Yes, yes, but should not this thread be in Movie Mayhem???
Well... this shall be
quite a list of changes I would make.
Let us start with FoTR...
•Arwen in place of Glorfindel. ○ I find this usurpage upsetting to the nth power. Firstly because Glorfindel is a powerful figure, and aide to the fellowship. He was unjustly taken out of the movie.
○Arwen being in place of Glorfindel, at least to me, takes away from her mystery and awe which one obtains for Arwen in the book. Instead of being a creature of majesty and wonder to behold, she has become fairly trite and
quite annoying.
○Looking at this from the perspective of why Peter Jackson usurped Glorfindel with Arwen: to portray women having strong roles. I shall make my point from the master's own works. Éowyn. Why did we have her, if not to show that women had strong roles in LotR? hmmm.
•Tom Bombadil ○While the main reason for the scene in the old forest to be taken out of the movie was the loss of time, I do believe that the Old Forest gives us a taste of many things which may not have been percieved in the movies. Example, Merry's knowledge of the lands of and bordering the Shire. Old Man Willow, could this be a tie-in to the Ents???
•Glamdring ○From references in The Hobbit, we find that Glamdring is indeed a sword of elven craft, thusly, Glamdring should also glow within certain proximity to Orcs, as does Sting. In fact, it is blatantly stated that Glamdring had a white glow during these occurances. Was it so hard to make one more sword glow? Apparently so.
•Frodo's Elvish ○We know in fact that in the movie there is no meeting with Gildor and the elves. This, I believe is important to show Frodo's difference from other hobbits, by indeed being labeled elf-friend and knowing of the high-elvish tongue.
○By taking this scene out, one cannot assume that Frodo knew any elvish at all, or was any different from the rest of the hobbits. Although the scene in Moria containing "What's the elvish word for 'friend'" is included in the book, in the movie this makes it seem that Frodo in fact has no knowledge of the elven tongue.
○Also called to my attention is that the particular scenes where Frodo speaks elvish, were in fact filmed, but cut out of the movie. What spawned this descision?
•Merry and Pippin ○The dear hobbits were reduced to no more than two stupid little children in the movie, showing barely any knowledge at all. I must point out that this is especially apparent in Pippin.
○Going along with Pippin, we come to the well in Moria. Now, what would be so hard about showing Pippin's true curiousity in the
well itself and not and arrow on a cobweb-covered skeleton. Pippin's deed was not accident, but intentional, though the results more than likely not what he had in mind.
○Now for Merry, in FotR (movie) Merry comes off as an "I'm with stupid" type character. His individuality seems to have been stripped from him, which has caused many a person to mistake the two hobbits.
•Lothlorien ○While I don't mind the movie version, I do think that by skipping a good portion of the book, we lose a bit of the majesty of the place, and the peoples of Lorien.
A minor note: As I have looked up some of the exact elvish, I note that the translations are not quite consistent. I refer to the line "Frodo fír...." I may be wrong but the translation and the actual elvish seem to vary a bit. Otherwise the elvish seems alright to me.
Don't get me wrong, I love the movies, and I think for the most part PJ did a wonderful job on them thus far, but I do think that without some of the aforementioned, those who have not read the books lose some of what Tolkien intended originally.
I'll be back with The Two Towers, and believe me, there is much, much more than FotR. This saddens me.