I don’t think they completely removed it, did they?
There is some antagonism between Gimli and Legolas at the beginning.
They agree to die “side by side with a friend” by the end.
That isn’t all, though. There are other references to their relationship growing. They left the part from the book where Legolas draws his bow to defend Gimli when Eomer and the Rohirim point swords/spears at Gimli.
They did film Gimli and Legolas visiting various areas of middle-earth together in the epilogue. And, yes, they cut the entirely out and the full scene has never been released.
The movie cast Gimli as comic relief, not as a heroic warrior, which kind of ribs it from the start. The relationship between Gimli and Legolas was a major plot point of the book, and at the end, they effectively marry, and Gimli joins Legolas in the west. There may be some tattered remains of the relationship in the movie, but it’s just tattered remains.
I agree with this one. Whether or not he stays dead is maybe less important, but I do think having him in Rivendell is redundant. Even if he stays alive have him off camera like Thranduil and Cirdan.
This is a small one, but there should have been a representative from Lothlorien at the Council or Elrond.
One of my main reasons for thinking the movies trash - Legolas and Gimli’s competition at Helm’s Deep was one of my favorite parts of the books. Along with the three’s pursuit of the orcs. Instead, the movie gave you Gimli asking to be tossed and Legolas surfing. (I may not remember clearly. I REALLY disliked the movies, watched them once and never again.).
Has anyone considered Gandalf just having the eagles fly the ring straight to Mt. Doom? That seems like a much more reasonable solution with a lot less risk than the whole unnecessary and perilous journey.
Wow, you are the very first person to come up with that
It has been brought up approximately 11ty billion times, and rejected. The Eagles are sentient beings and not a taxi service. Plus it would ruin the story.
In the books, the mumakil were much closer in size to modern elephants, or ancient mammoths. They were used to pull the battering ram - Grond - to the gates of Minas Tirith, and the gigantic beasts in the movie were way too large to do that. So Peter Jackson came up with some other smaller beast to pull Grond.
Not as far as I can tell. The chapter where Grond was used only says that “great beasts” hauled it. It also says that mountain-trolls swung it, so it isn’t simply being vague for poetic reasons.
According to The One Wiki To Rule Them All, oliphaunts were use to haul Grond in the Rankin/Bass version. Maybe that’s what you were thinking of? Or maybe I didn’t find all the references, and there’s some other part that implies otherwise.
Hmm. Given that Gandalf and, I think, Elrond are on the Council of the Wise along with Galadriel, and that Gandalf works closely with Galadriel, who is Elrond’s mother-in-law as well as doubtless being some more distant blood kin to him, I think the Rivendell Council as constituted was pretty well placed to look after Lothlorien interests.
It’s Rosie Cotton who makes it clear to Sam (on his return) that she has been waiting for him to come back, keeping faith long past the hope of other folk for the return of the travelling Shire-folk. Then she tells him to not leave Mr Frodo until things are dealt with, to which Sam has no answer, but a dawning realisation.
It’s Frodo who later tells the story of their travels to the Cotton family, highlighting the deeds of Samwise the Brave and cementing the growing love between Sam and Rosie. It is also Frodo who gives them room in his house, so that Sam can be with both Frodo and Rosie.
It’s not that i think they were badly served here. It’s really just a desire for some symmetry. Rohan wasn’t represented either and they probably would have been if not for Saruman and Grima. But Gondor, the Dunedain, Rivendell, Grey Havens, Woodland Realm and Blue Mountain dwarves were all represented. Lothlorien is really the only big nation that didn’t have a seat at the table which is weird considering Galadriel’s power and import.
I don’t think the size of the mumakil (or oliphaunts, as the more bucolic and untutored would have it) in the books is nearly as small as you think:
To his astonishment and terror, and lasting delight, Sam saw a vast shape crash out of the trees and come careering down the slope. Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit’s eyes, but the Mumak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty. On he came, straight toward the watchers, and then swerved aside in the nick of time, passing only a few yards away, rocking the ground beneath their feet: his great legs like trees, enormous sail-like ears spread out, long snout upraised like a huge serpent about to strike, his small red eyes raging. His upturned hornlike tusks were bound with bands of gold and dripped with blood. His trappings of scarlet and gold flapped about him in wild tatters. The ruins of what seemed a very war-tower lay upon his heaving back, smashed in his furious passage through the woods; and high upon his neck still desperately clung a tiny figure – the body of a mighty warrior, a giant among the Swertings.
It specifically says that modern elephants are “but a memory” of the girth and majesty of a mumak.
