From Book to Film: The Lord of the Rings

From Book to Film: The Lord of the Rings (so far)

Lately, spurred by the release of the movies, I've been reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. More than half my lifetime ago, I read Fellowship, though I never did get to the other two. But I've enjoyed the movie of Fellowship, and I was curious how Jackson's interpretation deviated from the books.

To be accurate, I'm not really "reading" the books so much as I have been listening to unabridged audiobooks, which my friend Kendall acquired for me (I loves me some KaZaA Lite!). As highly-compressed MP3s, the entirety of Fellowship fits easily onto one CD-R, and the Two Towers and Return of the King fit together on another CD-R. I also have the Hobbit on a third CD-R, but I'll get to that once I've finished the trilogy, as I want to get through it in time to see Return of the King on the big screen.

I just happened to have gotten a portable CD player that also plays MP3s burned onto CD-Rs, so I can listen to the book whenever I am doing a lot of driving, or even just around the house if I want. Occasionally I even listen to it at work, though unlike music, I have to be doing something that doesn't use that visualizing center of my brain, so I won't be distracted from the book. I have finally finished the books now, so I thought I'd make a few notes on them before I forget everything.

As I progress through the book, I generally try to imagine the characters looking and sounding like they do in the movie. The film interpretations of these characters were generally pretty true to the books, and a great deal of thought went into their details where in the books they are simply omitted. Indeed, sometimes the descriptions are downright vague. For example, among Tolkien fans, the question of whether or not the Balrog has wings is a hotly debated topic, due mainly to Tolkien's vague description of the creature. I've seen the first movie thrice on the big screen, plus a couple more times in DVD in various permutations (i.e. with commentaries). The second movie I have only seen twice so far.

It is only natural that in translating a 500-page book to a movie (even a movie 3 1/2 hours long, including the cut scenes) some cuts were made, especially since they were trying to make a commercially viable blockbuster movie. So of course, scenes were shortened, characters were left out, plotlines were dropped or condensed. I won't bother to list every change from page to screen, just the ones that made me think, "hmm, that's interesting."

The first thing about the books versus the movie is that the time scale of the books is much longer than that of the movies. I mean MUCH longer. As you watch the movie, imagine every scene taking a lot longer. Every journey they make from one place to another, multiply the time it seems to take, then multiply it again. In the movie, Gandalf comes for Bilbo's party. They talk about the ring, which makes Gandalf suspicious. He rides his horse like crazy, arriving at the archives of Minas Tirith, where a little research tells him what the ring really is, which brings him thundering back to Bag End where he sends Frodo off on his quest. This is a few minutes of screen time, and covers an unspecified period of time which doesn't seem to be more than a few days.

In the book, this entire sequence of events takes place over a period of 17 years. Bilbo's 111st birthday party takes place, which coincides with Frodo's 33rd birthday, and Bilbo makes his surprising exit. Years go by, and Bilbo's disappearance becomes an often-told local legend. Meanwhile, Gandalf wanders about on his business, stopping in the Shire more or less on an annual basis to visit Frodo. Gradually he becomes more suspicious about the nature of the ring, and finally he gets around to looking it up in Minas Tirith (which is located 1100 miles away from the Shire, more than a quick horseback ride). By now the world is growing increasingly dark, and by the time Gandalf returns to Bag End with the low-down on the ring, Frodo is readying for his 50th birthday. Of course, this is still not that old for a hobbit, whose lifespan is longer than a human's. But even after Gandalf comes with the news that Frodo possesses the most powerful weapon in Middle Earth, and that Sauron and the forces of evil know about it and are looking for it, it is still a few months before Frodo sets off on his journey. He takes time to sell his house, unload his belongings, and so on, to avoid arousing suspicion among his gossipy neighbors.

The books, being books, have their emphasis placed quite differently than the movies. The Lord of the Rings movies are epic action movies. Actually, when was the last time you saw a fantasy movie that wasn't an action adventure? Swords and sorcery, that's what they're about. While the plot of the movie of Fellowship is anchored by several major action set pieces, such as the fight in the Mines of Moria with the Cave Troll and all the orcs, and the big, final battle against all the orcs in which Boromir dies, the book devotes little space to the action. What action exists is dealt with quickly, in little detail. Far more verbage is devoted to describing the settings, such as all the leaves and foliage of Lothlorien. But unexpectedly, the film seems to pay more attention to establishing characters than the book. Throughout the first book, we learn little of the personalities of Merry and Pippin. And even though they are not fully fleshed out in the movie, at least we have an idea of their comical characters.

Occasionally, lines or actions are switched between characters. For example, in the movie one of the elves of Lothlorien says that Gimli breathes so loud they could have shot him in the dark, nicely illustrating the animosity between Elves and Dwarves. But in the book it was Sam who was accused of breathing loudly. Another example, in the book, Merry was credited with inspiring Gandalf to figure out how to open the Gate into the Mines of Moria, but in the movie it was Frodo, because he was the hero. In one of the extended DVD version scenes, the elves give the Fellowship some supplies, including Lembas bread, one bite of which will fill a man's belly for a whole day. The movie had our buffoonish Merry and Pippin eating way too much of it at once. But in the book it is Gimli who mistakenly eats an entire cake of it.

