Jump to content

Sukkit

WFG Retired
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1.064

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Sukkit

    What should the time-frame be?

    in General TLA Discussion

    Posted

    I don't think this is a good idea. We could end up with 25,000 years long games.

    We don't need to be so precise as to what amount of time elapses. The day/night cycle (in a random map game, if we include it) is just a sign of time passing, I wouldn't expect anyone to count the days. And the same goes for months, years, etc.

    ARDA DEATHMATCH #2

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    Unconfirmed rumours say Sauron honestly repented, but felt shame to go back to Valinor, and hid. And eventually he turned to Melkor again.

    Rumours, as I say. Personally I think good old Sauron was smart and sneaky enough to fool the Valar :unsure:

    ARDA DEATHMATCH #5

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    I always assumed he was called WitchKing because Arnorians had no clue what he was.

    In the first age balrogs wore armor - helms, etc. They were numerous and more like just another troop of Morgoth's

    I'm pretty sure the number of Balrogs was revised, and reduced to, perhaps, 7 or so. I don't know where I read about this, though.

    FA Player Civs.

    in General TLA Discussion

    Posted

    Well, he had Orcs, Balrogs, the ocassional spider lurking the mountains, wolves, werewolves, vampires (probably not for actual fight; the only vampire we know, I think, was a messenger), and later Easterlings, and even later Dragons, and for the War of Wrath he had Winged Dragons.

    Melkor was my hero.

    Origin of Orcs

    in History of Middle Earth Series

    Posted

    indeed ... but I do not think Eru gave Melkor any such power ... at least there is no such hint in the books ... yet, he may have "created" creatures such as Dwarves (by Aule) or Ents (Yavanna) ... which are not "real" children of Illuvatar ...

    Yavanna didn't create Ents. She talked to Manwë about her concerns on the Children of Ilúvatar freely disposing of trees, and about how she wished they could defend themselves. Manwë then spoke to Eru, and voilá! Eru created Ents.

    Same for Aulë. He created puppets without true life of their own, and only Eru could truly animate them.

    Offical ROTK Review Thread

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    My review:

    Return Of The King is a great movie; this is undeniable. The cinematics, the music, the special effects… all were nigh to perfect (people who have watched it will especially remember the scene of the lighting of the beacons… impressive). However, I think RotK has two major problems: 1) it's so fast paced that whoever hasn't read the books will find it very confusing, and 2) regarding the book, it misses many opportunities for improvement.

    The feeling that this movie rushed too much was something I got immediately, while I was still comfortably sitting in the theatre. The comments of some of my friends, not at all Tolkien nerds like me, corroborated this. For example, the palantíri lose all significance. The Seeing Stones are reduced to "random evil object" that play no role at all in the plot, and thus are superfluous and don't do any good to the story. Aragorn doesn't reveal himself to Sauron so that he recognizes the heir of Isildur, fears he might claim the Ring, and forces him to rush in his attack on Gondor; there's no good explanation to Denethor's actions other than "he's nuts"; no way to know how Saruman got attracted by Sauron, and eventually got dominated by him, despite his delusions of being betraying the Dark Lord. Probably the extended edition will solve this, but we can't always rely on the extended edition, can we? The movie, in its original format, should suffice to explain the vital points of the plot.

    Another example of this is Saruman. His story has no closure. Gandalf says "he has no power", and that's all. Wouldn't it have been better if they went to Orthanc, and Gríma killed Saruman there - because I understand the Scouring of the Shire wouldn't work in the movie? They way they did it could lead LotR-illiterates to believe they're preparing LotR 2 - Saruman's Revenge.

    Also, the journey across Mordor is pretty dull. It doesn't do any justice to the Black Land, indeed. Frodo and Sam have virtually no problem to travel through Sauron's own realm. No need to go through the western mountain slopes, in order to avoid the army camps of the plains. Simply, as soon as Frodo and Sam comment on the impossibility of such a journey, the Captains of the West start their march towards the Black Gates, and magically the 10,000 Orcs that filled the Gorgoroth pack up and leave; all this in a few minutes time.

    This rush feeling is very clear too when Aragorn meets the King of the Dead. Again, "random army that comes out of nowhere to help the good guys". The situation is explained: ancient allies of Gondor that betrayed them, and were condemned to not be able to rest until a legitimate king of Gondor delivered them. But this is only mentioned in a passing way, and of course it won't change the casual spectator's impression. This connects with my second point - the movie ignores many scenes from the book that would greatly improve the movie.

    Evidently, this second point is, in part, a direct result of the rush and the need to put one book and a half into a 3h.20 movie. Speaking of the Army of the Dead, wouldn't it have been better to add a scene at Pelargir, where Aragorn takes the fleet of the pirates of Umbar with the help of the Dead? This way they could gather the reinforcements required for the battle - human reinforcements that would have won the battle through actual, epic and dramatic fighting, not through an opportunistic fake ghost army that came out of nowhere. After all, as Gimli says (in the book): "Pale swords were drawn; but I know not whether their blades would still bite, for the Dead needed no longer any weapon but fear. None would withstand them". It's obvious that in the Pelennor fields this army would have nothing to do.

