Lord of the Rings Nights
One of the biggest movies to hit the big screen in the past decade has been the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, a film series that relays the magical word concocted by J.R.R. Tolkien, possible one of the greatest fantasy writers to ever live. The films did more than just stir some geek hearts. The three films won a total of 17 Academy Awards and for categories such as “Best Cinematography,” “Best Makeup,” “Best Original Score,” and even “Best Picture.”
Eye intensity level 100
My friends and I are huge fans of the series. We attempt to watch all the films together at least twice a year, which doesn’t always happen, as all three films have a total running time of 11 hours and 23 minutes. Something that my friends have a tendency of doing is skipping boring scenes so they can get to the battles and hot elves. And the scenes that get cut down more than others are the ones featuring the characters of Frodo and Sam. It cannot be denied; Frodo and Sam’s scenes can get dull, compared to the action packed scenes with Gandalf, Aragorn, and the others. Hell, even Treebeard’s scenes were more stimulating. A few of my friends often complain when we watch the films, claiming that Frodo is the most obnoxious character of the series. He whines, cries, and is ultimately duped into telling his best friend to “go home” so he can be led to death by Gollum. People can’t relate to him, find his story dull (even though he is the main character), and prefer taking a bathroom break when Elijah Wood’s face takes the screen.
I am here to set the record straight. If you are going to hate the character of Frodo in the film, have the decency to blame those who actually turned his character into an obnoxious whiner: Peter Jackson and his team of writers. The character of Frodo in the books is actually a very impressive character that the reader comes to respect and love. His “Hollywoodization” refers to his transformation from sympathetic hero to drama queen. And why? Simply because the director and writers wanted to make his story more interesting.
Frodo: Actually a Badass
Remember the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo and his gang of hobbits are being attacked by the Ring-Wraiths while Aragorn, their protector, is off picking berries or something? In the scene Frodo falls to the ground like a damsel and is stabbed by the Witch-King because he wouldn’t give him the ring. Then Frodo becomes a zombie-types mess almost instantly and has to be rushed off to Rivendell by Arwen, the sexy she-elf. All in all, Frodo is unimpressive and Arwen saves the day. Well, that is not how it went down at all in the original story…
Yes, the hobbits were attacked, but Frodo did a little more than fall and cower. The awesome power of the Ring-Wraiths to instill fear in people is mainly psychological and not something that can be shown on screen. Therefore Frodo’s actions during this scene are difficult to portray as anything but cowardly, when in reality he acts audaciously. Sam, Merry, and Pippin are the ones who actually cower on the ground. Frodo is the only one who draws his sword, and when the Witch-King attacks him, he dodges him and actually slices the Witch-King’s leg. After that the Witch-King stabs Frodo with a poisonous blade. Frodo actually travels for days with the others with the poison in his system. He feels cold and weak, but he is anything but a half-conscious victim. He even laughs and jokes with the others as they travel. And it is not Arwen, Aragorn’s love, who enters to save them. They meet an elf named Glorfindel, who gives Frodo his horse so that Frodo can make the journey on his own!
Wait a minute! No Arwen? No chase scene? No epic stand on the banks of Rivendell? Well, not exactly. Frodo runs from the Ring-Wraiths on his own and when he gets to the borders of Rivendell, he shouts at them “Go back to the land of Mordor and follow me no more… By Elbereth and Luthien the Fair… you shall have neither the Ring nor me!” all while brandishing his sword. Not bad for a Hobbit.
Ted Nasmith's (a Tolkien inspired painter) rendering of Frodo being a boss (click to magnify).
But why did this otherwise impressive scene for Frodo have to be altered? Because Peter Jackson decided that Arwen needed a bigger part on the story than she originally had. He needed the sex appeal. Lord of the Rings caters most to men, but where are the impressive lady characters? Eowyn, who was as impressive in the books as she was in the movies, doesn’t show up until The Two Towers. So they spruced up the character of Arwen a bit for the male viewers and the character of Frodo suffered. Why does Frodo need to be a hero? The women already have Aragorn and Legolas to look at and Frodo ends up failing to destroy the ring himself in the end, so there’s no harm in making him the weak link.
Frodo: Actually Faithful to his Friends
The other great injustice done to the character of Frodo is the scene in The Return of The King, where he tells Sam to leave him because Gollum convinced Frodo that Sam is against him. Gollum then leads Frodo to Shelob, a giant spider, and his stabbed with a stinger. And if that isn’t pathetic enough, Frodo actually says Sam’s name as he wanders blindly through the dark
I'm not even going to get into the unnecessary homosexual undertones of these two characters.
tunnels. How is Frodo’s character that easily convinced? Hey, Frodo, ‘gullible’ is written on the dark, creepy tunnel’s ceiling.
