Well, they did film at least a little of the Scouring. Frodo sees it as a possible future in Galadriel’s gazing bowl in the first movie.
Interesting fact: The name they gave the warg-riding orc who drags Aragorn over the cliff was Sharku.
Is it just me, or is anybody else looking forward to naked Frodo?
It’s just you.
I hope you’re right. Eowyn’s defiance is my most favorite scene in the whole story.
I keep wondering when Anduril is going to show up. In the book, it was delivered to Aragorn just before they left Rivendell but in the movie, he hasn’t got it yet. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to be delivered by Arwen (defying Elrond) so she can show up for the battle of Pelennor Fields. Is there room for two shield maids in that battle? Maybe she gets stuck in Gondor for another P.O.V. of the seige, and he gets it in time for their hike up to Morannon.
I’m hoping Peter Jacksn’s obvious respect for the original story, despite the compromises necessary to make it into a good movie, will keep the Rohirrim-lady in he rproper place.
DD
Removing or condensing elements of the story is fine. Making up extra stuff (stuff which is completely pointless, to my eyes) with the wealth of material you’ve got to begin with? I was a bit disappointed by TTT, for just that reason.
But I’ll still go catch it at least one more time on the big screen.
GuanoLad: Nice catch. I hadn’t run across that bit before.
It is most definitely NOT just you. 
~Ferry, rabid Elijah Wood fan
Middlea asked:
::raising hand timidly:: Me, too. Hey, after all, I didn’t even get to see his tattoo on the Jay Leno show!
Seriously, do you think the scene we’re thinking of will be intact? Perhaps it will, because
I see on TORn that an actor is cast as the Mouth of Sauron for RotK. One of the key things that this character does is to horrify the host of Gondor by showing them the cast-off clothing of Frodo, as the MOS tries to get the upper hand in negotiations.
So maybe we’ll get our chance. But Sam would kill us if we tried anything.
Pervy hobbit fancier.
hey, everyone needs a hobby.
I had two personal issues, two quibbles, and a few actual questions.
The first personal was the damn damn stupid Secret Diaries, which made us giggle at inopportune moments.
The second personal was our baby. We took him because we figured he’d sleep right through it as he usually does in movies, plus it was past his bedtime. Apparently not. He was very good and quiet throughout the whole movie, EXCEPT- he thought that Smeagol was just the funniest thing ever. Cute 8-month baby giggles during the whole first dramatic scene of rejecting the evil. Luckily they were quet giggles, but they completely broke the mood for us.
The movie problems were mostly sound effect based. The wargs (the beasts the Orcs rode) had paws- but their running sound effect was horses’ hooves. It was very distinct.
Second (and perhaps this hearkens back to my first personal issue) when the elven archers arrived in Hem’s Deep, they did a group 90 degree turn and I swear there was a swishing noise. Reminded me a bit too much of that Monty Python drill seargeant bit…
On an it’s been a long time since I read the books note, is there a reason given there why all the woman of Rohan are stuffed back in the caves? If the women are trained to use a sword (and we know that they are) then why would they not be out fighting for their lives and their children’s? Admittedly, 600 against 10,000 is not much better than 300 against 10,000, but having trained warriors sit idly by while kids whose voices haven’t changed yet go out and hack at the enemy seems a bit dim. Obviously somebody needs to mind the babies, but the ten year-olds would be much better placed doing that in the caves than on the front lines.
Also during the battle, after the wall is blown up, the defenders rush out of it. I’m thinking that part of a wall is easier defended than no wall at all. 50 Roharrim could have held back the army in the gap while the other defended the tops of the walls. I’m not talking about the last-ditch ride out, but the first charge.
Wouldn’t horses charging down a 60 degree slope trip and fall? At least some of them? And wouldn’t the front line have been totally impaled by the set spears and pikes at the bottom?
And how come the battle was so quickly over then? Eomer had 3000 men, I think. 3300 against 10,000 is still pretty poor odds, even with Gandalf the Minty Fresh on your side.
I forgot to say that I loved TTT and thought it was a much better movie than FOTR. I hope some directorial awards are given here- it was a magnificent job done.
Anybody have an explanation for why they added (made up) the part about Aragorn getting carried off the cliff and being feared dead? That part of the movie just didn’t do anything for me.
It provided an excuse for more Arwen screen time, is all I can figure.
My thinking (such as it is) goes something like this:
As Gandalf and Co. arrived on the ridge, the sun was to their backs, just below the ridge line. Midway through their charge down the slope, the sun peaked over the ridge, blinding the orcss below. At this point, you’ve got warriors who are bred for battle, yes, but who are also essentially blinded, with a rather large contingent of horsemen riding down on them. And, because of the sun, they may not have known just how few (relatively) the horsemen were.
The sudden sunlight in their eyes causes them to flinch (as I recall, several raised their pikes at that instant, while attempting to shield their eyes), so the line of pikes is not as thick as it ought to have been. The horsemen crash through the front line, chaos ensues, morale is broken, etc. Once morale broke, it was all over.
Possibly stretching things a bit, but it makes sense to me. Of course, I also think the slope was a bit steep for any thing resembling a controlled charge, but I guess Horse Lords can do that sort of thing.
I thought it was just there to reinforce the Aragorn/Arwen storyline, especially now that he’d just met Eowyn so you’d get the love triangle going. I’m very glad that it wasn’t presented just to give Liv Tyler more screen time; they used Aragorn’s dream to show how much Arwen would be giving up by leaving with the Elves. That emphasizes the melancholy side of the story, that even if the ring were destroyed, the elves were leaving Middle Earth and an age of the world was ending. That kind of theme couldn’t have been conveyed as well if it were all just about the battle at Helm’s Deep.
The sunlight was enhanced by a brightly glowing Gandalf. So not only blinded by the sun, but Gandalf had to be intimidating.
My husband maintains that Anduril was carried out of Rivendell by Aragorn, and they didn’t make a plot point out of it.
Wouldn’t surprise me. We got a lot of the Rivendell backstory as flashbacks in TTT, we could get a flashback (or even a throw away line) in RotK. And we didn’t get an explaination for the capes in FotR (at least, not unless you’ve seen the extended version) but the capes are a plot point in TTT.
In the pictures I’ve seen that were cut from the film that will likely be in the extended edition of the TTT DVD, it looks very much like Arwen nabbing the sword.
Actually, PJ and the writers have just rearranged the Narsil/Anduril bit of the plot. The reforging still hasn’t happened but it will. It’s scheduled for ROTK as well.
According to [a href=“http://www.killermovies.com/l/lotrthetwotowers/articles/1620.html”]this[/a] page:
"RETURN OF THE KING starts with the reforging of Narsil in the foundry of Rivendell."