In the Two Towers, it seemed that Gandalf, Aragorn and even Gimli all thought Theodin’s plan to take his people to the fortress at Helm’s Deep was strategic mistake. Why? What else was Theoin supposed to do with his handfull of riders against 10,000 Uruk-hai?
Because it was the film, which is not as logically perfect as the books. They were setting up Hero Aragorn, I think. I guess. Makes no sense to me either.
In “The Two Towers” movie I overlook this nonsense for the visual beauty of Edoras, the excellent staging of the battle at Helm’s Deep, and the miracle that was Gollum.
Because cavalry in the open have the advantage of the horse’s speed and impact, and dismounted cavalry fight as indifferently-trained and armed infantry. But it was still silly to think the few Rohirrim were going to do much good, and it makes much more sense in the book when Theoden first goes out with the intent of reinforcing the border garrison under Erkenbrand, only to learn while under way that Erkenbrand has been swept aside and it is time for an urgent Plan B.
Still, when Jackson’s got to try to make a sensible story out of the work of a hack like Tolkien[sup]1[/sup], what can the poor guy do?
[sup]1[/sup] heavy irony
I don’t know… but I want to say how relieved I am that The Hobbit will be directed by del Toro instead of Jackson.
God bless Jackson for bring his project into reality, and the LOTR into even wider public awareness… but there’s a list of 20 or so pointless, sucky decisions he made that leave me rolling my eyes whenever I think of his trilogy.
My biggest problem with Jackson is that he was a BAD DIRECTOR in the sense that he would set up cliches and then follow through, instead of surprising the viewer or subverting the cliche. If it looked liked two characters were getting ready to cry and then hug, they would invariably do just that.
Tolkien’s books employed tradition and archtypes, but they sure didn’t embrace predictability as virtue.
Right up until they hit the pikes.
This is actually the one change from the books to movies that gets on my nerves. The rest I understand as part of the process of adaptation but would it really have been that bad to recognize the fact that they were fighting a losing battle and the best option was to retreat and hold out for reinforcements?
I guess they thought that moviegoers wouldn’t want them doing something sensible like retreating…:rolleyes:
Lots of military stuff in the films didn’t make sense. Some of it (not using shields, lances) can be excused by the enormous amount of training that it takes, some of it was to compress time, but a lot of it was just not understanding strategy and tactics with those weapons. I’m sure Howe and others tried to influence things, but were overruled by either Jackson’s aesthetics or the perceived limitations of audience understanding.
However, if you watched the extended versions (maybe in the theatrical version too, but I watched it too far back to be sure) they’d been getting refugees from all kinds of places, and one of the scouts reports in during their trek to say that another outpost just fell. It’s not ignored, just severely streamlined. If I were going only from the movie situation, Theodin probably felt that the enemy numbers were exaggerated, the Rohirrim were too spread out, and to protect the civilians the best course was to concentrate their strength in their ancient stronghold and wait it out.
The Fellowship knew the enemy numbers were, if anything, underestimated, that the purpose of the invasion wasn’t just raiding along the border and rousting communities but the eradication of Men, and that there wasn’t a good escape route from Helm’s Deep when Theodin could not count on an outside force to break a siege and didn’t have the force or logistics to sally in force. Their advice was to go to Gondor in order to provide a harrying force against the besieging army.
The problem is, without breaking Saruman’s army at Helm’s Deep and the fall of his stronghold Isengard in a short time frame, that would have turned into a slaughter too, especially considering that at that point they were protecting women and children, and were under-strength due to the prior internal division. Cavalry is fast and mobile, but a train of women, children, and oldsters — either with or without carts — is slow as mud. Theodin’s few men and horses would have been slowed to the pace of the slowest member of the train, thus sacrificing the advantage of their mobility and also not having bulwarks to stand off attacks.
Even with just a few divisions after Theodin, the best that he could have hoped for was for his main force to outrun or evade them while he tried to link up with other forces. Remember, to get to Gondor he either has to go over the mountains (slow) or skirt the mountains going right past Isengard (even slower). In the event that he had chosen to go immediately to Gondor, he probably would have had to sacrifice most of his people. Not really an option.
IOW, I think that movie-Gandalf’s advice stunk and that Theodin was making the best choice available under desperate circumstances. That he pulled Theodin’s ass out of the fire with his Flashlight of God and a stupid charge that by all rights should have ended with the entire front line of Eomer’s men impaled on long nasty pointy things held by Orcs can only be attributed to the usual excuse of: a wizard did it.
Didn’t Gandalf want the Rohirrim to pack up and go help Gondor ASAP while the civvies would hide in the caves ?
It would make sense - on the one hand, with Sauron gone, Saruman would lose much of his power (and could be mopped up easily by the coalition), and on the other hand should Gondor fall, the rest of the world would follow very fast because they wouldn’t have the numbers, nor the strategic advantages Gondor had. Minas Tirith is one heck of a city to take, compared to Edoras. Or Hobbiton 
On the gripping hand, that would make Gandalf a heartless bastard for not caring about the civilians of Rohan, but he was very much an “end justifies the means” maiar.
In the book Gandalf advises that they retreat to Helm’s Deep and wait for Gandalf to bring help.
