Tauriel

[Legendary Sidekick]

Simple answer: because books and films are different mediums. What works in a book may not work in a film, and vice versa.

I can't really buy into that as an explanation for a majority of the changes that annoy fans.

Here's my spoiler-free thoughts on changes that "had to" be made in GoT season 4 due to the medium:
- A festering wound being eventually fatal is hard to show on film, and easy to explain in a book.
- Which whore Tyrion and his father discussed: the TV audience only knows the one they saw on several episodes, not the one they heard about once; the reader in Tyrion's head knows how much his ex-wife meant to him.

Here are some changes that annoyed the hell out of me, and had absolutely nothing to do with medium:
- Jurassic Park: who lived, who died - with the exception of the main character couple and the children, survival/death was toggled. In the book, the hunter and lawyer lived and gramps and the chaos theory guy died. The hunter was smart and well-armed in the book and the lawyer wasn't a balding stereotype set up to die on the toilet.
- GoT: I know Martin approves of the change, but when I read the Red Wedding scene in the book, I was disappointed in the change in the show. Robb Stark was a moron bringing his wife there. In the book, he knew not to bring her. It changed the character.
- Star Wars [original vs. remake]: Greedo can't hit a guy sitting still and he has no reason to shoot mid-sentence, Han Solo's an idiot for letting him shoot and a bigger idiot for stepping on Jabba's tail. Jabba's a wacky cartoon mob boss. His eyes bug out, and he just puts up with it "like it never happened. Fuhgeddaboudit."

As I said, I didn't (and likely won't) see The Hobbit on film, but I can see why some fans aren't crazy about changing the cast of characters around. I don't think the medium is a reason to change who the characters are in a story. As Devor pointed out, there's a ripple effect. Now you have the pretty lady captain so, oh! I know, a love story! You can't have a lady captain and not have her fall in love, right? (Just making an assumption based on stuff I read in this thread. Apologies if I'm way off.)

I think when you're telling a popular story on film, you're telling it to an audience that knows that characters well. When you change character, it's a slap in the face to the audience. I guess you can get away with showing events that weren't shown in the book, and of course you can omit events that were shown in the book. And yeah, you can do whatever you want as the filmmaker, but changing character's fates and behaviors is what doesn't sit well with me. I think that's what rubs most fans the wrong way.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

The films didn't connect with an audience that was eager to find a connection with them.

Yeah, that's what all my rambling was trying to get at. Well said!

 

[Gryphos]

Every adaptaion is a little different. But art is about connecting with audiences, and with the Hobbit, everybody knew that the audiences came in with tremendous expectations and a tremendous degree of loyalty to the originals. It's not just about adapting the story to the medium - there's a million variations the films could have taken just to fit the camera - it's about adapting the Hobbit to meet its fans.

As was said before, a lot of things you can let slide. The corny fighting you can shrug off and get into, and try to justify. But Tauriel - when you look at the whole of what they did with the character - was a change that simply didn't work. She undermined the setting, the tone, and the story with her nonsensical romance plot.

If people are leaving the theaters disappointed and complaining about the character, in the numbers that they're doing so, then you can objectively say the adaptation did something wrong. The films didn't connect with an audience that was eager to find a connection with them.

First off, I completely agree that Tauriel's romance was stupid. I just don't think her mere existence as a character is some kind of heinous crime. If they had had her as a character, but not gone for the romance, I would have been extra happy, because then you're bringing in a much-needed bit of female representation while not undermining the overall plot of the film. As it stands I still think it's good to have her, but I'm not happy with her precise execution as a character.

Secondly, I think you're overestimating the amount of people who didn't like the films. The first one made over a billion dollars! Any film that makes that much is connecting to the audience on some level. In this case I imagine it connected to the majority of the audience which doesn't care about the faithfulness of its adaptation and just wants to experience it as its own thing. You're assuming that the film was aimed at fans of the book. It clearly wasn't, but that's okay, because those fans of the book will always have the story they want: the book.

 

[Ruby]

Btw, did you hear about the person who came out of a cinema after seeing The Hobbit film, and asked if anyone was going to write a book called The Hobbit?

