Peter Jackso – I mean, Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring

Currently Reading: The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

I was in 7th grade when The Fellowship of the Ring movie first appeared in theaters. Beyond the tentative excitement my mother felt about it, I had very minimal interest in the release. In fact, I never actually saw The Fellowship of the Ring in theaters. The first time I watched it – with half interest – was right before I went to see The Two Towers a year later, a movie chosen by popular vote among my friends. I don’t remember any real impact from the first film because it was a rushed viewing, done only to understand what I was about to go watch in theaters.

Ahhh… how times have changed.

The Two Towers essentially rocked my middle school self’s world. I saw it three times in theaters. Since then, I have watched the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy more times than I can count – and probably more times than I should ever admit to. They have become a staple in my house; they're some of our go-to movies when we are in the mood to pop something in and we usually agree to the extended versions. While my obsession has never reached the heights of having a wall-sized poster of Orlando Bloom as Legolas in my bedroom – you know who you are – it’s certainly noteworthy.

Seriously, SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!

The point is, I love these movies and I know them pretty much inside out and backwards.

Now here’s the shameful part in all this:

Until about two weeks ago, I had never read any of the books.

I know, Kitty. It's quite shocking.

I’d always meant to, I just had such a bad taste in my mouth from my oh-so-tragic experience reading The Hobbit – refer to my sole December post for that tear-jerking tale – that I had written off Tolkien entirely. My intense love for Peter Jackson’s movie versions couldn’t conquer my irrational hate of Tolkien.

I have now overcome my previous, rather unfounded prejudices towards the author and have finished the first installment of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. What did I think of the book version? Was it better than the movie, as is generally the rule for all books adapted for the big screen?

I honestly can’t tell you.

Because the horrible thing about reading a novel that is the basis for one of your favorite movies is that you cannot, cannot separate the two.

I literally could not get my mind to stop comparing Tolkien’s book with Jackson’s film adaptation. Instead of forming any sort of opinion about the action or the writing, my mind would think, 

“Hmmm… that’s not how that went in the movie.”

Or

“Weird. Gandalf said that line in the movie.”

Or

“That happens so much later in the movie.”

It wracked my brain the whole time!!

In some ways, it was nice having the comparison. Truthfully, I’m not sure I would have stuck it out to Bree – which truly is when the plot picks up in The Fellowship – if I hadn’t known how great the story was. It also made me enjoy some of the extra background bits of information for the characters or the lengthy decision making scenes more than I probably would have originally because it felt like finding extra bonus features on the DVD. It helped me to understand a lot of aspects of the movies I never would have gotten otherwise. Plus, as is always the case, the book allows for more depth in the characters, especially somewhat secondary characters like Legolas and Gimli. For example, I’m not sure I ever really understood that Legolas was from Mirkwood, the same place from which Bilbo had to rescue his dwarf companions in The Hobbit. It’s added a new layer to the story I thought I knew so well… which sounds kind of silly when I think about the fact that the story came from the book so they aren’t really new layers.

However, I reiterate that overall I’m not sure what my opinion of the book is. And that kind of breaks my heart. I feel as if I’ve been deprived of a reading experience and I’m saddened to know that it’s one I can never have. I can’t un-watch the movies and I can’t go back and read the books before I saw the films, or before I knew them so well. I will never know what it feels like to be surprised by the twists and turns of this novel and I’m really disappointed that that is the case.

Not as relevant as I wanted, but way too amused not to share. PS Don't type in "book heartbreak" to your Google Images. It's just depressing the titles that show up.

It’s not completely hopeless, though. I have managed to form one or two opinions of the book and Tolkien’s writing outside of the movie versions. However, I believe I’m going to hold off on voicing them until I’ve completed the whole series in case they become firmer or change entirely by the end of the trilogy.

Hopefully, in the end, I will figure out some trick for separating the book from the movie…

I'd love any helpful hints if you've got them :)

Bizarre Life - of Pi - Decisions

Currently Reading: 1984 by George Orwell

I’m committing Novel Ideas treason a little bit today and discussing a movie rather than a book.

The reason I find this mini act of betrayal excusable is that the movie is a film adaptation of one of my favorite books, a book I’ve actually mentioned more than once in my blog to this point, it’s been that significant to me.

Again, this post includes spoilers, both of the book and of the movie so... you've been warned!

