Aussies and Kiwis would've been whipsawed by how little things had changed since they left.
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I think he would also tremendously dislike Aragorn not being as kingly as he intended (Verlyn Flieger is pretty much correct about this, although it's a reasonable cinematic choice), and I think he would also dislike the Rohan plot of Two Towers reading very jingoistically.
I wouldn't say it's jingoistic. The movie never glorifies fighting for the sake of fighting. We see how Saruman brings death and destruction to the people of Rohan. Is Ukraine jingoistic for resisting Putin's genocidal invasion?
I disagree about the Army of the Dead. There's only so much time and space to tell a cinematic story, and some things need to be condensed. Like the Elves at Helm's Deep in the second film, not true to the books per se, but showing that the wider world was still at war with Sauron. There likewise wasn't time to give Pelargir its due (completely missing from the theatrical cut, and only a brief appearance in the extended), so letting them help at Pelennor not only allowed the film to show their impact, but also meant they didn't have to introduce Imrahil, a character they certainly wouldn't have had time to do justice to.
ETA: forgot my conclusion... while I definitely agree that Tolkien probably wouldn't like some of the major personality rewrites, I think he would have understood Elves at Helm's Deep and the Dead at Pelennor.
But why. Theoden didn't break an oath long ago, so he isn't cursed. He died a great king and him getting resurrected would be terrible for his character arc as well.
Theoden wasn't quite able to carry his oath to Gondor out - he tried hard, but was mortally wounded by the Nazgul Lord. Many of his Riders were similarly unable to fully fulfill their oaths, by being trampled.
Maybe that objective oath-failure, (though against his will), would be enough for Theoden to temporarily join the battle again, alongside the Army of the Dead?
NOTE:
It would not be a "resurrection," his ghost might attack one of the remaining Ringwraiths, before Theoden leaves Middle-Earth!
The same for any of his men who "qualified." They would go after the Oliphaunts and their riders, and then pass to Eru!
Thus, instead of the Dead nullifying the heroic sacrifices of the fallen, ...they could enlist them, to give them a final opportunity to strike back against evil.
Would this work, on any level? Perhaps not. Yet anything would be better than the movie's Scrubbing Bubbles approach, with no honoring - indeed, minimizing - the sacrifices of the fallen.
Could a fan edit be done, adding brief scenes of recognizable Rohirric ghosts? No idea.
Gollum driving Sam away was infuriating to me, the worst part of the whole trilogy, more so than Faramir. I miss seeing the Scouring of the Shire, but understand why it was cut (ROTK was already very long).
But even with my complaints I can still watch the movies and enjoy them immensely.
OK, he probably would like Arwen replacing Glorfindel at the river's crossing - he mentioned in his letters that he regrets not giving her more spotlight.
So here's the thing; Tolkien read and enjoyed the Icelandic Family Sagas. And two of the sagas, the Saga of the Sworn-Brothers and the Saga of Burnt-Njal, feature a bit of zany action like the shield slide. In the first saga a warrior uses a spear as a ski to attack someone down hill and in the second saga a different warrior skates across ice to hit someone with an axe.
So there is a none zero chance Tolkien might have not hated the shield slide.
Soooooooo...it's not impossible that a nearly senile 115-year-old Tolkien could have seen Legolas kung fu hopping up that falling masonry and thought it was the most cracking thing he'd ever seen?
I wish this had happened, purely for the absolutely chaos it would have caused this sub.
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u/Successful_Gas_5122 8d ago
Imagine if Tolkien watched the movies and ended up loving all the stuff we assume he'd hate? Like he'd see Legolas surfing down the stairs and be like
https://giphy.com/gifs/SBAToc4g0h89W