Lord of the Rings Review
By Sam Cross
Staff Writer

It’s generally agreed upon that film adaptations are worse than the books from which they were adapted. Unless the book in question is very, very bad, this usually holds true. Many narratives do not transition happily to film, tending to seem either rudely forced (Mansfield Park) or too slavishly devoted to its source (the Harry Potter films).

The greatest accomplishment an adaptation can achieve is not a meticulous representation of its source. Rather, a good adaptation finds a way to recreate the substrata of the book on which it is based—the sense of character, place and style particular to the novel—through the narrative and technical methods best suited to film.

For example, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a particularly intransigent text when it comes to film adaptation, but nonetheless, it offers some truly compelling opportunities for the careful, sophisticated filmmaker, most of which have been capitalized upon beautifully by Peter Jackson and his co-writers in the current Lord of the Rings films.

The challenges that Tolkien presents to the would-be adapter are legion. His epic trilogy, in my edition, spans over 1,000 pages of dense text. It also, though it has some wonderfully suspenseful moments, tends to move at a leisurely pace, pausing for Tolkien the philologist to display his several invented languages or allude to the epics (Beowulf, among others) in whose form he largely fashioned his book. Moreover, the battle sequences, so important to any film, tend to be glossed over very quickly, as if Tolkien were somewhat embarrassed at the way they came out.

Perhaps most difficult is the way in which Tolkien subordinates his characters to the mythic structure. This is not to say that Tolkien does not create interesting, at times quite believable characters. Indeed, one of his strengths is usually borne out in his non-heroic characters and in his hobbits especially. Many of his warriors and leaders, however, spend an unfortunate amount of time dispatching lines so cumbersome that they would quickly kill any screenplay not meant for an audience of fanatical Tolkien devotees.

It is when Tolkien forgets his epic conceits and focuses on the fellowship that he is at his best. For instance, the flight of the ring-bearer and his companions through Moria is one of the most exciting single episodes in literature. On the other end of the spectrum, however, we have such turgid offerings as: “And with that, he bade Halbarad unfurl the great standard which he had brought; and behold! It was black, and if there was any device upon it, it was hidden in darkness.”

The clashing of shields, armor, and great armies clashing by night brings out the slowest and most leaden in Tolkien. Yet it is this sort of material that the rapid visual poetry of cinema can make lithe and compelling.

But there is a great deal of authenticity and mystery that the film versions lose without even trying, as Tolkien largely creates his world in either small, scattered moments of dialogue or high-flown speeches of the sort that would not make a wonderful impression on a modern theater audience (“Give me leave, Master Elrond, first to say more of Gondor, for verily from the land of Gondor I am come”). And then, of course, there is Tolkien’s frequently vexing affinity for his own made-up languages.

I do think, however, that Peter Jackson and company have run the adaptational gauntlet unevenly, erring more on the side of broad appeal than wholesale importation of Tolkien’s work. Jackson’s prowess as a conceiver and filmer of epic battle sequences is indisputable. Were his films not based on one of the seminal works of literary fantasy, they would still have achieved deserved acclaim as the most impressive visual depictions of epic fantasy to date.

Unfortunately, the dialogue does suffer. The same modern cinematic savvy that serves Jackson so well in his depiction of fantasy’s widest panoramas does not hold up as well for the close-ups. Such regrettable lines as “Let’s hunt some orc!,” “This looks strangely familiar,” and Sam’s entire laughable final speech about storytelling and valor from the end of The Two Towers do little to make us feel that we are experiencing Tolkien translated.

Nonetheless, through a combination of some excellent acting on the part of Sir Ian McKellen and many others, and some slightly more felicitous dialogue in other parts, the Lord of the Rings films more than get by.

What most fundamentally secures these two movies as monuments of adaptation is not so much the script but the strength of the novels. Tolkien’s believability as a writer of fantasy ultimately hinges on the intricate detail and veracity of his world. One could certainly argue that this has a lot to do with his professorial interest in language and history, and their inclusion in his books, but what has made his work so enduringly appealing is the wholly new synthesis he makes of this material– the subtle, breathtakingly complex world he creates and from which his characters draw much of their appeal.

The detail lavished on every aspect of the movies is more than commensurate with Tolkien’s effort. The very complete Lord of the Rings DVDs offer an insight into the sheer depth of care and planning that was invested into every single scene, prop, and plot decision. One almost feels that the actors are secondary to the meticulously built scenery that surrounds them.

Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy is compelling because of its grand scale, but its real success lies in its attention to detail. I won’t necessarily go see the third film just to see how believable Minas Tirith looks or how authentic the props seem, but I will appreciate them. Tolkien, painstaking world-builder that he was, would be proud.