Staatliche Berufsoberschule Fürstenfeldbruck
Hans-Sachs-Straße 2, 82256 Fürstenfeldbruck
— Seminarphase 2008 —
Schriftliche Seminararbeit im Fach Englisch
Comparison of the Main Characters in
„The Lord of the Rings―, the Book and
the Film
vorgelegt bei:
StRin Julia Mörtl
Von:
Dominik Schönleben
Lagerstr. 31b
82178 Puchheim
“Art often takes on a life of its own, achieving far more
than the artist could have imagined.”
— David Bruce about LotR
Index
1. Introduction
2. No Strange New World – An overview why large
parts of the film give the feeling to be amazingly similar
to the novel.
3. A Great Story needs Great Protagonists – An analysis
of the adaption of the main characters and of their
former and new role in the epic struggle.
3.1 Merry and Pippin – Or why humour is needed in
Hollywood badly.
3.2 Gimli and Legolas – Nobel princes, abused for
audience’s joy?
3.2.1 Gimli – Just Humour and Emotions?
3.2.2 Legolas – Just a supernatural fighter?
3.3 Aragorn and Arwen – Because there is no
Hollywood story without love.
3.3.1 Returning the King – Aragorn’s lost confidence.
3.3.2 Luthien’s Choice – Arwen as a main character.
4. Conclusion
Bibliography
1. Introduction
It is for sure that Stanley Unwin, Tolkien’s publisher was not aware that
he was going to publish one of the bestselling books of the century,
when he asked Tolkien in 1937 for a sequel to his children’s book ―The
Hobbit‖1. What he got was not a book for kids, but hundreds of pages
of a story written for adults, which took Tolkien nearly 12 years to write
and turned out to be well written literature that should become the
beginning and archetype of modern fantasy writing.
2
It was not by
chance that Tolkien had created such a marvellous story with such
richness in detail. As a professor in Anglo Saxon and English language
and literature, he had spent all his life studying poetry and literature and
knew everything about words and putting them together.3
Tolkien had always said that his book is unsuitable for dramatization,
because of its tremendous size and all its fantastic components.4 Despite
this regards his book was finally captured nearly 50 years later for the
screen by director Peter Jackson and published by New Line Cinema.
The first part of the motion picture trilogy was released in 2001 and
became a major success, not only among the fans of Tolkien’s work,
but also in the popcorn cinema culture.5 The viewers were amazed how
good Peter Jackson had transferred the story to the medium of movie on
the one hand, but had also created a great movie for the wide audience
on the other. Although most of Tolkien’s original work has been
transferred as nearly as possible from the book to the screen, there had
to be made some minor and major changes. As Peter Jackson himself
1
JACKSON, Peter: The Lord of the Rings – Special Extended DVD Edition, New Line
Cinema, 2001, Die Anhänge Teil 3: Die Reise geht weiter… - J.R.R. Tolkien Origins of
Middle-earth.
2
WIKIPEDIA the free encyclopedia, article: The Lord of the Rings,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings, p.1ff. (18.06.08)
3
ibid. article: J.R.R. Tolkien, http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien, p.1. (18.06.08)
4
CROFT Janet Brennan: Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings,
United States of America, The Mythopoeic Press, 1. edition, 2004 , p. 40.
5
WIKIPEDIA, article: The Lord of the Rings film trilogy,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy, p.1. (18.06.08)
4
said in an interview: ―While we are doing all the normal stuff to adapt a
book, we did want to be as accurate as possible […] (to Tolkien’s
novel).‖6 But a lot of fans and experts on Tolkien’s writing seem to
disagree with Peter’s definition of accuracy and even Tolkien’s son
Christopher strongly disapproves Peter Jackson’s version of the story.7
As we will see, some changes were made for cinematic purposes, others
just in favour of storytelling or the writers’ opinions. Below, this essay
will focus mostly on the main characters' appearances and their
development throughout the movie. It will show some of the most
significant changes and analyze their reason and purpose, to reflect why
some of them were or had to be made by the director and screenplay
writers.
