LotR1-FotR-Seq11

[alatar]

Though I wasn't bugged about the orcs running from the Balrog, I would say that it doesn't exactly follow the books. My interpretation is that the Balrog is the commander, and so pushes the Orcs and troll forward to fight the Fellowship. It's only after they fail does he enter the fray.

Don't have the book, but listening to the CD, I remember that the troll tries to enter the chamber door first, gets a sword blow from Boromir (which is ineffective), gets stuck by a Sting-wielding Frodo (would have loved to have seen that) and so withdraws. The orcs enter next and are overwhelmed by the defense. The orc chieftain attacks Frodo and is cut down by Aragorn. The FotR makes to leave out the back door when Gandalf perceives the 'other.' He stays and attempts to shut the door, but the Balrog comes into the chamber and starts a counter spell. Gandalf is strained, and so has to use a word of command, which destroys the door and cuts off the pursuit. Momentarily he gets a glimpse of some dark presence, but does not know what it is at that time.

In the movie, when Gandalf sternly tells Aragorn that "swords are no more use here," they are positioned correctly (at the top of a stair) but Gandalf has no door to shut, nor does it seem that the Balrog tries to come through that way. Too big, perhaps? Some action, I assume, from the Balrog starts busting up the place, and this actually helps Aragorn and Frodo get over the gap in the stair. No action by Gandalf to cut off the pursuit. Was it a timing issue, or did PJ not want to show Gandalf as that able?

Anyway...similar, yet different .

Another point: I thought that Gimli standing on Balin's tomb was disrespectful, but the book states that Gandalf uses it as a table when he reads the account of the dwarf colony, and so it's not treated that respectfully. Plus, Gimli chops the legs of an orc who stands on Balin's tomb, and again I think that PJ only wanted to place Gimli where he could be seen when he delivered his lines, as it's a stupid place from which to fight.

[Essex]

Originally Posted by alatar

I think that PJ only wanted to place Gimli where he could be seen when he delivered his lines, as it's a stupid place from which to fight.

Is it? Try telling that to Anakin Skywalker. Obi Wan 'had the higher ground' and therefore beat him. Our strudy dwarf also has the higher ground here by standing on Balin's tomb. I'm sure Balin wouldn't have minded......... He's putting a stake in the gorund, implying that he is guarding Balin's tomb. ie you'll have to come through me first before you desecrate his tomb. etc, etc.

and re:

My interpretation is that the Balrog is the commander, and so pushes the Orcs and troll forward to fight the Fellowship. It's only after they fail does he enter the fray.

My interpretation is that he comes down via the other route after his first is blocked off by Gandalf's word of Command. He wasn't waiting for the orcs to attack - He was just travelling another route!!!!!

PS - why people moan about things like this (ie the orcs ran away) is nit picking to me. Yes, I know we're all entitled to our opinions, but all I seem to be doing is defending Jackson and his crew to the many (samll) issues people have with the films and not having enough time to praise his filmaking myself!!!!!

PPS Talking about what's good with these scenes, it's good to see the man who will be King taking over directly after Gandalf had Fallen. Getting the hobbits up - realising there is little time for mourning and taking over command of the troop.

PPPS - doesn't the Balrog look great? Not sure what Boromir meant by saying it was inaccurate (size maybe?) - we're not going to get into another balrog wings argument are we? (I stayed clear of the recent thread on this!)

PPPPS - the discussion between gandalf and frodo - works really well here - I don't mind it not being in Bag end as it is in the books. It's like Gandalf is imparting his last piece of wisdom onto Frodo...............

PPPPPS - I agree with alatar that the stairs scene is not required. I would have loved to have seen Gandalf battle Spell wise with the (unseen) Balrog instead.....I've always been fascinated by what the 'Words of Command' were - and what their actual power was.

PPPPPPS - badly structured note here - too many PS's.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Essex

and re: My interpretation is that he comes down via the other route after his first is blocked off by Gandalf's word of Command. He wasn't waiting for the orcs to attack - He was just travelling another route!!!!!

