Assenpfeffer
First Post
Originally posted by JRRNeiklot
My gripes: Gimli is a joke, the Jar-Jar of the film. He was my favorite character in LOTR and he was reduced to comic relief.
I agree that he's a little too yuk-yuk. He is hardly Jar-Jar, however. And he is still an orc-killing machine.
The meeting of the three hunters with the riders of Rohan. What happenned to the mention of Galadriel? Gimli and Eomer make a pact to postpone their fight until after Eomer has looked upon Galadriel. This is one of the defining moments of Gimli's character. Of course, if you're nothing more than a court jester, your character needs no defining.
As already noted, this wouldn't have made sense to include without the expanded Lothlorien gift-giving in FotR. I'm certain we'll see it in the expanded edition.
Faramir. They dropped the ball on this big time. Who the hell was that? Faramir was the most noble character in the whole damned book. Sam even said he had an air about him similar to that of Gandalf. In the movie he was more akin to Saruman. I can't believe that the noble Eowyn can ever fall for such a creep as Faramir.
I agree. This seems to be the focus of most fans' criticisms of the film. I can only think that the intent was to leave the viewer with an ambiguous picture of Faramir. I also think we'll need to see RotK before understanding the changes to the character. I think PJ knows what he's doing, and when we've see the whole story it'll make sense.
The journey to Osgilath. Why add this? It serves absolutely no purpose but to further demean Faramirs character. Then the ringwraith. Sauruman knows who has the ring now, wtf was that all about?
Sauron knows where the ring is now. That is the purpose of dragging Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath - to show the audience that Sauron thinks the ring is headed to Minas Tirith, and setting up the possibility of destroying it. I understood this at once. I don't see why people are having trouble with it.
Aragorn's fall from the cliff. Redundant. Served no purpose.
It let Aragorn ride into Helm's Deep with news of the approaching orc army. Nevertheless, I agree that it was redundant and coupld have been developed better.
The Elves at Helm's Deep. Why?
Why not? There were Elves at Helm's Deep in the books - Elladan and Elrohir and their party. The movie just increased their numbers a bit. This is by no means harmful to the story, and the only possible argument against it is the Purist's - that it wasn't exactly like the book.
Gollum. He started off fine, but at moments diressed into too much of a Jar-Jar.
Again, no. This movie has no Jar-Jar.
The sudden kung-fu-esque abilities of Arragorn, Gimli, and Legolas at Edoras. Again, should be axed.
Did you even see the same movie I did? I saw a fistfight, not a high-kicking wire-fu blowout.
The disarmament at the gates. Gimli's axe was worth a king's ransom, The Bow of Galadriel, which has yet to be mentioned, and where is Anduril? This was a great scene that was cut for no purpose except to allow time to screw over Faramir and make Gimli fall down a couple more times.
The Bow of the Galadhrim is in the FotR extended edition. Again, it would have made no sense to include it in the theatrical version of TTT. As for Anduril, we'll see it at a dramatically appropriate time in RotK.
Where was Erkenbrand?
Cut, quite sensibly, for the same reason as Glorfindel.
Why was Hama never mentioned by name, except in reference to his girly-like son?
Hama is in the movie. He's the guy that gets killed by the scout in the warg attack. Don't expect the film to spoon-feed you with little captions: "This is Hama, Door-Warden of Meduseld."
Merryand Pippin. No mention of the Entwash. No mention of the way they tricked the orcs into believing they had the "precious."
All sensibly cut for reasons of running time. None of this is vital information, nor does it directly affect the story.
The Ents had to be talked into attacking Saruman? Wtf? And they did more than tear down a dike. They redirected the course of an entire river, for christ's sake! And no Quickbeam.
I disagree that this is any kind of flaw in the movie. However, I did really want to hear the Ents' marching song. I thought this was the one song from the book that might possibly have made it into the movie. Once again, I predict we'll see more of Merry and Pippin's interaction with the Ents in the extended version.
Shadowfax. He just appears out of nowhere at Gandalf's call. Explain, please.
I fail to see how any explanation beyond that given in the film (that he's an extraordinary horse) is neccessary or desirable in the fim's context.
I'm sure there are many more discrepancies. Some of these could be disregarded as minor, but if they had cut the more stupid crap out, there would have been time for all of the proper characterization and then some.
Everything you've pointed out, even the stuff I agree with, is trivial nitpicking and doesn't have much to do with how good the film is.
Which is not to say that the film is perfect - it has some legitimate problems with dialogue and pacing, and the camerawork breaks down in at least one place. But overall, it's clearly a very good film, if not quite as good as FotR - but then, I figured this'd be the weakest of the three films, anyway. So I'm happy with the result, and plan to go see it at least one more time in the next two weeks. (After that I'll probably wait until they tack on a RotK teaser at the end.)
Tolkien must be rolling over in his grave.
No, I doubt that very much. See, Tolkien understood that in translating the books to a different medium, changes - many changes - would have to be made. His letters go into the subject in some detail.
My gripes: Gimli is a joke, the Jar-Jar of the film. He was my favorite character in LOTR and he was reduced to comic relief.
I agree that he's a little too yuk-yuk. He is hardly Jar-Jar, however. And he is still an orc-killing machine.
