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Lyta_Underhill · 12-19-2003, 10:49 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The Denethor character was really more of a parody than a real person. ("Look! Even the way he EATS is EVIL!") <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I suppose I really expected Denethor to be treated this way. The thing I got out of the smacking, tomato-popping comestible scene was centered on Pippin though. "Its a hard trial for a hobbit, that--to look on hungry while others eat..." <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The most notable problem, I think, is the complete lack of the Palantir. Wasn't the Palantir (or rather Sauron's control of it) the source of his madness, his despair? So, where was it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I do agree that this is an essential missing element that I just "filled in" automatically when I heard all the knowledge that Gandalf had urged Pippin to keep silent about fall from Denethor's lips. He indeed had "far sight" in the movie, but we are never told where he gains this knowledge and what besets him beyond his despair for Boromir. I suppose I am shutting out the consideration of Gandalf's treatment of Denethor (and Pippin at the beginning of the Minas Tirith scenes too!), but I believe this must be an adjustment based on the changes to Denethor. I do agree he is "cartooned up" though! I can only hold out hope for a glimpse of flickering light in Denethor's chamber in the EE, but I do understand how these subtleties are necessarily lost in a movie adaptation. The fact that Denethor's character in the books is with me upon seeing the movies probably fills in what we are not shown and I assume the complexity behind the cartoonish figure presented.Cheers, Lyta[ 11:52 AM December 19, 2003: Message edited by: Lyta_Underhill ]

12-19-2003, 10:49 AM	#24
Lyta_Underhill Haunted Halfling Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: an uncounted length of steps--floating between air molecules Posts: 844	<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The Denethor character was really more of a parody than a real person. ("Look! Even the way he EATS is EVIL!") <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I suppose I really <I>expected</I> Denethor to be treated this way. The thing I got out of the smacking, tomato-popping comestible scene was centered on Pippin though. "Its a hard trial for a hobbit, that--to look on hungry while others eat..." <P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The most notable problem, I think, is the complete lack of the Palantir. Wasn't the Palantir (or rather Sauron's control of it) the source of his madness, his despair? So, where was it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I do agree that this is an essential missing element that I just "filled in" automatically when I heard all the knowledge that Gandalf had urged Pippin to keep silent about fall from Denethor's lips. He indeed had "far sight" in the movie, but we are never told where he gains this knowledge and what besets him beyond his despair for Boromir. <P>I suppose I am shutting out the consideration of Gandalf's treatment of Denethor (and Pippin at the beginning of the Minas Tirith scenes too!), but I believe this must be an adjustment based on the changes to Denethor. I do agree he is "cartooned up" though! I can only hold out hope for a glimpse of flickering light in Denethor's chamber in the EE, but I do understand how these subtleties are necessarily lost in a movie adaptation. The fact that Denethor's character in the books is with me upon seeing the movies probably fills in what we are not shown and I assume the complexity behind the cartoonish figure presented.<P>Cheers,<BR>Lyta<p>[ 11:52 AM December 19, 2003: Message edited by: Lyta_Underhill ] __________________ “…she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the days of her life are utterly forgotten by men that come after, and elanor and niphredil bloom no more east of the Sea.”