The line "I'm no man". The book line fit her better n felt right. "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him." Yes its longer n u still have the girl boss theme. The movie line feels so clunky.
My problem with that scene is, even after killing the freaking Witch King of Angmar, she still has to be 'rescued' by Aragorn from the creepy crawling Harvey Weinstein orc chieftain. In the book she did not need to be rescued on the battle field by a man. She was strong enough on her own.
In the time it takes to say that line she would have head her head cut off. This is why you can’t adapt a book word for word, it would be disastrous for the pace of a film.
Some peeves insulting my sense of science and physics: - Isildur floating downriver dead, wearing chain mail - one 80kg ranger plus one 20kg hobbit leaning forward to influence the fall of a 300 ton stone pillar - skinny old fart wearing a billowing robe free-falling faster than a sleek solid-steel sword - archers at Helm's Deep spanning and holding their bows for ages (btw.: Captains ordering archers to "fire" their bows. Not all that sure it was from this movie, but it just came up, mentioning archers) - Uruk-Hai-armour apparently made of cardbard Other serious peeve: - Aragorn pouring away (or at least trying to) the soup given to him by Eowyn is so out of character. They are on the run and don't have much to offer. So a fellow on moral high ground would not throw out food just because it's not particularly good. He's a ranger after all, not some spoiled prince. The version in my imagination:: Aragorn: "It's good" Eowyn (surprised): "really?" Aragorn: "not really" [eats it anyway] Both have a good laugh and bond a little bit more
As a big fan of Rohan it's what the films initially did with Theoden. Skulking away in the hills to avoid battle, "Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?". Eorl would certainly roll in his Simbelmynë crested grave mound.
On the other hand, Jackson did give Theoden some love by making him young and strong again after Saruman was “expelled” from him. In the book his purpose was renewed and he came to his senses, but physically he stayed the same old geezer.
Except that Theoden is strategically correct. His small force could not have joined battle with Saruman's army, so he was perfectly justified in doing what his people did in the past; retreat to his impregnable fortress whilst Rohan's forces are mustered together. Aragorn, Gandalf, and Legolas criticizing Theoden at this point simply makes no sense. What really was he supposed to do? As I said, his small force would have absolutely no chance against Saruman's army, they barely survive an encounter with some of Saruman's warg-mounted outriders. Edoras was not defensible against such an army, so Helm's Deep was the only realistic option.
Absolutely, @@deanzaZZR! He may have been old, but he was an ornery, experienced, highly skilled, battle-tested old coot, still deadly in combat. Don’t sell us old soldiers short! What I meant was, in the book he didn’t suddenly change his actual physical appearance, except in how straight and confident he held himself, how strong and self-assured he suddenly looked, etc.
@@terrystewart1973 Are you talking film or book? In the book Theoden leads a strong force of calvary toward the Fords of Isen. On the way they encounter some Rohan soldiers fleeing from the Fords and with this new intelligence decides to make a stand at Helms Deep. This all seems exemplary and worthy of praise.
My main gripe was how over the top they made certain character’s reaction to the ring. Namely, Bilbo turning into a crazy monster in Rivendell and Galadriel going all dark and booming in Lothlorien. It was unnecessary and kind of tainted scenes that were otherwise very peaceful and touching
Surprised that you didn't point out that losing the scene of Legolas taking down the Mumakil would have robbed us of Gimli's "That still only counts as one."
What about the scene where Frodo and Sam are in Osgiliath and Frodo is nearly captured by the Nazgul? Nevermind the changes made to Faramir. That's a huge plot hole! Their whole mission depended on stealth and secrecy. If the Ringwraiths had seen Frodo with the ring, then Sauron would have sent all his forces there and it would've been game over! But instead they just walk away like it never happened.
I think it's established in the first movie that the ringwraiths can only see The One Ring when someone puts it on. Surely there are people with rings everywhere that they see but they don't know that any of them are The One Ring unless worn.
Exactly! And that THIS is supposed to be what changes Faramir's mind - Frodo offering the ring to the enemy on the first encounter. It's stupid af. All just for the big money shot of Frodo and the Nazgul in Osgiliath. Na, one of the biggest fails imho.
I like that they cut out the stuff with Saruman. Not only did it feel forced, but it was also just good to see an ending where the hobbits return home and are happy.
@@bowserbreaker2515 The Scouring of the Shire is the entire point of a hero's journey. Their adventure has changed them from carefree folk into legendary figures. They've gained the skills necessary to defend their home, not through magic or divine intervention, but by their willingness to do what's right. It also mirrors the Elves seeing their realms fading. There's a nostalgic theme throughout the story regarding artifacts and structures that were once grand, now cracked mossy and out-of-place. A restorative approach brings about victory, such as the reforging of Aragorn's blade, or mending the old alliance of Rohan and Gondor. So too even a simple way of life needs maintenance and care, else it's lost to time.
Great video. The worst moment was when Frodo offers the ring to the Nazgul! Who decided to put that in? It went completely against the entire concept of the LOTR, which is that Frodo, in stealth, takes the ring to Mt. Doom, while Sauron looks outwardly for it. If Frodo had, in the book, showed the ring to the Nazgul, then the nazguls and Sauron would have known immediately where it was, and stopped everything to hunt down Frodo. There is zero chance that the Nazgul would not have recognized the ring (instead, he'd be drawn to it) and would not have put everything aside to get it. The movie scene was a shockingly stupid addition. Almost ruined the movies for me.
But the Nazgul don't actually SEE, if not shadows and shapes. They could sense the Ring, but not actually see it. Only if Frodo put it on they would have seen him AND the Ring, because he woul have entered the shadow world. That said, the scene is still pretty stupid, but because it doesn't make sense AFTER that: so Faramir choose to leave Frodo go to Mordor because he almost fell to the power of the Ring and gave himself to a Nazgul?? WTF? Where is the logic in that choice? Truth is, all that sequence, no, all that story is stupid, and all just because PJ had to make Faramir tempted by the Ring, and not just for a moment, but deeply enough to decide to send it to his father. They could have him knowing about the Ring before capturing Gollum (like in the book) and make him tempted to send it to Minas Tirith, then being horrified by what it did to Gollum and deciding it's best that that thing be destroyed.
I've mentioned this before. The game would have been up, right then and there. If the Nazgul know where the ring is, so does Sauron and the battle at Pelanor fields would not have happened. Sauron would have his troops scour the lands between Osgiliath and Mordor, retrieved the ring and won Middle Earth. Cheap thrill in an otherwise great set of films.
@@johnwerkheiser5555If they knew the ring was at Osgiliath, they would assume it was on its way to Minas Tirith, which is very near, and they would hasten their attack on Minas Tirith, to prevent Denethor or, worse still, the rumoured Aragorn from having the time to learn use the ring against them.
@@adamzain6770 I beg to differ. Sauron would know exactly where the ring was and who bore it. All his might would focus on the ring, surrounded by his forces. Minas Tirith would fall as soon as he recovered the ring, so attacking it without the ring would have been (and was) the beginning of the end for Mordor.
Sauron is expecting them to use the ring. He knows it’s on it’s way to somewhere and is being carried by a hobbit. When his servant finds it at Osgiliath, with Frodo amongst Faramir’s group, he will assume it’s being taken directly to Denethor, who is only a few miles away at this point. It never occurs to Sauron that anyone would try to destroy the ring, so he will think it’s either being hidden or, more likely to him, is going to be used against him. It is perfectly logical that it is passing through Osgiliath on it’s way to Denethor. The last thing Sauron expects is for them to send the ring directly towards him.
The movies miss a few big things that the were profoundly important in the books. The biggest, imo, being that despite all the misery Gollum causes, Sam spares him on Mount Doom after having him at knife point, so it was only due to Sam's mercy that the ring was ultimately destroyed, thus proving Gandalf's wisdom that there are many forces at work in the world, not just the will of evil.
Well, without that, it defaults to Bilbo's mercy for Gollum that destroyed the Ring. That was explicitly talked about in Fellowship and it gets the message of mercy across still. I don't either way is inherently better or worse.
Bilbo had no just reason to kill Gollum; at the point he becomes the ringbearer Gollum has done him no harm and just searching for what he lost. By the time Samwise has the chance to, he has every reason to kill Gollum for the misery, deceit, and entrapment with Shelob @@ackyfacky4332
Gollum I think is the most thematically important character in the books. Although I do like how in the movies Sméagol and Gollum are treated as a tragedy how Sméagol is still just a Hobbit who likes riddles and catching fish. He’s a very sad creature that we are invited to forgive. Which plays into the Christian themes of the books. That God is merciful and despite the worlds evils it is in essence created by God and therefor good.
@@ericstaples7220 but its nowhere near as meaningful at that point because 1) they had something to gain by keeping him alive (the way into Mordor), and 2) he hadn't just tried to kill them!
Hardcore Tolkien fans are always going to nitpick.... bottom line is we got three amazing adaptations.... that could have been so much worse if someone else were at the helm
The things that bugged me the most: * Gandalf faces the Witch-king in Minas Tirith, and Gandalf's staff is broken in the movie and not the book. Just seemed wrong given what Gandalf is. * The end of the battle of helms deep. Missed the forest of tree-like Huorns which just appears overnight and then the orks are toast. ☹☹Would have liked to have seen that on screen. * In the fight at Amon Hen I think Aragorn had too many Uruk-hai to fight all at once. I think in the book most of them had run away with the halfling captives before Aragorn arrives.There ought to be a limit to how many Aragorn could handle at once.
I honestly really didn't like the movies....I remember being in the movie theater for fellowship and when the scene on weathertop came I remember just being so disappointed....why is there blaring, unnatural light (all of Jackson's night scenes are terribly lit)? Why do the Nazgul look like laundry on a clothesline when they should be shadowy, ethereal forms? Why are Merry and Pippen the two stooges? When I got to the scene with Legolas surfing down the stairs at helms deep I was literally embarrassed when I finally watched Two Towers on TV years later. I guess what I wanted was serious movies, aimed toward an older audience like the books (though I don't mind plot changes so long as the same demeanor is kept) but instead they felt like action popcorn flicks for teenage boys....like take the "Meat's back on the menu boys" scene....when they literally show entrails flying through the air, it's so campy and corny I just couldn't take it, but I feel like that feeling is throughout the all the movies the entire time....and don't even get me started on Elijah Wood's objectively bad, melodramatic over-acting....the face he makes when he's stung by shelob is a perfect example.
@@post-leftluddite It was implied that he, along with Legolas and Gimli were fighting a bunch of them in the forest during it, they just focused it all on the viewpoint of Boromir, Merry and Pippin in the books.
My biggest problem is the army of the dead actually being able to kill people and fighting in the battle for minas tirith i always felt like it totally undermines the sacrifices of the humans and their victory
I disagree. I thought this was underplayed in the book. The heroes were far too outnumbered to do very much, even when their internal divisions had been healed. This and the despatching of the Witch King were both unforeseen and must have really put the wind up Sauron. The only rational explanation was that Aragorn had seized control of the ring and was a serious new dark rival.
Yeah, it’s a funny thing how that battle simultaneously absolutely amazing in every way and yet contains some of the cheesiest and most unfortunate gimmicks in the movies. Maybe an attempt to lighten the tone a little? But the ghost army and Legolas’ mumakil surfing makes a kind of tonal whiplash with say, the charge of the Rohirrim or Eomer weeping over the bodies of his family
I agree with most of the comments. The biggest `peeve' issue I had was the treatment of Gimli & Legolas. The comic relief was not needed, not wanted and diminished both characters from the books. Some would have been ok, but by the time they reach the Stone of Erech, I was genuinely disappointed with Jackson's take.
What I find most frustrating with the "Go home, Sam." scene, is that Sam KNOWS that he didn't do it and that he's been set up, but he doesn't decide to go back until after he finds the bread. Every time I watch it, I imagine Sam saying to himself, "I knew it. I *didn't* eat the bread!"
@@williamhamilton1154 Oh, there's nothing wrong with any of the acting! It's just his motivation that's lacking. Maybe if he'd gotten hurt or fell behind and Gollum kept Frodo's focus on the road ahead. I feel like if Frodo would've told Book Sam to "Go home", he would've been like, "And who's gonna make me? You can barely stand and we both know that I can take Gollum! I'll show you that he's a snake, Mr. Frodo! You'll see!" Sam's just too loyal to get turned away so easily.
See, to me it the scene feels more sensical. He knows he didn't eat the bread, but he can't prove it and his initial accusation that Gollum ate the bread *is* kind of crazy, because of *course* Gollum wouldn't touch the stuff. Sam is being gaslit, but given the insanity of Frodo's personality changes, he does begin to doubt a lot that he felt certain about. Sam no longer recognizes Frodo. He fears that the Frodo he knew might be totally swallowed up by the evil of the ring, and he's afraid that staying with Frodo and Gollum will get them both killed. He doesn't know what to do, so he leaves, defeated and brokenhearted. Then he sees the bread and it reminds him what a scoundrel Gollum is, it's the proof he would need to justify himself, and it re-invigorates his passion to protect Frodo.