2. No Strange New World – An overview why large
parts of the film give the feeling to be amazingly
similar to the novel.
Transferring a piece of literature to the screen without disapproving the
fans is an almost impossible task. But there is a chance of doing it right,
if you are a fan by yourself. And there is one thing Peter Jackson says
about himself for sure, that he is a great fan of ―The Lord of the Rings‖8
since childhood and he always thought that one day somebody should
make a movie of it.9 As he grew older and became a director by himself
he decided to take this task into his own hands. He wrote the script
together with his wife Fran Welsh and screenplay writer Philippa
Boyens, both being even bigger fans than Peter.10 The script writers
having this kind of passion meant a lot for the project, because they had
a lot of respect for Tolkien and his work, and cared a lot about how it
would be transferred to the screen. It is even told that Philippa Boyens
6
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil I Vom Buch Zur Vision – From Book to Script.
WIKIPEDIA, loco citato, article: The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, p.6-7.
8
In the following shorted as „LotR―.
9
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 1 Vom Buch zur Vision – From Book to Script.
10
ibid.
7
5
reads LotR once each year since her 16th birthday, which speaks for
itself in the means of passion.11
Adapting the feeling of LotR was much easier to accomplish than
someone might think at first, because there are already more than 40
years of drawings and models available.12 Not only did they serve as a
good blueprint for the film, but they did shape the appearance of places
and main characters into a subconscious canon. I believe it is a common
fact that each former painting of any kind serves the creation of those
who are yet to come. Thus each painting or model, for example of the
Balrog, shaped the next approach of another painter and during the last
40 years there developed one common way how the Balrog should look
like. I think this even affected ourselves while reading the book and
shaping our imaginations of it, accordingly to pictures we had already
seen. Because LotR had been such successful, there exist hundreds of
thousands of drawings from different creators. But it is mostly not
Tolkien’s credit that they all look alike. In my opinion it is merely a
credit to the creation of a collective canon way to draw the characters,
which established during the decades.
It surprises that most characters are not described as detailed as we
believe by Tolkien in the novel, because he was not very concerned
with the looks of his characters, but cared about how they felt and
acted. So there is for example no passage in the book that states how
Arwen exactly looks like, beyond the fact that her hair is dark and her
eyes bright, but the painters gave her the look we now accept as the
canon of LotR.13 Though it was never something stated by Tolkien
himself, but only by those who adapted his work in some way. So it is
not wondrous that the two most famous Tolkien illustrators of all time
had been brought aboard to design the sketches for Middle-earth, to
11
ibid.
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 1 Vom Buch zur Vision – Designing Middleearth.
13
SMITH Jim, Matthews J Clive, The Lord of the Rings – The Films, The Books, The Radio
Series, Great Britain, Virgin Books Ltd, 1. edition, 2004, p.119.
12
6
give the film an even more familiar face. Alan Lee and John Howe
extended their already famous and accepted version of Tolkien’s world
and some of their older paintings were even adapted not only in shape,
but also their viewpoint was sometimes imitated in the movie.14
On the other hand Tolkien’s own dialogue was rarely utilised by the
writers. Mostly it was made more straightforward and shorter, but still
using Tolkien’s own vocabulary. Sometimes a line was shifted from
one character to another, anyhow it stayed still Tolkien’s dialogue. Still
recognition was made easy and very elegant by adapting some key
phrases, which are most likely to be remembered.15 An example for this
is the famous Frodo line, when he declares to take the ring at Elrond’s
council: ―I will take the Ring to Mordor, though I do not know the
way.‖ It is an important and unaltered piece of dialogue, while this kind
of true transfer is rather rare.16
All this efforts in total lead to a very subconscious recognition of the
book. Though the similarity of the film to the book is sometimes
created artificially instead by just adapting truly what Tolkien had
purported.
3. A Great Story needs Great Protagonists – An
analysis of the adaption of the main characters and
of their former and new role in the epic struggle.