Here's a really good website I've found which should help with any questions you have about Tolkien and his books:F.A.Q. – The Tolkien Society

 

[acapes]

Btw, did you hear about the person who came out of a cinema after seeing The Hobbit film, and asked if anyone was going to write a book called The Hobbit?

Yeah, that was me

 

[Steerpike]

Yes the films are very popular. Most people I know who have read the book and are fans of Tolkien also love the Hobbit movies and are already itching to get in line for the last one. I found the Hobbit movies to be of lesser quality than the original trilogy. It's not the changes that bothered me so much as the overall tone and approach to the films.

 

[Devor]

Secondly, I think you're overestimating the amount of people who didn't like the films. The first one made over a billion dollars! Any film that makes that much is connecting to the audience on some level. In this case I imagine it connected to the majority of the audience which doesn't care about the faithfulness of its adaptation and just wants to experience it as its own thing. You're assuming that the film was aimed at fans of the book. It clearly wasn't, but that's okay, because those fans of the book will always have the story they want: the book.

You can like something despite disliking an aspect of the film. I don't think I'm overstating how many people disliked this aspect of the film.

I also think the buzz surrounding Peter Jackson and the film strongly support the assertion that the film was made with fans in mind. Most audience segments are not mutually exclusive. You can appeal both to fans and to the mass audience. And I think it's clear that was their intention.

 

[Fyle]

The main thing to me in many cases and in the case of Tauriel is - there was no reason to add her. None. Zero.

For this reason alone those who call themselves fans should be put off.

Furthermore, the Hobbit was written in the 1930s, if there were no females leads, well, that's how it was written. Wouldn't you rather see original intentions then political correctness and ticket sales altering classics? And yes Legolas is pretty bad as well - the lesser of two abominations.

 

[Steerpike]

It's a reality today that a significant portion of the SF/F fan base is female. Readers, gamers, writers, and so on. It either wasn't that way 60 or 70 years ago, or at least the perception was that it wasn't. The works were targeted toward males. Females in the industry changed their names or used initials (James Tiptree, Jr., anyone?).

Arguing that an attempt to acknowledge the realities of the modern fan base and take a shot at representation (whether you like how it was actually done or not) is mere political correctness is a lazy argument.

 

[Mindfire]

Well this has certainly escalated quickly...

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Well this has certainly escalated quickly...

Give me a minute - you ain't seen nuthin', yet.

The main thing to me in many cases and in the case of Tauriel is - there was no reason to add her. None. Zero.

For this reason alone those who call themselves fans should be put off.

Furthermore, the Hobbit was written in the 1930s, if there were no females leads, well, that's how it was written. Wouldn't you rather see original intentions then political correctness and ticket sales altering classics? And yes Legolas is pretty bad as well - the lesser of two abominations.

Okay, you finally said it and I can't stay out any more. "There was no reason to add her!" is the cry of the raging nerd, howling against the ever-encroaching reach of invading feminism. (This cry is also heard in regards to persons of color, which I'll address in a moment.) No reason? I'm looking at IMDB, and going over the credits there are a total of 4 speaking female roles, counting Tauriel, in the whole film.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) - Full Cast & Crew - IMDb

One of the greatest privileges of being white and male is to be able to go anywhere and see yourself represented, to such a degree as to think it ubiquitous. That it's "how things are." "Look, there I am on the TV!" "Look, there I am in the movie!" "Look, here I am in this story!" Little white boys grow up like this.

If a little girl goes to the movies she sees a world where men get to be complicated. Men get to be horrible, obnoxious, weak, or even sociopathic, but still loved. When she sees herself at all, she's a "good girl" or a "bad girl." She only gets to be "strong." And in a movie like you would have, where there "was no reason to add her at all," she gets to be erased.

Tauriel wasn't gender swapped for nerd boys to swoon over. She's there so little girls can see themselves in this utter sea of men on that screen, and see a woman who is both fierce in battle and compassionate. I don't like the romance nonsense, not because I disapprove of romance - I wouldn't mind getting lost in a mine with Kili, he's a cutie - but because culturally having a female character brings a knee-jerk "what man is she going to romantically orbit?" response. I would have rather they left the romance subplot out, and let her be a fully realized character.