@@SamONeil-OneWheelOneil I suppose that could work. Except that he knows that he's leaving Frodo with someone who he's actually overheard plotting their deaths, and he "made a promise" that he refuses to break. So it just doesn't fit. Not in my brain.
I hate that scene because Tolkien based Sam and Frodo's relationship on an officer in WWI and his bat boy. The bat boy(Sam) would never, ever abandon his officer.(Frodo). This means that Sam should have waited till the other 2 were out of sight and then followed. Or Jackson could have left the tale in the book as it was where Sam gets furious and runs after Gollum while Frodo goes forward. They still get separated by Gollum.
The cloak/stone cover thing always bummed me out extremely when I was little. I just couldn’t imagine, that not one those warriors would have seen them falling down the hill, covering themselves up and climbing back up. Thanks for the great video, once again
I'm still sad that in the last movie the Army of the Dead wipes out Sauron's forces at Pelennor Fields. It means that the Rohan charge was all for nothing, as the good guys win anyway. In the books the weapon of the dead is fear, and would've done little vs. a land army. It worked to get the Umbar forces jumping off their ships, then all the hard fighting at Pelennor Fields had to be done by men (plus one wizard, one elf, two hobbits, etc.)
Like, it’s more realistic than Aragorn shows up with 20 + random dudes and a few spooky guys and they win the day. He literally brings in a whole army that relieves the pressure off Rohan and Gondor’s forces and saves them all just in time when all hope was lost. That’s like saying Gandalf showing up with the rohirrim in the Two Towers undermines the people’s sacrifice fighting in helms deep while he was gone. If anything it does the exact opposite. It guarantees they weren’t in vain.
@@gandalfthewhite.5245 In the RoTK movie, if Minas Tirith digs a few ditches in front of the gate to slow the battering ram down a few hours then all that death is prevented. Aragorn shows up on time with the metaphorical A-bomb and instant victory! I think there's a good reason why Tolkien wrote it the way he did. In your example from the Two Towers, in Eomer's charge the battle was still won by men. Had the defenders not done their part beforehand, the arrival of the cavalry might not have been enough. And yeah sure the huorns mopped up, but they didn't just show up and wipe the board. Anyway, we can agree to disagree.
@@kblockschwenk They didn't know Aragon was bringing an army to their rescue, so why would they spend their time fortifying for reinforcements they don't know are coming.
@@helsby1797I don’t see how. The progress the orcs could make into Minas Tirith was limited by its layout. They were funneled into narrow street fighting up multiple levels, including several gatehouses. It doesn’t matter if their army is 10,000 strong or 100,000 strong, if only 50 men are able to fight at any given time the battle will take just as long either way. This is why the Persians were stalled for days at Thermopylae despite the Greek force being tiny by comparison to the Persian ones. Only a few dozen, maybe a hundred, men could fight at once in that narrow pass and the vast majority of the Persian army was just sitting around pointlessly. Rohan’s charge just draws off some of the unoccupied reserve forces. It makes sense for Rohan to do this, but from an overall narrative perspective it was an irrelevant action. Without Rohan, Minas Tirith would still have held out as long as it did and the ghosts would have destroyed Mordor’s army just as they did.
@@R0CKDRIG0To strain Mordor’s logistics, increase the risk of disease breaking out at the orcs’ camps, and to increase the time during which the garrison could fight from an advantage. History is full of sieges which were won without reinforcements because the attackers could not maintain supply lines, or caught diseases, or met with disaster trying to storm the walls. Any little thing that can be done to make victory harder for the enemy counts. Also, Gondor is a big kingdom, not a single city. In the books the rest of Gondor is busy fighting off an invasion from the sea but does eventually show up to reinforce the Minas Tirith garrison.
"Poor Gimli, sacrificed in the name of slapstick comedy". With that statement you nailed Gimli's true role in the movies. "Army of Darkness" is a classic!
I was really upset when the movies came out that Gimli didn't get his moment from Helm's Deep in the book, where he springs out of the shadows to aid Aragorn (who had just been tripped by some orcs), he sounds off the ancient Dwarven warcry "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" (meaning "Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!") and swiftly beheads a couple of orcs, and the rest of the orcs flee in terror. I also would have liked a shot of Gimli (maybe slowmotion, I'm unsure) where he just plants his feet firmly into the ground and gripping his axe with both hands, and proceeds to just lop off arms and legs and heads of swarming orcs, and I would have liked it if they could have worked in Aragorn's line (when in the book Gimli is separated from him during the battle and winds up taking a stand in some cave) when he reassures Legolas that Gimli will be fine with the words "Never did I see an axe so wielded."
@@phj223 You do have to consider PG-13 - can't be lopping off arms and legs all over the place. Even the absence of much blood in the movie is totally unrealistic, but we gotta keep the rating. Also, JRD was the tallest cast member, so you'd have to be artful as to how you shot that.
@@phj223 I doubt this is the reason, but I'd like to think that the lack of a ton of really good Gimli fighting scenes is because none of the orc actors or stunt men were willing to face him. Apparently the prosthetics, together with the actor's allergic reaction to them, made it so that he couldn't really see anything so in all of his fight scenes he was a real terror who just went in swinging his axe around without any ability to tell if he was endangering someone's life.
My biggest pet peeve was Aragorn's fakeout death in The Two Towers. At least most of Frodo's fake outs were in the books. Aragorn being tackled by a Warg rider's is nowhere in the books and doesn't help the movie.
Yep! That bit proved that Peter Jackson and his script-writing committee were not great writers. Tolkien was. That scene was just a clumsy excuse to get more Arwen screen time.
We must have read different books as Aragorn did have a fake out death in The Two Towers. The mechanics of his fall may have been embellished for the movie but his companions need to believe he is dead to get the joyous relief / we still have a chance payoff prior to the battle of helms deep.
@@geraldmalott7814 There wasn't even a Warg Rider fight in the books. What books are YOU reading? Because was no fakeout death in them. They arrived at Helm's Deep generally without problems.
The movies fail their own internal logic about 30 or 40 times into super cringe moments, from poop jokes to Legolas being OP but the other elves not to teleporting characters to the ghost army overused to... well, sigh.
Nope. I always laughed with Gimli in the movies. He is not a laughingstock, he is endearing and wholesome. On top of still being a badass warrior always ready to fight and a loyal friend to the end, he's such a joy to be around. I want him as my best friend. How is that a laughingstock? Book fans have always confused me with this one. I have never of anyone who loved the movies or even watched them who thinks Gimli is just silly comedy relief. Everyone loves him.
@@ackyfacky4332 I felt that way, even as a kid, long long before reading the books. Gimli never really felt tonally consistent with everything else going on, only made worse in the extended cut. I still love him, always been a fan of fantasy dwarves, but I admit he definitely felt like comedy relief in the films.
@@wingthomaux I agree. I think it was by design. Orlando's acting chops reached a high at level and this was at the beginning of his career so he was probably at a Schwarzenegger level at that point.
@@wingthomaux that's not Orlando's fault. He was one dimensional cause Peter Jackson tried to control every piece of his elvish acting in every close-up.
I agree, Comic Relief Gimli and Cirque du Soleil Legolas are my biggest pet peeves as well, and the constant banter between them becomes very annoying.
We didn't have age restrictions for movies back then, so my parents took me to see The Fellowship when I was 6. I remember that particular scene you described in which we see Uruks coming out of a slimy gue; I remember thinking, 'What a messed-up imagination. I am gonna have to move my mattress to my parents' room for a month again.' At the time, I didn't know it was adapted from Novles, so I just cursed at the scriptwriters.
That would be pretty close to my list too. Not as traumatized by the Uruk-Hai scene. Gimli having a few more serious scenes, instead of constant comedy relief would have been nice.
Regarding Saruman's white robe, lest not forget the words: “For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!' I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered." So, probably not too worried about being a bit tainted by mud and orc-goop
I like that they didn’t just turn into a rock, they turned into a high school theatre chickenwire rock. The kind that Captain Kirk throws at lizard men.
@johansmallberries9874 I didn't see the clip when she was talking about it but just from your fantastic description I knew exactly what it looked like.
Also the Easterlings were probably a hundred yards away as they stared at the disturbance on the hillside, not peering down at them while literally standing next to them as they cower beneath a fake rock. Also a very similar scene with the three hunters encountering the riders of Rohan. The horseman did not see them at all until Aragorn stood up and called out to them. They had sat down on the side of a grassy hill and drew their cloaks about them and pulled their hoods up, blending into the grass so much that they literally startled the riders when they made themselves known. That's another thing. In the books, the characters are often wearing their hoods up, this is why you see them often illustrated that way prior to Peter Jackson and they did away with the walking sticks, too.
Pet peeves, which I'm sure you've covered in other videos that I expect I'll watch in due course: 1. Elves at Helm's Deep 2. No Tom Bombadil 3. No Glorfindal (check the spelling there!) 4. Gimli reduced to a non-serious side-kick sort of character 5. Yes, the CGI bit with Legolas on the Oliphant. 6. Where are the Barrow-Wights? 7. The CGI battle between Gandalf and Saruman in Orthanc. 8. What about the Scouring of the Shire? How'd I do?
A pet peeve of mine is the scene where the Orcs attack Osgiliath across the river at night. They are carrying torches! Really smart way to use the cover of darkness...
I never thought of that! I guess I was distracted by the arrow that stuck right through a breastplate, and so there's no point to wearing armor at all.
Never thought about it, but now that you mention it. Considering their lifestyle, and the fact that they were almost literally born yesterday, how do they even know what a menu is?
You made me imagine Saruman in overalls. It will take self-reflection to figure out whether I'm better or worse off for it. On the topic of the skullvalanche, I'm fine with it because I remember how I felt about the theater cut where it goes from "What say you?" to Aragorn arriving to Minas Tirith and that always felt like it was missing an intervening step. So I'm happy to have anything there, even if it's them swimming through a river of skulls.
The problem with the army of the dead is that the dead wanted to be released from their curse. Aragorn was their last chance for that release. In the book, Aragorn repeatedly stresses the need for speed. Any delay would be disastrous. The dead don't hinder the passing of Aragorn and hois companions, they only scare the hell out of them, except the elves and Dunedain. So the skulls scene is really a serious logical plot hole.
As I said, I only consider it better than jumping from before the dead agree to help to Aragorn showing up with them at the battle. I am by no means saying it's good.
My only issue with Legolas was that he appeared to be the Batman of the elves. All the elves at helms deep got slaughtered for no reason at all barely able to fight, while Legolas came out completely unscathed murdering everything like an unstoppable machine. I do wish the dwarves weren't reduced to slapstick comedy so much. Rings of power on the other had was anti-elvish Dwarf propoganda.
Elven cloaks are supposed to be magical to some degree. I did not take the scene to mean that they turned into a rock, I interpreted that as that is what the Easterlings saw from their perspective. They didn't actually look like that but sort of like a jedi mind trick the cloaks fool the perception.
Give the Uruk Hai a break. He had just been born. You know when were born you were covered in slime. Does anybody point at you and make comments about that.
My pet peeve is when the Mouth of Sauron refers to Narsil (he was ignorant of the forging of Anrduil) as a "broken elvish blade" when everyone knows it was forged be Telchar, a dwarf.
In defense of The Mouth, it kinda was, as essentially a Elvis heirlooms (well, alright, Númenórean) so why you're right the smith was a Dwarf, He may still be right and simplifying a little bit. This or Aragon was annoyed just like you and THAT'S WHY he killed the Herald.
@@ultimateshipper8997Yes. And The Red Book channel just recently did a deep dive on him which honestly covers so much other ground in such a way that not many others channels have been able to do. He goes beyond the cookie cutter information videos about him where he goes deep! ❤
If i were to make a counter analogy, the Statue of Liberty is an American monument, yet it was made by the French. Furthermore, Narsil is a word from Quenya, just because the older elves of Middle Earth know the origin of the weapon doesn't mean a Black Númenorean would know its history from thousands of years ago. All he would be expected to know is the sword has an elvish name and had severed his master's fingers. The Mouth of Sauron didn't own a copy of Tolkien's extended works or internet access to be able to identify all of the important artifacts of Middle Earth made in ages long past.
I've read a lot of the comments here. Not mentioned: 1) No change of tides. The missing miasma from Mt Doom and the change of winds with eagle clouds is such powerful symbolism that needed inclusion. 2) The Rohirim pulling up to dress lines, blow horns and give speeches -- while the orcs built a defensive front. In the book, Rohan bypassed a blocking force a blind-sided Sauron's army. 3)Throwing an entire stone tower with a trebuchet.
