The Lord Of The Rings Should Stray Even Further From The Book, Here’s Why

I know that it is sacrilege to The Lord of the Rings fans who feel that Tolkien’s work is beyond improvement. But come on, is there really anyone who actually would have wanted Tom Bombadil included in the movies? Omitting his character was a pretty big change, but it was for the better. There were numerous other major changes we were originally supposed to have that would also have been an improvement for a visual medium.

For one, in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, we were originally going to see Sauron, in his physical form, fight Aragorn at Mordor. One of the weirdest choices of the movies was to depict “the eye of Sauron” as a literal flaming eye in Mordor that was like a lighthouse. But in the books, all “the eye of Sauron” meant was that allies of Sauron were everywhere spying for him. The eyeball on the tower just came off goofy and begged the question of where the actual Sauron was.

The Lord of the Rings movies already had a scene filmed where Sauron appeared at the final battle as a beautiful young man all in white before revealing his fearsome armored form. He battled Aragorn to the brink of death, only stopping short of killing the heir to Gondor thanks to the Ring being destroyed by Frodo.

Another bizarre change was Arwen’s story from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers onward. In the books, she essentially disappears until she marries Aragorn at the end. However, Peter Jackson obviously wanted to make her a more important character. He initially did that by continuing her warrior ways depicted in Fellowship of the Ring by having her fight at the battle of Helms Deep!

Arwen, being a fighter, was planned for so long in the movies that there are even pictures of her on the set for Helms Deep. Unfortunately, it was cut because of fears it would undercut the character arc of Eowyn, who had to disguise herself as a man to be able to join the battle in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. So, instead of just giving us two warrior women who were willing to fight, Jackson only gave us one, and Arwen was reduced to moping around Rivendell, pining over Aragorn.

I am not even a big fan of The Rings of Power, but I do not think its issue was making changes from Tolkien’s work. Some elements of the book of The Lord of the Rings would not translate well to a screen, and it is okay to change that. I always find it a shame that Jackson was dissuaded from his original vision, which could have introduced many more compelling moments than some of the weaker parts of the movie trilogy. I will always love Jackson’s trilogy for what it is, but I think being braver with bold new choices could have made it all the better.