Characterization in the second movie was absolutely PERFECT!!!

[aragil]

Well, everybody else is getting a sequel to their threads from the FotR forum, thought I might as well get my own. In case anybody still wants to complain about characterization in the first movie, please see my thread Characterization in the movie was absolutely PERFECT!!! (http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1531). There's been disappointingly little discussion there, given the complaint level in general on this forum.

Anywho, the game is this: I invite all who think that the movie The Two Towers grossly mis-represented the characters from the books to post their thoughts on the matter here. Please try to be specific, tell us what you felt the character represented in the books, and how that was not conveyed (or contradicted!) in the movie. All those who felt that the characters in the movie resonated with some aspect of the books, please feel free to help me post relevant quotes to support the portrayal in the movie (assuming there is any).

A couple of Groundrules, borrowed from the original thread:
1) Address specifics of the characters as portrayed in the movie, i.e., 'Arwen should not be waving a sword', or 'Arwen's lips should not appear to be borrowed from Julia Roberts' rather than 'Arwen was wrong in the movie.'
2) Please, no offensive remarks regarding fellow posters. I'm pretty sure that this is a rule of the forum, but I'd like to make special mention just so that it is fresh in our minds. In fact, I'd like people to refrain from addressing each-other at all, except for clarification purposes when responding to a previous post. I would also like posters to abstain from using the terms NPW, FAD, newbie, and purist, when possible.
3) No characterizations of other posters as whiny or *****y (even if they really are).
4) Please no complaints about characterizations already portrayed in the first film- direct those comments to the thread in the relevant forum (linked above for your benefit).

Finally, for all those Erkenbrand fans out there, I'll point out that PJ gave him exactly the same number of lines that JRRT did: 0.

So have at it- I can't wait to hear about the character assasination of Faramir, how Eomer was portrayed as too ugly, Treebeard as too stupid, Saruman as too puppety, Arwen as too scantily clad, and Quickbeam as too quiet. Hope all have fun with this!

[Mrs. Maggott]

I found this thread by "clicking" on a post from another thread but I would have visited it in time anyway since I have now seen both films. I cannot go into great depth here, but I would like to mention at least a few of my problems with Mr. Jackson's "take" on the characters. But first, to be fair, I wish to mention those with whom I have no objection (yes, that's right, no objection!) - this by the way, does not mean that I agree with everything the Director has the character do. I liked:

Gandalf: sympathetic, sufficiently fallible early on, excellent in transition to G. the White.

Bilbo: also very good. Slightly "fussy" in his hospitality and sufficiently aggrieved by his nasty relations. His affection for Frodo is obvious and true.

Grima: a little too oily, but certainly captures the flavor of the character.

Eomer: the only fault is his lack of screen time. Otherwise, courageous, solid, strong, kingly and honest.

Gimli: I liked the dwarf. Tolkien treated him with a sort of gentle humor which was kept in the film. True, Jackson did carry the "comic relief" rather overboard in TTT, but the character did not suffer too much from it because of his innate nobility and kindliness.

Legolas: He had very little to do in FOTR, but nonetheless was very "straight-arrow elf" and continued to be so in TTT. The "surfing" scene can hardly be blamed on him.

Boromir: I liked the character although I didn't like the responses Jackson had him make to Narsil and Aragorn in the Council. Nevertheless, on the whole the character was portrayed properly: a noble and proud man who becomes consumed with the fear that his country is about to be destroyed and will do anything to prevent that happening.

Eowyn: Liked her better than I thought. She didn't "overdo" the shieldmaiden bit and underplayed the role which was good. Her interplay with Aragorn was believeable and did not offend the boundaries of hospitality, something I had feared from the trailers.

However, I had problems with:

Merry and Pippin: In the first film they were portrayed as village idiots, thieves and accidents going somewhere to happen. Their involvement in the Quest was accidental (as opposed to the book where they chose to accompany Frodo into danger and exile). In the second film, they were decidedly better, but that's because the Director found another object of "fun" - Gimli - and the two hobbits were almost ignored, something from which they apparently profited.

Elrond: In both films, Elrond is downright hostile to men in general and Aragorn in particular. Of course, given Jackson's treatment of that character, I can't say as I blame him. Nonetheless, although the actor is excellent, Jackson's Elrond is not the gracious, kindly host and counselor of Tolkien's book(s) - including The Hobbit. He even engages in emotional extortion in an attempt to force his daughter to go into the West.

Arwen: There isn't much said about the lady in the books, so Jackson had a "free rein" and abused it, especially in the first film. One gets the feeling there that she hasn't much more respect for the man she loves than her father does. In the second film, we don't see her enough for the interpretation to matter, so it's not a problem.