My top two were "dwarf tossing" at Helm's Deep and how they did the Ents deciding not to get involved until the hobbits point out saruman is chopping down trees and then they are instantly in war mode.
My main “gripe” is how Shire Salt was swapped from Galadriel’s Mallorn Seeds And Soil from what still held MUCH magic within them that he carried in a box that was also hand carved by the elves and presumably Gal herself. Like why not show that and how he’d want to plant it in the Shire? And that’s why he was worried about dropping it? Instead of that we got “maybe we’d be roasting a chicken one night or something.” SMH. He even replaced the party tree with it since scouring destroyed it.
Legolas vs other Elves is a great example of the "Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu", where one ninja is a deadly threat, while dozens are a mere annoyance
I think the movies ruined a lot of the book characters a bit. Book Frodo would have NEVER turned away Sam like that. Faramir was far more noble and kind in the books and immediately made the right choice. Peter Jackson also left out his love story with Eowyn which would have tied things up very nicely for Eowyn as well. Treebeard was so much more endearing and lovely in the books, too. I understand that many changes had to be made to adapt the books into movies, but I will always love the book characters a little more
Here's a minor nitpick that still bugs me. Why did Gandalf's staff break when he was facing off against the Witch King? There's no reason why his staff should break, and he just gets a new one at the end of the movie anyway!
Indeed. Gandalf is a re-empowered Maiar, the Witch King shouldn't have a chance against Gandalf the White. Against Gandalf the Grey? Possibly. Can I see a show of hands from people who think Durin's Bane wouldn't have stomped the leader of the Nazgûl into the ground fairly easily?
@@stefanlaskowski6660meanwhile Gandalf The Grey stood against all nine Nazgûl at Weathertop after already hunting them for days previous to that moment. In the FOTR book
I liked the rock thing. It was a good way to visualize the vague written concept of the cloaks looking like what they need to look like for the circumstances.
The only problem is that, contrary to the book, it is never explained previously in the films that elven cloaks have this ability to hide you from unfriendly eyes. When I first saw the movies I hadn't yet read the book and was really confused by this moment and thought it was really silly and cheap.
@@silvanloher5912except it was explained in the movies by Celeborn in Lothlórien as the fellowship was leaving. He said something like "Never before have we clad strangers in the garb of our people. May they shield you from unfriendly eyes". Go watch that scene again.
Just to be clear, the way the scene where Frodo covers them with a cloak is shot or edited makes it seems completely impossible that they were not seen by the Easterlings. It was set up by Celeborn but that still didn't make it believable enough for me. They could have been more subtle with how they hid from the unfriendly eyes, not just pulling a cloak over you with very obvious and loud motions 1,5 seconds before they stop to stand one step away from you.
@@albertdale5101 elven cloaks DONT have magical powers as all elven things it just technologues of an obscure nature for other Middleearth's nations that create the illusion and this is also explained on video
Legolas killing the oliphaunt is one of my pet peeves. Not so much the scene itself but its placement in the movie. It comes right after Eowyn killing the Witch-king, a more significant moment, and totally upstages her. When I first saw Return of the King, Legolas got the bigger reaction from the audience. Meanwhile, I was sitting there thinking "Eowyn just took out the second-in-command of the entire villain army but this is what you cheer for?!" My other pet peeve is Frodo tackling Gollum at the Cracks of Doom. I get it, they wanted Frodo to have more agency in that scene. But it totally misses the point of Tolkien's eucatastrophe moment where the combination of Frodo's pity for Gollum and a possible higher power stepping in causes the Ring's destruction. I was also annoyed by the changes to Faramir, who had no desire for the Ring in the book. Though I'm a bit more lenient on this since it seems like he doesn't particularly want the Ring itself. He just wants to prove his worth to his father.
On release I watched film 3 at the cinema twice. The first time the audience applauded the oliphaunt scene, and so I missed Gimli's follow-up line, which was the best bit about that whole sequence. I understand why there was a bigger response to the oliphaunt scene, though - it is more visually impressive, and so it instinctively feels more impressive than taking out the Witch-King - who hadn't been properly built up to the threat he really was.
@@stephengray1344 Very true, which is why the scene annoys me. It is indeed more flashy and visually impressive so it was a mistake to put it directly after the Witch-king's downfall. It steals the thunder of what should be a bigger moment. At least in my opinion.
I hated the whole "Legolas is a master of parkour" bit. Sliding down a staircase on a shovel. Gracefully climbing up onto an oliphant's and firing multiple arrows into its brain. 👎
Seeing as how the Eldar have a different relationship with the world around them but they are literally symbiotically bound to it since their ancestors awoken at the Cuiviènen! And it’s already know they are VERY agile, nimble & light on their feet! It’s all throughout the legendarium. 25 books to be exact. So its a nice touch to include such things only those who know the more intricate details of the Quendi! Think of it, he’s been around for 3000 years already and isn’t perfecting his flexibility and acrobatics ? Wood elves were also known for these sorts of talents ontop of already being nonhuman
The thing that really bothered me was the character assassination of Faramir. The real Faramir would never, never, never allow men under his command to beat up a helpless prisoner. Never!
What I found baffling is finding in the Fellowship of the Ring at the council of Elrond Aragon mentions coming across and finding Gollum at the Dead marches discovering his existence Gollum even bites him but he hands him over to the elves for questioning, the film never acknowledges this as we're told only Gandalf knows of him tracking them. When in fact Aragon is fully aware of him.
For me, gripe 1 is when Sam leaves Frodo. Climbs down , sees the bread crumbs, gets angry at Gollum. Like where is he really going? Back home? Gripe 2: movie Arwen: her life is tied to the ring. Like, seriously??? How does that work???
The movies are loaded with pet peeves and cringes for me but I always try to remember all of the other attempts to bring this story to screen (either small or large) and that gives me the capacity to forgive them.
I don't have many issues with the films, but I'd love to see a version that is literally 100% faithful to the books, a 1 to 1 adaptation. I know it would probably be the biggest flop in the history flops, but I'd love to see the ents marching out of the moot, and Aragorn gathering fighters to his banner as he passes along the coast south of Gondor, and the battle of the pelenor fields with actual fields. My big issue with big CGI battles in films is that they often take place in huge open grassy areas with no detail.
My biggest peeve when watching the films is Eowyn's "reveal". When I first read the books (I saw the films after reading the books) I had no idea who the mysterious rider who took care of Merry was and so was genuinely shocked, surprised and delighted when, in the battle with the Witch King, off comes the helmet, down flows the hair and there we have her in all her glory, along with a truly magnificent speech. In the film, she is wearing a far too open helmet which clearly shows who it is, and then, to top it all, when Merry is dragged up onto the horse he utters the line "My Lady", thereby completely spoiling the magical moment I described. Not only that, but Miranda Otto, a wonderful actress, is robbed of her great speech which I feel she would have delivered much like Brunnhilde singing the end of the Immolation Scene in "Gotterdammerung". Having said that, I did generally enjoy the films and thought they did a good job of showing us Tolkien's world. And to end on a positive note, Sir Ian McKellen just IS Gandalf. He captures every facet of the character so perfectly.
I don't think you could hide her identity without a big cumbersome helmet, which would immediately alert viewers to the fact this is a character in disguise.
My thought on this (and I agree with you) is that in a visual setting it would’ve been more difficult to hide her. Unless they just put a full, face-covering helmet and never let her speak.
My biggest critique is, that they 'disarmed' all the wise characters. Faramir and Treebeard allways make me mad, when I see theire adaptation in the movies.
I think they really should have done 4 movies and ended Return of the King at the Coronation. Movie 4 would have done the Scouring of the Shire as this was actually an important part of the story. Having been part of both World Wars, Tolkien was well aware of how hard it can be to fit back into normal life after being at war. Jackson even showed this as the 4 sit in a tavern, but look out of place. They don't fit anymore. The Scouring of the Shire allows them all to take what they have learned and apply it to their home. Now they can be returning heroes and save the day using what they've learned rather that outsiders who have seen too much to be normal anymore. Plus the death of Saruman in the Shire shows how far he as fallen that we don't get to see in the current movies. Besides it would have broken up the endless "endings" of the movie.
Exactly. The story is about how the Hobbits grew in courage, strength, and wisdom, which they used to defend their homeland when they returned from their adventures as warriors. It was only peripherally about Aragorn or Gandalf or any of the other characters.
Anyone who hasn't read the books would say that the film makers added the scouring of the Shire just to make another movie. It makes some sense in the books for Saruman to take revenge, but the stakes seem a lot lower for movie watchers given that Sauron is dead.
The worst moment for me is Denethor's ridiculous marathon run while on fire. Dude sure has a lot of stamina to run all the way from the Rath Dínen (which, if I recall, was on the 6th level and the other end of the city) up to that big platform that looks like they designed it for planes to land (and also lawnmowers clearly seem to exist because the grass is so perfectly uniform). And then there's also a convenient gap in the wall for him to jump! And to make it worse, it comes RIGHT after the most epic scene. I go from being in tears from the cavalry charge to laughing my arse off.
It's not the run but the fact that Gandalf lets him die. He's a fucking demigod, he could have saved Denethor but just is like "imao bye" as he jumps off the tower while burning to death. Extremely out of character.
@@johnwayne8494 Well, in the book he lets him die too but the death scene is metal as fuck. They really did the character dirty. Badly written, miscast and the whole palantir thing is never explained.
@@johnwayne8494 Not only did Gandalf let him die, I am pretty sure he whacks him with the staff and that is what causes him to fall into the fire in the first place. Edit: just rewatched the scene, Shadowfax kicks him into the fire which may or may not have been Gandalf's intent
One small pet peeve I have about the movie is when Aragorn decapitates the Mouth of Sauron. Aragorn in the books knew full well that heralds and emissaries are given safe conduct. This is also something that holds true in the real world, and the observance of such goes far back in history. It's as if Peter Jackson is telling us that he'll rely on the ignorance of we the audience to make that scene work.
I agree with you. It left a sour tone. But I think Peter Jackson loves violence and gore. "Meet the Feebles" was a movie of note that I watched when young. He has a fascination for Black humour, something that I don't think Tolkien has. I think that Bakshi was the same. You will probably see it come through in his movies, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. That violent Bravado.
Interesting. The two I remember hearing complaining about were the rewriting of the Ents so that they actually became hasty, and (less so) that Tom Bombadil was taken out. Same people might also have had problems with the rewriting of Faramir and with horror directing in the movies and Legolas and many other things, but less so. The ents is probably the main one. At least it's the one that actually bothered me after it was pointed out to me.
My biggest peeve with the movies is Frodo in Osgilliath. Not only does a ringwraith seeing a halfing there (with the ring?!?) undermine the whole secrecy of their mission. But then Faramir says "at last we understand one another" and finally lets him go because... Frodo tries to hand the ring over the first chance he gets? It's all just so messy and doesn't make any sense. I also dont like Gandalf throwing the ring envelope into the fire and Boromir holding the chain in the snow, as in my opinion it casually but technically makes them ring bearers. A lesser but still silly thing is the fellowship arriving in Moria, seeing ancient desicated skeletons, and pulling out their swords / knotching arrows like the bodies are still warm. The trilogy is still my absolute favorite piece of cinema in existence.
Best movies ever made, but in 13-ish hours of film, there's bound to be a few bad decisions. Not like the 1200 pages of the books didn't have a few dull moments or a bit of clunky writing.
The movies are a lesser version, yes. Yet they are masterpieces as films. It is just that the works of Tolkien are even more than masterpieces.. lovely to see and listen, thanks 🙏🏻 😊
my biggest issue with the film is the depiction of Frodo. Frodo is shown as a wailing crybaby. I mean, Frodo was chosen to wear the ring because he was supposed to be stronger than Aragorn and Boromir and Galadriel and even Gandalf in resisting the power of the ring. But whenever I see Frodo's face in the films he looks miserable. Even when he is laughing he looks depressive. Elijah Wood spoiled it so much for me.
Totally agree; Elijah Wood appears to be a one-trick pony with about as much capacity to express disparate emotions as a pony. Similarly Arwen, daughter of Elrond ends up being played as a simpering, adoring infant, just SO HAPPY hiding behind her little flag when Aragorn finally deigns to marry her. I too found myself wondering why Aragorn didn't go for the warrior princess Eowyn, based upon how the two characters were played in the movies.
