—No, he takes Frodo to some deserted fort on the way to Minas Tirith.—
Dude, that’s the proud city of Osgiliath! Deserted fort my arse!
-My one big problem – not resolved by the FELLOWSHIP extended cut – is that the whole plot hinges on Sauron not expecting them to try to destroy the ring.—
I agree. I really feel like the the writers really don’t quite get the story sometimes: they have characters doing things like in the book… but without explaining their motivations. It would almost make more sense to explain their motivations and have them do something else, rather than just doing something that appears to be sort of stupid. Maybe this bit will be made plain when Aragorn challenges Sauron with the Palantir (if that happens).
On the other hand, in the movies, the Wraiths have already “smelled” Frodo with the ring in Osgiliath.
Both speeches are in the book (and are actually just one big speech) and, in the book, are said only to Frodo on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol.
I just returned from our second viewing of TTT, and I’m feeling a little better about the plot deviations. Frodo’s offering of the Ring to the ringwraith isn’t as jarring, and you have to admit it’s an eerily filmed, effective scene. I like the ghostly quiet with which the flying wraith appears over the edge of the ruined wall. PJ must have watched a lot of Kurosawa films. And as I’ve posted in another thread, I have a feeling that this Osgiliath scene will take the place of the Minas Morgul scene, so it was important to show at some point in the films how completely Frodo loses control over his will when the witch king gets too close. If I’m wrong, and we get to see the city of the ringwraiths in RotK, I’ll be very happy.
You have a point, though. Film Sauron now knows a hobbit has the Ring in Osgiliath. Hmm. If there’s a palantir scene in RotK, film Sauron will know that Pippin, whom he sees in the palantir, is not the Ring-bearing hobbit he’s looking for. I hope this does not mean that there will be no palantir scene.
Film Merry and Pippin’s using their heads a bit and and showing Treebeard why the ents ought to go to war sits better, too. It’s good to show that they’re starting to think they had better get off their arses and do something proactive – they’ve got some important work to do in RotK, especially Merry.
scablet, your post is spot-on. Credit for this interview goes to CyberPundit, who posted it in his own thread. It shows that this was exactly PJ’s aim. Good call.
That’s one change that I really thought was needed for the movie. Book, they show up and tell Treebeard what Sauraman is doing and through that they convince him to go to war. Movie, they show him directly what Sauraman is doing. Perhaps a little too pat (I think I’d have reversed the order of the scenes having them show the devistation and then he calls the Entmoot, but then you know the conclusion of the Entmoot is certain), but necessary.
Reading some of these criticisms has actually made me glad that I didn’t choose to read the books before I saw the movies; I would hate to be sitting here complaining about every little thing that got changed from the books like it’s the end of the world or something. Geez…
I think later scenes in the movie showed that either PJ or Gandalf don’t care a whit for ‘pike formations.’ I kept expecting G and the cavalry to do something other than rush headlong down a steep incline directly into thousands of well-equipped and fully prepared Urukai with shield and pike formations, but they did exactly that and… didn’t get hurt? Minor nitpick, to be sure. But it bugged me.
I also wanted to throw in two cents about the ‘skateboarding’ trick, which I thought was clearly filmed for the sole purpose of having it in trailers and commercials for TTT, and seemed in the film to be a shorter shot than in the promos, which could admittedly have been just my imagination.
Well, just as they’re approaching the hoard the sun rises over the crest of the hill and blinds them. You see the hoard cover their eyes and drop their pikes.
That’s exactly what my friend said when I mentioned this, and is correct, except that in the very next shot we again see the wide-angle shot and it shows the uglies again staunchly lower their pikes to meet the charge. Not to mention the subsequent close-up of G and the cavalry leaping into the fray, swords clashing, shows them essentially running right into and through the readied pikes.
I just saw it last night and loved every freaking second of it. It felt like three hours, definitely, but I was grinning like an idiot the whole time.
