June 26, 2002

The Art of Cinema
Brett C.

DC, the decision to go with a young actor like Elijah Wood for Frodo has to have a lot to do with the fact that in the books Frodo has only just reached his majority in Hobbit years, and also stops aging as soon as he takes possesion of the One. The reason for PJ compressing the timeline between Bilbo's leaving and Frodo's is that it makes the sense of danger more immediate, necessary in a 3 hour film as opposed to a book were the author can take whole chapters gradaully building the feeling of approaching dread.

Likewise, the decision to swap lines around between characters in some places was proabably to give some of the characters more to do on screen and make them more accesible to the viewer. This explanation does not change my opinion that in the case of Frodo's figuring out the door riddle it was a bad move, it just means I understand a reason why it might have been done.

Loremaster, I don't think in the book Sauron is confined to a bodiless existence as he is in the movie. I think that explanation was great of film for explaining why he isn't just waltzing around smiting people, but in the book there are several references to Sauron being bodily manifest in Barad-dur. For example, in one place Gollum mentions that ' the black hand has only nine fingers now.' [because Isildur cut off the ring-finger, not 3 or 4 as seen on screen]. My impression was that after being trashed by Gil Galad and Elendil at the end of the Second Age Sauron was happy to have his generals do all the fighting while he motivated his armies by the force of his will, ready to cme forth only when victory was assured to overthrow such places as Lorien and Rivendell, which would only have fallen ot his full power - '...the coming of Sauron at the last, when all else is overthrown.'