Obligatory Two Towers Post

[Mort-Hog]

Why would there possibly be a link between Aragorn and Turgon? That would just confuse the plot. A link between Aragorn and Beren would make much more sense, but would also confuse it.

But anyway, they can't even get the storyline of LOTR right, so why should they try and fuse the storylines of the Silmarillion or the appendices into it?

[scabb]

Originally posted by MeddlingMonk

Those sequences brought in material from the appendices. As for the water bit, it's been speculated that this was meant to be a link to Turgon (and it's just too bad for anyone who doesn't know about Turgon 'cause I ain't gonna 'splain nothin', so there).

 

Yes, but my point was that they didn't really have to make this link - Just like they didn't include Tom Bombadil. It was beside the point, and they were just trying to make Liv Tylers role bigger, because she's Liv Tyler.

 

On another note, the old book I have has an appendix 7 or 8 pages long, entitled "A part of the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, from the Annals od the Kings and Rulers". My new set, however, has a appendices A-F, weighing in at 140 pages, with family trees and calenders. Which is strange.

[Gabez]

Hmm, Peter Jackson said that he made the film by the rules of cinema, and added the stuff that would please LOTR fans afterwards. As a result, Arwen would have been seen as a weak character if she didn’t have a decent amount of lines. It’s easier to tell a story through film if you’ve just got a few characters with sizeable parts, rather than a whole host with hardly anything to say.

[scabb]

Granted, yet Arwens role was still meager, and it would have been easier to leave out those parts anyway. Besides, there are many significant characters from the book that have been made less significant in the film (Wormtongue, for instance), so why expand Arwens role? To attract more of the male population, to add a touch of 'girl power', and to add another big name to the list who would most likely not have participated had her role been of little importance. I really don't want to sound like a whiny "fanboy" who reads the book like a bible, because I'm not a huge Tolkein fan - I just felt that these parts were merely occupying rather than entertaining.

[Mort-Hog]

Indeed.

 

Another problem that haunts the films is that they are far too separate. The Lord of the Rings is one story, and, originally, one book, not three. It was never written to be as like three separate stories, and so Jackson has had a horrible time of trying to juggle everything about to try and make the three films good individually. and it doesn't work.

[MeddlingMonk]

Originally posted by Mort-Hog

Why would there possibly be a link between Aragorn and Turgon?

 

I need to make a correction. I should have written Tuor (Turgon was the king of Gondolin and Tuor's father-in-law). That correction made, Aragorn is a descendent of Tuor. And of Beren, come to mention it. (As is Elrond.) But I don't know why (or even whether) a link should be made. I think it's just speculation based on the fact that Aragorn seems to be carried by water and gently brought to shore; and because Tuor was sent to Gondolin by Ulmo, Lord of Waters. I suppose the idea is that, maybe, Ulmo continues to take an interest in Tuor's descendants.

[Jake]

They're a lot less separate than they could be. I think Jackson acheived a good balance. They're movie adaptations of a book, not direct visual representations of the story which would take way longer than even the 9 hours its given. The fact that audiences have reacted to both of these films with "what? that's the end of the story? wheres the next part" is a pretty decent indicator that Jackson left the single story arc pretty intact. It doesnt have the huge end of the film Star Wars or BTTF episodic mini-conclusion. Yeah, the first movie went a little farther than the first book did, and the second one ended a little early for both Frodo and Aragorn's story, but I would hardly classify that as a big problem.

[Mort-Hog]

Oh, that's the very least of my concerns. What I meant was that he is trying to give each film the same film-like structure;

build-up and character development; build-up to action; action; conclusion.

 

The books really aren't like that, at all, and the translation doesn't really go very well.

 

 

 

Also, the paralell between Aragorn and Tuor is interesting, if a little vague. I guess it's just speculation, but I'd be interested to see whether Jackson had actually intended that. I doubt it.

The paralell between Aragorn and Arwen and Beren and Luthien is pretty obvious, and the lament to Luthien was in the extended version of FOTR, which I thought was great. Many think that Arwen is the 'reincarnated' spirit of Luthien, but of course this is impossible.

[MeddlingMonk]

Well, of course the link between Arwen and Luthien was intended by Tolkien. Not only is she Luthien's great-great-grandaughter, but their appearances are similar and they faced essentially the same choice: remain an immortal elf and be separated from the (mortal) men they loved, or remain with those men but become mortal and share the uncertain fate of all mortals. The difference being, though, that Luthien made the choice under a kind of duress: she was pleading with Mandos to restore herself and Beren to life. As an elf she would have come back to life--in Valinor--anyway, but Beren would eventually pass out of the world. As the price for a second life for Beren Luthien had to become mortal herself. Arwen had the choice of immortality simply because she was half-elven. Like Elrond's brother, Elros, she could have chosen to be mortal just for the hell of iit.