from Folwren
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Okay, forget the kids. What about me and other people like me? I'm nineteen and I still hide my eyes during battle scenes when they do close ups of people getting hacked to pieces and arrows going through orcses eyes. In theater I rolled up in a ball with my arms clasped about my ears and my eyes tight shut as the captain in Osgiliath was killed with a spear through his chest.
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That was your honest reaction and you are entitled to it. I do have an sincere and serious question for you. Do you think that your reaction is typical of todays filmgoer? I am not trying to cast any doubts as to your intestinal fortitude but I saw the movie a dozen times in the theater and never once saw anybody around me who had that severe of a reaction to anything in the film.
If Tolkien wrote it, or wrote about it, or wrote scenes in which that type of thing very likely did take place (like carnage at Helms Deep which may not have been as specific in the books but which most certainly was part of it) it would seem fair game for inclusion by a filmmaker.
While I certainly am not a subscriber to magazines like Fangoria or other blood-and-guts valentines to sadism, I do see nothing wrong with a somewhat realistic portrayal of battlefield violence. In fact, I remember from my youth in the Fifties -- a time which was sanitaized to protect us little ones - when a person would get shot, there was no wound, no blood, no real effects at all. You can make a case that type of thing is far more harmful to ideas about real violence than a realistic portrayal is.
I guess if JRRT wrote it in THE HOBBIT, then its fair game for a filmmaker.