There were elven towers to the west of the Shire.
Nothing in that trailer makes me want to watch this at all.
I like the look of the new ads, but I do worry that there’ll be so many changes made even to what little we know about the Second Age that it will be a disappointment for true Tolkien freaks like me.
Agreed. Tolkien was initially unsure as to whether there was a second badass Elf of the same name, or if the original Glorfindel was sent back from the West, and finally decided upon the latter. For more:
Nothing immediately turns me off, though. So that’s something.
Yeah, this could be a massive disappointment. I still find myself looking forward to it.
Looks more like Irish Elk than the normal European one.
Looks like people with antlers on their back to me, not like any ungulate. But yeah, the antlers look like they might have been on an Irish elk, not a modern elk nor a modern moose.
I was talking just about the antlers, yes.
I never saw the point of Glorfindel. He was dead, but allowed to return…why? Because he’d already been written into LotR? And why add another royal elf to Rivendell? There doesn’t seem to be enough for him to do. There’s already Elrond, and there’s already a child of Elrond, and grandchild of Galadriel, why not have her do something besides hang around pining for Aragorn? Surely the Evenstar of her people has some powers?
Replacing Glorfindel with Arwen is the only change that Jackson got right.
What no love for Elladan or Elrohir?
Tolkien knew what to do with them; they played a role in several adventures. Arwen is depicted as more important, but is given nothing to do except get married.
Naw, there Jackson was right. Bring in yet another male? For one scene? Much better to show Arwen as a bad-ass.
Yep, and sadly, the scouring of the Shire and Bombadil had to be cut.
But sure, he should be in this series. And Bombadil. Jackson had to cut some stuff out of his films. But in a series like this, they can add.
They’re off screen just as much. In fact most female characters in Tolkien’s works act as motivating forces for the men. Add in the theme of elven fading and passing from the world and Arwen as an active character makes little sense.
Jackson’s use of her was inspired and the ford scene works brilliantly with her defiance.
Can and should are very different things.
Jackson made the right decision to cut Bombadil and the Scouring. He had to make cuts somewhere to fit the books into movies, and those two were both things he could cut fairly cleanly, without leaving too many loose threads.
Barrow Downs I missed. Bombadil I did not.
The movie already kind of felt like it had 4 endings. Adding the scouring would have been anticlimactic in the extreme.
It was anticlimactic in the books, too. That didn’t make it less important.
(I don’t object to the cuts. I agree that something had to go to fit the story into the movies.)
One of very few, I’ll grant you.
Are you factoring in the Hobbit?
No, sorry. I was only thinking of the Fellowship trilogy.
Mostly busting your chops, but I think people have a false memory of how many changes there actually were in the LotR trilogy. There were A TON but 90% of them are carved out cleanly enough that no one cares. One of my favorite subtle ones is that Gandalf was away for 17 years between Biblo’s party and Frodo’s escape.
Oh, for sure. I was just thinking of the little “story” changes like giving more personality to the Uruk-hai boss and such to make his battle with Aragon interesting.