The Lord of the Rings: Books vs. Films

I first read, and fell in love with, the Lord of the Rings trilogy in middle/high school (~20 years ago . . . wow, now I feel old).  About 10 years ago, I immensely enjoyed the films as well.  Recently, I re-read the books and then immediately watched the corresponding films (extended editions, of course) to do a comparison while both were fresh in my mind.  This post is a high-level comparison; as I've posted several times, a nit-picky compare-and-contrast is here.

Notable Differences Between the Books and the Movies

- Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Wights was omitted from the movie (The Fellowship of the Ring)
- The Scouring of the Shire was omitted from the movie (The Return of the King)
- Sam and Frodo's journey through Mordor is vastly condensed in the movies (The Return of the King)
- Arwen's character is hardly mentioned in the books; in the movies, she's a semi-major player throughout, and several minor plot points from the books were modified to include her
- In The Return of the King book, the ring is destroyed about 75% of the way through, the remaining tale being dedicated to cleaning up some things, and dealing with the Scouring of the Shire.  In the movie, the post-ring destruction story is much shorter.
- Shelob's lair is featured in the Two Towers book, but moved to The Return of the King movie
- Saruman is killed at the beginning of the Return of the King movie; in the book, he dies at the end
- The Army of the Dead helps Aragorn kill pirates and commandeer their ships, but their role ends before Minas Tirith in the The Return of the King; in the movie, their role is necessary to win the day at Minas Tirith.
- In many cases lines directly quoted from the books are present in the movies, but who says them, and when, differs
- The movies compress the timelines of several events- like the time between Frodo receiving the ring and Gandalf figuring out what it is (17 years in the book . . . several months in the movie)

I've probably missed a few . . . but the first four above are perhaps the biggest divergences between the tellings.  You'll note that many of these are present in The Return of the King- the movie that (in my opinion) strayed farthest from the novel.

Other Thoughts on (either) Trilogy


I felt as though the films heightened things present in the book- be it tensions in relationships (between Frodo and Sam or Aragorn and Eowyn), goofiness of some characters (Merry and Pippin), size/length of the battles, etc.  If you think of the books as a beautiful photograph, I'd say the films were the same photograph with colors enhanced- things stand out more, and can be cool (when tastefully done), but are occasionally over the top.  Along the same lines, things are intensely "epic-fied" in the films.  Some things that received little fanfare in the books were amplified in the movies.  At times, it's super-cool.  At times, it's silly.  In the end, though, both the books and films are fantastic.  The differences present may enrage the passionate Lord of the Rings junkie, but overall I thought Peter Jackson did a superb job bringing Middle-Earth to life.  The scenes, the sets, the battles, the music- all is top-notch.

Were the Lord of the Rings published today, would it meet with the same success?  I pondered that several times as I read it through.  Today's popular fantasy is more wordy and epic, in a sense- Tolkien deals with epic concepts but doesn't dwell on them- opting instead to move the story along.  Kings of old, ruined cities, and lost civilizations are mentioned but not expounded upon.  I think George R.R. Martin, were this his tale, would tell it over 10 books (which would take him 40 years to write, and everyone would end up dead, as an aside).  Most modern fantasy writers, I'd argue, would be more along Martin's lines than Tolkien's . . . but sometimes the old ways are the best.

Final thought: do you think the movies will ever be re-made?  My intial response was "absolutely not," followed by a "well . . ."  I think, in 30 years, we will see another run of Lord of the Rings movies, another Harry Potter saga, etc . . . because that's what Hollywood does.  That said, though, it's hard to see them improving on the present offering.