At the very centre of every story are its characters, which are totally
essential for its success.17 So it appears naturally to focus on them in
this paper. Most of the main characters of the fellowship were
transferred to the screen merely without any very significant changes.
Especially Frodo, Samwise, Gandalf and Boromir seem to be like we all
14
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 1 Vom Buch zur Vision – Gestaltung und Aufbau
Mittelerdes – Designing Middle-earth.
15
SMITH, loco citato, p.100.
16
ibid., p.122.
17
CROFT, loco citato, p.103.
7
had them imagined. But when the film departed from the novel some
characters were changed, expanded or flattened and travestied for
different reasons. In the following, the most remarkable changes will be
shown and it will be interpreted why they were done.
3.1 Merry and Pippin – Or why humour is needed in
Hollywood badly.
Merry and Pippin are even in the books quite indistinguishable and
most of the time it seems, that at least one of them could have been
spared. That was also suggested to Peter Jackson more than once during
the writing of his script. Even though Merry seems a little bit more
brave and Pippin has an increased affinity to foolishness, they could not
only have been one character in the film, but in the novel, too.18 It is not
sure why Tolkien chose to create both of them, but I believe, maybe it
was to give them a better chance to interact with each other, so the
reader gets a better impression about what is going on.
To me the main difference between book and film regarding the two
hobbits Merry and Pippin is their humorous appearance. Tolkien
himself took his book and fantasy itself very seriously, so it is obvious
that he did not include cheap humour in his story, just for a laugh from
the audience.19 Mostly foolishness, impulsiveness and their lack of
responsibility defines Merry and Pippin in the movies. All these traits
are introduced, in the moment the both of them make their first
appearance in the movie at Bilbo’s Party. The scene, where the two
hobbits set off one of Gandalf’s Fireworks without permission, was
regarded as a good way by the screenplay writers to introduce two
additional main characters and showing us, the audience, immediately
what these characters are up to.20 In contradiction stands Tolkien’s
writing, which in the beginning is cheerful about his childlike hobbits,
18
cf. SMITH, loco citato, p.140-141.
CROFT, loco citato, p.74-75.
20
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 1 – Vom Buch Zur Vision – From Book to Script.
19
8
but he is never seeking a cheap childish joke.21 In fact, the scene about
the fireworks is entirely the screenplay writer’s fictional addition.
Although I believe it seems to be a good and elegant start for a movie, it
definitely shows the characters in a facet Tolkien would not have
approved, but was intended by Jackson's team to initially show that the
audience could await further nuisance caused by them.22
This kind of carefree childish humorousness follows Merry and Pippin
till the middle of the trilogy and disappears when everything grows
darker and they have to show courage. This turn occurs at the scene in
which Merry and Pippin are forced to depart from each other in Edoras
after Pippin had stolen the Palantir:23
It is also the second movie, when Gimli takes over their part and is
disgraced by the same kind of jokes, but this matter will be discussed
below.
3.2 Gimli and Legolas – Nobel princes, abused for
audience’s joy?
Gimli and Legolas were those characters, which were not only altered
in a drastic way, but flattened. For each of them an entirely different
approach was taken in this matter and Peter Jackson did not only
meddle with their personality, but also in their relationship to each
other.
3.2.1 Gimli – Just humour and emotions?
Humour is something very important to Peter Jackson as he declared in
the Extended-DVD of LotR:
“I have a sort of inherent dislike of things that take themselves
too seriously and I just think there’s a sort of pompousness that
I’m always trying to avoid.”24
21
cf. SMITH, loco citato, p.102-106.
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 1 – Vom Buch Zur Vision – From Book to Script.
23
WRIGHT, loco citato, p.126.
24
CROFT, loco citato, p.75.
