A couple of days ago, there appeared on Brandywine Books a
conjecture as to a couple of plot changes in Peter Jackson’s film The
Two Towers, to wit, why does Faramir take Frodo back to Osgiliath,
and how come the Ents first decide not to march on Isengard only to
change their minds “hastily”. I thought his conjecture was plausible,
but I’m a book guy not a film guy, so I challenged Ian Hamet, whom as we all know
is a film guy, to give his opinion.

Ian responded with a detailed
and informative post in which he dissects the forces acting on the
screenwriter and director who have the unenviable task of cutting a
massive novel down to size. I won’t repeat his observations here; you
should go read them. But I do have a few comments.

First, I understand that very few novels can be translated to the screen
without significant changes. The two media are extremely different, and
the way in which you tell a story is different. That’s fine, and I don’t
have any trouble with many of the changes that were made for this reason.
As an example, Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring includes many
scenes of Saruman and Isengard that are simply not in the book–but they
are consistent with what we eventually find out in the book. That’s telling the
story in a different way, and it works, and it’s appropriate.

But my view is, if you’re going to bother creating a screen adaptation of
a well-know and much loved novel, you had best tell the same story. Your
inventions should, if at all possible, be consistent with the facts of
the novel; and if they are not consistent with the facts, they should at
least be consistent with the spirit of the novel. And if they can’t be
consistent with the spirit of the novel, they should at least make sense in the context of the movie.

Let’s take the Ents’ decision to march on Isengard upon seeing the
devastation created by Saruman, immediately after the Entmoot decides to
do no such thing. Ian’s opinion is that this is a case of “show, don’t
tell;” the Entmoot’s close decision in favor of not marching is
overturned by showing them–and us–what Saruman has been doing to Fangorn
Forest. Now, I agree with Ian thus far–the devastation, and the Ents’
reaction to it, needs to be shown visually. But I think it could have
been shown without requiring the Ents to make a snap judgement, something
that Ents simply don’t do. For example, the Ents could have closed the
Entmoot with the resolution to investigate further–and then been roused
to full anger when they saw the devastation.

But this is a lesser sin; it bugs me, but in general the right stuff
happens.

Next, take Faramir. Faramir’s purpose in the book is as a constrast to
Boromir. Both are brave; Faramir is also wise. Jackson’s changes relieve Faramir
of a great bit of his wisdom, and weaken the character (among other
things, as we shall see).

Ian argues that Faramir’s decision to take Frodo to Osgiliath adds drama
to Sam and Frodo’s story, drama that is badly
needed there since Jackson moved the Shelob’s Lair sequence that ends Tolkien’s
The Two Towers to the third movie. (Ian explains why moving
Shelob to the third movie was reasonable, and I rather agree with him.)
Ian claims that without the extra drama, Sam and Frodo would have spent
the last half of the movie doing a lot of boring clambering about on
rocks, and the scene with Faramir would have been devoid of drama.

I’m inclined to disagree–and I don’t think Jackson’s feel for how much drama
is needed in a given scene is all that good. Witness, for example, the
collapsing staircase at the end of the Moria sequence in The
Fellowship of the Ring. Our heroes have just fought a cave troll,
Frodo has apparently been impaled, they are being chased by orcs, and
they are about to face a balrog. No additional drama was required.
Similarly, when the balrog’s whip catches Gandalf, he clings to the cliff
for agonizingly long moments; I think it would have been more effective
(as well as truer to the book) if he’d shouted “Fly, you fools!” as he
was falling into the depths, Doppler shift and all.

In fact, I think the Faramir sequence has scope for plenty of drama
without changing its nature; for example, Jackson could have made Faramir
much more reluctant to let Gollum go.

But that’s not the real reason I complain about the Faramir sequence; I
complain about it because it ends up with Frodo in Osgiliath and seen to
be there by a Ringwraith. This simply makes no sense.

First, Jackson is ridiculously bad at conveying how large a place Middle
Earth is. The battle scenes in The Return of the King, for
example, make it look like Minas Morgul is about ten miles away from
Minas Tirith; in fact, it’s about fifty miles. Having Frodo take a
detour to Osgiliath without paying any real time penalty for it is typical.

But OK; grant that the distance is negligible. What’s unforgiveable
about the sequence is the scene in which the Ringwraith confronts Frodo.
As I recall, Frodo is standing on top of a wall, completely exposed. The
Ringwraith has very likely seen him before, at Weathertop; but would
definitely sense the Ring anyway. You can’t tell me that the Ringwraith
wouldn’t have stooped on Frodo like an owl on a mouse and carried him off
to Mordor. Pffft. End of story. Dramatic, yes–but also, absurd and
nonsensical.

Back to you, Ian.