It is usually a hit or a miss when it comes to bringing books to life on the big screens. While some franchises like Harry Potter manage to impress the loyal fan base, others don’t quite hit the bar set by the books (Read: Percy Jackson). However, The Lord of the Rings trilogy beautifully hits the mark when it comes to bringing all those characters and storylines to life.
The trilogy is one of the most successful ones out there with a total of just under $3 billion at the box office. The movies were also presented with seventeen Oscar awards. Turning books into movies come with the responsibility of making decisions about what to keep, what not to keep, and what to alter a bit. And as it turns out, the iconic blazing Eye of Sauron falls into the third category as the books did it quite a bit differently.
The Lord of the Rings Films Improvised the Eye of Sauron
Also Read: Lord Of The Rings: Peter Jackson Considers Hypnosis To Forget His Trilogy Films
There’s no way someone can fit all the plots of a book into a movie and sometimes it’s just more convenient to leave it out of the film’s storyline completely. However, when it comes to the Eye of Sauron, Peter Jackson decided not only to keep the element in the film, but enhance it by switching things up and bringing improvisation into play.
the iconic Eye of Sauron from the LOTR films is an original idea and didnt come from the book. in the LOTR book, the Eye of Sauron is an insignia worn by Sauron’s minions and spies; implying that hes always watching
Jackson adapted this concept into the towering flaming eye pic.twitter.com/3811tgjGNJ
— John Stewart Green Lantern (@LanternJS) April 22, 2023
In The Lord of the Rings books, the Eye of Sauron was more of a metaphorical representation of big bad Sauron’s surveillance, painted on his followers’ shields and helmets. On the other hand, though, the films showed it as a huge eye of fire representing Sauron’s new form after his body got destroyed in the first film. That’s quite a difference!
Did Sauron Physically Show Up in The Lord of the Rings Films?
Just like in the books, the movies, too, presented Sauron as someone without a distinct form. While Sauron’s physical description wasn’t too detailed in the books, J.R.R. Tolkien enlightened the fans by providing a watercolor illustration of Sauron. In the first film of the trilogy, Sauron showed up in his physical form, although he was covered from head to toe in armor which is why fans never got a glimpse at any of his features.
After getting defeated in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring, Sauron loses his physical form and his life force gets embedded into the Ring. Since then, Sauron has been shown in the films as a blazing eye of fire on top of Barad-dur. While Tolkien depicted the Eye of Sauron aka the Great Eye in a more metaphorical sense, Jackson wanted to show him as a powerful force and a growing threat, and what better way to do that than a towering, lidless, burning eye?
While readers usually don’t agree with changes made to their beloved stories in the movies, The Lord of the Rings was certainly an exception. Many fans agree that it was a necessary step taken by Jackson as translating it completely as is into the movies might not have worked on the screens. It looks like sometimes, some improvisations are worth it!
You can stream The Lord of the Rings trilogy on HBO Max.
Source: Twitter
