Kristine Larsen, Ph.D. Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Central Connecticut State University (Larsen@ccsu.edu)

In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the completion of The Lord of the Rings, and the unparalleled success of Peter Jackson’s film trilogy of the classic work, it is indeed appropriate to reflect upon all aspects of the self-contained universe that is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. In his self-appointed role of "sub-creator," Tolkien crafted a "Secondary World which your mind can enter." While immersed in this alternate universe, the reader is convinced of the reality of it "while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed" (Tolkien, Monsters 132). However, one should not make the mistake of thinking that Middle-earth was constructed with complete disregard for the "real world" in which we live. On the contrary, Tolkien vehemently explained in several letters that Middle-earth is earth, depicted in an earlier time, and "miles are miles, days are days, and weather is weather" (Carpenter 272). He specifically cited his "wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth" as the basis for Middle-earth ("J.R.R. Tolkien Dead" 18).

In response, readers and critics alike have identified specific real-world threads carefully interwoven into his sub-creation, including "geography and geology, ecologies, flora and fauna, the seasons, weather, the night-sky, and the moon in all its phases. The experience of these phenomena as comprising a living and meaningful cosmos saturate his entire story" (Curry 130). The deep extent to which scientific themes and knowledge are integrated into all of Tolkien’s Middle-earth tales continues to be explored by numerous authors (e.g., Coombs and Read; Gee; Larsen, Borgil; Sargeant). It is believed, however, that this paper is the first to study the extent to which these motifs were successfully translated into the film version of The Lord of the Rings. This work will focus on a limited number of specific cases of scientific content contained in the book, and provide some limited qualitative measure of the success of Peter Jackson’s translation (as seen in the extended versions of the films) by utilizing the comments of students in a course on Science and Science Fiction.

In comparing the books to the film trilogy, it is impossible to ignore the controversy surrounding Jackson’s "vision" of Middle-earth. Such a debate is, perhaps, unavoidable, given the depth of affection some readers hold for Tolkien’s works. LOTR was crowned the top book of the century in a 1996 British poll conducted by Waterstone’s booksellers and BBC 4, dubbed the greatest book of the millennium in a 1999 Amazon.com poll, and likewise topped readers’ polls in Germany and Australia in 2004. The lingering reaction of fans to Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated version of Tolkien’s book was largely negative. Actor Sean Astin’s reaction upon viewing Bakshi’s film for the first time (after auditioning for the role of Samwise Gamgee in Jackson’s trilogy) summed up the prevailing public attitude: "Please, God, don’t let Peter Jackson approach it this way" (Astin 159). Christopher Tolkien, the editor of his father’s posthumously published works, including The Silmarillion, had doubts about the "viability" of Jackson’s ambitious project, stating that his position was "that The Lord of the Rings is peculiarly unsuitable to transformation into visual dramatic form" (Akbar).

The online fan community began monitoring the progress of Jackson’s trilogy carefully from the moment of its announcement, with the "purists" and "revisionists" staunchly entrenched on opposite sides of an ongoing debate concerning the faithfulness of the films to the text. Jackson countered that the "concept of a faithful adaptation is such a nebulous thing, our adaptation can’t be faithful. You can’t just take the book and go and shoot it" (Nathan 65). The screenplay notably "borrowed" dialogue from the text and placed into the mouths of characters other than those for whom it was intended. Additionally, original dialogue was written by the team of Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens "in the style of Tolkien" (Sibley 16). Characters such as Tom Bombadil, Radagast, Glorfindel, Prince Imrahil, and the sons of Elrond were expunged from the film adaptation, and others, most notably Arwen, had their roles expanded and changed. In the case of Arwen, the writers moved the love story of her and Aragorn from the Appendix in which Tolkien had placed it and made it a major part of the plotline. Although a significant number of Tolkien "purists" balked at the prominence granted the romance, more troubling still to many was the transition of Arwen from a shadowy Elvish lady who forsook her birthright of immortality in the name of love, to "Xenarwen" (as she was dubbed by unhappy fans), a warrior princess whose life-force was inexplicably tied to the One Ring. In addition to deleting and changing characters, entire scenes from the text were omitted or completely rewritten, and others were invented (such as Aragorn’s near-death experience). With all the changes integrated into the film trilogy, it is therefore reasonable to expect that much of Tolkien’s science would also be "lost in translation."