Theoden: If Jackson's interpretation of the "kindly" King Theoden is what we see in TTT, I can hardly wait to see his "T-Rex" Denethor! In the book, released from Saruman's thrall, Theoden not only makes war on the traitorous Wizard, but leads his people into battle. He is a true King, less complex than Denethor and Aragorn, but pure and noble. In the film, Jackson makes him a vacillating coward seeking to run and hide in the mountains as if that would save him. Nor is he "kind". His dismissal of Gondor with definite malice does not note a kindly relationship with that Kingdom. Perhaps he will be better in ROTK, but the question is, why couldn't he have been better in TTT?

Faramir: Instead of "Mini-me", we have "Mini-Boromir". Gone is the gentle, chivalrous, wise and noble Faramir and instead we have "warrior of the month" into whose mouth Jackson puts Denethor's words to Gandalf about "a great gift". Mr. Jackson really should stop putting some people's words into other people's mouths!

Aragorn: It would take a book to say what I dislike about Jackson's devolution of my favorite character in the book. Gone is Tolkien's mythic, self-sacrificing and noble hero and in his place is a conflicted, vacillating candidate for therapy who fears his ancestors and rejects his heritage. Here is a man who doesn't want to be King; who never wanted to be King and who, as a result, does NOT receive Narsil reforged into Anduril before the Quest begins because it is a King's sword and not for the use of slackers and malcontents such as himself. It is no wonder that Elrond has no use for him; frankly, although I loved the character in the book and love the actor who plays him in the film, I don't know if I'd have too much use for him either! Yes, as I am tired of hearing, doubtless he will "grow" into a King, but frankly, one wonders if it is worth the wait! :mad:

[FREEDOM!]

I only had a problem with the way jackson didn't develope the characters of Faramir, Eowyn, Eomer, and Theoden.

[Isenho]

i think he did a great job with Eowyn with the love relationship with Aragorn.

[Isengrin]

True, Eowyn is surely the most representative character of Rohan, if we compare to the book....

But damn....Eomer and Theoden ....what a LACK of personification...

First Eomer...his first meet with Aragorn, we see him as a captain of men, that ask some question, that give some advices, that is sorry about he s been banned (what about that "banned" thing ? " ) and give the horses...and ciao bambinos !!

Where is the frienship between Aragorn and Eomer ? Nowhere !

So, what is the relation between Aragorn and Rohan ? Nothing !!

We could be tempted to say " he help Rohan on the instance of Gandalf " , but hey, Gandalf get the **** out so early saying "at the dawn of the fifth day,look at the east".... whatever...., he s not a big part of the movie, we see him reapear (damn...they shown him in the preview...) , then he go, god know where ( well, us, Real Tolkien fans, know that s he regrouped the Erkenbrand troops ) but the viewer dont know that ! ....what a lack...what a lack.....

And what about the relation between Eomer and Theoden ?

Nothing,Cause they dont echange a single word, nobody know the relation between Eomer and Theoden, Eomer is seen as an undisciplined captain....

About Theoden.
Okay , we see well, that he s abused by Wormtongue....but
Theoden is like Zombified, he s not only abused by Grima Wormtongue , but totally possesed by Saruman....

God, and the visit of Gandalf in Meduseld (and about Meduseld, did you saw it as a great castle ? ....)Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas hitting everyone around....damn,,,,that s was ugly....

Once Theoden is revivified, we see him well, as a King...but isnt suppose to be something like kind ? "A GOOD OLD KING"
we see him as....bah....

I personnally hated the movie....the FotR was good....but TTT...what a deception

Arggg....personnally , this movie have broke all my hope on PJ work....

[PRH]

Originally posted by aragil
Finally, for all those Erkenbrand fans out there, I'll point out that PJ gave him exactly the same number of lines that JRRT did: 0.

'Help now to repair the evil in which you have joined,' said Erkenbrand; 'and afterwards you shall take an oath never again to pass the Fords of Isen in arms, nor to march with the enemies of Men; and then you shall go free back to your land. For you have been deluded by Saruman. Many of you have got death as the reward of your trust in him; but had you conquered, little better would your wages have been.'
sorry, couldn't resist.

[PRH]

Saruman is far and away the most egregious character change for me. There is nothing of any substance to hang our hat on saying that Saruman in the movie is trying to get the Ring for himself and contest with Sauron. Instead, he just goes from (supossedly) a good guy to joining with Sauron because Sauron is too powerful to beat.

