Arwen vs Glorfindel

[Galin]

Well, in all my posts about the films, I should add that I'm not thinking of Jackson as the director, nor of his writing team, when I propose theoretical variations that could have been.


For example: if Arwen is to be expanded, I think that she could be introduced even earlier in a film (earlier than Jackson introduced her) -- not much earlier, but in a flashback to the first meeting of Aragorn and Arwen, taken from the Appendices.

Then possibly have Legolas meet Aragorn and the hobbits... sure it's not great, but if all directors really must run away from introducing 'a character that essentially vanishes later', like Glorfindel, well in that case I find it superior to using Arwen here, at least.

But again, none of this directed or written by the Jackson team! I don't want Legolas surfing across the Bruinen or anything!

[Peregrina_Took]

Originally Posted by Galin

Then possibly have Legolas meet Aragorn and the hobbits... sure it's not great, but if all directors really must run away from introducing 'a character that essentially vanishes later', like Glorfindel, well in that case I find it superior to using Arwen here, at least.

They had Legolas instead of Glorfindel in the animated Bakshi film (I think I spelled that right). The problem with Legolas is that even in the book, he's a minor character. An important minor character, but a minor character none the less. I guess they thought Arwen had more relevancy.

[Galin]

That's true concerning the animated film, and I wonder if that influenced Jackson's decision a bit (it had already been done).

But Jackson's (or his team's) statement reads...

'... you know, there were really logical reasons to do this. One of the problems with The Lord of the Rings is that there are so many characters and to introduce Glorfindel in this scene and then to have Glorfindel drop out of the story, um, a few minutes later and to have to then introduce Arwen at Rivendell -- it just seemed like it would be introduction upon introduction, and there's so many that we -- we felt we needed to somehow condense characters, uh, reduce them and condense them.'

Legolas doesn't drop out of the story of course, so if he is arguably more minor by comparison to others in the tale, that seems beside the point in any case (this point anyway).

To my mind using Legolas could have solved what is noted here as 'problematic' -- at least according to the filmmakers.