OT- LOTR fan discussion thread - SPOILER WARNING

[Paul1980au]

I love The lords of the rings.

[Cheeze]

I enjoyed so much of these movies, and where they were strong they were unbelievably fantastic!! All three are simply beautiful to watch and enjoy, and do justice to this story.

Tom Bombadil's section I have come to enjoy more and more as I re-read these books. But there is no way that some guy who looks like he's come right out of Oktoberfest, sings and dances everywhere AND somehow is the most powerful being in Middle Earth really fits in the movie. A friend pointed out the image of Bombadil holding the ring and his blue eye showing through it, in contrast to Sauron's red eye.

Changing Faramir was a let-down. I have read articles where they thought making him a more flawed character made him more interesting to see grow over the two movies. The movie does capture the relationship between Faramir and Denethor, but pursues it differently than the books. Denethor comes off far worse in the movies, and I hope the Extended DVD shows him with the palantir.

My biggest complaint with the films was with Gimli. He is little more than a comic relief character, always the butt of the joke and always in jeopardy. I would like to have seen that oliphant slaying scene done by him rather than Legolas, to give some impression of the strength of the dwarves. Then Legolas could have said "That counts only as one" and see Gimli fume over it.

[Fyron]

Bombadil is most certainly not the most powerful being in Middle Earth. Far from it. He is just far older than the ring, and is not a member of any of the corruptable species, so it has no power over him.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i would argue that he is the most powerfull being on middle earth; the demi-gods are all on that island which isn't part of middle earth any more. in the FOTR, he said that if he kept the ring, all the other lands would fall to darkness, then his. since he appears to be totally unnafected by the ring, that would mean he wouldn't use it even if it didn't corrupt him, and the most powerfull would tend to get conquered Last.

that logic might not hold if he could use it without being corrupted and would use it to hold them off at the Last.

[Will]

Hmm, well I only glanced through the book really quickly Last night, and the part before the charge seemed to be the same ("We're outnumbered...", etc.). So it was even more toward the direction of slowing down the armies of Mordor as much as possible, to allow more time for reinforcements to come to Minas Tirith.

And, I just watched the movie again today, and payed more attention to the Éowyn/Faramir thing... well, turns out they're shown standing next to each other three times, briefly. Bowing to Aragorn, a shot right around when Aragorn grabs Arwen (and they have their ways with each other), and bowing to the hobbits. Probably a total of five seconds. I think it's just because I read the books that I noticed that, and wondered where the explanation was.

Also... didn't the shock from stabbing the Witch King injure both Merry and Éowyn? I seem to remember them in the Houses of Healing with Faramir, and yet Merry is out at the Black Gate, good as new, as if nothing happened (remember too, Pippin found him pretty much passed out on the battlefield in the movie).

Oh well, I still liked the movies as a whole. The gripes are minor.

[Growltigger]

Woundwort, the English have a great and rich musical tradition, and yes, we have ceilidh-esque musical, which could easily have been used rather than the "insert CD random Irish jigs" used in the Hobbiton scene. Anyhow, as Dogscoff said, neither musical genres are appropriate as the hobbits are Shirish!!

Narf, the dead lived in the paths of the dead which were under the White Mountains.

I agree with the Gimli comment actually. I read an interesting discussion on the LOTR books once, where the remark was made that of all of the fellowship, the person who did the least was Legolas. His main contribution was to shoot the Nazgul above the rapids of Sarn Gebir.

Gimli had a more condusive role, but I think that PJ decided that Orlando Bloom (who I love as he comes from my home town) was more photogenic therefore got more of the starring role.

As to the remark about elephants and horses, too damn right.

In the book, the mumakil (elepehants) were destroyed by either catapult fire or by foot archers going close and volleying arrows into their eyes. Tolkien stated that the Rohirrim were unsettled by the mumakil as their horses wouldn't go close. And the orcs and Haradrim used the elephants as rallying points from the Rohirrim charge because of this.

I think PJ should have reflected the sheer edge-of-the-seat quality of The Battle of the Pelennor Fields. He kind of did it, but I would like it to have reflected the book. Brief summary as follows:

1 Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Minas Tirith.

2 City prepares for war, 3000 troops from the southern fiefs of Gondor turn up to support the garrison. The men of Minas Tirith wanted ten times that number, but appreciated that the southern fiefs were threatended by the corsairs of mbar, and therefore were keeping the bulk of their soldiers back

3 Orcs assault Osgiliath. The defences are breached.

4 Orcs assault the Rammas Echor. The wall is breached and the defenders retreat.

5 Wagons of wounded from Osgiliath and the Rammas Echor arrive in Minas Tirith. Faramir leads the rearguard.

6 the rearguard is beginning to rout. Prince Imrahil and Gandalf lead the knighs of dol amroth and all horsemen in Minas Tirith in an attack on the vanguard of the Mordor forces, which are driven back in disarray. Faramir is wounded by a southron arrow, which looks to have been shot by a nazgul. He plays no further part.

