- This video is brought to you by Keeps.
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What's up, Wisecrack?
Michael here with another juicy Book vs. Film,
where we dive into how a story changes
as it jumps from typewriter to celluloid.
And this time we're going wild.
No, not that long distance hiking-based epic.
I'm talking about "Lord of the Rings,"
the multi-part exploration of a young boy's hiking journey
in the middle part of the earth.
Now, considering the sheer scope of the book,
it's only natural that things had to change
to bring it to the screen.
So that's what we're looking at today
and we'll state up front,
we're only talking the narrative text
of "Lord of the Rings" here.
No "Silmarillion," no "Unfinished Tales."
We're not even using the appendices.
We need some strict rules here, gang,
because frankly, if everything Tolkien wrote
about Middle Earth was fair game,
by the end of this video, I would have a Gandalf beard.
So without further ado, welcome to this episode
of Book vs. Film, "Lord of the Rings."
Now, before we jump into it,
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Now, back to the show.
First off, the similarities.
Let's move swiftly through the similarities.
Both share the same core narrative,
a group of heroes, a Fellowship, if you will,
set out on an epic quest to destroy the One Ring,
an object of great and evil power
in order to save the world.
All of the major beats are hit in both,
to the point where someone who's only seen the films
and someone who's only read the book
could pretty much talk about the story on equal footing,
but don't leave yet because there are crucial differences
and they all lie in the details.
These changes have a fundamental impact
on the way we perceive both the characters
and Middle Earth as a whole,
which brings us to the differences.
Now for a work that Stanley Kubrick, of all people,
considered unfilmable, director Peter Jackson
managed to adapt an incredible amount of the book.
Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh
used every trick in the screenwriting manual
to realize Middle Earth on film,
and naturally, a big part of that was a keen eye
for what to include and what to omit.
Some characters, like the fabled Tom Bombadil,
Middle Earth's patron saint of plot-tangents,
were pretty much never going to make it to the screen.
Other things, like the book's use of nonlinear timelines
and stories within stories
would get pretty tricky on screen,
even if you're Christopher Nolan.
So they were altered in the adaptation.
But with a work as dense as "The Lord of the Rings,"
those necessary creative decisions
can have some unintended effects.
Difference number one, the end of the world.
Let's start here.
In the films, Middle Earth is right
on the precipice of change, but with a promise
of a return to normalcy helmed by humankind.
But in the book, there's no such optimism.
It's pretty clear everyone is living
in a civilization in decline.
This happens mostly through omission,
since the movies couldn't have fit in
every piece of Middle Earth lore.
But it drastically changes the tone of the films.
The TL;DR is that, in the books,
Middle Earth has actually been through two events
that we could consider apocalyptic,
each much more dire than the War of the Ring that we do see.
These calamities saw godlike beings infinitely more powerful
than the likes of Gandalf and Sauron waging all out war.
Entire swathes of Middle Earth were lost in the destruction.
People like the Numenoreans, Aragorn's ancestors,
were either corrupted by Sauron
or wiped out for the sins of the rest.
A lot of the exact details of these are found in other books
like "The Silmarillion" and "Unfinished Tales,"
but Tolkien still conveys the history of Middle Earth
and its lost grandeur in the actual trilogy
through the songs, verses, and poems
recited by the characters.
To highlight why this omission matters,
let's look at the film first.
Early in the quest, the Fellowship ends up
having to take a detour through the Mines of Moria,
an abandoned ancestral home of the Dwarves.
The film, tasked with portraying the lost majesty of Moria,
or Khazad-Dum if you're nasty, leans into its strengths.
- Well there's an eye opener, and no mistake.
- Through the lens of the camera,
we see the massive scope of the Dwarves' old home
as the Fellowship enters the Dwarrowdelf.
In the book, the Fellowship still ventures into Moria,
but instead of being awed by the accomplishment
of the old Dwarves, Sam actually dunks on the place,
calling them darksome holes.
Gimli responds by reciting "The "Song of Durin,"
which tells Moria's history before the fall.
"The world was fair, the mountains tall,
in Elder Days before the fall
of mighty kings in Nargothrond and Gondolin,
who now beyond The Western Seas have passed away,
the world was fair in Durin's day."
It mentions the mighty kings of Nargothrond and Gondolin.
Wait where?
Well, it doesn't really matter.
Even without any deets, the passage still conveys
a sense of long-lost wonder and achievement.
This passage, and the rest of the song,
detail not only Moria's lost glory,
but that of the rest of Middle Earth as well,
telling us "The world was fair before the fall".
And the books do this throughout, using myths and legend
to allude to Middle Earth's glory days.
