Most Disappointing Change from Book to Movie

Forgive me if this is repetitive, but I didn't see one consolidated thread for this discussion; I was wondering if anyone has one particular "change" that erks you from the books to the movies.

Ex: Tom Bombadil (or lack of)
The Scouring of the Shire (or lack of)
The supposed death of Saruman at Orthanc (combined with the above)
Helm's Deep (Elves?????)
The Anduril FedEx delivery and the late entrance
Faramir (really his whole persona in the movies)
Theoden's exorcism

I am just curious to see what you all think.

 

I particularely didn't like the Anduril FedEx.

Something about it seemed.....I don't know.

It just seemed out of place.

 

I actually liked the fact that the scouring and bombodil werent in the movies. For time and mood they are difficult to place.

The things i missed the most were the massive sections from hobbiton, brandywine, bree and rivendell that were cut out.

 

Scouring of the Shire. - Understandabley couldn't film it after the climax.
but for the Hobbits to return to a "Untouched" home, when the rest of the earth had been afflicted was dumb.
PJ could have just shown them rebuilding the shire, after being affected as everyone else was, maybe by Saruman's Uruk's, before he was killed at Orthanc? And Hobbiton cheering hte reurning hero's ? Just hated that all of The Shire had no idea what they did.
Just my opinion.

 

I almost forgot, what is this nonsense of the WK breaking the staff of Gandalf? I am eager to see what that will mean - that is a major change!

 

I will ever miss my Glorfindel.

 

I didnt like what they did to Faramir.

 

I sorely missed Glorfindel. He is one bad-ass Elf Lord. Now the scene didnt work out to bad, and i love Arwen's sword and she is a hottie. But seriously, couldn't they have just hired a well known actor to play Glorfindel and then not put Arwen in ? I mean, the only reason Arwen's plot was so beefed up was to get Liv Tyler more screen time.

 

I totaly agree, I was looking very forward to Glorfindel the first time I went to see the movie, but nooo, they just had to give Liv more time.

 

It's a shame that they didn't put the 'meeting' with Gildor Inglorion in the movie.
Because he is so wise and you could make such a great scene when he arrives and the Black Riders ran off!

 

The biggest "small-flaws" in the movies: ridiculous battle between Gandalf and Saruman. Hollywood love-story between Aragorn and the elf-woman (believe or not, I can't seem to recall her name just now...). Aragorn was supposed to be rather ugly... Also, the destroying of the "biggest" Nazgúl was badly made (or the destroying of his body)... The hollywood happy ending of the movie was also pretty far from what it should have been, it spoiled one of the main themes in the story: choises have costs, and even the people who choose "right" can (and in the book will) suffer great losses. As someone pointed out, our heroes just had a nice party at the end and nothing had happened to the Shire etc... In fact, I could go on and on with this list... but it doesn't matter, as far as so many people loved those movies, they are fine by me (but I'll stick to the book)...

 

I missed the loss of the night/day shifts in the battle of pellenor fields too.

 

I didn't mind Elrond using FedEx. It's the king's sword, and Aragorn got it when he needed to be king. It makes sense.

 

It was more Hollywoodish that way, it didn't look too bad I suppose, but in the books Anduril is a weapon to be feared, and the number of references to it in the trilogy make it an odd occurence to leave out in the movies. Oh well. Thats Hollywood for ya.

 

The Anduril change worked well for UC, they were able to invent a Strider Elven Dagger out of the whole thing! As you recall in Lothlorien, Aragorn is given a magical scabbard for Anduril - UC has yet to release this elusive item.

 

FedEx Elrond

I think I remember reading that Arwen was supposed to show up at Helms Deep and bring the sword. When Jackson found out how annoyed the devoted followers of the books would be he cut it out. So to fix it he had to write this scene into the reshoots.

Then again that could be naysayer garbage

 

In the commentaries they talked about how after they started shooting it they soon realized that "it wasn't going to work."

For me, the biggest disappointment was the change with Faramir. They said that if they all of a sudden introduced a character who resisted the temptation of the ring, it would destroy the whole message of the ring corrupting people. If this is true, why didn't it do the same in the book? And if they wanted to show that the ring was corrupting, they should have had Faramir take the ring which he didn't. He wanted to send the ring to Minas Tirith so that the war would be won. He obviously wasn't doing it for his own glory like Boromir and that is exactly what the ring does. Also, if they wanted to have an intense situation with Frodo they could have had Ithilian attacked and Faramir aiding Frodo in his escape.

 

Go here for a Faramir explanation.
http://www.istad.org/tolkien/faramir.html

They make good sense of it.

 

Thanks. I've read it. A pretty good explanation, I say.

 

Hey that is a great site Isengard, thanks for the post! Purists perhaps you may find some solace in the explanations given.