Lord of the Rings Movie Trilogy Thread

[Happy Ent]

Nothing illustrates this more as when even after the fake death he still refuses his birthright. He still does not want to accept Anduril. He makes no decisions, he is pushed into them. He still does not want to claim the throne of Gondor.

From Mortensen's acting: yes. Mortensen never "gets it". But the manuscript is I think faithful to the Hero's journey. He becomes Estel ("Hope") right there.

(I need to check what you say about the couch. Again, this can easily have happened in the cutting room, after the team needed to abandon the idea of a transformation Strider-Estel because of Mortensen's reluctance to act like that anyway.)

To reiterate: I only try to explain why the death is there. I'm no arguing that it's a good idea (though I think it is) nor that it works (which it doesn't, because Mortensen has little screen presence, and PJ probably didn't have the balls to fire yet another Aragorn.)

[Red Sun]

To reiterate: I only try to explain why the death is there. I'm no arguing that it's a good idea (though I think it is) nor that it works (which it doesn't, because Mortensen has little screen presence, and PJ probably didn't have the balls to fire yet another Aragorn.)

In the movie, Aragorn is only changed after talking to the dead and calling them to the arms. But maybe, all this time between the "death by warg" and the travel to the dead is a transition.

I have to agree with Viggo Mortensen lacking the presence. I think his mimic is okay, and I did get a slight chill in that short moment when the messenger of Mordor talked to him, but his overall performance is better for the reluctant, somewhat ruffled hero.

[Isis]

Ah, I didn't know you felt that way, Silanah (about the films). Hard to recall exactly what people think as we all shout over each other whenever the films are discussed anyway.

I've been doing a S-L-O-W viewing of the EEs over the past few days. Something I really like about the EEs is the way the Aragorn and Arwen extended scenes in FOTR and TTT connect to each other. They take place in the same time period but they aren't shown chronologically. I like that.

What I DEFINITELY don't like is The WitchKing's Hour (extended scene from ROTK). I kind of gave it the benefit of the doubt in the past but, no more! We know that Gandalf could have been a match for Sauron (i.e. could have given him a decent fight - saying nothing about the outcome). So why is Gandalf so utterly cowed by the WK? Why is it not left ambiguous?

In the book it is fine - they do no more than exchange words and you never get to find out what would have happened. In the film, as in the book, the ride of the Rohirrim interrupts them. So why make out that Gandalf can't even stand up to the WK? I don't buy it at all. Yes, the WK has to be scary. If he was that easily beaten people might wonder why Gandalf didn't go and kick his arse earlier (I wouldn't, but some people would). To have Gandalf-the-super-powered-up-White laying on the floor, quivering in fear is just utter, utter bullshit to me.

Balrog, anyone?

[zakalwe7]

Balrogs, now with wings

[Werthead]

Oh yeah. People tend to overlook this performance in the rush to criticise what PJ did to the character, but John Noble owns any scene he's in, including the ones with Ian McKellen, which is never easy. 'I do not think we should so lightly abandon the outer defences'... beautiful delivery. I bloody hated him at that moment, but pitied him too. You got a real sense that he just would not allow himself to care for Faramir.

I love the bit in the documentaries and on the commentary where Ian McKellan just turns into a swooning John Noble fanboy. Here's a great Shakespearean actor that McKellan's never met or heard of before and he gets really into it, like someone discovering a new band they love. It's quite endearing.

I agree with Raidne that the one thing that needed to be included to make the film-Denethor work was the palantir.

They do mention this in the commentary and they do say that Denethor did look in his palantir ("The eyes of the White Tower are not blind!"), but they decided not to have multiple palantiri in the films as it was in danger of confusing people (why, since they introduced the idea of multiple palantiri in the first film, I'm not sure). They just seem to have Denethor going mad from Boromir's death which kind of works.

And the one thing that needed to be taken out was the lengthy marathon run when he was on fire. But John Noble nearly made it work anyway, for me.