And for persons of color watching these movies, they don't exist at all, unless you count the Oliphant riders from the East, and that's pretty sketchy representation. And whatever you do, don't try to argue that there were no POC in medieval Europe. I will bury you so deep in primary source material you'll cry. Tolkien wrote in a time and culture that suppressed POC even more than women, and it shows in his writing. The purists need to stop bleating about his purity of vision, pull up their big-girl panties, and realize that even brilliant old white men were just that - old white men who erased more than half the human experience before they even wrote the words "Once Upon a Time."

 

[Gryphos]

No reason? I'm looking at IMDB, and going over the credits there are a total of 4 speaking female roles, counting Tauriel, in the whole film.

An interesting thing to also note is that none of them were in the book, and only one of them was a creation of Tolkien.

 

[Jabrosky]

And for persons of color watching these movies, they don't exist at all, unless you count the Oliphant riders from the East, and that's pretty sketchy representation. And whatever you do, don't try to argue that there were no POC in medieval Europe. I will bury you so deep in primary source material you'll cry. Tolkien wrote in a time and culture that suppressed POC even more than women, and it shows in his writing. The purists need to stop bleating about his purity of vision, pull up their big-girl panties, and realize that even brilliant old white men were just that - old white men who erased more than half the human experience before they even wrote the words "Once Upon a Time."

I did see a few African extras intermixed with the Europeans in Lake-town, but again that was sketchy representation.

I don't doubt that, in our world's timeline, people of all colors have traveled around the world throughout history. Africans in medieval Europe make no less sense to me than Conan the Cimmerian adventuring around the Black Kingdoms.

On the other hand, you might want to consider that most of the characters in these movies are not Homo sapiens but come from different species indigenous to Middle Earth's northern areas. Assuming the elves, dwarves, and hobbits have their evolutionary roots in these northern areas, odds are they would have adapted to the local conditions just as Neanderthals adapted to Ice Age Europe. Therefore they probably wouldn't physically resemble Africans or anyone else we perceive as "people of color".

On the other hand, since Homo sapiens would have reached northern Middle Earth from the tropical regions of the south more recently, it would make more sense for the human characters to have darker skin and other non-European traits. Even that would hinge on how just long ago the human species settled the northern areas.

 

[Steerpike]

I don't think you can apply real-world evolutionary principles to Middle Earth very easily. According to the lore, humans were created, just as the elves were during the First Age. They didn't evolve and I don't think there is anything in the lore to suggest the humans in the books came ultimately from southern ancestors.

 

[Devor]

I don't think you can apply real-world evolutionary principles to Middle Earth very easily. According to the lore, humans were created, just as the elves were during the First Age. They didn't evolve and I don't think there is anything in the lore to suggest the humans in the books came ultimately from southern ancestors.

I don't know about the humans, but there were four breeds of Hobbits, which wound up intermingled in the Shire. Smeagol was of one breed. Was it Pippin that showed signs of being another? There were seven clans of dwarves, although we only see Durin's kin, but two others would have passed regularly through Bree, and possibly another fought with the easterlings. And Galadriel was a Noldor elf ruling a Silvan realm. Tolkein's worldbuilding has a great number of ethnicities already built into the world that could end up expanded or explored without changing hardly any of the story at all.

 

[Steerpike]

There's plenty of room for including and/or expanding on varying ethnicities in Tolkien's world. But I don't think the general idea of humans evolving in a southern clime, as darker-skinned groups, and then migrating outwardly from there to populate other areas of Middle Earth necessarily holds true. Or, at least, there is no reason to think it does.

 

[Steerpike]

I think A.E. Lowan makes excellent points, above. You'll find a lot of resistance toward inclusion in geekdom. I wonder, sometimes, if it isn't that so many people in geek culture came into it growing up, at a time when they may have been socially-awkward or excluded themselves. Geekdom offered a haven of like-minded individuals, and a certain sanctuary from society at large. Maybe attempts at inclusion are seen, consciously or unconsciously, as an effort by society at large to intrude into this safe haven. I know people personally who dislike the idea of their geek interests become popular in the culture as a whole. They draw the dichotomy between 'real fans' (i.e. those like them who tend to be insulated from society as a whole and put a strong sense of identity into their affiliation with geek culture) and the wannabe sort of fans who start to come in when something gets popular. I think there is a tendency to want to maintain the insular nature of aspects of geekdom.

