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Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings
This collection of essays addresses various aspects of Peter Jackson's film adaptations of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings including scriptwriting and the creative process, the place of the films in cinematic history, gender roles in the films and the books, wisdom and councils, hobbits and heroism, fan culture and fanfic, the use of Tolkien's languages in the films, and other issues.
- GenresNonfiction
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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September 16, 2026
Subtitle: Essays on Peter Jackson's
The Lord of the Rings
Somewhen back in the dark days of the early 2000s, as you may recall, Peter Jackson and his team unleashed upon the world their cinematic vision or re-vision of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings . Reactions among those who loved the books ranged from "I love it" to "I like it, but..." to "I don't like it except..." to "I hate it, it should never have been made." All of these reactions are represented in this volume, in rather more detailed an reasoned form.
To save myself some typing I shall refer to the two works as LOTR-T (for Tolkien) and LOTR-J (for Jackson).
There are thirteen essays in this volume, plus an Introduction and a goofy something-or-other. I do not propose to review them all in detail. (Is that a sigh of relief I hear?)
The book is divided into six parts, the first and last having only one essay each.
Part I: Film History
"The Three Ages of Imperial Cinema from the Death of Gordon to The Return of the King ," by J.E. Smyth.
Smyth attempts to place Jackson's trilogy in a tradition of films responding in various ways to the history of the British Empire, particularly the films of the Korda brothers and Lawrence of Arabia .
_______________________________
Part II: Adaptation and Revision
"Summa Jacksonica: A Reply to Defenses of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films, after St. Thomas Aquinas," by David Bratman.
This is exactly what it says: a full-fledged rebuttal to a wide variety of arguments suggesting that LOTR-J is in fact a good adaptation of LOTR-T, couched in the form of one Question, containing two Articles, in the style of Aquinas' Summa Theologica . One of Bratman's key points, which is quite well taken, is that Jackson has created something with (more or less) the form of LOTR-T, but not its spirit. A sort of golem, if you will.
Interestingly, one could argue that Bratman has captured the form, but not the spirit, of Aquinas: he scrupulously uses the terminology and style found in (common translations of) the Summa , but, where St. Thomas deliberately made his Objections the best arguments against his position he could find, some of Bratman's Objections are, frankly, strawmen. For example, his very first Objection: "It would seem that the films are not a travesty, because the film-makers worked so hard and were so dedicated to their project and to Tolkien's spirit." This is a strawman, bushwah on the face of it; by the logic of this Objection, one would have to say that the poetry of William McGonagall was not a series of hilarious travesties.
The other place where he falls short of the spirit of Aquinas is that the Summa , for all its size, is a masterpiece of brevity. His arguments are, as often as not a single paragraph, and never piling Pelion upon Ossa. Once he has made his point, he moves on. Bratman spends nine paragraphs, nearly two pages, demolishing the aforementioned strawman.
Let me be clear: despite my bit of satire there, this is not a bad essay by any means; it is is a very good essay with some unnecessary padding. Bratman makes many well-taken points throughout, and as a bonus his dislike of the films sometimes produces some excellent venom: there is a fine killer review scattered among these pages.
_______________________________
"Mithril Coats and Tin Ears: 'Anticipation' and 'Flattening' in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy," by Janet Brennan Croft.
An argument, frequently using the words of Tolkien (from letters and other external sources), that LOTR-J is at its best where it hews close to LOTR-T and its worst where it doesnt, largely because Jackson severly misunderstands LOTR-T and Tolkien's intent.
_______________________________
"Revision: The Lord of the Rings in Print and on Screen," by Diana Paxson.
Describes the evolution of the character of Aragornin the revisions made by Tolkien in the course of writing LOTR-T and the further changes to that character made by Jackson in LOTR-J.
This essay fails for me for the simple reason that while, yes, Tolkien's version of Aragorn evolved (I believe Tolkien would say he gradually "discovered" who the strange little Hobbit he initially called "Trotter really was"), Jackson's Aragorn did not evolve in a similar way. That is to say, Jackson did not discover a character who had somehow been there all along; he took a character who had been there all along and altered him to suit the different medium into which Jackson was going to insert him, and Jackson's rather novelistic/"three act movie" ideas of how a character needs an arc of development.
