Ahh… I see the confusion here. When he says “Don’t follow the lights” he means it in the sense of “Don’t follow that path” - the lights appear to mark a path through the swamp, but don’t.
At the time he says the line, I thought they appeared to be near a whole row of burning torches.
I’m still wondering how Frodo knew Boromir was dead…
The only way PJ could REALLY screw up ROTK is if he hires a bunch of midgets in chubby, furry suits to film climatic forest battle-scene pickups this summer. Oh, too, and if Arwen and Aragorn find out they’re related. Oy!
Frodo didn’t know that Boromir was dead; that’s why he reacts in surprise when Faramir tells him the news.
Er, that would be because Faramir tells him. Faramir then finds the whyfores out from them in turn.
“You’ve got to trust your feelings, Master Frodo! You know it to be true!”
The lights in the book were under water, and looked like candle flames. At no point in the movie did Frodo look at one of the gas jet flames, he was looking at the dead bodies.
But if they didn’t know he was dead, how did they know why was dead?
It’s actually less why Boromir died and more what led to his downfall, now I think on it.
That said, it’s arguable that if Boromir hadn’t been tempted by the Ring, he wouldn’t have gone off after Frodo. This would have put him with the rest of the Fellowship when the orcs showed up instead of a distance away by himself, which would probably have sufficed to save his life.
Unfortunately, I can’t recall if Faramir told the hobbits that Boromir was killed by orcs. If he did, though, it’s not too great a leap for Sam and Frodo to guess that he was killed while he was alone in the woods that day - and that solely attributes his death to his having coveted the Ring.
I agree with all the complaints stated above about departures from the book, and with none of the justifications (sorry), so I won’t reiterate any of them.
What really bugs me about BOTH of these movies so far are some
( I admit nitpicky) technical things that probably never get noticed by the average viewer but INFURIATE people who know anything about medieval-style weaponry/combat.
As stated above, you don’t charge a well dug-in pike squad on a horse, downhill, at full speed and live to tell about it. I don’t think a single horse got skewered in that scene, I was beside myself.
I’ve posted in the past about the whole sword-forging scene in Isengard from FOTR was stupid, you can’t make a fire with green wood hot enought to forge iron. This movie was consistent in it’s metallurgical stupidity. In one scene, an orc (maybe he was Uruk-Hai) is seen sharpening his sword (actually a tulwar) on a grinding wheel, which is fine except he’s turning the wheel backwards in the direction which would actually make the blade duller, not sharper. This kinda stuff bugs the crap outta me.
You’d think in a series as dependent on combat and combat-related imagery, they’d have someone consulting on this kinda stuff.
They are related, and they know it.
My take on the issues:
I refuse to issue a final judgement on any exclusions until the extended version DVD.
Faramir: Nothing wrong with this, in fact I think it added a lot to his character development.
Osgilliath: This sort of bugged me but it did give PJ another chance to add a battle scene. My problem is that they were apparently on the west bank and Frodo and Sam then have to cross the river and half of an occupied ruin to get back on track.
Ent stuff: Nothing here really bothered me there are a few exclusions (see above)
Helms Deep battle: Well-filmed; tactics as good as can be expected in a movie. The ending probably fits into the “exclusions” statement.
Elves at Helm’s deep: I’m not as against this as Quadgop but I really didn’t like it. I would have brought in rangers (even though it would have been early).
Theoden: I have no real problem with the level of involvement of Saruman. PJ has said that he needed a more visible villain and Saruman-the-Formerly-White has taken up the slack.
The Arwen dreams: this worked for me. PJ needed to include Arwen somewhere in the movie.
Warg attack and “death” of Aragorn: This I did have problems with. It didn’t add anything (except time) to the movie and the resources could have been used elsewhere.
At least one did. And besides, the orcs weren’t well dug in; they’d just been disrupted by the sunlight and had only been there a minute or so anyway.
Quick question here - how the hell can you make a sword duller on a grindstone just by turning it the other way? Holding it the wrong way, yes, but abrasion should be constant whichever way you rotate the wheel.
Agreed. It’s just a pity he had to include Liv Tyler in the process.
Can’t say one way or the other on this particular point (although I too fail to see how turning a wheel one way or the other would be more important than holding the sword the right way). But the special edition of the DVD points out that all the weaponry in the movies was made by one or more local weaponsmiths who specialize in making archaic weapons and armor. Jackson points out that all of the Isengard scenes were filmed inside a NZ forge and instead of training actors/extras to work the equipment, they dressed the ironworkers up as orcs. I’d presume they knew what they were doing.
Maybe because they were kiwis and below the equator, they turn their grinding wheels in the opposite direction?
The pikes are level, but not neccessarily supported by foot, under the arm or with the palm of the hand. Without the back support the pike becomes little more than a long stick no matter where it is pointed. The horse will brush it aside. It takes a moment or two to “brace” a pike. The Urakhai didn’t have the time to recover, methinks.
Rennaissance warfare also showed that pikes v. cavalry when holding the pike at chest level is insufficient against a full cavalry charge. Which is why by the 16th-17th century they were bracing it from the ground with the foot.
This assumes human strength, however, and the Urakhai certainly look stronger than humans.
Hey, at least they weren’t sharpening swords on rocks a la the Bakshi Boromir.
Ah, away and throw shite at yourself - I liked the Bakshi movie. It was a good try.
Besides, did you see that sword? I don’t think it had been sharpened since the dawn of time, the number of chips in it.
Feh, there’ve been plenty of threads on the Bakshi version of the movie. It spoiled things for me and made a mess of everything. Hornheaded Boromir, Fuzzy-slippered Balrog… Bah!
Actually, I though the sword that Aragorn took to from the young recruited soldier (forget the name) and declared to be ‘a good sword’ looked like it had spent the last decade being used to chop wood.
No argument here. That rusty old thing looked like it would break if you looked at it the wrong way. Maybe Aragorn meant that it was good for giving the orks a tetanus infection 
DAMN, I thought I was a nitpicker!
The several objections to my point are purely semantics. The wheel should be turning in whichever direction pushes metal away from the sharp edge of the blade. So, you can say that it doesn’t matter which way the wheel turns, so long as you hold the blade on the correct side. You can also say it doesn’t matter which way you hold the blade, so long as you turn the wheel the right way. It all amounts to exactly the same thing.
As far as the pike thing, I need to make myself clearer. What I meant (or rather what I was thinking about) when I said “well dug-in” pertained more to the pikes than the orcs.
If you’re a footsoldier who’s going to use a pike against a charging horse, there’s a certain method to it. What you want to do is sink the butt of the pike into the ground, maybe stomp out a little divot with your bootheel to make a little depression. Then, you point the pike at about a 30 deg angle and stand on the end of it. You’re standing still. The horse and rider combined outweigh you by many hundreds of pounds and they are moving. If you’re not solidly planted, then the pike won’t penetrate, it’ll just go flying and inflict a slash or minor stab wound, but nothing fatal in most cases. You will be trampled flat.
That was what I was thinking of. The orcs clearly had time to set themselves and brace for impact. I was wincing when I saw it coming, expecting to see them get skewered, but for the most part people seemed to ride right through and take up fighting with the orcs hand-to-hand.
FWIW, There’s also a popular battle plan that involves laying the pikes down (tall grass helps here) and raising them at the last second for the element of surprise. You might remember this one was used in “Braveheart”.