Posting on behalf of friends! Their cat Milkshake is missing after having just moved out of La Crosse, please keep an eye out for milkshake or repost if you’re willing. Thank you!
I have been very excited to be reading the books for the first time! My boyfriend got me the second edition book-set (if I remember correctly). Just finished Two Towers earlier this week and started this today. This discussion is mainly about Two Towers as I’m only 3 chapters into this.
Firstly, a HUGE shoutout to Andy Serkis and his phenomenal reading of this. I have been listening to his audiobook while I read. I was having trouble getting through the dense writing in the fellowship, until I discovered he did the full series! GAME. CHANGER. I am able to focus much better AND he does such a stellar telling, giving each character their own voice. 132 characters!! He is genuinely amazing. Highly recommend for those who wanted to read but are turned off by Tolkien’s style. It really enhances the overall experience!
We rewatched Two Towers after I finished. Overall, not always accurate but follows the plot rather well. I understand that they can’t put every little detail into the movies, though knowing the nitty gritty details made it a little lackluster. My two major grievances however are:
they did not do the Ents justice. They are magical, moral, and powerful beings in the book. The movies make them look a little dope-ish, and I didn’t like that they had Merry and Pippin do this whole convincing them to fight. That just didn’t happen, they already knew the situation and rather quickly took action! (Other than the two day entmoot, still hasty for ents! Also salty that Quickbeam was not in the movies nor mentioned.) Treebeard was my favorite character, and watching what they did to him in the movie irked me.
They also did Faramir dirty. He is much more significant than what the movies portray him, and they do not give him the honor or intelligence that he had in the books. They gave Sam a lot of Faramir’s points/lines, and generally had Sam do a lot of the explanations/moral guidance, that again Faramir already had in the books. The whole point is that he’s basically a more attuned/moral version of Boromir, and that just did not come across.
An honorable mention that Shelob and Sam actually fight at the end of Two Towers, but they put all of it into Return of the King. I get it, but again would’ve been nice to start that for accuracy’s sake.
I would love to do a presentation night on how the books differ from the movies. Just so people can get educated lol. All in good fun.
What differences did you notice between book and film? If you have only seen the films, do you hope to read the books? Or have any questions about them? Would love to discuss this with other lotr diehards :)