You know the curse that touches those jewels, how much havoc they have wrecked upon the world, how they have destroyed all they have touched. Melian is a character I would use a lot more in a film version simply because her presence as a knowledgeable-supernatural-power-behind-Thingol's throne would be very useful in forcing information into dialogue.įor example, she could give him a lecture behind the scenes about how he should 'never have sent that Man after the Silmaril. The more I think about it the more ideas I get for scenes, ways to explain things without having characters or a disembodied narrator monologuing (Is that a word? I can't get a spelling the computer likes of it which generally means I just made up a word without knowing it) endlessly. You want to show, not tell, as much as possible. I think you have the base work for the story right there without a lot of boring exposition.įilms are a visual medium. Show Morgoth surrounded by Orcs and evil men, show those evil men run out yelling evil war chants, show Beren stumble onto his father's body and watch him sob, stricken with grief, show a few clips of him engaging in gurilla warfare against evil and then running for his life, show him stumble into the peaceful Elven forest and collapse, let him wake up to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. We didn't need to know Darth Vader killed off younglings at the begining of episode IV, we just needed him to walk on stage with that Dark Helmet thing going on. The movie going public is used to the archetypal villain and there are plenty of things that the guy could be surrounded with to make him apparent as such. Some backstory would be good for Beren, but I think it could be done in short clips with a lot of visual implication.įor instance, Morgoth's history does not need to be explained in great detail.

Luthien and beren