posted September 12, 2013 10:46 AM
I just finished The Lord of the Rings yesterday. One of the striking contrast from book and film is how they portray Aragorn's love affairs. In particular his relationship with Eowyn. In the book there are no romantic scenes of affection between Aragorn and Eowyn. IIRC more of the romanc eis stated in scenes not involving interactions between Aragorn and Eowyn minus their parting before Aragorn leaves to seek the aid of the Men of the White Mountains for the upcoming Siege of Gondor.In the movie, they showed so many interactions between the two from Eowyn practicing some fencing skills with Aragorn to some conversations on their way to Helm's Deep and Eowyn even has many silent glances at Aragorn throughout the Trilogy out of affection. The movie even shows her on the brink of tears when Aragorn tells her she is not the one he loves and there is another she has been in love with long before he met her.
In the book there are no such scenes and on his parting to meet the Men of the White Mountains, Aragorn's reason why he cannot marry Eowyn was not even because of his love for Arwen but because Eowyn is not truly in love with Aragorn and is only in love with the idea of him and all the potential power she may gain if she marries him.
Even the romance between Arwen and Aragorn is barely mentioned in the main story and its only in the Appendix does the reader gets a glimpse of their affair (which even then is a basic description and not really ROMANTIC even taking into account the book's primary emphasis is Fantasy and not Romance).
Where as in the Movie Trilogy Arwen has a very powerful romantic conversation with Aragorn when they reach Rivendell in Fellowship and in Two Towers she even dreams about him and Elrond warns her it says hopeless romance and she should give up. The Return of the King dramaticizes it further by showing a last minute change of heart when Arwen sees a glimpse of the future if she were to remain with Aragorn and tells Elrond she changes her mind in tears and later Elrond meets with Aragorn at the camps before the departure to Rohoan to tell Aragorn of the grave news that Arwen is dying and he MUST WIN the War. The movie's celebration of the crowning of Aragorn even has Arwen witnessing it and the scene ends with a passionate kiss between the two.
Movie Elrond was even adamant against Arwen marrying Aragorn before the Return of the King were as book Elrond was already willing to accept such a marriage way further back before Fellowship began so long as Aragorn could regain his title of King of Gondor so Arrwen would be married to a man of similar (or higher) status.
What do you think? do you think Jackson's addition of more romance and more emphasis of the female characters than the book was a good thing? As much as I honestly felt it missed the point of Tolkien's story and added some Hollywood cheesiness, I understand it was a way of luring girls into the series and creating a female fanbase (esp. considering Aragorn's actor Viggo Mortenson was such a HANDSOME man to begin with ^^). Way to gain more ticket sales hehehehe.
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posted September 12, 2013 10:46 AM