# My Big Beef With the LOTR movies



## dontpunkme (Dec 2, 2004)

I'm gonna keep this list fairly short:
1) Where were the sons of Elrond?  Would it be too much to show them just a handful of times?
2) Gimli- I loved him in the books and when we get to the movies he's just insipid comic relief.  
3) Another group of missing characters- the Dunedain?  Where was the grey company?  How can anyone omit them for christ's sake they are the Westernese and the rangers of the north -- Aragorn's most faithful soldiers.
4) The Mouth of Sauron - as in yet another character than goes missing and completely ruins the final battle (Let alone, the significance he serves being to Sauron what Sauron was to Melkor).  What about the drama when he hands over Frodo's clothes and gear?  Oh wait, Sam gave it to Frodo.
5) Limiting the Ents on screen time, let alone no mention of the Entwives.
6) TOM BOMBADIL - seems to me from my rememberance of the books Tom Bombadil happens to put the ring on to no effect to his person. Let alone cutting out the fantastic barrow wight scenes.  Hi Ho what the hell?
7) Way to completely ruin the whole men under the mountain scene.  Let alone how fantastic they lead into the battle on the fields of Pelennor.

I'm not going to get into the intro cutting out the backstory or how Merry and Peregrin actually deviously ambush Frodo before he leaves on his journey.  In all reality I could probably ramble on for hours and hours but I grow weary of complaining about something that will never be resolved.


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## David Howery (Dec 2, 2004)

the Mouth will be in the EE.  The entwives were mentioned in TTT EE.  Tom Bombadil was a rather weird departure from the main adventure in the book and I wasn't sorry to see it dropped from the movie.  I thought the Dunedain should have been included too... they could have come along with Elrond when he gave Aragorn the sword.  Not sure what you're saying about the Dead...   note that their screen time will be increased a lot in the EE.  
So, was there anything about the movies you liked, or were they just one long disappointment after another?


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## myrdden (Dec 2, 2004)

I don't get the point of this post.


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## Kirin'Tor (Dec 2, 2004)

myrdden said:
			
		

> I don't get the point of this post.




It's commonly called a "rant": a form of self-expression often found on messagebaords & newsgroups, wherein a person expresses one or more, often negative, opinions on a subject that they do not have another outlet for.

This post, however, is not a "rant", but is infact the written expression of the oft misunderstood speech pattern known as sarcasm


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## Truth Seeker (Dec 2, 2004)

Kirin'Tor said:
			
		

> It's commonly called a "rant": a form of self-expression often found on messagebaords & newsgroups, wherein a person expresses one or more, often negative, opinions on a subject that they do not have another outlet for.
> 
> This post, however, is not a "rant", but is infact the written expression of the oft misunderstood speech pattern known as sarcasm



Gol-le!!! That is a heck of translate, if I ever saw one.


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## Truth Seeker (Dec 2, 2004)

dontpunkme said:
			
		

> I'm gonna keep this list fairly short:
> 1) Where were the sons of Elrond? Would it be too much to show them just a handful of times?
> 2) Gimli- I loved him in the books and when we get to the movies he's just insipid comic relief.
> 3) Another group of missing characters- the Dunedain? Where was the grey company? How can anyone omit them for christ's sake they are the Westernese and the rangers of the north -- Aragorn's most faithful soldiers.
> ...



Well, to put it in context, it was Virtually Impossible to Put Everything in the Movie, from the Book(s), but know this, as it is known...the books' presence, was always on the set, in actor's hands, and in their thoughts.

This is probably, the only movie*thrice film* to have a book, used for resource material in great quantity.

And lastly, it is hard to choose what piece *scene* would have added dimension to the film overall, it was not a easy thing. Honestly, I would not have minded all, the entire series, but then, we be looking at a six part film, costing a near billion, and near 20+ hours of extended footage.

And the first cry, would be...'Were is the profit?', that in the end, govern on what was feasible and was not.

But be glad in a sense, that a lot of love,dedication and soul, went to into this. For we may never see such a herculean effort, like this...for a very, very, very, long time.

Just be glad to a point, that someone had to courage to buck the odds against the impossible, and give it their best shot.


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## KenM (Dec 2, 2004)

I think the elves reforging the sword in Return of the King are Elronds son's, the movie just does not mention that they are.
I kind of agree with you about Gimli. I hope the drinking game scene in RotK EE fixes this. If Legolas beats Gimli at it, I will be very PO'ed.  I would have liked just ONE SCENE where the dwarf does something better than the pretty boy elf.

Edited for spelling.


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## Wombat (Dec 2, 2004)

Of course I may be in a minority, but I don't miss Tom Bombadil at all.  

Oh, I miss the barrow wight scene, just not Bombadil.

Note to self:  never add your children's stuffed animal to your stories...


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## Faraer (Dec 2, 2004)

I think the omission of Elrond's sons and Halbarad's Rangers was legitimate instances of compression. The treatment of Gimli is indefensible, though. Whether it's part of the modern (and obviously unTolkienesque) tendency to fetishize youth and beauty at the expense of strength and dependability, or just coincides with it, it's ugly and nasty.







			
				David Howery said:
			
		

> Tom Bombadil was a rather weird departure from the main adventure in the book and I wasn't sorry to see it dropped from the movie.