One example of movie versus book character development that really stood out to me was the death of Gandalf in the Mines of Moria. In the film, the characters are stunned by his death. Upon their escape from the underground into the sunlight, they pause for a moment upon the hillside, and are all visibly shaken by this horrible event. Frodo's face is streaked with tears, Legolas' expression is one of stunned uncomprehending. In the book, Gandalf plummets to his apparent death and the Fellowship escapes. They then make the long (of course) journey to the forests of Lothlorien. There they meet the elves of the Galadhrim, and see their Endor-like dwellings. It isn't until they journey deep into the forest of Lothlorien and finally meet Galadriel and Celeborn, the rulers of the Galadhrim, that Gandalf's death is even mentioned again. At that point one of the characters explains that they haven't really thought much of Gandalf's death until now, as they were so terrified as they ran from Moria, then once they got to Lothlorien they were so happy and struck with the beauty of it all. Yeah right. I'm not buying it.

Similarly, Boromir's seduction by the ring plays out much better in the movie, where we see him gradually more and more affected by the ring's power, in his sidelong glances at Frodo and like when he picks up the ring after Frodo drops it in a fall. In the book, Boromir mentions the possibility of using the ring instead of destroying it when we first meet him in Rivendell, but then we hear nothing about him on this matter for most of the rest of the trip. One or two sentences at most, prior to his plunge into the Dark Side when he tries to take the ring from Frodo near the end. It left me thinking, "Tolkien can spend 40 pages on Elf songs, but he can't spare a few more lines here and there on Boromir's internal struggle?"

Yes, I said songs. The book is full of them. It makes some sense when you consider that these tales were meant to take place in a mythical time long ago, before Europeans learned the craft of printing from the Chinese. That means fewer books or scrolls, which means more emphasis on oral traditions and histories, which means that songs are a common way to record major historical events and to convey information. Being used as such, all the songs in the books seem to have little to do with the plot goings on, serving more to flesh out backstory. I did find them getting a bit tedious.

Anyone who has read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein knows how much a book's characters can be altered for their film incarnations. Frankenstein went from being an intelligent soul-searcher who could quote Milton to a lumbering creature who could barely pronounce "fire bad." The main characters of Fellowship do not suffer such a level of ignominy. However, the creatures of the trilogy have suffered a bit in popular depiction. The title character, Sauron, Lord of the Rings, doesn't make a direct appearance in the books and similarly remains a looming presence behind the scenes, acting only indirectly, in the movie. However, the movie depicts him as a huge, floating, fiery eyeball with a slitted pupil. In Fellowship he appears thus mostly in visions, symbolic of his presence and influence. These appearances are pretty effective. In Two Towers, he begins to make more physical, rather than psychological, appearances in some shots depicting him as a huge, huge, fiery eyeball floating amid electrical sparks between the forking tines of Barad Dur, his tower. I thought this began to look a bit too ridiculous. I mean, it is one thing to see a flaming eye in your mind as you are being psychically assaulted. It is quite another to look up and be like, "Oh, there's big, flaming Sauron again, hanging about his tower. Used to be I'd have to lug a torch down here to get any reading done while I was on night watch. But ever since Sauron took to his nighttime floaty sessions, I haven't had to lug that heavy thing with me!"

In the first book, Sauron appears twice to Frodo in his ring-visions: once while gazing into Galadriel's scrying water, and once while wearing the ring to escape Boromir at Amon Hen, near the end of the book. In these visions, Sauron appears as a glazed, yellow, slit-pupiled eye, surrounded by flame. Despite the fact that he is depescribed as having a yellow eye, his logo (as worn by his orc followers and such) is a red eye. He is elsewhere described as having a dark and twisted physical form, though little detail is given other than his dark, four-fingered hand. Throughout the books, reference is made to the "red eye of Sauron," referring to Sauron's mystical sight, or forces loyal to Sauron. In contrast, the physical descriptions of Sauron, who doesn't ever really make an appearance in any direct way, are few and sketchy. So it is understandable that Jackson may have overlooked these, envisioning him as only a great, red eye. Of course, he had Tolkien scholars as consultants, so you'd think one of them might have set him straight. I mean, they also refer repeatedly to "the white hand of Saruman," but he didn't depict Saruman as a flaming, white hand atop Orthanc tower.

Saruman the White was the leader of the wizards, and the one who Gandalf consulted when the One Ring was revealed to exist. In the book, the One Ring had been thought to be lost forever, a misconception which Saruman encouraged while he was secretly searching for the ring on his own. By the time of his first appearance in Fellowship, he is committed to the path of evil, just as he is in the movie. However, in the book by this time he has already forsaken his white raiments in favor of his iridescent cloak of many colors. So while he is discussed as Saruman the White by the people in the book who haven't been informed of his new allegiances, he has already become Saruman of Many Colours, which is meant to indicate his straying from his formerly pure (white) path toward one which is corrupted and impure.

