Comparing Wheel of Time to other fantasy adaptations

[AdamA]

Early season 2 reviews are coming in for The Witcher. 20/21 positive so far, 95% Tomatometer. Huge improvement over a first season where the consensus seemed to be it's fun if it's your thing, but the expo dumps were silly, timeline was confusing, and it introduced way too much world way too fast and confused non-book readers. Got that out of the way and seems to have its stride.

 

I think a similar trajectory is the best possible case here. Many fans don't seem to want to admit it, and maybe it's more that I didn't read these books until my 30s when all child-eyed wonder was gone from my brain and I'd been exposed to every trope out there from a thousand sources, but I always found Eye of the the World kind of hackneyed and generic and didn't get hooked until midway through Shadow Rising and on where it turned to a truly great series in my eyes. I went through a period of several years not even picking back up because the first two bored me so much, but I figured there had to be a reason it was such a giant in reputation and basically fantasy canon, so I kept going until it got good.

[DaddyFinn]

7 minutes ago, AdamA said:

Early season 2 reviews are coming in for The Witcher. 20/21 positive so far, 95% Tomatometer. Huge improvement over a first season where the consensus seemed to be it's fun if it's your thing, but the expo dumps were silly, timeline was confusing, and it introduced way too much world way too fast and confused non-book readers. Got that out of the way and seems to have its stride.

This is great news! I liked the first season but it was as you described. The trailer alone (minus the moder rap song..) looks awesome ?

[Elder_Haman]

There's no question that the series didn't really start to hit its stride until Book 3. And there's no doubt that all of the best moments happen later. (The one possible exception is Rand falling into the palace gardens. It is one of my favorite scenes of any book - sad that it didn't make it into the show, but I get it).

 

My biggest criticism at this point is in the writing - I think they need to tighten it up a bit and make it feel more connected and organic. But I often find that to be the case with the first season of shows I like. It has definitely been true of Rafe's other two projects: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D improved substantially in its second season. So did Chuck. 

[Jaysen Gore]

26 minutes ago, Elder_Haman said:

There's no question that the series didn't really start to hit its stride until Book 3. And there's no doubt that all of the best moments happen later. (The one possible exception is Rand falling into the palace gardens. It is one of my favorite scenes of any book - sad that it didn't make it into the show, but I get it).

 

My biggest criticism at this point is in the writing - I think they need to tighten it up a bit and make it feel more connected and organic. But I often find that to be the case with the first season of shows I like. It has definitely been true of Rafe's other two projects: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D improved substantially in its second season. So did Chuck. 

I think that will be a lot easier in season 2, since the characters are in different storylines for most of time time. That mean you can jump them forward in time simply by spending time in the other story, instead of the kind of treatment Moiraine got in episode 6, in back to back scenes that are separated by hours.

 

There's a bunch of other reasons I'm optimistic for Seasons 2+, as long as they don't screw up the whole plot in the next 2 episodes, but that'll be a topic for the new year.

[DojoToad]

2 hours ago, Masha said:

I watched, light help me I did. Some of you think that Rafe butchered WoT? Its NOTHING compared with what was done to Foundation story!

However production quality is way beyond WOT, Expanse level or higher. Story, if you accept that producers just took general outline of books and run with it, is actually OK too .

I too watched the first several episodes of Foundation.  It's been so long since reading the books that I don't remember how different the show is for better or worse, but I agree that production quality was high.

[DojoToad]

3 hours ago, Gothic Flame said:

The first three; 

 

 

These made for some damn good reading...

Dang.  Remember reading so much DragonLance.  Wonder how they would hold up now that I'm on the wrong side of 50?

[Kudzu]

3 hours ago, AdamA said:

Early season 2 reviews are coming in for The Witcher. 20/21 positive so far, 95% Tomatometer. Huge improvement over a first season where the consensus seemed to be it's fun if it's your thing, but the expo dumps were silly, timeline was confusing, and it introduced way too much world way too fast and confused non-book readers. Got that out of the way and seems to have its stride.