I'll have to rely on you to supply the direct quote, but in the book the Balrog is first 'seen' in the Chamber of Mazarbul, and this only after the fighting and just before the WoC destroys the door. However, if you mean that the Balrog would have joined in the initial attack with the orcs and troll but was late arriving at the Chamber, then I can allow for that.

But in other news...why did PJ have wooden doors in a place made of stone? My impression of Moria is that, with few exceptions, everything is made of stone, ore, metal etc. And I forgot that the pillars seen holding up the celing were carved to appear as trees, but I can understand why PJ didn't portray them that way - tree = elf, geometric shapes - dwarf.

[alatar]

At my son's request, we listened to LotR on CD as we ran errands. Not sure that he knew what he was asking for, I chose the Bridge of Khazad-dûm chapter as then he would have some reference point (we'd played out the scene many times). Anyway, as I listened, I heard again that when the FotR minus Gandalf leave Moria that they go down some steps onto a road perhaps. PJ's East Gate of Moria is just not right. I think that maybe he was trying to use a natural real world location, but one would think that this being a dwarven capital that the area outside of the gate would have had some landscaping and stonework, even in these years of decay.

What came to mind was the Lost City, home of the sleestaks.

[Nogrod]

I guess this is one of the sequences, that really highlights PJ's insistence to make Merry, Pip and Gimli something like fools - and I really don't like it. I can see, that there are very simple-minded people out there, and they are potential ticket payers too. But c'mon! Why do you have to a) make someone a fool at first to show that he has matured during the adventure? b) have a fool in a movie in the first place? The roles of these three are in the worst instance like copied from a Disney film, where there always has to be those good and bad fool-servants...

About the Balrog and the orcs / goblins. I could see their relation along the lines of a lion and the hyenas. Hyenas will follow and fear it. That metaphor should not be stretched forwards though, as it breaks immediately after stating this basic fact.

Otherwise, its funny how perceptions change with knowledge. As I first time saw the movie, I thought the Balrog to be just a ME version of the Jurassic Park T-Rex, and was a bit disappointed. But after seeing the "making of"-stuff on the dvd, with all that stone and fire -thing, I started to appreciate it, kind of started to see, what it was all about - and both saw and heard it differently...

Also, I seem to belong to those people who think that the cavetroll thing was a bit farfetched and overemphasized. Basically just a tool to justify an action scene with swordplay and lots of tight situations - showing simultaneously some abilities of the members of the fellowship with it. But as I understand the anguish of Alatar's children, I myself really liked the portrayal of the death of the troll - it was so... humane (NO!) ... so...? The sound of it dying was awesome (what was it: a walrus and a backwards-tiger or something?) and kind of made me sad also!

The staircase that goes tumbling down and leaving the heroes in a tight situation and a last moment escape... Maybe decent actionfilm-wise, Tolkienwise, no. But the Maori-music was great there! (Indeed, if you listen to it with Finninsh ears, you hear them singing repeatedly "musta-musta-musta"... - in Finninsh that means "black-black-black"... )

[doug*platypus]

Interesting sequence, this. Some of the best and worst movie stuff here.

Nice to hear Bill the Pony mentioned by name; did PJ and co really want the Watcher to eat him?! Disturbing this news is...

All in all I thought that the scene in front of the doors of Moria was well done. I personally didn't have a problem with Frodo solving the riddle, since I'm all for Frodo in most matters, begging your pardon. Ditto Merry and Pippin childishly throwing pebbles into the water; it seemed in character for the mischievous duo. The writing on the doors looked excellent, and really seemed to be shining out, as you would expect of ithildin.

On entering the mines, the Fellowship immediately find out that there have been previous kerfuffles, and that in all likelihood they will find goblins rather than the Dwarves that Gimli was sure were there. I think this ruins the surprise somewhat, and also leads to a bit of indecision on the part of the company. "Into the mines!" "Out of the mines!" "Into the mines again!". It seems to be a bit of a recurring theme with PJ that his characters don't know where they're going, or why (Éomer, Faramir, Sam).

