They were sort of a mixed bag at times, yeah. Though I will admit that I wasn't too bothered by it, as even dwarves should be at least somewhat diverse.
They were cool, but they didn't feel important. It seemed like they were there because they felt they had to have big battle scenes. That problem ties in with the movie not really being about Bilbo's journey anymore: Jackson tried to make an epic feeling film out of a simple kid's adventure story. So he had to up the stakes by adding Thorin's and the Pale Orc's revenge story and Gandalf's pre-emptive strike story. Then he needed to try and recapture the feel of LotR's epic "bigness" by showing us a lot of cool battle scenes and a rather long escape scene in an underground kingdom. Problem was, I just don't get the sense that this is leading up to something proportionally important. That's the inherent b*tch about making a prequel.
It's bit sad in that this movie looked big and epic, but it just didn't feel it.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Yes, Balin made quite a memorable dwarf. I'm also hoping for some more Ori scenes in the next two movies - maybe even some foreshadowing that we'll meet him again in Moria...
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I am excited to see Smaug. It looked like they had decided to err on the side of caution and make him enormous. Though I did notice their entire defense was of Iron Guard, no Dragon Slayers of Ered Mithrin (despite them supposedly being based in Erebor) Vault Wardens, etc.
The rendition of Erebor was intriguing, I had never seen it done like that before. I liked it, however reminiscent of Moria it was. Makes sense though.
References to the past were awesome. Loved those.
Kept complaining about Azog.... Wasn't he canonically dead by now?
Goblin King in Goblintown was awesome. I laughed at, "That'll do it."
Overall, not bad as a film
Horrible as an adaptation of the book.
What the **** are the Iron Guard, Vault Wardens, and Dragon Slayers? Sounds like a bunch of video game nonsense not derived from the books.
And yeah, Azog was killed during the battle before Moria by Dain. His son Bolg does make an appearance in the Battle of Five Armies as the leader of the goblins.
I looked them up, and he seems to think that certain elements from Third Age: Total War--a mod for the Total War series--is canonical. That or he just likes painting miniatures.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
I think it's hard to capture that feeling because you already know that 60 years later, the real big/epic high stakes happens.
I know in the prologue they showed some scenes of Thorin as some worker in some town of Men, but it would have been better if they showed that the Dwarves' residence in the Blue Mountains was nothing compared to the splendor of Erebor. Perhaps emphasized the whole, "Dwarves lost everything/have no home" concept.
Anyway, I think they'll tie everything back together. Maybe they'll somehow connect the Necromancer to Smaug to prove Gandalf's theory that Smaug could be used for terrible effect if he isn't defeated. And maybe they'll remark that because of Battle of the Five Armies, Sauron's forces in the North were crippled, and that any future threat could come from Mordor or Easterlings. Apart from being Bilbo's story and the Dwarves' story to return home, I think they'll find a way to show that the quest was critical in determining how the War of the Ring occurred 60 years later.
I loved the prologue. The presentation of Erebor was amazing. It reminded me of Orzammar from Dragon Age: Origins, which was, incidentally, probably based off Moria.
I was really happy they showed the Battle of Azanulbizar. I don't understand why Azog was kept alive, but they probably want Azog and Thorin to kill each other in epic fashion in the Battle of Five Armies. If only Bolg wanted revenge, Thorin wouldn't be able to kill him since Beorn kills Bolg.
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Is that SERIOUSLY where they originated? Wow.... I feel horrible. I had thought I had seen mention of them somewhere.... In an Unfinished Tales or Appendice. Well, I am shamed. I am going to go reread everything I have read.
Tolkien only very rarely assigns fixed titles to military groups. Most of Middle-earth's militia isn't as cleanly categorized as games tend to have it (and I'm very glad it isn't).
__________________ Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.
...So, what's up with them getting the whole Witch King-thing wrong? Why was Gandalf treating Galadriel with that degree of reverence?
But seriously: The Witch King. Dead? Buried in a tomb? And Saruman...no necromancy, eh?
Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but the additions (including the stupid fight scenes) really bogged it down for me. I'll have to see it again to be sure how it makes me feel...
Yeah that bugged me. Since when was the Witch-King killed and buried?
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
The more I think about it, the less sense their talk about the Witch king makes.
I'm not sure anymore - are they explicitly talking about the Witchking of Angmar, or maybe of the (mortal) king and Ring-owner that later *became* the Witch king?
As far as I know, nobody associated the two with each other for a very long time (like Phoenix2001 suggested). The mortal king just disappeared at some point (literally) (he might as well have been buried before) (not later than Sauron's defeat by the Last Alliance, where the Ringwraiths were officially defeated as well).
Some 1300 years later however, the Witch-king emerged from Mordor, settled in Angmar and annoyed Arnor (without being recognized as Ringwraith or servant of Sauron). He was explicitly not considered slain at the downfall of Angmar in 1975 by Earnur's forces, but moved to Minas Morgul and continued to annoy Earnur from there. Even the Morgul blades appear during this time, when Boromir I. takes "a Morgul wound" from the Witch-king around 2500 (all stated in the appendices). The Witch-king is also definitely recognized as a wraith of some sort - as are the Barrow-wights he sends to Barrow-downs.
So claiming that it is "impossible" that the "buried" Witch-king rose from "the dead" including his "buried sword" is... purest rubbish.
If they did, on the other hand, refer to the "impossibility" of the Ring-wraith, a servant of Sauron, returning (in the shape of the Witch-king) from defeat, that makes much more sense (and foreshadows their discovery of the return of Sauron himself from the same defeat). However, it does not really explain the knife issue, since Morgul blades were certainly known to be around. Except if they identified it not as a Morgul blade, but as a Ring-wraith blade buried after the Last Alliance? However, that would certainly have been buried around Mordor, not in Eriador where I expect Gandalf to go grave-gawking in the second movie.
On the other hand, Gandalf also seems surprised about Dol Guldur being inhabited, after just having met a tortured, captivated dwarf there a little time earlier - maybe he just consumes too many mushrooms as well.
__________________ Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.
If they are unaware as to who the Witch-King "truly" is, then neither; especially the latter. The witch-king's mortal form had already transformed into a Nazgul long before the events of the third age. So, I seriously doubt that are referring to the Witch-king as he was when he was still of Men.
Most of this really depends on how many of these details that PJ plans on actually following, or how many he plans on changing. So far, in the films' own continuity, there's no contradiction here.
Such shily implied vast history changes in the background would *really* bother me (compared to small, but explicit sillinesses like Arwen rescuing Frodo, or dropping Tom Bombadil, or even Elves in Helm's Deep).
And dropping the Witch-king from the Third Age is definitely vast.
Can anyone confirm whether they explicitly mention the Witch-king in the White Council scene (or if that's just what I inferred from seeing the Witch-king in Dol Guldur)?
__________________ Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.
Last edited by Exabyte on Jan 9th, 2013 at 02:24 AM
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Dec 25th, 2012 05:27 AM
