Sleeps, Blessed, Blessed Sleeps

So I did take a break there for a while, but I'm back at it. It's 9:50, and I'm into the second disc of The Fellowship.

A lot of the changes seem to be focused on creating conflict and tension to continually move the plot of the film. This would make sense, so things like Tom Bombadil are cut out of the book in favor of quick action, moving toward the council at Rivendell that is more tense than the one in the book. Boromir and Saruman's parts have been amplified to create more of a sense of danger for the fellowship and Frodo.

Many of these changes seem to all work toward making Tolkien's story a film. Obviously changes are necessary, and so the choices to leave out parts of the story, increase the importance of other parts, and shift key events and dialogue (the reforging of Aragorn's sword and several of Gandalf's lines), all work to make this a film that works with what an audience would expect.

It's interesting to think about the audience, who may be resistant to such changes, but at the same time still made the trilogy huge box office successes. There had to be more there than simple curiosity about how the film treated Tolkien's books; thus, these changes that were made seem to be forgiven by the audience. I wonder what the response of hardcore fans of the book were?