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does the spell cast through concrete sound and imagery. The story is necessarily going to take a different shape in the film than it does in the book.
This is a way of saying that in the end, although I do not really believe in much of Shippey's excuse for Jackson, Boyens and Walsh turning Faramir, in an unwarranted way, into a weak character, nonetheless there is the fact that both the filmmakers and the novelist are engaged in the act we call "storytelling" - a word often bubbling out of Hollywood nowadays.
The whole history and process of storytelling, Tolkien says in "On Fairy-Stories," is a "Pot of Soup, [a] Cauldron of Story, [that] has always been boiling, � [and] to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty" (26-27). In other words, a retold story is its own story, not to be judged by its faithfulness to the details of its predecessor, but on its own merits. In the twenty-first century, film fictions are now irretrievably in the Cauldron of Story, and The Lord of the Rings movies are the only way many young people, to cite just one example, know the story of Frodo and the ring. And in this context most of Jackson's retelling works on its own merits. It is mainly true to the core of the original.
Because of the different approaches required of filmmakers and novelists, and because of the overall excellence of the visual adaptation and the general faithfulness to the core of the original, any errors Jackson may have made are forgivable. What remains to be seen is the deeper response of the younger generation to the films. Those under the age of about 35 can't experience the same dimensions that the cultural phenomenon of the '60s and '70s adds for us older readers. But their own dynamic enthusiasm for The Lord of the Rings films - not just the special effects but also the characters and the depths and complexities of Jackson's version of the story - suggest that Tolkien's vision is as powerful and far-reaching as we thought decades ago. It will be the responsibility of these younger critics, in some future from which I and my colleagues have departed, to assess the films. I think they will still be measuring them with favorable results.

Works Cited
Carpenter, Humphrey. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000.
Jackson, Peter, director. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. New Line Cinema, Inc., 2001.
---. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. New Line Cinema, Inc., 2002.
---. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. New Line Cinema, Inc., 2003.
Johnson, Mike. "The Return of the King - a film review." The Tolkien Society. <http://www.tolkiensociety.org/RotK.html> 2003.
Reilly, R.J. "Tolkien and the Fairy Story" in Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism. Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs, eds. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2004.
Savage, John. "Savage Reviews Tolkien." Savage Reviews. <http://savage.authorslawyer.com/reviews/086tol-3.shtml> Dec. 31, 2003.
Shippey, Tom. "Another Road to Middle-earth: Jackson's Movie Trilogy" in Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism. Rose A. Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs, eds. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2004.
"Tolkien Expert Unimpressed With Rings Trilogy Films." University of Maryland "News Desk." <http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/mail/send.cfm?articleID=844>
Dec. 3, 2003.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954.
---. "On Fairy-Stories" in The Tolkien Reader, New York: Ballantine Books, 1966.
---. The Return of the King. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1955.
---. The Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1977.
---. The Two Towers. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954.