I agree with Kalimac. The Elves shouldn't have been there in the first place, so they got all wiped out to demonstrate that you can't mess with Tolkiens plan

Hehehe, nicely put, Balin.<BR>About your siggy...is it the German for 'all that is gold does not glitter' or something?

No, Elentári, it's complete nonsense in English. The pun is lost if you translate it.<BR>It says something like "Nothing is more yellow than yellow". But it's not funny in English.

Been watching the battle of Helm's Deep the last few nights - can't seem to get another DVD into the machine ;). Found this thread, and hopefully this post is germane.

Anyway, started thinking about the elves that were there at Helm's Deep. Of course I love the moment when Aragorn hugs Haldir; though I know that there aren't supposed to be elves at the battle, it's still a good scene. When the battle is about to ensue, we see elves on the wall and also elves on the back hillside. Each elf is armed with a bow and sword. Assume that each elf is one quarter as lethal as Prince Legolas, meaning that for every four orcs that Legolas kills, the Haldirian elf kills one.

So how many elves came with Haldir?

We hear that there are approximately 10,000 Uruks involved in the attack. I think that there are 300 human soldiers at Helm's deep, and so their involvement is negligible. Anyway, so if we assume that each Haldirian elf caps off eight arrows before (stupidly) switching to his sword, and with the kill rate above, that would mean two kills per elf. If there were 100 elves, then 200 dead Uruks. 500 elves = 1000 dead Uruks.

...and so on.

If one plays with the numbers a bit, assuming that the elves have a higher kill rate, that there are more or less elves, etc, there still seems to be something amiss. Even with the lower values that I first present, there just doesn't seem to be enough dead Uruks around. Do the math.

Did PJ just botch that detail, or did he want to make the assault still seem overwhelming for the defenders despite the presence/assistance of the elves? My guess is the second.

It just seems to me that if I were Haldir or Aragorn (whomever was in command of the elves) I would have loosed every last arrow and pointy stick that I had into the Uruks. With 100 elves of the caliber of Legolas, there could be upwards of 4000 dead Uruks. Causalties like that would make the enemy at least rethink the assault, or at least enable them to stack their dead into seige towers ;).

And while I'm back on the "PJ goofed" wagon, just think that the scene where an elf is shot then falls from the wall into the besiegers is silly. The only way for this to occur is for the elf to be standing on the top of the wall leaning over the orcs - and maybe even balancing on one leg.

alatar your points are all good and to be honest I never saw how PJ could consider Elf involvement as it would surely put the battle in the Rohirrim's favour. The only thing I can think of to explain the severe lack of dead orc bodies is that most of them were outside the walls, a place that was not watched by camera after the orcs broke in. It is quite possible that all those orcs killed by Elf arrows were there but because the camera wasn't on this area we didn't see them.

However I have no way of rationalising the switch from arrows to swords, to me it just seems plain stupid.

Agreed. Think that PJ was in bit of a bind - one part of him wanted more, more, MORE! elves so that the walls and the background looked manned (elved?), yet on the other hand this many elves would have decimated the Uruks, and so he made them ineffectual as he had to get rid of all of them and continually make the battle look desperate.


Will have to watch it yet again, but don't think so. The initial volley shows some Uruks falling, but after that the slain Uruks seems to disappear - did some 'video game' code sneak into Massive, making the fallen fade away? Would have liked seeing the Uruks dealing with their own slain brethren, which could have been used to show again the contrast between the Free Folk and the Enemy.


Much agreed. You're an elf, you got a bow, your arrows are lethal, you're sitting on the high ground as an enemy approaches through a somewhat narrow opening below and so you (a) switch to your sword and rush pell-mell down the slope onto the waiting spears of the enemy or (b) loose every arrow you've got into the approaching enemy, encumbering them as they try to enter amongst their slain.

Choosing (a) may mean that you have a career awaiting you as a screen-writer ;).

Thanks Kath.

We might be given the elves a bit too much credit. One could also say that if all men there were even a quarter as lethal as Aragorn then the battle would have been different. Well that would be true but all men, and elves, are different in their abilities.

If memory serves me, most of the elf archers were removed a bit from the wall when they were firing their volleys of arrows into the uruks. This is of course due to the finite wall space and the fact that you need some non-archer units repelling the ladders and grappling hooks. So we have archers in the back who are more or less randomly shooting into armored uruks. That would greatly diminish their effectiveness.

In regard to the elves even being there I think it was well done in the movie. It was at a point when men's case was hopeless and there seemed no way out. After you feel their despair, we see a small band of fair elves arrive and everybody's spirit improves. I felt like Aragorn did at the time. Complete despair to sudden gladness and a new found hope. I loved that part in the movie and found it very emotional and vitalizing.

Well, considering the amount of time spent between HD scenes in the films, the Elves would have to be knocking down virtually every Uruk who came at them to avoid simply being swept away by sheer force of numbers.

What annoys me is that in many of the background shots, you can see fairly clearly that the Uruks can't match the speed and skill of the Elves with their weapons, and yet all the director ever chooses to focus on is Legolas wiping out a few more or the Uruk-Hai playing "Hulk-Smash".