In the movie Gandalf advises that they march their two hundred, mostly untested men against an army of 50,000 and gets angry when they don’t.
Jackson visualized brilliantly but butchered relentlessly and often without a good reason. I have a serious love hate relation with these three movies.
BTW: Théoden not Theodin.
Sure, but that requires unbreakable, well trained, well disciplined infantry. None of which terms is applicable to orcs. Standing firm when the cavalry is sweeping down upon you isn’t easy.
If Scotsmen could do it, Orcs can. 
Seriously though, the orcs were certainly well trained, physically tougher than any man, and filled with enough fighting spirit/battle rage to be considered hard to break.
Undisciplined, maybe, maybe not. The squabbles they got into over what to do with Merry and Pippin were caused by there being orcs of two different armies in a single patrol. The whole business over who gets to loot Frodo were fuelled by InvisiSam’s tricks. Besides that, there isn’t much indication on the state of discipline in the orc armies.
With that said, turning around and bracing pikes to receive a cav. charge takes some time. I don’t really remember the exact scenes from the movie, but the Rohirrim appearance did take them by surprise, caused some measure of confusion in the ranks, and even allowing time for Gandalf’s grandstanding I doubt even the Swiss Guard could have about-faced fast enough to see them off.
A wizard did it. Or, alternatively, the morning sun.
I don’t necessarily disagree with most of what you wrote but I think you are wrong here. Edoras was well east of Isengard, if Theoden has set out for Minas Tirith from there he would have been heading directly away from Isengard.
There is a decent map here:
As far as military “mistakes” in the movies (or the books for that matter) I always just chalk it up to the fantasy setting. We will never know for example exactly how Tolkein’s orcs or elves or other imaginary beings would have actually behaved in battle, and even the Men it seems are not exactly like men living today.
So weapons and tactics could well have been different from what we think is correct and make perfect sense in that time and place.
There is absolutely no reason to assume the Orcs and Saruman were aware of the tactics of using pikes to break a cavalry charge. When did this go into wide use in human history?
Tactics change and even the Rohirrim did not technically use lance but instead long spears. The difference is minimal but the point is that Middle Earth was not suppose to be historical Europe but at least 6,000 years before and what weapons and tactics we saw were incredibly advance compared to the historical record.
Besides it is tough enough to analyze the books where the attention to detail was diligent and careful. The movies need as uncritical an eye as possible.
Well, in this case a wizard did do it. His name was Gandalf.
It would be better strategy, however, if Theoden didn’t constantly negate his element of surprise with lengthy Braveheart speeches to his men while the enemy menuevers their pikes and archers into position.
It seems to me that the battle pretty much depended on Éomer’s force of 2000 cavalry. Theodens people were pretty much defenseless at Edoras with it’s pallisades fortifications so it made sense to march them all to Helm’s Deep.
Is there a reason to assume they didn’t ? :dubious: It’s quite an obvious tactic.
Historically, pike formations have been used for a long, long time, as far back as 25 centuries BC. It’s mostly thanks to them that Alexander the Great kicked so much ass, even faced by superior cavalry, chariots and elephants. Then the Romans figured out ways to beat the “undefeatable” phalanx on foot, and they faded for a time.
Hedgehogs reappeared in the early Middle Ages (9th or 10th century) as an answer to frontal cav. charges, with good results all the way to the 15th century, when the Swiss managed to create a coordinated, professional and reputedly undefeatable pike-and-shot army. From then on, similar infantry formations spread all over Europe and eventually relegated cavalry back to the role it had in Alexander’s day : scouting, skirmishing and pursuit.
Even in their heyday, heavy cavalry (ie knights) only won through shock charges alone when they faced undisciplined rabble exclusively. In regular battles, heavy cav was only one part of the combined force needed to take the field. The French nobles learned that the hard way time and again during the 100 Year War, until they collectively twigged that maybe, just maybe boneheaded pride wasn’t a tactical imperative, and that their supporting forces were there for a reason.
By contrast, the orcs are a trained fighting force with very little cavalry facing a kingdom of horse-loving people, a tactical situation similar to that of the 13th century Scots. Know how the Scots fought ? 
Seems to have been inobvious to the Uruk-Hai in that chapter of The Two Towers, where they were brought to bay near the edge of Fangorn forest and mopped up as soon as it got light.
You’d think assembling well-armoured soldiers shoulder to shoulder with tower shields and stabbing swords was an obvious tactic too, but it was only obvious to one side when Boudicca got her ass kicked by Suetonius.
As to the prowess of orcs, you have to remember that Denethor, who in the book at least had all his wits about him, was frankly amazed that any number of orcs could have taken down Boromir; and that at Balin’s tomb, “Aragorn and Boromir slew many” is all that’s to be said on the subject.
Did you* see *Pan’s Labyrinth, by del Tora? Where the Commies were all noble heroe’s of the people and the Nationalists were all evil sadistic nazis?
Heavy Cav was part of the “rock/scissor/paper” of battle for a 1000 years or so. Pike beat Knights, Archers/shot beat pike, Knights beat archers. Exceptions being the English Longbow.
What was that line -
“The closer we are to danger, the further we are from harm” ?
I forgot! In that context heading to Isengard makes perfect sense!