While I understand the reasons the scriptwriters gave for leaving out Tom, I don't like them: American films generally (and that's the mode these are in) tend to sacrifice too much at the altar of maintaining 'the plot'. To quote Mark Schilling's review of _Howl's Moving Castle_, 'Whereas the imaginative flights of Hollywood animators are nearly all in the service of character and plot, Miyazaki allows his mind and pencil to wander where they will, into the realm of pure flight or the bizarre world of dreams, where logic takes a holiday and meaning speaks from every stone.' And of course Tom was there to say precisely, there _is_ more to this world than the conflict with Sauron.

In its countercultural sense, a 'rant' is a long, extreme, articulate gonzo screed about something, such that I'm hesitant to call most alleged Internet 'rants' by the name.


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## ASH (Dec 2, 2004)

One thing to remember is that its a movie. If you like the books read them, but dont be down on the movies because of some obscure points that were left out for reasons that only the director could know. 

Its simple for me... Dont persecute the movies because they are not exactly like the books. Enjoy each thing of its own accord.


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## FCWesel (Dec 2, 2004)

Wombat, you are not in the minority. I HATE the Tom Bombadil section of the book and actively avoid it at all costs. I was SOOO happy when it wasn't in the film. Yay Mr. Jackson!

Overall, I was very happy with the films. Did I miss a few things? Sure. But hey, this wasn't MY movie. It was His movie version of the books. I am sure that if he thought he could not bore the audience to death and tears and didn't have to worry about time and making money and being able to actually pay for the movie in the first place he would have put everything in it.

The sons of Elrond simply don't bring anything to the story from a time/money "cost". Actually, do they do anything int he books worthy of note? It's easy toi throw in throw-away characters when you have unlimited everything, like Tolkien did. Jackson only had to have an audience fall for 12 "main characters" and about 2 dozen support characters.

I think Gimili does get the short shaft, myself. But then I love dwarves and hate elves.

As for the Dunedain...like Elrond's sons, they bring nothing to the table in the big picture compared to the cost they would have entailed. Rememeber, what you spend on "this" takes away from "all this other stuff".

Mouth of Sauron will be in the EE version. Frankly, I didn't miss him in the theatrical version other then to note, "okay, he's not in it." It did not even warrent a "oh well", much less a "darn."

Well, the Ents are boring for people who have not read the book, and even then they are boring for some. At least he gave us more of them in the EE version of the movie. Me, I love the ents, but they are not good movie-stuff. they are slow and don't really push the plot around too much, if you know what I mean.

Personal Opinion: Tom Bombadil BLEW, galde he wasn't in there. And I am sorry, but if I had to read/watch one more character "resist the ring that is unresistable" one more time I was just gonna puke. I did not even miss the barrow-wights...though I will say that I would have liked to see how Jackson would have filmed it.

The dead men thing...I had no problems with it. Sorry. All these guys do is two thing, show aragorn is king and make it easy to wipe out the big bad army. They are a "gun" and little more. 


Frankly I think the REAL TRAGEDY was that they totally took the focus of the true hero of the story and didn't even so much as give him a nod in TTT and ROTK, and that's BILL THE PONY. He's was totally screwed over.


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## TracerBullet42 (Dec 2, 2004)

FCWesel said:
			
		

> Frankly I think the REAL TRAGEDY was that they totally took the focus of the true hero of the story and didn't even so much as give him a nod in TTT and ROTK, and that's BILL THE PONY. He's was totally screwed over.



Amen to that...Shadowfax is a wannabe...

Yeah, there are some differences from the books, but they're great movies.  And that's good enough for me.


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## drnuncheon (Dec 2, 2004)

Sounds like your big beef with the LOTR movies is that they weren't 8-10 hours long each, which is what they'd need to be to fit in all the stuff that was left out...

 ...and they would have lost all the viewers in the first one because they would have spent two hours of Fellowship with Frodo selling Bag End and moving to his new house and nothing really happening.

 J


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## myrdden (Dec 2, 2004)

Kirin'Tor said:
			
		

> It's commonly called a "rant": a form of self-expression often found on messagebaords & newsgroups, wherein a person expresses one or more, often negative, opinions on a subject that they do not have another outlet for.
> 
> This post, however, is not a "rant", but is infact the written expression of the oft misunderstood speech pattern known as sarcasm




  Nice explanation.  I just couldn't tell if it was a serious rant or if it was sarcasm.  Sarcasm just doesn't translate well in cyberspace.


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## Sado (Dec 2, 2004)

Umm...elves at Helm's Deep?


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## Truth Seeker (Dec 2, 2004)

Sado said:
			
		

> Umm...elves at Helm's Deep?



Okay,okay, so some liberties were taken, PJ did gave a warning in advance, he was doing that.


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## Onos T'oolan (Dec 3, 2004)

I hated:

  1) the way Galadriel came off as such a witch (IMO)
 2) the heavy-handed, cheap attempts at manipulating the audience by repeatedly showing babies crying, 'peasants' weeping, etc. as though we're too stupid to get it the first time, thus breaking up the rhythm of action scenes (eg. @ Helm's Deep)
 3) everything involving Arwen - alone, with Aragorn, with Elrond .. the 'love' between Arwen and Aragorn was so stilted, forced, unconvincing and lacking in chemistry IMO it wasn't worth the effort
  4) warg fight and Aragorn's 'death'
  5) generally anytime they took out something that _was_ in the book and inexplicably _created_ scenes to put into the movie ??? why ???

