Friday 1 July 2011

6 Deleted Scenes That Prove The Book Isn't Always Better

Ah, Cracked.  Sometimes you provide some nice information that the inattentive masses on the internet wouldn't otherwise be aware of, and other times you're saying Sauron was an alright guy.  And now you turn your daft eye towards The Lord of the Rings and Starship Troopers.

And, naturally, they bring up Tom Goddamn Bombadil as evidence that The Book Isn't Always Better.  Because, as we all know, there isn't a single second, nary a frame, of stupid belief-suspension-failure comedy in Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy, right?




A fake language dictionary disguised as an epic fantasy novel, as you can imagine, doesn't exactly lend itself to the big screen. So, for the sake of streamlining the story, a lot of elements had to be tweaked or outright abandoned. For example, the book version drags on for six chapters after Gollum takes his swan-dive into the volcano, and before it's over, we see Saruman acting like a small-time mafioso in the Shire before ending up on the wrong end of a shiv. So, yeah -- the infuriating multiple endings in Return of the King: That's real.

Except no, it isn't, because the "infuriating multiple endings" in Return of the King weren't spaced one after the other in an endless procession in the books.  Not to mention they weren't padded out with slow motion that tripled their length.

But what they left out was much weirder, such as the part where Merry and Pippin almost get eaten alive by an angry tree but are saved by a dancing, prancing forest-dweller who calms down the tree by singing to it and then lures the bewildered hobbits back to his secluded shack in the woods.
Coming soon on The Blog That Time Forgot: Twenty Things from The Lord of the Rings I loved that weren't adapted. Not featured: the part where Merry and Pippin almost get eaten alive by an angry tree but are saved by a dancing, prancing forest-dweller who calms down the tree by singing to it and then lures the bewildered hobbits back to his secluded shack in the woods.*

You can read Lord of the Rings as an allegory for World War II
Or not, being as Tolkien hated allegory - you can read it as applicable, though.
in which case Tom Bombadil represents the spirit of pacifism and noninvolvement. Which, as we all know, makes for bitching action movies.
I can think of plenty of bitching action movies that involve pacifism and noninvolvement.  The idea of a man of peace who doesn't want to fight, only to be pushed into taking up his weapons when his family/friends/country/beliefs/turtles are threatened, describes half of all bitching action movies.  Hell, even Commando had pacifism and noninvolvement! Feckin' Commando!

In any case, it's perhaps understandable that Cracked would focus on Bombadil, since it's obviously harder to make a case for the the films leaving out great stuff like the Barrow Downs, Glorfindel, Beregond and the Knights of Dol Amroth: let's just take the one really stupid, goofy element of the book, and represent it like there are plenty more like it.  Yeah.  Good one, Cracked.

But then, they bring up Starship Troopers, the most vigorously misunderstood science fiction story I've ever heard of.

When fanboys complain about the soldiers-vs.-insect-monsters, intentionally over-the-top sci-fi action flick Starship Troopers, it's usually about how director Paul Verhoeven left out the giant, awesome, robot-armor death-suits that featured heavily in the novel. (When nonfanboys complain about it, it's usually about how awful it is as, like, a movie.) A complaint you don't hear so often is that Verhoeven also left out the fact that the insect monsters are meant to be stand-ins for the soulless, hive-minded Chinese.

I blame "Starship Stormtroopers," the "Epic Pooh" of science fiction criticism.  Also by Michael Moorcock, as it happens.  Anyone know of a rebuttal to SS like Brian Murphy's rebuttal of "Epic Pooh"?

Now, Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is interesting, for I view it much as I view Conan the Barbarian: a flawed, but ambitious story that is very different and often directly contradictory to the source material.  As an adaptation, it's a disaster: as an independent creation that takes one or two names and ideas from earlier material and runs with it, though, I think it's very misunderstood, almost as misunderstood as the novel in the first place.

Of course, Conan the Barbarian and Starship Troopers differ in that while Milius and Stone started the project explicitly as a Conan film and honestly believe they were being true to Howard's creation, Verhoeven started this project as something else, and after reading through part of Heinlein's novel, decided to satirise it.
The problem is that most of the accusations made towards Starship Troopers are completely inaccurate.  Chris W's Starship Troopers page is what I'm trying to do with my Filmgoer's Guide, albeit perhaps Howard didn't hallucinate the ghost of Conan and write down his biography, Tolkien didn't glorify war... and I forget where I was going with this.