This was not a case of evolution; it was a case of plastic surgery, or simple disfigurement.
_______________________________
Part III: Heroes and Leaders
"The Art of the Story-teller and the Person of the Hero," by Kayla McKinney Wiggins.
Argues that LOTR-J fails because it tries to make LOTR-T, an epic fantasy, into something more "novelistic," giving epic heroes flaws and doubts, and because the visual images, striking as they are, do not match the power of Tolkien's ability as a story-teller.
_______________________________
"Frodo on Film: Peter Jackson's Problematic Portrayal," by Daniel Timmons.
Timmons sums his argument up neatly in one sentence: "Overall, Jackson does not present his Frodo as the best and only person for the quest, the one divinely designated to carry the Ring." The essay perfectly supports this idea.
_______________________________
"Elisions and Ellipses: Counsel and Council in Tolkien's and Jackson's The Lord of the Rings ," by Judith Kollmann.
Tolkien's "good" characters, Kollman persuasively argues, place much emphasis on "counsel" (seeking and, more importantly, listening to, the wisdom of another) and "council" (people coming together to discuss a situation rather than independently making individual decisions. Jackson's characters, by contrast, seem to make a lot of individual snap judgements. This creates a chasm not only of meaning but of emotion between LOTR-T and LOTR-J.
_______________________________
Part IV: A Woman's Part
"Tolkien's Women (and Men): The Films and the Book," by Jane Chance.
Chance, it seems, lives in an alternate world where Peter Jackson and his fellow scenarists read the "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" extract in Appendix A to LOTR-T, and decided, not only that this would be the center of his film, but that it provided an epic link back to the two previous marriages of Man and Elf (Beren and Lúthien, and Túor and Idril).
Since the movie never mentions either of those prior marriages, the latter argument is dubious at best; and since the love story actually consumes a fairly small fraction of the films' running time, even if you count the related interactions of Aragorn or Arwen with Elrond. She does, however, draw a nice parallel between the seemingly-impossible conditions Thingol and Elrond place upon the Men seeking their daughter's hands.
This idea also doesn't seem to explain very well what Chance clearly recognizes, the radical changes LOTR-J makes to the characters of the four Hobbits, which Chance describes as "infantilization," and suggests that it was done to "appeal to the nineteen-to-twenty-six-year-old male youth market:" a possibility that had, honestly, not occurred to me before.
_______________________________
"Fairy Princess or Tragice Heroine? The Metamorphosis of Arwen Undómiel in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Films," by Cathy Akers-Jordan.
Discusses, book/film by book/film, the role of Arwen, and how and (possibly) why Jackson and his fellow scenarists made the changes and additions to that role they did, concluding that "[Jackson] remains true to the spirit of the books."
_______________________________
"'Crimes Against the Book'? The Transformation of Tolkien's Arwen from Page to Screen and the Abandonment of the Psyche Archetype," by Victoria Gaydosik.
Gaydosik centers LOTR-T Arwen in what she calls the "Psyche archetype," the archetype of beauty, obedience and patience (in Psyche's case, as in Pandora's, "marred by curiosity"). She opposes this to Arwen of LOTR-J, whom, she suggests, represents the "'James Cameron archetype:' pumped-up, buttk-kicking fearless heroines who are masters of machinery, weapons, battle tactics, physical hardship, and emotional adversity, but who can still nurture a child and experience romantic attachment for a significant other." The majority of the essay is taken up with Gaydosik explaining how and why Jackson and his fellow scenarists made this change.
_______________________________
"The Sub-subcreation' of Galadriel, Arwen, and Eowyn: Women of Power in Tolkien's and Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Films," by Maureen Thum.
Jackson's treatment of these three women, according to Thum, is not unrepresentative of Tolkien's attitudes toward women in general, and she provides her evidence for it.
_______________________________
Part V: Fan Fiction
"Tales Around the Internet Campfire: Fan Fiction in Tolkien's Universe," by Susan Booker.
