The Return of the Flashback

[Neferchoirwen]

The fight with the Balrog was, in a word, glorious . However, I find it such of a tease when he recounted what happened to him after. The story of that doesn't help much with the plot of the movies, but it's another side of LotR that mystifies this constant LotR reader, and I can't help but wonder about it.

It's funny to think that Gandalf is probably the frequently flash-backed character in all of the movies, I think. And it says so much about him.

[ArathorofBarahir]

I enjoy the flashbacks, all of them.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

So, it was me, who had too much free time to count the flashbacks. Or at least those in FotR and TTT EE. And the final count is 16 (If I haven't forgotten anything).
Here they are:
FotR:

1. Prologue
2. Bag End: Gandalf talking to Frodo: flashback to Gollum in Barad-Dur
3. Rivendell: fb to Gandalf's escape
4. Rivendell: Elrond talking with Gandalf: fb to Isildur and Mount Doom
5. Anduin: the gift-giving scene

TTT:

1. Gandalf fights the Balrog
2. Rohan: Aragorn tracking the hobbits: flashback to Pippin at the orcs' camp
3. Rohan: Aragorn tracking the hobbits: 3 separate flashbacks -> hobbits meet Treebeard
4. Fangorn: 3 Hunters meet Gandalf: fb to Gandalf fighting the Balrog
5. Going to Helm's Deep: Aragorn's dream flashback to Arwen in Rivendell
6. Going to Helm's Deep: Eowyn talking to Aragorn: fb to Elrond conversing with Aragorn and Aragorn conversing with Arwen ("our time here is ending...")
7. Rivendell: Elrond talking with Arwen: flashforward to Aragorn's death
8. Ithilien: Faramir thinking: Faramir sees Boromir's boat floating by
9. Ithilien: Faramir thinking: the victory of Osgiliath

What do you say about that?

[Gurthang]

For some reason, I can't get 5 and 9 to make 16, but then again, maybe I should stop doing math on my fingers.

But yes, the flashbacks do add a lot to the movies. One of my personal favorites is Gandalf remembering his escape from Isengard. It was excellently done to let the watcher know what happened, but without taking up a lot of time.

Maybe it's just me, but the Smeagol flashback really creeped me out. I think it was the slow heartbeat in the background as Smeagol was murdering Deagol. But it did give more background on Gollum, and let everyone make a clearer decision on if they thought he was truly evil.

But my overall favorite is Gandalf vs. Balrog. That was just cool!

[Lush]

Flashback scenes in movies can be tricky, because if not handled properly they can either seriously disrupt the flow of the storyline, or just appear gratuitous and heavy-handed. For example, the director of an action film attempts to give his main character some depth by using flashback scenes to give us some insight into what makes this guy tick; is it just me, or do pretty much all of those scenes feel melodramatic, overblown, and out of place? Or is this just a commentary on bad directing in general?

Keeping the above in mind, I thought the flashback scenes at the beginning of each movie were done with exceptional grace. We become submerged into the story via these introductions, they provide not only clarity, but set the mood and tempo of a complex story populated by many, many characters.

Per the Aragorn and Arwen flashbacks in TTT, I can't say I enjoyed them all that much. I felt they lacked chemistry, especially when compared to the way A & A were shown interacting in FotR. Furthermore, I felt these flashbacks were guilty of the sins I described above, they broke up my mood by attempting to tug at my heartstrings, but doing it in a rather clumsy way. It was as if the director thought, 'Oh wait, there are too many limbs getting hacked off, we need to insert some FEELINGS into the story,' and did it in a manner than didn't particularly jive with the film's overall mood.

I'm not saying that the A & A flashbacks were unnecessary, but I feel they could have been done better.

Having said that, I thought the flashforward bits, particularly Aragorn's death, were excellent, as a few people have already mentioned.

[Neferchoirwen]

Originally Posted by Lush

For example, the director of an action film attempts to give his main character some depth by using flashback scenes to give us some insight into what makes this guy tick; is it just me, or do pretty much all of those scenes feel melodramatic, overblown, and out of place? Or is this just a commentary on bad directing in general?

More like bad writing.

Originally Posted by Lush

I'm not saying that the A & A flashbacks were unnecessary, but I feel they could have been done better.

It's also a problem of "show, don't tell." Everyone knows that Aragorn and Arwen really DO have a chemistry between them, but the flashbacks failed to enhance the way their "chemistry" happens. Assuming that there is a better way to do them. Assuming of course, that I do not see how the flashbacks can be improved or redone.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

I just remembered this old thread and even though we now have the excellent S-b-S discussion which kind of covers this topic, I decided to add a list of RotK's flashbacks here.

RotK:

1. Smeagol & Deagol fishing
2. Minas Tirith: Gandalf & Pippin talking: flashback to Boromir getting shot
3. Minas Tirith: Gandalf & Pippin talking: flashback to the Weathertop scene in FotR
4. Rohan: Aragorn's dream: flashforward to the Paths of the Dead and breaking of the Evenstar, a vision of Arwen dying
5: Minas Tirith: Aragorn with the palantir: flashback to Arwen dying

In addition to those five, there's also Arwen's vision of Eldarion.

Now that the Fellowship's paths cross again, there are much less flashbacks than in TTT. Besides, there's no time to look back when tension is being built up as we are drawing near to the climax of this 11-hour-long story.

You know, reading this...

Originally Posted by Mark12_30

It's called Osanwe. Arwen was good at it:

...suddenly made me accept the much-debated Arwen-horse-Aragorn-kissing scene. Even though I think it could have been done better (for example, I thought that Galadriel lifting Frodo up in the Cirith Ungol scene was very nice), seeing that there is some kind of basis for that in the books makes me much less irritated about it.