  *PHEW* I feel better now


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Dec 3, 2004)

Onos T'oolan said:
			
		

> I hated:
> 1) the way Galadriel came off as such a witch (IMO)




Actually, this is arguably a good thing. She WAS an Elven witch, but one has to grasp the idea that witch is not a bad thing in those terms. If the Elves were the Welsh, then Galadriel is essentially one of the great Druids. So...she's a 'witch' in that sense, but that's in no way bad. In fact, if you problem is how dangerous and such she was, then good...that's how she should be. Kind and yet dangerously powerful.

And on the note of Gimli being comic relief. I finished my yearly re-read of the books not too long ago and discovered something. Gimli is treated as comic relief in the books. Sure, not as obviously because there isn't a visual element, but he's still very much treated light heartedly when compared with the other characters.


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## KenM (Dec 3, 2004)

Sado said:
			
		

> Umm...elves at Helm's Deep?




  Have you seen The Two Towers EE bonus stuff with Arwen fighting at Helms Deep? They were orginally going to have her fighting alongside Aragorn. 
  Rumor is someone leaked that little info out to the net and all the diehard fans did all they could so it would be changed, too much change fromn the book, and it worked.


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## Sado (Dec 3, 2004)

Oh, and the battle at the end of FotR, 100 orcs vs...Aragorn. And Aragorn is around for Movie #2 after that? A bit too heroic for me.


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## billd91 (Dec 3, 2004)

Sado said:
			
		

> Oh, and the battle at the end of FotR, 100 orcs vs...Aragorn. And Aragorn is around for Movie #2 after that? A bit too heroic for me.




You did notice that Aragorn quickly had help from Legolas and Gimli? You also noticed that the orcs were fighting a running battle and focused more on the halflings than the other members of the Fellowship? No? 
Have you ever had a D&D character fight against such odds and survive? If so, then why sweat it.


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## David Howery (Dec 3, 2004)

I guess it comes down to which departures from the book you like and which you don't.  FOTR was about as faithful to the book as any book-inspired movie has ever been, yet it didn't follow it 100%.  The fight with the troll didn't happen in the book, yet I didn't think it was an outrage to include it.  Having Arwen carry Frodo to Rivendell instead of Glorfindel (?) wasn't a huge departure, as it introduced her nicely into the movies and didn't burden the audience with yet another character to remember.  TTT went a lot further in it's departures.. not all for the better, IMO.  The warg fight was pretty neat, but Aragorn's 'death' was totally unnecessary, and his 'miraculous' comeback, right after Gandalf's, was one miracle too many. ROTK didn't depart from the book so much as it compressed it... having the Dead at the Pelennor fields, having the Rohirrim just appear at the Pelennor instead of showing the roundabout way they got there, etc; basically, PJ took some shortcuts to keep the movie length down.  If not for time constraints, I imagine he would have been happy to film even more than he did for all 3 EEs.
One thing about the translation from book to movie:  JRT compressed a lot of the action in the books into a chapter or two, something you can't do so well in a movie.  Helm's Deep only takes about a dozen pages in TTT, but it simply couldn't be done so briefly in the movie, without making it feel rushed anyway....


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## Faraer (Dec 3, 2004)

Re David's last point: Tolkien's books do a lot of things that were not how prose fiction was conventionally done, then and/or now. The battles could certainly have been shorter, if PJ had wanted them that way: you're confusing tendencies and conventions of modern American movies with the medium itself. (Similarly, people often conflate tropes of D&D with the whole medium of roleplaying.)


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## David Howery (Dec 3, 2004)

well, no, my point was that PJ could have done the battles in less time, but it would seem rushed.  You can read the chapter on Helm's Deep in about 5 minutes, but if it only spent that much time on screen, you certainly wouldn't be happy with it....


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## Faraer (Dec 3, 2004)

And mine is that it wouldn't necessarily have seemed rushed, except to an audience with rigid generic expectations. The uniformity and conventionality of Hollywood, US independent films, European films, and pretty much every other kind is evidence of closed thinking, not the necessary limits of movies. PJ made his _Two Towers_ the film of the Battle of Helm's Deep, and his trailers led the audience to expect that. I don't see why a less battle-skewed approach would have necessarily failed. (Neither am I saying his approach was bad.)


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## David Howery (Dec 5, 2004)

ok... personally, I loved the Helm's Deep sequence.... the problems I had with TTT had nothing to do with that part of it anyway....  It could have shortened, I suppose... the wall could have been blown up sooner, the battering ram could have gotten through sooner.... still, I rather liked it the way it was... if the battle scene had been shorter, what else from the book would you have liked to see more of?


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## Orius (Dec 5, 2004)

dontpunkme said:
			
		

> I'm gonna keep this list fairly short:
> 1) Where were the sons of Elrond?  Would it be too much to show them just a handful of times?




