With emasculated male characters? (”I just don’t wanna be king” Aragorn who has to receive a few PEP TALKS before he is willing to lead?; making Theoden the victim of possession who, instead of manning up and casting aside Wormtongue’s lies, has to be ‘depossessed’ by Gandalf?)
Nonsensical decisions made by characters who chose the OPPOSITE decision or who never would have entertained such a choice? (Faramir choosing to take the Ring to his father, Frodo sending Sam away from his side)
Blurring distinctions between characters? (Theoden and Denethor, Boromir and Faramir, Merry and Pippin)
Not to mention the complete omission of the Scouring of the Shire
Jackson does well with scenery and costumes, but he intentionally, deliberately twisted the characters, their motivations, and the story because it did not fit his liberal worldview.
J.R.R. Tolkien would never have allowed the LOTR movies to be made; he turned down an earlier attempt to translate LOTR to film for lesser departures from the book.
I’m on a lookout for liberal BS, but I didn’t see that in the LOTR movies. Less liberal then the books, the orcs were veiled capitalists and they were just nasty badguys in the movies. The internal conflict the characters had more in the movies just comes off as the difference between read and viewed media
Yes, even with all of that, I thought the films were very entertaining.
As Jackson himself said, they had to condense characters, switch certain roles, in order to get the movies to work with an acceptable time limit.
And I think you’re wrong about Tolkien not allowing the films to be made: he sold the rights for a film version in 1968 or 1969 depending on what source you read and would have had little or no ability to stop a film treatment - especially since he died 5 years later.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/United_Artists
Here are some DEPARTURES FROM THE BOOK for you: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/John_Boorman%27s_The_Lord_of_the_Rings
After reading the book three or four times, it was easy for me to say, “Man, they left out a LOT!” But someone who had never read the book wouldn’t miss it, and the story still hung together pretty well. As far as I’m concerned, the trilogy is still the best movie I’ve ever seen. Even the late Mr. Redhead, who never went to movies, saw them three or four times each.