Provides a history of fan fiction in general, with specific attention to fan fiction set in Middle-earth and environs. Argues that fan fiction is a legitimate form of expression.
_______________________________
"Make Mine 'Movieverse': How the Tolkien Fan Fiction Community Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peter Jackson," by Amy H. Sturgis.
After briefly citing the infamous letter to Milton Waldman, and providing a brief orientation to fan fiction, Sturgis provides a whirlwind tour of Tolkien fan fiction (as it was in 2004). It appears to have been relatively sparse prior to the appearance of LOTR-J. (No mention is made of Marion Zimmer Bradley's 1961 novelette "The Jewel of Arwen.")
Shortly after the release of the first of Jackson's films, it seems that the "bookverse" (i.e., stories set firmly in the world of LOTR-T) and "movieverse" were mostly kept separate in fan fiction, largely through the influcence of the "Protectors of the Plot Continuum," or PPC.
Having pointed this out, Sturgis goes off into a lengthy discourse on the special terminology used to categorize LOTR fan fiction. Some of these I found a little upsetting, such as "RPS," or "real-people slash," which explores gay sexual chemistry between members of the movie cast: I don't think anybody has any business writing about real people that way.
Next, she discusses how even "bookverse" writers often illustrate their works, or their sites, with stills from the "movieverse." (This reflects back to Bratman's argument that Jackson's movies colonize the imagination of the viewer, making it impossible to develop one's own mental images of these characters, places, and things.)
Fan writers began mixing elements of "bookverse" and "movieverse." One hopes that this was done consciously, and not because the writers were actually incapable of distinguishing the two...
...and then came alternate universe fan fiction. As one writer put it, "If PJ can put Elves at Helms Deep [sic]," with an implied, "then I can make up changed versions of the legendarium too." And they can. One of these alternate universe fan fictions, a series called "Pretty Good Year," takes place in a world where Frodo delays his departure at the Grey Havens, stays in the Shire, enters a polyamorous relationship with Sam and Rosie Cotton... I can't go on. It's been translated into multiple languages, it's that popular.
_______________________________
Part VI: The Lucky Number
" The Lord of the Rings : A Source-Critical Analysis," by Mark Shea.
To begin with, source-critical analysis is a form of Biblical criticism which involves discerning different "sources" in various books of the Bible and sussing out not only what parts of the book came from which source, but what the agenda of each source might have been.
For example, the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) is said to have four sources, a very ancient "Jawist" source (J), which provides most of the anthropomorphic imagery of God, and uses the divine name YHWH. The Elohist source (E) was written a bit later in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, uses the name "Elohim" for God, and focuses on dreams and prophets. The Deuteronomist (D) source, from about the 600s BCE, mostly appears in the fifth boo, Deuteronomy, and focuses on covenant obedience. Finally, the Priestly (P) source, during or after the Babylonian Exile, focuses on genealogy, rituals, the Sabbath, and legal requirements. The first creation account (they say) comes from P, the second from J.
Anyway, Shea begins this very silly paper by listing the well-known sources of LOTR: the Red Boook of Westmarch (W), the Elvish Chronicles (E), Gondorian records (G), and oral traditions of the Rohirrim (R). They exist today in two redactions, one by Tolkien (T) and one by Jackson (J), "who are often in conflict with each other as well, but whose conflicting accounts of the same events reveal a great deal about the political and religious situations that helped to form our popular notions about Middle-earth and the so-called War of the Ring."
Then it gets really silly. I will say no more.
Somewhere between five and nine rattled reviewers.
Somewhen back in the dark days of the early 2000s, as you may recall, Peter Jackson and his team unleashed upon the world their cinematic vision or re-vision of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings . Reactions among those who loved the books ranged from "I love it" to "I like it, but..." to "I don't like it except..." to "I hate it, it should never have been made." All of these reactions are represented in this volume, in rather more detailed an reasoned form.
To save myself some typing I shall refer to the two works as LOTR-T (for Tolkien) and LOTR-J (for Jackson).
There are thirteen essays in this volume, plus an Introduction and a goofy something-or-other. I do not propose to review them all in detail. (Is that a sigh of relief I hear?)
The book is divided into six parts, the first and last having only one essay each.