The watcher in the water was a great creature! Really freaky. I know that in the book we only see the tentacles, but I felt in this instance that PJ made a good decision, and the horror is in fact intensified by seeing the beast.

Gandalf's dialogue with Frodo is just fantastic. Although I miss my favourite chapter in the book, The Shadow of the Past, when the two are discussing this and other things in the comfort of Bag End, inserting the dialogue at this point in time worked very well. Possibly even better, dare I say it, as this becomes almost the last words that Gandalf will speak to the Ringbearer before their paths are sundered.

I thought that the reveal of the twenty-first hall, or wherever it was, with the pillars was not as impressive as Jackson intended it to be. It just looked like a CG shot of a bunch of pillars, to me, yet we are supposed to be filled with some grand sense of wonder. For those of you with access to the Alan Lee illustrated centenary edition of LOTR, I think that Lee's painting is considerably better. We see a few less pillars, with the Fellowship shown at the base of one for a truly grand sense of scale, and a shaft of light beaming in from outside. Also the pillars appear more carven, and there are vast vaults which make the place seem like some fabulous stone cathedral. Sam's comment about an eye-opener may have been more suited if PJ had shown us this hall exactly as Lee had envisioned it.

The Book of Mazarbul was a very well crafted prop. It absolutely looked the part, and PJ allowed enough of the book dialogue through for us to get a sense of impending doom. Pippin's folly in disturbing the skeleton was pretty well done, but I guess by placing it here in the Chamber rather than earlier begs to ask the question, just how far away were those orcs that they reached the Fellowship so quickly?

Although I enjoyed the fight scene in the book more, especially Frodo's foot stabbing styles and the description of the appearance of the orc chieftain, its PJs artistic licence to show the various battle scenes as he chooses to, and I can't see too much to complain about. The cave troll batting orcs away while trying to nail Gimli was cool. I wish that Gimli hadn't been prancing around on top of Balin's tomb; I also thought it was a little disrespectful, and not in keeping with the book Gimli who hewed the legs out from under an orc who had sprung on the tomb.

I would have hated the dwelling on Frodo's mithril coat, except for a classic Gimli quote: "you are full of surprises, Mr Baggins". I just love Rhys-Davies accent and delivery here.

So the Fellowship escape for the time being, and Gandalf tells us the title of the next chapter for effect (yawn! I'm getting tired of hearing the chapter names by now, sorry, as they add little to the story). Then the infamous surrounding of the Fellowship by thousands of orcses, which I totally don't buy. While I accept that the orcs are afraid of the Balrog, I don't think that fear would extend to giving up on almost certain victory over the Fellowship, and dinner to boot. So then we get even more foreshadowing of the Balrog. Bad enough that Saruman had to tell us what the surprise was; now Gandalf is laying the facts out before we even see the guy. Okay, so it's defensible that Gandalf perceived what was coming for them, but I would have preferred not to have him named until the Fellowship actually see him.

And just when the tension is building up to a confrontation between Gandalf and the Balrog, PJ inserts one of the more ridiculous scenes in the trilogy: the falling stairs. Because Moria and a Balrog aren't exciting enough? Or were they so exciting that we needed to slow down the action for what seem like endless minutes? I just can't understand his logic, here.

And finally we get to see the Balrog. Was he worth all the waiting and foreshadowing? NO. At the risk of being unpopular, I have to say that in FOTR the Balrog was not as scary as he should have been. When we see the fire effects on him close up in TTT, he is much better, but in the current sequence he just didn't do it for me. I think most probably because he was too animalistic. There was no sense of malice or evil. He was just there, on fire, breathing a bit of fire, but no emotion. Maybe if he had eyes in his sockets instead of just fire, he would have been able to impart some terror in me, but alas no.

I'm glad PJ decided to go with Gandalf's cryptic "secret fire" lines from the book here. This confrontation could easily have turned into another "give up the halfling she-elf". Then all happens more or less as per the book... Balrog's sword destroyed, Gandalf breaks the bridge, Balrog lashes whip around Gandalf's ankles. But then the whip releases him, and he is left hanging on to the bridge. This is a bit of a mistake, I think, because it seems as if Boromir or Aragorn could have saved Gandalf by running to his aid and helping him up. It almost seems as if Gandalf lets go. He looks to be in a position where he could possibly scramble up on to the bridge. It would have been more plausible if the Balrog had simply dragged him off the bridge completely as per the book, with Gandalf vainly clutching at the stone. We then could have had the yell of "fly, you fools!" as Gandalf sails down into the abyss.

