LotR2-TTT-Seq03

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Essex

The only thing I don;t like is the woman with her two kids - errrrgggghhh! it's so corny! 'I WILL find you!!!' - and the overacting from the girl on the horse - it does my head in!!!

Like I said, I think that PJ was playing heavy-handedly as he really wanted us to be scared of this extermination force of Saruman's. One way to do this was to personalize it, and so we get the names of two children, and we see one pulling at her mother. Like in later scenes, PJ goes from the wide shot to the zoomed in view.

the scrawl on eomer's warrant looks very much like Theoden's hand to me - totally out of control - just a scrawl across the paper.......

Inevitably, when sitting in a lecture, I'd start to drift off towards sleep. My notes would show "sleep lines" - scrawl lines down the the page where my pen went south.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

There is a problem here, touched on above, in the
movie version of Rohan's defense. In the book there
are effective (relatively small) Rohannic forces in the
east and especially in the west (the West Emnet being
partially mobilized). At no time, even after the Disaster
at the Fords of Isen could Saruman's forces roam totally unopposed
thorughout at least western Rohan. Yet in the movie there
are virtually no forces (even Theoden later brings a bare (100?)
or so with him west, but then suddenly later at the muster of
Rohan thousands of fighters pop up! Of course, PJ is trying
the gambit of portraying impossible odds, but in, for
example, Karen Forsted's encyclopedia it's calculated the
odds at Helm's Deep (sorry to jump ahead) are about
10,000 to 2,000 or so, not the upsurd odds in the movie.
As noted above, where's the kids daddy? If off fighting, then
why wasn't the village evacuated?

[JennyHallu]

Perhaps the father is a soldier, and had already been off with the army for sometime. Perhaps the child had no father, considering the past history of orkish raids in the area. Perhaps he was just too busy preparing for his cameo as a Corsair in the next movie.

And 2000 to 10000 is pretty hellish odds, Tuor. When you have a force of 10,000 marching through your countryside, no force of 100 has any way to stand. If that was the basic unit size of Theoden's army, then the muster of Rohan was absolutely necessary. No point needlessly sacrificing men to defend an indefensible land, gather everyone to you in a central, defensible position the enemy cannot ignore. And is the 2000 figure from your encyclopedia before or after the arrival of Helm?

[Tuor of Gondolin]

I don't have the book with me, I'll try to have the
section tomorrow. Yes, 5-1 odds are daunting, but
when you also have the advantage of defense
at Helm's Deep and to retreat into the caves not,
at least in the short run, impossible. Recall that in
the book the defense is quite successful until the
explosives blow up a hole, and even then there is
an effective charge, not the two or three horsemen of the movie.
The thing is,the movie depiction stretches credulity by not even
suggesting the appearance of local defensive forces in the Westfold.
Where is the contingency planning which a younger, able
Theoden would have had prepared, and which Theodred
Eomer, Grimbold, etc. would have
implemented? Recall that in the movie it's only the
smallish Edoras population that is taken to Helm's Deep.
But in the book it's people of the West Emnet who flock there.

[JennyHallu]

I thought the movie was more believable. To my mind, attempting to defend the West Emnet is an impossible task...look at a map. West Emnet depends on Orthanc to be defensible. There are no natural defenses against Saruman.

And how do you know that the straggling refugees from West Emnet didn't try to defend themselves before fleeing? Maps don't give us any large settlements there...the inhabitants would have been crushed. Perhaps PJ gives us a more, not less, hopeful situation. In the movie, there were survivors from the West of Rohan.

And while PJ did paint the defense of Helm's Deep in terrible and desperate colors, it was a last stand. It was intended to be desperate. It was intended that the arrival of the Trees and Gandalf with the dawn should feel like the ultimate reminder of hope, and the last gleam of light before Sauron's darkness overfell the land. I never felt it to be a terribly possible thing, even in the book. That was why their arrival was wonderful.

[Elladan and Elrohir]

No doubt about it, PJ has made everything more desperate and more personal. Heavy-handed is a good way to describe it. Some book fans complain about all this, but I personally think it's fine. The scene before the Battle of Helm's Deep with the old men and boys leaving the women is pretty moving and really drives home the message of the cost of war.

Karl Urban is a brilliant Eomer; unfortunately his character suffers from an underdose of screen time (which was inevitable). He perfectly portrays the passion, desperation, emotion, and sternness that the part requires.

Obviously Brad Dourif is so good a Wormtongue as to be almost spooky. It's crazy to hear that guy's real-life American accent, and compare it with his voice in the films. Actors like Elijah Wood and Sean Astin did a pretty good job converting to Brits, but Dourif makes you believe he is one.

[Essex]

Originally Posted by Elladan and Elrohir

Obviously Brad Dourif is so good a Wormtongue as to be almost spooky. It's crazy to hear that guy's real-life American accent, and compare it with his voice in the films. Actors like Elijah Wood and Sean Astin did a pretty good job converting to Brits, but Dourif makes you believe he is one.

I reckon Elijah did a brilliant job with an English accent. Being from Albion itself, I think he did the best job out of all of the cast with their voices, closely followed by Kate Blanchett.

Brad Douriff had it easy by having a stereotypical very posh accent he conveyed. Elijah's wasn't as easy to do as this one, it was more 'well spoken' then 'posh'.

Sean Astin tried (fairly well) to give a west country lilt to Sam, but it kept falling back to mid atlantic every now and then.

other 'slips' with people's accents - Aragorn stating 'Sauron the Deciever' and 'let the lord of the black land come forth' slipped right back to his american accent and the best one of all was Sean Bean going back to his Sheffieled accent on Caradhras - 'Let's take the road back to my Citeh!!!' (instead of City!!!!)