But in reality, Frodo is never convinced by Gollum of anything. The entire relationship between Frodo and Gollum is untrue. Frodo takes pity on Gollum and decides not to kill him, just as his uncle did in The Hobbit, and decides to use him as a guide because he really had no other option. But he never connects with Gollum on an emotional level or begins to prefer his over Sam. In the scene where Frodo is stabbed by Shelob, Sam is only away from him because they were temporarily separated in the tunnels. Frodo never tells Sam to go away because he ate all the lembas bread. What is this Days of Our Lives?
So why put in all the unnecessary drama? Because, in all honesty, Frodo and Sam’s side of the story is kind of dull. It’s pretty much them just walking to Mordor with a sulking creature. In the original books, Frodo and Sam’s story did not take up as much of the book and most of their actions went by quickly. The entire story, starting with Frodo and Sam meeting Gollum, to Frodo being stabbed by Shelob (which actually occurred in The Two Towers) takes up approximately 185 pages. Not a lot of material to stretch between nearly two movies, especially when most of it is talking about ancient mythologies and descriptions of the land around them. So Peter Jackson decided to spruce it up by making Frodo, Sam, and Gollum have a kind of awkward love triangle. Thus the character of Frodo, who has already been deemed weak by the audience and writers, is altered again for the sake of the film. Hollywoodized.
One hobbits journey from inspiring Tolkien character to something Stephanie Meyer could have written.
donotavoidthecelluloid 
You’re bringing a lot of stuff to light here, and I think you’ve got a bunch of solid points – but it’s so condescending I can’t take it seriously. There is not a grain of salt large enough. Because what you’re describing isn’t “Hollywoodization” – it’s the art of adaptation, which is…beyond difficult. It’s a taxing process, usually taking years, in which you have to take it upon yourself to convey the story as effectively as possible while maintaining the heart of the piece as well. And you pick and choose, you change and combine characters, because, let’s be frank: there’s too goddamned much in any novel to slam into a movie, especially when the novel is Lord of the Rings. Imagine that you’re the guy people have decided is best suited to bring the most epic fantasy of all time to the big screen. That’s Peter Jackson. LOTR was his first “big” movie, and his wide-distribution premier is translating the whole giant wordy trilogy to film. I reread these books for about the tenth time last year. There’s…so much shit going on that it’s ridiculous. If you’re Peter Jackson, you’re expected to pick and choose who to include, what events, which battles, etc.,…out of, like. A million and a half of each. Oh, and don’t forget all the stuff in the Appendixes. All the while dealing with JRR Tolkein’s douchebag son, who decides to make everything incredibly difficult during all of development.
Now, turning from the script (I don’t know if you’ve read the screenplays for these films, but they’re just perfect), let’s talk about Frodo. So, imagine you’re a hobbit, and you’re still young (fifty, super young for hobbits). You live in the most peaceful, wondrous, magical little knoll anybody can imagine. And it suits you, because hobbits don’t like adventure. They don’t like to leave home, and that’s why they stay in the town until the day they die. You’re cool with this. You have no obligations that tie you to the world as a whole, because hobbits AREN’T SMART and they can’t govern properly. And your uncle, he’s kind of batshit, but it’s slight enough that people can just say he’s “eccentric.” He’s got this old buddy, Gandalf, and you don’t know the actual events well enough to know that Gandalf TRICKED YOUR UNCLE into letting a bunch of dickhead dwarves into his house, where they sang derrogatory songs and broke all of his shit because he wanted a quiet night in rather than jumping the gun and going on a journey that would MOST LIKELY LEAD TO HIM DYING. Gandalf bullied your uncle into risking his life for no particular reason. He just kind of felt like it. Also chuckled while the dwarves (who, it turns out, were all pretty damned incompetent) ransacked Bag End.
But, anyway, Gandalf shows up, and he’s all like, “Listen, Frodo, I know I’m a wizard and all and I’m incredibly powerful and I make the best warriors from other races look like ANTS, but I need you to take this thing Bilbo found while he was on that JOURNEY I BULLIED HIM INTO – I dunno, I didn’t notice it. And, uh, I’m gonna have to ask that you be prepared to die here, ’cause there is, like. Actually no chance you’re gonna live, probably. Oh, I guess you should take your overweight, out-of-shape gardener as well, since he’s of a lower class and more or less your servant.” And you’re so pissed off about this, but you’re a morally decent being and so you decide that you’re gonna go ahead and do this shit. And you ask Gandalf if he’s gonna, y’know. come along. Because you have no idea how to go about defending yourself. And what does this jackass say? “Naw, dude. I got some stuff I’ve gotta do.”