Then we have the weeping scene, and it's off to Lothlórien! I might add that PJ made a good decision to cut out Kheled-Zâram; Gimli's sightseeing would not have added much to the story, and only served to confuse viewers.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by doug*platypus

On entering the mines, the Fellowship immediately find out that there have been previous kerfuffles, and that in all likelihood they will find goblins rather than the Dwarves that Gimli was sure were there. I think this ruins the surprise somewhat, and also leads to a bit of indecision on the part of the company. "Into the mines!" "Out of the mines!" "Into the mines again!". It seems to be a bit of a recurring theme with PJ that his characters don't know where they're going, or why (Éomer, Faramir, Sam).

The wargs that one hears help one make clearer decisions.

I thought that the reveal of the twenty-first hall, or wherever it was, with the pillars was not as impressive as Jackson intended it to be. It just looked like a CG shot of a bunch of pillars, to me, yet we are supposed to be filled with some grand sense of wonder. For those of you with access to the Alan Lee illustrated centenary edition of LOTR, I think that Lee's painting is considerably better. We see a few less pillars, with the Fellowship shown at the base of one for a truly grand sense of scale, and a shaft of light beaming in from outside. Also the pillars appear more carven, and there are vast vaults which make the place seem like some fabulous stone cathedral. Sam's comment about an eye-opener may have been more suited if PJ had shown us this hall exactly as Lee had envisioned it.

Much agreed, and glad that it's not only me. What, exactly, was I supposed to see? Here's a large room with large pillars. Wow! Also, the room seems to have no purpose, at least far as I can see (I'm no Dwarf, and my imagination may be limited.) And this room always brings up the point of, if your community's average height is <4 feet, why do you make pathways for giants that allow mortal enemies, like Dragons and Balrogs, to walk freely through the place? And another 'and,' if so much work was put into making such a splendid hall of columns, why couldn't the Dwarves spend a few minutes on the front door, which looks to me like lava spew.

Pippin's folly in disturbing the skeleton was pretty well done, but I guess by placing it here in the Chamber rather than earlier begs to ask the question, just how far away were those orcs that they reached the Fellowship so quickly?

The orcs and cave troll were actually nearby, touring the 'Columns of Khazad-dûm,' which is a big attraction of the evil set (which is the real reason that the orcs, trolls, Balrog and even Sauron sought to take the Halls of Durin's folk, as the admission fees in mithril prohibited entry).

Then the infamous surrounding of the Fellowship by thousands of orcses, which I totally don't buy. While I accept that the orcs are afraid of the Balrog, I don't think that fear would extend to giving up on almost certain victory over the Fellowship, and dinner to boot.

Thought that these guys were in league, or have we learned what meat burns in a Balrog's belly? I did like that Gandalf was able to detect the creature in a 'psychic' fashion, as that imparts some ability to the old man with the stick (unlike later, in RotK).

This is a bit of a mistake, I think, because it seems as if Boromir or Aragorn could have saved Gandalf by running to his aid and helping him up. It almost seems as if Gandalf lets go. He looks to be in a position where he could possibly scramble up on to the bridge. It would have been more plausible if the Balrog had simply dragged him off the bridge completely as per the book, with Gandalf vainly clutching at the stone. We then could have had the yell of "fly, you fools!" as Gandalf sails down into the abyss.

Didn't Ian McKellen have some say here? Didn't he think that just popping off the edge with a fare-thee-well wouldn't have worked? Think that he stated that there should be some 'edge' onto which he could cling for a moment. And, after watching TTT, did Gandalf actually just let go to continue the attack? If he were to have climbed up or were pulled up, the Balrog would have flown back up the passage on those wings, and then there'd be fire in Nanduhirion.