Picture and Words

I remember posting it before, but I can't seem to find the post. So here I go again, trying to prove if a picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

I shall make my argument using Tolkien's Lord of the Ring trilogy.

The total number of words in LoTR is approximately 561,792 (Source: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_words_are_in_The_Lord_of_the_Rings)

That translates to about 562 pictures (561792/1000).

Consider now the movies. The extended edition lasted 683 minutes (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy). Consider that there is 24fps. That translates to 983520 pictures (24 fps x 60sec x 683min).

Comparing the movie and the book then, it should be clear that the movie is worth more words than the book. And yet many fans of the books have pointed out that the movies do not do the book justice.

"I find both of the Jackson films to be travesties as adaptations... faithful only on a basic level of plot... Cut and compress as necessary, yes, but don't change or add new material without very good reason... In the moments in which the films succeed, they do so by staying close to what Tolkien so carefully wrote; where they fail, it tends to be where they diverge from him, most seriously in the area of characterization. Most of the characters in the films are mere shadows of those in the book, weak and diminished (notably Frodo) or insulting caricatures (Pippin, Merry, and Gimli)... [T]he filmmakers sacrifice the richness of Tolkien's story and characters, not to mention common sense, for violence, cheap humor, and cheaper thrills... [S]o many of its reviewers have praised it as faithful to the book, or even superior to it, all of which adds insult to injury and is demonstrably wrong.."
(Source: http://is.gd/filam)

So there you go, I present my argument that a picture is not worth a thousand words. =)

Edited: There is a logical fallacy in my argument. Simply because a picture is worth a thousand words does not mean that the reverse is also true. So a more appropriate comparison should be between the number of words rather than the number of pictures. In that sense, the movies are (supposedly) worth a total 983520000 words. Still more than the book. But it says less than the book. So it is safe to assume that each picture does not speak a 1000 words.