You wrote that the film's opening needed to be less twee than the book's to appeal to a wide audience. It's a concession to a wide audience who expects their films to open with a bang, to change the story structure to give them that.Pearly Di wrote:How is that a concession? The battles are part of the story!
Since there is no such thing as an absolutely faithful adaptation, we're all working on a sliding scale. (And of course we're all talking about our own tastes: why should I care if the rest of the audience likes the film of LotR if I don't -- Forty million Frenchmen can't be right!) The book prologue's serving of history is a good deal less cinematically exciting: if the tone were preserved, it would largely be dry. Now, Ken Burns' The Civil War, for one of many instances, shows how history can be kept pretty engaging on film, but I was willing to make that concession to a general audience. How much paratext should a film copy - cover, title page, publication information, Ring verse, table of contents (I have seen two online discussions of the chapter titles in LotR), Doug Anderson and Hammond & Scull's separate Notes on the Text, Foreword, Prologue, and Shire Map?Yes, I like the movement of the book too ... but strictly speaking, the Tale actually starts with the Prologue and a whole dollop of history.