The Danger of Lionizing Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" at the Expense of "The Rings of Power"
Why holding up Jackson's work to diminish Amazon's glosses over its own flaws and lack of adherence to Tolkien's story and its ethos.
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Welcome to Tolkien Tuesdays, where I talk about various things that I love about the lore and writings of Tolkien, whether in a chapter reading or a character study or an essay. I hope you enjoy reading these ruminations as much as I enjoy writing them and, if you have a moment, I’d love it if you’d subscribe to this newsletter. It’s free, but there are paid options, as well, if you’re of a mind to support a struggling writer. Either way, thank you for joining me!
One of the most pressing recurring criticisms of Amazon’s Rings of Power–at least from some of the more vocal aspects of the Tolkien fandom–is that somehow this new screen adaptation isn’t true to Tolkien. The reasons for exactly why this particular adaptation is so untrue to Tolkien remain frustratingly unclear, though one gets the sense that it all goes back to racism in one form or another. For many people, the fact that this new series includes people of color in its depiction of Middle-earth is simply anathema to what they think Tolkien would have wanted in an adaptation, and no amount of debunking of those claims is enough to get them to go away. If anything, they become stronger. This isn’t particularly surprising, however, given the well-established connections between White nationalist beliefs and fantasy literature.
And then, of course, there are the plentiful, and often wildly disingenuous, claims that, in contrast to The Rings of Power, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films manage to stay truer to Tolkien’s vision than Amazon’s production. This is quite a claim to make, particularly given the extent to which many Tolkien fans, both scholars and laypeople alike, have long had a complicated relationship with these films.I have to say at this point that I’m old enough to remember when the trilogy films came to the theater, which means I’m also old enough to remember when they were met with quite a lot of outrage from the Tolkien purist brigade.
Take, for example, the reception of Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel. While she has now come to be seen as arguably the definitive portrayal of the character–Rings of Power haters love to juxtapose her take on the character with that of Morfydd Clark, almost always to the latter’s detriment–at the time there were some ugly and loud voices saying she wasn’t nearly beautiful enough to portray arguably the most powerful Elf in Middle-earth. Clearly sexism against the woman chosen to play various characters in Middle-earth is nothing new.
For those of a particularly purist bent, it could be argued that Jackson’s interpretation of Tolkien is woefully–perhaps even fatally–misguided. To take just a few notable examples of the way that his version of the story is fundamentally at odds with that of Tolkien: Aragorn is definitely not a reluctant hero but is instead quite committed to assuming his rightful place as King of Gondor; Sam would never leave Frodo alone at the very threshold of Mordor, no matter what his master might say (and book Frodo would likewise never spurn Sam for Gollum, no matter how strong their bond as bearers of the Ring); and the Scouring of the Shire is, as everyone knows, an essential element of the story Tolkien was trying to tell. While Jackson’s excising of the latter incident was understandable given the already-extraordinary length of The Return of the King, there’s no escaping the fact that the film’s adaptation of Tolkien’s vision is the poorer for this decision.
Furthermore, it’s worth looking more critically about the tone of Tolkien and Jackson’s adaptation. The thing about The Lord of the Rings, and Tolkien’s work in general, is that it’s a work whose power lies in its subtlety. After all, this was a man who spent years of his life creating his own fictional languages and universe, tinkering with almost every aspect of it until the very end of his life. And, if you’ve ever read any of the volumes of The History of Middle-earth, you’ll no doubt know that this sort of niggling was a key part of the composition process for him, and so every scene and every word has been crafted with exquisite attention to detail. Much as I love Jackson, the man is not a subtle filmmaker, and he’s at times a downright crass one (see also: the entire scene in Bree, which is a far cry from the comforting, if at times unsettling, one that it is in the novel). While he knows how to craft a scene that leaves an impact, many of Tolkien’s characters suffer from this lack of subtlety, including poor Denenthor, who not even John Noble can save from a script that paints him as a self-destructive madman.
Which brings us to the question of writing. Those who don’t trash Rings of Power for its “wokeness” or its “DEI casting” love to cast aspersions on the show’s writing. Again, there’s not a great deal of specificity here, with most people just gesturing vaguely and saying something about how the “writing sucks.” And, once again, they typically hold up Jackson’s films as a juxtaposition, despite some of the latter’s very curious screenwriting choices. Who could forget the moment when Treebeard and the other Ents decline to help the people of Middle-earth, only to change their minds a moment later? Or the Army of the Dead coming to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields? Or the fact that Aragorn beheads the Mouth of Sauron, a clear war crime and something book Aragorn, let alone any honorable man, would do?
All of this isn’t to say that the Jackson films aren’t great works of art, because they certainly are. This isn’t even to say that they’re somehow betrayals of Tolkien’s vision, because they are not (the same, sadly, can’t be said of The Hobbit films, but that’s a different story). For all of the changes that Jackson makes to the source material, he does manage to capture something of Tolkien’s spirit. You cannot emerge from these films and not feel moved and uplifted, reminded of the power of companionship and stout hearts to bring down even the most implacable of evils, even as you can’t shake the feeling of sadness and melancholy that accompanies Frodo’s departure from Middle-earth.
However, it seems to me self-defeating and, frankly, intellectually dishonest to argue that the Jackson films somehow have a greater claim to Tolkienian authenticity than any other adaptation. At the end of the day, we would all be better to simply enjoy the fact that we are in such a golden age of screen versions of his work. For what it’s worth, I happen to think that The Rings of Power is quite effective at capturing the beauty, the wonder and yes, even the tragedy, of Middle-earth. Everyone is entitled to dislike the show, of course, and there are critiques and criticisms to be made, just as there are for any adaptation. But to dismiss it as mere fanfiction, or as some betrayal of the original work, is simply wrong, just as it’s misguided to try to hold Jackson up as the paragon of Tolkien adaptation, immune from criticism.
As for me, I’m going to continue enjoying it all.