What was funny was that in the cinematic edition it looks like he runs from the White Tower and drops off the embrasure (as the tip of the prow of Minas Tirith is called, according to The Atlas of Middle-earth) whilst ablaze, which is a fair distance but not totally inconceivable. However, in the Extended Edition they put the Houses of the Dead back in which are about twice as far from the embrasure as the White Tower and down a level, meaning that Denethor now has to run up a ton of stairs, past the White Tower and then across the courtyard (y'know, without the tree guards trying to stop him) and then off the embrasure, all whilst on fire. It's not a major issue but it is rather silly, and on the commentary both Walsh and Boyens make it clear they think it's BS whilst Jackson is just giggling over it.

Sean Bean did seriously outperform David Wenham, it's true, including in communicating the desire for the Ring, and that doesn't help.

I like Wenham and I get the impression he wasn't playing to his strengths in LotR. In The 300 he is much better, mainly as he just gets to kick some serious ass. The love story between him and Eowyn got short shrift as well, which is a shame as I think the two actors would have done a good job of it.

ETA: What did people think of the change where the Fellowship were unable to cross Caradhras because of Saruman's interventions?

IIRC, in the book, it was basically just the mountain itself and the weather on it which caused them to turn back.

I think it worked. It's in keeping with the way magic works in the books, unlike, for example, Saruman's use of fireball and Gandalf's wall of force which held it back in RotK (another crappy film moment) and it makes Saruman an active foe of the Fellowship.

The books were/are shit!

There you have it. The books suck and its very difficult to make a good movie when the books suck.

No, you didn't like them. Opinions are subjective.

Numenorions(sp): Another super race. But when push comes to shove they fail miserably. All reference to superior Numenorion blood is utter crap since the wraths are numenorions themselves. The way Faramir shrugs of the ring in the book is a joke.

The Ringwraiths are not Numenoreans. The Ringwraiths are kings of human kingdoms east and south of Mordor (including Rhun, Khand and Harad, probably) which had been under Sauron and Morgoth's domination since the First Age. By the time Sauron and Celebrimbor forged the Nine Rings, the Numenoreans only had small outposts on the west coast (at Vinyalonde and Tharbad, possibly trading posts in Lindon as well) and hadn't explored any further into Middle-earth's interior.

I've been doing a S-L-O-W viewing of the EEs over the past few days. Something I really like about the EEs is the way the Aragorn and Arwen extended scenes in FOTR and TTT connect to each other. They take place in the same time period but they aren't shown chronologically. I like that.

I thought it interesting in Jackson's commentary that he said you could re-edit the trilogy into a TV mini-series and reset all the scenes chronologically, so you'd get the Denethor/Boromir/Faramir scene in Osgiliath from TTT somewhere in TFoR, around the time the hobbits get to Bree, and you'd have the Aragorn/Arwen scenes all straightened out in time, and Gandalf's escape from Orthanc would be in real-time and not flashback. No idea if it would work or not, but it would be an interesting idea. IIRC, someone did something similar with The Godfather Trilogy and it turned out quite well.

What I DEFINITELY don't like is The WitchKing's Hour (extended scene from ROTK). I kind of gave it the benefit of the doubt in the past but, no more! We know that Gandalf could have been a match for Sauron (i.e. could have given him a decent fight - saying nothing about the outcome). So why is Gandalf so utterly cowed by the WK? Why is it not left ambiguous?

I did like it that the trolls broke into Minas Tirith: in the book the enemy doesn't actually set foot in the White City, or at least not very far. But the witch-king scene was vaguely comical. What made it worse was that the Witch-King's lines were all crappy big-man, look-at-me-I'm-hard BS. "I shall BREAK HIM! Only not so much."

Balrog, anyone?

Let's no go there.

...

Although I did read an interesting article on the subject on a fansite which pointed out that in The History of Middle-earth the balrogs were originally conceived as a horde of a thousand demons who rode wingless dragons into combat and in this guise they definitely didn't have wings. Later on Tolkien changed it so there were only seven of them (the one in LotR is the last one) and they didn't ride dragons around anymore, but he never really addressed the wing issue. It's still all down to that one line in LotR and probably not really worth worrying about too much.

