scenes and characters to be cut...?

[luinilwen]

it's been rumoured that aragorn receives narsil reforged as anduril in the ROTK movie, and that it is brought to him by arwen. to me it seems likely that due to this they can easily cut out halbarad and arwen's brothers elladan and elrohir (who are already absent along with glorfindel in the FOTR).

i'm not quite sure yet how this will affect the trilogy as a whole, but if you could keep any character or particular scene in the trilogy, what would it be?

i think the character's i would have liked to have seen in FOTR were bombadil and goldberry (along with everyone else). also i think it would have been a hilarious seen watching merry and pippin being swallowed up by willows and sam trying to set the trees on fire!

for some reason in ROTK i want this scene to happen exactly as it's described:

Then tottering, struggling up, with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle, as the great shoulders bowed before her. The sword broke sparkling into many shards.

ideas?

[Gerbil]

Personally, I couldn't give two hoots about Bombadil being out of the film - it doesn't make it a worse film for it.

On the contrary, given the nature of how the whol Bombadil scene goes, I'd wager there's more than a fair chance any attempt to turn it into film would have made a mockery of the whole thing, and definately not tallied with any fans' interpretation while leaving non-fans going 'wha the fu?'

Characters left out? Hmmmm......

Well, seeing as PJ has an aversion to names, I think you are pretty much on the right track.

As to whether it will be detrimental, I doubt it.

As long as Arwen doesn't feature in the battles, I'll be happy.

[luinilwen]

i agree with you that the cut of bombadil wasn't detrimental to the film as a whole, although for my own humour i would have liked to have seen PJ's interpretation of the whole bombadil saga. i think the barrow-wights would give me cold chills

as for arwen, i can see PJ having livvy wielding her own standard (if that's still in the story, which i doubt!) and beheading orcs at the battle of the pelennor fields. it'll detract from eowyn, but heck - it's liv tyler, right hollywood?

[Gerbil]

Ack, meant to say:

Yup, the whole barrow wight scene was VERY important to me.
Not because of the Bombadil pre-cursor, but because of the importance of the weapons they gained there (especially for killing of chief Nazgul type dude). Aragorn giving them swords was EXCEPTIONALLY weak. It's my guess that both Pippin and Merry will get given weapons later on that befit the status and purpose they are put too - bearing in mind they both become guards of Gondor and Rohan respectivelly. It would not be unfair to surmise that part of their gear was weaponry befitting their status, and both regions (partiularly Gondor) have Numenorean background.

AS for Liv Tyler being Hollywood, I reckon we are all worrying needlessly.
PJ has already shown how much he cares about Hollywood.
Filmed it all in NZ, his background is VERY un HW. Gave what, 5 minutes screen time to LT in the first film.

I think he is up to the task precisely BECAUSE he won't pander to HW arseholes.

I fully believe TTT and RotK will be bigger than FotR as people come to appreciate what he can offer that HW simply cannot.
I really believe he's outside of the standard HW ****. Which to my mind, is one DAMN good reason to trust him

[Michael Martinez]

They could have done a good job with Bombadil, who is critical to the story, if they could have had Robin Williams simply for the asking.

That, more than anything else, may have been the real reason why the writing team decided Bombadil was not essential to the story. Who else could play him? Who else would play him?

[Gerbil]

I don't think we should second guess who might have been appropriate.

Without knowing the way PJ would have filmed the scene, there's simply no way of knowing how it would have turned out.

Personally I'm glad the scene was omitted. I can't think of any part of LotR that is more subject to personal interpretation than the whole Bombadil escapade. The potentail for PJ to get it wrong was MASSIVE, and since it was not 'essential' to the plot, I'm glad he left it out.

Would you rather he did a poor job (highly likely all things considered) and left everyone going on about the rubbish part of the film?

He had to make edits. I believe he made the right decision.

This way I get to keep Bombadil as a very personal interpretation, for which I'm glad

[Michael Martinez]

If there were a tongue-in-cheek icon, I would have used it. While I disagree with some of Peter's decisions, I don't actually try to second-guess him.

[Gerbil]

Heh, sorry about the assumption.

But the whole Bombadil thing is a tricky one.
Most people's ideas of heroism, and courage etc are very similar.
But try to get a single way of showing someone bouncing along singing utter rubbish while coming across as being strong and in control? I think not

Bombadil... ACK! Could have gone so wrong! I'm glad I don't have to tell everyone to go see FotR but to 'ignore the bit with the really camp man singing about utter nonsence'

[luinilwen]

i too believe he made the right decision regarding bombadil. i've never seen the bakshi version of LOTR. if anyone here has, did bakshi include the old forest and the barrow downs scenes? did he **** (muddle ) them up?

