[HCIsland]

Just to put in another 2 cents.<P>This change is obviously connected to the change of location to Osgiliath, change in Faramir and change in the results of the Entmoot. All of these changes, whether you agree with them or not, were done for essentially the same reason.<P>TTT basically has action on three fronts. PJ had to decide whether to deal with these scenes concurently or consecutively. Tolkien chose consecutively. Showing us, essentially, Merry's & Pippin's story first (I know there was a taste of Aragorn and company before that), then the Rohan story and then Frodo, Sam and Gollum. PJ chose concurrently where the three stories more or less appear to be happening simultaneously and he cuts from one to the other. This choice is definately more appropriate for film but it has a major limitation. You have to develop the stories in parallel for pacing reasons. For instance, you can't give the impression of things looking hopeless at Helm's Deep and then cut to Faramir having a, more or less, tension free lunch with Frodo and Sam. The emotions of the stories are contradicting each other and all the work you did building tension at Helm's Deep can be lost by not having similar tension in the other scenes. The scenes <B>must</B> complement eachother.<P>PJ decided to use the dramatic line of Helm's Deep as his model. As we all know, the idea here is that things look blackest before the dawn (literally in this case). If he was going to intercut scenes with the hobbits, he has to parallel this theme. This means that things have to be looking hopeless for Merry and Pippin (Ents decide not to go to war), and for Frodo and Sam (Faramir decides to take them to Minas Tirith). He then needs a fulcrum to turn the stories on. An event in which all the stories turn around. In this film the first signs of the fulcrum is when Pippin gets Treebeard to head south towards Isengard. After this all there stories turn around almost simultaneously. Purists will balk, but it's a very dramatic technique and personally, I like that he gave this important moment to Pippin. His alternative is to show the stories more consecutively, where he could stay truer to the book but would sacrifice the power of the climax.<P>Another obvious film that does this is Return of the Jedi (I'm only picking this because almost everyone has seen it) where the fulcrum is when Chewbaca gains access to one of the walkers. Actually, Lucas modelled Phantom Menace this way and I would expect the same out of the third movie.<P>In my opinion, a much better film that does this is Magnolia which came out a couple of years ago. In this the fulcrum can't be missed. It's the rain of frogs that no one who has seen the film will ever forget, though I know some that would like to. <P>H.C.