[zakalwe7]

The Ringwraiths are not Numenoreans. The Ringwraiths are kings of human kingdoms east and south of Mordor (including Rhun, Khand and Harad, probably) which had been under Sauron and Morgoth's domination since the First Age. By the time Sauron and Celebrimbor forged the Nine Rings, the Numenoreans only had small outposts on the west coast (at Vinyalonde and Tharbad, possibly trading posts in Lindon as well) and hadn't explored any further into Middle-earth's interior.

I'm not sure what is canon on this. I know that in the MERP books (obviously not canon) several of the Ringwraiths were Black Numenorian, but i'm not sure whether ICE simply made that up entirely or scavenged it from somewhere

Later on Tolkien changed it so there were only seven of them (the one in LotR is the last one) and they didn't ride dragons around anymore, but he never really addressed the wing issue. It's still all down to that one line in LotR and probably not really worth worrying about too much.

Hmmm - never knew that Tolkien had said there were only 7 of them.

[Paddy]

Let's no go there.

...

Although I did read an interesting article on the subject on a fansite which pointed out that in The History of Middle-earth the balrogs were originally conceived as a horde of a thousand demons who rode wingless dragons into combat and in this guise they definitely didn't have wings. Later on Tolkien changed it so there were only seven of them (the one in LotR is the last one) and they didn't ride dragons around anymore, but he never really addressed the wing issue. It's still all down to that one line in LotR and probably not really worth worrying about too much.

Anyone wanna give me a quick recap on what the issue is with the Balrog? (Hopefully without a flame war resulting)

As someone who'd read the books (and the Silmarillion), but had forgotten much of the detail of the description of the Balrog itself, I found the interpretation on screen to be stunning. One of the greatest CG creatures I'd ever seen up to that point (and I'm usually hyper-sensitive to bad CG).

[Aemon Stark]

From Mortensen's acting: yes. Mortensen never "gets it". But the manuscript is I think faithful to the Hero's journey. He becomes Estel ("Hope") right there.

(I need to check what you say about the couch. Again, this can easily have happened in the cutting room, after the team needed to abandon the idea of a transformation Strider-Estel because of Mortensen's reluctance to act like that anyway.)

To reiterate: I only try to explain why the death is there. I'm no arguing that it's a good idea (though I think it is) nor that it works (which it doesn't, because Mortensen has little screen presence, and PJ probably didn't have the balls to fire yet another Aragorn.)

Whatever the story reason for the "death" to be there, it doesn't work, not so much because of Mortensen, but because it is a film cliche for the hero to be seemingly in jeopardy, even when it's patently obvious to the audience that he's not going to die. There are inevitable scenes where the other characters mourn the hero's "death", and it comes off as utterly perfunctory and pointless. Which it is, whatever the apparent purpose in Aragorn's arc.

[Guest Raidne]

Oh, and Faramir's change in character irritated me intensely, but I understand why PJ did it. Faramir is one of my absolute favourite characters in the books and it was a shock, to a horny fifteen year old girl, to have her hero so degraded (and humanised). I'm over it now.

This must be the issue for me as well. I was also fifteen when I first read the trilogy, and also had a big crush on the Faramir character. The casting didn't do much for me either. It was strange for me for Karl Urban's Eomer to be so much more compelling than David Wenham's Faramir. Those two characters should have been equally impressive, IMO, and Faramir should have had some spark about him or something that was missing from Boromir, and it just wasn't there. Maybe they just didn't plan on Sean Bean's Boromir being so crazy good.

[zakalwe7]

Anyone wanna give me a quick recap on what the issue is with the Balrog? (Hopefully without a flame war resulting)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balrog#Winged_or_wingless

[Isis]

On the Nazgul: they were once men of the Haradrim, Easterlings and black Numenorean races.

[Shryke]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balrog#Winged_or_wingless

It's a stupid debate that we are stupider for having known it existed. It doesn't fucking matter.

Also, how can you have a crush on a Tolkien character? It's like having a crush on a block of wood.

[Werthead]

On the Nazgul: they were once men of the Haradrim, Easterlings and black Numenorean races.

