Substituting Crying with laughter

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by sassyfriend

Just a question losing Gandalf was a very sad moment in the movie but Aragorn and Legolas didn't cry but in the book they all broke down and wept so why was that changed? I know Aragorn has to lead them on like Gandalf said for him too but just curious why didn't those two cry?

If only this was the biggest change... *sigh*


I don't think an emotional movie necessarily needs to make you cry all the time. There are powerful feelings out there that a movie/book can make you feel that don't bring any tears (to give a Tolkieneswue example, I find The Sil deeply moving, though not in the direction of tears; it's more like the irony of it is pulling at you). While I absolutey agree with Boro about the general picture of TTT and ROTK in terms of emotion, I have to say that there are certain scenes that fill you with feeling, though not with tears. Just off my head - Frodo at Mount Doom. I think this is one of the scenes that was well done. But the majority of the scenes were rushed through, ruined, etc., without conveing their emotions.

There are scenes that were meant to convey sorrow, awe, hope, pity, indignaty, and so on and so forth, but they did not. Sometimes they were rushed. Sometimes they were overdone (eg: Denethor), or underdone (eg: Houses of Healing), or the actor did not succeed at getting the message across (eg: Frodo 'saving' Gollum at the Forbidden Pool). To explain the last point, in a movie that is concentrated on plot above all else such small things as glances, facial expressions, mime, and all these other subtle things that show you the thoughts and feelings of the character are ignored or not done well, so the whole point is lost. But I might be nitpicking here, having recently watched an old emotional movie with little action and few words.