There was one other wizard in the first book, Radagast the Brown. Not suspecting Saruman's sinister intentions, Radagast had been sent by Saruman to find Gandalf and send him back to Saruman's Orthanc Tower. So it was Radagast who unknowingly delivered Gandalf into imprisonment. However, in his search for Gandalf, Radagast had told Gwaihir, the giant eagle, to look out for Gandalf. It was while looking for Gandalf that Gwaihir found him, imprisoned atop the horned peak of Orthanc. So it was also Radagast who indirectly saved Gandalf from imprisonment. In the movie, Gandalf had to get his own ride off of Orthanc, thanks to a computer-generated moth.

The Nazgul, or Black Riders, or Ringwraiths, appeared in the movie to great effect. They were nicely realized and very much inspired by the paintings of Tolkien illustrators. Appearing almost as empty, black cloaks with armored gauntlets and boots, they spoke only horrific screeches. They had been, long ago, nine kings of men (humans) who had been corrupted and enslaved by Sauron's Rings of Power. But now they were wraiths of their former beings, ghostly creatures existing more in the shadowy wraith-world than in our own world. The wraith-world is the dimension into which Frodo vanishes when he dons the ring, and this is the reason why he can see the ringwraiths in their original, kingly form when he has on his ring, and why they can see him even though he is invisible to the human eye.

In the book, they look much as they do in the movie, but they, like Frankenstein, are more articulate than the screeching banshees they are in the movies. It seems that they are almost formless, having become wraiths, and thus wear their black cloaks about themselves to give themselves visible form. Sort of like the Invisible Man wears clothes and head bandages so people can see him. While they don't have long passages of dialogue or anything like that in the first book, they are described as questioning hobbits at length in the beginning of the book, as they search for Baggins and the One Ring. In fact, at a couple of points they converse with various hobbits regarding the whereabouts of Frodo, and his destination.

Similarly, orcs have a good deal more dialogue in the books than they do in the movies. In the movie versions of Fellowship and Towers, there are a couple of Orcs who rise above the crowd, most notably Lurtz, the first Uruk-Hai shown being created by Saruman, as well as some of Saruman's lieutenants who actually have a few lines. In the books, the orcs actually have quite a bit of dialogue, though they are all tough, brawling, soldier-types. Lurtz was a character created for the movie, to give a recognizable face to the orc hordes and lend more resonance to Boromir's death. The books included several named orc characters, including Ugluk and Grishnakh who were among Merry and Pippin's abductors. I believe that they do appear in the second movie.

There are two main types of orcs: the orc and the uruk-hai, or great orc. Orcs generally eschew the sun and don't go out during the daytime. In the movies, the uruk-hai are supposed to be orc-goblin hybrids created by Saruman, tougher and stronger than normal orcs, who can withstand the daylight. In the books, the uruk-hai are simply bigger, stronger orcs who were bred for war. The term "goblin" is used as another name for an orc. The book mentions half-orcs that were human/orc hybrids created by Saruman who could withstand the sun, so the movie uruk-hai may have something to do with that.

The movies omitted or condensed numerous small plot points from the books, out of necessity. One major plotline that was eliminated was Tom Bombadil. In between fleeing the Black Rider on the Buckleberry Ferry and arriving in the town of Bree (where they met Aragorn/Strider), there was a lengthy adventure in which they met the bizarre Tom Bombadil. Tom meets the hobbits in the woods when they found themselves trapped by some unusually mobile trees (a recurring theme in the books). He stomps along noisily, singing one of his omnipresent songs. He looks like a man, though not quite as tall as humans usually are, and wears a tall hat with a long, blue feather in it, a blue coat, and a long, brown beard. He seems to be a whimsical pre-hippy, communing with nature and possessing an unusual command of the trees, freeing our heroes with a word.

In fact, Tom Bombadil is a creature of unusual power. He is described as being older than the world, though at this point in time he spends all his time in the little forest which is his unquestioned domain. He lives with an elf-like female creature called Goldberry, though her true nature is also uncertain. They may in fact be some sort of nature spirit, though they seem decidedly corporeal. Very tellingly, Tom tries on the One Ring at one point, and neither disappears nor is he tempted by the ring the way Gandalf and Gladriel are. In fact, he hands it back to Frodo with a laugh. Very odd. After enjoying Tom Bombadil's hospitality and leaving his home, the hobbits journeyed onward. It was not long after that when they were imprisoned by barrow-wights, foul creatures living in the ancient crypts of men. There, they called upon Tom Bombadil, using his own special song. Tom freed them, and they went upon their way.