It has been noted by numerous Tolkien scholars that an ecological theme runs through his work. Nature and the "natural" are portrayed as exemplars, while technology (especially when it engages in ecocide) can be the source of unadulterated evil. For example, in a 1972 letter to the editor of The Daily Telegraph, Tolkien lamented "the destruction, torture and murder of trees perpetuated by private individuals and minor official bodies. The savage sound of the electric saw is never silent wherever trees are still found growing" (Carpenter 420). In another letter, he referred to the mysterious character of Tom Bombadil as "the spirit of the (vanishing) Oxford and Berkshire countryside" he loved (Carpenter 26). One should not make the mistake of connecting Tolkien’s suspicion of technology to a general mistrust of science. On the contrary, Tom Bombadil was also "a particular embodying of pure (real) science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are ‘other’… entirely unconcerned with ‘doing’ anything with the knowledge: Zoology and Botany not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture" (Carpenter 192). As Goldberry, Bombadil’s wife, explained to Frodo in the text, "The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves…" (LOTR 122).

The omission of Tom Bombadil from the film adaptation certainly means one less thread in the ecological theme, but here Jackson is able to exploit the visual power of his medium to compensate. Tolkien begins the text with a prologue section entitled "Concerning Hobbits." The Hobbits are depicted as loving "peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-formed countryside was their favorite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skillful with tools" (LOTR 1). Birzer (123) noted that the Hobbits serve as "Tolkien’s conception of the ideal agrarian republic. The Shire is a pre-modern society, and the hobbits who live there often seem innocent and childlike because they are: they live in a pre-cynical age… modeled on the pre-industrial England of his youth."

Jackson explained to his actors "in a very passionate and specific way what he thought Tolkien was trying to say, that indeed an underlying theme of The Lord of the Rings is something of an anti-industrial message, an appreciation for preserving the integrity of the environment" (Astin 191). How successfully was this articulated in his final cinematic product? Students in a freshman-level Honors course in Science and Science Fiction were shown scene 2 of The Fellowship of the Ring ("Concerning Hobbits") after having read the first four chapters of The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s posthumously-published grand mythology of Middle-earth. The twenty-seven students had received a brief introduction to Tolkien during the previous class period, including a chronology of his life and a listing of major themes in Tolkien’s life and work, including Catholicism, the corrupting influence of power, nature/natural versus the unnatural/manmade (nature versus technology/industry), and the concept of secondary or sub-creation as the domain of humans (as opposed to primary creation, the realm of God alone). Approximately half the students had seen at least one of the movies in the trilogy before taking the course, but only a handful had read the book. Although LOTR was not required reading for this course, it was assumed that the movies would be a useful tool in reinforcing the basic concepts Tolkien wove through all his works. Students were given three questions to answer immediately after viewing the scene: What was your gut reaction to this scene? What basic ideas/themes is the director trying to get across? How successful was he in doing this? A representative sample of answers to those questions is as follows:

Although the voiceover of this scene is largely "in the style of Tolkien," it appears that from the beginning of the first film Jackson is successful at setting the tone for the text’s ecological message.

A very different scenario is painted some 250 pages later in the text. At the Council of Elrond, Gandalf recounts the unfortunate change in the surroundings of Isengard he noted while kept prisoner on the top of Orthanc tower: "I looked on it and saw that, whereas it had once been green and fair, it was now filled with pits and forges. Wolves and orcs were housed in Isengard, for Saruman was mustering a great force on his own account, and in rivalry of Sauron and not in his service yet. Over all his works a dark smoke hung and wrapped itself about the sides of Orthanc" (LOTR 254). In scene 18 of FOTR ("The Spoiling of Isengard") Jackson paints this industrialization with a detailed brush, showing the wholesale destruction of trees by Saruman’s disfigured orcs in far greater detail than does the text. Students were shown this scene immediately after the previous one and asked the same questions. Typical answers follow:

Another scene the students analyzed during the same class period was scene 56 from The Two Towers ("The Last March of the Ents"). This scene was an amalgam of different tableaus from the book concerning the Ents, the most notable being Treebeard’s lament for the trees that Saruman’s orcs had destroyed: "Curse him, root and branch! Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves" (LOTR 462-3). In the film we witness Treebeard come upon the corpses of his forest friends, punctuated with a gut-wrenching bellow of anger and grief. Student responses to this scene included the following:

It appears that, once again, Jackson was able to use the visual nature of his medium to emphasize the ecological message of the text in a vivid and unmistakable way.