The Black Numenoreans didn't emerge as a seperate culture until a good 500 years after the Rings were forged. However, in LotR it does say that three of the Nazgul were Numenoreans (exactly how this works when they were all supposed to be kings and there was only one king of Numenor - actually a queen at the time of the War of Sauron and the Elves - is unclear). I'm guessing these may have been 'rebel' Numenoreans who went into the east and founded kingdoms there which fell under Sauron's dominion. I believe this was the assumption that the original MERP game worked under.

[Isis]

"Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing."

[Guest Raidne]

Also, how can you have a crush on a Tolkien character? It's like having a crush on a block of wood.

Hard to say for you isn't it? It is not as if the books are rife with female characters. The only one who's not completely one-dimensional - Eowyn - is, in Tolkein's eyes, flawed by her desire to be more than a proper female.

[Mormegil]

I may be misremembering, it's been a while since I read the Silmarillion, but don't men as well as elves go to the Halls of Mandos? It's just that men then go on and leave the world, whereas the elves linger.

First, let me say that I seem to remember Tom Shippey liking that scene, so I realize that people who know a lot more about Tolkien's books than I do disagree with me. So, it's not so much a case of me thinking I know better than PJ, but more of my understanding of the source being different (and I will say that I prefer my own interpretation).

However, it still seems to me that what Gandalf describes is the fate of Elves (and more specifically and imo more importantly Frodo), rather than that of Men (and presumably non-ringbearer Hobbits). The "white shores and beyond them a far green country" has always sounded much more like a description of Tol Eressëa and Aman, than of the Halls of Mandos.

In my mind, Frodo and the other ringbearers getting to take a ship from the Grey Havens was 'a big deal'. Taking the words with which Tolkien described Frodo's experience and using them to describe death in general detracts from that, imo.

That all said, there are far worse scenes in the EE of RotK. The Witch King's hour (as mentioned before) and Aragorn beheading the Mouth of Sauron to give just two examples.

Oh, and I still love the movies regardless.

[Mormegil]

Hard to say for you isn't it? It is not as if the books are rife with female characters. The only one who's not completely one-dimensional - Eowyn - is, in Tolkein's eyes, flawed by her desire to be than a proper female.

I assume you mean "desire to be more than a proper female", or something to that effect.

So you figure that having her kill off one of the main antagonists in the story and live to tell the tale is Tolkien's way of showing his disapproval? That he's actually saying that the world would have been better off if she'd just stayed at home?

[Werthead]

"Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing."

Cool. I didn't know that. The Nine Rings made them become kings and so forth? Excellent.

I did find it amusing that in the movies one of the Nazgul (or at least their original human incarnation) is Alan Lee.

[Guest Raidne]

I assume you mean "desire to be more than a proper female", or something to that effect.

So you figure that having her kill off one of the main antagonists in the story and live to tell the tale is Tolkien's way of showing his disapproval? That he's actually saying that the world would have been better off if she'd just stayed at home?

She's not a static character. Notice when she's finally happy - it's not after the battle. It's not Eowyn's actions and their outcomes that reflect the fact that she was overreaching, obviously. It's her affect. She cheers up when she meets Aragorn, and falls in love with not so much the man as the glory he represents. When he rejects her, she actively seeks death throughout the series until she meets Faramir and settles down. It was necessary to fulfill prophecy, but she shirked her duty of leading the people of Rohan in her father's absence to seek glory and death on the battlefield. It's only when she settles down with Faramir and returns to traditional womanly tasks that she is happy again.

She is a very different character in the films than in the books, and that's one change I think was for the better.

[Mormegil]

It's not Eowyn's actions and their outcomes that reflect the fact that she was overreaching, obviously.

I thought "overreaching" was more or less what makes a hero in LotR. Frodo overreaches. So does Sam. Merry. The Rohirrim on the Pelennor Fields.

Frodo, in fact, does not really become happy again after destroying the Ring. Does that mean he was flawed in Tolkien's eyes and should have kept to traditional hobbitty tasks? (gardening, I presume?)