The movie hobbits' arrival at Bree was a dark and ominous affair. The town was gloomy and unfriendly, though that didn't stop the hobbits from getting a bit tipsy and revealing the power of the ring. The book version of the hobbits' stay in Bree was a much more pleasant experience. Bree is a human colony on the far outskirts of hobbit land, populated by men and hobbits alike. As such they were quite friendly to our traveling heroes, though by the time of the book it was quite unusual for there to be much contact between Bree an the Shire. It was there that they acquired Bill, the loyal and stalwart pony, and met Strider/Aragorn. However, Bree was not without peril, for there were some men who were paid spies of the darker forces, and the hobbits' stay in Bree didn't go unnoticed by Sauron's Black Riders. After they left Bree, the pursuit became more earnest.

As I'm sure you've heard before now, the role of Aragorn's love, Arwen, was increased for the movie. I think it was one more touch that helped flesh out the characters. In the book, it was an elf named Glorfindel who led them away from the Nazgul to the safety of Rivendell. The movie included a scene in which Arwen gave Aragorn a piece of jewelry. The book included very little interaction between the two characters, but there is a scene in the book in which Galadriel gives Aragorn a brooch with a gem in it, which she says she had once given to her daughter, Celebrian, who gave it to her daughter, Arwen. Galadriel mentions that it was left in her care, to be given to Aragorn should he pass this way. So perhaps the scene in the movie is meant to be Aragorn getting that jewelry, without the middleman.

In the movie, there is a nice scene in Rivendell revealing the legendary sword, Narsil, which was used in the battle against Sauron thousands of years ago. The sword had been broken into shards. In the book, the sword was not enshrined at Rivendell, but rather carried by Aragorn. But the director of the movie thought it would look a bit silly if Aragorn drew a broken sword when he went into battle, especially while the audience wasn't yet informed of its importance. When Aragorn was to set forth with the Fellowship, it became clear that he was going to get his King on, so the Elves reforged it so it was whole once again, and renamed it Anduril.

After the Fellowship leaves Rivendell, they attempt to travel via the snowy mountain Caradhras. In the movie we see Saruman spying on their progress using his sorcery, and creating a storm to stop them. This was not the case in the book. The literary Caradhras was perilous enough to stop our heroes without any help from Saruman.

The extended DVD version of Fellowship included about a half hour of previously unseen footage. One of the most significant cuts was a scene in which Galadriel gave each member of the Fellowship a gift before they left Lothlorien (which is described in the book as being a magical wood with platforms up in the trees and ladders leading up to them). The elves gave each member of the Fellowship an Elven cloak, which is described as being sort of like camouflage. In the Two Towers movie, Frodo uses his cloak at one point to hide himself and Sam, making them magically appear to be a big rock on the ground. The book has moments in which Frodo or Sam is difficult to see or blends into the background because of the neutral camouflage of the elven cloaks, but at no point does it provide so magical a disguise.

In the book she gives Boromir a gold belt, and Merry and Pippin each get a silver belt. Legolas gets a bow, and Sam, the gardener, gets a small, wooden box full of dirt from Galadriel's orchard. Sam is told that, sprinkling the dirt in his garden will make it bloom like few others in Middle-Earth. Gimli gets three strands of Galadriel's hair. And Frodo got a bottle of glowing water. In the scenes cut from the movie, Merry and Pippin got elf daggers and Sam got a rope (they were all supplied with rope in the book, but not as a special gift). Gimli got hair and Frodo got the glowing water.

The movie ends with Frodo's encounter with the corrupted Boromir, which makes him decide once and for all to continue his quest on his own. As he sneaks away from Boromir, the Orcs, led by the uruk-hai Lurtz, attack. A fierce battle is waged. Our heroes put up a good fight, killing many orcs. Merry and Pippin sacrifice themselves to distract the orcs from pursuing Frodo. Boromir redeems himself by trying to save the two hobbits, but is struck down by Lurtz. The orcs run off with the two hobbits, and Frodo leaves with Sam, as the remaining three heroes lay Boromir to rest.

The sequence of events is slightly different in the book, which ends with Frodo and Sam leaving, but without the orc battle. As the Fellowship camps out near Amon Hen, Frodo considers leaving the Fellowship and striking out on his own. He encounters Boromir, who is ring-crazed, and manages to sneak off using the ring. Meanwhile, the Fellowship are wondering where he is, and when Boromir returns to camp without Frodo, they all realize that Frodo is alone in the wood somewhere. They all split up to look for Frodo, but only his close friend Sam guesses that Frodo means to set off on his own, in one of the boats. Sam heads down to the river where he leaves with Frodo, like in the movie. End of novel.