Part I: Film History
"The Three Ages of Imperial Cinema from the Death of Gordon to The Return of the King ," by J.E. Smyth.
Smyth attempts to place Jackson's trilogy in a tradition of films responding in various ways to the history of the British Empire, particularly the films of the Korda brothers and Lawrence of Arabia .
_______________________________
Part II: Adaptation and Revision
"Summa Jacksonica: A Reply to Defenses of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films, after St. Thomas Aquinas," by David Bratman.
This is exactly what it says: a full-fledged rebuttal to a wide variety of arguments suggesting that LOTR-J is in fact a good adaptation of LOTR-T, couched in the form of one Question, containing two Articles, in the style of Aquinas' Summa Theologica . One of Bratman's key points, which is quite well taken, is that Jackson has created something with (more or less) the form of LOTR-T, but not its spirit. A sort of golem, if you will.
Interestingly, one could argue that Bratman has captured the form, but not the spirit, of Aquinas: he scrupulously uses the terminology and style found in (common translations of) the Summa , but, where St. Thomas deliberately made his Objections the best arguments against his position he could find, some of Bratman's Objections are, frankly, strawmen. For example, his very first Objection: "It would seem that the films are not a travesty, because the film-makers worked so hard and were so dedicated to their project and to Tolkien's spirit." This is a strawman, bushwah on the face of it; by the logic of this Objection, one would have to say that the poetry of William McGonagall was not a series of hilarious travesties.
The other place where he falls short of the spirit of Aquinas is that the Summa , for all its size, is a masterpiece of brevity. His arguments are, as often as not a single paragraph, and never piling Pelion upon Ossa. Once he has made his point, he moves on. Bratman spends nine paragraphs, nearly two pages, demolishing the aforementioned strawman.
Let me be clear: despite my bit of satire there, this is not a bad essay by any means; it is is a very good essay with some unnecessary padding. Bratman makes many well-taken points throughout, and as a bonus his dislike of the films sometimes produces some excellent venom: there is a fine killer review scattered among these pages.
_______________________________
"Mithril Coats and Tin Ears: 'Anticipation' and 'Flattening' in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy," by Janet Brennan Croft.
An argument, frequently using the words of Tolkien (from letters and other external sources), that LOTR-J is at its best where it hews close to LOTR-T and its worst where it doesnt, largely because Jackson severly misunderstands LOTR-T and Tolkien's intent.
_______________________________
"Revision: The Lord of the Rings in Print and on Screen," by Diana Paxson.
Describes the evolution of the character of Aragornin the revisions made by Tolkien in the course of writing LOTR-T and the further changes to that character made by Jackson in LOTR-J.
This essay fails for me for the simple reason that while, yes, Tolkien's version of Aragorn evolved (I believe Tolkien would say he gradually "discovered" who the strange little Hobbit he initially called "Trotter really was"), Jackson's Aragorn did not evolve in a similar way. That is to say, Jackson did not discover a character who had somehow been there all along; he took a character who had been there all along and altered him to suit the different medium into which Jackson was going to insert him, and Jackson's rather novelistic/"three act movie" ideas of how a character needs an arc of development.
This was not a case of evolution; it was a case of plastic surgery, or simple disfigurement.
_______________________________
Part III: Heroes and Leaders
"The Art of the Story-teller and the Person of the Hero," by Kayla McKinney Wiggins.
Argues that LOTR-J fails because it tries to make LOTR-T, an epic fantasy, into something more "novelistic," giving epic heroes flaws and doubts, and because the visual images, striking as they are, do not match the power of Tolkien's ability as a story-teller.
_______________________________
"Frodo on Film: Peter Jackson's Problematic Portrayal," by Daniel Timmons.
Timmons sums his argument up neatly in one sentence: "Overall, Jackson does not present his Frodo as the best and only person for the quest, the one divinely designated to carry the Ring." The essay perfectly supports this idea.
_______________________________
"Elisions and Ellipses: Counsel and Council in Tolkien's and Jackson's The Lord of the Rings ," by Judith Kollmann.