 

I think a similar trajectory is the best possible case here. Many fans don't seem to want to admit it, and maybe it's more that I didn't read these books until my 30s when all child-eyed wonder was gone from my brain and I'd been exposed to every trope out there from a thousand sources, but I always found Eye of the the World kind of hackneyed and generic and didn't get hooked until midway through Shadow Rising and on where it turned to a truly great series in my eyes. I went through a period of several years not even picking back up because the first two bored me so much, but I figured there had to be a reason it was such a giant in reputation and basically fantasy canon, so I kept going until it got good.

 

Interesting, I think I was 15 or 16 and Lord of the Rings was the only adult fantasy I'd read prior to Eye of the World. So for me EotW and WoT in general are kind of the base from which all the tropes originate. EotW is one of the my favourites because of the nostalgia it invokes when I read it, but I can certainly recognise it's genericness now. 

[Scarloc99]

4 hours ago, Masha said:

I watched, light help me I did. Some of you think that Rafe butchered WoT? Its NOTHING compared with what was done to Foundation story!

However production quality is way beyond WOT, Expanse level or higher. Story, if you accept that producers just took general outline of books and run with it, is actually OK too .

Foundation was harder to adapt then wot. Especially the first book I was pretty happy with the attempt they made, it moved at a snails place, but getting to see the fall of trantor, more of the creation of the foundation rather then massive time jumps was good. But, the end of the last episode I am going to have to wait to see just why they made that massive change. 

[Scarloc99]

On 12/12/2021 at 7:14 AM, Chivalry said:

This series will always hold a special place in my heart...discovered the first trilogy soon after the books came out, as a young teen. I'm not sure I've ever read a less derivative, more unique fantasy series.

I agree - it will probably never be adapted. Any adaptation would likely require erasure of the events that led our anti-hero on his path to self-loathing and regret. 

GOT has shown you can have those dark moments on screen, I just don’t know if the series has enough popularity to have someone invest in it. 

[Scarloc99]

There are a few Tom Holt books I would love to see turned into movies or Series. 

[ArrylT]

16 minutes ago, Sir_Charrid said:

There are a few Tom Holt books I would love to see turned into movies or Series. 

 

I was going to say that is a name I am unfamiliar with, but I see he has the pseudonym of K.J. Parker and 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City is on my list to read. 

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

8 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

It's a good way to look at culture, since the object being observed (the original story) is constant, and what changes is the people interpreting it, and the audience they are interpreting it for.  And even psychology, since what people end up emphasizing reveals a great deal about how they think as individuals.

Or (as Stephen Fry as Doctor Gordon Gordon-Wyatt in Bones points out) a book written by a person reveals a great deal more about that person than it does about the subject of the book - so the analysis is more revealing of the bias of the reviewer than it is of the bias of the thing reviewed.

 

*** hastily backtracking *** actually scrub that since it would make these fora a complete waste of time.  Other than for me as an enjoyable exercise in pedantry.

Edited December 16, 2021 by bringbackthomsmoustache
corrected where the parenthesis ended (yes I am that pedantic)

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

2 hours ago, ArrylT said:

2 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

There are a few Tom Holt books I would love to see turned into movies or Series. 

 

I was going to say that is a name I am unfamiliar with, but I see he has the pseudonym of K.J. Parker and 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City is on my list to read. 

Tom Holt was the name used for the earlier humorous fantasy novels (generally juxtaposing a fantasy scenario into the modern world - e.g. "expecting someone taller" in which a modern no hope-er stumbles on the Wagnerian ring of the volsungs and tarnhelm) - the K J  Parker books are so totally different in style and tone that the choice of a different pen name was a very good idea.

 

[ArrylT]

I just recently watched Episode 1 of S1 of The Witcher.

 

It is pretty difficult to grade a show on 1 episode vs another show on 1 episode.

 

But in this case The Wheel of Time did beat The Witcher in one very key metric (for me).   My significant other currently has no desire to watch any more The Witcher.    She is a major LOTR fan (books & movies), loves GOT, and has become a big WoT show fan (to the point that she is making t-shirts & other stuff, re-watching episodes on her own & getting ready to read EOTWf).   But 1 and done with Witcher as a show.

