for me at least, the objective has been to show that the book could be dramatized whilst remaining as faithful to the text as possible, without conventional Hollywood condensing and sensationalism.I could have written a page of justifications for the parts we have written that purists won’t like, but this commentary thread already contains much of that. Instead let’s look at what we might have got right:
- unlike Jackson, we have no huge Osgiliations,
- we have used original dialogue where it exists,
- we have not cut any characters,
- We have certainly not gone as far as PJ & co and written extraneous scenes to replace Tolkien simply “because it wouldn’t work on film.”
As everyone is aware, there is no complete narrative to work with, enforcing a great amount of original interpretation for scenes only hinted at by Tolkien. We have, on a couple of occasions named unnamed background characters, and added dialogue to replace a narrator's voice, filling in details for scenes that were only described in generality in the original text. But, yes, we have fallen foul of the dreaded “Fan Fiction,” something which is unavoidable in adapting an incomplete narrative. However, those areas of the script with such personal indulgences are pretty much self-contained, and incidental to the main storyline of the series - the Doriath 2-parter, the Gondolin mini-series, for example. Whilst they add depth to the overall picture they could be cut quite easily without spoiling continuity.
A perhaps more intrusive “indulgence” has been Ethelwynn’s escaped Elves subplot, which hopefully remains sympathetic to the overall story canon. Whilst SF and I somewhat cherry-picked the scenes that appealed to our individual strengths and inclinations for bringing to life, alongside utlizing her SCA expertise for fight action, Ethelwynn readily took on the thankless task of scripting the countless more mundane scenes where there was no actual narrative to follow, just a list of events – particularly for Barahir and his outlaws, and her Himring storyline – for which we are eternally grateful. We simply couldn’t have got the script this far without her.
Ethelwynn also came up with the solution to the fact that there are no “everyman” characters, such as the Hobbits, in The Sil. If we had every Elf talk and behave like they did in LotR, even with the Edain for contrast, it probably would make for a boring movie. That is why Ethelwynn took on the Fëanorians, since their characters are the constant driving force throughout the story, and gave them less rigid and stuffy - more human? - personae. She has a real knack and feel for characterization…she can come up with great little vignettes within the larger scenes, giving us a necessary human touch. My one proviso was that they should still converse with language befitting Tolkien, whilst the race of Men could afford to be more colloquial. We haven’t always seen eye to eye on this, and I’m amazed Ethelwynn is still talking to me!!
Whether all this makes for an exciting, audience-captivating drama serial, it is hard to judge without actually seeing the script visualized. I’m sure once we saw a rough draft in the editing suite the knife would see plenty of action! I would be the first to admit that featuring so many characters would be confusing to the non-initiated, and that in many places my dialogue, at least, is too long-winded and would need paring down. For any that have seen actual pages from the script of a movie, it is surprising how sparing the dialogue usually is – the old adage of “don’t tell when you can show” really is key for this visual medium…
Of course, a project can only be as good as the persons contributing, and the smaller the “membership” then the more limited the basis for discussion of ideas and viewpoints going into the project. If there is stuff in there you don’t like, then it’s because no one has bothered to say, “sorry, but that doesn’t work for me, why don’t you try this instead” or “no way, that’s not what Tolkien would have written…” The next instalment after the one I am about to post offers just such a chance for discussion that we would welcome: Ethelwynn is planning to introduce the idea that the dwarves might have used a form of “Greek Fire” in the NA, along with trebuchets/ballistae. Thoughts and opinions would be most welcome!
