Interesting idea Eomer...I do agree with you on this. I really did not see a reason to change the Ents, possibly the only explanation would be Hollywood. Let's make it dramatic, the Ents say no...so it builds up tension, then they agree to help. And as usual I find a lot of Hollywood dramatization to be rather cheezy and a bit of a bore.
With that being said, and it's clear the Ents are portrayed differently, you can't take out the role Merry and Pippin play in the Ents decision to go to war. Merry and Pippin got this entmoot started and got the Ents "riled." However, that doesn't mean you have to portray the Ents as clueless and dumb. I think you could still effectively show the role Merry and Pippin had in getting the Ents awakened again, and still have the Ents know what the heck is going on around them.
Worst of all with Treebeard not knowing what's going on and having to be tricked into going to war is it created inconsistency in the film. Upon their first meeting Treebeard seems to know what's going on in his forest, going off about Orcs..."They come with fire, they come with axes, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning...etc." But then he's totally clueless about the chopped down trees? Doesn't make any sense.
Sometimes it seems to me Jackson made the movies one scene at a time. Changing and fiddling with what he wanted for that particular scene, for good or bad, but not thinking about possible inconsistancies that he showed prior in the movies.
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Fenris Penguin
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