All I can say is that if people can read the likes of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and come to the conclusion that Heinlein was fascist and militaristic because of Starship Troopers... then you might as well say that Tolkien was a rabid secular transhumanist based on The Children of Hurin.

*And to complement that, "Twenty Things from Jackson's Lord of the Rings Films I Loved That Aren't In The Books," itself complemented by "The 20 Worst Things about Jackson's Lord of the Rings Films," finally offset by "The 20 Best Things about Jackson's Lord of the Rings Films."

12 comments:

  1. "The 20 Best Things about Jackson's Lord of the Rings Films."

    That's hardcore. I can only think of one: I don't ever have to see them again.

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  2. If some Internet wag isn't ragging on Tom Bombadil, he's ragging on the Scouring of the Shire and, in the process, showing how little he understands The Lord of the Rings.

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  3. @ james :while I agree with you entirely, this is cracked we're talking about. shouldnt be taken seriously at all.probably in their perspective the digital equivalent of a 'kick me' sign. but I am curious to ask an open question: has anyone here seen a movie they have found to be better than the book? I can think of 3 in my opinion only of course: the godfather. one flew over the cuckoos nest and trainspotting.-Mario

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  4. That's hardcore. I can only think of one: I don't ever have to see them again.

    Despite my frequent public decrying, I did find there was a lot to like about the films: I just don't think they're the Greatest Cinematic Masterworks In The History Of Humanity.

    If some Internet wag isn't ragging on Tom Bombadil, he's ragging on the Scouring of the Shire and, in the process, showing how little he understands The Lord of the Rings.

    Either that, or the singing, or talking about how the book's "always describing the landscape." Leading me to wonder if I've read the same book as these folk.

    while I agree with you entirely, this is cracked we're talking about. shouldnt be taken seriously at all.probably in their perspective the digital equivalent of a 'kick me' sign.

    I love Cracked, but hey, the Call of the Nerd is too powerful to ignore. The problem with some of their articles is when it's too subtle, and you can't really tell if they're joking or not. Much like the "Sauron was just misunderstood" article a while back.

    has anyone here seen a movie they have found to be better than the book? I can think of 3 in my opinion only of course: the godfather. one flew over the cuckoos nest and trainspotting.-Mario

    Personally, I much preferred the film versions of Psycho, Ben-Hur, Planet of the Apes, and most of the good Stephen King adaptations.

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  5. good cal with psycho, though i do love the book. never read planet of the apes and i am inclined to agree about stephen king,i like him but i do think he's waaay overrated.I have the original cut of the exorcist actually tied with the novel,believe it or not. the pace was quickened without losing much the theme,some of the subplots were a little much in the book, though i enjoy the books exorcism sequence and climax more in the novel. that second headspin in the movie felt gimmicky too. the original cut had a more ambigous ending that left the viewer (well me anyway) cold , which I felt made a more effective horror story, the extended ending inspired by the book , though very good and made the extended flick and novel' transcend'( got i hate usinng that term) the genre,making it possibly a better film but less effective as ahorror story to me. I bring it up because so many prefer the books to me movies and i agree 95% of the time,its fun to ask the opposite. and yeah the exorcist (original cut) is #3 in my top ten right after jaws and rocky. cheers Al!-mario

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  6. As we know, things like Bombadil were due to Tolkien setting out to write a light-hearted sequel to The Hobbit, reusing some of his earlier written stuff, and ending up with something much bigger several years later.

    But some stuff that feels out of place (given the necessary shifts in tone between the Shire and the outside world) doesn't even begin to approach the head-scratchers in the movies introduced by changes.

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  7. Starship Troopers is an awesome movie, because IT IS a parody of war. The problem is: it is an insult to a great novel. It would be better invent another title and another characters in order to tell the same story.

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  8. has anyone here seen a movie they have found to be better than the book?

    Jurassic Park. Fine up until the end, when they go back to the island with grenade launchers to blow up the raptor nests.