    The battle would have benefited a lot if the Grey Company had come from the north to meet Aragorn and give him his banner - no need to bring Elrond in an unrealistic journey; come on, an Elven lord, travelling alone without an escort, in times of war! -. If the Grey Company had come, we would have some Dúnedain rangers in the battle, all of them similar to Aragorn when he was Strider, and we would also have Elladan and Elrohír, Elrond's sons. They would have picked up reinforcements and the battle would have been won in a realistic manner. This is fantasy; but some things sound fake even within the fantasy context.

    A feature that was ignored and wouldn't have harmed the movie length, but would have added a lot to the drama of Minas Tirith, would have been the day without dawn, and the darkness Sauron casts upon Gondor. After re-reading the chapters of the siege of Gondor and the battle of the Pelennor fields, I feel the movie doesn't do a good enough job for them. There's too much missing. Everything is reduced to a FX feast.

    The battle, in the book, is very long - a couple of days. It doesn't all happen in a few moments, like the movie seems to suggest. The defenders are worried when the reinforcements from distant Gondorian feuds arrive but they are fewer than expected (Gondor wasn't just Minas Tirith, you know), they laugh at the siege weapons of the enemies, but then despair as darkness fills everything, the fields burn and the Nazgûl scream over their heads. They lose all hope on Rohan arriving in time, and the joy they experience when the horns of the Rohirrim are heard is hard to describe. The army of Sauron doesn't consist merely on Orcs and a few Mûmakil; in fact, most of them are Men - Southrons and Easterlings. This is important because the War of the Ring is the turning point that signs the beginning of the Dominion of Men. It would have benefited the battle scenes by adding more variety (I wonder, if in TTT we see a battalion of Easterlings marching into Mordor, why don't we see any in the Pelennor fields?).

    The army of Sauron starts siege preparations out of bowshot from the walls - they're not as stupid as to stand there, giving the defenders a chance to crush them with their own catapults. The Witch King wasn't too concerned about casualties, that's true - but he was from a practical point of view, and to make his army stand there was just stupid. In the book, they prepare and burn barricades in front of their own siege weapons, while the defenders look, impotent, from their walls. Only when everything is ready the Orcs advance in an overwhelming tide. When the gates fall, Gandalf encounters the Witch King - how cool would this be, and why did they remove it from the movie?

    Only then the Rohirrim arrive. They charge and take the northern half of the Pelennor fields, then Théoden kills a Haradrim chieftain. And then, of course, the Gondorians go out of Minas Tirith to fight along the Rohirrim. And in front of them marches Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth, with the best soldiers of all Gondor. I don't know why they took Imrahil out, he's a central character in the book.

    The Rohirrim don't charge against the Mûmakil - furthermore, they CAN'T, because their horses fear those beasts. The Mûmakil were devastating, but ultimately they were no different from regular elephants, they often went berserk and killed everything around them, including Orcs. And of course, an army of ghosts wouldn't be able to kill them. It was foot archers who killed them.

    So, as you see, following the book would have resulted in a much more interesting battle. I realize the time issues were an important reason why all this was left out, but some things are inexcusable. The battle just isn't recreated well enough. It is over-simplified, and - like everything in this movie - gives an impression of rush.

    This is also the case with the rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol by Sam. The move gives the impression that the Orcs fight for the sake of it, just in time for Sam to rescue Frodo, even if Frodo's mithril-coat is presented as the excuse. The book offers a more complex scene, in which the Orcish complicated personality is exposed. They're loyal to their chieftain and tribe, not just a horde of savage monsters who will kill each other for no reason - well, they're this too, but not exclusively. In the books we get a deeper understanding of their psyche by reading of their fears of Sam, and rumours appointing to his being an Elven lord of Old. All this is possible because Sam uses the Ring. The movie ignores all this, and just sets an easy and fast scene in which Sam is a hero for something else than his loyalty and love to Frodo - he kills three Orcs in singular combat. The movie also leaves out a touching moment, when Sam despairs for not being able to find Frodo, and starts to sing, and when there was no hope left, Frodo sings back, and thus Sam knows where he is. Again, the movie sacrifices this in order to save a few minutes. Again, the rush.

    Offical ROTK Review Thread

    in The Green Dragon

    Posted

    Really? I'll have to read it again, but it looked silly. I mean, who would let the enemy surround his forces even before the actual fight started? Especially considering they all went out from the same spot - the Morannon.

    @Adam, yes, the charge against the Mûmakil was pretty stupid too. I mean, "Hey, let's charge in a perfect line so they can crush us without effort!", and only later they think that shooting arrows might be a good idea... :)

    When Gandalf & Co. went forward towards the Gates I thought "Great! Here comes MoS!". I was very disappointed when they went back...

×
×
  • Create New...