In the books, Faramir finds out far sooner that Boromir died because the Ring tempted him. He lets Frodo go as soon as he finds out in both cases.
Really, it’s a flaw in the books for portraying Faramir as a saint. Even so, you’ll note in the film that he doesn’t try to take the Ring for himself; he could have killed Frodo at Henneth Annun and taken it but instead lets Frodo keep it, and he could have taken up the Ring himself in Osgiliath but instead plans to send it to Denethor and win his father’s respect that way. The conflict is still there.
Because longbows have an effective range of 400 yards - 300 against armour - not 1300 yards as you suggest. For me Helm’s Deep was more realistic than Moria, where you have shortbows with equal range to an elvish longbow.
This was puzzling me as well, as I posted earlier. Now that I’ve had time to think of it, however, perhaps this is how it will play out: the ringwraiths don’t seem to actually see the ringbearer until he actually puts on the Ring. As you saw, Frodo was prevented from doing this by Sam. I don’t think just sensing that it might be around was sufficient for the ringwraiths to raise the alarm, or they would have done this back at the dead marshes, and the dead marshes scene was in the book.
Hopefully this means that the palantir scene will be in the movie and remain intact.
Oh, BTW, the Minas Morgul scene will be in RotK. I had opined earlier that it would be deleted, but I just finished watching the director’s commentary on my FotR DVD, and PJ states that we will be seeing it. In fact, we saw a bit of it in FotR – when we first see the ringwraiths, they are galloping away from a castle. That castle is not Barad-Dur, it is Minas Morgul. Glows a nice eerie green, too.
I think the elves showing up is a way to put them more in focus with the whole war thing. they were there at the first one, obviously feeling that it was important that Sauron not take over, so how come they’re ljust running off now?
(For that matter, why is it they’re leaving now?)
Elves at Helm’s Deep gives the whole Elven race some depth that it otherwise lacks, other than as hosts. Why be sad that they’re leaving unless you see what they can do while they are in Moddle-Earth?
I think time was played a bit loosely here. We are told that Gandalf will appear on the fifth morning- but at no point are we told what day it is. From my point of view, everyone left Theoden’s city on day 1 and arrived at Helm’s Deep at Night 1. they prepare for battle on Day 2 and the Orcs arrive at Afternoon 2. The Gandalf arrives on Morning 3.
If the orcs arrived, camped a day, then attacked, it makes more sense. We’re still missing a day with Gandalf.
It also bothered me that the Orc army were all gone pretty much as soon as Eomer got there. It was almost like they disappeared. My husband says that charge pushed them up against Theoden’s charge and mushed them in between. I remember Eomer’s charge as 90 degrees to Theoden’s, which leaves the whole friggin’ plain to retreat to. At any rate, it seemed like there should have been more of a fight as the Orcs would still have had almost 3/1 to men, and even horses won’t make up those odds without effort.
They’re horse folk. Smaller towns, even several small towns, make the most sense. They would be semi-nomadic, moving with the herd to better pasture depending on season. Cities are for folk who stay in one place forever.
I think you mean Mount Doom? Anyway, I just checked a map and they appear to be around ten miles apart. If you consider perspective (they are both REEELY tall) then it about makes sense.
One more and then I’ll shut up for a bit
In the marshes, Gollum says Don’t folow the lights.
There were no lights.
Frodo looks too closely at a dead guy and gets sucked in.
When he gets rescued, Gollum says I TOLD you not to follow the lights.
Thats assuming an orc is equal to a human, which is not true. Orcs are undisciplined and cowardly and not very smart, a well trained human warrior should have no trouble dispatching quite a few of them.
There were lights; the little fires burning in the swamps. There is a line of dialog in the book that was dropped that would have helped make it a bit more clear. Kind of odd that it was dropped since Gollum said the rest of that speech.
No, you left out a day. Remember when Aragorn is sitting there in camp, at night, smoking his pipe and thinking about Arwen? Clearly the march to Helm’s Deep from Edoras took more than one day.
perhaps i am just accepting of the movie, but if i recall, the theater version of FOTR was quite disappointing. There were some things left out and the pacing was terrible. In Two Towers, we get something similar. Some of the pacing is too fast, and some of it is too slow. I have a feeling that the extended version DVD will be quite a treat.
As for the Faramir part, i have this gut feeling that it will take the place of something else. I just hope it isn’t Frodo being captured by the orcs of Mordor. Other than that, i understand the change and actually read an interview about that very subject…i think it was Peter Jackson who said this Faramir made the relation to Boromir a little bit more realistic. I wish i could remember the interview more tho…
Rohan was more gritty than i imagined, which was quite nice. It had this horse-men feel to it that i remember when reading the book. It felt altogether viking like, or something to that effect. I was impressed.
The part where Saruman is exorcised would be logical if you looked at it this way. Theoden can not have his mind overthrown if it isn’t poisoned first. Saruman needed Grima to get into Theoden’s mind to slow and weaken it. So you could say it was a combination of poison and magic. Just my two cents…
Not to shit on Professor T from a height, but the pacing in the book is equally terrible. That’s why Jackson has been bouncing things around a bit - to even it up - but there’s only so much he can do without angering people. The Faramir thing is a good example of this.
Those are called “corpse candles.” They’re fed by gas from the decomposing bodies. I thought it was quite clear that they were the ‘lights’ that Gollum was referring to.
I’ve read the books three times, but they aren’t (IMO) well written, and they aren’t well paced. I don’t think Tolkien does decent character development. I do think he wrote a kick ass world and did a great job of translating an epic quest into that world. When I read them the first time and was raving about them, my English teacher had me read War and Peace after for comparison.
These books have long been considered “unfilmable” because of the length, the complex special effects work that is required, and also because of the plot/pacing problems.
I guess when he said “follow the lights” I was expecting something… err… followable. Will o’ the wisps. The flames didn’t move, they were just gas jets. You can’t follow something stationary, you can only go toward it. Don’t start at the flame would have been appropriate. Come to think of it, Frodo didn’t even go toward a flame jet, he just started too long at a dead guy.
