I recently rewatched LotR a few months back and I finally understood why fellowship is my favorite of the movies. The stuff that Peter Jackson changed is extremely non-intrusive in fellowship, but have pretty far reaching consequences. The further you get in the movies, the heavier the effects of what he changed. They all initially feel superficial but pretty much everything Tolkien wrote was intertwined (except for bombadil, which is arguable, but that's a different conversation).
The barrow dens are huge, for example. It seems like just an interesting set piece that you can ultimate skip for time, but in reality, they tie DIRECTLY into the fall of the witch-king. The barrow blades that the hobbits get were specifically made to fight the ring wraiths, and merry used that blade to wound the witch-king, which is what allowed eowyn to kill him. The barrow blade specifically broke the enchantment on him.
And that's what made that scene so cringe in the movie, because it was a "girls get it done" scene that didn't fit in with anything else. One of Tolkien's main messages is how even the most unlikeliest of things can change the world, like hobbits, like banged up old swords, and yes, women who were relegated to housework.
The scene works in the books because it demonstrates ALL of those things perfectly, as well as the idea that things happen for a reason, no matter how insignificant they seem. But the movie ignores all that and completely misunderstands the entire point of the moment.
Listen, Peter Jackson will always hold a special place in the hearts of nerds everywhere for taking the genre seriously, and while he definitely made a point to try not insert his own politics into someone else's work, he misunderstood that work in a lot of places
www.indiewire.com
