Lord of the Rings

I recently re-discovered books on tape (well, CD) (well, iPod) and have been listening to a few instead of the normal slew of podcasts that occupy my ears during much of the work day. One of the more unique offereings was a 1981 dramatization of "Lord of the Rings" that the BBC did. Not having the books memorized and with the movies being more freshly implanted into my brain, I'm guessing that "dramatization" is the right word versus, say, dramatic reading. The entire trilogy is presented in thriteen discs so I feel pretty confident in saying that a sizable portion of the material was edited out and I'm guessing that not all lines the actors speak are vertabim from the original texts.

But there are actors, though, and there is radio drama. The most confusing part for me, though, is trying to reconcile the characterizations from the movie with the interpretations that these actors present over twenty years ago. For example, instead of Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson's character) being presented as a Hamlet-esque brooding and conflicted, he is portrayed much more stereotypically as the confident, heroic, steadfast masculine leader. Gimli doesn't have the low gravelly voice but instead has a much more formal and, shall I say, British.

The most confusing part of listening to this recording, though, are the hobbits. The actor voicing Merry sounds like Elijah Wood and Frodo Baggins is voiced by Ian Holmes. The same Ian Holmes who played Bilbo Baggins in the films. It took me nearly the entirety of the book to not think of Frodo as Bilbo.