 

Personally if I had to grade both after 1 episode I would do it like such

 

Acting:  Edge to Wheel of Time

Cinematography:  Edge to Wheel of Time

Action:  Slight edge to The Witcher

Plot: Edge to Wheel of Time*

Writing:  Slight edge to Wheel of Time

Tone:  Edge to The Witcher 

Character attachment:  Major edge to Wheel of Time

 

My biggest "dislike" of the Witcher after 1 episode is that

 

Spoiler

Multiple Characters came off as very unlikeable, and a couple seemed to straight out be liars.  IE they'd make a promise or describe something & it was completely fabricated.    Ex:  Queen of Cintra tells her granddaughter she'll know when she (the Queen) will be dead.  Then she goes and falls out of a window slightly later on.   Impact to Ciri?   Nada.   

 

* - admittedly I have the benefit of having read the books (but she did not and neither did several of our friends) however for me at least the holes in the Witcher Plot are easy to notice and I am not looking for them because I have no desire to dislike The Witcher, so that was interesting.

 

I will keep watching The Witcher on my own.   But I think while WoT had some flaws in the first episode, it was a lot easier to deal with, because of my past attachment to the books, to be able to be accepting, and with re-watches enjoy the show more & more.   But when judging Witcher Ep1 on simply fantasy entertainment it was somewhat lacking (but like a 6/10 not a 1/10).   I simply feel no sense of compulsion to keep watching.  There where things that bugged me about The Boys after Ep1 but none of which to the point were keeping me from wanting to continue then and there.   But to each our own right?   

 

Anyways lots of time over the next months to keep enjoying my re-read of the book series, further re-watches of S1 and enjoy all the WoT show content out there.   

[Kalessin]

If you want to see a fantasy adaption that leaves very little of the original story intact, you must see the film of The Dark Tower. That's right - it's one film, and covers most of The Wolves of the Calla, and very little else. Certainly very little of the The Gunslinger; and it's only got Roland and Jake; Eddie Dean and Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker are conspicuous by their absence.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Kalessin

[fra85uk]

Only considering the adaptation part, this is possibly one of the worst adaptations of all times for me.

Legend of seeker of course is, generally speaking, a worse show.

[Raal Gurniss]

39 minutes ago, fra85uk said:

Only considering the adaptation part, this is possibly one of the worst adaptations of all times for me.

Legend of seeker of course is, generally speaking, a worse show.

Deathland’s was the worst adaptation of all time for me, although WoT could be considered worse given the the (assuming) higher budget and amount of changes.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Raal Gurniss
Additional.

[Scarloc99]

On 12/15/2021 at 7:29 PM, AdamA said:

Early season 2 reviews are coming in for The Witcher. 20/21 positive so far, 95% Tomatometer. Huge improvement over a first season where the consensus seemed to be it's fun if it's your thing, but the expo dumps were silly, timeline was confusing, and it introduced way too much world way too fast and confused non-book readers. Got that out of the way and seems to have its stride.

 

I think a similar trajectory is the best possible case here. Many fans don't seem to want to admit it, and maybe it's more that I didn't read these books until my 30s when all child-eyed wonder was gone from my brain and I'd been exposed to every trope out there from a thousand sources, but I always found Eye of the the World kind of hackneyed and generic and didn't get hooked until midway through Shadow Rising and on where it turned to a truly great series in my eyes. I went through a period of several years not even picking back up because the first two bored me so much, but I figured there had to be a reason it was such a giant in reputation and basically fantasy canon, so I kept going until it got good.

However Witcher season 2 dumps on the books and lore totally, entire stories are just made up most of the book it is based on are ignored. It is the Witcher in that it has the characters but it is not an adaptation in any way. 

[EasingTheBadger]

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

However Witcher season 2 dumps on the books and lore totally, entire stories are just made up most of the book it is based on are ignored. It is the Witcher in that it has the characters but it is not an adaptation in any way. 