I never understood people seeing Elijah’s Frodo as a “whiner” or a “crybaby.” I always assumed the movies were going for a delicate Christlike martyrish version, taking book Frodo’s characterization of well-mannered, polite, and gentle and turning it into this younger pure desperate tragically self-sacrificial bishounen thing. Maybe to appeal to a younger female audience somehow? It certainly worked on me LOL so bet I’m biased. I just never saw his desperation as pathetic or irritating. I think people are annoyed by Elijah Wood’s big eyes and upturned eyebrows and how he just accidentally looks like a nervous little animal LOL
@@familysystem A miscast, in his first appearance in FOTR he's reading a book and sees Gandalf, smiles and I thought, that can't be Frodo, he looks weird, just weird. Sean Astin should have been Frodo and Elijah Wood just be a drunken scared of the fireworks hobbit running away. I liked Gollum better than Elijah Wood. Spent half the movie rolling those weird eyeballs back into his head.
Frodo's weakness is why he got the ring in the first place. Gandalf says that if he took the ring then the ring would use Gandalf's power to hurt others. Frodo wasn't strong enough to hurt others so the ring couldn't do as much evil through him. Frodo's strength came in resisting the control of the ring. As miserable as Frodo looks, Gandalf would have looked worse if he'd taken the ring because he wouldn't have been able to resist its power.
@@greywolf7577 Says in the book that Bilbo and Gandalf thought Frodo was the best hobbit in the Shire. We're bitching about Elijah Wood playing Frodo, total miscast.
The whole green ghost sequence is one of my pet peeves. It's a part of a more general gripe I have about the use of CGI to tell a story that gets bolder and more obvious with each successive movie. The book describes Legolas looking back into the darkness to report on what he sees, and Aragorn later calls to voices in the darkness. And then the movies, being a visual medium, go fully into showing luminous green ghosts. I feel like they could have followed the book description more closely and come away with a far spookier scene to show for it.
I imagine they were under a lot of pressure to keep the movies from being even longer than they are. They cut out whole major things, and I imagine they scrutinized every scene that did make it in and have a talk about how they could shorten it.
Yes. Let the brain do the work of scaring. Rogan makes a great point about how monsters only partially shown are always scarier, and that CGI still doesn't pass the uncanny valley test for our fear.
Feel like this applies to the Balrog too. Imo they should have kept it shrouded in black smoke (maybe just shown a pair of fiery eyes) and it’d have been more mysterious/scary. Sometimes less is more.
I hated that they left out the scouring of the Shire, that appears to be because Jackson had a quarrel with Lee, but I really hated how they treated the Ents. Instead of the Ents attacking Isengard because they recognized that the world as they knew it would likely end if they don't, even if they might just get destroyed in the process, they are tricked into it by a couple of chumps (Merry and Pippin).
Merry and certainly Pippin had no idea what happened to the forest, they were never that close to Isengard. Tbh, the whole sequence of the “chumps” in Fangorn is the most boring part of the trilogy for me, including the books. Treebeard roaring in anger for what Saruman did and the Ents emerging from the tree line makes it 100% worth toughing it out.
My two biggest beefs with the LotR trilogy are: eliminating the 'conspiracy' from Fellowship, and just having Merry and Pippin join Frodo and Sam by accident as a joke. And the elimination of the Scouring of the Shire. I so wanted to see Angry Sam the Luddite in action!
I think that the failure to establish a friendship between Merry and Pippin and Frodo prior to the encounter with the Black Rider was one of the biggest mistakes PJ made. Every other change, even the ones I hate can be defended as needed to tell the story according to the movie maker's vision, but there is no motivation whatsoever for two random Hobbits that Frodo and Sam ran into while running from scary guys on horses to continue with the quest beyond Bree.
@@juanmarodriguez6010. The films don't have multiple endings. They just take the chapters after the Ring's destruction, and rush through them such that each scene after the destruction seems that they could be an ending. By following the books closer, this issue would not occur.
A small thing that really grinds my gears is when Legolas starts despairing before the battle of Helm’s Deep. That is so out of character for the book Legolas that it’s unreal. He was lighthearted and almost heedless of danger other than a few choice moments like the Balrog which is why it makes it such an impact when it does happen.
I feel like they portrayed Faramir a bit wrong in the movie. In the book he was so humble, kind and noble with little to no hesitation to help out Frodo and Sam. He didn’t even want to see or know more about the ring. He became one of my favorite characters as I read but seeing the movie they really played him down.
Recently watched the extended editions for the first time. I can’t remember if gimli’s ghost-blowing, skull-crunching scene was in the theatrical. But that is the one scene that I truly feel deserved to be cut lol *but hold on, Legolas taking a shot at the wargs and then the rolling flip onto the horse- that’s the only Legolas shenanigans that I love
Ive seen a horse being born and it reminded me of the uruk-hai scene. It was just as gross, but at least a cute baby horse came out of it instead of some hideous monster.😂
“Go home Sam” is a controversial scene. It’s not for everybody. I think it’s one of the most poignant in the whole movie series along with the death of Gandalf, but hey what do I know…
Oh and on the camouflage thing. Modern Camoflagegear can absolutely hide someone within inches or metres away from someone who is maybe slightly distracted or doesnt exactly know aht to look out for- no magic involved. Human eyes are terrible at finding stuff that doesnt stick out especially if our brain doesnt exactly know what to look out for.
Other than Gimli slapstick ... since they skipped (as expected) the part with Tom Bombadil they had to somehow come up with an idea how Merry and Pippin got their weapons and now suddenly Aragorn is turned into a tourist trap peddler who sits on old magic weapons that he hands out to random hobbits, this was very disturbing.
One thing I don’t love about the extended edition of rotk is that we see the ghost king agree to fight. I’m pretty sure in the book this is left ambiguous until Aragorn shows up at the battle of the pelenor fields. It works better in the theatrical where he shows up unexpectedly and adds a little dramatic tension when he ends on “what say you?”
The book- The WK and his army never get into the city. The main door is breached, Gandalf on Shadowfax denies him entry but before anything happens Rohan's horn call and charge happens so the WK leaves to deal with a sudden mess up to his plans. Pippin shows up to tell G about Denethor making G choose to aid on the battle field or leave the WK to cause great loss foreshadowing Theoden's death. G helps save Faramir, Prince Imrahil takes over leading the city forces onto the field while Rohan hits in the rear of the WK's army. WK kills Theoden, Eowyn kills WK, Eomer later finds Theoden dead and Eowyn presumed dead. He makes the Death, ride to ruin and the world's ending speech overextending the lines in his reckless suicide attack in grief over Eowyn. Then Aragorn and fresh infantry forces arrive by river, not a ghost army.
They shouldn’t have removed the scene on Mt. Doom where after a struggle between Frodo and Gollum for the ring, Sam sees Frodo as a wheel of fire cursing Gollum that if he ever touches the ring again he will cast himself into the fire. People miss the importance of that. That was The Ring speaking to Gollum through Frodo and cursing him - giving him an order that he would obey a few minutes later inside the mountain, sealing the ring’s destruction. That one moment recasts Gollum’s fall not as just an accident of pure dumb luck that destroys the ring, but as an deliberate but unintentional following of the order given him by Frodo and The Ring. Gollum touched the ring again. He was bound by oath and curse to cast himself into the fire, thereby destroying the ring. No one had the power to resist the ring. Period. There was no way to ever destroy the ring, as the ring would always break the bearers will before the deed was done. It was only the malice and the hubris of the ring that caused its destruction. Gollum never tried to destroy the ring. Nor could he have, but for the command given him earlier by the ring itself.
My standard pet peeve about the movies is the way they get to Helm's Deep - in the books, Theoden decides to lead his household guard (the only military force he has available immediately) to reinforce the Fords of Isen against Saruman's forces, sending his civilian population to safety at Dunharrow under Eowyn's command. Theoden's halfway to the Fords when word arrives that the Fords have been taken and Saruman's army is headed his way, and he makes a desperate retreat to the only fortification nearby - Helm's Deep. In the movie, Theoden already knows that the Fords have been taken (because Jackson's characters are based on a world where CNN has live reports from the front lines every hour on the hour, while Tolkien's were written in a world where the war's events might be reported in the next day's papers) and decides to take the entire population of his capital, civilians and all, on a forced march through no man's land in order to get to Helm's Deep (because movie Helm's Deep is not just an abandoned fortification; it's the only place capable of standing a siege in the entire western half of Rohan - a region defined by a mountain range. Though once the battle of Helm's Deep is over and Saruman has been dealt with, then Theoden relocates to Dunharrow after all - a place that doesn't need artificial walls because the landscape itself is a lot more defensible... It's on a par with someone deciding on hearing that the Brazilian army had taken Mexico City on its way north, that Washington DC should be evacuated to the Alamo because that's traditionally where attacks from Mexico have been thwarted...
@@eb9720 That would be a lot more relevant if they didn't still have Dunharrow in the movies - it's the place the Paths of the Dead start from. The problem is that they couldn't both have Theoden know that Saruman's army had taken the Fords, and have going to Helm's Deep make sense. And I know why they didn't send the civilians off to Dunharrow too - it's so they could have Eowyn around more.
The line "I'm no man". The book line fit her better n felt right. "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him." Yes its longer n u still have the girl boss theme. The movie line feels so clunky.
I forgave that, but only because movie Eowyn isn't real Eowyn. She's too lame to have the good line.
I agree. It was way too heavy handed girl boss for the atmosphere of the movie. I really wish we had gotten that whole story and full lines.
My problem with that scene is, even after killing the freaking Witch King of Angmar, she still has to be 'rescued' by Aragorn from the creepy crawling Harvey Weinstein orc chieftain. In the book she did not need to be rescued on the battle field by a man. She was strong enough on her own.
In the time it takes to say that line she would have head her head cut off. This is why you can’t adapt a book word for word, it would be disastrous for the pace of a film.
@@closeben you can easily change the line to "No man stands before you."
Some peeves insulting my sense of science and physics:
- Isildur floating downriver dead, wearing chain mail
- one 80kg ranger plus one 20kg hobbit leaning forward to influence the fall of a 300 ton stone pillar
- skinny old fart wearing a billowing robe free-falling faster than a sleek solid-steel sword
- archers at Helm's Deep spanning and holding their bows for ages (btw.: Captains ordering archers to "fire" their bows. Not all that sure it was from this movie, but it just came up, mentioning archers)
- Uruk-Hai-armour apparently made of cardbard
Other serious peeve:
- Aragorn pouring away (or at least trying to) the soup given to him by Eowyn is so out of character. They are on the run and don't have much to offer. So a fellow on moral high ground would not throw out food just because it's not particularly good. He's a ranger after all, not some spoiled prince.
The version in my imagination::
Aragorn: "It's good"
Eowyn (surprised): "really?"
Aragorn: "not really" [eats it anyway]
Both have a good laugh and bond a little bit more
As a big fan of Rohan it's what the films initially did with Theoden. Skulking away in the hills to avoid battle, "Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?". Eorl would certainly roll in his Simbelmynë crested grave mound.
On the other hand, Jackson did give Theoden some love by making him young and strong again after Saruman was “expelled” from him. In the book his purpose was renewed and he came to his senses, but physically he stayed the same old geezer.
@@Bramicus Same old geezer taking on and killing the Haradrim Captain in single combat?
Except that Theoden is strategically correct. His small force could not have joined battle with Saruman's army, so he was perfectly justified in doing what his people did in the past; retreat to his impregnable fortress whilst Rohan's forces are mustered together. Aragorn, Gandalf, and Legolas criticizing Theoden at this point simply makes no sense. What really was he supposed to do? As I said, his small force would have absolutely no chance against Saruman's army, they barely survive an encounter with some of Saruman's warg-mounted outriders. Edoras was not defensible against such an army, so Helm's Deep was the only realistic option.
Absolutely, @@deanzaZZR! He may have been old, but he was an ornery, experienced, highly skilled, battle-tested old coot, still deadly in combat. Don’t sell us old soldiers short!
What I meant was, in the book he didn’t suddenly change his actual physical appearance, except in how straight and confident he held himself, how strong and self-assured he suddenly looked, etc.
@@terrystewart1973 Are you talking film or book? In the book Theoden leads a strong force of calvary toward the Fords of Isen. On the way they encounter some Rohan soldiers fleeing from the Fords and with this new intelligence decides to make a stand at Helms Deep. This all seems exemplary and worthy of praise.
My main gripe was how over the top they made certain character’s reaction to the ring. Namely, Bilbo turning into a crazy monster in Rivendell and Galadriel going all dark and booming in Lothlorien. It was unnecessary and kind of tainted scenes that were otherwise very peaceful and touching
“…guy heaving in the background…” That’s hilarious
Surprised that you didn't point out that losing the scene of Legolas taking down the Mumakil would have robbed us of Gimli's "That still only counts as one."
What about the scene where Frodo and Sam are in Osgiliath and Frodo is nearly captured by the Nazgul? Nevermind the changes made to Faramir. That's a huge plot hole! Their whole mission depended on stealth and secrecy. If the Ringwraiths had seen Frodo with the ring, then Sauron would have sent all his forces there and it would've been game over! But instead they just walk away like it never happened.
