A comparison of Lord of the Rings ... Book vs. Movie (Part 1)

This is the first in a series of the "And More" stuff, a comparison of Lord of the Rings ... book vs. movie.

I remember reading Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit quite a few times when I was growing up. It wasn't until the mid-90's when I heard they were going to be made into movies that I really started getting into the books again. I now read the books probably once ever two years now and almost always will watch the movies when I finish the book.

About a month ago I was trying to figure out what book I wanted to read next. I had just finished a really long book series earlier this year (Stephen King's The Dark Tower Series) and was really hesitant to pick up another series for awhile. I read a few other books after that and then decided to pick up The Hobbit and give it a read. I had absolutely no desire at the time to go into the Rings series, but what can I say, I got sucked into to Tolkien's little world called Middle Earth.

As of right now, I'm about 2/3 done with "Fellowship of the Ring" and have been thinking about doing a book vs. movie comparison for about a week, this is when I finished "Book One" of Fellowship. Since then I have gone a bit past that, but this blog is just concerning the first part of Book 1 of the actual 6 book series.

(For those that don't know, the 3 Lord of the rings books are actually split into 2 books each).

Fellowship of the Ring - Book One

Bilbo and Frodo's Party:

If you have never read the book, you have NO idea that the party is actually for both Frodo and Bilbo, and that they share the same birthday. Of course, it's Bilbo everybody is there to see. The film however does contain some of the great parts of the book (Gandalf's Firework's, etc) although Merry and Pippen do not set off the dragon firework in the book.

There is also more to Bilbo's speech in the book than the movie, but this doesn't really effect a whole lot IMO.

I think the scene between Bilbo and Gandalf (where Gandalf is giving up the ring) is MUCH more dynamic in the movie rather than the book, although much more is explained in the book (obviously). The fact that Bilbo hasn't really told anybody just how he got the ring in the first place (although this is revealed in The Hobbit) is interesting. And I wonder how they are going to address this in the movie version of The Hobbit.

Both the book and movie do this scene justice, one is not any better than the other. I'm going to say the movie adapted this part pretty well.

"A Shadow of the Past" - Or Gandalf finds out about "The Ring":

This is the first part that the movie REALLY separates from the book. In the movie, you have NO idea that it's approximately 14 years between the time Bilbo leaves Frodo the ring and Gandalf comes back to reveal to Frodo that this is the "One Ring". IMO, this wouldn't have worked so well for the movie as it did in the book, and I think the producers did a good job of portraying some kind of "urgency" when it comes to the big reveal. There really are no big "plot points" left out of the movie from the book.

Advantage Movie

"Three's Company" - Or Frodo Leaves "Bag End"

Another BIG departure from the book. In the movie, when Gandalf Reveals to Frodo that the ring is the "One Ring" he instantly heads off to avoid the black-riders with Samwise. In the book, Gandalf tells Frodo about the ring on April 12th and Frodo, Sam and Pippin don't leave until September 23rd. Not really a "sense of urgency" to get this thing out of the shire.

This is an instance of something that works great for print, but would be rather boring for a movie. The movie does a really awesome job of again portraying a sense of Urgency to the situation without leaving out any key plot points that is crucial to the rest of the story.

Advantage Movie

I think that's enough for tonight ... next time ... Frodo moves into another house (kind of) and one of the BIGGEST tragedies of a character that was completely left out of the movie. Some BIG-TIME "Advantage Book" segments coming up.