Tolkien vs. Jackson: Which One Rules Them All?

The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien has sold over 150 million copies worldwide. It is the second best-selling novel of all time. This is a tale of struggle by all of Middle Earth to defeat Lord Sauron, master of the One Ring that is capable of ruling Middle Earth and of destroying Middle Earth. The trilogy is so popular that it has appeared on the big screen several times. The most recent of these is Peter Jackson’s 2001-2003 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. This is regarded as the most successful adaptation of the LOTR trilogy. However, there are many differences between the movie and the book versions. 

Let’s admit: no page-to-screen adaptation is a perfect 1-to-1 replica. Movies just don't work the same as books. Why? Well, you can fit more into a book than you ever could a movie, and there is really no limit on how long it can be. A movie, however, has to be somewhere between one to three hours. It should also be easily kept up with by an average audience. And The Lord of the Rings is one of the densest and complex trilogies ever written.

Understandably, a lot had to be cut. In the trilogy overall, sixty-two chapters were cut completely. Only twenty-two chapters, less than half the trilogies content, actually made it into the movies. That seems like a gigantic amount. But the Fellowship of the Ring alone is three hours and forty-eight minutes, so we understand why so much was cut. But things weren’t just cut. They were changed, fairly substantially in some places, to make the plot better for the big screen. For instance, Frodo Baggins is considerably younger in the film versus the book. The elves survived the battle of Helm's Deep in the movie; yet, we don’t see such battles in the books.

In short, the LOTR films omitted certain details of the books and included others. Some of them enhanced the story. Others distorted it. Some people prefer reading books. Many even have a tradition of reading the LOTR trilogy once per year. Some people, on the other hand, set aside 13 hours of their lives to binge-watch the movie adaptations. As the old saying goes, “Every man to his taste!”