Tolkien's "good" characters, Kollman persuasively argues, place much emphasis on "counsel" (seeking and, more importantly, listening to, the wisdom of another) and "council" (people coming together to discuss a situation rather than independently making individual decisions. Jackson's characters, by contrast, seem to make a lot of individual snap judgements. This creates a chasm not only of meaning but of emotion between LOTR-T and LOTR-J.
_______________________________
Part IV: A Woman's Part
"Tolkien's Women (and Men): The Films and the Book," by Jane Chance.
Chance, it seems, lives in an alternate world where Peter Jackson and his fellow scenarists read the "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" extract in Appendix A to LOTR-T, and decided, not only that this would be the center of his film, but that it provided an epic link back to the two previous marriages of Man and Elf (Beren and Lúthien, and Túor and Idril).
Since the movie never mentions either of those prior marriages, the latter argument is dubious at best; and since the love story actually consumes a fairly small fraction of the films' running time, even if you count the related interactions of Aragorn or Arwen with Elrond. She does, however, draw a nice parallel between the seemingly-impossible conditions Thingol and Elrond place upon the Men seeking their daughter's hands.
This idea also doesn't seem to explain very well what Chance clearly recognizes, the radical changes LOTR-J makes to the characters of the four Hobbits, which Chance describes as "infantilization," and suggests that it was done to "appeal to the nineteen-to-twenty-six-year-old male youth market:" a possibility that had, honestly, not occurred to me before.
_______________________________
"Fairy Princess or Tragice Heroine? The Metamorphosis of Arwen Undómiel in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Films," by Cathy Akers-Jordan.
Discusses, book/film by book/film, the role of Arwen, and how and (possibly) why Jackson and his fellow scenarists made the changes and additions to that role they did, concluding that "[Jackson] remains true to the spirit of the books."
_______________________________
"'Crimes Against the Book'? The Transformation of Tolkien's Arwen from Page to Screen and the Abandonment of the Psyche Archetype," by Victoria Gaydosik.
Gaydosik centers LOTR-T Arwen in what she calls the "Psyche archetype," the archetype of beauty, obedience and patience (in Psyche's case, as in Pandora's, "marred by curiosity"). She opposes this to Arwen of LOTR-J, whom, she suggests, represents the "'James Cameron archetype:' pumped-up, buttk-kicking fearless heroines who are masters of machinery, weapons, battle tactics, physical hardship, and emotional adversity, but who can still nurture a child and experience romantic attachment for a significant other." The majority of the essay is taken up with Gaydosik explaining how and why Jackson and his fellow scenarists made this change.
_______________________________
"The Sub-subcreation' of Galadriel, Arwen, and Eowyn: Women of Power in Tolkien's and Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Films," by Maureen Thum.
Jackson's treatment of these three women, according to Thum, is not unrepresentative of Tolkien's attitudes toward women in general, and she provides her evidence for it.
_______________________________
Part V: Fan Fiction
"Tales Around the Internet Campfire: Fan Fiction in Tolkien's Universe," by Susan Booker.
Provides a history of fan fiction in general, with specific attention to fan fiction set in Middle-earth and environs. Argues that fan fiction is a legitimate form of expression.
_______________________________
"Make Mine 'Movieverse': How the Tolkien Fan Fiction Community Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peter Jackson," by Amy H. Sturgis.
After briefly citing the infamous letter to Milton Waldman, and providing a brief orientation to fan fiction, Sturgis provides a whirlwind tour of Tolkien fan fiction (as it was in 2004). It appears to have been relatively sparse prior to the appearance of LOTR-J. (No mention is made of Marion Zimmer Bradley's 1961 novelette "The Jewel of Arwen.")
Shortly after the release of the first of Jackson's films, it seems that the "bookverse" (i.e., stories set firmly in the world of LOTR-T) and "movieverse" were mostly kept separate in fan fiction, largely through the influcence of the "Protectors of the Plot Continuum," or PPC.
Having pointed this out, Sturgis goes off into a lengthy discourse on the special terminology used to categorize LOTR fan fiction. Some of these I found a little upsetting, such as "RPS," or "real-people slash," which explores gay sexual chemistry between members of the movie cast: I don't think anybody has any business writing about real people that way.