22
9
This quote not only explains what had happened to Merry and Pippin,
but also to the serious character of Gimli. This matter reduced him to
over the top emotions and cheep humour, which seems even more
misplaced for such a strong minded and serious character of the
books.25 A very good example for these inappropriate jokes is the
―dwarf tossing‖ joke that was even utilised twice.26 Here is to mention
again how important the seriousness Tolkien applied is for high fantasy,
because otherwise it damages itself. Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the most
famous fantasy writers still alive, points it out clearly in an essay on the
language of fantasy: ―Humour in fantasy is both a lure and a pitfall to
imitators.‖27 There is a type of comical fantasy, but it has nothing to do
with Tolkien’s high fantasy.28
To picture a perfect example for over the top emotions it is best to
review the Tomb of Balin scene in both the book and the film. In the
book, this scene is very grim and Gimli’s only reaction to realize his
inescapable apprehensions is to say:‖I feared it was so.‖ And to cast his
hood over his face.29 On the other hand, in the movies Gimli cries out in
tears and screams full of anger and mourn,30 which for me seems quiet
inappropriate for a serious character like him.
So Gimli might have been the most comical character of Tolkien, but
has become a parody of itself in Jackson’s Film. 31
3.2.2 Legolas – Just a supernatural fighter?
As we all know, action and movies proceed hand in hand, this is one of
Hollywood’s greatest burdens. So a fantasy film like LotR was
25
ibid., p.76.
ibid., p.75.
27
CROFT, loco citato, p.74.
28
ibid, p.74.
29
TOLKIEN John Ronald Reuel: The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship oft he Ring, Great
Britain, HarperCollinsPublishers, 5. edition, 1993, p. 312.
30
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Gefährten – Balins Grab
31
cf. CROFT, loco citato, p.75
26
10
predestinated for serious sword fighting action and other styles of
medieval combat. Therefore the fellowship is engaged in different
encounters, but there is one member, who gets the most screen time of
action among them.32
Legolas is not only an immortal elf, but he seems to have enhanced
agility, higher strength, more accurate eyes and ears than everyone else
and most of the time he appears even to defy the laws of physics while
he is fighting. We might be used to that kind of action spectacle from
other Hollywood movies in the past, but it somehow seems like a
travesty in a movie like LotR, that focuses most of its time on
something called fantastic realism. This means, while including a few
fantastic components, like walking trees (ents), beastlike men (orcs) and
wizards, it mostly tries to emulate traditional european medieval times
as accurate as possible (or at least as accurate as we like to imagine).33
This even would include medieval combat which is described briefly
and very detached by Tolkien in the novel. But this did not stop Peter
Jackson from very long and exaggerated fighting scenes, especially
when Legolas is involved.34
Having Legolas surfing down the stairs of Helms Deep on top of an orc
shield, while shooting three orcs in the head seems like an awesome
stunt from Orlando Blooms point of view,35 but if viewed with the
critical eye, it only looks hilarious. This is just one example of how
exaggerated Legolas’ combat skills are presented and when compared
with the overall level of fantastic realism of LotR, I believe it just
alienates the viewer.
Also his relationship to Gimli is a different one. Instead of evolving
from ancient distrust to lifelong friendship like Tolkien wrote, Jackson
presents them as something that is in Hollywood widely known as the
32
SMITH, loco citato, cf. p. 124-125
CROFT, loco citato, p. 75.
34
Ibid., p.29-30.
35
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 4: Die Schlacht um Mittelerde beginnt – Die
Dreharbeiten zu „Die zwei Türme― – Cameras in Middle-earth.
33
11
―Buddy Cops‖. One of them (Legolas) is straight-laced and serious,
while the other one (Gimli) is impulsive and incapable of taking
anything seriously. This totally agrees with what has been said before,
about Gimli being the emotional and humorous character.36
3.3 Aragorn and Arwen – Because there is no
Hollywood story without love.
While Aragorn, the second most important hero next to Frodo, became
somehow more modern in the movies, Arwen got a stronger
appearance. An additional importance she might have always deserved.
3.3.1 Returning the King – Aragorn’s lost
confidence.
