*** Official THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING Discussion Thread (2 Viewers)

[Gary->dee]

Can someone tell me why the Palantir was just sitting there under the mirky water near Isengard when supposedly Saruman had it? That seemed a bit too clean cut for me: oh look there's the palantir and Saruman isn't around. How did that thing get from way up on in the tower to down there below the water outside theh tower? Does the book shed light on this or am I just being anal?

I touched on this in the review threat, but I really didn't like the way Faromir was treated. Not by Denothor but by PJ and the editors leaving him out until the end. I hope the extended edition has more scenes with him. He just seemed to disappear like Scott/Cyclops in X2. There one minute, gone the next.

They perfected the Gollum effects, mainly by not making him continuily move around so damn much. That's one thing CG artists/animators don't always understand: a living creature doesn't constantly move. Sometimes they try to add too much life to their creations thus turning them into blatant CG creatures. The WETA folks got him right.

Saruman, Saruman where art thou, Saruman? I've read about the footage of him being brought back for the extended edition but either way I thought it was somewhat foolish not include him at all in the theatrical version.

What a about that old pic I saw of Saruman impaled on a spiked wheel? Does that have anything to do with anything or was that for shits and giggles?

 

[Haggai]

Ah, now I see what you mean. Somewhat cluelessly, I didn't even think about where they got the ships from, and obviously it was from intercepting the re-inforcements and kicking their butts. I bought the whole thing anyway, but your critique makes a lot of sense, and hopefully at least some of it will be in the EE.

 

[John Doran]

in the book the army of the dead is victorious against the fleet of umbar, after which aragorn releases them from their oath.

aragorn gets to the pelennor fields with shiploads of men from lebennin and the other coastal towns.

i can't imagine how powerful it would have been to see aragorn and eomer meet in the middle of the field of battle, plant their swords in the ground and have their exchange before rejoining the battle together, for gondor and rohan.

i would have been jumping up and down in the theater, yelling.

so....maybe it's for the best that jackson cut that part out....

 

[MatthewLouwrens]

In the book, Wormtongue is throwing stuff at Gandalf etc, and happens to throw the palantir out. Presumably it will be explained better in the EE how it gets out of the tower in the movie version.

 

[Gary->dee]

Thank you, Matt! That definitely explains it.

 

[Andrew Bunk]

Can someone please remind me what "grond" is? I'm sure it's someone/something I don't know by name...

EDIT-nevermind, found my answer...the battering ram. That was very cool indeed.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Here's a newletter email I just got from Box Office Mojo :

 

[Quentin]

I don't think that was blackened blood on Anduril...I think it is where the shards were forged back together?

 

[Phil Florian]

A few things that I haven't seen touched on in this rapidly spreading thread plus some responses.

1) I liked seeing Frodo's neck. It had red welts and scarring, some kind of physical response to wearing the ring for so long. Nice touch.

2) Racial issues. I am so glad that they didn't worry about it but now, oddly, I am reading and hearing commentary about the fact that it was blue eyed boys of the West killing swarthy, dark, turbaned men from the East. This was in the book (the Easterlings, right?) but still timely and with interesting parallels.

3) Regarding the Scouring, I agree that it was an important part of the book but it had no place in the movie. Even with the EE, it would be out of place without a lot more setting it up, namely a wandering Saruman. It would actually be a nice little hour and a half sequel to do someday but it would have hung on the end of the movie like an albatross.

4) Denethor being nuts. Other than the somewhat stupid teen behind us that kept going on about "stop drop and roll" the folks I saw the movie with who hadn't read the book had their own reason for Denethor going mad. Sure, in the book it is partially the palantir, but what he is responding to is the dread of the future. We still have that (he does nothing to stop the war and sends his boy on what he knows is a suicide mission) and also have the added pain of his son's death. I agree that he wasn't a completely fleshed out character (TTT EE helped) but it worked and was a creepy side story that forced Gandalf into a role he clearly didn't want to play.

Speaking of Gandalf and his apparent lack of too much magical ass kicking. They alluded to this a bit in the movie. People have posted on here being disappointed in his scene where he chases the Nazgul away with the light. Right from the book, first of all, but I think it shows a bit more about Gandalf. Then we also get Pippin's "we have the white wizard...that has to count for something" and Gandalf gives a queer look, maybe of concern that his skills have been overestimated. Maybe he loses power just like Saruman did? I can't remember the books if they address this at all but other than laying some serious smack down with his staff and sword (being nearly immortal himself, that makes sense) he really doesn't throw much around in the way of magic. I am curious about this. Does it have anything to do with the ring he bears? He could use it against foes like Saruman (a fellow wizard) and the Balrog (a fellow whatchamacallit...Naia?) but he can't use it against the guy who gave him the ring in the first place? I thought it was kind of neat.



Phil

 

[Brian W.]

So let's talk about some things that were in the previews that were NOT in the theatrical film. The most surprising is Gandalf and Pippin's confrontation with the fell beast. I mean, that was the impressive ending to the 10-minute preview on the DVD, and it's just gone!