Another key song, obviously missing from the films,
comes from Bilbo, right before the meme deposit
that is the Council of Elrond.
It's about a half-elven sailor of old,
who built a ship to sail to heaven to ask for help
in a fight against Sauron's super swole cousin.
"He saw the Mountain silent rise
where twilight lies upon the knees of Valinor and Eldamar
beheld afar beyond the seas.
A wanderer escaped from night
to haven white he came at last,
to Elvenhome the green and fair
where keen the air, where pale as glass,
beneath the Hill of Ilmarin
a-glimmer in a valley sheer
the lamplit towers of Tirion
are mirrored on the Shadowmere."
The poem details all of the ethereal and celestial sights
he sees along his journey, and gives us key insight
into the sources of ancient power
that the Fellowship often draws upon.
More importantly, it ties this power to the Elder Days,
something that the "Song of Durin" clearly states
can't be achieved again in this broke-ass Middle Earth.
So cool magic stuff that seems a little convenient
in the film, like Sam's magic flashlight,
are actually firmly rooted in the book's lore.
Overall, these two songs evoke a rich history
of the bygone times of grandeur
that cement the tone of the books.
For all the epicness of the struggle against Sauron,
all the magic and heroism,
the books are actually pretty wistful.
Through all the lore of the songs, verses, and poems,
you get a clearer impression
of just how far the Elves have fallen
and how dope Middle Earth used to be.
Minas Tirith in the films is a symbol of Gondor's might,
whereas in the book it's a testament
to their more capable, more divine forebears.
It's like if you lived in a house
that your grandparents built with their bare hands,
but your lazy ass can barely reattach a doorknob.
Tolkien was a devout Catholic
and grew up watching the pastoral English countryside
steadily replaced with crude products of Industrialism.
These songs speak to his perspective,
that England had decayed both spiritually and materially,
and his longing for an idyllic past,
whether or not that actually existed.
Despite the legendary scope of the book,
it's surprisingly personal,
insofar as Tolkien's experiences arguably informed
most of the core of the story and the world,
which leads us to difference number two, the characters.
In the movies, like nearly all good movies,
the characters grow and change.
- Did you join the tower guard?
- I didn't think they would find any liberty
that would fit me.
- In the book, however, characters are
by and large static archetypes.
That's not a diss on Tolkien, because for him,
that was kind of the point.
Tolkien was more of a world-builder than a novelist,
and was famously known for
creating the languages of Middle Earth
before Middle Earth itself,
a move that presumably made him a real hit at the pub.
Speaking to his American publisher, Tolkien said,
"The invention of languages is the foundation.
The stories were made rather to provide a world
for the languages than the reverse.
To me a name comes first and the story follows."
When adding story to the world,
he looked to his favorite fairy-tales,
myths and legends for inspiration.
And the thing is, by their nature,
neither fairy-tale nor myth is overly concerned with
now-conventional storytelling devices
like character arcs or narrative structure.
For example, we don't need a big character arc from Sisyphus
to know its a story about endless futility.
Which isn't to say some mythic figures
don't get put into longer narratives with character arcs
But broadly speaking, mythic characters are symbolic,
meant to represent abstract concepts
rather than depict humanity in all its complexity.
As a result, in the books,
we get Frodo representing humble selflessness,
Aragorn representing the ideal of a true king,
and Gandalf representing wisdom and the unknowable.
In this way, they work to serve
the wider world that Tolkien built,
and to cement the themes he was going for.
In other words, the focus of the book
was never the characters alone,
but rather the entire world that Tolkien had created.
The films, on the other hand,
are much more focused on the characters
rather than the wider tapestry of Middle Earth.
Each has doubts, fears and insecurities,
and like actual humans, they're all fallible.
In the films, Aragorn begins in a state of reluctance.
He doubts himself and his capability to lead,
and doesn't always speak up like a traditional hero.
- An heir to the throne of Gondor.
(speaking in foreign language)
- [Michael] Frodo begins in much the same way.
His strength of will and courage are comparatively diluted.
He's less principled, rendering him more susceptible
to the power of the Ring throughout his quest.
Throughout the trilogy, Aragorn is repeatedly thrust
into positions of leadership
that challenge his fears and insecurities,
like leading the Fellowship after Gandalf apparently croaks.
When Elrond shows up with the
symbolic blade of the kings of Men,
IE Aragorn's birthright, he wields the newly forged blade,
symbolically resolving his self-doubt
and embracing his destiny.
Here, he earns the Kingship,
rather than just collecting it like in the book.
Similarly, in being more deeply affected
and influenced by the Ring,
Frodo has to overcome physical, psychological
and spiritual challenges in order to make it to Mount Doom.
