Bilbo and Elrond chat in an Extended Edition scene

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Strider67

I find an awful lot of their dialogue unnatural, and it just sounds like modern conversational English shoehorned into Middle Earth, which to me jars horribly.

And when it's not like this, it's usually trite fantasy purple prose which completely conflicts with Professor Tolkien's highly considered style. Professor Tolkien writes archaic English as an expert, whereas Boyens and Walsh virtually come off as parody.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but consider, say, the deleted scene featuring the death of Saruman in the Extended Edition of "The Return of the King." The dialogue about "gibbets and crows" is adapted, but then Saruman horribly segues into "something festers in the heart of Middle-earth." It's meaningless pseudo-medieval language which sounds like something from a Dungeons and Dragons manual, as if Tolkien was some author of motel-room paperbacks. It's pulpy pastiche like this which always spoils things for me.