They were a bit part even in the book.  The main cast had something like 20 characters for the whole set of movies.  Two more would have booged it down even more.  And yes, though Arwen was also a fairly minor character,  putting the relationship on screen is important because he marries her at the end.  Without the backstory, it looks like he's just dumping Eowyn or something.



> 2) Gimli- I loved him in the books and when we get to the movies he's just insipid comic relief.




Well, I've said before that PJ comes off as kind of an elf fanboy.  I mean, look at the dwarf tossing cracks, Legolas catching Gimli by the beard (blasphemy!), and Legolas fighting like some unbeatable invincible uber elf.  Perhaps if PJ does The Hobbit as rumored, he'll redress the wrongs done to the dwarves in these movies.  



> 3) Another group of missing characters- the Dunedain?  Where was the grey company?  How can anyone omit them for christ's sake they are the Westernese and the rangers of the north -- Aragorn's most faithful soldiers.




They would have been cool to see, but in the end just a small detail that didn't mess up the whole storyline overall.



> 4) The Mouth of Sauron - as in yet another character than goes missing and completely ruins the final battle (Let alone, the significance he serves being to Sauron what Sauron was to Melkor).  What about the drama when he hands over Frodo's clothes and gear?  Oh wait, Sam gave it to Frodo.




Wait for the EE.



> 5) Limiting the Ents on screen time, let alone no mention of the Entwives.




All the Ents really did in the book was wreck Isengard.  That was in TTT.  The Entwives were mentioned in the TT EE.



> 6) TOM BOMBADIL - seems to me from my rememberance of the books Tom Bombadil happens to put the ring on to no effect to his person. Let alone cutting out the fantastic barrow wight scenes.  Hi Ho what the hell?




Bombadil would have been very risky to include in the movie.  First he's a side plot that would risk derailing the whole movie.   You build up this whole threat of the Nazgul chasing them, and then they cool their heels in the backwoods for 3 days.  Also, you'd need the right actor for the part, a badly cast Bombadil would hurt the movie far more than no Bombadil.  The Old Forest is a part of the FotR that causes a lot of people to give up on the book.   And lastly, he'd add at least another half hour to a movie already 3 hours long, and which rushed parts of the plot.  



> 7) Way to completely ruin the whole men under the mountain scene.  Let alone how fantastic they lead into the battle on the fields of Pelennor.




You mean the Druedain?  Yes, it's a shame they were left out, I would have liked to have seen Ghan-buri-Ghan myself.  But once again, it's a small detail that would have made little difference on film.



> I'm not going to get into the intro cutting out the backstory or how Merry and Peregrin actually deviously ambush Frodo before he leaves on his journey.




How much backstory do you want?  They backstory of the Ring is given at the very beginning of the first movie.  Yes, it simplifies a lot, but all of the important points are touched on.  Remeber that Gandalf tells Frodo in the book that telling the whole history of the Ring would takes _months_.  Even at the council of Elrond, Elrond gives a brief history, and it takes him from midmorning to nearly noon.  As for the story of Numenor, it's a shame that it is very lightly touched upon, but that would bog down the movies with even more exposition.

Merry and Pippin do not ambush Frodo.  They simply bump into him and Sam by accident and are caught up in the hunt for the Ring.


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## Berandor (Dec 5, 2004)

KenM said:
			
		

> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> I kind of agree with you about Gimli. I hope the drinking game scene in RotK EE fixes this. If Legolas beats Gimli at it, I will be very PO'ed.  I would have liked just ONE SCENE where the dwarf does something better than the pretty boy elf.



From "theonering.net":


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> But there's a nice addition: a drink game, in which Legolas and Gimli bet who will drink more. After tens of jugs, Gimli first farts, and then says "It’s the dwarves that go swimming with the little, hairy women"; finally belchs. Legolas seems to give away, but when Gimli begins to claim victory – it's him who falls down shattered. "Game Over", says the elf.


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## KenM (Dec 5, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> From "theonering.net":





  Crap, would it be too much for PJ to put in ONE SCENE where the dwarf does something better then the elf? This really makes me mad. Equal treatment. Everyone knows dwarves can drink elves under the table, this one scene will destroy all three movies for me.


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## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Dec 5, 2004)

KenM said:
			
		

> Crap, would it be too much for PJ to put in ONE SCENE where the dwarf does something better then the elf? This really makes me mad. Equal treatment. Everyone knows dwarves can drink elves under the table, this one scene will destroy all three movies for me.



 Though I like Elves...agreed(though it doesn't ruin the movies for me). PJ just seems to be trying his absolute best to emphasize a more 1st Age type Elf in Legolas.


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## KenM (Dec 5, 2004)

If PJ does the Hobbit, will he change all the Dwarves that go with Bilbo to elves?


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## Pants (Dec 5, 2004)

Orius said:
			
		

> Well, I've said before that PJ comes off as kind of an elf fanboy.  I mean, look at the dwarf tossing cracks, Legolas catching Gimli by the beard (blasphemy!), and Legolas fighting like some unbeatable invincible uber elf.  Perhaps if PJ does The Hobbit as rumored, he'll redress the wrongs done to the dwarves in these movies.



Heh, then PJ will be accused of not following the story as the dwarves in 'The Hobbit' are pretty much just comic relief.


