LOTR was unfilmable?

Harry Canyon

Even the author said it was unfilmable as they have tried over the years, in 1969 the Beatles wanted to be the hobbits when United Artist got the rights and Kubrick was to direct but he stated it was unfilmable. Then Bakshi made an attempt in 1978 which only covered the first 2 books but didn't finish as Rankin-Bass made a prequel the year before based on Hobbit which was a good adaptation then came the final of the loose animated trilogy Return of the King in 1980. But i'm glad in 1996 New Line got the rights for a LOTR movie trilogy and Peter Jackson did the right task of filming an unfilmable book series into masterpieces.

Jolly Cotton

Peter Jackson proved that Lord of the Rings was unfilmable. Joking of course- but I think others here will take this view! Well, being a huge Beatles fan, Beatles performing LOTR (my other love) would have been absolutely perfect!

I suppose it depends what is meant by unfilmable. Or at least which aspects. In Tolkiens day the sheer visual side could not have been easily portrayed, they could have done the landscape but not so easily the Balrogs, Minas Tirith and the like. PJ proved that with todays technology if an author can imagine it chances are it can be put on the screen, so there is no restriction there anymore. However PJ also proved perhaps that the story cannot be filmed so easily. Its hard to tell from the films as the Coven didn't really try very hard to write a script of the book so much as their own altered version, but from listening to the BBC radio plays I would say that it possible, but difficult, to get close to the text of the book in a dramatic format. Just not in PJ's case. My dream would be for someone to animate the radio plays as a 13 part tv series- now that would be the best of both worlds.

Eldorion

PJ certainly did prove some things, as Petty points out, but I'm not sure an adaptation that didn't make some of the same structural changes that PJ did would fare (I've not listened to the radio play so I can't comment on that). I can't see a three-film adaptation working if they kept the Book III/IV split of [i:ys9xsm74]The Two Towers[/i:ys9xsm74], for instance, as opposed to the intercutting that PJ had. There are other structural changes too, including bringing a lot of elements out of flashback and into the main narrative, that would probably not work on screen as well as they did in the book.

I comletely agree Eldo. The radio plays intercut the two books as well, its reasonable concession to the form of film. And Aragorn would be a hard sell to a studio as he is in the books, where he can seem arrogant and can be a bit master race (which he sort of is afterall but its not very fashionable and hard to sell). He's not very easy for a modern audience to sympathise with if you just lift his dialogue from the page and give it to an actor. You have to bring in the Arwen side to his life to soften him for film and to create a romantic lead. I don't agree with PJ's handling of this problem but I do agree of all the changes made to characters, Aragorns is one that is almost unavoidably necessary. He works on the page, but not as well on film.