In the book Saruman was so wonderfully complex I still don't know if I've got him entirely figured out. He starts out good, studies Sauron's methods too long and envies him. He also envies Gandalf the Grey (though this is not spoken of in LOTR). He turns from thoughts of simply defeating Sauron because Sauron is evil to defeating him to set himself up in his place. He feigns loyalty and an allegiance with Sauron to bide his time yet tries to get the Ring for himself. All the while, he is truly under Sauron's thrall more than he knew due to his ensnarement in the Palantir.

Almost none of this is present in the movie. Saruman just joins up with Sauron to be his second and that's it. This is such a great loss. I don't understand why book Saruman couldn't have been represented in the movie. I don't think it would've overly complicated the plot. Those who didn't fully follow would still realize that Saruman was a bad guy, and that would be enough. Also, it would've taken very little, probably 2 minutes of screen time over the course of the 2 movies so far to better establish Saruman.

[Athelas]

Eomer: My Lord, we are only a few hundred, and we are being attacked by 10,000 Fomorians I mean Orcs. What shall we do?

Theoden: How many life boats are there?

Eomer: Excuse me?

Theoden: Get the women and children in first.

Eomer: Don't you mean take the women and children to Helm's Deep?

Theoden: Yes, that's what I meant. See to the safety of all horses.

[aragil]

Originally posted by PRH
Originally posted aragil
Finally, for all those Erkenbrand fans out there, I'll point out that PJ gave him exactly the same number of lines that JRRT did: 0.
From the Road to Isengard
'Help now to repair the evil in which you have joined,' said Erkenbrand; 'and afterwards you shall take an oath never again to pass the Fords of Isen in arms, nor to march with the enemies of Men; and then you shall go free back to your land. For you have been deluded by Saruman. Many of you have got death as the reward of your trust in him; but had you conquered, little better would your wages have been.'
sorry, couldn't resist.
That bit was from The Road to Isengard, which has been moved up to the third movie (if it exists at all). Erkenbrand fans will have to wait until RotK to complain. Phew!

[PRH]

Originally posted by aragil
That bit was from The Road to Isengard, which has been moved up to the third movie (if it exists at all). Erkenbrand fans will have to wait until RotK to complain. Phew!
Nice "save."

[Rúmil]

Hmm, well all right, if you want to keep within the scope the movie encompasses, actully Erkenbrand has one, long, long, line:

WHOOOO - OOOOWHOOOO - WHOOOOO - OOOOOO


Yeah, sorry.

[aragil]

You mean like Tarzan? Actually, I think I heard it in the movie- it comes right as all the Rohirrim are charging down the hill. Hope all the Erkenbrand lovers are now happy.

[PRH]

Here's another one who got shortchanged: every hear of Gamling the OLD?!

Gamling was supposed to be an OLD MAN who (as he put it himself) had seen too many winters! He even had a grandson who had seen too few! And what's this **** about putting Theoden's armour on for him. He was no handservant to the king, following him wherever he went, he was a leader himself!

PJ just grabbed the name Gamling and pasted it onto this Bruce Hopkins fellow like the fake beard he also wears. I don't think it's too much to say PJ raped Tolkien's vision with this gross mischaracterization.

[Mrs. Maggott]

Originally posted by PRH
Here's another one who got shortchanged: every hear of Gamling the OLD?!

Gamling was supposed to be an OLD MAN who (as he put it himself) had seen too many winters! He even had a grandson who had seen too few! And what's this **** about putting Theoden's armour on for him. He was no handservant to the king, following him wherever he went, he was a leader himself!

PJ just grabbed the name Gamling and pasted it onto this Bruce Hopkins fellow like the fake beard he also wears. I don't think it's too much to say PJ raped Tolkien's vision with this gross mischaracterization.
Did you notice that Jackson - who is portrayed as a "man of the people" in his sloppy shorts and big glasses - is really rather a snob. All of the common people - men and hobbits (there are no "common" elves) are portrayed very poorly - dirty, cowardly, sloppy or just plain mean. I'm afraid Gamling the Old doesn't do any better than the folks at Bree.

[PRH]

Since he was trying to apply more tension than at Bree (which was urine soaked), Peter Jackson wanted the the common Rohan people to look like they were rolled in fecal matter, yes?

[Athelas]

Originally posted by Mrs. Maggott
All of the common people - men and hobbits (there are no "common" elves) are portrayed very poorly - dirty, cowardly, sloppy or just plain mean.

I don't think Rosie Cotton came across as any of those, nor do Bilbo, Frodo, Merry, Pippin...