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## shilsen (Dec 6, 2004)

KenM said:
			
		

> Crap, would it be too much for PJ to put in ONE SCENE where the dwarf does something better then the elf? This really makes me mad. Equal treatment. Everyone knows dwarves can drink elves under the table, this one scene will destroy all three movies for me.



 If Jackson is staying true to Tolkien's Middle-Earth, I doubt there is anything dwarves can do better than elves. 

And if a single scene of Legolas out-drinking Gimli actually spoils all three movies for you, all I can say is


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## Vigilance (Dec 6, 2004)

KenM said:
			
		

> If PJ does the Hobbit, will he change all the Dwarves that go with Bilbo to elves?




A) I thought Gimli kicked ass in the fights. Its not like he was JUST there to be laughed at. In the cave troll fight and in TTT Gimli kicks as much orc butt as anyone else. 

B) Those movies really needed some humor... I mean... was anyone else a source of comic relief? Not really. Without gimli those movies are dark dark dark. So I appreciated having something humorous.

Chuck


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## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 6, 2004)

Keep in mind the wood Elf guard and butler drinking themselves to sleep in _The Hobbit_, shilsen. Third Age Elves aren't really very uber at all.


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## Mr. Kaze (Dec 6, 2004)

_Why aren't dwarves better than elves?_

Because this is Tolkien, not d20.  Dwarven special abilities are not roughly twice that of elves and elves are not racially disposed to being faint-hearted waifs.  Get Over It.  And watch the end of _TTT_ EE where Gimli is sitting on his last kill which puts him at one kill better than Legolas for the battle.

_Where is Tom Bombadil?  Why so many changes?_

Tom Bombadil is off on the island of random linguistic side-plots with minimal relation to the core of the story.  You may also find some wizards of other colors and other sort of rangers and whatnot out there.  If Peter Jackson had done to _LotR_ what Chris Columbus did to _Harry Potter_ -- imaculately perfect and strangely devoid of vision -- you wouldn't be able to watch the whole thing through more than once anyway.  And the rest of us would hate it.  Really.  Do you remember how much of _RotK_ is described "It was dark.  Pitch black.  Couldn't see a thing.  Really.  I mean it.  May have been some boring stone walls somewhere, but it was too dark to see 'em."?  C'mon, what kind of cinema is that?

On a related note, Tolkien's characterization and character capabilities was really shoddy -- re-read the scene on the mountain from _FotR_ and note who can hear the voice of Saruman.  It's not the elf, despite having keen elven senses.

_*Return of the King* was sloppy with way too many mistakes._

Yes it was.  Let's hope that Peter Jackson was able to get a bit of a holiday before going after the DVDs so that his eyes are a bit fresher for fixing some mistakes and cleaning up some cuts.

That said, even after Extended Editions, there are some problems.
1) Arwen is too superflouous-yet-present in _TTT_ and _RotK_.  Jackson did a good job of making her fit in _FotR_ -- far better than the original "and then this elf-chick shows up and he marries her, the end" that was in the core storyline (not appendicies) of _LotR_.  It was disappointing to have her practically relegated to being off-topic window dressing for the other two movies.

2) The random arrival of elves at Helm's Deep.  Good to see you guys, but how did you get here before the advancing horde?  Shouldn't you have run into Eomyr or something?  Tolkien didn't have them there because they were supposed to be off fighting evil elsewhere (discussion between Gimli & Legolas in the book-version of _RotK_ iirc), but they really _couldn't_ have been there because of the two other armies converging on the peasant caravan into that stronghold with only one way in -- there was nowhere for them to come from.

3) Aragorn falling of the cliff.  Yes, it gives Liv Tyler more screen time and allows some scouting to go on.  But it feels like the sort of cheesy distration that was deemed a bad use of time (and hence no Bombadil et all).  We either fast-forward of MST3K this scene every time...

4) Every orc with speaking lines having no genetic strands in common with any other orc.  The elves look like a species.  The uruks look like a species.  The orcs look like leftover attempts at making uruk costumes.  Compare the orc that picks up Frodo after Shelob to the orc general (_RotK_) to the orc whining about not being able to keep the fires of Orthanc going to the orcs wanting to eat Merry & Pippen (_TTT EE_).

5) Sauron the Spotlight.  I know Jackson had problems with "How do you make people terrified of your BBEG when he's just this flamey eyeball?"  And I think he did reasonably well with _TTT_.  But the searchlight "ooh, lookie over here!" factor in _RotK_ nearly made me fall off of my chair laughing.  And that's not an appropriate response for the ultimate symbol of evil, you know?

But I console myself on these points because $300M and oodles of awards later, I don't think we're going to get a better remake in our lifetimes.

::K


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## KenM (Dec 6, 2004)

Vigilance said:
			
		

> A) I thought Gimli kicked ass in the fights. Its not like he was JUST there to be laughed at. In the cave troll fight and in TTT Gimli kicks as much orc butt as anyone else.
> 
> B) Those movies really needed some humor... I mean... was anyone else a source of comic relief? Not really. Without gimli those movies are dark dark dark. So I appreciated having something humorous.
> 
> Chuck




  I know Gimli kicked butt in the fights. I also think that Gimli's humor is good. Its just in EVERY scene, the pretty boy elf does everything better then then Gimli. Is it too much to ask for one scene where the dwarf does something better then the elf?