Even in the case where Jackson omits a significant portion of the nature versus technology storyline – namely the "Scouring of the Shire" -- he is able to utilize the cinematic medium to, at the very least, pay homage to the text. At the fountain of Galadriel, Samwise and Frodo are granted a glimpse in her "mirror", a scrying bowl filled with water. Samwise is tormented with a vision of the industrialization of the Shire. In the film version (FOTR scene 39, "The Mirror of Galadriel"), the vision instead is given to Frodo rather than Sam, and is notably more dramatic than the text version, an admitted nod to the omitted chapter of the book.

Another example of Jackson’s faithful representation of the ecological theme can be found in his portrayal of the desolation of Mordor. Tolkien explains that in the plains before the Black Gates "nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling with muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light" (LOTR 617). Scene 18 of TT ("The Black Gate is Closed") brings to life Tolkien’s vision of the poisoned and tortured landscape permanently scarred by the evil hand of the Dark Lord Sauron. As Janet Asimov once proclaimed to her husband, noted writer Isaac Asimov, while driving past the industrial parks of New Jersey, "’There’s Mordor.’ And, of course, it was. And that was what had to be in Tolkien’s mind. The ring was industrial technology, which uprooted the green land and replaced it with ugly structures under a pall of chemical pollution" (Asimov 173).

Not only is the landscape susceptible to the corrupting influence of technology/industry in Tolkien’s world, but the genetic make-up of living beings can be twisted and deformed as well. Tolkien’s interest in scientific realism in biological details was noted in a 1954 letter (Carpenter 189): "I suppose that actually the chief difficulties I have involved myself in are scientific and biological…. Elves and Men are evidently in biological terms one race, or they could not breed and produce fertile offspring – even as a rare event: there are two cases only in my legends of such unions, and they are merged in the descendents of Eärendil." A classic example of artificial (technological) intervention in reproduction in Tolkien’s work is the origin of the orcs (also termed goblins). Appendix F of LOTR (1105) explains that they were "first bred by the Dark Power of the North [Melkor] in the Elder Days." In The Silmarillion (47) it is further explained that Melkor captured some of the first elves and "by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar…." In LOTR (893), Frodo explains to Sam that "The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don’t think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them; and if they are to live at all, they have to live like other living creatures…." This prohibition against "making" as opposed to "twisting" echoes Tolkien’s concept of primary creation as the sole realm of God. The physiologically grotesque nature of orcs closely follows the biological concept of inbreeding depression. Known examples of inbreeding depression in humans include a lowering of IQ and reduced height at age ten (Falconer 249).

Further genetic experimentation (one might argue genetic engineering) appears in LOTR (462) in Saruman’s breeding of the Uruk-hai – a race of "super orcs." Treebeard explains to Merry and Pippin that among Saruman’s evil deeds is "something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil." Similarly, Gamling warns Aragorn that "these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred, they will not quail at the sun" (LOTR 524). Tolkien never explains exactly how the Uruk Hai were created, but Coombs and Read suggest (but do not explore) a possible connection between orcs and "dysgenics" (328). Hybrid dysgenesis refers to a "group of correlated aberrant genetic traits, such as sterility, increased mutation rate, and male recombination [combinations of genes not found in the parent]" seen in the interbreeding of certain lab strains of flies with wild strains (Kidwell 1655). A detailed investigation of this intriguing suggestion is beyond the purview of this paper, but bolsters the case that connections to real-world science can be drawn from Tolkien’s work.

