Thought I might post the letter I fired off to Eberhart this evening.
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Hello John,
Though you have no doubt received some correspondence on the subject already, I feel compelled - as a fellow Tolkien fanatic (and Star grunt) - to toss in a few comments of my own in regards to your column Sunday (December 22, 2002) in the Arts section entitled, "`The Two Towers' fails to follow best instincts of Tolkien's trilogy."
Having been deeply immersed in all things Tolkien since my early teens, I feel every single deviation from the books by Jackson's trilogy keenly. It has necessitated some real effort to detach myself to give myself a reasonable chance to enjoy the movies. The moment that it became apparent that the Crickhollow scheme had been tossed aside on my first viewing of FOTR, I was off my stride. Having said that, I have to say: don't get carried away here.
As I understand it, your objections to the liberties taken by Peter Jackson in The Two Towers amount essentially to this:
1) The confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman at Isengard has been either deleted or moved back to The Return of the King.
2) The Ents only march on Isengard because the Hobbits goad them into it.
And further: that Jackson must have made these (and other?) changes for crass commercial reasons.
In regards to the first: I think Jackson's decision to defer the confrontation is defensible, perhaps even preferable. Mainly this is due to the nature of the film media vs. that of the book. A great deal more compression is needed to convey story arcs on the screen, and a filmmaker does not have the luxury that an author does with narrative exposition to explain background, character, and motivations. More important even than that, however, is the difficulty of story climax. And in regards to the Aragorn-Legolas-Gimli story arc, the key climax - indeed, of the whole movie - was the Battle of Helm's Deep. Given that, any further dragging out of the arc after the battle risked a serious letdown. Filming "The Voice of Saruman" in even the briefest fashion risked making it seriously anti-climactic, no matter how well it might be scripted. It also risks diminishing the power of Helm's Deep, as surely as Viggo's retracing of the Hobbits' escape had me half expecting him to blurt out, a la Prince Humperdink, "Iocaine powder - I'd bet my life on it!"
In the book Tolkien marinates in the slow steady (and wonderful) progression of the story arc for a full four chapters after Helm's Deep ("The Road to Isengard," "Flotsam and Jetsam," "The Voice of Saruman" and "The Palantir"). Even allowing for severe compression you're still talking about some serious extension of the story arc, which adds in the difficulty as well of scrounging up the needed screen time to convey it while adhering to New Line's three hour diktat. Tolkien had no time limits, or the need to structure his climax at the end of each book, especially given that he really viewed it as one long epic divided into six books. Nor did he need bother with intercutting the story arcs, as Jackson was more or less compelled to do.
It is a bit of a disappointment not to wrap up the Saruman storyline before diving into the action in Return of the King (to say nothing of missing the wonderful cliffhanger possibilities in the Shelob confrontation), but it's just hard for me to see how either could have been incorporated into The Two Towers without introducing too many climactic moments into the movie and also ratcheting the running time well over three hours. Even if we whack some of Jackson's "embellishments."
In regards to the second: Jackson's liberty with the Ents seems on reflection a much more minor tweak to the story than it appears at first glance.
Certainly in the book the Ents decide at the Entmoot to go to war. Jackson has them deciding against it, which no doubt threw every purist in the audience into an initial tizzy. I know I was spewing popcorn.
Yet what is clear is that either way, Merry and Pippin were responsible for the decision taking place - at least in the time and place and fashion that it happened. Tolkien leaves absolutely no doubt about this during Gandalf's talk with the Three Hunters in "The White Rider" chapter:
...They were brought to Fangorn, and their coming was like the falling of small stones that starts an avalanche in the mountains. Even as we talk here, I hear the first rumblings.
...Saruman also had a mind to capture the Ring for himself, or at least to snare some hobbits for his evil purposes.So between them our enemies have contrived only to bing Merry and Pippin with marvelous speed, and in the nick of time, to Fangorn, where otherwise they would never have come at all!
...and Fangorn himself, he is perilous too; yet he is wise and kindly nonetheless. But now his long slow wrath is brimming over, and all the forest is filled with it. The coming of the hobbits and the tidings that they have brought have spilled it; it will soon be running like a flood; but its tide is turned against Saruman and the axes of Isengard.
What Jackson does is another bit of compression. The destruction of so many trees near Nan Curunir is a proximate cause of Treebeard's wrath in both book and movie; in the book he is already aware of and very angry about the destruction, but what he does not know, until the hobbits give him further ntelligence, is how much Saruman is behind it all. Conveying all that on screen as Tolkien did (through expository dialogue) could be done but it would take more time, and it would also be more tedious. Jackson moves Treebeard's learning of the destruction back by way of Pippin's gentle trick, which adds visceral impact to the decision and his anger.
Would I have done it this way? Honestly I don't think I would have thought to do so. But perhaps I would have made a less compelling movie than Jackson has as a result. I confess I'm dying to hear Jackson et al's commentary on these decisions when the DVD comes out.
As to the question of motivations: I can't really speak to that. Save to say that I have to think that commcerial motivations would be (I think) if anything of greater import in making the first film, when the stakes were so high and Jackson's work so unproven. I find it hard to believe that he didn't have greater creative flexibility on the subsequent movies once the blockbuster status of the first was assured. Of course one might argue that he merely felt more flexibility to annoy the purists. If so I'll have to lay his brew under an enchantment of surpassing flatness for seven years.
So in retrospect I think these moves that bother you are at least defensible. My quibbles (once I recovered from my shock) were smaller, the chief of which were: the decision to cast Faramir as a kind of Boromir Lite, determined to take Frodo back to Gondor until a sudden conversion after hearing Sam's speech; and the suggestion that rushing to Helm's Deep was an unwitting trap on Theoden's part, rather than the shrewd strategic move suggested by Gandalf in light of the Mark's inability to fully muster its troops for a field battle in time. In regards to the first I actually enjoyed the diversion to Osgiliath, given that it gave me a look at the wonderful ruins sets of Gondor's long-abandoned capital, as well as the opening stages of Sauron's assault - but I would rather have seen Faramir at least evidence some signs of inner turmoil over what to do with the Ring. It would have made his character more fleshed out as well as make his ultimate decision more credible.
But those are nitpicks. Even given that this is just one man's (or three/four writers?) distillation of the tale, it is hard to argue that Jackson has done fundamental violence to the essence of the story so far. I'll add as well that some of this thought (as with the first movie) has blossomed on a second viewing. None of it detracts like I feared it would from what is by most measures an astounding achievement.
"So far." I had better knock on wood just to be safe.
Best holiday wishes to you and yours.
Best regards, --