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| - The writers of the motion pictures faced some significant challenges in bringing Tolkien's work to the big screen. Not the least of these was the enormous scale of the story. The Lord of the Rings is a very lengthy story that was, itself, derived from a fictional universe of prodigious dimensions. In it, an entirely original world of the author's manufacture forms the backdrop, and many compromises to the story were required to successfully adapt it to the medium of film. The reason for Arwen, Eowyn, and Galadriel's extra roles are possibly to give women more screentime.
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| abstract
| - The writers of the motion pictures faced some significant challenges in bringing Tolkien's work to the big screen. Not the least of these was the enormous scale of the story. The Lord of the Rings is a very lengthy story that was, itself, derived from a fictional universe of prodigious dimensions. In it, an entirely original world of the author's manufacture forms the backdrop, and many compromises to the story were required to successfully adapt it to the medium of film. Soon after the release of the first movie, controversy began to arise over deviations in the screenplay from Tolkien's own story. Key characters such as Glorfindel and Tom Bombadil were absent, and substantial parts of the story were completely missing. Moreover, characters that were present, such as Elrond, Aragorn, and Gandalf, were substantially altered. The release of The Two Towers took this even further with deviations in character development and major plot elements becoming more significant. Finally, with the release of The Return of the King, more differences appeared and critical plot conclusions were either reduced or removed. The overall effect of the entire movie series was that it told a story that was recognizably that of Tolkien's, but it did so with major thematic and other differences. These differences were not, however, of any importance to the movie's target audience— the enormous worldwide movie going public most of whom knew nothing of the story. Despite the differences, The Lord of the Rings motion pictures are beautiful and stunning epic movies that tell a great story in their own right. The fact that the movies are a great achievement of movie-making is due, in part, to some of the changes that were required for screen adaptation. The most understandable differences in the screenplay from the story are those that were required to contract the duration of the film and keep up its pace. Even with substantial portions of the story excised in the screenplay, the three extended-edition movies have a combined running time of well over eleven hours, and there is arguably enough material not filmed to make a fourth extended-length motion picture. Considering the relative unimportance— to general audiences— of the missing material, it was probably a wise decision to not include it. Another important consideration in filming a motion picture is the pace at which the story moves. For example, the Council of Elrond is a lengthy episode in Tolkien's book, The Fellowship of the Ring, in which much historical material and explanations of off-camera events are provided. The material was presented in a different way that kept the pace of the movie going along as was required for the medium. The reason for Arwen, Eowyn, and Galadriel's extra roles are possibly to give women more screentime. Some differences between the story and the screenplay, however, are less easy to justify. Characters in the screenplay seem to be developed very differently to those in the story. Moreover, major differences of theme exist— differences that do not seem to make sense or be entirely necessary for film adaption. For example, the result of the Entmoot in the movie was that the Ents decided not to go to war, but then the writers used what seems to be (in some people's opinion) a silly and irrational emotional manipulation to get them to do so anyway. It is fair to ask why they could not have just agreed to go to war in the film as their motivations were in the book. On the other hand, the film's creators stated that the scene had been added to make Merry and Pippin more than just baggage, and indeed it does do a good deal to improve their role in the storyline.
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