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## Pants (Dec 7, 2004)

KenM said:
			
		

> I know Gimli kicked butt in the fights. I also think that Gimli's humor is good. Its just in EVERY scene, the pretty boy elf does everything better then then Gimli. Is it too much to ask for one scene where the dwarf does something better then the elf?



He won the kill contest in tTT. 

RotK EE spoilers....


Spoiler



And supposedly, he helps Aragorn kill Gothmog, that puffy Orc general.
No matter how stylishly Legolas kills a mumakil, puffy orc always > random mumakil.


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## shilsen (Dec 7, 2004)

John Q. Mayhem said:
			
		

> Keep in mind the wood Elf guard and butler drinking themselves to sleep in _The Hobbit_, shilsen. Third Age Elves aren't really very uber at all.



 I tend not to include _The Hobbit_ when I'm talking about something consistent in Tolkien's works, because it's just such a different genre. Consider Gandalf in _The Hobbit_ and elsewhere, for example.


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## Qlippoth (Dec 7, 2004)

KenM said:
			
		

> If PJ does the Hobbit, will he change all the Dwarves that go with Bilbo to elves?



Well, I'm sure the only "givens" will be:
A) the 2 Jackson children as "Cute Lake-town Children" (or "Extremely Young and Yet Cute Hobbit Children Again");
B) the Woses come to the Dwarves' aid at the Battle of Five Armies; and
C) once Thorin's done negotiating Bilbo's contract, he goes into a study of Central Nervous System anatomy (passed down through the ages from the Neurology Department at Belegost).

EDIT: Lack-spell.


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## Ranger REG (Dec 7, 2004)

Qlippoth said:
			
		

> Well, I'm sure the only "givens" will be:
> A) the 2 Jackson children as "Cute Lake-town Children" (or "Extremely Young and Yet Cute Hobbit Children Again");...



By the time the film production of _The Hobbit_ start (if any), his 2 kids would be 10 years old (at least for the youngest).


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## Dark Jezter (Dec 8, 2004)

> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> But there's a nice addition: a drink game, in which Legolas and Gimli bet who will drink more. After tens of jugs, Gimli first farts, and then says "It’s the dwarves that go swimming with the little, hairy women"; finally belchs. Legolas seems to give away, but when Gimli begins to claim victory – it's him who falls down shattered. "Game Over", says the elf.




Yeesh.

If ever there were any doubts that PJ was an elf fanboy, they've just been obliterated.


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## Tarrasque Wrangler (Dec 8, 2004)

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> Yeesh.
> 
> If ever there were any doubts that PJ was an elf fanboy, they've just been obliterated.



 Oh, lighten up.  It's funny.


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## David Howery (Dec 8, 2004)

Hmm.. I always thought that the people that PJ liked the most were the Rohirrim.  They get all the cool scenes, from Helm's Deep to the utterly fantastic charge at the Pelennor.  Plus, they look a lot like Vikings, which automatically makes them cool.  Then, they are mounted archers, which is also cool.  Compare them to the other peoples: the elves just sit in their forests and smile knowingly, other than a handful who went to Helm's Deep (who obviously thought the Rohirrim were cool too).  Gondor?  They get their butts kicked in most of the movie and are a hair away from going down until (who else) the Rohirrim come along.  Who took out the Witch king?  A Rohirrim-ette (with minor help from a hobbit).  Sure, the dead swarmed over the Oliphaunts and took them out in their invincible way, but the Rohirrim had to fight them hand to hand, and took out at least 4 of them that we saw... fighting giant warbeasts hand to hand is also cool.  So, when you add up all the cool points, the Rohirrim win easily....


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## Dark Jezter (Dec 8, 2004)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> Oh, lighten up.  It's funny.



 Perhaps it'll be more amusing when I actually see it, but the description of the scene just me groan a little and go "Great, another scene where Legolas shows up everybody else."


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## Tarrasque Wrangler (Dec 8, 2004)

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> Perhaps it'll be more amusing when I actually see it, but the description of the scene just me groan a little and go "Great, another scene where Legolas shows up everybody else."



 Look: You, me, and the rest of our nerd battalion see this as one big travesty and mockery of the sacred text that PJ has tainted with his Hollywood yadda yadda.  But to John Q. Public, who's never read the books, never played D&D, and doesn't know the diff between a Dunedain and a Nazgul, the Legolas/Gimli dynamic played out in the films is simply the sword-n-sorcery equivalent of the classic "straight man" routine.  Given that the characters don't have a lot to do dramatically-speaking in the films besides have Aragorn's back, and the whole trilogy can get a little dreary what with all the "The quest shall claim his life" and "Here you will dwell bound to your grief..." doomsaying, I'm sure PJ felt a little levity was in order.


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## Allanon (Dec 8, 2004)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> Look: You, me, and the rest of our nerd battalion see this as one big travesty and mockery of the sacred text that PJ has tainted with his Hollywood yadda yadda.  But to John Q. Public, who's never read the books, never played D&D, and doesn't know the diff between a Dunedain and a Nazgul, the Legolas/Gimli dynamic played out in the films is simply the sword-n-sorcery equivalent of the classic "straight man" routine.  Given that the characters don't have a lot to do dramatically-speaking in the films besides have Aragorn's back, and the whole trilogy can get a little dreary what with all the "The quest shall claim his life" and "Here you will dwell bound to your grief..." doomsaying, I'm sure PJ felt a little levity was in order.



