Okay, so what do you think NOW?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

WCH - I cannot speak for Jackson, but my feeling about the Mouth of Sauron scene is that it shows that Aragorn no longer is willing to go through the motions of phony diplomacy - something which Sauron attempts to use only for his own purposes and is not any kind of real negotiation anyways. Aragorn recognizes this and knows that in minutes all hell will break loose so decides to rid Middle-earth of a rather large piece of garbage right there on the spot. Does that make him (in your words) a war criminal? Then we are back to the old internet discussion trap of a definition of terms.

Even assuming that this were an entirely valid viewpoint, what entitled Jackson to completely reverse the way the author wrote the scene? This is not a cut-out-Bombadil or shorten-the-Council alteration, which constraints of time and medium necessitate. This scene uses the same sets, costumes, characters and screentime as the authentic scene- so wherein lay the necessity of changing it?

Setting aside definition-squabbles, it is an inherent part of Tolkien's message that one may not kill unlawfully or without need. Doesn't he emphasize this over and over? By all laws and traditions of war, ancient, modern, and in Middle-earth (as book-Mouth himself insists), heralds and ambassadors are sacrosanct.
But the PJ version is simple Might makes Right: I've got a big sword so I get to play Dirty Harry. How does this not differ from Orc-work? (cf. The New Shadow in HME XII). The authentic scene *emphasizes*, not undermines, the reasons why the Captains are, in fact, the Good Guys, and why Sauron is the Enemy not just politically but morally. It would have been splendid, especially with the acting firepower assembled, to watch the arrogant Mouth wilt beneath Aragorn's contempt: an expression of spiritual rather than physical superiority. This sort of reworking, indeed inversion, *with no cinematic imperative* reinforces the suspicion that PJ Just Doesn't Get It.

Another telling point is where Gandalf describes the 'possession' of Theoden as "an old trick of Saruman's. He's used it before." Oh, really? It seems PJ finds nothing incongruous that the leader of the White Council and the Heren Istarion, who had successfully pretended to be on the side of the angels until a few months previously, openly engaged in forcible possession of Eruhini? This act Tolkien unequivocally categorised as one of the very worst of all crimes, calling it "of Morgoth" and the practice of "Sauron and the necromancers;" yet apparently Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel etc were aware of this 'old trick' and condoned it. Again: Might Makes Right.
What on earth was wrong with Theoden's healing the way it was written? PJ could still have used the nifty age-morph effect, without Gandalf's deep-sea fishing, and the absurd Jackie Chan brawl that precedes it. If the scene needed visual punch, surely the lightning flash that flattens Wormtongue, and concomitant lighting effects (darkness and the ray of sunlight, and Theoden hobbling out into the open air) fills the bill?

It entirely escapes me how the requirements of a different medium mandate that a scene *in which the author made particular use of light and shadow- the essence of film* should be made over in such a radical fashion. Instead the suspicion arises that here as in the Denethor beatdown Hollywoodthink is ascendant: when in doubt, just clobber someone. If you're a Good Guy it's OK.