Sam/Sean Astin does all the heavy lifting of making Fellowship AND Two Towers endings seem like real endings, with his loyal self-sacrifices at the end of movie #1, and his speechs about heroism and staying true in the clutch for movie #2. Good stuff.
Sam is a great character no question. But all of the group are all vitally important to the success of quest. We judge Frodo for how he is being corrupted and weakened by the Ring. But this would happen to anyone. Some far faster, some perhaps a little slower. But it absolutely would happen. No Elf, Human, Dwarf, or Hobbit is immune to the corruption of the ring. No one. Sam purpose is looking after Frodo. That’s what drives him. And it’s why I love him. But just to show the difference Sam wouldn’t have taken up the charge to take the ring to Mordor. Now Sam would now if he had to, as he has now seen the necessity of the work. But that was never why he started his journey. Just in the same way that its taken Pippin a while before he really started to understand the situation he was in. He went originally for friendship and did so rather blindly without thought.
Tolkein was fundamentally no great fan of the Industrial Revolution, so director Peter Jackson had Saruman tearing up the green world for the sake of “INDUSTRY” thoughout the war.
You found the director’s cameo in Fellowship of the Ring–eating a carrot in Bree! But you missed the one here, chucking a spear at the battering ram Orcs during Helms Deep at 3:03:38! Let’s see if you find the one in ROTK!
The reason the credits are half-hour is ’cause Jackson promised to list the names of everyone in the LOTR Fan Club they used to hype the movies for five or six years while it was being planned and filmed all at once.
One thing that absolutely drives me nuts about this movie in particular, is why the heck did Aragorn even SUGGEST sending out riders for aid? Nevermind, “who will come” the better question is, “who is close enough to even receive the message before we’re all dead?” Answer: “Fucking NO ONE!” Anyone who even looks at a map of Middle Earth can easily see this. On top of this, it takes TIME to mobilize an army, especially one large enough the help fight of over 10,000 Uruk-Hai, and the battle, as Aragorn himself just said, will begin by nightfall. That’s not enough time to even evacuate Helm’s Deep, nevermind send messengers, who can then rally an army, and then march all the way back. “Send out riders, my Lord! You must call for aid.” is quite simply the single dumbest line in this entire trilogy.
Now, you might say, “but the Elves come!” Sure. They did. That also makes no sense at all, ’cause the movie’s implication is that they set out to come to provide aid AFTER Galadriel asks Elrond in their telepathic conversation, “Do we let them stand alone?” at which point Isengard has already been unleashed. Lorien, where the elves came from, is at least FIVE TIMES as far from Helm’s Deep as Isengard is, the Uruk-hai are already marching, and the Elves haven’t even decided to rally their forces and go to Rohan’s aid yet. How the HECK did they get there in time?!? That’s almost as absurd as Aragorn asking Theoden to send out riders in the first place.
I know that they had to condense things down from the books for the movies, but they did more than just that. They unfortunately also turned every military commander in these movies into a colossal fucking IDIOT that they just plain WEREN’T in the books on at least one occasion for each character, both in this and the third movie. The strategic and tactical aspects of EVERYTHING made SO MUCH MORE SENSE in the books.
I love these movies so very much, they’re my favorite film trilogy of all time. However, nothing is perfect, and every time I watch them the RTS/Grand Strategy gamer in me is comparing the military decisions made in the movies against both the books and just plain common sense, and that part of me is absolutely frothing at the mouth with rage, even as the rest of me is cheering for my favorite movies of all time.
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writing before watching, im really excited since i enjoyed the last one so so much!
Sam is the MVP. Coming in clutch with the best monologue ever.
Sam/Sean Astin does all the heavy lifting of making Fellowship AND Two Towers endings seem like real endings, with his loyal self-sacrifices at the end of movie #1, and his speechs about heroism and staying true in the clutch for movie #2. Good stuff.
Sam is a great character no question. But all of the group are all vitally important to the success of quest. We judge Frodo for how he is being corrupted and weakened by the Ring. But this would happen to anyone. Some far faster, some perhaps a little slower. But it absolutely would happen. No Elf, Human, Dwarf, or Hobbit is immune to the corruption of the ring. No one. Sam purpose is looking after Frodo. That’s what drives him. And it’s why I love him. But just to show the difference Sam wouldn’t have taken up the charge to take the ring to Mordor. Now Sam would now if he had to, as he has now seen the necessity of the work. But that was never why he started his journey. Just in the same way that its taken Pippin a while before he really started to understand the situation he was in. He went originally for friendship and did so rather blindly without thought.
When is part 3 coming?
RIP Bernard Hill, Theoden King ❤️✊
Gollum always used “we/our” in Tolkien — but it was the LOTR movies idea to turn him into an explicit Gollum/Smeagol split personality.
Tolkein was fundamentally no great fan of the Industrial Revolution, so director Peter Jackson had Saruman tearing up the green world for the sake of “INDUSTRY” thoughout the war.
You found the director’s cameo in Fellowship of the Ring–eating a carrot in Bree! But you missed the one here, chucking a spear at the battering ram Orcs during Helms Deep at 3:03:38! Let’s see if you find the one in ROTK!
The reason the credits are half-hour is ’cause Jackson promised to list the names of everyone in the LOTR Fan Club they used to hype the movies for five or six years while it was being planned and filmed all at once.
One thing that absolutely drives me nuts about this movie in particular, is why the heck did Aragorn even SUGGEST sending out riders for aid? Nevermind, “who will come” the better question is, “who is close enough to even receive the message before we’re all dead?” Answer: “Fucking NO ONE!” Anyone who even looks at a map of Middle Earth can easily see this. On top of this, it takes TIME to mobilize an army, especially one large enough the help fight of over 10,000 Uruk-Hai, and the battle, as Aragorn himself just said, will begin by nightfall. That’s not enough time to even evacuate Helm’s Deep, nevermind send messengers, who can then rally an army, and then march all the way back. “Send out riders, my Lord! You must call for aid.” is quite simply the single dumbest line in this entire trilogy.
Now, you might say, “but the Elves come!” Sure. They did. That also makes no sense at all, ’cause the movie’s implication is that they set out to come to provide aid AFTER Galadriel asks Elrond in their telepathic conversation, “Do we let them stand alone?” at which point Isengard has already been unleashed. Lorien, where the elves came from, is at least FIVE TIMES as far from Helm’s Deep as Isengard is, the Uruk-hai are already marching, and the Elves haven’t even decided to rally their forces and go to Rohan’s aid yet. How the HECK did they get there in time?!? That’s almost as absurd as Aragorn asking Theoden to send out riders in the first place.
I know that they had to condense things down from the books for the movies, but they did more than just that. They unfortunately also turned every military commander in these movies into a colossal fucking IDIOT that they just plain WEREN’T in the books on at least one occasion for each character, both in this and the third movie. The strategic and tactical aspects of EVERYTHING made SO MUCH MORE SENSE in the books.
I love these movies so very much, they’re my favorite film trilogy of all time. However, nothing is perfect, and every time I watch them the RTS/Grand Strategy gamer in me is comparing the military decisions made in the movies against both the books and just plain common sense, and that part of me is absolutely frothing at the mouth with rage, even as the rest of me is cheering for my favorite movies of all time.