I think it's established in the first movie that the ringwraiths can only see The One Ring when someone puts it on. Surely there are people with rings everywhere that they see but they don't know that any of them are The One Ring unless worn.
Exactly! And that THIS is supposed to be what changes Faramir's mind - Frodo offering the ring to the enemy on the first encounter. It's stupid af. All just for the big money shot of Frodo and the Nazgul in Osgiliath. Na, one of the biggest fails imho.
@@gunkulator1 But he slowed down and was about to grab Frodo. Why would he do that if he didn't see the Ring?
@@photophob Faramir didn't see what Frodo was doing. He was aiming for the lizard.
@@gunkulator1 They can sense or smell it though, at least as much is implied when they first meet a black rider on the road.
The irony of your multiple endings complaint is that they cut the actual ending from the book.
In the book, the actual ending makes all of the pre-endings worth it. What's the point of watching the last half hour of the movie without it?
I like that they cut out the stuff with Saruman. Not only did it feel forced, but it was also just good to see an ending where the hobbits return home and are happy.
@@bowserbreaker2515 The Scouring of the Shire is the entire point of a hero's journey. Their adventure has changed them from carefree folk into legendary figures. They've gained the skills necessary to defend their home, not through magic or divine intervention, but by their willingness to do what's right. It also mirrors the Elves seeing their realms fading. There's a nostalgic theme throughout the story regarding artifacts and structures that were once grand, now cracked mossy and out-of-place. A restorative approach brings about victory, such as the reforging of Aragorn's blade, or mending the old alliance of Rohan and Gondor. So too even a simple way of life needs maintenance and care, else it's lost to time.
@@Mr12Relic Fair enough. But in context of the movies, it would've been too much.
@@bowserbreaker2515I think it was right for them to cut it. But it didn’t feel force and is still an important part of the story
I'm sorry but to 8 year old me, the bit where Legolas surfs down the stairs while shooting was the most radical thing in the world
Whatever stains Saruman gets on his robes are some orc launderer's problem.
Great video. The worst moment was when Frodo offers the ring to the Nazgul! Who decided to put that in? It went completely against the entire concept of the LOTR, which is that Frodo, in stealth, takes the ring to Mt. Doom, while Sauron looks outwardly for it. If Frodo had, in the book, showed the ring to the Nazgul, then the nazguls and Sauron would have known immediately where it was, and stopped everything to hunt down Frodo. There is zero chance that the Nazgul would not have recognized the ring (instead, he'd be drawn to it) and would not have put everything aside to get it. The movie scene was a shockingly stupid addition. Almost ruined the movies for me.
But the Nazgul don't actually SEE, if not shadows and shapes. They could sense the Ring, but not actually see it. Only if Frodo put it on they would have seen him AND the Ring, because he woul have entered the shadow world.
That said, the scene is still pretty stupid, but because it doesn't make sense AFTER that: so Faramir choose to leave Frodo go to Mordor because he almost fell to the power of the Ring and gave himself to a Nazgul?? WTF? Where is the logic in that choice?
Truth is, all that sequence, no, all that story is stupid, and all just because PJ had to make Faramir tempted by the Ring, and not just for a moment, but deeply enough to decide to send it to his father. They could have him knowing about the Ring before capturing Gollum (like in the book) and make him tempted to send it to Minas Tirith, then being horrified by what it did to Gollum and deciding it's best that that thing be destroyed.
I've mentioned this before. The game would have been up, right then and there. If the Nazgul know where the ring is, so does Sauron and the battle at Pelanor fields would not have happened. Sauron would have his troops scour the lands between Osgiliath and Mordor, retrieved the ring and won Middle Earth. Cheap thrill in an otherwise great set of films.
@@johnwerkheiser5555If they knew the ring was at Osgiliath, they would assume it was on its way to Minas Tirith, which is very near, and they would hasten their attack on Minas Tirith, to prevent Denethor or, worse still, the rumoured Aragorn from having the time to learn use the ring against them.
@@adamzain6770 I beg to differ. Sauron would know exactly where the ring was and who bore it. All his might would focus on the ring, surrounded by his forces. Minas Tirith would fall as soon as he recovered the ring, so attacking it without the ring would have been (and was) the beginning of the end for Mordor.
Sauron is expecting them to use the ring. He knows it’s on it’s way to somewhere and is being carried by a hobbit. When his servant finds it at Osgiliath, with Frodo amongst Faramir’s group, he will assume it’s being taken directly to Denethor, who is only a few miles away at this point. It never occurs to Sauron that anyone would try to destroy the ring, so he will think it’s either being hidden or, more likely to him, is going to be used against him. It is perfectly logical that it is passing through Osgiliath on it’s way to Denethor. The last thing Sauron expects is for them to send the ring directly towards him.
My ultimate gripe is the character assassination of Faramir. Love the movies though. LOVE them.
The movies miss a few big things that the were profoundly important in the books. The biggest, imo, being that despite all the misery Gollum causes, Sam spares him on Mount Doom after having him at knife point, so it was only due to Sam's mercy that the ring was ultimately destroyed, thus proving Gandalf's wisdom that there are many forces at work in the world, not just the will of evil.
Well, without that, it defaults to Bilbo's mercy for Gollum that destroyed the Ring. That was explicitly talked about in Fellowship and it gets the message of mercy across still.
I don't either way is inherently better or worse.
Bilbo had no just reason to kill Gollum; at the point he becomes the ringbearer Gollum has done him no harm and just searching for what he lost. By the time Samwise has the chance to, he has every reason to kill Gollum for the misery, deceit, and entrapment with Shelob @@ackyfacky4332
Gollum I think is the most thematically important character in the books. Although I do like how in the movies Sméagol and Gollum are treated as a tragedy how Sméagol is still just a Hobbit who likes riddles and catching fish.
He’s a very sad creature that we are invited to forgive. Which plays into the Christian themes of the books.
That God is merciful and despite the worlds evils it is in essence created by God and therefor good.
Well they already showed Gollum mercy the first time Sam and Frodo captured him. How many instances of mercy are needed?
@@ericstaples7220 but its nowhere near as meaningful at that point because 1) they had something to gain by keeping him alive (the way into Mordor), and 2) he hadn't just tried to kill them!
The movie's single most consequential mistake is that they had Elrond having called the council. It wasn't him.
Hardcore Tolkien fans are always going to nitpick.... bottom line is we got three amazing adaptations.... that could have been so much worse if someone else were at the helm
The things that bugged me the most:
* Gandalf faces the Witch-king in Minas Tirith, and Gandalf's staff is broken in the movie and not the book. Just seemed wrong given what Gandalf is.
* The end of the battle of helms deep. Missed the forest of tree-like Huorns which just appears overnight and then the orks are toast. ☹☹Would have liked to have seen that on screen.
* In the fight at Amon Hen I think Aragorn had too many Uruk-hai to fight all at once. I think in the book most of them had run away with the halfling captives before Aragorn arrives.There ought to be a limit to how many Aragorn could handle at once.
I honestly really didn't like the movies....I remember being in the movie theater for fellowship and when the scene on weathertop came I remember just being so disappointed....why is there blaring, unnatural light (all of Jackson's night scenes are terribly lit)? Why do the Nazgul look like laundry on a clothesline when they should be shadowy, ethereal forms? Why are Merry and Pippen the two stooges? When I got to the scene with Legolas surfing down the stairs at helms deep I was literally embarrassed when I finally watched Two Towers on TV years later.
I guess what I wanted was serious movies, aimed toward an older audience like the books (though I don't mind plot changes so long as the same demeanor is kept) but instead they felt like action popcorn flicks for teenage boys....like take the "Meat's back on the menu boys" scene....when they literally show entrails flying through the air, it's so campy and corny I just couldn't take it, but I feel like that feeling is throughout the all the movies the entire time....and don't even get me started on Elijah Wood's objectively bad, melodramatic over-acting....the face he makes when he's stung by shelob is a perfect example.
BTW, Aragorn doesn't fight any Orcs in the books during the breaking of the fellowship, at least not on page
@@post-leftluddite You've articulated my thoughts almost exactly.
The Huorn scene is in the extended edition of Two Towers.
@@post-leftluddite It was implied that he, along with Legolas and Gimli were fighting a bunch of them in the forest during it, they just focused it all on the viewpoint of Boromir, Merry and Pippin in the books.
My biggest problem is the army of the dead actually being able to kill people and fighting in the battle for minas tirith
i always felt like it totally undermines the sacrifices of the humans and their victory
Yeah, isn't there a line in the book that their greatest weapon was fear and it was strange that the armies of Mordor should be defeated by fear?
@@bemusedkidney8619 Fear--fear and surprise, and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope . . .
I disagree. I thought this was underplayed in the book. The heroes were far too outnumbered to do very much, even when their internal divisions had been healed. This and the despatching of the Witch King were both unforeseen and must have really put the wind up Sauron. The only rational explanation was that Aragorn had seized control of the ring and was a serious new dark rival.
The ghost army at the battle of pelenor field is overpowered
Using Elrond and the Army of the Dead instead of the rangers was a huge problem.
Yeah, it’s a funny thing how that battle simultaneously absolutely amazing in every way and yet contains some of the cheesiest and most unfortunate gimmicks in the movies. Maybe an attempt to lighten the tone a little? But the ghost army and Legolas’ mumakil surfing makes a kind of tonal whiplash with say, the charge of the Rohirrim or Eomer weeping over the bodies of his family
And the AT-AT size mûmakil are not?
It felt like a cheat.
Yeah, unlike the books where Aragorn like, ten other guys killed all the orcs. We don't want things to be unfair after all.
I agree with most of the comments. The biggest `peeve' issue I had was the treatment of Gimli & Legolas. The comic relief was not needed, not wanted and diminished both characters from the books. Some would have been ok, but by the time they reach the Stone of Erech, I was genuinely disappointed with Jackson's take.
13:26
EXCUSE ME?
nah i love leggy
Can’t believe you went with the Circles of Hell metaphor for the number 9 rather than the obvious Nazgûl. :)
What I find most frustrating with the "Go home, Sam." scene, is that Sam KNOWS that he didn't do it and that he's been set up, but he doesn't decide to go back until after he finds the bread. Every time I watch it, I imagine Sam saying to himself, "I knew it. I *didn't* eat the bread!"
True, but you gotta admit Sean Astin really sells that scene.
@@williamhamilton1154 Oh, there's nothing wrong with any of the acting! It's just his motivation that's lacking. Maybe if he'd gotten hurt or fell behind and Gollum kept Frodo's focus on the road ahead. I feel like if Frodo would've told Book Sam to "Go home", he would've been like, "And who's gonna make me? You can barely stand and we both know that I can take Gollum! I'll show you that he's a snake, Mr. Frodo! You'll see!" Sam's just too loyal to get turned away so easily.
See, to me it the scene feels more sensical. He knows he didn't eat the bread, but he can't prove it and his initial accusation that Gollum ate the bread *is* kind of crazy, because of *course* Gollum wouldn't touch the stuff.
Sam is being gaslit, but given the insanity of Frodo's personality changes, he does begin to doubt a lot that he felt certain about. Sam no longer recognizes Frodo. He fears that the Frodo he knew might be totally swallowed up by the evil of the ring, and he's afraid that staying with Frodo and Gollum will get them both killed. He doesn't know what to do, so he leaves, defeated and brokenhearted.
Then he sees the bread and it reminds him what a scoundrel Gollum is, it's the proof he would need to justify himself, and it re-invigorates his passion to protect Frodo.
@@SamONeil-OneWheelOneil I suppose that could work. Except that he knows that he's leaving Frodo with someone who he's actually overheard plotting their deaths, and he "made a promise" that he refuses to break. So it just doesn't fit. Not in my brain.
I hate that scene because Tolkien based Sam and Frodo's relationship on an officer in WWI and his bat boy. The bat boy(Sam) would never, ever abandon his officer.(Frodo). This means that Sam should have waited till the other 2 were out of sight and then followed. Or Jackson could have left the tale in the book as it was where Sam gets furious and runs after Gollum while Frodo goes forward. They still get separated by Gollum.
The cloak/stone cover thing always bummed me out extremely when I was little. I just couldn’t imagine, that not one those warriors would have seen them falling down the hill, covering themselves up and climbing back up. Thanks for the great video, once again
11:40 - Of course ghosts can be affected by the movement of wind. That's why Luigi fights them with a vacuum cleaner.
Most of what you consider "fake deaths" are occasions where he isn't even implied to be dead
I'm still sad that in the last movie the Army of the Dead wipes out Sauron's forces at Pelennor Fields. It means that the Rohan charge was all for nothing, as the good guys win anyway. In the books the weapon of the dead is fear, and would've done little vs. a land army. It worked to get the Umbar forces jumping off their ships, then all the hard fighting at Pelennor Fields had to be done by men (plus one wizard, one elf, two hobbits, etc.)