On November 21st, Ang Lee released his film adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel, Life of Pi. This past holiday weekend, my best friend and I saw it.

As strong lovers of the novel, we both knew we were going to see it at some point, if only out of curiosity. However, we entered the theater with a healthy dose of skepticism, a habit of most avid readers who attend movie versions of their cherished novels given that 9 times out of 10, the movie is far inferior to the book.

This inferiority isn't usually the movie creators’ fault, though. A lot of what makes novels better than movies is that they can provide a more detailed, extensive, and personal experience that no movie can based on logistics alone. Aspects of the story almost always have to be cut in a film adaptation because almost no one will sit through a five-hour movie – even if it meant every loved plot point and character could be included. Furthermore, a movie immediately becomes less personal since it doesn’t allow for imagination; the faces of the characters, the way a monster looks, the landscape are all given instead of created within the individual’s mind. Therefore, if a plotline you love is removed from the movie – I’m looking at you The English Patient – or characters don’t look the way you envisioned them – that’s right Weasley twins from Harry Potter – it’s a lot harder for you to love the movie with the same fervor you loved the book.

In short, the film creator is at a severe disadvantage since his audience is much more critical of his work.

While Life of Pi was not nearly on the level of movie adaptation catastrophe as, say, Ella Enchanted (which I will never forgive that director/screenwriter for!), it still had some directorial choices that I just don’t understand. So I’m venting here.

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s not a tremendous amount of action in Life of Pi so I recognize that Ang Lee and David Magee (the screenplay writer) were limited in how action-packed a movie they could make. However, it seemed to me that they decided to spend a disproportionate amount of time on the less interesting aspects of the story. It felt as if Ang Lee was so focused on creating breathtaking visuals that he lost the story. I mean, instead of including the pivotal hallucination that’s actually important to the plot – the first hint that there’s more to the story than first meets the eye – Lee decides to create a fanciful, crazed, glowing vision of fish and zoo animals culminating in a woman’s face and then the wrecked ship at the bottom of the ocean.

Why?? Yes it was beautiful and a good break to the somewhat monotonous scene of Pi in the lifeboat on the ocean endlessly, but why??? Why choose to create this hallucination instead of the one in the story that’s actually relevant?

Then to add to the frustration, after spending about an hour on the repetitive story of Pi’s life at sea, Lee zips right through one of the most fascinating and mysterious parts of the story in about ten minutes. Of course, I’m referring to the illusive meerkat island, the element of the novel that has sparked endless amounts of discussions with my best friend in which we analyze and dissect all the possible meanings for hours. I wish I were exaggerating. Actually, when I heard they were making a movie, I somewhat held on to the fleeting hope that maybe Lee would have gotten together with Martel and be able to explain this bizarre plot point. 

Nope. Lee not only offers no new explanations, he creates absolutely no build up to the big reveal, the fact that the island is carnivorous. Plus, Pi and Richard Parker spend weeks on this island in the novel, but in the movie, they only spend a single night there. Thus there’s no real recovery period and no discovery.

Again, why??? You finally have a great visual and exciting plot point with which to work and you choose not to spend any time on it? Ugh!

My final complaint, and then I will silence myself of the subject, is about Lee’s (or Magee’s, I don’t honestly know who made the choice) addition to the cast of characters. Before leaving India, Pi suddenly has a little love story that appears absolutely nowhere in the novel. In the movie, he becomes bored with his life and then his love, Anandi, brings the change he’s looking for and reinvigorates his life. None of this is necessary in the book because, in the book, Pi’s life is plenty full from his passionate love of religion and God. What’s extra irritating about this addition is that it actually isn’t an addition in any sense to the story. Anandi pretty much never comes up again in the movie. Her relationship with Pi barely impacts his life in the long run and the love story itself doesn’t really add to Lee’s overall message. So why did Lee/Magee decide to waste time on this unimportant, uninteresting puppy love story instead of spending that time explaining meerkat island or adding in the important hallucination or visually explaining the seedy under belly of the story instead of simply having Pi relate it in a monologue?

Overall, the movie wasn’t a gross deviation from the book, which is always a relief, but I’m fairly certain it would be a bore for those who haven’t read the novel or who aren’t fascinating with new visual effects. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure if I would recommend it...

I just don’t understand these choices.

And even worse, I still don’t understand those damn meerkats.