In Peter Jackson’s interpretation, a close rendering of Gamling’s admonition is put into the mouth of Gandalf, in a conversation with Elrond in Rivendell (FOTR scene 24, "The Fate of the Ring"): "By foul craft, Saruman has crossed orcs with goblin-men. He is breeding an army in the caverns of Isengard. An army that can move in sunlight and cover great distance at speed." A brief amalgam of Frodo and Treebeard’s comments are placed into the mouth of Saruman, in a speech delivered to one of the first born Uruk-hai (named "Lurtz" in the film credits): "Do you know how the orcs first came into being? They were Elves once. Taken by the Dark Powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life, now perfected – my fighting Uruk-hai." Students in the Science and Society course were shown this scene (FOTR scene 40, "The Fighting Uruk-hai") as well as an earlier scene of Jackson’s interpretation of the birth of the Uruk-hai out of cocoons buried in mud in the "Caverns of Isengard" (scene 20). As before, the students were not prompted prior to viewing the scenes, but had read further chapters in The Silmarillion that included the passage about the creation of the orcs cited previously. Typical student comments are as follows:

It is clear that students drew a connection between the creation of the Uruk-hai and their (limited) knowledge of genetic "engineering", and received the message both Jackson and Tolkien intended about the twisting of natural creatures by unnatural biological intervention.

In contrast, Jackson appears to largely ignore the converse effect. Tolkien places great emphasis in willing "interracial" reproduction (as opposed to the forced breeding which resulted in the orcs). In fact, a kind of "hybrid vigor" or heterosis appears in Elf-Human crosses. As the reverse of inbreeding depression, heterosis is known as "an important means of animal and plant improvements" (Shikano and Taniguchi 906). For example, Aragorn explains to the four hobbits that Lúthien, the daughter of the Elf king Thingol and the demigod [Maia] Melian "was the fairest maiden that has even been among the children of the world. As the stars above the mists of the Northern Lands was her loveliness, and in her face was a shining light" (LOTR 189). Likewise, "of surpassing beauty" was Eärendil, the son of the human hero Tuor and the Elf princess Idril, "for a light was in his face as the light of heaven, and he had the beauty and wisdom of the Eldar [Elves] and the strength and hardihood of the Men of old…" (Tolkien, Silmarillion 289). Elrond and his twin brother Elros were the sons of Eärendil and Elwing, the granddaughter of Lúthien, and were called "the Peredhil or Half-elven. In them alone the line of the heroic chieftains of the Edain [Men] in the First Age was preserved; and after the fall of Gil-galad the lineage of the High-elven Kings was also in Middle-earth only represented by their descendents" (LOTR 1010). Elrond was described as having an "ageless face… neither old nor young, though in it was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful. His… eyes were grey as a clear evening, and in them was a light like the light of stars. Venerable he seemed as a king crowned with many winters, and yet hale as a tried warrior in the fullness of his strength. He was the Lord of Rivendell and mighty among both Elves and Men" (LOTR 220-1).

A measurable outcome of the Elf-human heterosis is the unique choice given to the Eärendil, Elwing, and their sons by the Valar [the major demigods], to chose "to which kindred they would belong. Elrond chose to be of Elven-kind, and became a master of wisdom. To him therefore was granted the same grace as to those of the High Elves that still lingered in Middle-earth: that when weary at last of the mortal lands they could take ship from the Grey Havens and pass into the Uttermost West…." (LOTR 1010). A renewal of heterosis appears in Arwen, daughter of Elrond and Celebrian (daughter of Elf princess Galadriel): "Young she was and yet not so…. [H]er white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of the stars was in her bright eyes, grey as a cloudless night; yet queenly she looked and thought and knowledge were in her glance…. Arwen, daughter of Elrond, in whom it was said the likeness of Lúthien had come on earth again…. Such loveliness in living thing Frodo had never seen before nor imagined in his mind" (LOTR 221). To Arwen and her brothers was also given the irrevocable choice to be counted among mortals or immortals. In the film the choice seems to be something Arwen spontaneously invents due to her love of Aragorn, whereas it is a deeply ingrained plot point (one might say convenient plot device) in the text.