 But why couldn't the same levity be had by making Legolas lose the drinking game? Or even just with Gimli falling over soon after Legolas dropped? The Elf winning has nothing to do with going for comedy, it's just PJ childish way of making sure his favorite character wins.


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## reanjr (Dec 8, 2004)

Truth Seeker said:
			
		

> Honestly, I would not have minded all, the entire series, but then, we be looking at a six part film, costing a near billion, and near 20+ hours of extended footage.




You're right, no one has come up with a good reason why they didn't do this.

*sometimes I read what I want to*


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## reanjr (Dec 8, 2004)

Wombat said:
			
		

> Of course I may be in a minority, but I don't miss Tom Bombadil at all.
> 
> Oh, I miss the barrow wight scene, just not Bombadil.
> 
> Note to self:  never add your children's stuffed animal to your stories...




I agree.  Tom was... weird...


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## reanjr (Dec 8, 2004)

FCWesel said:
			
		

> As for the Dunedain...like Elrond's sons, they bring nothing to the table in the big picture compared to the cost they would have entailed. Rememeber, what you spend on "this" takes away from "all this other stuff".




This is actually the one thing that I do have a problem with.  The way it's done in the movie, the whole battle is almost pointless because once the dead get there, they just kill everything without even a little effort.  I don't like how they just appear and fix everything without a struggle.  Gondor should have just had its people flee for a couple days till the dead got there and took care of everything.  And the Rohirrim could have just stayed home.

The Dunedain would have been a much better fit in the movie to appear with Aragorn on the ships.


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## KenM (Dec 8, 2004)

Allanon said:
			
		

> But why couldn't the same levity be had by making Legolas lose the drinking game? Or even just with Gimli falling over soon after Legolas dropped? The Elf winning has nothing to do with going for comedy, it's just PJ childish way of making sure his favorite character wins.





  I just would have liked one scene where Gimli does something better then Legolas, but PJ is such an elf fanboy.


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## Berandor (Dec 8, 2004)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> Look: You, me, and the rest of our nerd battalion see this as one big travesty and mockery of the sacred text that PJ has tainted with his Hollywood yadda yadda.  But to John Q. Public, who's never read the books, never played D&D, and doesn't know the diff between a Dunedain and a Nazgul, the Legolas/Gimli dynamic played out in the films is simply the sword-n-sorcery equivalent of the classic "straight man" routine.  Given that the characters don't have a lot to do dramatically-speaking in the films besides have Aragorn's back, and the whole trilogy can get a little dreary what with all the "The quest shall claim his life" and "Here you will dwell bound to your grief..." doomsaying, I'm sure PJ felt a little levity was in order.





Spoiler



So why not have Legolas topple over, and Gimli state "Game Over"? Isn't that the same scene, only with a better ending for the dwarf?


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## Klaus (Dec 8, 2004)

David Howery said:
			
		

> Hmm.. I always thought that the people that PJ liked the most were the Rohirrim.  They get all the cool scenes, from Helm's Deep to the utterly fantastic charge at the Pelennor.  Plus, they look a lot like Vikings, which automatically makes them cool.  Then, they are mounted archers, which is also cool.  Compare them to the other peoples: the elves just sit in their forests and smile knowingly, other than a handful who went to Helm's Deep (who obviously thought the Rohirrim were cool too).  Gondor?  They get their butts kicked in most of the movie and are a hair away from going down until (who else) the Rohirrim come along.  Who took out the Witch king?  A Rohirrim-ette (with minor help from a hobbit).  Sure, the dead swarmed over the Oliphaunts and took them out in their invincible way, but the Rohirrim had to fight them hand to hand, and took out at least 4 of them that we saw... fighting giant warbeasts hand to hand is also cool.  So, when you add up all the cool points, the Rohirrim win easily....



 Not to mention that fact that the leader of the Rohirrim takes down TWO FRIGGIN' OLIPHANUTS with a SINGLE BLOW, while it takes the twinky elf pretty-boy a bazillion arrows to take down a single olyphaunt and its riders.

Plus Eomer got to give the best line of TTT:

"Rohirrim! TO THE KING!!!!!"


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## shilsen (Dec 8, 2004)

David Howery said:
			
		

> Hmm.. I always thought that the people that PJ liked the most were the Rohirrim.




I don't know if you were kidding or not, but anyway you're correct. Tolkien's Rohirrim are his slightly idealized recreation of the Anglo-Saxons and their literature (which he studied and wrote about throughout his academic career). The armor, the horses, the alliterative verse/songs, the overriding sense of the _ubi sunt_ motif ("Where is the horse and the rider?") and deep fatalism - put Beowulf on a horse and you've got the Rohirrim. 



			
				KenM said:
			
		

> PJ is such an elf fanboy




Isn't it neat, because that makes him a man after Tolkien's heart?


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## Radiating Gnome (Dec 8, 2004)

In defense of the Gimli as Comic Foil  . . . 

