Likewise, the bit about the Sackville-Bagginses wasn’t a real spoiler, either, since you’ve already encountered Lobelia towards the beginning of the movie (she’s the shrill-sounding lady who comes calling on Bilbo, to which he recoils and says “I’m not at home”).
Regarding Gimli, Balin and Moria. Spoilered for paranoia. 
[spoiler]The real reason is that, honestly, the film didn’t think it out very well. In the BOOK, Gimli is well aware that everyone in Moria is probably dead. Balin went in, some years ago and “for a while, we had news, and it seemed good” and then silence.
And that was -years- ago. The possibilities are, essentially A) Things have gone badly in Moria since then or B) Balin just ran out of stamps and has been too busy rolling around in his Mithril Vault to visit the post office for more. Gandalf considers it -possible- that dwarves are still in Moria, but doesn’t really expect it. Gimli doesn’t precisely weigh in, but he never says anything as absurd as “We could go through Moria. I’m sure my cousin Balin would throw us one hell of a party” which he essentially does in the film. If my memory serves, he at one point more or less says “Yeah, I’m willing to go into Moria. Maybe we’ll find out what happened to Balin.”
Now, to be fair, in the movie, the timeline seems much more compressed. If Balin had only been writing home once a year or so, it’s entirely possible that if he and his buddies have only been dead a couple of years, that maybe folks haven’t quite put two and two together yet. Still, you’d think the place had been thriving, rather than the site of a relatively modest expedition making an attempt to reclaim it.[/spoiler]
The events in the trilogy occur in 3019, 25 years after the destruction of the colony.
Khazad-dum was destroyed in 1980, and left abandoned by the dwarves for a thousand years before they tried to reinhabit it. I don’t recall if the other dwarf nations knew exactly what had befallen Khazad-dum, but it still should have an evil reputation compared with some other random set of mountains or caves.
I don’t think the point made by Shot from Guns is without merit.
I was merely trying to speculate on Gimli’s apparent actions and mood.
Again, I don’t recall how experienced Gimli is in life. He may have been a real noobcake, all bright eyed with wonder at the world.
choie, the giant red warning is an awesome idea. Perfect compromise, IMO.
Hello Again: I just find it hard to believe that there would be no established communication with the expedition, I guess. I mean, where did they get their food? It’s not like there’s a lot that grows underground. Wouldn’t whoever was trucking in supplies notice that the front entrance was full of dead dwarves full of goblin arrows?
ETA: Airk, that makes more sense. It’s really the movie “hay guyz laets go 4 partee 4rilz yo” that threw me the most.
choie, you seem like a reasonable and level-headed sort of person. Since I thought there were only one or two vaguely spoilerish things in my previous wall of text, I thought the spoiler warning was sufficient, but since it obviously didn’t work I won’t try that again. I apologize if anything I wrote diminishes your enjoyment of the films in anyway. Let me assure that you could have read everything in this thread, boxed, open, or marked as spoilers, and they would still be worth be seeing and full of surprises.
No, Equipoise, I “snarked” at you for the Internet equivalent of shouting at me after I “revealed” something that had already been mentioned openly in this thread (and incidentally would in all probability be known to anyone about to watch the second movie), and then being somewhat lax yourself.
For crying out loud, reading that
WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
Saruman and Sauron are defeatedWARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
is going to spoil the movie for anyone? That’s a rhetorical question. The fact that the elves are leavingis commented on in the extended version of Fellowship (probably the theatrical version as well, although I don’t recall the specific scene). Theents dying out as a raceis hardly a major plot point. It’s hardly a plot point at all. In fact, it isn’t a plot point. Other than the utterly unpredictable, stunning twist that Saruman and Sauronare defeated, the only thing about the actual plot of the movies that I can see that I revealed was that Gandalf doesn’t get killed again. Or he does get killed and is resurrected again. Or I’m using “going home” in a metaphorical sense.I’m not sure what exactly you think a plot is, but what I wrote is world’s away from “the entire spoiler-ridden plot of the next two movies.”
Gosh, Equipoise, you must be right. It can’t possibly be that I thought I had some interesting facts and opinions to share and a different sense of what did or did not need to be in spoiler boxes. I must be “bound and determined” to ruin the movies for someone of whose existence I was until recently completely unaware. Now that you have valiantly exposed the depths of my evil, in suitably shrill and melodramatic terms, I will skulk away from Cafe Society for the time being and leave you to police it with all the zeal you see fit.
Jeez, come in for some JRRT discussion, and all I hear is orc-talk…
Don’t make me raise this thread!
And Airk? I thought your explanation sounded familiar. 
No problemo, TWDuke. And thanks for saying I’m reasonable. You did try to hide the info from me! Really the only reason it didn’t work is because of the way I read footnotes – I love when I see footnotes in books, they’re like the pop-ups in Pop Up Videos – so when I saw the superscript number / asterisks, my eyes automatically zipped down to read the extra material. But again, as far as I can tell, they don’t seem like anything I didn’t already guess (e.g. the Sauron thing) or don’t even understand since I don’t have the context yet (the Sackville reference).