Tolkien’s Aragorn is the classic hero from myth, self confident, heroic
and chosen by destiny. He himself knows that he is the heir of the
Crown of Gondor and is proclaimed to return one day. It is uncertain
when and how, but he himself knows that it will happen, due to the fact
that he got Isildur’s blood in his veins. He does not only know that, but
also has accepted it.37 In stark contrast to this stands Jackson’s Aragorn
who has a lack of confidence and is a character who has a strong
development during the film. In Jackson’s film he is not only the hidden
king, but has chosen exile by himself, because he distrusts his own
blood and fears to fail in his predestined return.38 He does not even
speak up for himself at Elrond’s Council and it is left for Legolas to
stick up for him.39 Aragorn knows the weakness in men and projects
36
SMITH, loco citato, p.124.
WRIGHT Greg: Peter Jackson in Perspective – The Power Behind Cinema’s The Lord of the
Rings, United States of America, Hollywood Jesus Books, 1. edition, 2004, p.32.
38
ibid., p.31.
39
SMITH, loco citato, p.123.
37
12
this on himself, which becomes especially revealed as he speaks to
Arwen in Rivendell:
Arwen: “Why do you fear the past, you are Isildur’s heir, not
Isildur himself. You are not bound to his faith.”
Aragorn: “The same blood flows in my veins. The same
weakness.”40
In contrast, the book is not clear about why Aragorn has not decided to
return any time sooner. Tolkien introduces the old Arthurian legend
about the sword which fulfils a destiny, but he fails to capitalise on this
idea.41 So to point it out clearly, it is only Jackson, who uses one of
Tolkien’s ideas and expands and deepens it understandable for
everyone. The change is in fact small, but significant as Greg Wright
states: ―For Tolkien, Aragorn is heroic because he is a hero. For
Jackson, Aragorn is a hero because he becomes one.‖42 This kind of
view has its seeds in modern story telling, where heroes have become
more human, have become more like ourselves, with all our doubts,
fears and hopes that can deceive us. This kind of modern hero touches
us, because he tells us that everybody can become a hero himself under
the ―wrong‖ circumstances.43 Toward the end of the movie, as courage
is shown and the decisions, which have to be made are faced, Aragorn
becomes the hero, Tolkien had intended him to be already from the
beginning.
3.3.2 Luthien’s Choice – Arwen as a main character.
Everything what had been said before about Aragorn links very strongly
to Arwen, the additional main character. It turned out that she should
play a much more important role in the movie than Tolkien had ever
written for her. The main reason for strengthening her character was the
need for a love story, something movie audiences would expect and
40
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Gefährten – Das Zerbrochene Schwert
SMITH, loco citato, p.151f.
42
WRIGHT, loco citato, p.58.
43
WRIGHT, loco citato, p.32.
41
13
react to.44 Although it is sometimes proclaimed that this was a poor
choice Peter Jackson made, it was in fact just expanded from Tolkien’s
work.45 Even though Arwen is not a great part of the main body of the
story, she was so important to Tolkien, that he created an appendix
about Arwen and her relationship to Aragorn. This appendix appears to
be something that Tolkien was not able to integrate into the main body
of the story, but still wanted to include in the novel.46 Therefore Peter
Jackson did nothing, except of integrating this romance from the end of
the book, directly into the story with his own words. Which was his
only choice other than removing it from the film entirely.47 So it
becomes just natural that she replaces Glorfindel in a strong scene, an
otherwise unimportant character to the story, to be introduced by
rescuing Frodo and bringing him to Rivendell safely.48 I believe all this
together makes Arwen a strong and worthy character, Tolkien would
have appreciated, because he always regarded her appendix as the most
important one.49 So Arwen is a perfect example for changing details
without departing from the book’s essentials, which sometimes appears
necessary.
4. Conclusion
But to put it in a nutshell, we all know that a book cannot be transferred
to the screen without any trace of change. A different medium always
means a different kind of approach to a story and how it will be told.
Even Tolkien himself had seen that when he sold his rights and wrote:
―Can a tale [...] be dramatized – unless the dramatizer is given or takes
44
SMITH, loco citato, p. 25.
ibid., p.154.
46
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 5: Der Krieg um den Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien: The
Legacy of Middle-earth.