So, just like WoT season 1 for some folks. ?

[Jaysen Gore]

  

9 hours ago, Tamal said:

The changes made to The Lord of the Rings are miniscule compared to the complete rewriting we have seen in season one of the WoT-show. I was an absolute nerd about the Tolkien books and remembered even the most ridiculous details from the books, including Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and the other less known ones. I remember being shakingly nervous when going to the cinema to see the first one.

 

I loved it. They had removed inconsequential things to focus on the core of the story, and all the characters had their personalities intact. I still found the main characters from the book in the movie appealing, and none had their reputations damaged or big scenes taken away. 

 

In the WoT-show on the other hand, we have the equivalent of Legolas taking down the Balrog in Moria instead of Gandalf. And it's just the tip of an iceberg of disgraceful decisions made by the showrunners. A crying shame. 

Moving my response since this might be better suited in the adaptation thread. And to show how personal head canon can be, I would say that WoT has not yet made any single change anywhere near as massive as the decision to cut the Scouring of the Shire and leave the hobbits at home innocent of the horrors of war and industrialization. While I despise the Battle of Tarwin's Gap, it certainly didn't eliminate one of the major themes of the entire series by having the women do it instead of Rand.

 

I also don't think they left Gimli's personality intact ("throw me!"). They gave Faramir an entire movie's worth of "I'm taking the ring" because Jackson didn't think anyone could be that good. All while killing Saruman off screen and turning Helm's Deep - with help from the Elves even!- into a sixth of the entire series by run time. He had Sam leave Frodo on the stairs, and had Frodo stare down one of the 9 in Osgiliath, which would have been the ballgame. Fellowship may have a higher degree of fidelity, but the series as a whole didn't.

 

And for the record - I think LoTR was a much easier project than WoT will be. It has fewer cityscapes and locations / costumes, fewer cultures, far fewer named characters (there are more Aes Sedai in the books who will matter than all the named characters in LoTR), and to be honest, a lot less magic and SFX shots to be added in post production. And for all that it was a brutal 18 months of principle photography, LoTR was over and done with in about 2 1/2 years rom the time filming started. WoT will be a 10 year commitment for all involved.

 

Now - compare both of these series to the Harry Potter series, which has a much higher degree of fidelity. But they also were simpler in plot, tone, character, and setting. And had a built in audience that dwarf's WoT or LOTR, so more fidelity was both possible and required.

[Scarloc99]

6 hours ago, EasingTheBadger said:

So, just like WoT season 1 for some folks. ?

Oh no it is far far worse, as much as changes have been made the main story is at least based on what happens in the books. 

[Scarloc99]

2 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

  

Moving my response since this might be better suited in the adaptation thread. And to show how personal head canon can be, I would say that WoT has not yet made any single change anywhere near as massive as the decision to cut the Scouring of the Shire and leave the hobbits at home innocent of the horrors of war and industrialization. While I despise the Battle of Tarwin's Gap, it certainly didn't eliminate one of the major themes of the entire series by having the women do it instead of Rand.

 

I also don't think they left Gimli's personality intact ("throw me!"). They gave Faramir an entire movie's worth of "I'm taking the ring" because Jackson didn't think anyone could be that good. All while killing Saruman off screen and turning Helm's Deep - with help from the Elves even!- into a sixth of the entire series by run time. He had Sam leave Frodo on the stairs, and had Frodo stare down one of the 9 in Osgiliath, which would have been the ballgame. Fellowship may have a higher degree of fidelity, but the series as a whole didn't.

 

And for the record - I think LoTR was a much easier project than WoT will be. It has fewer cityscapes and locations / costumes, fewer cultures, far fewer named characters (there are more Aes Sedai in the books who will matter than all the named characters in LoTR), and to be honest, a lot less magic and SFX shots to be added in post production. And for all that it was a brutal 18 months of principle photography, LoTR was over and done with in about 2 1/2 years rom the time filming started. WoT will be a 10 year commitment for all involved.

