Capturing Tolkien's Vision vs. A Literal Interpretation

[Wayfarer]

Jackson has captured the essence of the character. Is he more humanized than Tolkien's Aragorn? Yes. But I would rather have a more humanized Aragorn who felt real than an attempt to carbon-copy the books that falls flat on its face. Am I the only one who remembers Ralph Bakshi's Aragorn?

That, for once, made sense.

I agree. I myself liked Jackson's Aragorn several orders of magnitude better than Bakashi's. Because it was quite a bit better done.

But is that because jackson 'humanized' the character? Not really. No. It's because Viggo Mortensen is a good actor, and can (or could) convey far much more of the character than a silly badly drawn cartoon.

You've read the books, but you might have forgotten that Aragorn /is/ unsure in places. He /does/ have doubts- but for different, and infinitely better reasons than those jackson attempts to palm off.

Have you noticed that one of the places where Tolkien's Aragorn displays the most doubt, directly after Gandalf's death when he is forced to assume the mantle of leadership, is one of the places where Jackson's Aragorn displays none whatsoever? Does that really make sense if what you are saying is true?

No. Because Jackson, though he tried, has failed to humanize Aragorn. Oh, his character is more understandable to people today, but that's Modernization, not humanization. He's turned him into the sort of conflicted protagonist that's expected today, with issues and complexes rather than real considerations that worry him. He has ceased to become a hero who will become king, and become an action-figure with a veneer of trite emotionalism.

That's not to say that he's entirely bad- there were many places in which the part was well scripted and played. But there were others where he departed wildly from the character of Aragorn in the novels.