Put aside the books and join us at the movies! In this episode, Alan and Shawn discuss Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. We watch clips of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) changes and go back to Tolkien’s own words about film adaptation to understand why some worked and others didn’t. Blazing beacons, tragic deaths, Elves where Elves have no business being… they’re all here in this action-packed, star-studded, Oscar-winner-watching episode of the Prancing Pony Podcast! Video version available on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
For streaming audio and a transcript of the Tom Shippey lecture “Tolkien Book to Jackson Script: The Medium and the Message”, see the Swarthmore College website at http://www.swarthmore.edu/news-events/tolkien-book-to-jackson-script-medium-and-message. (Audio highly recommended!)
The essay “Another Road to Middle-earth: Jackson’s Movie Trilogy”, is published as Appendix C in the 2005 edition of Shippey’s The Road to Middle-earth, and is also available in other collections.
We’d love it if you would spend 30 seconds filling out this survey for our podcast host, Libsyn. No one will get your personalized data; only Alan and Shawn will get your email addresses, and if we get 250 responses, we will enter all email addresses into a drawing. Click here to complete the survey, and thank you!
Recommended Reading:
Shippey, Tom. J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (Mariner Books, paperback)
On the Helm’s Deep scene, would that be the same Elrond who was sneaking out the back, jack, while sending Galadriel’s troops to their death?
Plus uncharacteristic behavior of Legolas,
Plus the fact that any number of human winters would seem too few to an elf.
Some good points there. Legolas’ behavior makes sense only in context of the “sod this, I’m not dying” mentality of all the Elves in the movies except for the Galadhrim. And his outburst, while maybe satisfying as cinematic drama, is much more in keeping with Gimli’s attitude towards his captain than Legolas.
As for moving Boromir’s death, no problem here. But it reminded me of getting to the end of The Two Towers the first time, reading “Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy” and RUNNING to the local bookstore to get The Return of The King.
Rohan has no Elves. Rohan needs no Elves
Had Pippin been singing the bath song instead it might have actually made that scene bearable. As it is, deciding to skip it on your admirable podcast made me realize how much more I loathe film Denethor than even film Faramir. And I still wish I had walked out at Faramir.
I suppose my dislike for Denethor in the books tempers my loathing of film Denethor somewhat. He’s exaggerated in the movies, but I think Tolkien’s own characterization of him is as quite the “château general” anyway. This scene is over the top, there’s no doubt about it… but it’s visual, and I like that about it. 🙂
Correction: my dislike for Denethor in the books tempers my loathing of film Denethor until about the next scene he appears in.
If I were going to watch any Galadriel turn blue, it would be Cate Blanchett’s. But blue, really?
It gets worse in the prequels, you know…
Oh, I know. You see, I just wanted her to show up and Dol Guldur and say to Sauron: “you killed my brother. prepare to die.”
It’s a little known fact that Sauron had six fingers on his right hand.
Go back to the Sorceress of the Golden Wood!
I can’t even imagine what it would have been like for someone reading these books as they were published and having to wait months to learn what happened to Frodo!
Love the podcast guys, trying to get through these as fast as I can lol
To the point that was made about Faramir’s “the Ring will go to Gondor” moment being inevitable because they spent the entirety of the movies setting up the Ring as wholly corruptible and irresistible, especially to men: Jackson actually had Aragorn reject it when Frodo offers it to him on Amon Hen.
That is absolutely true. Aragorn did reject it. So unless we argue that only Aragorn can do so because he is a very special man (which wouldn’t be a bad argument, I guess) it seems more like they were trying to make Faramir more like Boromir.
I know I’m years behind here, but IDK, I always think Jackson’s viewpoint was that Faramir so craved the love & admiration of his father that his thoughts in that moment were, “What would Boromir do?”.. knowing how much his Denethor loved, admired & respected Boromir. Of course not knowing at the time Boromir had already realized his error in judgement. Plus, from the extended movie perspective ( as I don’t recall this in the books so much, but it’s been a few years since I read them), of how much Faramir also loved & admired his brother. So in this instance, “How bad could it be to do what Boromir would have done & take the ring to their father?” … but my impression when watching this scene in the movie was that Faramir didn’t necessarily think he was doing the right thing by taking the ring to Gondor other than that would please his father immensely & hopefully he would then show some love & admiration towards Faramir.
King Theoden’s quote from the movie is “No parent should have to bury their child”. The King did not use “he”. This uses a trendy plural pronoun error that an old fashioned man like the King would never have used.
Hello there, I know that I am VERY behind (but doing my best to catch up – it may take a while). I came to watch this episode on YouTube but the link no longer works. It may be that the video is simply no longer available, but I am posting a comment in case you were unaware that the link is not working.
I’m so sorry; we had to remove our entire PPP YouTube channel for a number of reasons, and so these videos are no longer available – just the audio podcasts.
Totally love your podcast, I found you both far too late and am attempting to play catch up faster than Shadowfax galloping across Middle Earth… Like others have expressed, I would love the opportunity to watch this particular episode via video, however I cannot seem to find any link to it (YouTube is down and Facebook only has the trailer). Any help would be most appreciated!
I really want to watch this episode but can’t seem to find it. Is it on YouTube?
Oops just read the last two comments. Sorry for being redundant but there is a something special about the number three in Tolkiens literature…..