Next, she discusses how even "bookverse" writers often illustrate their works, or their sites, with stills from the "movieverse." (This reflects back to Bratman's argument that Jackson's movies colonize the imagination of the viewer, making it impossible to develop one's own mental images of these characters, places, and things.)
Fan writers began mixing elements of "bookverse" and "movieverse." One hopes that this was done consciously, and not because the writers were actually incapable of distinguishing the two...
...and then came alternate universe fan fiction. As one writer put it, "If PJ can put Elves at Helms Deep [sic]," with an implied, "then I can make up changed versions of the legendarium too." And they can. One of these alternate universe fan fictions, a series called "Pretty Good Year," takes place in a world where Frodo delays his departure at the Grey Havens, stays in the Shire, enters a polyamorous relationship with Sam and Rosie Cotton... I can't go on. It's been translated into multiple languages, it's that popular.
_______________________________
Part VI: The Lucky Number
" The Lord of the Rings : A Source-Critical Analysis," by Mark Shea.
To begin with, source-critical analysis is a form of Biblical criticism which involves discerning different "sources" in various books of the Bible and sussing out not only what parts of the book came from which source, but what the agenda of each source might have been.
For example, the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) is said to have four sources, a very ancient "Jawist" source (J), which provides most of the anthropomorphic imagery of God, and uses the divine name YHWH. The Elohist source (E) was written a bit later in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, uses the name "Elohim" for God, and focuses on dreams and prophets. The Deuteronomist (D) source, from about the 600s BCE, mostly appears in the fifth boo, Deuteronomy, and focuses on covenant obedience. Finally, the Priestly (P) source, during or after the Babylonian Exile, focuses on genealogy, rituals, the Sabbath, and legal requirements. The first creation account (they say) comes from P, the second from J.
Anyway, Shea begins this very silly paper by listing the well-known sources of LOTR: the Red Boook of Westmarch (W), the Elvish Chronicles (E), Gondorian records (G), and oral traditions of the Rohirrim (R). They exist today in two redactions, one by Tolkien (T) and one by Jackson (J), "who are often in conflict with each other as well, but whose conflicting accounts of the same events reveal a great deal about the political and religious situations that helped to form our popular notions about Middle-earth and the so-called War of the Ring."
Then it gets really silly. I will say no more.
Somewhere between five and nine rattled reviewers.
September 26, 2013
Tolkien on Film is a collection of essays on the Peter Jackson films by Tolkien experts. They're not all throwing out the welcome mat for the trilogy (one essay very amusingly states that Jackson has a nine-year old's understanding of LOTR), but the essays cover a great scope of opinions on the films and changes made for adaptation's sake.
If you are a fan of the movies that believe they possess no flaws, Peter Jackson can do no wrong and/or that Jackson told the story of the Ring better than those smelly old books by Tolkien, this isn't the book for you. You won't get far before you're throwing it away from you in disgust. But it does really depend on the reader as how they view the films and criticism of the films to how they receive the book.
Personally, I found all but a couple of essays very interesting, even if I didn't entirely agree with some of the arguments made or the opinions expressed. Some were even quite entertaining. I also enjoyed that neither one of the two essays on Tolkien fanfiction never explored the question of fandom and fanfiction in negative terms. I very much hope that there will be a second volume, focusing on Jackson's Hobbit trilogy.
If you are a fan of the movies that believe they possess no flaws, Peter Jackson can do no wrong and/or that Jackson told the story of the Ring better than those smelly old books by Tolkien, this isn't the book for you. You won't get far before you're throwing it away from you in disgust. But it does really depend on the reader as how they view the films and criticism of the films to how they receive the book.
Personally, I found all but a couple of essays very interesting, even if I didn't entirely agree with some of the arguments made or the opinions expressed. Some were even quite entertaining. I also enjoyed that neither one of the two essays on Tolkien fanfiction never explored the question of fandom and fanfiction in negative terms. I very much hope that there will be a second volume, focusing on Jackson's Hobbit trilogy.
November 13, 2015
I loved this book! Such great insight into the Lord of the Rings.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews