[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by alatar

Not sure how that all works cinematically, but at least it would make some sense ...

It wouldnt have worked cinematically, or at least not without excluding Theoden's rousing speech. On screen, it wouldn't have worked nearly so well to show the pre-battle speech, then cut back to the battle (or, as in the EE, Gandalf and the Witch-king) for the horn call then cut back to the charge of the Rohirrim. The moment would have lost much of its on-screen power.

Originally Posted by davem

Actually I found this to be a major change from the book. In the book the Rohirrim sound their horns & charge, taking advantage of the surprise & shock of their sudden appearance, & charge straight into the enemy's flank, throwing them into confusion & so gaining the upper hand.

My, some people are so pernickity! Having looked back at the relevant passage in the book, it seems to me that the Rohirrim were sufficiently distant from MT when they commenced their charge for the armies of Mordor, if sufficiently well-disciplined, to have had time to set up a workable defence. But, they were not well-disciplined (when were Orcs ever so) and the ferocity of the charge and the feyness (is that a word?) of the Riders struck fear into them and brought about their disarray. That seems to me to be pretty much how it happened in the film too.

Of course, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to portray the moment on screen exactly as Tolkien wrote it, by virtue of the fact that we are talking about two different types of media, which employ different techniques. But I would maintain that the power of the moment in the book is pretty well reflected in the film.