Even if he does kind of
murder our favorite CGI gremlin to do it.
(rumbling)
He takes extreme actions along the way,
like chumming it up with Gollum
and casting ol' faithful Sam away.
- You can't help me anymore.
- And has to resolve those mistakes in order to succeed.
This here is screenwriting 101;
each central character is challenged
spiritually or psychologically,
leading to a drastic internal change.
This classic character arc
is fundamental to mainstream film,
and is a surefire way to create dramatic tension in a movie.
The characters in the book, however,
function the exact same way that characters do in myth.
That's not to say that they're not changed
by the quest of the Ring, they are.
However, these changes are more reactive,
rather than resulting from inner conflict.
Take Aragorn, from the moment we first meet him,
dude's pretty set on fulfilling his legacy
and taking up the Kingship of Men.
He makes no secret of his lineage
and his intention to assume the throne.
By the end of the book, Aragorn is king
and he hasn't had to overcome
any real challenge or obstacle to get there.
In short, his character arc in the book is
wants the kingship, does a quest, gets the kingship.
There's progression in the arc, sure, but no tension.
There's the same lack of tension with Frodo,
arguably the most central character to the plot.
His arc, from first talking with Gandalf about the Ring
in Bag End, to finally making it to Mount Doom,
is essentially agrees to destroy the Ring,
does a quest, destroys the Ring.
His conviction never wavers
and his inherent nature is never challenged.
Even the corruptive power of the One Ring
only challenges him physically, rather than psychologically.
To be fair, Tolkien does state that Frodo
struggles to find peace once the Ring is destroyed,
and has to leave for Elf Heaven as a result.
But the key word there is states;
Tolkien doesn't show us the process, he tells us at the end.
In allowing the characters to be more fallible,
the films make the characters
much more relatable than in the books.
Sure, not many of us have had to wrestle
with becoming a legendary king,
but we've all dealt with self-doubt.
It's rare for any of us to walk across a continent
to destroy a magic ring,
but we've all struggled to manage our feelings.
So all in all, making the characters
less archetypical is a win, right?
Difference number three, religion.
While it's not quite as clear cut,
the film's fallible characters
change the story in one other, deeper way.
And as a result, the book and film
each seem to have very different approaches to religion,
specifically the Catholic faith that Tolkien stanned.
The book has tons of allusions to Christianity in general,
but one of the strongest cases
is to do with the trio of Gandalf, Frodo and Aragorn,
and something called Threefold Messianic Symbolism.
Threefold Messianic Symbolism, in a very basic sense,
represents the three aspects, or offices, of Christ,
aspects that many figures evoke
throughout the Old and New Testaments.
In the book, Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf
represent the offices of the
Priest, King and Prophet respectively.
All three go through some kind of death and rebirth,
like Jesus, and naturally all three
are saviors of Middle Earth.
Each of these offices are an aspect of Jesus
as displayed in the Bible.
This is where Tolkien's use of static archetypes
in the book serves him well.
If archetypes are the purest distillation
of an idea or thing, then it's easy to see
how they can effectively represent aspects
of a divine being like Jesus Christ.
Archetypes, in this sense,
exist to convey a message or idea, not necessarily to grow.
The serpent in the story of Genesis
doesn't need an arc, he needs to symbolize temptation.
The films, however, seem to accidentally stumble
into a critique of Tolkien's symbolism.
Frodo, the Priest figure, turns away his closest friend
fueled by malice and spite.
Gandalf, the Prophet figure,
is more intellectually uncertain,
less wise than he is in the book.
Aragorn, the King figure, straight up
doesn't want to be King at first.
The very same flaws in character
that made them more compelling on film
undermine the three aspects of Jesus Christ.
In doing so, the films sort of unwittingly propose
a more secular Middle Earth,
one removed from the religious influences
that were a big part of Tolkien's life.
I mean, you could argue that, at its most severe,
the films actively refute
the notion of a divine Jesus Christ,
which is such a spicy hot take that
Dan Brown should write another book about it.
Dan, if you wanna collab, just slide into the comments.
Now, I'm not sure we entirely want to commit to that,
but if you need a Twitter hill to die on, be our guest.
All in all, credit absolutely goes to Peter Jackson
and everyone involved for managing to bring
"The Lord of the Rings" to film in any form.
But what do you guys think?
Were the changes he made totally reasonable,
or should the films be cast into a volcano for their crimes?
Would you rather listen to Treebeard
do the alphabet rap than read through the book?
Oh, and one last thing.
- You shall not pass!
- There wasn't any place for it earlier, trust me, we tried.
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And as always, thanks for watching, later.
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