Like, it’s more realistic than Aragorn shows up with 20 + random dudes and a few spooky guys and they win the day. He literally brings in a whole army that relieves the pressure off Rohan and Gondor’s forces and saves them all just in time when all hope was lost.
That’s like saying Gandalf showing up with the rohirrim in the Two Towers undermines the people’s sacrifice fighting in helms deep while he was gone. If anything it does the exact opposite. It guarantees they weren’t in vain.
@@gandalfthewhite.5245 In the RoTK movie, if Minas Tirith digs a few ditches in front of the gate to slow the battering ram down a few hours then all that death is prevented. Aragorn shows up on time with the metaphorical A-bomb and instant victory! I think there's a good reason why Tolkien wrote it the way he did.
In your example from the Two Towers, in Eomer's charge the battle was still won by men. Had the defenders not done their part beforehand, the arrival of the cavalry might not have been enough. And yeah sure the huorns mopped up, but they didn't just show up and wipe the board.
Anyway, we can agree to disagree.
@@kblockschwenk They didn't know Aragon was bringing an army to their rescue, so why would they spend their time fortifying for reinforcements they don't know are coming.
@@helsby1797I don’t see how. The progress the orcs could make into Minas Tirith was limited by its layout. They were funneled into narrow street fighting up multiple levels, including several gatehouses. It doesn’t matter if their army is 10,000 strong or 100,000 strong, if only 50 men are able to fight at any given time the battle will take just as long either way.
This is why the Persians were stalled for days at Thermopylae despite the Greek force being tiny by comparison to the Persian ones. Only a few dozen, maybe a hundred, men could fight at once in that narrow pass and the vast majority of the Persian army was just sitting around pointlessly.
Rohan’s charge just draws off some of the unoccupied reserve forces. It makes sense for Rohan to do this, but from an overall narrative perspective it was an irrelevant action. Without Rohan, Minas Tirith would still have held out as long as it did and the ghosts would have destroyed Mordor’s army just as they did.
@@R0CKDRIG0To strain Mordor’s logistics, increase the risk of disease breaking out at the orcs’ camps, and to increase the time during which the garrison could fight from an advantage. History is full of sieges which were won without reinforcements because the attackers could not maintain supply lines, or caught diseases, or met with disaster trying to storm the walls. Any little thing that can be done to make victory harder for the enemy counts.
Also, Gondor is a big kingdom, not a single city. In the books the rest of Gondor is busy fighting off an invasion from the sea but does eventually show up to reinforce the Minas Tirith garrison.
"Poor Gimli, sacrificed in the name of slapstick comedy". With that statement you nailed Gimli's true role in the movies. "Army of Darkness" is a classic!
Gimli is an orc slayer in the book, even the actor complained about it.
I was really upset when the movies came out that Gimli didn't get his moment from Helm's Deep in the book, where he springs out of the shadows to aid Aragorn (who had just been tripped by some orcs), he sounds off the ancient Dwarven warcry "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" (meaning "Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!") and swiftly beheads a couple of orcs, and the rest of the orcs flee in terror.
I also would have liked a shot of Gimli (maybe slowmotion, I'm unsure) where he just plants his feet firmly into the ground and gripping his axe with both hands, and proceeds to just lop off arms and legs and heads of swarming orcs, and I would have liked it if they could have worked in Aragorn's line (when in the book Gimli is separated from him during the battle and winds up taking a stand in some cave) when he reassures Legolas that Gimli will be fine with the words "Never did I see an axe so wielded."
Gimli on the Paths of the Dead = Shaggy. But there's no Scooby, so what was the point?
@@phj223 You do have to consider PG-13 - can't be lopping off arms and legs all over the place. Even the absence of much blood in the movie is totally unrealistic, but we gotta keep the rating. Also, JRD was the tallest cast member, so you'd have to be artful as to how you shot that.
@@phj223 I doubt this is the reason, but I'd like to think that the lack of a ton of really good Gimli fighting scenes is because none of the orc actors or stunt men were willing to face him. Apparently the prosthetics, together with the actor's allergic reaction to them, made it so that he couldn't really see anything so in all of his fight scenes he was a real terror who just went in swinging his axe around without any ability to tell if he was endangering someone's life.
My biggest pet peeve was Aragorn's fakeout death in The Two Towers. At least most of Frodo's fake outs were in the books. Aragorn being tackled by a Warg rider's is nowhere in the books and doesn't help the movie.
This too is one of my biggest complaints about the movies.
Agreed.
Yep! That bit proved that Peter Jackson and his script-writing committee were not great writers. Tolkien was.
That scene was just a clumsy excuse to get more Arwen screen time.
We must have read different books as Aragorn did have a fake out death in The Two Towers. The mechanics of his fall may have been embellished for the movie but his companions need to believe he is dead to get the joyous relief / we still have a chance payoff prior to the battle of helms deep.
@@geraldmalott7814 There wasn't even a Warg Rider fight in the books. What books are YOU reading? Because was no fakeout death in them. They arrived at Helm's Deep generally without problems.
what the movies did to Faramir was criminal.
You mentioning being younger than the movies was a harsh reminder of my own age but also is a testament to how well made the films are.
The movies fail their own internal logic about 30 or 40 times into super cringe moments, from poop jokes to Legolas being OP but the other elves not to teleporting characters to the ghost army overused to... well, sigh.
In the books you are laughing with Gimli, in the movies you are laughing at Gimli
Nope. I always laughed with Gimli in the movies. He is not a laughingstock, he is endearing and wholesome. On top of still being a badass warrior always ready to fight and a loyal friend to the end, he's such a joy to be around. I want him as my best friend. How is that a laughingstock?
Book fans have always confused me with this one. I have never of anyone who loved the movies or even watched them who thinks Gimli is just silly comedy relief. Everyone loves him.
@@ackyfacky4332 I felt that way, even as a kid, long long before reading the books. Gimli never really felt tonally consistent with everything else going on, only made worse in the extended cut. I still love him, always been a fan of fantasy dwarves, but I admit he definitely felt like comedy relief in the films.
My biggest pet peeve in these movies is how little dialogue Legolas gets compared to the book. I wish they added more of it.
This might’ve been a blessing in disguise because Orlando is kinda one dimensional
@@wingthomaux I agree. I think it was by design. Orlando's acting chops reached a high at level and this was at the beginning of his career so he was probably at a Schwarzenegger level at that point.
@@wingthomaux that's not Orlando's fault. He was one dimensional cause Peter Jackson tried to control every piece of his elvish acting in every close-up.
@@salvador.garcia well said. The director should always get the blame for bad acting - unless he had no choice in who took the role (and jackson did).
I wish they'd have included more of both Legolas' and Gimli's dialogue from the books...really a lot of the changes were just confusing.
I agree, Comic Relief Gimli and Cirque du Soleil Legolas are my biggest pet peeves as well, and the constant banter between them becomes very annoying.
We didn't have age restrictions for movies back then, so my parents took me to see The Fellowship when I was 6. I remember that particular scene you described in which we see Uruks coming out of a slimy gue; I remember thinking, 'What a messed-up imagination. I am gonna have to move my mattress to my parents' room for a month again.' At the time, I didn't know it was adapted from Novles, so I just cursed at the scriptwriters.
That would be pretty close to my list too. Not as traumatized by the Uruk-Hai scene. Gimli having a few more serious scenes, instead of constant comedy relief would have been nice.
“Hi! I’m Gimli! Remember how short I am? No? Time for another reminder!”
He has some quite serious scenes and in many cases he is shown as a true hero ua-cam.com/video/8joT0oFuGoI/v-deo.html
Regarding Saruman's white robe, lest not forget the words: “For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!'
I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered."
So, probably not too worried about being a bit tainted by mud and orc-goop
Saruman the tie-dyed?
I like that they didn’t just turn into a rock, they turned into a high school theatre chickenwire rock. The kind that Captain Kirk throws at lizard men.
@johansmallberries9874 I didn't see the clip when she was talking about it but just from your fantastic description I knew exactly what it looked like.
The Gorn!!!😂
The basics of theatre--chicken wire and paper mache
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Also the limits of high-school theatre, or maybe Ken Briggs was some sort of curse. Our production was _so_ bad.
Also the Easterlings were probably a hundred yards away as they stared at the disturbance on the hillside, not peering down at them while literally standing next to them as they cower beneath a fake rock.
Also a very similar scene with the three hunters encountering the riders of Rohan. The horseman did not see them at all until Aragorn stood up and called out to them. They had sat down on the side of a grassy hill and drew their cloaks about them and pulled their hoods up, blending into the grass so much that they literally startled the riders when they made themselves known.
That's another thing. In the books, the characters are often wearing their hoods up, this is why you see them often illustrated that way prior to Peter Jackson and they did away with the walking sticks, too.
Oh the Legolas scenes are LITERALLY just reshot from Army of Darkness.
Pet peeves, which I'm sure you've covered in other videos that I expect I'll watch in due course:
1. Elves at Helm's Deep
2. No Tom Bombadil
3. No Glorfindal (check the spelling there!)
4. Gimli reduced to a non-serious side-kick sort of character
5. Yes, the CGI bit with Legolas on the Oliphant.
6. Where are the Barrow-Wights?
7. The CGI battle between Gandalf and Saruman in Orthanc.
8. What about the Scouring of the Shire?
How'd I do?
A pet peeve of mine is the scene where the Orcs attack Osgiliath across the river at night. They are carrying torches! Really smart way to use the cover of darkness...
I never thought of that! I guess I was distracted by the arrow that stuck right through a breastplate, and so there's no point to wearing armor at all.
Also, what's with the WWII-style Higgins boats? We're they attacking Omaha Beach?
@falloutfan2502 them Gondorian arnorers really sucked didn't they
When the orc says "looks like meats back on the menu" makes me imagine an orc restaurant.
Never thought about it, but now that you mention it. Considering their lifestyle, and the fact that they were almost literally born yesterday, how do they even know what a menu is?
You made me imagine Saruman in overalls. It will take self-reflection to figure out whether I'm better or worse off for it.
On the topic of the skullvalanche, I'm fine with it because I remember how I felt about the theater cut where it goes from "What say you?" to Aragorn arriving to Minas Tirith and that always felt like it was missing an intervening step. So I'm happy to have anything there, even if it's them swimming through a river of skulls.
The problem with the army of the dead is that the dead wanted to be released from their curse. Aragorn was their last chance for that release. In the book, Aragorn repeatedly stresses the need for speed. Any delay would be disastrous. The dead don't hinder the passing of Aragorn and hois companions, they only scare the hell out of them, except the elves and Dunedain. So the skulls scene is really a serious logical plot hole.
As I said, I only consider it better than jumping from before the dead agree to help to Aragorn showing up with them at the battle. I am by no means saying it's good.
My only issue with Legolas was that he appeared to be the Batman of the elves. All the elves at helms deep got slaughtered for no reason at all barely able to fight, while Legolas came out completely unscathed murdering everything like an unstoppable machine. I do wish the dwarves weren't reduced to slapstick comedy so much. Rings of power on the other had was anti-elvish Dwarf propoganda.
Elven cloaks are supposed to be magical to some degree. I did not take the scene to mean that they turned into a rock, I interpreted that as that is what the Easterlings saw from their perspective. They didn't actually look like that but sort of like a jedi mind trick the cloaks fool the perception.
Give the Uruk Hai a break. He had just been born. You know when were born you were covered in slime. Does anybody point at you and make comments about that.
My pet peeve is when the Mouth of Sauron refers to Narsil (he was ignorant of the forging of Anrduil) as a "broken elvish blade" when everyone knows it was forged be Telchar, a dwarf.
In defense of The Mouth, it kinda was, as essentially a Elvis heirlooms (well, alright, Númenórean) so why you're right the smith was a Dwarf, He may still be right and simplifying a little bit.
This or Aragon was annoyed just like you and THAT'S WHY he killed the Herald.
@@ultimateshipper8997Yes. And The Red Book channel just recently did a deep dive on him which honestly covers so much other ground in such a way that not many others channels have been able to do. He goes beyond the cookie cutter information videos about him where he goes deep! ❤
@@Makkaru112
I'll check it out!
If i were to make a counter analogy, the Statue of Liberty is an American monument, yet it was made by the French. Furthermore, Narsil is a word from Quenya, just because the older elves of Middle Earth know the origin of the weapon doesn't mean a Black Númenorean would know its history from thousands of years ago. All he would be expected to know is the sword has an elvish name and had severed his master's fingers. The Mouth of Sauron didn't own a copy of Tolkien's extended works or internet access to be able to identify all of the important artifacts of Middle Earth made in ages long past.
@@colbunkmust You mean the Palantirnet didn't have its own version of Wikipedia?
I've read a lot of the comments here. Not mentioned:
1) No change of tides. The missing miasma from Mt Doom and the change of winds with eagle clouds is such powerful symbolism that needed inclusion.