Of course, the Lord of the Rings was originally written as one big book, and only divided into three books by the publisher, so where one story ends and the next begins can be seen as a matter of interpretation. The next book opens with the attack of the orcs. In typical Tolkien fashion, the actual battle is only briefly described, unlike the huge, climactic movie battle. Indeed, Aragorn doesn't even get any fighting in, as the orcs are gone with Merry and Pippin by the time he finds the fatally-wounded Boromir. Legolas and Gimli show up a moment later, reporting that they had also slain some orcs. They see that one of the boats is missing, and deduce that Frodo and Sam have set off on their own, but decide that Merry and Pippin, the orc captives, are in more dire need of their help. Thus they begin their pursuit of the orcs, as in the movie of the Two Towers. Boromir, instead of being buried, is set adrift in one of the boats. In the movie, it enjoys a dramatic plunge over a waterfall. There is no waterfall in the book, and the boat just drifts away, which becomes important later.

The structure of the movie of Two Towers is markedly different from the novel. Unlike Fellowship, which was a reasonably faithful translation of book to film, Two Towers changes things more dramatically for it's silver screen version. As I described in my Two Towers Jeffreview, the movie had sort of a parallel structure, following the separate exploits of Frodo + Sam, Merry + Pippin, and Aragorn + Legolas + Gimli, respectively. On the other hand, the book Towers is structured essentially as two completely separate books in and of itself. The first book alternates a bit (but not as much as the movie) between Merry & Pippin's adv-Ent-ure and the exploits of the Three Amigos. The second book tells about Frodo & Sam's journey into the dark lands.

Now that we have been introduced to the main players in Fellowship, we learn more about the world of Middle-Earth. One striking feature of the book that was not played up very much in the movie is the motivations of the enemies, Sauron and Saruman. In the movie of Fellowship, Saruman makes a speech to Gandalf that Sauron is the Next Big Thing, and that the smart money is jumping on board the Evil Train. But in the books, especially in Towers, more is made of the relationship between Saruman and Sauron.

The movies make it appear as though the villains are working at a common purpose, to get our heroes. But in the book we see that Saruman wants more than anything to get the ring for himself, and to hell with Sauron. Sauron and Saruman each have orc armies of their own, and each desire the ring. Sauron's armies lie to the east of the kingdoms of man, Gondor and Rohan. Further to the northwest, on the other side of the humans, is Saruman's land of Isengard. The brave human warriors have been holding back the dark tide of Sauron's forces. If Saruman and Sauron were really working together, they'd be able to squeeze the humans from both sides. But they're not.

Also, Sauron's realization that the One Ring is now in circulation has caused him to act earlier than he had planned. His assumption is that our heroes plan to take the ring to Gondor, where someone of great power will use it. Sauron fears that someone else will get to be the evil dictator of Middle-Earth instead of him. He cannot conceive that our heroes would want to destroy a weapon of such power, in effect destroying him without replacing him with anyone. Basically, for the villains, it's every man for himself, in typical, selfish villain fashion, and so of course they expect everyone else to be similarly motivated.

The Heroic Trio of Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas get a good deal of screen time in the movie, their tale is pretty well told. It's Merry and Pippin who get short shrift, having their story condensed quite a bit. In the movie, they run off into Fangorn Forest, meet Treebeard the talking tree, have a long conversation with him while he carries then thru the woods, and eventually talk him into getting a bunch of his talking tree buddies to attack Saruman. Their story in the book is much more detailed.

The book tells how they managed to escape from their orc captors. The orcs who abducted them seemed to consist of orcs working for the red eye of Sauron as well as orc working for the white hand of Saruman. As they made their way with the hobbits, they began to argue amongst themselves. At one point, Grishnakh, working for Sauron, drags the hobbits off to one side so he can try to steal the ring for himself (he doesn't know that they don't have it). When the Riders of Rohan attack, the hobbits are able to get away, thanks to their elf-camo. Escaping into Fangorn, they meet Treebeard.

The thing is, in illustrations and in the movie, Ents such as Treebeard are often depicted as trees with faces, who can walk and talk. But Tolkien describes Treebeard as a man-like/troll-like figure, 14 ft. high, with a tall head and no neck. He is wearing a green & grey bark-like substance (though it may be his hide), but his arms have brown, smooth skin. He also has seven toes and a green/grey, bushy beard, and penetrating, brown eyes with a green light in them. Also, Treebeard walks without bending his knees (if he has any). Now, I would say that the description of him as a man-like or troll-like creature with smooth, brown skin would indicate that he doesn't exactly look like the talking tree so popularly seen. His relationship to a troll is emphasized by the mention that trolls were created by an ancient, evil being "in mockery of the Ents." And Trolls are never described as looking anything like a tree.

Part of the confusion may lie in the close relationship Ents have with trees, and the fact that, later in life, many of them choose to stop moving around so much, growing more and more tree-like, until they are virtually indistinguishable from trees. But clearly, Treebeard isn't that indistinguishable from a tree. At one point during a gathering of Ents, they are described as being as great in variety as trees, with some being tall and thin like pines, and others being shorter and broad like oaks, or whatever. Of course, this simile can be applied toward other creatures without it actually meaning they look like pines or oaks. Get what I mean?