Another example can be found in Aragorn himself. He is some twenty generations descended from Elros, Elrond’s brother, and the kings of the island nation of Numenor. At the time of the War of the Ring, he is the only remaining true heir to that throne (which had been transplanted to Gondor after the Atlantian destruction of the island). Although his father’s line is noble, and descends from the finest houses of both Men and Elves, in Aragorn something of the original "superhuman vigor" of the Numenoreans is rekindled through his mother Gilraen’s line. She is also one of the Dunedain, a descendent from Elros, but through a slightly different family line than Aragorn, so rather than an inbreeding we have here a version of heterosis. It is said of Aragorn that after pledging his troth to Arwen, for

Thus it was that Aragorn was 87 at the time of the Fellowship of the Ring. While one may argue that Jackson portrays Arwen and Elrond as somehow "higher" than the purebred Elf Legolas, it is only in the case of Aragorn that he makes a clear example of the effect of heterotic bloodlines. In a scene invented strictly for the film, Eowyn is amazed to discover Aragorn’s true age: "It cannot be…. You are one of the Dúnedain, a descendent of Numenor, blessed with long life" (TT scene 32, "One of the Dúnedain").

Tolkien took special care to invoke astronomy as well as biology in his writing. For example, the stars play a major role in his mythos. The Elves are more correctly known as the Eldar, the people of the stars, who it is said first awoke upon a starry night and beheld the heavens before all else in the world. In the text version of LOTR, Sam, Frodo, and Pippin spend a night with Gildor Inglorion and a band of elves just outside the Shire. It was observed that shortly after midnight, "Away high in the East swung Remmirath, the Netted Stars, and slowly above the mists red Borgil rose, glowing like a jewel of fire. Then by some shift of airs all the mist was drawn away like a veil, and there leaned up, as he climbed over the rim of the world, the Swordsman of the Sky, Menelvagor with his shining belt" (LOTR 80). Tolkien himself openly identifies Menelvagor with the actual constellation of Orion, and his son connects Remmirath with the Pleiades (Seven Sisters). The identity of Borgil has been a source of contention for many years, but this author concludes with confidence that it is Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus (Larsen, Borgil 2005).

Other stars and constellations are named in LOTR. In Moria, Gimli recounts the legend of the dwarf king Durin, who

After the fall of Gandalf, Gimli, Frodo and Sam witness the celestial miracle for themselves reflected in the water of the Mirrormere:

While no definitive identification has ever been made for "Durin’s Crown," it appears to be some circumpolar constellation always visible in the sky, such as the Big Dipper or Cepheus (Larsen 2004).

Several other references to stargazing occur in LOTR, including the following:

None of these six examples were depicted in the film trilogy. In most of these cases, the scenes described were significantly changed for the film.

Tolkien was careful to differentiate between stargazing and astrology, which he treated with clear disdain. Faramir explains to Frodo that the fall of the line of kings in Gondor was presaged by their making "tombs more splendid than houses of the living, and counted old names in the rolls of their descent dearer than the names of sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold towers asked questions of the stars" (LOTR 662-3). In the film version, Gandalf shares a similar observation to Pippin after their first meeting with Denethor (ROTK scene 12, "The Decline of Gondor").

Tolkien also uses the stars as recurring symbol of all that is good. For example, Elrond sends off the Fellowship with the blessing "May the stars shine upon your faces!" (LOTR 274) This blessing is absent from the film trilogy, as are most mentions of stars contained in the text. A striking example of the star symbolism that was translated to the big screen with reasonable fidelity is found in the latter part of the book, when Sam and Frodo make the arduous and seemingly hopeless journey through Mordor towards Mount Doom. Sam sees

In the film (ROTK scene 63, "The Land of Shadow"), Sam urges "Mr. Frodo, look! There is light and beauty up there that no shadow can touch."

Jackson seemed more interested in portraying the symbolic converse of the stars – namely their lacking. In Appendix A of LOTR (1038) (where Tolkien relegates the story of Aragorn and Arwen’s romance), it is said of Arwen that after Aragorn’s funeral "the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a star." In the film, Elrond shows Arwen a prescient vision of this scene in order to convince her of the hopelessness of forsaking her Elvish immortality for a mortal life with Aragorn, and warns her that upon his death, "you, my daughter, you will linger on, in darkness and in doubt. As nightfall in winter that comes without a star" (TT scene 38, "Arwen’s Fate") In another of his supposedly Tolkienesque departures from the text, Legolas and Aragorn observe the sky from Rohan, with Legolas commenting that "The stars are veiled " (ROTK scene 8, "The Palantír"). Closer to the original is a scene (ROTK scene 14, "The Deep Breath Before the Plunge") in which Pippin and Gandalf stand on a balcony in Gondor, and Pippin remarks "There’s no more stars." In the text, it is noted that there was a "starless blackness" in the sky (LOTR 797).

