PJ political statements?
 

I don't know if I was the only one who noticed this but PJ changed the Entmoot scene from a go to war decision to a have to have a personal reason for the Ents to go to war. I thought this was a selfish thing for him and his writers to do because they changed a very important scene in the books that wouldn't have made the movie any longer, to something that fit their political views. What's your opinion?

Well, I wouldn't like to speculate because I don't know Jackson's political views. What are they? And are you sure they are relevant?

I did think the Ents' actions were quite strange.

Could just be simple dumbing down? It seems to me that most "popular" films are very wary of assuming any intelligence at all on the part of the viewer. Thus Legolas (who admittedly doesn't get a huge amount of dialogue in the books) becomes "Captain Obvious".

Well, in the Extended Edition dvds he had talked about his anti-war views such as thinking World War 2 was the only war worth fighting for and that LOTR was anti-war. It was anti-war because he made it that way!

I don't think this change was due to any political views.
I guess Jackson just wanted to increase the role of Merry and Pippin, which is noble, especially because the two only served for comedic purposes until then. But at what cost. The changes make Treabeard look exceedingly stupid and the logic of the plot is lying in pieces. It was also about dumbing down, again. The influence that Merry and Pippin have on the Ents in the book seemingly isn't obvious enough.

If I understand aright, the idea is that the Ents believed war to be generally wrong, but that the War of the Ring was worth fighting?

If that is the case then it makes the Ents look pretty dim (not something I disagree with, movie-wise). They apparently do not understand the gravity of the War of the Ring until.....what exactly? Treebeard sees some dead trees?

I don't get it, I don't get it...

Well, like quite a few actors/celebs PJ seems to be a bit of a pacifist but I wouldn't call him anti-war. If I remember right he was simply being careful about promoting war with Sam's "That there's some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for!" statement. He used World War 2 as an example of a war that really had to be fought to compare it to the War of the Ring. I don't think he "thought that World War 2 was the only war worth fighting," it's just the one that there'd probably be the least debate about.

That's pretty much what I understood, and I've got to wonder the same thing - what changed their mind? Seeing some dead trees? Does that mean the Ents (& everyone) shouldn't care about wars unless they're actually involved in it? Like you, Eomer, I'm not quite sure that I get this scene or the reasoning behind it at least.

But I don't agree that PJ was trying to push any of his own views here.