Anyway, there is a long stretch in which Merry & Pippin go to Treebeard's house, then they go to a gathering of Ents where Treebeard convinces them all to attack Saruman, then finally the go on the warpath. Again, in typical Tolkien fashion, the actual battle is not fully described, only told a bit afterward in flashback, when Merry & Pippin rejoin the Heroic Trio. Unlike the movie, the hobbits don't have to do a lot of convincing to get Treebeard on board their cause. Treebeard had known of Saruman for a long time, and was aware that his orcs had begun chopping down trees in order to fuel Saruman's fires. Several of the less-mobile, more tree-like Ents had been chopped down this way, too. The hobbits' arrival among the Ents is described as being like the last few pebbles that start the avalanche. The Ents had been pretty anti-orc already, they just needed a catalyst to get their war on.

In the movie, the Ents are reluctant to get involved with the affairs of outsiders. After their meeting, they decide not to wage war on Saruman. But after Pippin tricks Treebeard into taking them by Isengard, where he sees the destruction, Treebeard is finally moved to action. He lets out a great Ent cry, drawing the other Ents to him, then announces "Now we go to war!" as they all attack Isengard. This is, of course, for dramatic purposes, and also a necessary movie abbreviation. But this is another sequence that struck me as a bit hard to swallow. I mean, first of all, we are asked to believe that the Ents, the shepherds of the trees, are unaware of the mass deforestation that was being perpetrated by Saruman. Second, the Ents are self-described as talking very slowly, saying only things which take a long time to say. And it's obvious that they required a meeting in order to decide on the matter of going to war. But all of a sudden Treebeard had a change of heart, and the Ents all attack in unison, without even a moment's pause? There should at least have been a moment of reflection, so we could see the other Ents taking in the destruction and coming to the inevitable conclusion of war.

The story of the Three Amigos and the battle of Helm's Deep went a also bit differently in the book than in the movie. They start out, following the attack at Amon Hen, chasing the orcs and trying to track Merry and Pippin. In the movie, they meet the Riders of Rohan, already banished from Edoras, who give them horses. The scene goes something like this:

Aragorn: Riders of Rohan! What's the news from the Mark? Eomer: What are an elf, a man, and a dwarf doing in Rohan? Who are you? Gimli: First tell me your name! Eomer: If you were taller I'd cut your head off. Legolas (aiming bow): You'd be dead before you hit the ground. Aragorn (calming everyone down): We're friends of Rohan, and King Theoden. Eomer: The king no longer knows friend from foe. We were banished because we are loyal to Rohan. Here, have a couple of horses. We're leaving.

Granted, it's a movie so there are necessarily some abbreviated scenes, but this sudden change of heart was a bit abrupt. In the book the conversation is, of course, longer. And Eomer has not yet been banished. Aragorn reveals that he is the heir of Elendil and Isildur, the ancient kings of Gondor who originally cut the ring from Sauron's hand, and proves it by showing that he has the legendary sword Narsil/Anduril. Actually, he does that a lot in the books, and everyone who meets him and gets name-and-sword treatment pretty much knows he's the long lost king of Gondor, returned to claim his throne. That helps convince Eomer to help them, though he (being of Rohan) has no direct fealty to Gondor. Then he makes them promise to come to Edoras when they've given up looking for the hobbits. By the time they get to Fangorn Forest, the hobbits are already gone with the Ents. They can't quite figure out where the little guys have gotten to, since to them Ents are only stuff of legend. Gandalf then returns from the dead to tell them not to bother with the hobbits anymore, and that they are needed at Rohan.

Gandalf tells how he slew the Balrog. They fell into the abyss until they finally hit the wet bottom. After some fighting, the fiery Balrog was beaten into slime. Well, a creature of slime, anyway. Gandalf then chased it back up from the deep, to the highest tower of Moria, where after some more fighting he threw the Balrog down so hard he broke part of the mountain where he hit. There was some other, magical stuff, too, and after a period of healing and regeneration, and becoming White, he returned.

In the movie, the people of Rohan abandon their homes to go hide in Helm's Deep from Saruman's invading horde. In fact, Gandalf and Aragorn pretty much tell him that Saruman's orcs are on the march and that Rohan must confront them directly, but Theoden, the king, decides that running away and hiding in the fortress of Helm's Deep would be safer. So they all ride for Helm's Deep: soldiers, civilians, women, children. This was probably done to create more peril for the defenders of Helm's Deep. In the book, the woman Eowyn was put in charge and they were sent to another hiding place, while the soldiers went toward Isengard to prevent an attack from Saruman by heading off the army before they forded the river. But the army had already crossed the ford, and it was at Helm's Deep where the armies of Rohan finally met their attackers.