From The One Ring, supplemented with my own recollections, things Jackson has confirmed were shot, and still photos from unused scenes:

-Aragorn walking up to an empty throne in Minas Tirith. That must be Anduril in his hand.

-Aragorn saying to Gandalf "He has gone unchallenged long enough."

-Merry kneeling before Theoden as Edoras. (That was in the initial trailer for the whole trilogy also.)

-Merry taking Pippin's hand and saying "We shall see the Shire again."

-Gandalf and Pippin on Shadowfax riding out to meet the fell beast in Minas Tirith.

-Eomer sobbing over an injured Eowyn.

-The confrontation with Saruman at Orthanc.

-The whole Aragorn/Arwen death scene, with Arwen's oft-quoted line in Elvish, "Would you leave your people so soon?"

-The Houses of Healing.

-Frodo and Sam ending up in the Orc army.

-The Crossroads.

-The Gimli/Legolas drinking game.

That's at least eleven whole scenes (I suspect "He has gone unchallenged long enough" is merely an extension of the "What does your heart tell you?" scene)

So what else? There must be something else that we know for a fact was shot.

 

[Richard Kim]

It seems to me that Jackson and co deemphasized this aspect of the book. We do see the Haradrim (or Southrons) in ROTK, but only because Jackson wanted to have the Mumakil attack in the Pellanor Fields. I was surprised that there were no Easterlings in ROTK, since we see them at the Black Gates in TTT. So for the most part our heroes are fighting orcs, not swarthy men.

 

[Daniel DeLawter]

Cirdan, elf-lord of the Grey Havens, actually gave Gandalf the ring, not Sauron.
Gandalf (and the other four wizards) were sent east to contest Sauron in Middle-earth by uniting the free peoples against him, but they were prohibited from matching power against power.

 

[Daniel DeLawter]

I've seen several people refer to this, and I just don't get the confusion.

I took it this way:
Because she chose to be mortal, her fate was tied in with all of Middle-Earth's. She would indeed die, if Sauron had won, because she could no longer sail to the West.

 

[Craig S]

I was thinking the same thing. Even when we do see men (marching to the Black Gates in TTT, for example), they are often almost completely covered, even the face - I felt the Jackson was deliberately trying to obscure any racial characteristics as much as possible.

 

[Gary->dee]

This has confused me as well but I've accepted the fact that Gandalf can't throw bolts of lightning from his hands or the like and that he has his limited powers that mostly reside in his staff? But I also got the impression when Pippin made that comment about the White Wizard being with them to Gandalf that Gandalf was like, "ok kid I ain't all that". Gandalf made for a more "realistic" wizard, so to speak. Not exaggerated or over done. But I could be in the dark about his true range of powers because I haven't read the books.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Anyone have a link to that trailer? All I could find from back then was the original FOTR trailer.

Thanks.

 

[Brian W.]

Anyone else love Gandalf's speech about "death is not the end"? I wouldn't have liked it so much if it hadn't been that Gandalf has BEEN dead... and that gave it a whole different dimension, as you knew he was speaking from personal experience, not conjecture.

 

[Gary->dee]

Btw, seeing the thread about end credits reminded me of how great I think the end credits to ROTK are. I love the fact that they featured the main characters in illustrated form along with the illustrated backdrops behind the credits. I swear I was just thinking to myself the other day why more movies don't use that particular style of end credits in which they show the main characters, the same way Dune ended, and lo-and-behold ROTK ends like that. Very nice, classy and fitting way to end the trilogy.

 

[ZacharyTait]

Scott,

I found this link over at movie-list.com

http://www.apple.com/trailers/newlin.../lotr_320.html

Here's where all the LOTR trailers are at movie-list.com:

http://www.movie-list.com/trailers.p...heringstrilogy

Hope this helps.

 

[nolesrule]

To give a little more background on the palantiri (plural), they were originally used to watch over the island kingdom Numenor. The line of kings of men actually began with Numenor, which suffered an Atlantis-like fate and sunk into the sea. Elendil, expecting the disaster gather all 7 of the palantiri and took them to Middle Earth and with the survivors of the destruction of Numenor established the Numenorian kingdoms in exile, Gondor and Arnor. The palantiri were used not only to oversee the kingdoms, but to allow for communication between them.

Elendil distributed the 7 palantiri as follows:

In the Kingdom of Arnor

Amon Sul (Weathertop)
Emyn Beraid (Tower Hills, along the West Road between the Grey Havens and the Shire)
Annuminas (capitol of Arnor)

In the Kingdom of Gondor

Minas Ithil (Minas Morgul)
Minas Anor (Minas Tirith)
Orthanc (at Isengard)
Osgiliath

In the time of the Lord of the Rings, the palantir that Saruman used was the one placed in Orthanc, where he lived. Sauron had in his possession the palantir of Minas Ithil, which was captured along with the city (which became known as Minas Morgul after that). The Minas Anor palantir remained in the city, and is the one that Denethor uses in the book.

The palantiri of Osgiliath, Amon Sul and Annuminas were lost over time. I do not recall what happened to the one in Emyn Beraid, but it could only look westward to the Undying Lands and was not useful for communication.