The Hobbit: An Extraneous Journey

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Another aspect of the film that ****ed me off was PJ's treatment of Thranduil, the ElvenKing. Would a Sindarin Elf, a refugee with his father, Oropher, of the dwarven sack of Menegroth and the destruction of Doriath, ever pay homage to a dwarf king? I think not.

Yes, that was very dumb. Dwarves ruling over men is fairly sound from a Tolkien perspective. Dwarves ruling over elves is highly unsound and would never happen from a Tolkien perspective.

And then make Thranduil look like an even bigger jerk by ignoring Thorin's tearful pleas for help as the dwarvish refugees fled from the ruin of Erebor? Thranduil was not so callous in the books, a bit fey perhaps, but not an ***.

Notice the groundwork being laid down for story changes later on down the road. When Thorin goes mad for gold before the Battle of Five Armies (which I think they setup well enough in AUJ) all of a sudden the elves are going to go from being the bad guys that the audience is supposed to resent to the voices of reason, which is just going to be more confusing. If I were to credit Jackson with much thought, I would suspect he is trying to create post-modern feelings of ambiguity. However, for me to think that would be to assume that he hasn't come up with some new way to make the lead up to the climax confusing and I am pretty sure he has done just that.

And why would Thranduil even drag his army so far from his demesne in Mirkwood just to turn around once he reached Erebor? That is no Sunday-afternoon-be-home-by-tea jaunt around the park.

Actually, in Jackson geography it probably *is* a Sunday-afternoon-be-home-by-tea jaunt around the park as the movie clearly illustrated that the Lonely Mountain is at most 50 miles from the Misty Mountains. So the Woodland Realm is probably like 5 miles from Erebor.