So, here you are, with your fatass gardener – he’s not your BFF, he’s your frickin’ gardener – and a couple of your relatives, and one of them is really reliable and the other is just a shitbird. And some other guys come in after a LONG ASS TIME (Gandalf decides to blow you off, what a surprise) but they’re all fighting with each other all the time and the only one you think is decent is a big coward who won’t take the throne of men and bring the kingdoms together because he’s worried that he’ll repeat the mistakes of his forefathers. FROM LIKE TWO-THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
And you’re this little tiny guy, and you’ve got a dagger but you have no idea how to use it because hobbits don’t fight people, and all of these people who are there to help you out have their own agendas and they’re always letting personal shit get in their way. And you’re already dealing with some heavy shit here. You’ve got this horrible artifact – the core of all evil power in Middle Earth – hanging around his tiny breakable neck, driving you absolutely batshit insane, and you’ve got limited provisions and he’s crossing incredibly hostile terrain. And, y’know, before the end of the first third of your journey (which lasts for YEARS, man, YEARS) your team has split up and it’s just you and your naive, uneducated gardener/servant. And the fate of the entire world is resting on whether or not you make it to a GIANT VOLCANO in the center of the territory populated by an army of EVIL, and real close to this terrifying mountain you’ve got the EYE OF SAURON. Looking specifically for YOU. It’s a giant eye made of fucking fire. It’s powerful enough that it MADE that thing you’re carrying around.
These are the circumstances Frodo’s dealing with in the movies, just the BACKGROUND information. I’m not going to repeat all of the events of the films, because we’ve all seen these a billion times. But my point is this: anyone who says Frodo is “whiny,” or a wimp or a bitch or whatever, does not grasp the power of the Ring in this mythology at ALL. I can see how, on a superficial level, you could complain about how he always seems to be aimless, clueless, and by the third film he literally cannot react appropriately when he needs to. But think about it. Think about what this dude is GOING through. He’s a wreck. He’s been going through this shit at increasingly high degrees for about two years when they finally reach the Gates of Mordor.
I’d like to see anybody who calls Frodo a bitch get that shit done.
I’m not really trying to bash the character of Frodo here, I’m trying to defend him. I do think that his character in the movie could have been better, cause COME ON. That whole thing where he tells Sam to leave because Gollum convinces him that Sam is against him. It was all to make the story more interesting and it belittled the character of Frodo.
And I was making the point that Peter Jackson took the original story of Lord of the Rings and twisted it to make it more appropriate for Hollywood (i.e. making the character of Arwen bigger, making Sam and Frodo have relationship issues) but it was usually at the expense of Frodo.
He did the same thing to Aragorn as well. I was thinking of putting Aragorn’s Hollywoodization as well, but it would have been too long. In the original story Aragorn doesn’t have all these issues with his forefather’s weaknesses. He never denies that he is the king or get whiny about it. He just does his shit. Most of this inner turmoil that Peter Jackson brings out is just petty. It;s not enough that this is an epic story about trials and tribulations. He needs to make a confused king and a whiny hobbit.
After I read the books, The Lord of the Rings, I gained so much respect for Frodo. Yes, it’s true his character goes through a lot of shit (and it is hard for an audience to understand because they aren’t going through it themselves. I mean, this is fantastical psychological agony. It’s not going to be something the average viewer can relate to. They haven’t had an evil artifact around their neck or been attacked by fear-inducing wraiths), I’m just arguing it could have been portrayed better. Also making the main character, who the audience is suppose to like, weak and unheroic just takes away from the film.
Imagine if Frodo had ridden to Rivendell by himself and stood up to the Ring-Wraiths. Think of how awesome his character would have become. It would have given that “even the smallest person can change the course of the world” shit a whole new meeting. He’s not just doing this because he was bullied into it. He’s doing it cause he CAN! Furthermore another thing Jackson left out was the virility of the Hobbit race. They were actually tough little creatures who were sometimes viewed as magical and had great psychological defenses against evil. That’s why it was appropriate for a hobbit to be the bearer of the ring instead of a man or wizard (they are more powerful, and therefore more susceptible to evil). But instead that make it look like Frodo was taking the ring cause no one else would or because he was pushed into doing it.
I understand that making a book, especially a book as complicated at Lord of the Rings (which reads like a history book in some places), into a movie, but I’m arguing that Peter Jackson’s way of doing nearly destroyed the character of Frodo. He was an impressive character that became unrelatable.
Hmm. I definitely had no idea that Peter Jackson transformed Frodo from a strong character to a weakling. Good read.