There were quite a few scenes in this movie that were invented for the screen. Just as in Fellowship the role of Aragorn's love, Arwen, was expanded, in Towers there was a vision/flashback in which Arwen wrestled with the notion of leaving Aragorn to sail away with the elves. In the books, I believe that Arwen had already decided to stay. Also, almost the entire events of the actual battle at Helm's Deep were invented for the movie, which necessary since Tolkien really didn't write much in the way of detailed descriptions of action or fighting. He preferred to stay with the characters who were talking, only occasionally describing an event if it was important to the overall plot. Also, the whole subplot of the little boy and girl who are sent off by their mother when the orcs attack, and later are reunited with her in Helm's Deep was invented for the movie. Also, in the movie there are a number of scenes of Gimli riding a horse. While he does ride in the books, he does so at great reluctance, being a small individual and thus intimidated by such large creatures, and ultimately only consents to ride in tandem with Legolas.

When we meet King Theoden, he is under the foul influence of Grima Wormtongue. The movie exaggerates this, making it appear as if Wormtongue has almost possessed the king magically, where in the book it was really more mundane, with Wormtongue giving the king bad advice and probably poisoning him somewhat too, as well as spying on him for Saruman.

One new scene took place as the refugees traveled to Helm's Deep, and they were attacked by really bad computer generated wolf-creatures (wargs) ridden by orcs. In the book there were numerous mentions of Saruman's wolves and wolf-riders, which may have inspired this scene. However, Tolkien makes no mention of bad CGI anywhere in his trilogy. Also, the whole thing where Aragorn falls into the river and later returns? That was made up for the movie.

In fact, much has been made of the fact that the Helm's Deep battle was a major, pivotal segment of the movie while in the book it occupied only about ten pages. However, I don't think this is really a fair criticism. For one thing, the battle was still a major plot point in the Heroic Trio's storyline. It's not as if they spent 10 pages battling here, then 10 pages battling over there, and another 12 pages battling somewhere else. Helm's Deep was the big battle for them. You have to take into consideration Tolkien's apparent reluctance to write much action to begin with. I mean, do you really want to spend 15 minutes looking at the scenery and the trees and the leaves, and two minutes watching the battle? What kind of movie would that be? I consider that fact that so many pages were actually spent on the battle pretty significant, considering how few pages were spent on any of the other action pieces.

I'd say that the biggest deviation between the book's depiction of the Battle of Helm's Deep (actually referred to in the book as the Battle of the Hornburg) was the climax of the movie's battle, in which Gandalf, leading the 2000 of Eomer's banished Riders of Rohan, arrives at Helm's Deep to kick orc ass and turn the tide of the battle. In the book, the Riders of Rohan were already at Helm's Deep, having been un-banished after Gandalf healed Theoden from the poisonous ministrations of Grima (Wormtongue). Also, the Elves of Lothlorien never showed up at Helm's Deep to aid the struggling army of Rohan. There were no elves at the battle (except for Legolas). Instead, this is what happened:

The seige was on and the orcs on the plain had broken thru the outer wall of Helm's Deep with their explosives, and were working to break through into the caves where the men had retreated. Morale wasn't good. Suddenly Gandalf the White, clad in his shining white as the White Rider, appeared riding down on the orcs. At the same time, Aragorn and the king and the soldiers of Rohan charged the orcs. But the thing that had the orcs shocked and awed was the fact that, up until last night, they were on a plain. But this morning, there was a thick forest behind them. They ran from the charging soldiers and from Gandalf, and into the trees. And that was pretty much all she wrote. Nothing was heard from those orcs again.

The trees which appeared overnight were the Huorns, animated trees commanded by the Ents, and possibly some Ents in the later stages of Ent-to-tree conversion, who had come over from Fangorn Forest as part of the Ent attack on Isengard. They had no love for orcs, because of Saruman's deforestation, and in the end they left only a big pile of stones that, presumably, was the burial ground of the orc army.

The movie version made less sense in the strict, hardcore Tolkien universe, given the motivations of the Lothlorien elves at the time, but it made for a grittier, more believable battle than a bunch of animated trees, and it was cool for those in the audience who wanted to see more elves kicking ass. In the book, it is implied that the elves were too busy fighting their own battles against to keep Rivendell and Lothlorien safe. The movie battle also preserved such little moments as Legolas & Gimli's lighthearted rivalry as they compared how many each had killed (by the end of the battle, Gimli was one up on Legolas with 42 kills). One difference, however, was that Legolas mentioned a number of times the need to go out and find more arrows to replenish his supply, as he kept running out, and his kill dropped when he had to resort to his blades. In contrast, the movie Legolas seemed to have an endless supply of arrows. Oh well, that's movie magic.

Following the Battle of Helm's Deep and the Ent assault on Isengard, the Three Ringeteers went with Gandalf and King Theoden to Saruman's Orthanc Tower, where the wizard was holed up away from the flood the Ents had unleashed. There they rejoined Merry and Pippin and we learned the details of the Ent attack. Basically, it consisted of the Ents tearing down buildings and such, and diverting the nearby Isen River to flood the plain around the tower, which also put out the fires in the vast caverns underground. Ents are tough creatures despite being older than mountains, and are able to break stone fairly easily, but they found the tower of Orthanc indestructible. So there was a section in which Gandalf tries to talk Saruman into coming down out of Orthanc and helping the good guys against Sauron. Saruman refused, and so was left there in the tower, a prisoner, with the Ents vowing not to let him escape. I suppose that this post-battle stuff may make it into the final movie, as the Two Towers movie ended pretty much right after the battles.