    The T-Rex taking on a helicopter gunship was quite fun though.

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  9. "has anyone here seen a movie they have found to be better than the book?"

    Starship Troopers *ducks and runs*

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  10. "has anyone here seen a movie they have found to be better than the book?"

    Actually, I'd include Starship Troopers here too. I don't think it's pro-Fascist but I also don't think it's very interesting.

    It's like a lot of Golden Age SF: Conceptual literature. Like Conceptual Art (Modern Art), it's all about the idea and not the craft (plot, characters etc). This category includes Verne, Wells and Dick; so it isn't a bad category to be in. However, while they may be interesting and sometimes of historical importance, I don't personally think it makes the work "better" than a more craft-based approach. Movies tend to go for the craft unless it's an experimental art film (which are rarely adaptations).

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  11. Jaws (much better), Sleepy Hollow (not necessarily better, but more interesting). Da Vinci Code too, since it's better to sit through two hours of mindless entertainment with good actors than reading a big novel that doesn't come anywhere near close to be classified as "literature".

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  12. good cal with psycho, though i do love the book. never read planet of the apes and i am inclined to agree about stephen king,i like him but i do think he's waaay overrated.

    I agree, Mario. I tend to enjoy his short stories FAR more than his giant novels, mostly because there isn't all that pointless padding. King is hardly alone in that regard, though. I haven't read The Exorcist, so I can't comment on it.

    As we know, things like Bombadil were due to Tolkien setting out to write a light-hearted sequel to The Hobbit, reusing some of his earlier written stuff, and ending up with something much bigger several years later.

    But some stuff that feels out of place (given the necessary shifts in tone between the Shire and the outside world) doesn't even begin to approach the head-scratchers in the movies introduced by changes.


    All very true. I really have to do a post on Bombadil one of these days: I DO think there could've been a way to include him in a way that doesn't have the audience tearing their hair out, but it would have to be done in a fairly careful way.

    Starship Troopers is an awesome movie, because IT IS a parody of war. The problem is: it is an insult to a great novel. It would be better invent another title and another characters in order to tell the same story.

    Indeed. People give Starship Troopers a lot of stick, but - again, while not perfect - it's actually a fairly nuanced little film.

    Jurassic Park. Fine up until the end, when they go back to the island with grenade launchers to blow up the raptor nests.

    The T-Rex taking on a helicopter gunship was quite fun though.


    Excellent call. While I think Nedry was much more interesting in the book (though Wayne Knight did a great job) and Wu had a bigger role, I think too much of the book focused on Crichton's "scientific fad of the week" (Chaos Theory) and too many of the characters were redundant duplicates of past books (Hammond was just like every single one of his corrupt, selfish big-business park owners). Again, the film isn't perfect, but I can happily say I think the film is more successful in its medium than the book was in its.

    Starship Troopers *ducks and runs*

    Oh, you!

    Actually, I'd include Starship Troopers here too. I don't think it's pro-Fascist but I also don't think it's very interesting.

    It's like a lot of Golden Age SF: Conceptual literature. Like Conceptual Art (Modern Art), it's all about the idea and not the craft (plot, characters etc). This category includes Verne, Wells and Dick; so it isn't a bad category to be in. However, while they may be interesting and sometimes of historical importance, I don't personally think it makes the work "better" than a more craft-based approach. Movies tend to go for the craft unless it's an experimental art film (which are rarely adaptations).


    Very interesting thoughts here. I'm still undecided when it comes to ST, book and film: both have a lot of great elements, but both are also let down by some bad decisions. And, of course, the fact that the film essentially inverts the book doesn't help.


    Jaws (much better), Sleepy Hollow (not necessarily better, but more interesting). Da Vinci Code too, since it's better to sit through two hours of mindless entertainment with good actors than reading a big novel that doesn't come anywhere near close to be classified as "literature".

    I may hate Dan Brown's work, but I still have to (reluctantly) consider it classified as "literature." With all the ranting I go on about with people who insist on there being a difference between "pulp" and "literature," I can't very well back down on that score, now can I?

    (Which Sleepy Hollow are we talking about, btw?)

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