[Annatar]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

Who said Gothmog was an Orc? In fact he was explicitly *not* an Orc: "It was no brigand nor Orc-chieftain who commanded...."

That quote refers to the Witch-King. Nowhere in the books is anything other than Gothmog's name stated.

Still, objections on this sort of geek-level are trivial compared to the fact that PJ Just Doesn't Get Tolkien: not his themes, his style, his moral vision, his sense of language, none of it. Just monsters and fights. This is a guy who calls the Eorlingas the "Rohans," after all, and thinks "Rohirrim" applies only to the king's cavalry. (If you want to get truly geekish, then PJ should be taken to task for having Theoden et al refer to their country as "Rohan", which in the book they never do- it is, after all, a Sindarin name coined in Gondor. How could anyone so deaf to language think they were qualified to adapt Tolkien? Misologists, Tolkien would call them. Hiring David Salo to concoct some snatches of pseudo-Elvish (while omitting all of Tolkien's own) doesn't cut it).

The movies aren't just meant for those purists who bow before the Altar of Tolkien. Its meant for the general audience as well. The movies are not the books. Get over it.


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In Annatar's long regurgitation of the excuses and self-justifications PJ and his accomplices offered up on the DVD's, he claims it was 'necessary' to rewrite Faramir (actually to create a new character with the same name) because the real Farmair's was "flat" and had to become an "obstacle" for Frodo- which goes back to the repeated reference by JBW to "story arcs." - If you buy this tripe, I suggest you read Shippey's Road to Middle-earth in its 2004 edition, where good Prof. Tom takes to task these paint-by-numbers approaches to screenwriting.

You've got me stumped here.

Helm's Deep and the relative calendars- Only because PJ was dwetermined to make Helm's Deep the Bam! Zowie! climax of his movie, puffing it up beyond its proper place in the narrative; and, at any rate, Shelob's Lair took place *before* the Pelennor Fields, not simultaneously.

Shelob's Lair takes place too close to Pelennor Fields. If the Voice of Saruman and the chapters after are moved to Return of the King (which was a good idea - with Helm's Deep the movie would have been too long), Shelob's Lair has to go to RoTK. For Helm's Deep, if done as the book it would have been not good. PJ needed action to keep the film going, and as Helm's Deep is so fleeting it would have bored the audience. Its "proper place" in the movie narrative is as the climax.

Would it not perhaps have been a great exercise in 'experimental cinema' (in the hands of a much more innovative director than Jackson) to present the narrative just as Tolkien did, without intercutting Books III & IV, V & VI?

Putting it the way Tolkien did it would simply not have worked in a movie. It would have been boring ("when are we going to get to Frodo and Sam?") and a bit annoying. Intercutting the storylines was the only way to get it done successfully.