2) The Rohirim pulling up to dress lines, blow horns and give speeches -- while the orcs built a defensive front. In the book, Rohan bypassed a blocking force a blind-sided Sauron's army.
3)Throwing an entire stone tower with a trebuchet.
Frodo death scenes... you missed the one where it looks like him and Gollem both fall into the fire in Mt. Doom.
My top two were "dwarf tossing" at Helm's Deep and how they did the Ents deciding not to get involved until the hobbits point out saruman is chopping down trees and then they are instantly in war mode.
My main “gripe” is how Shire Salt was swapped from Galadriel’s Mallorn Seeds And Soil from what still held MUCH magic within them that he carried in a box that was also hand carved by the elves and presumably Gal herself. Like why not show that and how he’d want to plant it in the Shire? And that’s why he was worried about dropping it? Instead of that we got “maybe we’d be roasting a chicken one night or something.” SMH. He even replaced the party tree with it since scouring destroyed it.
Legolas vs other Elves is a great example of the "Law of Conservation of Ninjutsu", where one ninja is a deadly threat, while dozens are a mere annoyance
I think the movies ruined a lot of the book characters a bit. Book Frodo would have NEVER turned away Sam like that. Faramir was far more noble and kind in the books and immediately made the right choice. Peter Jackson also left out his love story with Eowyn which would have tied things up very nicely for Eowyn as well. Treebeard was so much more endearing and lovely in the books, too. I understand that many changes had to be made to adapt the books into movies, but I will always love the book characters a little more
Faramir's relationship with Eowyn was actually touched on in the extended edition of Return of the King.
@@artificerprime4154 I guess I forgot that thank you
The worst situation in the movie for me was the murder of Grima Wormtongue.
FARAMIR. The one problem i have wit the movies is Faramir. The best book character made into a meh character is just sad.
Here's a minor nitpick that still bugs me. Why did Gandalf's staff break when he was facing off against the Witch King? There's no reason why his staff should break, and he just gets a new one at the end of the movie anyway!
It's because the director of the movies wanted more great scenes with great effects. He overdid it royally.
At least they removed that disgraceful scene from the theatrical version.
Indeed. Gandalf is a re-empowered Maiar, the Witch King shouldn't have a chance against Gandalf the White. Against Gandalf the Grey? Possibly.
Can I see a show of hands from people who think Durin's Bane wouldn't have stomped the leader of the Nazgûl into the ground fairly easily?
@@stefanlaskowski6660meanwhile Gandalf The Grey stood against all nine Nazgûl at Weathertop after already hunting them for days previous to that moment. In the FOTR book
@@florisv559 no it's because they were trying to inject tension before the arrival of the Rohirrim. Lowest ebb sort of thing.
I liked the rock thing. It was a good way to visualize the vague written concept of the cloaks looking like what they need to look like for the circumstances.
The only problem is that, contrary to the book, it is never explained previously in the films that elven cloaks have this ability to hide you from unfriendly eyes. When I first saw the movies I hadn't yet read the book and was really confused by this moment and thought it was really silly and cheap.
@@silvanloher5912except it was explained in the movies by Celeborn in Lothlórien as the fellowship was leaving. He said something like "Never before have we clad strangers in the garb of our people. May they shield you from unfriendly eyes". Go watch that scene again.
Just to be clear, the way the scene where Frodo covers them with a cloak is shot or edited makes it seems completely impossible that they were not seen by the Easterlings. It was set up by Celeborn but that still didn't make it believable enough for me. They could have been more subtle with how they hid from the unfriendly eyes, not just pulling a cloak over you with very obvious and loud motions 1,5 seconds before they stop to stand one step away from you.
The cloaks were of elvish origin and do have magical powers
@@albertdale5101 elven cloaks DONT have magical powers as all elven things
it just technologues of an obscure nature for other Middleearth's nations that create the illusion
and this is also explained on video
Legolas killing the oliphaunt is one of my pet peeves. Not so much the scene itself but its placement in the movie. It comes right after Eowyn killing the Witch-king, a more significant moment, and totally upstages her. When I first saw Return of the King, Legolas got the bigger reaction from the audience. Meanwhile, I was sitting there thinking "Eowyn just took out the second-in-command of the entire villain army but this is what you cheer for?!"
My other pet peeve is Frodo tackling Gollum at the Cracks of Doom. I get it, they wanted Frodo to have more agency in that scene. But it totally misses the point of Tolkien's eucatastrophe moment where the combination of Frodo's pity for Gollum and a possible higher power stepping in causes the Ring's destruction.
I was also annoyed by the changes to Faramir, who had no desire for the Ring in the book. Though I'm a bit more lenient on this since it seems like he doesn't particularly want the Ring itself. He just wants to prove his worth to his father.
On release I watched film 3 at the cinema twice. The first time the audience applauded the oliphaunt scene, and so I missed Gimli's follow-up line, which was the best bit about that whole sequence. I understand why there was a bigger response to the oliphaunt scene, though - it is more visually impressive, and so it instinctively feels more impressive than taking out the Witch-King - who hadn't been properly built up to the threat he really was.
@@stephengray1344 Very true, which is why the scene annoys me. It is indeed more flashy and visually impressive so it was a mistake to put it directly after the Witch-king's downfall. It steals the thunder of what should be a bigger moment. At least in my opinion.
I hated the whole "Legolas is a master of parkour" bit. Sliding down a staircase on a shovel. Gracefully climbing up onto an oliphant's and firing multiple arrows into its brain. 👎
Seeing as how the Eldar have a different relationship with the world around them but they are literally symbiotically bound to it since their ancestors awoken at the Cuiviènen! And it’s already know they are VERY agile, nimble & light on their feet! It’s all throughout the legendarium. 25 books to be exact. So its a nice touch to include such things only those who know the more intricate details of the Quendi! Think of it, he’s been around for 3000 years already and isn’t perfecting his flexibility and acrobatics ? Wood elves were also known for these sorts of talents ontop of already being nonhuman
@@stefanlaskowski6660interesting ❤
The thing that really bothered me was the character assassination of Faramir. The real Faramir would never, never, never allow men under his command to beat up a helpless prisoner. Never!
My LotR 'Scott's Tots' is definitely Smeagol killing his brother.
What I found baffling is finding in the Fellowship of the Ring at the council of Elrond Aragon mentions coming across and finding Gollum at the Dead marches discovering his existence Gollum even bites him but he hands him over to the elves for questioning, the film never acknowledges this as we're told only Gandalf knows of him tracking them. When in fact Aragon is fully aware of him.
The reduction of Gimli to almost nothing EXCEPT comic relief is probably my biggest issue with the films.
Saruman at that time point was not wearing a white robe but a robe of many colors so any dirt would just blend in.
Also, was Peter Jackson chary of hinting at the repulsive nature of all that the rainbow flag stands for?
I love all the dialogue between Frodo and Legolas like "And you have my bow" and... err...
oh.
For me, gripe 1 is when Sam leaves Frodo. Climbs down , sees the bread crumbs, gets angry at Gollum. Like where is he really going? Back home?
Gripe 2: movie Arwen: her life is tied to the ring. Like, seriously??? How does that work???
The movies are loaded with pet peeves and cringes for me but I always try to remember all of the other attempts to bring this story to screen (either small or large) and that gives me the capacity to forgive them.
I don't have many issues with the films, but I'd love to see a version that is literally 100% faithful to the books, a 1 to 1 adaptation. I know it would probably be the biggest flop in the history flops, but I'd love to see the ents marching out of the moot, and Aragorn gathering fighters to his banner as he passes along the coast south of Gondor, and the battle of the pelenor fields with actual fields. My big issue with big CGI battles in films is that they often take place in huge open grassy areas with no detail.
I do wonder what would happen if all movies that are based on books had a rule that every sentence in the book has to be represented in the movie.
My biggest peeve when watching the films is Eowyn's "reveal". When I first read the books (I saw the films after reading the books) I had no idea who the mysterious rider who took care of Merry was and so was genuinely shocked, surprised and delighted when, in the battle with the Witch King, off comes the helmet, down flows the hair and there we have her in all her glory, along with a truly magnificent speech. In the film, she is wearing a far too open helmet which clearly shows who it is, and then, to top it all, when Merry is dragged up onto the horse he utters the line "My Lady", thereby completely spoiling the magical moment I described. Not only that, but Miranda Otto, a wonderful actress, is robbed of her great speech which I feel she would have delivered much like Brunnhilde singing the end of the Immolation Scene in "Gotterdammerung". Having said that, I did generally enjoy the films and thought they did a good job of showing us Tolkien's world. And to end on a positive note, Sir Ian McKellen just IS Gandalf. He captures every facet of the character so perfectly.
One of my pet peeves too. Eowyn's reveal in the book was one of my favorite bits.😮
I don't think you could hide her identity without a big cumbersome helmet, which would immediately alert viewers to the fact this is a character in disguise.
M'lady 🎩
My thought on this (and I agree with you) is that in a visual setting it would’ve been more difficult to hide her. Unless they just put a full, face-covering helmet and never let her speak.
I think the issue is how it's a lot easier to hide the voice of someone in text vs in film.
My biggest critique is, that they 'disarmed' all the wise characters. Faramir and Treebeard allways make me mad, when I see theire adaptation in the movies.
8:16 _That_ aspect is already there in the book.
I think they really should have done 4 movies and ended Return of the King at the Coronation. Movie 4 would have done the Scouring of the Shire as this was actually an important part of the story. Having been part of both World Wars, Tolkien was well aware of how hard it can be to fit back into normal life after being at war. Jackson even showed this as the 4 sit in a tavern, but look out of place. They don't fit anymore. The Scouring of the Shire allows them all to take what they have learned and apply it to their home. Now they can be returning heroes and save the day using what they've learned rather that outsiders who have seen too much to be normal anymore. Plus the death of Saruman in the Shire shows how far he as fallen that we don't get to see in the current movies. Besides it would have broken up the endless "endings" of the movie.
Exactly. The story is about how the Hobbits grew in courage, strength, and wisdom, which they used to defend their homeland when they returned from their adventures as warriors. It was only peripherally about Aragorn or Gandalf or any of the other characters.
Anyone who hasn't read the books would say that the film makers added the scouring of the Shire just to make another movie. It makes some sense in the books for Saruman to take revenge, but the stakes seem a lot lower for movie watchers given that Sauron is dead.
The worst moment for me is Denethor's ridiculous marathon run while on fire. Dude sure has a lot of stamina to run all the way from the Rath Dínen (which, if I recall, was on the 6th level and the other end of the city) up to that big platform that looks like they designed it for planes to land (and also lawnmowers clearly seem to exist because the grass is so perfectly uniform). And then there's also a convenient gap in the wall for him to jump! And to make it worse, it comes RIGHT after the most epic scene. I go from being in tears from the cavalry charge to laughing my arse off.
Goats. Goats kept the grass short (I'm guessing here)
Any culture that can produce swords can produce lawn mowers.
It's not the run but the fact that Gandalf lets him die. He's a fucking demigod, he could have saved Denethor but just is like "imao bye" as he jumps off the tower while burning to death. Extremely out of character.
@@johnwayne8494 Well, in the book he lets him die too but the death scene is metal as fuck. They really did the character dirty. Badly written, miscast and the whole palantir thing is never explained.
@@johnwayne8494 Not only did Gandalf let him die, I am pretty sure he whacks him with the staff and that is what causes him to fall into the fire in the first place.
Edit: just rewatched the scene, Shadowfax kicks him into the fire which may or may not have been Gandalf's intent
One small pet peeve I have about the movie is when Aragorn decapitates the Mouth of Sauron. Aragorn in the books knew full well that heralds and emissaries are given safe conduct. This is also something that holds true in the real world, and the observance of such goes far back in history. It's as if Peter Jackson is telling us that he'll rely on the ignorance of we the audience to make that scene work.
Nothing sets the tone for your reign like a war crime
Even worse than Aragorn committing this crime is all the viewers who cheer when he does it.
"This is blasphemy! This is madness!"
"This - is - GONDOR!"
🤣
If Frank Miller were directing LOTR!
I agree with you. It left a sour tone. But I think Peter Jackson loves violence and gore. "Meet the Feebles" was a movie of note that I watched when young. He has a fascination for Black humour, something that I don't think Tolkien has. I think that Bakshi was the same.
You will probably see it come through in his movies, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.
That violent Bravado.
It worked for me..😅
12:46 "Is that a good reference here?"
It's groovy.
Interesting. The two I remember hearing complaining about were the rewriting of the Ents so that they actually became hasty, and (less so) that Tom Bombadil was taken out. Same people might also have had problems with the rewriting of Faramir and with horror directing in the movies and Legolas and many other things, but less so. The ents is probably the main one. At least it's the one that actually bothered me after it was pointed out to me.