(Maybe SPOILERS for the rest…)
Anyway, the things that bugged me:
Faramir & the ring. The events were basically as I remember from the book, but the motivations were way off. My impression was that it was key that Faramir was never tempted by the ring, as it makes plain the difference between Faramir and Boromir’s characters, and especially the conflict with their father. I have to wonder if they’re going to leave out/gloss over that whole segment of the storyline in the third part. That would be a shame.
I remember Grima’s treachery being a bit more undercover in the book; the movie made it obvious from the first scene in which he appeared. And I don’t remember Saruman’s “possession” of the king of Rohan being so blatant and direct in the book. The movie made it all seem like simple magic that Gandalf could come in and “fix,” while the book had a more interesting angle to the whole thing. It showed a good man being ruined completely by poisonous advice, not by magic alone.
The dwarf-tossing joke, I didn’t mind. Legolas’ X-treme shield riding didn’t bug me that much, either, although I agree that it could very well date the movie in years to come. And Gollum was stunning – definitely the first time I’ve seen a CG character as a character and not a special effect. The Gollum/Smeagol “argument” scene was brilliantly done.
White Lightning - 100% in agreement with you concerning the cavalry charging the pikes. Especially since long pikes were a common weapon amongst the middle-aged swiss soldiery!
Overall, I’m happy with the move. The plot point that jarred me is that we see Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in hot pursuit of Merry and Pippin, then they reach the forest, meet Gandalf, and gallop away with him, seemingly abandoning their friends with no explanation. I would have thrown in one or two sentences of explanation by Gandalf, e.g. “don’t worry about Merry/Pippin” or “we have something more urgent now.” Of course I’m not a screenwriter or director so I probably would not have come up with the great movie that Peter Jackson et al. did.
This is my favorite part of the book. That’s right: not the ents, not Helm’s Deep, but Sam’s corny little speech. I didn’t expect it to survive into the movie, so it was a pleasant surprise.
But he DID say something about them. I don’t remember exactly, but he says something about how they met someone in the forest that they weren’t expecting to meet. He may be even more explicit than that, but at least it gives the impression that Gandalf has explained that the two hobbits are safe and they don’t need to keep looking for them.
I got the impression that it was Gandalf doing some sort of magical blinding light (as part of the whole White rider thing) which caused them to flinch and drop their pikes.
Full agreement here. Would have been a far better sequence had it run like:
1: Treebeard, hauling M&P about, sees the denuded land, and does that very neat rearing-back-and-summoning-roar thing (which is one of my favorite short shots of the film). The audience will, of course, be expecting an immediate attack. BUT:
2: Instead of that attack, they start Entmoot. Instead of the “we…have…agreed…that…you…are…not…orcs,” thing, it would be, “we…have…agreed…that…Saruman…is…doing…a…very…bad…thing.” Cue Hobbit-gapes and “Aren’t you going to do something about that??” “Well…let’s…not…be…hasty.”
Then stretch Entmoot scenes over the hastier bits of the movie, to show up who non-hasty the Ents are in general.
The Entmoot coming to the wrong decision is one of my only major gripes with the film changes. The Gandalf Suicide Charge was silly, of course, but I did admire the visual parallels of the scenes–Gandalf as the white crest of the sweeping wave paralleling the Isengard flood, paralleling the Nazgul-smashing riverwards at Rivendell from FotR. (That the fleeing orcs didn’t run into the waiting Huorns and get not just routed but annihilated is a disappointment, but not as big as the Stupid Ents change.)
[spoiler]1. I like the change with the Entmoot. It shows visually why the Ents go to war (because of the destruction of the forest). In the book, they mention the destruction during one of the speeches at Entmoot. Just Some Guy’s change is good, too.
I still don’t like the change in Faramir. In the book, he’s the opposite of his brother, and in the movie they are shown as equals. If it is to show Aragorn’s superiority, there are enough ways to do that without changing Faramir’s personality. And what’s wrong with showing another strong human? He will be, after all, the steward of Gondor!! Someone equal, or near equal, to Aragorn![/spoiler]