Which scene are you referring to? If it's the scene at Isengard, after Helm's Deep, it's in the Extended Edition of Return of the King.Originally Posted by GarethKPengelly
The Extended Editions are the only ones worth watching, especially for fans of the book.
Gandalf outside the tower, Saruman at the top.
Saruman turns to leave.
Gandalf cries: "I did not give you permission to leave!" and drags him back with magic before breaking his staff.
There were some major changes to Aragorn's character (among others). Aragorn becomes a much more "modern", angst-ridden hero rather than the classical leader and man of destiny he is in the books.
Yeah... It's in the movie, dude.
Extended Edition of Return of the King. Amazing scene.
An awesome scene, that. In fact, I might say I preferred the end of Saruman and Grima in the extended version, to their ends as originally written in the book.
The Elves of Lorien did turn back several attacks by Sauron's forces during the War of the Ring. I saw their inclusion at Helm's Deep as a nod to the idea that this wasn't just Men fighting all the battles. And watching them give up immortality to die on the walls, when they could have simply headed West over the Sea, really added some poignancy to the film.
But Movie Aragorn's journey from questioning that destiny to ultimately accepting it is a much more satisfying cinematic arc than having him be unfailingly wise and noble from the get-go. Same thing with the changes to Faramir; if this heretofore unseen character comes along and says, "The Ring? Eh, I wouldn't touch it," what does that make of Frodo's struggle? Having Faramir covet the Ring but then make the conscious choice to resist and let Frodo go is a much stronger contrast to Boromir, and a much more satisfying cinematic moment, especially given the prominence the character has in the last two films.
I'm torn on this one because I really wanted to see the battle with the Hobbits and that only happens if Saruman is in Hobbiton.
Perhaps I am the only one in the whole wide world, but I thought the movies--for anyone who had read the books--ineffably horrible. There were some few good landscape establishing shots that were nice, but the plot was shrunken and the characterizations virtually sophomoric parodies of the folk in the book.
It was more or less the fantasy equivalent of exploding spaceships. Yay! A Big Battle! Skateboarding elves! Cross-eyed-drunk dwarves! Sword-swinging hot babes! Face-sucking kisses for the hero! Hoorah!
Yecchh.
I, for one, found the movies an incredible adaptation to the books. Considering the depth and scale of Tolkien's world, Jackson did a brilliant job in capturing Tolkien's vision for his world. Costumes and filming locations in New Zealand were probably one of my favourite past of the movies. I remember flicking through the concept art of Weta Workshops on the Extended DVDs for ours, just perusing through the designs.
However, one of biggest things the films omitted was the conclusion of the War of the Ring at the Shire which in the books actually is quite climatic, and is pretty neat because the War comes full circle geographically. It also high-lights the Hobbits' resiliency, a feat that doesn't go un-mentioned in the films, however.
Granted, the topic is a bit older, but some of the same discussions were being had a few years ago here:
Movie vs. book [LOTR]
Yeah, I agree. I think he did such a good job on capturing the feel and essence of Middle Earth that any changes that were in it that I did notice didn't bother me much. I feel the opposite in some ways about the Game of Thrones adaption with how they leave out much of the world building trappings from the series, but then again, maybe it's just because less time has gone by from me reading the books to seeing the adaption.
This is going to sound rather silly, but the LOTR films were LOTR films, not LOTR books. There are things you can do in a novel that simply won't fly on film. Like, for instance, completely stop your narrative's sense of urgency while Frodo hangs out with Tom Bombadil. Or follow up the epic Battle of the Pelennor with another hour detailing the Scouring of the Shire. Those definitely add thematic depth to the book, but a film simply doesn't have the time or structure for those things.
What the films did so right in my mind was stay true to the spirit of Tolkien if not the absolute letter of what he wrote. The changes felt right, even if they were obviously changes.
Biggest difference is the books are ungodly mindnumbing and boring whereas the movies aren't
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