The meeting of the three hunters with the riders of Rohan. What happenned to the mention of Galadriel? Gimli and Eomer make a pact to postpone their fight until after Eomer has looked upon Galadriel. This is one of the defining moments of Gimli's character. Of course, if you're nothing more than a court jester, your character needs no defining.
As already noted, this wouldn't have made sense to include without the expanded Lothlorien gift-giving in FotR. I'm certain we'll see it in the expanded edition.
Faramir. They dropped the ball on this big time. Who the hell was that? Faramir was the most noble character in the whole damned book. Sam even said he had an air about him similar to that of Gandalf. In the movie he was more akin to Saruman. I can't believe that the noble Eowyn can ever fall for such a creep as Faramir.
I agree. This seems to be the focus of most fans' criticisms of the film. I can only think that the intent was to leave the viewer with an ambiguous picture of Faramir. I also think we'll need to see RotK before understanding the changes to the character. I think PJ knows what he's doing, and when we've see the whole story it'll make sense.
The journey to Osgilath. Why add this? It serves absolutely no purpose but to further demean Faramirs character. Then the ringwraith. Sauruman knows who has the ring now, wtf was that all about?
Sauron knows where the ring is now. That is the purpose of dragging Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath - to show the audience that Sauron thinks the ring is headed to Minas Tirith, and setting up the possibility of destroying it. I understood this at once. I don't see why people are having trouble with it.
Aragorn's fall from the cliff. Redundant. Served no purpose.
It let Aragorn ride into Helm's Deep with news of the approaching orc army. Nevertheless, I agree that it was redundant and coupld have been developed better.
The Elves at Helm's Deep. Why?
Why not? There were Elves at Helm's Deep in the books - Elladan and Elrohir and their party. The movie just increased their numbers a bit. This is by no means harmful to the story, and the only possible argument against it is the Purist's - that it wasn't exactly like the book.
Gollum. He started off fine, but at moments diressed into too much of a Jar-Jar.
Again, no. This movie has no Jar-Jar.
The sudden kung-fu-esque abilities of Arragorn, Gimli, and Legolas at Edoras. Again, should be axed.
Did you even see the same movie I did? I saw a fistfight, not a high-kicking wire-fu blowout.
The disarmament at the gates. Gimli's axe was worth a king's ransom, The Bow of Galadriel, which has yet to be mentioned, and where is Anduril? This was a great scene that was cut for no purpose except to allow time to screw over Faramir and make Gimli fall down a couple more times.
The Bow of the Galadhrim is in the FotR extended edition. Again, it would have made no sense to include it in the theatrical version of TTT. As for Anduril, we'll see it at a dramatically appropriate time in RotK.
Where was Erkenbrand?
Cut, quite sensibly, for the same reason as Glorfindel.
Why was Hama never mentioned by name, except in reference to his girly-like son?
Hama is in the movie. He's the guy that gets killed by the scout in the warg attack. Don't expect the film to spoon-feed you with little captions: "This is Hama, Door-Warden of Meduseld."
Merryand Pippin. No mention of the Entwash. No mention of the way they tricked the orcs into believing they had the "precious."
All sensibly cut for reasons of running time. None of this is vital information, nor does it directly affect the story.
The Ents had to be talked into attacking Saruman? Wtf? And they did more than tear down a dike. They redirected the course of an entire river, for christ's sake! And no Quickbeam.
I disagree that this is any kind of flaw in the movie. However, I did really want to hear the Ents' marching song. I thought this was the one song from the book that might possibly have made it into the movie. Once again, I predict we'll see more of Merry and Pippin's interaction with the Ents in the extended version.
Shadowfax. He just appears out of nowhere at Gandalf's call. Explain, please.
I fail to see how any explanation beyond that given in the film (that he's an extraordinary horse) is neccessary or desirable in the fim's context.
I'm sure there are many more discrepancies. Some of these could be disregarded as minor, but if they had cut the more stupid crap out, there would have been time for all of the proper characterization and then some.
Everything you've pointed out, even the stuff I agree with, is trivial nitpicking and doesn't have much to do with how good the film is.
Which is not to say that the film is perfect - it has some legitimate problems with dialogue and pacing, and the camerawork breaks down in at least one place. But overall, it's clearly a very good film, if not quite as good as FotR - but then, I figured this'd be the weakest of the three films, anyway. So I'm happy with the result, and plan to go see it at least one more time in the next two weeks. (After that I'll probably wait until they tack on a RotK teaser at the end.)
Tolkien must be rolling over in his grave.
No, I doubt that very much. See, Tolkien understood that in translating the books to a different medium, changes - many changes - would have to be made. His letters go into the subject in some detail.
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I have yet to see a character as complex and interesting as Gollum in any genre, much less fantasy. The dialogue is very skillfully crafted not, as you seem to want, to be realistic, but to be mythic. To be epic. Tolkien wasn't trying to write a "novel" he was trying to write an old-fashioned epic. He did things like the dialogue, the pacing, etc. on purpose and I've never seen such masterful use of the English language. Sure, it makes for poor writing in a traditional novel sense, but since he wasn't writing a traditional novel, I fail to see why that is even brought up. Do you complain about the dialogue in Beowulf or the Elder Edda? Do you complain about the characterizations and pacing of Cu Chullain or the Iliad?