I ended up the token tolkien geek on a panel about books and film at a CS Lewis convention about a year ago, and the rabid book fans in the audience brought this one up, and I talked through my own observations about the chalenges I see in translating that one character to the screen.   Mind you, at the time Return was not out yet, and I'd just seen the EE of Towers, but I think it still holds . . . . 

The trick is that Jackson was faced with problems in the case of Gimli.  In the very opening of TT, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are running as fast as they can to try to catch up with the orcs that have Merry and Pippin.  In the book, Tolkien can pass over the description of the pursuit because the reader isn't looking right at the characters, and the readers attention won't be drawn to the same obvious problem that the movie viewer sees in a heartbeat -- there's no way stubby little gimli is going to keep up with the long-legged human, not to mention the light-footed elf who can run on top of the frickin' snow.  It's just not going to happen.  

So Jackson has to find a way to translate the pursuit to the screen in a way that doesn't cost him much screen time (because his movie is already running long), it doesn't change the story (he can't remove the pursuit, it's too important), it doesn't take anything away from the other characters, and most of all it doesn't appear to be a criticism of the book (the way a dramatic change in the way that part of the story plays out would be).

Given all of that, I can't imagine a better way for Jackson to have handled Gimli's part of the pursuit.  We need multiple scenes of the pursuit to demonstrate that the've come a long way, and they're working hard to keep up.  And in those scenes we need to have the Gimli problem handled.  So we crack a joke -- Gimli gets to crack gruff jokes about being very dangerous over short distances, etc.  I can't see a better solution that wouldn't hijack the movie or call direct attention to itself.  

But this solution creates something.  Gimli has just opened the second movie with a reel of running gags.  Now he's a comic character, and it's only natural for a few dribs and drabs of gruff humor to come from him through the rest of the films.   Jackson did back it off a bit after the pursuit, but there are still plenty of moments of that humor from Gimli, and most of them are pretty good.

Now, I don't know that any of this is what really happened, but I think it makes sense, and it explains a lot.  I personally like the gruff grumpy humor that we get from Gimli in the film, and I think it's a good addition to the character, but even when the jokes fall flat (which they sometimes do) they're still part of a far better solution to a big problem created by the difference between prose and film.

-rg


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## Allanon (Dec 8, 2004)

I agree that Gimli having some comical moments has some good reasons. And I actually think that it fits the movie and story, my gripe is actually in the way that Legolas is displayed throughout the movie. Agreed Tolkien himself portrayed the Elves as immortal angelic beings but even he did not make Legolas look like 'Elvinator: The one Elf army'. Legolas is portrayed like he could single-handedly take on the whole of Saruman's and Sauron's army combined without breaking a sweat. Surely it wouldn't have been asking too much of PJ's self restraint to make his overbearing love-of-all-things-with-pointy-ears somewhat less conspicuous?


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## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 8, 2004)

shilsen said:
			
		

> I tend not to include _The Hobbit_ when I'm talking about something consistent in Tolkien's works, because it's just such a different genre. Consider Gandalf in _The Hobbit_ and elsewhere, for example.




That's a good point. I just couldn't think of another source of info about the wood-Elves.


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## Dark Jezter (Dec 8, 2004)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> Look: You, me, and the rest of our nerd battalion see this as one big travesty and mockery of the sacred text that PJ has tainted with his Hollywood yadda yadda.




I hardly consider LotR to be a sacred text (it's a fantasy novel, and a very influential one at that, but nothing more).  In fact, I feel that there are many areas where the movies improved over the books, but just once, I'd like to see Legolas be the one who said or did something that made him look silly.


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## Orius (Dec 8, 2004)

David Howery said:
			
		

> Hmm.. I always thought that the people that PJ liked the most were the Rohirrim.  They get all the cool scenes, from Helm's Deep to the utterly fantastic charge at the Pelennor.  Plus, they look a lot like Vikings, which automatically makes them cool.




I think this is really something that can be attributed to Tolkien.  They're even more badass in the book.  It comes from Tolkien's love of Anglo-Saxon culture, which was a big influence on the Rohirrim, they're basically like Beowulf on horses.  PJ had to leave some of that in so as to avoid completely butchering the story.  But the movie Rohirrim come off as wimps compared to their counterparts in the book.


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## Faraer (Dec 8, 2004)

Our society suffers from an infantile fetishization of youth and the particular kind of beauty represented by rail-thin fashion models. PJ's treatment of Gimli is part of an unpleasant cultural trend, as well as being far crueller than anything in the books, and a revival of the 'funny dwarfs' that Tolkien came (between writing _The Hobbit_ and _LotR_) to revile.


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## David Howery (Dec 9, 2004)

Orius said:
			
		

> I think this is really something that can be attributed to Tolkien.  They're even more badass in the book.  It comes from Tolkien's love of Anglo-Saxon culture, which was a big influence on the Rohirrim, they're basically like Beowulf on horses.  PJ had to leave some of that in so as to avoid completely butchering the story.  But the movie Rohirrim come off as wimps compared to their counterparts in the book.




Wimps?!  For Christ's sake, they charge 200,000 orcs at the Pelennor and rout them, and then take on a bunch of gigantic elephants hand to hand, getting stomped and gored in the process!  How much more manly do you want them to be?


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