The phases of the moon were carefully utilized by Tolkien to synchronize the chronology of events in LOTR, and to convey the passage of time to the reader in an unobtrusive manner. For example, Tolkien’s personal notes include the following:

When the lunar chronology did not work as smoothly as he would like, it brought him great frustration, as the following excerpts from letters to his son Christopher demonstrate:

Another citation in Tolkien’s personal notes adds that the "Whole of Frodo and Sam’s adventures must be set back one day, so that Frodo sees moon-set on morning (early hours) of February 6, and Faramir reaches Minas Tirith on the night of the 7^th (this can be done by making Frodo and Sam only wander four days in Emyn Muil" (Tolkien, War 295).

While this lunar machination was largely done behind the scenes, the moon’s phases were included in numerous scenes in the final draft of the text. For example, Sam expresses his confusion over the apparently strange passage of time in Lothlorien with the following:

Aragorn then explains to Sam that "The old moon passed, and a new moon waxed and waned in the world outside, while we tarried there. And yestereve a new moon came again" (LOTR 379).

The importance of the moon in setting the tone for LOTR was acknowledged by Andrew Lesnie, the cinematographer for the films, who "recreated firelight and moonlight, a combination that permeates most of the film’s [FOTR] night scenes" (Gray 42). However, in terms of the actual phase of the moon represented, Jackson was far less cognizant of detail:

A correct portrayal of phases is seen in "The Forbidden Pool" (TT scene 42), with both the text and film having a full moon low in the sky (LOTR 668-9). It is therefore true that Jackson was mindful of the "spirit" of Tolkien’s intent (to show the moon in the sky) but for some reason did not take the care to include the detail of getting the phases correct. It is perhaps a minor point, but one which would have been easy for the filmmaker to master.

Another astronomical object appears in the text, namely the planet Venus in the guise of the Evening Star (described as Elrond’s father, Eärendil, sailing the heavens wearing a bright jewel called the silmaril). Frodo watches as Galadriel "lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground" (LOTR 355). Venus is indeed bright enough to cast shadows. Eärendil is mentioned again in the text when Galadriel gifts her phial upon Frodo: "’In this phial,’ she said, ‘is caught the light of Eärendil’s star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out." In the film version, the only mention of Eärendil is in the gift scene, where no mention is made of Eärendil as Venus: "I give you the light of Eärendil, our most beloved star. May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out" (FOTR scene 41, "Farewell to Lórien").

In a fascinating juxtaposition to the science which was apparently overlooked in the translation from text to film, Jackson’s set designers added a scientific instrument which was decidedly not described in Tolkien’s works – namely a telescope. A beautifully wrought, open-tube refractor with brass mount appears on Elrond’s personal veranda in ROTK (scene 9, "Arwen’s Vision"). Putting aside serious issues with the optical design (the combination of lenses used does not seem to be either terrestrially or astronomically useful), there are two reasons to believe that this well-intentioned addition is not true to the spirit of Tolkien’s world:

Given both these points, one might reasonably ask, would an Elf be motivated to build a telescope (especially one who lives in a sheltered valley, such as Elrond, where the distant horizon is largely blocked from view by the topography)? Tolkien’s answer seems to be no.

In conclusion, it is clear that scientific motifs and knowledge played a key role in the shaping of Middle-earth, both figuratively and literally. While the "faithfulness" of Peter Jackson’s vision of Middle-earth continues to be debated, it cannot be denied that, as with many other aspects of Tolkien’s work, the film versions portray some of the spirit of Tolkien’s scientific themes while at the same time playing loose and fast with the details. But is Peter Jackson truly the only "heretic" at work here? Rayner Unwin, the son of Tolkien’s original publisher, who, as a child, gave the first official review of The Hobbit before its publication, expressed his fears in 1972 that "the scholars will take over and the humorless apparatus of learning will begin to analyse and dissect Tolkien’s creation. The book itself remains, and will remain long after I have ceased to be a publisher" (Cater 18). The Lord of the Rings will certainly also outlast Peter Jackson’s directing career, and this author’s academic one as well.

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