Comment by bigstrat2003
7 days ago
> And the films, for the most part, stuck very close to the source material.
Although when they depart, they swung for the fences. Multiple times Peter Jackson felt the need to throw out Tolkien's central theme (that the Ring isn't all powerful, and there are stronger forces like virtue or friendship), just to get cheap drama when characters act out of character under the influence of the Ring. It was really aggravating.
Tolkien's central theme (that the Ring isn't all powerful, and there are stronger forces like virtue or friendship)
This is not the central theme of LOTR (the books). While forces like virtue and friendship are important, the central theme was you can survive even the worst evil if you retain your humanity. (Remember: LOTR was heavily influenced by Tolkiens' experience as a soldier in WWI.)
This best encapsulated by Sams' speech at the end of the second film:
"It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
> Multiple times Peter Jackson felt the need to throw out Tolkien's central theme (that the Ring isn't all powerful, and there are stronger forces like virtue or friendship)
Is that the theme? The ring wasn't beaten by the power of virtue or friendship. It was beaten by itself.