Gandalf spinning on his head is my fav moment from all the films, it's so hilariously bizarre
The first film is so good with weird closeups and funny special effects like that. Very much from Jackson's B-horror film days
My biggest peeve with the movies is Frodo in Osgilliath. Not only does a ringwraith seeing a halfing there (with the ring?!?) undermine the whole secrecy of their mission. But then Faramir says "at last we understand one another" and finally lets him go because... Frodo tries to hand the ring over the first chance he gets? It's all just so messy and doesn't make any sense.
I also dont like Gandalf throwing the ring envelope into the fire and Boromir holding the chain in the snow, as in my opinion it casually but technically makes them ring bearers.
A lesser but still silly thing is the fellowship arriving in Moria, seeing ancient desicated skeletons, and pulling out their swords / knotching arrows like the bodies are still warm.
The trilogy is still my absolute favorite piece of cinema in existence.
Best movies ever made, but in 13-ish hours of film, there's bound to be a few bad decisions. Not like the 1200 pages of the books didn't have a few dull moments or a bit of clunky writing.
Sees title card: "9 things I hate about LotR"
Instantly thinks: "Nine for Mortal Men doomed to Die"
the fact that she was "brought back" into the story is more proof that peter fucked up
Gimli blowing ghost hands is the marvel blueprint even though we were 5 years away from starting the MCU.
The movies are a lesser version, yes. Yet they are masterpieces as films. It is just that the works of Tolkien are even more than masterpieces.. lovely to see and listen, thanks 🙏🏻 😊
my biggest issue with the film is the depiction of Frodo. Frodo is shown as a wailing crybaby. I mean, Frodo was chosen to wear the ring because he was supposed to be stronger than Aragorn and Boromir and Galadriel and even Gandalf in resisting the power of the ring. But whenever I see Frodo's face in the films he looks miserable. Even when he is laughing he looks depressive. Elijah Wood spoiled it so much for me.
Totally agree; Elijah Wood appears to be a one-trick pony with about as much capacity to express disparate emotions as a pony. Similarly Arwen, daughter of Elrond ends up being played as a simpering, adoring infant, just SO HAPPY hiding behind her little flag when Aragorn finally deigns to marry her. I too found myself wondering why Aragorn didn't go for the warrior princess Eowyn, based upon how the two characters were played in the movies.
I never understood people seeing Elijah’s Frodo as a “whiner” or a “crybaby.” I always assumed the movies were going for a delicate Christlike martyrish version, taking book Frodo’s characterization of well-mannered, polite, and gentle and turning it into this younger pure desperate tragically self-sacrificial bishounen thing. Maybe to appeal to a younger female audience somehow? It certainly worked on me LOL so bet I’m biased. I just never saw his desperation as pathetic or irritating. I think people are annoyed by Elijah Wood’s big eyes and upturned eyebrows and how he just accidentally looks like a nervous little animal LOL
@@familysystem A miscast, in his first appearance in FOTR he's reading a book and sees Gandalf, smiles and I thought, that can't be Frodo, he looks weird, just weird. Sean Astin should have been Frodo and Elijah Wood just be a drunken scared of the fireworks hobbit running away. I liked Gollum better than Elijah Wood. Spent half the movie rolling those weird eyeballs back into his head.
Frodo's weakness is why he got the ring in the first place. Gandalf says that if he took the ring then the ring would use Gandalf's power to hurt others. Frodo wasn't strong enough to hurt others so the ring couldn't do as much evil through him. Frodo's strength came in resisting the control of the ring. As miserable as Frodo looks, Gandalf would have looked worse if he'd taken the ring because he wouldn't have been able to resist its power.
@@greywolf7577 Says in the book that Bilbo and Gandalf thought Frodo was the best hobbit in the Shire. We're bitching about Elijah Wood playing Frodo, total miscast.
The whole green ghost sequence is one of my pet peeves. It's a part of a more general gripe I have about the use of CGI to tell a story that gets bolder and more obvious with each successive movie. The book describes Legolas looking back into the darkness to report on what he sees, and Aragorn later calls to voices in the darkness. And then the movies, being a visual medium, go fully into showing luminous green ghosts. I feel like they could have followed the book description more closely and come away with a far spookier scene to show for it.
That’s Peter Jackson for you.
I imagine they were under a lot of pressure to keep the movies from being even longer than they are. They cut out whole major things, and I imagine they scrutinized every scene that did make it in and have a talk about how they could shorten it.
Heck, anything more subtle could have worked.
Yes. Let the brain do the work of scaring. Rogan makes a great point about how monsters only partially shown are always scarier, and that CGI still doesn't pass the uncanny valley test for our fear.
Feel like this applies to the Balrog too. Imo they should have kept it shrouded in black smoke (maybe just shown a pair of fiery eyes) and it’d have been more mysterious/scary. Sometimes less is more.
I hated that they left out the scouring of the Shire, that appears to be because Jackson had a quarrel with Lee, but I really hated how they treated the Ents.
Instead of the Ents attacking Isengard because they recognized that the world as they knew it would likely end if they don't, even if they might just get destroyed in the process, they are tricked into it by a couple of chumps (Merry and Pippin).
Merry and certainly Pippin had no idea what happened to the forest, they were never that close to Isengard. Tbh, the whole sequence of the “chumps” in Fangorn is the most boring part of the trilogy for me, including the books. Treebeard roaring in anger for what Saruman did and the Ents emerging from the tree line makes it 100% worth toughing it out.
Nazguls. They are total wimps... except when they're not (WKing destroying Gandalf in one hit)
My two biggest beefs with the LotR trilogy are: eliminating the 'conspiracy' from Fellowship, and just having Merry and Pippin join Frodo and Sam by accident as a joke. And the elimination of the Scouring of the Shire. I so wanted to see Angry Sam the Luddite in action!
I think that the failure to establish a friendship between Merry and Pippin and Frodo prior to the encounter with the Black Rider was one of the biggest mistakes PJ made. Every other change, even the ones I hate can be defended as needed to tell the story according to the movie maker's vision, but there is no motivation whatsoever for two random Hobbits that Frodo and Sam ran into while running from scary guys on horses to continue with the quest beyond Bree.
Fatty Bolger Lives!!!!
If the film has multiple endings that make it feel like it never ends I dont think adding the scouring would be something good
@@rksnj6797
You Sleep, Fatty Bolger Lives!
@@juanmarodriguez6010.
The films don't have multiple endings. They just take the chapters after the Ring's destruction, and rush through them such that each scene after the destruction seems that they could be an ending.
By following the books closer, this issue would not occur.
A small thing that really grinds my gears is when Legolas starts despairing before the battle of Helm’s Deep. That is so out of character for the book Legolas that it’s unreal. He was lighthearted and almost heedless of danger other than a few choice moments like the Balrog which is why it makes it such an impact when it does happen.
I’m surprised the close up on denathor eating wasn’t on this list. That part always made me cringe.
agreed
The bursting tomato xd
What I hated about Peter Jackson's LOTR was leaving Tom Bombadil out. Tom was important.
I feel like they portrayed Faramir a bit wrong in the movie. In the book he was so humble, kind and noble with little to no hesitation to help out Frodo and Sam. He didn’t even want to see or know more about the ring. He became one of my favorite characters as I read but seeing the movie they really played him down.
Recently watched the extended editions for the first time. I can’t remember if gimli’s ghost-blowing, skull-crunching scene was in the theatrical. But that is the one scene that I truly feel deserved to be cut lol
*but hold on, Legolas taking a shot at the wargs and then the rolling flip onto the horse- that’s the only Legolas shenanigans that I love
Ive seen a horse being born and it reminded me of the uruk-hai scene. It was just as gross, but at least a cute baby horse came out of it instead of some hideous monster.😂
Try 'Invasion of the body snatchers'.
🤢In the books, Saruman was cross-breeding orcs and humans. Watching the uruk-hai come put this way is far better.🤢
To be fair wasn't that something Jackson was famous for in his other movies? So he just left his trademark.
I'm just going to count myself lucky to not spend a lot of time with heavily pregnant horses
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Not for the queasy.
“Go home Sam” is a controversial scene. It’s not for everybody. I think it’s one of the most poignant in the whole movie series along with the death of Gandalf, but hey what do I know…
Oh and on the camouflage thing. Modern Camoflagegear can absolutely hide someone within inches or metres away from someone who is maybe slightly distracted or doesnt exactly know aht to look out for- no magic involved. Human eyes are terrible at finding stuff that doesnt stick out especially if our brain doesnt exactly know what to look out for.
The Witch King owning Gandalf, utterly ridiculous
Other than Gimli slapstick ... since they skipped (as expected) the part with Tom Bombadil they had to somehow come up with an idea how Merry and Pippin got their weapons and now suddenly Aragorn is turned into a tourist trap peddler who sits on old magic weapons that he hands out to random hobbits, this was very disturbing.
One thing I don’t love about the extended edition of rotk is that we see the ghost king agree to fight. I’m pretty sure in the book this is left ambiguous until Aragorn shows up at the battle of the pelenor fields. It works better in the theatrical where he shows up unexpectedly and adds a little dramatic tension when he ends on “what say you?”
The ghost army wasn't at the Pelenor Fields in the book. They only fought the corsairs. But I do get your point.
The book- The WK and his army never get into the city. The main door is breached, Gandalf on Shadowfax denies him entry but before anything happens Rohan's horn call and charge happens so the WK leaves to deal with a sudden mess up to his plans. Pippin shows up to tell G about Denethor making G choose to aid on the battle field or leave the WK to cause great loss foreshadowing Theoden's death. G helps save Faramir, Prince Imrahil takes over leading the city forces onto the field while Rohan hits in the rear of the WK's army. WK kills Theoden, Eowyn kills WK, Eomer later finds Theoden dead and Eowyn presumed dead. He makes the Death, ride to ruin and the world's ending speech overextending the lines in his reckless suicide attack in grief over Eowyn. Then Aragorn and fresh infantry forces arrive by river, not a ghost army.
They shouldn’t have removed the scene on Mt. Doom where after a struggle between Frodo and Gollum for the ring, Sam sees Frodo as a wheel of fire cursing Gollum that if he ever touches the ring again he will cast himself into the fire.
People miss the importance of that. That was The Ring speaking to Gollum through Frodo and cursing him - giving him an order that he would obey a few minutes later inside the mountain, sealing the ring’s destruction.
That one moment recasts Gollum’s fall not as just an accident of pure dumb luck that destroys the ring, but as an deliberate but unintentional following of the order given him by Frodo and The Ring. Gollum touched the ring again. He was bound by oath and curse to cast himself into the fire, thereby destroying the ring.
No one had the power to resist the ring. Period. There was no way to ever destroy the ring, as the ring would always break the bearers will before the deed was done.
It was only the malice and the hubris of the ring that caused its destruction. Gollum never tried to destroy the ring. Nor could he have, but for the command given him earlier by the ring itself.
That was an amazing comment. It opened my eyes. Thanks a lot.
YES!
Well spotted.
Okay so what really happened then.
Several people resisted the ring
Gandalf
Farmir
Tom
Galadriel
Etc
How to stop a troll: shine daylight on them.
I watch your channel because I too love LOTR. Thanks for doing what you do.
My standard pet peeve about the movies is the way they get to Helm's Deep - in the books, Theoden decides to lead his household guard (the only military force he has available immediately) to reinforce the Fords of Isen against Saruman's forces, sending his civilian population to safety at Dunharrow under Eowyn's command. Theoden's halfway to the Fords when word arrives that the Fords have been taken and Saruman's army is headed his way, and he makes a desperate retreat to the only fortification nearby - Helm's Deep.
In the movie, Theoden already knows that the Fords have been taken (because Jackson's characters are based on a world where CNN has live reports from the front lines every hour on the hour, while Tolkien's were written in a world where the war's events might be reported in the next day's papers) and decides to take the entire population of his capital, civilians and all, on a forced march through no man's land in order to get to Helm's Deep (because movie Helm's Deep is not just an abandoned fortification; it's the only place capable of standing a siege in the entire western half of Rohan - a region defined by a mountain range. Though once the battle of Helm's Deep is over and Saruman has been dealt with, then Theoden relocates to Dunharrow after all - a place that doesn't need artificial walls because the landscape itself is a lot more defensible...
It's on a par with someone deciding on hearing that the Brazilian army had taken Mexico City on its way north, that Washington DC should be evacuated to the Alamo because that's traditionally where attacks from Mexico have been thwarted...
@@eb9720 That would be a lot more relevant if they didn't still have Dunharrow in the movies - it's the place the Paths of the Dead start from.
The problem is that they couldn't both have Theoden know that Saruman's army had taken the Fords, and have going to Helm's Deep make sense.
And I know why they didn't send the civilians off to Dunharrow too - it's so they could have Eowyn around more.