Going back to the OP, I think when you have to start off a post by effectively saying "Hey, now, I'm not sexist, but..." it should be a signal to go back and look at things from a different light. I'm not saying that the OP or anyone else in the thread is sexist, but merely pointing out that feeling the need to preface a comment with that kind of statement should be a bit of a flag that what you're talking about has some depth and nuance to it, rather than blithely moving ahead with categorical denouncements of the subject at hand and failing to consider all of the types of things A.E. Lowan mentioned, above.

 

[Jabrosky]

I think A.E. Lowan makes excellent points, above. You'll find a lot of resistance toward inclusion in geekdom. I wonder, sometimes, if it isn't that so many people in geek culture came into it growing up, at a time when they may have been socially-awkward or excluded themselves. Geekdom offered a haven of like-minded individuals, and a certain sanctuary from society at large. Maybe attempts at inclusion are seen, consciously or unconsciously, as an effort by society at large to intrude into this safe haven. I know people personally who dislike the idea of their geek interests become popular in the culture as a whole. They draw the dichotomy between 'real fans' (i.e. those like them who tend to be insulated from society as a whole and put a strong sense of identity into their affiliation with geek culture) and the wannabe sort of fans who start to come in when something gets popular. I think there is a tendency to want to maintain the insular nature of aspects of geekdom.

I don't know what the proportional demographics of geek culture actually are, but my stereotypical image of a geek honestly depicts an affluent white male. In certain ways that's actually a pretty privileged position to occupy, so the geeks who fit that stereotype might have difficulty relating to perspectives outside the affluent-white-male demographic intersection. Of course, that affluent white males as a whole are the social-justice trolls' favorite punching bag cuts the rift even deeper.

 

[Chessie]

Wonderful discussion and yes, AE Lowan makes some strong points.

The only thing I have to add is that its unreasonable to expect Hollywood not to change anything. They have their creative adaptations to stories the same way the rest of us do when we come up with ideas borrowed from someone else. We all do it. On one hand, I can understand why geeks are upset over the creation of Tauriel. And on the other, its like come on. Did you really think that everything was going to be kept the same?

Modern society is very different from what it was in the 1930s. In general, most of the LOTR movies have been centered around all white males. What's the problem with including a female that represents something positive for young girls, like AE Lowan said? Think about how much of fantasy *is* centered on the young white males. As a Hispanic woman, I personally would love to see more diversity. Do I expect it? Not really. Its not something that bothers me that much because its just the way things are.

So to be upset over the inclusion of a female "just because" is unreasonable. Hollywood has to market to more than just young white males. Let's be realistic here.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

culturally having a female character brings a knee-jerk "what man is she going to romantically orbit?" response. I would have rather they left the romance subplot out, and let her be a fully realized character.

This is something I can't stand about the way many female characters are represented. You can have a male warrior and he just fights, and the audience may never know about his love life or if he has one, and the audience isn't expected to care. But add a female warrior into your adventure and who's her ex? Who's her betrothed? What guy will win her heart? Is there a love triangle? Uh-oh!

I have three daughters. I would like to see more strong female characters who aren't automatically attached to a guy.



…of course, even those truly strong, non-romantic woman warriors have fans who might imagine romance subplots, like the artist who created this cute (and clean) Brienne/Jaime fan art.





@Chesterama, don't get me started on racial representation. My daughter expressed a wish to be blonde like Barbie. She's half-Chinese (and I've got black hair, so blonde wasn't happening anyway). I told her that her hair might get a little browner (it WAS black at birth) and she's beautiful the way she is.

As far as her having a half-white, half-Asian role model… well…

So far, I only recall one "Eurasian" character in film, and she got her arms chopped off in Kill Bill. Chun Li was played by a Eurasian actresss (in the 2009 crappy film, not the 1994 crappy film), but the character is supposed 100% Chinese. Last night, my wife and I watched Hawaii Five-O and got a laugh at a scene in Hong Kong. They showed stock footage of HK, and onscreen the word "KOWLOON" appeared. We laughed because the shot was taken from the Kowloon side, but it was a shot of Central. Also yesterday, my wife saw a children's book about Dim Sum written by someone who obviously knew very little about Chinese culture. My wife just gets amused by the ignorance.