7 The armies of Mordor arrive, the siege begins, cue mayhem, bloodshed and heroic defence - despiar strickens Minas Tirith;

8 The great ram - Grond, Hammer of the Underworld, is brought up and breaks the gates of Minas Tirith. The Witch King of Angmar faces off against Gandalf in the gates, but then the horns of Rohan blow. The Rohirrim have arrived. The Witch King breaks off to face this new threat.

9 The Rohirrim charge, and frankly beat the **** out of a whole chunk of the armies of Mordor. Theoden throws down the standard of the Haradrim. The men of Minas Tirith sally out and assault the baddies by the walls.

10 Witch King jumps Theoden. Merry and Eowyn strike one for the girls and kill him. Theoden dies. Gothmog takes over leading the armies of Mordor. Meanwhile, Gandalf is back in Minas Tirith saving Faramir from immolation by Denethor.

11 The battle rages for ages, but the huge bulk of the armies of Mordor mean that the charge of the rohirrim and the men of gondor is slowed. The rohirrim gather on a mound (on foot) to prepare for the Last defence, the men of minas tirith are slowly beaten back to under the city walls.

12 sails are sighted nearing Harlond. Mordor think that the corsairs have arrived. The rohirrim and gondoreans think "bugger" but hey ho, when they pull up, it is Aragorn with about 25,000 mates from the southern fiefs of Gondor. They assault the Mordor troops and this, together with Aragorn being heroic and the fact that the orcs think that their own ships now seem to be disgorging enemies, drives them into route, the rohirrim charge again, and the armies of mordor are chased off the field and generally slaughtered. Hurrah.

Now that is edge of seat stuff!

[ January 08, 2004, 08:23: Message edited by: Growltigger ]

[Growltigger]

Will, the only charge I recall from the book by Gondorean cavalry was the sally out to save the rearguard lead by Faramir, just as the orcs are chasing the defenders of Osgiliath and the Rammas Echor back to Minas Tirith. I dont think there is another but I would be happy to be proven wrong.

You are dead right about Merry. You cant attack a Nazgul without getting hurt and Merry was. He didnt make the black gate. Pippin is there and says how he needs to equal Merry so stabs one of those Olog Hai trolls.

Eowyn had her arm broken in the fight with the Witch King, but both her and Merry were overtaken by a sort of despair type bug which needed longer to heal than any physical hurts. It is in the houses of healing that Faramir sees Eowyn, sees that she is a troubled heroic soul and falls in love with her.

Awwwwwww

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Narf, the dead lived in the paths of the dead which were under the White Mountains.

dwarves live under mountains and there regarded as mountain folk.

Merry and Eowyn strike one for the girls and kill him.

Merry, despite his name, is not a girl. still, for those of us who get disgusted every time women are portrayed as helpless on tv, the movie scene and the book scene are, well, cool.

yeah, the battle should have been closer to the book. wonder how it'll be in the extended Version?

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Growltigger:
Woundwort, the English have a great and rich musical tradition, and yes, we have ceilidh-esque musical, which could easily have been used rather than the "insert CD random Irish jigs" used in the Hobbiton scene. Anyhow, as Dogscoff said, neither musical genres are appropriate as the hobbits are Shirish!!

You took that jibe much better than I expected. Maybe losing the Cantina mellowed you out...? Yeah, right.

From my sources (a friend who's even more a Tolkiengeek than I am, theonering.net), I hear the ROTK:EE will be almost an hour longer than what's out in the theatres, and that several scenes that are vital to plugging these holes (i.e. the Houses of Healing) along with a few others (the debut of the Mouth of Sauron, played by the gyrocaptain from Road Warrior) will be added back in. Evidently the New Line Cinema bosses thought that "OK, yes, there are actually lots of people out there who will sit through this whole thing, but if we cut it to 3 1/2 hours, we can show it many more times and make more money - so PJ, cut it anyways." As my friend said, that decision ought to cost New Line the Best Picture Oscar, because what's out there is not the acutal picture.

Speaking of which, any Oscar/Golden Globe/fill-in-the-blank-award speculations in ROTK?

EDIT - link error

[ January 08, 2004, 10:35: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

[geoschmo]

ROTK was awesome, but if it had been any longer it would have needed to be two movies. Which actually would have been fine with me. I don't think it was vital they stick to the three movie format. But 4.5 hous is just frankly too long for anyone but the most diehard fan to sit through at one setting.