Distances
 

Is it just me or did the distances in ROTK seem really short? I thought it was longer than that between Mordor and Minas Tirith.

Well I know Osgiliath was rather close to Mordor if I can remember correctly.<P>What boggled me was how short it took Elrond to get to Dunharrow from Rivendell so quickly. Same question about how quick it took the Lothlorien Elves in TTT, but that's for another thread.

And where is the wall around Minas Tirith? It seems that they have it at all. They could have used a bit more details.

Elrond reforged the sword during helms deep battle, then when the rohirrim mustered, he arrived.. and the lothlorien elves left in the morning, since it only took aragron and co. about 4-5 hours to reach edoras.. and you were suppose to see mordor from minas tith, and it was only about a 20-30 minute horse ride from minas tirith to osgiliath...

And Sam and Frodo crossed Mordor in the time it took for Aragorn to give a rousing speech at the Black Gate.<P>The time in the movie was compressed in such a way that travelling was nearly instantaneous. In the EE we may see people actually taking days to get from one place to another.<P>-Lily

I remember these same sort of issues coming up in Fellowship when they would just cut from one scene to the next. Remember when they were on the Bucklebury Ferry and then cut to Bree? How about the Strider leading the the Hobbits out of Bree, cut to Gandalf, cut back and they are at Weathertop? And just one more. Frodo is wounded on Weathertop, cut to Gandalf again, cut back and they are at the Trollshaws.<P>The thing is that continually showing time going by to illustrate the true distance these characters are travelling would become incredibly tedious real fast. Those of us that know the distances just have to assume that a few days goes by between some of these cuts. There's really nothing in the films to suggest otherwise.<P>H.C.

Remember, Sam and Frodo were more then half way when Aragorn reached the gate, and the ykept strugglying up, so when aragorn made 5 minute speech, it was about a 10 minute walk to get there

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> The thing is that continually showing time going by to illustrate the true distance these characters are travelling would become incredibly tedious real fast. Those of us that know the distances just have to assume that a few days goes by between some of these cuts. There's really nothing in the films to suggest otherwise. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I agree with you on that score, HC. What I found slightly unrealistic, however, was the way in which locations appeared to be too close together in actual shots, ie Minas Tirith/Osgiliath and Mount Doom/Barad-Dur/Morannon. I realise that it was important in the film to establish the relationship between these places, but it looked strange from the persepective of someone who is aware of the actual distances between these places.

The worst of this for me was the shot that suggested Osgiliath was about 100 yards away from Minas Tirith in ROTK. Faramir's suicide mission to retake Osgiliath could probably be watched in its entirety over the wall by Pippin in Minas Tirith! <P>Cheers,<BR>Lyta

And something i noticed in TTT EE DVD, is it just me or does Fangorn seem <I>really</I>close to Helm's Deep?

Yeah, it was kind of amazing to me how quickly Frodo and Sam got from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom. But then I think about how long that part of the book is and say, "Oh. Well, no wonder." Trying to put all that in the movie would have made it a week long. And I would still watch it.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>I realise that it was important in the film to establish the relationship between these places, but it looked strange from the persepective of someone who is aware of the actual distances between these places.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>You're right. And in general, the perspective of both time & geography seemed to have caused much difficulty to convey in the movies. I'm really glad I'm so faniliar with Tolkiens universe from the books - it must have been quite confusing for some of the non-Tolkien knowers in the cinemaes <P>Some poster mentioned Faramir/Helms Deep - he isn't close to Helms Deep, but it's been mentioned before. There must be a cut &/or a glimpse of a place in a cut that makes it seem that way.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Some poster mentioned Faramir/Helms Deep - he isn't close to Helms Deep <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I know the difference between Faramir and Fangorn, im not that Blonde

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> I'm really glad I'm so faniliar with Tolkiens universe from the books - it must have been quite confusing for some of the non-Tolkien knowers in the cinemaes <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I had some of the same thing. When I saw the first movie I hadn't even heard of LOTR, and the first thing I wanted to do after the movie was to look at a map. Then I read the book and that made the movie much better.

Well, you can't exactly show the correct distances in a movie as accurately as possible, unless you make it seem like one of those live-action films. In any event, that would make the audience "travel" along with the characters for the year (and a few months) that it took to destroy the Ring. Somehow, I don't think that audiences would quite like that, or at least the non-Tolkienite audiences wouldn't quite like that.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> When I saw the first movie I hadn't even heard of LOTR, <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Me, too. I was quite confused. Of course, the first thing I said when I got home was, "Mommy, where do you keep your copies of the books?" I read the entire trilogy in a week and a half (huzzah for Winter Break!).<P>I do think the non-Tolkien people who watched TTT got a better idea of places and distances when Faramir and that other dude are pointing at the map in Henneth Annun. That's the whole reason PJ put that scene in there, after all.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> is it just me or does Fangorn seem really close to Helm's Deep? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Fangorn comes to Helm's Deep, in the form of the Huorns, just as it does in the book.

Saucy, I think part of the reason everything looked close in the movies was because it's not possible to make a miniature with the correct proportions that will fit into a studio. For example, on my map it appears that Osgiliath was about 20 kilometers from Minas Tirith. If the models were 1:200th scale, they would have to be built 100 meters apart. Of course, the models weren't built that way; the FX people inserted the images in relation to each other, but they apparently miscalculated. Maybe they thought a pretty image would be better than a realistic one.<P>I do feel that time was warped in a distracting way. It seems that it took five minutes to get from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom because (if I remember correctly) Aragorn was already at the Black Gate when Frodo and Sam saw the plains covered with Orcs. That only left the time it took for Aragorn to challenge Sauron and give a speech for them to cross the plain and climb mount Doom. I'm not suggestion everything be shown in real-time, but the cuts between scenes should leave a reasonable gap of time accounted for. If orc scouts had seen Aragorn leaving Minas Tirith and that prompted the army of Mordor to troop off to the Black Gate, that would be fine, because all that troop movement could be assumed to take several days. Several days in which Frodo could realistically get to Mount Doom.<P>-Lily

I don't quite think that the filmmakers would make as much money being realistic, as opposed to being dramatic. After all, isn't money the main motivation here?

Actually, after seeing the movie a second time I noticed that by the time the army had reached the Black Gate, Frodo and Sam were already climbing the slopes of Mount Doom. So they probably took a few days to cross Gorgoroth in the time it took the army to get to the Black Gate. Plus it also helped that they took the direct route from Cirith Ungol rather than taking the long way around like they did in the book.

It did take a few days to cross Gorgoroth, but didn't it take some time from Minas Tirith to the Black Gate too? When they went through Ithilien blowing trumpets and stuff. These things probably took about the same time.

I posted this a few weeks ago, but I'll do it again. It's a time line for the events in the movies that I worked out.<P><A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/hcisland/tttime.htm" TARGET=_blank>Time Line</A><P>H.C.

Okay, so there was time for travel, but I guess I would have liked it more explicit. It really did seem as though the battle at the Black Gate happened on the afternoon of the Battle of the Pelennor fields and that Mordor took a just a brisk 15 minute walk to cross.<P>-Lily

It bothered me that Mordor <B>looked</B> so small. The editing for travel time didn't bother me, it's film convention to skip ahead over the boring parts. (remembering the famous Kubrick edit in "2001: A Space Odyssey" that skips about 3 million years in 1/24th of a second.) but the view from both Cirith Ungol and the Black Gate looked as if you could take a bus tour after breakfast and be see all of Mordor in time for lunch.

I think that there should be more time added to the extended editions. Ther just isn't enough time. They should added at least an hour on each film.