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Old 06-17-2017, 08:29 AM   #47
Kuruharan
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: A Remote Dwarven Hold
Posts: 3,685
Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Boots

Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron View Post
However, it isn't the necessary time compression, or editing characters out and giving their dialogue to some other character that raises hackles (and I never even knew I had hackles previous to these movies); it is, rather, the superfluous inclusions, the unnecessary addenda and the cringe-inducing extraneous dialogue that causes consternation.

You can't have it both ways. You can't argue for compression by omitting scenes and characters due to time constraints, but then disembogue a flood of extra crap to fill the void, particularly hokey crap that simply doesn't belong in the story.
This. A million times this!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerwen View Post
To illustrate- take that whole business of the Rohirrim aiding Gondor. There's actually two obstacles: one is that of pure logistics, which would indeed be hard to convey dramatically on film (though they do have a go). The other is the more concrete one that the road turns out to have been taken by the enemy, forcing the Rohirrim into an alliance with the Druedain, to whom they're traditionally hostile. That, I believe, could have worked very well- but it does require a fair bit of set-up, and I can imagine the writing team throwing their hands up and saying, "No time for this, let's just have Theoden be all "*^%^$ off, Denethor" and then have a change of heart at the sight of the beacon. After all, it conveys the same moral".
I don't see the need to put this stuff in at all. If I was adapting it to film I would basically skip the whole process of the Rohirrim getting to Gondor. The only thing I would put in is the Rohirrim receiving the news, a brief scene explaining why Merry rides with Eowyn and that is it. The next we see of them would be the glorious arrival at Minas Tirith.

Why do the logistical problems need to be included at all? They aren't interesting in the context of a film and as we saw in the theater, the attempt to replace this with something more "dramatic" was horrid.

Quote:
I will add to this that Faramir in the book, though memorable, is actually a relatively minor character- his plot function is basically to act as either a guide or catalyst for the major characters- and I feel the film blows his role out of proportion.
A very good point.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark View Post
Another issue I have with the movie and always have. Is they make Frodo weak. Obviously it needs to seem pressing but The flight from Weathertop to Rivendell seems to be a day tops. And Frodo is barely lucid.
Maybe it was just a day. We saw in The Hobbit trilogy that Middle-earth is about the size of a postage stamp...
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