Your rough draft is so short that it is difficult to comment on it. However, I think you need to remember that this paper is to be based on the Shippey article. Therefore the issue of how the film makers dealt with the relative sizes of the characters is irrelevant.
Please read the general comments on the rough drafts which I posted on the “(Almost) Daily Bulletin from the Professor” page yesterday. Lydia Fish September 23, 2008, at 10:09 AM
You bring up a very good and orginal point about the relationships inbetween characters and how they were left out of the movie or at least attempted. I like how you talk about the camera angles. Donald Turner September 18, 2008, at 04:23 PM
I like your ideas on the plot, but I don’t know if your last idea on sizes and other things with people is appropriate foe this paper or not. Sarah Chudyk?
Not to shabby Nacov! I do think the point about the development of Merry and Pippin is very interesting! I would love to read more about it. I like the idea of focusing on Merry’s relationships to other characters and how Jackson, did and did not development them. Brittany Thrun ? September 17, 2008, at 11:54 PM
The paper sounds really strong, you definitely have a good focus. You can probably trim the visual obstacles with scaling the Hobbits as Peter Jackson in the commentary declared how they cut a lot of corners on forced perspective and so on. You can also mention how Merry’s armor was Theoden’s childhood armor, creating a stronger connection that Jackson skipped. Eligh Hanning?
You have some good ideas, just make sure you develop them a little more for you final paper. You also might consider talking about the challenges of directing the Return of the King faced by Jackson, predicted by Shippey. Steven Wilser? September 17, 2008, at 10:25 PM
Good points so far and as you continue getting more research from it will only get better. Good job! Jenelle Jones
I like how you talk about Merry’s relationship with Theoden being nearly overlooked. Maybe you could talk about how his relationship with Eowyn was more emphasized, to the point where they become an almost brother-sister pair? Devon Cozad? September 17, 2008, at 12:34 PM
I haven’t seen many papers discussing the Frodo-Sam-Gollum triangle and you elaborate well as to why jackson may have made this choice even though it strayed from the text. I like examination of of Merry and Theoden perhaps you could include how it was different from Pippen and Denethor. Good luck! Sarah McNutt? September 17, 2008, at 01:00 PM
Keep developing the change in the timeline. This is a great idea. I think this is a very important point to make because it was one of the aspects that would have made filming the Lord of the Rings very difficult.Annika Laughlin? September 16, 2008, at 10:02 PM
I think that the reason the story was changed a bit was more for the fact that viewers would be confused if everything followed the book precisely. In the book, we can go for 100 pages without seeing anything of some characters. In a movie, that would create bad transitions and perhaps a lot of confusion, especially for younger watchers! Good job and your ideas and theories are a very good start! Keilah Bradley September 16, 2008, at 06:01 PM]]
If you want to discuss proportions, you have to make sure you are being ROTK specific. Writing about general proportion problems throughout the trilogy won’t work, as our professor mentioned during class. I think you still have alot to work with. Discussing the problems of Two Towers information being placed into ROTK is a great place to start. Also, is there any way you could expand on Merry/Theoden and maybe introduce that with teh relationship of Pippin/Denethor for comparison? That might be a good topic to discuss as well. Lauren Brych? September 16, 2008, at 01:01 PM
I agree with the idea that Frodo and Sams journey needed to be split up. I could not imagine watching a 3–4 hour movie with half of it being only 2–3 characters (frodo, sam, gollum). Just make sure you focus on the difficulties specific to the filming of the Return of the King. I felt your paragraph on scale related more to the trilogy of the whole. Carly Lopez?
Your theory on why Jackson altered the story (specifically the Shelob example) is a unique one. I like that you thought about spreading out screen-time. You might want to consider, however, the reason that Jackson tells us he changed it for: Chronology. If he had transcribed the books right onto the screen, then the timing would be off a great deal. Joseph Bella? September 14, 2008, at 04:10 PM
I agree with you on the Merry and Theoden relationship. It would be great if you could expand on this more. I personally think that Tolkien had a reason for having the relationship between the two, maybe to show his ideas of loyalty and the experiences he had in his own war times. Elizabeth Delano? September 13, 2008, at 11:59 PM
I think another reason for making Frodo go in alone was to let the audience get nervous that Gollum had some success with Frodo; this shows Tolkien’s view that good prevailing over evil is not inevitable, however, the change of narrative style in the movies do not overall “bewilder” the audience as it did for Tolkien’s readers, so in this way, Jackson fails to make the audience completely unsure of success in the end.Emily Marvin? September 13, 2008, at 11:42 PM
I think that your point about Merry and Theoden’s relationship is valid and important. I think that your explanation on the organization of the books as a little confusing. At first, I thought that you were saying that the organization of the plot in the books was better than the organization in the movie. Maybe you could try and make this paragraph a little clearer. I also think you need at least a few more points to explore to make this a deep enough essay. Good job! Kelsey Till September 13, 2008, at 05:21 PM
You nicely explained the ability of Jackson to be able to use materials in the book and come up with a stream line of events the follow chronologically. You did not make mention of the ending of the book and you should include this in your final paper. Trudy Antwi September 16, 2008, at 11:26 PM
It was an enormous undertaking for Peter Jackson to try and emulate the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy from book, to a living, breathing film-phenomenon. One can imagine how difficult a project like that could be, even for a director as ambitious as Jackson. There was a myriad of complications and pitfalls involved before the culmination of the trilogy, especially “The Return of the King.”
Initially, the organization of the plot in the books would have to be edited to better suit the medium of film. For example, in the film version of “Return of the King,” Gollum leads Frodo and Sam up the passage of Cirith Ungol where Sam is abandoned by Frodo, but returns to his aid to fight Shelob. This was changed from the chapters in the book for a few reasons. The first reason was likely a decision to more evenly spread out the separate plot lines of the different groups of characters. An entire half of the novel, “The Two Towers” was devoted to just the adventure of Frodo and Sam, while the rest was branched off between Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, as well as Merry and Pippin in Fangorn forest. That’s quite a lot of material for just two characters, so to even out the screen time for both parties some run off from one movie had to be sorted into the next. The same applies for the events after Helm’s Deep and during Isengard. All of which were moved from “The Two Towers” to “The Return of the King.” The second reason for the change in the plot was to put more of an emphasis on Sam’s love for Frodo. This quality of Sam wasn’t shown as well as Jackson hoped for, and this scenario where Sam goes back out of love for his master was enough in his eyes to fully show it.
Other important plot elements and characterization were omitted from the “Return of the King.” Most notable is the scouring of the Shire, which included the acts that made Pippin and Merry heroes in the Shire, and the death of Saruman and Wormtongue. This event was shown in the beginning of the film at Isengard. Also, Merry’s relationship with Theoden was very truncated. In the book, Merry was dubbed an esquire of Theoden and he was a father figure for the Hobbit.
Another difficulty that was faced by the team was that of scale. In “The Lord of the Rings” there are a multitude of races of all shapes and sizes. The problem with this is that most human actors are the same general size. There are a few solutions to this problem. For instance, a very simple camera trick used to make hobbits and dwarves look smaller than humans, elves, and wizards is forced perspective. It involves putting one actor farther away from another and shooting the scene with a fixed camera. Objects father away seem smaller, so by making the distance of a hobbit one and a third times father away from the camera than a human, the hobbit will look a lot smaller. Body doubles were used when forced perspective could not be used, and computer generated imaging was used when no other options were available.
I still need to go over the film’s commentary and skim through the book again as well. These were the major points on the tip of my tongue so I’m going to use this as a springboard for the final copy.
Brian Nacov September 10, 2008, at 10:58 PM