 

Now - compare both of these series to the Harry Potter series, which has a much higher degree of fidelity. But they also were simpler in plot, tone, character, and setting. And had a built in audience that dwarf's WoT or LOTR, so more fidelity was both possible and required.

Even Harry Potter has things cut and changed as you progress through the series. 
 

But I am in complete agreement, to my mind, had LOTR been made when the internet was where it is now I have no doubt you would be seeing the same arguments being made by some about the changes. 

[Tamal]

5 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

  

Moving my response since this might be better suited in the adaptation thread. And to show how personal head canon can be, I would say that WoT has not yet made any single change anywhere near as massive as the decision to cut the Scouring of the Shire and leave the hobbits at home innocent of the horrors of war and industrialization. While I despise the Battle of Tarwin's Gap, it certainly didn't eliminate one of the major themes of the entire series by having the women do it instead of Rand.

 

I also don't think they left Gimli's personality intact ("throw me!"). They gave Faramir an entire movie's worth of "I'm taking the ring" because Jackson didn't think anyone could be that good. All while killing Saruman off screen and turning Helm's Deep - with help from the Elves even!- into a sixth of the entire series by run time. He had Sam leave Frodo on the stairs, and had Frodo stare down one of the 9 in Osgiliath, which would have been the ballgame. Fellowship may have a higher degree of fidelity, but the series as a whole didn't.

 

And for the record - I think LoTR was a much easier project than WoT will be. It has fewer cityscapes and locations / costumes, fewer cultures, far fewer named characters (there are more Aes Sedai in the books who will matter than all the named characters in LoTR), and to be honest, a lot less magic and SFX shots to be added in post production. And for all that it was a brutal 18 months of principle photography, LoTR was over and done with in about 2 1/2 years rom the time filming started. WoT will be a 10 year commitment for all involved.

 

Now - compare both of these series to the Harry Potter series, which has a much higher degree of fidelity. But they also were simpler in plot, tone, character, and setting. And had a built in audience that dwarf's WoT or LOTR, so more fidelity was both possible and required.

Good move. Definitely better suited here!

As for your post:

 

Not suprisingly, my favourite movie is the first one. Yet, even though the last two aren't as good, the equivalency simply does not exist. Someone with time on their hands could of course tabulate locations the two different "fellowships" travel to, characters they meet, and divide them (as you allude to with you Helm's Deep argument) by text spent on them in the books, but the LotR movies would simply come out vastly higher on a "adaption scale"-variable. I don't have that time, but if you have read both the EotW and LotR recentlt, that is easily apparent.

 

Some small examples are Caemlyn, Elayne, Morgase, Elyas, Elaida being completely absent in the show. 

 

The comparison makes even less sense when you then factor in changes to the story from the EotW (books). The rulebreakings of healing, saidin/saidar, the "breaking of the fellowship" before the Eye of the World. Aginor and Balthamel gone, Stepin as a major character, Liandrin in the woods as opposed to in Tar Valon. Tar Valon itself. Perrin killing his wife.

 

It is an argument without merit in my view. 

 

Now, the worst crimes the show does, together with the changes to the story and the book's very soul, is how it absolutely decimates critical developmental moments in the characters and the characters motivations. 

 

Gimli is not character assassinated in the movies because he provides some extra laughter. He also does that in the books. He is shown both places to be a proud, fierce, honourable, trusty companion that also provides comic relief. I would have loved to seen more of Faramir in the movies, and that they had not dragged out the ring debacle. Still: He is honourable, he does'nt die, he rejects the ring. He is intact. 

 

The Scouring of the Shire. I'm thankful that they skipped that one in the movie, even though it meant they had to let Saruman and Grima go in another way. Still, Saruman as a figure is intact. His motivations, his personality, his main arc is the same. It gave them time to focus on more important things from the books in the story.

 

In the EotW show, Lan is extremely more incompetent than in the books. Mat is somehow inherently evil, instead of shouting out war cries in the old tongue and shooting trollocs with arrows. Rand has almost no struggles with the questions of his parentage. Elaidas questioning, the dialogue with Gawyn, gone. He has lost his defining moment at the end. 

