I'm of two minds on the article (and unfortunately she referenced that Wood guy who wrote an article I really disagreed with elsewhere!). On one hand I fully agree with her take on Frodo vs. other characters and the reasons he gets overlooked. Ultimately, though, I don't think Jackson is exactly more interested in evil so much as playing out the potential conflict he found in canon because he needed some kind of conflict. Certainly Jackson's probably more interested in evil than Tolkien, who was I believe against the study of evil on principle. (I think his position was that looking at evil from evil's pov was the first step towards becoming evil yourself.)
I was very afraid of the changes made to Frodo and Sam's story in reading about them, but I was happy to see they didn't bother as much as I thought they would upon seeing them. Also, I always come back to the fact that many people I've encountered already elevate Sam over Frodo in exactly the way she describes because he's so difficult to understand. It's one of the most frustrating things about LOTR fandom, and seeing it all over again with the movie is even more frustrating. But ironically, I recently was talking to someone who seemed very young who didn't like Frodo in the books or the first two movies because she completely misunderstood him...and yet somehow the third movie made her finally get him. For some reason this last film made her understand that Frodo was not self-centered as she had originally seen him (how anyone could consider this character self-centered is beyond me) and they he did care about others. So I can forgive Jackson for wanting to play out the drama of Frodo fighting off the ring in an external way because I think it's in part due to him trying to show that there is a battle going on there when a lot of people don't see it.
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Re: Gollum
Date: 2003-12-24 02:53 am (UTC)I was very afraid of the changes made to Frodo and Sam's story in reading about them, but I was happy to see they didn't bother as much as I thought they would upon seeing them. Also, I always come back to the fact that many people I've encountered already elevate Sam over Frodo in exactly the way she describes because he's so difficult to understand. It's one of the most frustrating things about LOTR fandom, and seeing it all over again with the movie is even more frustrating. But ironically, I recently was talking to someone who seemed very young who didn't like Frodo in the books or the first two movies because she completely misunderstood him...and yet somehow the third movie made her finally get him. For some reason this last film made her understand that Frodo was not self-centered as she had originally seen him (how anyone could consider this character self-centered is beyond me) and they he did care about others. So I can forgive Jackson for wanting to play out the drama of Frodo fighting off the ring in an external way because I think it's in part due to him trying to show that there is a battle going on there when a lot of people don't see it.