Yea I know now, but back when I didn’t and having only watched the films it did not make sense. I think it also adds something if you know Gandalf is fighting his “brothers” and former allies that have gone bad too.
EDIT:I meant it as a question someone could ask only seeing the films 
No kidding. There are many such layers.
For much the same reason that Jesus didn’t cast Firaga on the money-changers, more or less.
Yea usually it is just a human who has studied or learned the craft of magic, sometimes they are shown to be changed physically by it so they are harder to kill etc.
Some add a thing about the ability to do magic being innate, Harry Potter is the only mainstream fiction that comes to my mind where magic ability is actually genetic.
Well exactly but we understand why because Jesus’s back story is explained.
Gandalf sure doesn’t have issues with killing orcs in the movie, as long as it is inefficient.
The series is already 9+ hours long, and ‘oh, he’s basically an angel, because that’s what wizards are in this universe’ is not something you can drop into the story without exploring it.
OK, I grok your point now.
But to me, that was one of the wonders of reading JRRT; learning more of the background after the fact, and having all those ‘aha!’ moments. Like how Sauron was probably fated for his dark path the moment he complained to Aulë that he didn’t like choir practice, back in the Timeless Halls.
How do you own the rights to information in a story? :dubious:
The Tolkien Estate owns the copyright to everything that Tolkien wrote. In 1969 Tolkien sold the rights to make movies or TV shows from just The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I think that there were several sales of those rights from one company to another. In any case the rights to make movies or TV shows from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit ended up with the people who made the Peter Jackson films of them.
In any case, to make a film or TV show of a novel requires one to have bought the rights from the owners of the copyright of the novel. Using facts only established in one of the author’s works for a film or TV show of another of the author’s works is a violation of the copyright laws if you haven’t bought the rights to make movies or TV shows for both of the works. Tolkien only sold the movie and TV rights for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit because it was only shortly after the books became famous and he thought that it would be his only chance to make a decent amount of money from it, although even then he was wary of the movies screwing up the books. Now, however, the Tolkien Estate is quite well off and has no need for additional money, and most of the family doesn’t want anyone screwing up the books with some ridiculous movie.
From what I’ve read (and I suspect it’s based mostly on hearsay), it’s not most of the family, but Christopher Tolkien, who dislikes the idea of his dad’s other works being made into movies, plays, video games, etc. And the big entertainment tycoons are waiting for him to die to they can throw grillions of bucks at the next generation of Tolkiens in order to secure rights to Silmarillion, etc.
I don’t know if all that’s really true or not, and if you’ve got more credible info about the rest of the family being of like mind with CJRT, I would not be surprised.
I don’t know much more than you. However the decisions are made for the estate, the rights aren’t getting sold for the other books at the moment. I don’t know what will happen when Christopher Tolkien dies.
Grillions for the Silmarillion! 
That’s wildly insufficient. Darth Sidious was, for all intents, a wizard, and he died from a major fall. Peter Jackson pulled a “gotcha” without giving a rationalization.
Wizard has a certain connotation built off of decades of fantasy story-telling. Tolkien should have used a different name if he meant a wizard to be a near-deity who could survive certain death “just because it wasn’t his time.”
Uh, except that no one, including Gandalf, really expected him to survive that…because he DIDN’T. He died fighting the Balrog, and was basically told “Hey, you’re doing a good job, lad, get back in there.” by the Valar.
The problem is that this stuff is COMPLEX and people are already not following half of what is going on in the movies. I don’t think this information could have been added into the script in a way that people who wanted to know could absorb without leaving the ‘everyman’ with another ‘Wait, what?’ moment.
Stringbean writes:
> Wizard has a certain connotation built off of decades of fantasy story-telling.
If you really mean just “decades” of fantasy storytelling, then you’re asking Tolkien to have known about the tropes developed in the past few decades despite the fact that The Lord of the Rings was published in 1954 and The Hobbit was published in 1937. And Tolkien began putting together the world of Middle-earth (everything in those two books and the others like The Silmarillion) in 1916 or so. Do you mean centuries? What was available in 1916 that shows wizards in the way you know them?
Wizards have been around for more than mere “decades.” Tolkien certainly read Kalevala–which includes a wizard with godlike powers.
Another interesting point was that when Sauron first moved in to Dol Guldur (in the southern Mirkwood), he pretended (or allowed people to believe) that he was a mere human who learned magic (or had knowledge of lore beyond most folks), and was called “The Necromancer”.
Gandlaf becomes suspicious after a while, and goes to Dol Guldur to check him out, discovering his true identity.
But this implies that mere mortal Men could have been seen as practitioners of mysterious powers or skills, and tales told of these individuals can probably grow taller as time passes. Gandalf and company could be viewed as more of these kinds of people.
The Numenoreans were also skilled practitioners of magic, and a couple might have survived the fall of Numenor. These folks could also be the source of more tales of Men who practiced magic. After a thousand years, they take on the same kind of legendary status that Merlin/King Arthur (or even Robin Hood) does now.
I don’t know how often Humans or Hobbits see astounding creatures or magic in the Third Age, but I imagine that they would have a rich tapestry of fantastical tales involving powerful (but mortal) “wizards” that don’t involve the Istari.
There’s no excuse for the Elves, though. They aught to know exactly what Gandalf and Sauruman are. Elrond and Galadriel are pretty sharp cookies, so even if the Istari don’t talk much about themselves, those two Elves can probably make some shrewd guesses about them.
Frink: Yes, over here, n’hey, n’hey. In Episode BF12, you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, you’re clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please do explain it!
Lucy Lawless: Uh, yeah, well, whenever you notice something like that… a wizard did it.
Frink: I see, alright, yes, but in episode AG04-
Lucy Lawless: Wizard!
There’s no indication that they didn’t know, is there? Other than none of them coming right out and saying something like “I know you’re a maia”. Especially Galadriel, having actually been IN Valinor and having seen the Light of the Trees, would be able to know what the Istari really were. She’s possibly the most powerful non-divine being in Middle-Earth at that point.
Cirdan knew what Gandalf and the other wizards were, as he met them when they got off the boat from Valinor. And certainly Galadriel, & who was born in Valinor, grew up chumming with the Maiar and Valar, would have recognized him for what he was. Elrond too knew the Maiar, since he fought in the War of Wrath.
But most elves of Middle Earth didn’t have much acquaintance with the Ainur; certainly not the typical sylvan or sindarin elves. Nor do they necessarily know much about Valinor and the origins of Arda, unless they were schooled by some of the Noldor who came back to M-E.