I think Aragorn was learning to be a king. Theoden points out that a king’s duty when the odds are grim is not to whine about it, but to improve the odds and fight light hell. I actually felt that was the core of shots of Aragorn at Helm’s Deep. He’s switching from lone Ranger (no pun intended) to King.
It really didn’t matter if the sword was nothing more than a sharp stick. The kid would be sliced up as soon as he had to face an enemy directly. The point was to encourage and to rally the troops, as much as possible, IMO.
When the elf reinforcements arrive at Helm’s Deep, they’re led by Haldir (IIRC). I noticed that Haldir looks a lot like Legolas. Is he Legolas’ brother or something?
I ask this because
When Haldir died, I mistook him for Legolas. I almost shouted out “No! Legolas wasn’t supposed to die!” Of course, they showed Legolas a minute later, and I realized that it was the other guy who was killed.
I wouldn’t think Haldir is Legolas’s brother. He would have said he was from Mirkwood, and would probably present himself as an elven prince, besides a messenger from Elrond and/or Galadriel.
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned this, as it’s the main thing that bothered me about the film. Gimli’s character was used almost excusively for comic relief! In the books, he was presented much more respectably, I thought.
Yeah, the comic relief was overdone.
I would have ilked for there to have been less so I could enjoy the Toss Me more. That was cute.
I really liked the part where he talks to Eowyn. It gave us a real feel for his character. He took the time to spin a funny story to lighten Eowyn’s cares. It made him seem like more of a person than previously, where he’d just been Dwarf #1.
Halidir and Legolas are not related at all. It’s just the blonde haired elf thing. But Halidir did know who he was, as is evident in the extended FOTR DVD when he addresses him in Lothlorien.
You have to remember something though. The Urak-hai have very little, if any, training in tactical warfare. In fact, all 10,000 of them have never even been in battle. They’re not gonna know that placing the butt of the pike into the ground will be more effective.
The only thing they got going for them is morale, but that will only get you so far.
I recently started rereading TT, and there’s a scene that described the Ents moving. Tolkien obviously couldn’t make this comparision in the book, but it seems he was describing exactly stop-motion animation. I could find the passage…
True, but my point was they (the orcs) did it right, and yet the charge was depicted as mostly penetrating the line, with few casualties. The orcs should have either a) been shown using a less effective tactic or the same tactic in a less effective way or b) been shown as being more successful.
As it is, he showed them doing the right thing, in the right way, yet somehow the horsemen ride right thru the pikes and slice them up. Therefore this past of the film is flawed, hence my original post. QED.
This point has been blown way out of proportion, but for what it’s worth, it’s the direction of the wheel relative to the blade, so flipping the negative would have no effect.
…and I was judging motion based not on the wheel actually, but the direction the sparks were flying out from. Which, incidentally, I think may be the reason for the mistake. If you’re an actor who’s not used to this kinda work, especially after 10 takes or so, you might turn it the other way to avoid being hit with the sparks. Just a theory.
I have an even better theory; they knew full well that 99.9999% of the audience wouldn’t know the difference, so they deliberately decided to keep the actor safe rather than go for ultimate realism. Besides, it’s not like they need sharp swords on set.
could it be that the genuine weaponsmith was deliberately blunting the weapon so that when it was handed to an actor who has never held a blade in his life, he doesn’t accidentally slice his own foot off?
Did you miss the part where they had one of five wizards in the world leading the charge and rather obviously using magic to make the light disrupt the orcs before the cavalry charge hit? AFAIK, no medieval armies had actual wizards leading their charges. What annoys me is people who ‘nitpick’ by ignoring important chunks of what went on.
I’m going to have to ask for a cite on that one, while I’m sure a simple pile of green wood won’t make a hot enough fire, I fail to see why burning wood until it turns to coals wouldn’t work. Then there’s also the fact that the wood is from somewhat magical trees (Treebeard talked to them, remember) right around a wizards tower with the wizard in question supervising things. Directly burning the still-green trees to make iron instead of going through intermediate steps certainly makes sense from a magical point of view.
I didn’t catch this, but are you sure it wasn’t just one of those reversed rotation ‘errors’ that movies have sometimes? You know, where something is rotating at a speed where the individual frames of film catch it at the right points so that it appears to be going backwards - you’ll see this a lot on old wagon wheels and such.