There is little mention of Frodo and Sam in the Ent/Helm's Deep portion of the Two Towers. But the second half of the book is devoted entirely to their adventures, as they make the long, hard journey toward Mordor, guided by Gollum. The computer-generated film depiction of Gollum has impressed many, and the telling of that portion of the tale is reasonably true to the book. One detail that varies from the book is that the CGI movie Gollum is fishbelly-pale, but in the book at several points he is described as being dark, or black. As they near Mordor, they encounter Faramir, brother of Boromir.

In both the book and the movie, when Frodo meets Faramir, Faramir is already aware of his brother's death. But how? The book reveals that when Boromir's body was set adrift in the boat, it eventually drifted down to Gondor, his home, and thus they learned the sad news (in a rather gruesome way) though of course they didn't know the details. In the movie, when Faramir learns of the One Ring he, like Boromir, decides that the best course of action would be to take it to Minas Tirith and use it against the enemy. But eventually Sam tells him that Boromir's greed for the ring led to his death, shocking Faramir into realizing the wisdom of Frodo's quest and letting him go. This creates sort of a parallel to Boromir in the first movie, and uses it to try to create some dramatic tension. In the book, however, Faramir proves to be wise and compassionate early on, vowing that he wouldn't take the ring even if he found it lying in the road.

In his zeal to possess the ring to use against the enemy, the movie Faramir brings Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath, a town near Minas Tirith (the main city of the kingdom of Gondor) on the river separating Gondor from Mordor, where Sauron is already attacking. In the book, the ringbearer never gets to Osgiliath, heading instead to Mordor. Faramir himself doesn't arrive at the cities of Gondor until well into the book, as Sauron's forces begin to attack. The attack on Osgiliath, led by the Nazgul (seen in the movie riding on a flying dragon-like creature), doesn't occur in the books until Return of the King, so by introducing it here, perhaps Jackson is accelerating events once again.

The book of the Two Towers ends some time after the battles at Orthanc and at Helm's Deep. By the conclusion of the book, Gandalf had ridden to Isengard along with the other major players from Helm's Deep, including the Three Amigos and King Theoden. There they had met up with Merry and Pippin, and the Ents. After a bit of rest, regrouping, and plotting, they split up again, with Pippin riding with Gandalf to Minas Tirith and Merry riding with the others back to Rohan. From Rohan, Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli eventually ride off with a company of Rangers (like Aragorn) to attack south while Merry and Theoden go to Helm's Deep to break the news to those still holed up there, before a messenger from the besieged Minas Tirith comes to ask for help.

As for Frodo and Sam's story, the movie ends with them setting forth toward a secret way of entering Mordor, guided by Gollum, who plots their demise. He is afraid to attack them himself, deciding that "SHE will do it." In the book, their story continues as they sneak into the dark lands, and we discover exactly who "she" is. I don't want to say any more than that, since I am reluctant to spoil the third movie for you. Anyway, it makes sense to leave some of book two for movie three, since the third novel is markedly shorter than the other two, due to lengthy appendices.

While the first movie seemed to deviate from the books mostly in matters of length and detail, omitting things that wouldn't fit, the second movie took greater liberties with the source material, going so far as to create pivotal scenes that weren't in the books. It remains to be seen whether the third movie deviates even further or if Jackson returns to the source. One of the compelling things about Lord of the Rings is that Tolkien conceived a full, rich history and a complex universe for his books, far more than ever made it into these novels. For those who were interested, other books have been written which detail more of this history. From the family trees of the Houses of the Great Elves to a more detailed exploration of the nature of Balrogs to the method of conjugation verbs in the Dwarf language, Tolkien has conceived many of the details of his universe. However, Peter Jackson has created a work of his own in adapting this story for film. In realizing Middle-Earth in physical form, many details which Tolkien had never addressed had to be created by the craftsmen in Jackson's employ, from the skin texture of a cave troll to the embroidery on Legolas' tunic. In its own way, the movies have fleshed out a reality just as Tolkien did in his writing.

The realities of movie-making create their own constraints, and the telling of a story in visual language is vastly different than telling it in written form. As such, a movie is a creation in its own right, separate from its source material. That being said, knowing that these movies are adaptations of Tolkien's books, it's impossible to completely separate the two. What it comes down to is that one of the reasons I decided to read the books is my curiosity regarding the faithfulness with which the filmmakers adapted the novels. But when I enjoy the movies and the books respectively, I try to enjoy them on their own as separate entities. Regardless, I'm sure I'll write more contrasting the books and the movies as I read further.