The Film Library

Lord of the Rings: Better without the lame Elvish 'songs'?

I have to be honest.  I was rather relieved that Peter Jackson and the screen writers decided to skip over the many 'elvish' songs recorded in the original books.  I've read the books 3 or 4 times each now and every single time I try to commit to read those lame songs, and can never bring myself to do it.  I don't feel like they add anything to the story, and didn't miss them in the movie adaptations. 

I know, however, a  lot of purists were pretty upset by this decision and claimed that the songs were integral to the story.  I frankly can't begin to imagine how they are 'integral'... can anyone elaborate on this and defend those sonnets?

Re:Lord of the Rings: Better without the lame Elvish 'songs'?

seely:

I have to be honest.  I was rather relieved that Peter Jackson and the screen writers decided to skip over the many 'elvish' songs recorded in the original books.  I've read the books 3 or 4 times each now and every single time I try to commit to read those lame songs, and can never bring myself to do it.  I don't feel like they add anything to the story, and didn't miss them in the movie adaptations. 

I know, however, a  lot of purists were pretty upset by this decision and claimed that the songs were integral to the story.  I frankly can't begin to imagine how they are 'integral'... can anyone elaborate on this and defend those sonnets?

I would just say that they are important for establishing the larger world and entire history and mythos of the land.  They aren't integral for following the primary lines of action that bring you straight through the narrative.  But when reading the books, the main story and the narrative is probably only about half of the subject of most of the paragraphs.  The other half is to just sort of describing the scenery around you, and giving you a sense of the entire history and culture of a made up world.  Tolkien's initial and probably continued purpose of creating Middle-Earth and it's stories was so he could make up his own languages.  And languages are always birthed and influenced by the history, culture, land, stories, and everything else that affects an emerging society of people.

Basically when you read the book and when you see the movie, I think you get a sense when reading the book that the world is a bit bigger and more complex than you do with the movies.  Although books have a lot of advantages here, movies have some advantages too as in "a picture is worth a 1000 words".  But sometimes there are ideas generated in your mind by sequences of 1000 words that could never be portrayed in just one picture or even one strip of film.

Re:Lord of the Rings: Better without the lame Elvish 'songs'?

Risselada:

seely:

I have to be honest.  I was rather relieved that Peter Jackson and the screen writers decided to skip over the many 'elvish' songs recorded in the original books.  I've read the books 3 or 4 times each now and every single time I try to commit to read those lame songs, and can never bring myself to do it.  I don't feel like they add anything to the story, and didn't miss them in the movie adaptations. 

I know, however, a  lot of purists were pretty upset by this decision and claimed that the songs were integral to the story.  I frankly can't begin to imagine how they are 'integral'... can anyone elaborate on this and defend those sonnets?

I would just say that they are important for establishing the larger world and entire history and mythos of the land.  They aren't integral for following the primary lines of action that bring you straight through the narrative.  But when reading the books, the main story and the narrative is probably only about half of the subject of most of the paragraphs.  The other half is to just sort of describing the scenery around you, and giving you a sense of the entire history and culture of a made up world.  Tolkien's initial and probably continued purpose of creating Middle-Earth and it's stories was so he could make up his own languages.  And languages are always birthed and influenced by the history, culture, land, stories, and everything else that affects an emerging society of people.

Basically when you read the book and when you see the movie, I think you get a sense when reading the book that the world is a bit bigger and more complex than you do with the movies.  Although books have a lot of advantages here, movies have some advantages too as in "a picture is worth a 1000 words".  But sometimes there are ideas generated in your mind by sequences of 1000 words that could never be portrayed in just one picture or even one strip of film.

Well, some of the original Elvish songs are thrown into the Special Editions.  They were filmed being sung or whatnot but were ultimately eliminated from the theatrical releases.  The Fellowship of the Ring includes two cut scenes alone: one of the Elves walking toward the West and the Grey Havens with Frodo and Sam looking on and a later song when Aragorn/Strider is singing a lost romantic lullaby about a forbidden love between a mortal and an elf (to parallel his own love of Arwen), which awakes Frodo from his sleep.

Still, I am one of the few pundits who, believing the LOTR trilogy and the Hobbit to be my favorite books, was surprised, pleased, and astounded by the film versions.  I consider them two different but equivalent experiences, much like Rizzo sort of described.  I didn't miss the Elvish songs and long deliberations about pipeweed and that, but I love that they are included in the original texts for exactly what Rizzo talked about - Tolkien's degrees included linguistics, I believe, and the whole purpose for including them was the "cultural immersion" for the reader, not to advance plot or anything like that.  But I dig that sort of attention to detail anyway because I want to escape through the fantasy, and what better way then giving us these palpable details to enrich our imaginations?  Plus, there is some amazing poetry in there, and my literary mind appreciates their lyrical quality.

I did miss Tom Bombadil in the movies, who had whole chapters devoted to him in the books, but I got over it when I saw the visuals.  The Balrog was everything I hoped to see and more, for example.  In the end, I am happy to have both, and I'll still pull out my singular bound and beautifully illustrated LOTR when I feel the hankering or watch the films when I've got four hours a pop to kill (and I ONLY watch the Special Editions). :-)

Re:Lord of the Rings: Better without the lame Elvish 'songs'?

For me personally, the way I watched the movies was as a supplement to the books.  When I started getting frustrated about things that weren't explained fully or the same as the book, or when they removed entire scenes, I just started telling myself it didn't matter because I already know the full story.  Now I look at the movies the same way I look at illustrations in the book.  Obviously only certain scenes can be chosen to be illustrated.  And the illustrations don't make much sense without reading along in the book.  It's only after you read the book that you look at the illustration to get kind of an interpretation of one of the images conjured by the book.  I look at the scenes in the movie the same way.

Re:Lord of the Rings: Better without the lame Elvish 'songs'?

I totally agree.  When I saw the films, I think I was not disappointed and enjoyed them thoroughly because I kept the mindset that the films are not the books, they never will be, and they never could be.  If they included every scene they would be days upon days long.  I suppose in the books I can see a case for the Elvish songs being more important to establish the culture of the elves than is necessary in the films. 

I definitely DO appreciate the fact from a linguistics standpoint that Tolkein took the time and detail to create an actual elvish dialect, but I guess as you guys pointed out that it does little to add to the actual story and thats where it loses me.  I do like the level of immersion Tolkein created in the stories though and I suppose without the songs it wouldn't seem quite so 'real'.

Risselada:

For me personally, the way I watched the movies was as a supplement to the books.  When I started getting frustrated about things that weren't explained fully or the same as the book, or when they removed entire scenes, I just started telling myself it didn't matter because I already know the full story.  Now I look at the movies the same way I look at illustrations in the book.  Obviously only certain scenes can be chosen to be illustrated.  And the illustrations don't make much sense without reading along in the book.  It's only after you read the book that you look at the illustration to get kind of an interpretation of one of the images conjured by the book.  I look at the scenes in the movie the same way.