So please, you and Equipoise, don’t fight! It’s not worth the hijack. I really do appreciate all the input. And best of all, this thread will have extra meaning for me once I do see the films and read the books, since I’ll be able to re-read it and understand all the stuff you guys were talking about.
(I’m just happy not to be a threadkiller for once. I figured if one of my threads would finally be successful, it’d be the one about LOTR! :D)
More on topic question: If I’m reading your discussion about the mines correctly, Mithril is a sort of metal? I thought it just described the type of chainmail armor, perhaps relating to some spell surrounding it. But it refers to the material itself?
Also, Sauron blanketed the land in gloom when the big fights near Minas Tirith started, which I presume was done to strengthen his orc mobs, as well as dismay the other side. The movies skipped over all this, and the battles were in sunlight.
Yes. Very rare, very sought after (assuming you’ve ever heard about it) due to its malleability, lightness, beauty and strength.
Apparently the “Mithril coat” is not -actually- Mithril, but some sort of Mithril alloy - now that I’m home I can cite all this nonsense. Fellowship, pg 473:
I’m too lazy to type the entire passage, but suffice to say it was rare, strong, beautiful, and coveted by just about everyone, and the reason that Moria was such a wealthy place in its heyday - for it was the only place Mithril was found.
Also, with regard to the expedition to Moria, apologies to Qadgop the Mercotan - your comment was too brilliant to pass up. I should have credited you right off.
Anyway, further commentary, since I have the book in front of me:
[spoiler]Gloin (Gimli’s Dad) says, at the council of Elrond, with Gimli sitting right there (in fact, this is our first time meeting Gimli, though he doesn’t really talk at the Council - Gloin does all of that) so unless he’s dumb as a post and somehow missedd this not only at the council but back at Lonely Mountain where it all occured, he knows that according to Fellowship, page 316:
So Gimli bloody well -ought- not to have been expecting expecting a party. And, in fact, in the book, he doesn’t. On page 387 Gandalf says of going into Moria "If there are Orcs there, it may prove ill for us, that is true… but there is a hope that Moria is still free.’
‘There is even a chance that Dwarves are there, and that in some deep hall of his fathers, Balin son of Fundin may be found.’
And Gimli responds simply with: “I will tread the path with you, Gandalf! I will go and look on the halls of Durin, whatever may wait there…”
So yeah. In the book? It makes sense. In the film? Well, if the dwarf corpses were less dessicated, it might be easier to buy. :P[/spoiler]
Squeegee! You inadvertently had a spoiler in the body of your post, seriously! Remember, Choie is a JRRT virgin! Do you know how rare that is? They are rarely rarely spotted in this age. I’ve gotten quite protective of him/her. (But I don’t want another shouting match.)
Point taken but… I dunno, it’s a really really small spoiler. That Sauron attacks some city somewhere later in the series is not really weapon-grade spoilage. And the gloom isn’t even in the movies. I mean, jeez, look at the title of the third book & movie.
Ok. So we’re still tight, co-LOTR fans then everybody? Everybody everything? Good. Can’t wait for Choie to watch the next movie.
Thanks to Grey and Airk for the Mithral update.
OMG, I just realized that for the first time, thanks to both LOTR and OOTS, I understand the song from NewsRadio, sung by Matthew (Andy Dick) when a colleague named Ted died:
I never understood what a “plustwo” sword was, but now I get that it’s “+2” , i.e., a reference to D&D’s weapon rating/point system. Ditto the “chaotic evil thief” line, relating to alignments. And mithril and Balrog are LOTR references of course. Woohoo, I’ve cracked the code. Now all that’s left is “vorpal sword.” Anyone?
Goodness! With all these good folk fighting over whether to spoil me or not, I feel like the proverbial maiden in the tower with a host of Lochinvars as protection. I do appreciate it, well he’s back. Seriously, that’s cool, squeegee. I’m trying to “blip” over stuff that seems unfamiliar enough not to relate to Fellowship.
The “vorpal sword” is from Jabberwocky, the poem in Alice in Wonderland, I believe.
Indeed.
The vorpal sword has been a fixture in D&D since the earliest editions; it has the special property (inspired by the poem, obviously) of being able to decapitate one’s opponent.
Though, both also wound up in D&D, though the names were changed (in the same way that hobbits became halflings in D&D due to legal action from the Tolkien estate).
Mithril in D&D was re-spelled as “mithral”, but it’s the same basic idea: a rare, lightweight, bright silvery metal that makes for excellent armor.
Balrogs were re-dubbed “balor” demons in D&D; they’ve appeared in every edition of the game, and are consistently about the toughest non-unique demons in the game. The description of a balor (right down to a sword in one hand and a flaming whip in the other) pretty much exactly fits a balrog.
Ah, got it, thanks guys. My guess is, knowing Matthew, the vorpal sword is a D&D ref rather than Jabberwocky.
Does “halfling” predate Tolkein as a term? Wikipedia doesn’t seem to indicate that it does. So I’m surprised the Tolkein estate allows it either.
Mithril is spelled mithril in (TSR’s D&D-based) Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels, for the record.
That’s what I get for answering out of my memory, when there’s some serious JRRT experts in the room. 