As for the Prancing Pony patrons; pick any Hollywood bar on any night of the week, and they look no better. Alcoholism, smoking, and drug abuse all change the human face, distorting it. Ugly is as ugly does.

[Rúmil]

Hum, just because the Breelanders enjoyed a pint, doesn't mean they were alcoholics...
Of course until we discover what Pipeweed really is, we can't tell whether they suffered from drug abuse, but I would speak against it myself. ;)

[FREEDOM!]

One of the main things i didn't like was that Pippin and Merry wern't as funny.:mad:

[Precious]

let me just say, this is a great thread....no flaming, thank god:cool: ..I have no complaints about the movie....now, if you want to talk about how the Hobbit was destroyed in the 70's....

[lilhobo]

Originally posted by Athelas
Eomer: My Lord, we are only a few hundred, and we are being attacked by 10,000 Fomorians I mean Orcs. What shall we do?

Theoden: How many life boats are there?

Eomer: Excuse me?

Theoden: Get the women and children in first.

Eomer: Don't you mean take the women and children to Helm's Deep?

Theoden: Yes, that's what I meant. See to the safety of all horses.

my gosh that just about sums up the PJ script !!!! if u think Bakshi mutilated the script, well turned of howard shore's wagnerian soundtrack and listen to the aweful words !!! better still shut your eyes and leav the great special fx work !!

[Mrs. Maggott]

Originally posted by Precious
let me just say, this is a great thread....no flaming, thank god:cool: ..I have no complaints about the movie....now, if you want to talk about how the Hobbit was destroyed in the 70's....
Unless I miss my guess, The Hobbit was produced as a children's cartoon which, of course, would greatly affect it's production. Everything - even the villains - would be "cute" and the truly sad parts would be kept as "light" as possible. The production values as a cartoon weren't too bad, but, of course, it bears no comparison to what we are able to do today (Ice Age, Dinosaur etc.). It is to be hoped that the project will be redone with the existing technology and someone who loves the book and not his own recreation thereof. :rolleyes:

Post Scriptum: The thing that was really wonderful was the actor who portrayed Smaug's voice, God rest his soul! Richard Boone (I believe that was his name) had a face like nine miles of bad road (which I adored!), but a voice - oh what a voice! Of all the things in the production, that one thing will be the most difficult to replace!

[Aragorns_girl00]

i also think they did an excellent job. the actors seemed to all learn something from this. and the characters all changed in some way.

[Thorin]

The biggest character flaws were Faramir, Saruman, Theoden and Merry.

Faramir's character was totally opposite Tolkien's character and the whole Osgiliath detour was absolute garbage. With the exception of Faramir's attitude in Ithilien (though it wasn't as bad as it was in Osgiliath), the scenes up to and including Gollum getting sacked at the pools followed the book quite well....Then it all went to hell in a handbag awful quick. The whole Nazgul attacking Frodo opens up more confusing cans of worms then you can shake a stick at concerning the story.

Saruman was a total lacky of Sauron to the point that you wonder why PJ even put the capturing of Merry and Pippin in there to begin with. I was fending off critics who told me to wait and see, but I see that I have been justified in my criticism of Pj's Saruman.

Theoden was a coward who needed convincing in all things. The fact that he hates Gondor so much makes me think that PJ will stretch the limits of credibility to have Rohan help Gondor at Pelennor fields in RoTK considering that no "warming" to Gondor by Theoden happened by the end of TTT. Once again quite opposite from Tolkien's character.

I disliked the way that Merry seemed to know EVERYTHING when the need arose. (the Entwives for example) and a few other things that I can't remember at this time. Where did he find the time to learn all of this important information. It just came across as very cheesy.

[Flandaar]

Originally posted by FREEDOM!
I only had a problem with the way jackson didn't develope the characters of Faramir, Eowyn, Eomer, and Theoden.

Much more development of these charcters continues in RotK! Recent interviews (in Starlog) with both Miranda Otto and Bernard Hill illuminate their portrayals immensely, and they will become stronger. I'm sure Eomer and Faramir will also progress There will be a LOT of development in the next movie. If they had started out at their "final" character, it woulkd have been very boring.

At the risk of being called a heretic, I found some of the characters in the book (e.g., Faramir) as being pretty one-dimensional. Where do you go from being perfect? Why was he the only one not tempted by the Ring? Because the author of a book can go into tons of narrative describing the character, this isn't as much of a problem, but it is in a movie.

PS I thought the last scene with Faramir, where he "bowed" to Frodo almost exactly parallel to the scene with Aragorn, foreshadowed his character's nobility being disclosed to a much greater degree in RotK.