Jackson's Lord of the Rings - Thumbs Down

In rereading J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, I see now clearly what is, ultimately, unacceptable about Peter Jackson's mutilated film version. Jackson does the expedient box-office thing: he turns the key characters, Gandalf and Aragorn, into exemplars of Nietzsche's übermensch.

At crucial moments both of these film characters of Jackson make decisions that are horrific to the readers of Tolkien's opus. When the Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor, confronts Gandalf in the Halls of the Dead, Gandalf shoves him into the flames to run pelting off the bow-like rock of the great city like some flaming firebrand pushed off the cliff. Never happened in the book. Gandalf would not. Period.

When "Mouth of Sauron" comes from the Black Gate of Mordor, Jackson's rendition of Aragorn has him lop off the head of this odious creature in a moment of passionate wrath. Never happened. Both instances resemble Indiana Jones taking out his pistol and wasting the scimitar-wielding black-clad fellow with one shot: great for cathartic release after guy in Black Hat finally "gets it" from guy in White Hat; perfectly wrong message, wrong characterization, wrong to the text of Tolkien, wrong period.

For good measure, Frodo, the protagonist extraordinaire, never rejects and sends packing his ever faithful companion, Samwise Gamgee. And Faramir, Captain of Gondor and brother to ill-fated but redeemed Boromir, never is tempted to take the Ring from Frodo. Jackson cooks up these changes in Tolkien's narrative for incomprehensible reasons known only to himself.

Therefore, regardless of Peter Jackson's best-effort-to-date version of LOTR with the glorious backdrop of New Zealand and dizzying CGI eye-candy, what it surreptitiously teaches viewers goes against every fiber of J. R. R. Tolkien's masterpiece. And I firmly believe, if he were here, he would have never given Jackson permission to take LOTR in the direction it finally went. For Tolkien the ends never, ever justify the means.