47
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 3: Die Reise geht weiter..., From Book to Script –
Finding the Story.
48
SMITH, loco citato, p. 121.
49
CROFT, loco citato, p.178.
45
14
liberties, as an independent person?‖50 Therefore changes were not only
impossible to avoid, but also in Tolkien’s favour, in contradiction to
what a lot of Tolkien purists proclaim.
Any kind of art, literal or visual, must be reprocessed for different
media. This is something these purists have to realize, because not
everything survives time, but is just stylized by nostalgia. A great man
who realized this early for example was Douglas Adams, who loved the
idea of rehashing his world bestseller ―The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy‖ for every medium available.51 By being open to change his
own story each time, he was able to create different approaches to his
material with sometimes quite different outcomes. It is a pity that he did
not live long enough to see his movie script realized, but in the end, he
devised the world a very unique opportunity. The potential for everyone
to find his own best version of his story, let it be audio, video, computer
game or text. All of them approved by its very own author. This is a
luxury Tolkien cannot provide. All he created during his lifetime was a
book. So it was left for those who were to come to create different
interpretations of his work. This is why it seems so easy to criticise,
because it is very alluring for us to claim that Tolkien would not have
approved this new creation or that it was not within his spirit. But this
logic is flawed, because we just do not know. Maybe Tolkien would
have loved the film, or he could have hated it or it even could have been
only different (not better) if he still would be alive. But these
assumptions are luxuries we do not have. We either have to appreciate
what Jackson created, or revert to the book, which cannot be truer to
Tolkien than anything else.
Maybe one day, someone else will create another movie based on LotR,
though it is quite improbable during our lifetime. Despite all efforts that
might be taken then, it still will never be Tolkien’s film. It will always
50
CROFT, loco citato, p.28.
GAIMAN Neil: Keine Panik!, Germany, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 2. edition ,2003 , cf. p.
288-295.
51
15
stay the film of his own creator, an art of its own. Like the current
movie is the interpretation of Jackson and his co-writers, though he
himself claims otherwise on the Bonus-DVDs:
“We thought we should take what Tolkien cared about clearly,
[…] and put it into the film. This should be Tolkien’s film, it
shouldn’t be ours.”52
If Jackson believes what he said, it would be unfair to judge him as
harsh as it is done by his critics. Despite that they sometimes might be
right, when instead of staying true in line of a decent story, the
characters are abandoned in favour of new technology, action, humour
or showcasting.
52
JACKSON, loco citato, Die Anhänge Teil 1 Vom Buch zur Vision – J.R.R. Tolkien Creator
of Middle-earth.
16
Bibliography:
1. CROFT Janet Brennan: Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s
The Lord of the Rings, United States of America, The Mythopoeic
Press, 1. edition, 2004
2. GAIMAN Neil: Keine Panik!, Germany, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 2.
edition , 2003
3. JACKSON, Peter: The Lord of the Rings – Special Extended DVD
Edition, New Line Cinema, 2001
4. SMITH Jim, Matthews J Clive: The Lord of the Rings – The Films,
The Books, The Radio Series, Great Britain, Virgin Books Ltd, 1.
edition, 2004
5. TOLKIEN John Ronald Reuel: The Lord of the Rings – The
Fellowship oft he Ring, Great Britain, HarperCollinsPublishers, 5.
edition, 1993
6. WIKIPEDIA the free encyclopedia, articles: The Lord of the Rings
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings); J.R.R.
Tolkien (http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien); The Lord of the
Rings film trilogy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy)
; date of downloads 18.06.08
7. WRIGHT Greg: Peter Jackson in Perspective – The Power Behind
Cinema’s The Lord of the Rings, United States of America,
Hollywood Jesus Books, 1. edition, 2004
17
Erklärung
Ich erkläre hiermit, dass ich meine Seminararbeit selbstständig und nur mit den
von mir angegebenen Hilfsmitteln angefertigt habe.
Puchheim, den ____________
__________________
(Unterschrift)