[Michael Martinez]

You're right. Bombadil could have gone wrong. But out of six attempts to bring LoTR to large media audiences, four have included him. I would have liked to have seen the attempt.

They could have cut the Bombadil material after filming it, if it didn't work. Now, unfortunately, Bombadil is simply one more piece out of many which have been cut from the Middle-earth puzzle by the movie's writing team.

It's a thankless task, to have to edit something so large and grand down to a series of three three-hour movies. There was never any hope of their satisfying everyone. I have long accepted that. I still grouse occasionally, but I'm not an anti-moviest.

On the other hand, people still ask me what I think of the movie, and it's very hard to answer a question like that. I think those of us who are very close to the book through our research have a bit of a struggle to achieve an unbiased opinion of the movie.

[luinilwen]

Bombadil... ACK! Could have gone so wrong! I'm glad I don't have to tell everyone to go see FotR but to 'ignore the bit with the really camp man singing about utter nonsence'

haha sounds like you're describing liberace! eek! too true bombadil could have been disasterous.

[Gerbil]

Agreed, and very good point.
Screenplay writing such a task is a huge thankless task.
You can bet they hear the criticism much louder than the praise.

As for how you personally feel, well, I dunno.
I love the books and consider myself a reasonable authority on them, including the history and language. Not an expert, but still. Certainly I wasn't suprised by the pronounciation of any of the stuff, which I bet most of you fans were

Basically, because I am lucky enough to be able to seperate both Tolkien's works and PJ's intepretations of them, I hold a special place for both of them in my heart. They both rock massively, for different reasons.

It's my one wish, actually, that more 'true' fans could be a bit more forgiving, because the rewards to be reaped from doing so are immense...

[Nibs Cotton]

I agree,he would have been a gamble.But in the book he was great,and maybe cinematically a sand trap.Im not sure if I see Robin Williams,as much as a Bob Hoskins,although Robin is a very interesting concept to think about in the role.Hey maybe Danny Devito?Just as long as Peter Jackson doesn't try to rewrite,LOTR,i'll be content with his very loose,but enjoyable interpretation of the books,and occasionally going back and reading the trilogy.

[Michael Martinez]

Originally posted by Nibs Cotton
I agree,he would have been a gamble.But in the book he was great,and maybe cinematically a sand trap.Im not sure if I see Robin Williams,as much as a Bob Hoskins,although Robin is a very interesting concept to think about in the role.Hey maybe Danny Devito?Just as long as Peter Jackson doesn't try to rewrite,LOTR,i'll be content with his very loose,but enjoyable interpretation of the books,and occasionally going back and reading the trilogy.

I love watching Danny Devito work, but somehow, the vision of him playing Bombadil just cracks me up.

"Listen, Frodo, if you want to get through this thing and stay alive, you're going to have to learn to kick some butt. This sad-and-gentle-hobbit **** ain't going to get you anywhere but stabbed, meatball! Here, take this knife and see if you can keep from poking yourself in the eye. Now, I'm gonna lead you guys to the border of my land 'cause Goldberry is waiting and I ain't been out collecting water-lillies for nothing, if you know what I mean!"

[luinilwen]

i doubt it, but i wish it would happen just like this in ROTK:

So Pippin poured out his tale, reaching up and touching Gandalf's knee with trembling hands. 'Can't you save Faramir?'

i remember just biting my lip when i read that sentence. poor little pippin staring up at gandalf with pleading eyes... *sigh*

[Gerbil]

'reaching up'? Has Pippin suddenly shrunk to about a foot in height? Is he the first of a new breed, the quarter-lings?

I'm re-reading now, because I can't remember explicitly what bits moved me. Of course, chances are in the re-read I'll be affected more by different bits, since what I get from reading it is affected by my current situation.

I just hope that when I read it I don't keep having the film scenes pop into my mind

Speaking of which, it's interesting to note that some of Gandalf's best quotes from the film in Moria (eg 'so do all who live to see such times etc etc') are almost word for word from the book, but they all crop up right at the start when Gandalf is explaining about it all to Frodo at Bag End. I was a bit suprised, I can tell youse.

[luinilwen]

well considering gandalf was in the middle of the battle of the pelannor (sp?) fields, one would hope he was on shadowfax. i think lil pippin would need to reach up to anyone on horseback, especially on shadowfax i really hope they include shadow fax in TT...

[Wayfarer]

Shadow Fax?

That's an amusing mental picture.

[bropous]

Don't you recall, Wayfarer, that most battle plans communicated between Barad-Dur and Minas Morgul were sent by Shadow Fax?