Perrin kills his non-existant wife. I could go on. 

 

Even though the adaption level of EotW(show) vs LotR (movies) is a useless comparison in my view, the most important thing, and saddest, is that the EotW show is just a terrible show. 

Compared to e.g. Game of Thrones, Lord of The Rings, which are great shows and movies. 

 

 

 

 

 

[EmreY]

5 hours ago, Sir_Charrid said:

had LOTR been made when the internet

 

Thanks for making me feel old.  However, LoTR was made when the internet was around. ? And these discussions here are very familiar to me.

 

 

55 minutes ago, Tamal said:

Good move. Definitely better suited here!

As for your post:

 

Not suprisingly, my favourite movie is the first one. Yet, even though the last two aren't as good, the equivalency simply does not exist. Someone with time on their hands could of course tabulate locations the two different "fellowships" travel to, characters they meet, and divide them (as you allude to with you Helm's Deep argument) by text spent on them in the books, but the LotR movies would simply come out vastly higher on a "adaption scale"-variable. I don't have that time, but if you have read both the EotW and LotR recentlt, that is easily apparent.

 

Some small examples are Caemlyn, Elayne, Morgase, Elyas, Elaida being completely absent in the show. 

 

The comparison makes even less sense when you then factor in changes to the story from the EotW (books). The rulebreakings of healing, saidin/saidar, the "breaking of the fellowship" before the Eye of the World. Aginor and Balthamel gone, Stepin as a major character, Liandrin in the woods as opposed to in Tar Valon. Tar Valon itself. Perrin killing his wife.

 

It is an argument without merit in my view. 

 

Now, the worst crimes the show does, together with the changes to the story and the book's very soul, is how it absolutely

55 minutes ago, Tamal said:

decimates critical developmental moments

and the characters motivations. 

 

Gimli is not character assassinated in the movies because he provides some extra laughter. He also does that in the books. He is shown both places to be a proud, fierce, honourable, trusty companion that also provides comic relief. I would have loved to seen more of Faramir in the movies, and that they had not dragged out the ring debacle. Still: He is honourable, he does'nt die, he rejects the ring. He is intact. 

 

The Scouring of the Shire. I'm thankful that they skipped that one in the movie, even though it meant they had to let Saruman and Grima go in another way. Still, Saruman as a figure is intact. His motivations, his personality, his main arc is the same. It gave them time to focus on more important things from the books in the story.

 

In the EotW show, Lan is extremely more incompetent than in the books. Mat is somehow inherently evil, instead of shouting out war cries in the old tongue and shooting trollocs with arrows. Rand has almost no struggles with the questions of his parentage. Elaidas questioning, the dialogue with Gawyn, gone. He has lost his defining moment at the end. 

Perrin kills his non-existant wife. I could go on. 

 

Even though the adaption level of EotW(show) vs LotR (movies) is a useless comparison in my view, the most important thing, and saddest, is that the EotW show is just a terrible show. 

Compared to e.g. Game of Thrones, Lord of The Rings, which are great shows and movies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Major character differences books-to-film

 

Gimli goes from being occasionally comical because he's out of his depth or place to a Disney comedy sidekick, who is funny because he gets thrown or has armour that is too big for him.

 

Legolas becomes a circus performer.

 

Aragorn goes from being "Aragorn son of Arathorn, the heir of Isildur, Elendil's son" (repeat at every intro and at various other points) to "the same weakness is in me, I am not worthy".  And where are the hands of a healer?  Half the reason Stuart Townsend was let go was because he wanted to play book Aragorn rather than the film.  Aragorn does not take a deep breath of responsibility settling on him when crowned.  In the book there are four heroes - Gandalf (the spiritual), Aragorn (the temporal) and Frodo and Sam (the practical).  In the films, the man who is supposed to lead the world in the Age of Man comes off eaxctly as Denethor describes him.

