I was always fascinated by the quote: “There are two types of people in the world, the ones who have read Lord of the Rings, and the ones who are going to.” Till recently, I was in the later group.LOTR has the potential of becoming a mythology in its own right. It has all the necessary components. Quintessential battle of good versus evil. Strong characters teaching virtues of humanity. And well, creation of a world so detailed, that in distant future, when LOTR has lost its association with fiction, the middle-earth might just seem real.
The story of LOTR is well known, and I don’t have to summarize it here. Reading the book with hazy memories of the movie gave a bit too vivid imagery to the entire book. I could see Ian McKellen and Sean Austin and Elijah Wood and others throughout.
They say never judge a book by its movie. But LOTR the movie was the most amazing movie ever made for me. I loved it and love it still. And most of the deviations from the book are excusable considering it was a movie. The biggest drawback of the movie is that focus is given perhaps only to the fellowship. But then there are other characters that play very big parts in their own portions. And they are very memorable in the book. But then there are limitations that a movie places on a director and conscious choices have to made about what has to be left out. What makes the movie so great is that things have been left out without impacting the continuity. And some modifications are actually better in the movie. One that immediately to mind is Gandalf going to get Eomer in the movie before the battle of Helmsdeep. In the book I just couldn’t figure out what happened and which army did Gandalf go to gather considering that Eomer was always by Theoden’s side. Also, I thought that the book’s ploy, where Wormtongue simply throws out the Orthnac stone at Gandalf was a bit lame. I preferred the movie’s timely death of Saruman (in extended version). That said, I sorely wished that Peter Jackson had found someway to include Tom Bombadillo in the movie. I really loved that character in the book. And he is important and strong enough that the wise men of middle-earth thought of entrusting him with The Ring. He deserved a place in the movie.
The book also has a very real sense of time. Where days and weeks pass before people get somewhere. Though the movie might imply that fact, they obviously can’t show that. In the movie it feels as if Helmsdeep and Minas Tirith battle happens barely a week apart.
I guess this has been reduced to a comparison of the movie and the book. I couldn’t help it. In their respective domains both are at the pinnacle of artistry. I am too small to review anything this brilliant.
