In anticipation of the release of the motion picture version of The Two Towers, I've decided to add my thoughts of last year's Fellowship of the Ring movie, which appeared amid the torrent of fan reviews on TheOneRing.net and somehow got messed up in translation (bad HTML coding, I think).  Though the next installment of the trilogy has yet to premiere, I have a feeling that many of these same feelings are going to hold true this year as well.

Let me begin by saying that I am a writer who has probably done it all.   Written novels, short stories, screenplays, parodies, biographies, poetry, reviews and I've adapted the works of other authors for production on stage or screen.  Writing massive novels that require the detailed creation of a world and all that inhabits it and comprises its cultures is not easy (I've done that, too), but taking the story of another to make it into something that will work in another medium often borders on the impossible.  Most movies actually have the plot length and complexity of a long short story or a novella; you simply can't cram more in without losing far too much to make it unrecognizable as the thing it was when it began literary life.  And it is at this point that the skill and perception of the person/s writing the adaptation become crucial.  Every element needs to be weighed and set against every other element as to importance and necessity in the ultimate goal of the project:  telling the basic and most significant part of the story without losing the heart and soul, and most importantly the message, of the original.

When you're attempting to do this with a work as well-known and beloved as The Lord of the Rings, you're facing a near impossible task.  Somewhere out there, there's going to be a fan who absolutely loves Tom Bombadil, Bill Ferny, Grishnakh, or even Bill the Pony.  There are purists who are going to scream and holler at the slightest omission or alteration of "sacred text."  There will be music and poetry buffs who will weep over the loss of the songs that Tolkien crafted with so much care.  There will be nitpickers who will complain about the casting of so-and-so because no one could possibly measure up to the image they have held in their imaginations for so long.  There will be detractors, because this isn't LotR as they envisioned it to be.

So be it.  It isn't; it can't be, not for people who have known and loved the books for the better part of their lives.  That is an absolute impossibility, no matter how you look at it.  You can't make a movie that takes into account the vision of each and every fan out there.  And you can't squeeze every detail of plot, narrative, dialogue, characterization, etc. of a half-million word book (plus its corollary works) into a mere nine hours of film.  It's just not possible.  But this is a tale that has cried out to be metamorphed into a visual medium   not so much for the enjoyment of the fans who have read and loved the books, but for the more visually-oriented casual- or non-fans of the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First Centuries, those who have found the books inaccessible, for one reason or another (length, style, changed times, etc.).  It's not the grand sweep of detail that cries out for such a presentation; it's the message that needs to be heard, by everyone, not just those brave souls willing to delve into the pages of Tolkien's work.

In our wrenching, scraping, grasping, covetous times (apologies to Charles Dickens for that lift), people need to hear the message that yes, good can fight back and triumph over evil   but with the caveat that there will be a price.  There will ALWAYS be a price.  Reach out to grasp consuming power, and it will reach back, and consume YOU.  Believe that the end justifies the means and adopt the methods of evil, and you will become what you are opposing.  Good intentions can be perverted if they remain intentions and never become definitive actions.  You CAN'T have  everything you want, and sometimes, a person has to give things up so that others can enjoy them.  In the end, all we have is each other, and if we do not treat each other with kindness and care, if we spurn pity out of pride, we will have nothing.  Those are some of the themes Tolkien wove into the tapestry that was LotR, and those are the threads which need most desperately to be carried over into any adaptation of his work.  Nitpick what was and wasn't done with the script to your heart's content, but so long as those threads remain solid and beat like the heart of the story in each of its characters, the adaptation has succeeded in its goal, if not in fulfilling the wishes of every fan.

These movies were made by a fan for the fans, but must reach beyond them to appeal to a greater audience to justify their existence.  Movie-making is still a business, not just an art.  Ultimately, that means some of the fans who adore every word and character and moment in the books will be disappointed. And they will often be disappointed because they walked into the theater wanting no less than everything, and didn't get their wish.

Their loss, I think.  I first read LotR when I was eleven.  I grew up and was educated in a time when the study of literature   and I do mean study; we looked at every aspect and nuance of our assigned reading until our heads were ready to burst  was still a required part of elementary and secondary education.  I have read the trilogy about once a year since that first time (which means I've now read it over three dozen times). I've read The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and all of the other texts published by Tolkien's son since his father's death.  I have read many of the scholarly
works published about Tolkien's creations, and have written a few of my own and even given lectures at conferences on certain Tolkien-related subjects.  I know this world and the details of it as well about as anyone who isn't Tolkien himself can.  I'm also an artist who has done many, many illustrations from the novels, depicting my visions of moments and characters and other things that touched me.  I was ripe to be a major-league stickler, to walk into the theater looking for nits to pick and reasons to dislike or complain about the films.

Which is why I knew I could not.  As a fan, I wanted everything, but as a writer, I know you can never transfer a story from one medium to another without something being lost.  Adapt a book to the screen, and you lose scenes and secondary characters and dialogue and expository details; adapt a movie into a book, and you lose the visual texture, the nuances of performance, the aspects of something three dimensional and living and moving rather than images drawn with words on a piece of paper.  Both have value as what they are.  And both lose --  and gain  -- in the translation.  Envisioning such an adaptation of my own writings (which can and have been quite lengthy), I have long been well aware that I might feel disappointed by what would, by necessity, be cut and trimmed and altered to make the transition possible.  But I have been equally aware that I might be thrilled by the chance to see what I had created come to life not only in my own head, but in a way that everyone, even those who haven't or won't read my books, can see and maybe, just maybe, appreciate.

So it was with these bits of understanding and a mind firmly held open against the dangers of narrowness, of expecting everything to be exactly as it was in the books and in my imagination, that I went to see Fellowship of the Ring.

It was all I might have expected, and more.  I did not come in wary of the changes I knew would be there.  Instead, I embraced them with an open mind, and was delighted to find that, with very few exceptions, they felt just as real and alive to me as what came into my imagination every time I read the novels.  Oh, I could quibble and point at things I felt might have been done better, or done without, or perhaps expanded.  I could say this scene should have been trimmed and sped up, that scene should have been allowed more time to explore all it could be.  I can easily say this effect or that effect was lacking, or a tad overdone, or even underdone.  I could sing the praises of
all the moments and performances I felt were exactly right, or an intriguing but logical twist on what I already knew.  But none of this would be to the point.

And the point is, while I watched, I felt the heart of Tolkien's message beating strong and clear.  The strength of friendship and love, the dangers of power, the courage to do right when it would be so easy to do wrong, and fall... All of that was there.  In some places, I felt it even more strongly than I did when reading the book, because a thousand words cannot describe one perfect expression or gesture or the simple tone of voice that can say far more in a few seconds.  It brought the heart of Tolkien's creation into a new medium, and will hopefully spread that message to new minds who would never have been exposed to it, had the tale remained only on the printed page.

That is real success, no matter how many people will argue that it didn't live up to their expectations or desires.  Like any mythology, this tale belongs to everyone, and should be made accessible to all.  Peter Jackson, his cast, and his crew have achieved that.  When I want to experience the pleasure I have always felt from reading the book, I will go back and read the book.  But frankly, I'm delighted to now have another medium in which to enjoy it, in new and wonderful ways.  I applaud Peter Jackson and the cast and crew, and will wait impatiently to see the next leg of this fascinating journey.