The movies are very well-made and always a fun watch. Peter Jackson managed to create something nice before the times of mandatory African elves and too many strong & independent female characters.

However, there are major ways the movie corrupts the original lore.

These are the main discrepancies:

Evil

Even more so than the original book, the movie gives us a purely yahwist, propagandist view of the adversary. Evil is absolute, illogical, and one-dimensional. 

Evil in the LoTR movie sort of has no plan for the victory. 

In our real Pagan world, there are no forces that desire destruction for the sake of destruction.

Aragorn

The storyline of Aragorn is the worst corruption of the story in the movie.

This is also the movie’s main attack vector on the masculine European spirit.

In the book Aragorn knew he was meant to be the king all his life. Everything he did was within his mission to regain the throne. 

Aragorn scouted all of Middle Earth preparing for his future military campaign, he studied all the pathways and planned military operations ahead, waiting the right time. He knew he had to summon the oathbreakers at the Stone of Erech at one point.

His struggle, hardships, his battles, his humble defense of the Shire, his networking, his travels – all of it served one purpose: to regain his throne when the time is right.

The war with Sauron was exactly that right time and he took advantage of it.

The whole book is in a way a tale of rivalry of two wills – Aragorn’s will and Sauron’s will. Both want to come to power, and both work for their mission 24/7.

Their wills clash during their “call” through the Palantir, and Aragorn’s will wins. He breaks Sauron and scares him.

The power of the will is probably the most important dimension of the story. In a way this echoes the solution to the Riddle of Steel in Conan – it’s the will that unites tools with people in victories. You absolutely have to discuss it with your kids – that is why you need to have them read the book before they watch the movie.

Sadly, the movie makes a completely different impression of Aragorn. He is like this cute but purposeless guy who suddenly has the world falling on his shoulders. A typically unrealistic, misleading, and falsely “inspiring” Hollywood plot that had to be incorporated into the story.

His future father-in-law Elrond has his daughter bring Aragorn the King’s sword and tells him he must pursue Gondor’s throne and go to the Stone of Erech to summon the oathbreakers. That scene is frankly insulting to everyone who has read the book and loved Aragorn’s journey.

There are more things that are off and I will probably update this post eventually. The movies are still great and the kids always love them, so I’ll stop here for now.

The Pagan Father Score 7/10

Check out the post on how Pagan Tolkien’s works are too!