 

Denethor goes from tragic and complex figure to bad guy gorging himself while he sends his son out on a suicide mission.  Gandalf orders the beacons be lit?

 

Wormtongue goes from being poisonous to being generic Brad Dourif.

 

Faramir gets seriously rewritten/downgraded - for no real reason since he comes back to book Faramir.  And as @Jaysen Gore said, Game Over if this results in Frodo coming within biting distance of a fellbeast.

 

Death.  "Far green country" indeed!?  

 

 

Scenes missing / changed

 

Quite a few, but let us not quibble when:

 

The real reason why the Ring was destroyed at the end changes.  Which is kind of a big thing, you know.

 

 

 

 

 

In short, it seems to me that the issue here is not that the LoTR films are particularly faithful (they, IMO naturally, become less so as they progress) but that you consider the changes less important than others do.  You also believe the changes to WoT are greater in magnitude or importance.    

 

You, sir, are no Tolkien purist.

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by EmreY

[Tamal]

49 minutes ago, EmreY said:

 

Thanks for making me feel old.  However, LoTR was made when the internet was around. ? 

 

 

 

Major character differences books-to-film

 

Gimli goes from being occasionally comical because he's out of his depth or place to a Disney comedy sidekick, who is funny because he gets thrown or has armour that is too big for him.

 

Legolas becomes a circus performer.

 

Aragorn goes from being "Aragorn son of Arathorn, the heir of Isildur, Elendil's son" (repeat at every intro and at various other points) to "the same weakness is in me, I am not worthy".  And where are the hands of a healer?  Half the reason Stuart Townsend was let go was because he wanted to play book Aragorn rather than the film.  Aragorn does not take a deep breath of responsibility settling on him when crowned.  In the book there are four heroes - Gandalf (the spiritual), Aragorn (the temporal) and Frodo and Sam (the practical).  In the films, the man who is supposed to lead the world in the Age of Man comes off eaxctly as Denethor describes him.

 

Denethor goes from tragic and complex figure to bad guy gorging himself while he sends his son out on a suicide mission.  Gandalf orders the beacons be lit?

 

Wormtongue goes from being poisonous to being generic Brad Dourif.

 

Faramir gets seriously rewritten/downgraded - for no real reason since he comes back to book Faramir.

 

Death.  "Far green country" indeed!?  

 

 

Scenes missing / changed

 

Aragorn wrests control of the Palantir (which does not backfire); the unfurling of his banner (instead we get the Green Suds of Doom); Houses of Healing and is at least temporarşly acclaimed king; Halbarad & Co;.

 

The Temptation of Samwise Gamgee.

 

The real reason why the Ring was destroyed at the end.  Which is kind of a big thing, you know.

 

 

 

 

 

In short, it seems to me that the issue here is not that the LoTR films are particularly faithful (they, IMO naturally, become less so as they progress) but that you consider the changes less important than others do.  You also believe the changes to WoT are greater in magnitude or importance.    

 

You, sir, are no Tolkien purist.

 

 

 

Great to see someone with true love for the books I too love so much! I do take offense to that last part though, good sir. Tolkien is my favourite writer of all time, and my memory is fine. ? All of those changes I observed and they irritated me, as I can see that they did you, which, I really appreciate. I still think they are done, mostly, with a high degree of respect, and the core of the story is maintained. But yeah, for example the death exposition and the devaluation of Aragorn? Pure irritation.

 

I do however think you bring it absolutely too far when you insinuate that they completely corrupted the real reason the ring was destroyed at the end. Gollum does'nt get pushed, granted, but they do have a fight earlier and he dances around in triumph.

 

In any case, I'll gladly discuss these changes and others, but, most people have'nt got the deep knowledge of the Tolkien books as you have, and the same goes for the Wheel of Time. The problematic issue I am talking about are the big events and the broad strokes of the characters, the thing that people who have only read either of the books only once instantly remember.

 

The second to last paragraph, you got me spot on. Absolutely. I believe that the EotW show decimated the book characters and events several orders of magnitudes more than the LotR adaption. I stand by that. 

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Tamal
Missing letters.