Why was the army of the dead at Minas Tirith?

[BGreg]

but then they would still be making them!(that costs a lot of money) do you really think Pj would spend all that money? OK, OK, I'm just going to leave it at this the movies may have been pretty crappy as far as true to the books goes but still they where OK movie and I'd watch them whenever i got the chance so there

Yeah, I think so too. I watch the movies every time I can Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the Extended Edition yet. Just saw a couple of trailers and it looks pretty good.

[TheOrcWithNoName]

I must confess to really hating the Flubber scenes during the battle of Pelennor Fields.

The special effects were pretty rubbish anyway, but it was their very presence and how they just swept all before them like a swarm of angry bees in a matter of minutes and thus ending the fight, just had me screaming abuse at the tv!

My wife actually said to me, if the Undead are so good why doesn't Aragorn let them march to Mordor and help out Frodo & Sam by kicking some orc & Ringwraith ***!

Personally I think they were included due to time & money constraints. PJ either didn't have the necessary budget to film the true battle in full, and neither did he have the additional time. So he took a few liberties with the book and let the Flubbers do their stuff in a matter of seconds rather than minutes.

All the same it is probably only one of maybe 5 scenes in ROTK that I fastforward with all due haste so shockingly bad was the trauma

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by TheOrcWithNoName

Personally I think they were included due to time & money constraints. PJ either didn't have the necessary budget to film the true battle in full, and neither did he have the additional time. So he took a few liberties with the book and let the Flubbers do their stuff in a matter of seconds rather than minutes.

I've wondered myself whether the Army of the Dead was originally going to have extra-special effects (instead of the rather cheap and nasty look it ended up with), so that PJ decided to feature it as often as possible, whether or not it made sense... and then it turned out that would cost too much.

[Kent2010]

I think this is one of the cases where you see Jackson not thinking about the effects of changing something, and then being stuck in a tough spot and being forced to make another change.

I have read from a couple places (and a couple of the different actors/actresses) that Jackson did not have a clear plan. It seemed like a 'rollercoaster' where things got decided days, sometimes hours before, and he just kind of went with whatever floated his boat. I think the Army of the Dead is another example of poor planning.

Making changes isn't a great disaster, as long as it is thought out and you aren't changing something for the sake of change.

Jackson, for some reason, decided to greatly inflate the numbers of Sauron's army, to 250,000 - 300,000, while keeping Gondor's and Rohan's forces relatively the same. Before Theoden sets out, he says he has 6,000 spears, that is what he sets out in the books with, and Gondor's forces are downright slim. Aragorn tells Elrond in Dunharrow (for some other unknown reason) that there "are no more men."

The problem becomes how does some 10,000 men defeat 250,000 if there are no more men? Well I guess we need an unkillable wave of slime. This is probably my greatest frustration with the movies, is making changes for the sake of change. And sometimes, the changes that first seem small and insignificant, effect the movie later on and force even larger and more severe changes. That is the effect of poor planning.

[Elmo]

Why did they need to be green is what I wonder ? Ghosts are usually pearly white. Never mind the awful battle, I really wish Jackson had done the paths of the dead like it was in the book. Finding the skeleton of Baldor, seeing his stratch marks on the door and having the 'dead following' could have been classic film horror scenes.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

It was a rather foolish decision by PJ. All he had to do was have the Three Walkers jump off the lead ship, wave to soldiers coming off it with him and say something like,
"Now men of South Gondor, follow me!" And left any explanation of why the green slime wasn't there to the extended dvd.

[Kent2010]

All he had to do was have the Three Walkers jump off the lead ship, wave to soldiers coming off it with him and say something like
-Tuor

But that's where the effects of poor planning really can nip someone in the rear. What at first seems like a minor change, spirals into major distortions.

When PJ decides for Aragorn to tell Elrond in Dunharrow "there are no more men," there is no way for Aragorn to show up on Pelennor with Men, without the audience thinking...wait a second where did these men come from?

Think of Theoden treating Helm's Deep as a retreat in the movies. It does not seem to be a major change from the books, what is the big deal if Theoden goes to Helm's Deep to escape war, or to head off to war? That minor change, creates more severe distortions later.

Because, in the movies, Theoden is not expecting to go into a battle with Saruman, he is going to Helm's Deep as a retreat.

Now, how does Theoden find out that Saruman is coming and there will be a fight?
-This forces someone to warn Theoden of the approaching battle. Gandalf is gone, so I guess Jackson decided to choose Aragorn as the person. Now Aragorn needs to be seperated from Theoden, insert Warg attack, Aragorn falling off the cliff and spotting Saruman's massive army.

Another problem this creates is Theoden is trying to escape war, so he takes the women and children, and apparently doesn't take many soldiers and there doesn't seem to be many soldiers stations at Helm's Deep. If it is being used as a place of retreat and hide...why take many soldiers?
-Now that Saruman is coming with 10,000 Rohan needs more soldiers, insert the Elves coming from Lorien.

The problem here is how do the Elves get there within a matter of hours? This has created confusion as to whether the Elves have some sort of Scotty beaming device, or fleet foot potion...etc

I hope this isn't too far off topic, but one seemingly minor change (in Jackson's view) actually forces more and more changes later in the movies, because it wasn't effectively planned out. He just went day to day deciding whatever he wanted to do, instead of planning how one change will effect the movie.

Basically with the decision to inflate Sauron's numbers to 300,000 at the Battle of Pelennor, while keeping Gondor's and Rohan's forces the same, Jackson painted himself between a rock and a hard place. How does Gondor overcome those odds? Well, I guess there needs to be an unstoppable wave of ghosts.