Tolkien Thread (The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, etc.)

I could not disagree more. The hobbit movies were an absolute abomination. One word - Legolas.

The original LOTR movies were just as bad, if not worse, and their crimes against the books escalated with each successive film.

Alatar and Pallando.

Supposedly they went to the east and may or may not have worked to stoke resistance to Sauron’s influence in those lands. However, I believe Tolkien stated that they never returned to the west as Gandalf did.

Correct.  Tolkien never really fleshed out what they were doing, but said that whatever their mission was, they likely failed at it.

I believe he also hinted that Saruman may have killed them as well.

Another bit that annoyed me was agent Smith turning up with anduril, you know one of the most important symbols of Aragorn's return as the rightful king, the thing he had worked and strived for years for, because he forgot it.

God I hated that they turned him into a wet lettuce.

Orome

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what the proper pronunciation of Fëanor would be? Fay-ah-nor, Fee-ah-nor, Fay-nor, etc...

Artemis: I'm not a big fan of The Hobbit movies, but I agree that Lee Pace and Armitage both did a good job. Oh, and Billy Boyd did a lovely job with creating a song for the final film:

Even though I felt the hobbit movies were largely over bloated that's a lovely song.

I've always pronounced Fëanor as fay-ah-nor as I believe the dieresis indicates that the two vowels are separate and are not run together like in your last example. I don't have my book with me at the moment so I can't look up the pronunciation explanations and I'm sure there is someone much more knowledgeable than me to answer your question, especially since I've always struggled with all the elven names anyway. However, I do have the audio book which I bought to help with my pronunciations (don't judge me please) and for whatever it's worth it pronounces it like fay-ah-nor.

EDIT: I didn't see the post above mine oh well.

Alright, let's do this.

Why couldn't they just fly to Mordor? Eagles solve everything, forever.


Nah, but I'm more a movie guy than the books. Read the Lord of the Rings in High School (so forever ago), amazed I got past the thesis on Hobbits with eyes unclawed. Never read the Hobbit or other works. Actually rewatched the movies (Hobbit, then Lord of the Rings), just this past week, still have Return of the King to go. And I must say (and I can't stress this part enough) based on the theatrical release of the movies, despite the flak the newer trilogy gets (and I agree it didn't need to be a trilogy or have so much fluff) I actually prefer several elements of the Hobbit, as opposed to their LOTR counterparts:

The Hobbit(s): No reflection on the actor's performances on either side but I prefer Martin Freeman's Bilbo to Frodo and the gang. Hobbits have one Hat, namely, "look how quaint and simple they are, which is just what we need in the face of all this light vs dark doom and gloom. The elves are fading, the dwarves are greedy, men are corrupted and everyone's either useless (for reasons) or an asshole, but the simple Hobbit will save the day". That and they're obviously who we're meant to identify with. Bilbo in the Hobbit achieves this mix of audience surrogate, protagonist, and light hearted whimsy perfectly and efficiently. In LOTR, 4 Hobbits is just overkill. Frodo is pretty much a plot device, Sam is more or less the designated role, Merry and Pippin are completely superfluous. Something to chase and then to beat us over the head that "we have to grow up and join the fight" and "war is bad" respectively. On the flip side, Biblo's arc is much more neat and clean and he does precisely what he needs to. The acorn scene between him and Thorin is the most poignant and quintessential "Hobbitness" on display in the entire flippin saga (unless there's some deleted scene or crazy cut I'm not aware of that has a better example).

The Aragorn vs Not-Aragorn: people have mentioned Aragorn's character was ruined in the films. I'll take your word for it. Compared to Thorin, I don't believe the former has a character. The Chosen One archetype is of course strong with both. But other than that, Aragorn is just sort of... there. The only other notable thing about him is how totally "in" he is with the elves, breaking out in Elfish (yes, yes, go on and flay me for not knowing the specific dialect. I don't care that much) at random times just so we get he's special. Again, nothing against the performance, Viggo Mortensen does a fine job with what he's given. But as a character, Thorin has him beat hands down. Thorin's character isn't that to figure out either, he's just an asshole. But there is plenty more to talk about him. Is he just out for treasure like everyone else? Is he just trying to reclaim his home? Bit of both probably, but what are the ratios?

The Elves: Of course we get some repeats. Elrond being wise and Galadriel going film negative (though it is nice to have elves that actually do something). But otherwise, yeah Thranduil steals the show on the Elven front. I just watched a thing about Thranduil where the filmmakers describe him as an anti-Elrond. And if Elrond had been allowed to go a bit more V for Vendetta or even Agent Smith, he might've offered more competition for sheer presence, but as it stands, there's no real contest. Thranduil has an irresistible mix of regal, ethereal but also dangerous that other elves kind of lack. And he backs his shit up no problem. He reminds me a bit of Viktor from Underworld, though obviously not as evil and twisted. I wish they had developed more of a relationship between him and Tauriel as a surrogate father/mentor that turns out to be more distant and cold than at first realized. But Legolas really does ruin things by being there. And talk about superfluous when you already have Luke Evans. Also, speaking of Tauriel, I don't begrudge her being a movie only character and actually prefer her to Arwen because she actually does more. But again, she's rendered superfluous by Legolas. If she had filled the OT Legolas role by herself I'd have been fine with it. And the love story I have no opinion on, apart from the triangle indeed being dumb.

The villain: Yeah... Smaug. All the Smaug. All the time. The actual "Lord of the Rings" can take a flaming eye dive off the crack of Mount Doom. While I'm usually all about the greater scope villain and wouldn't normally care about a localized thread when there's a world-ender waiting in the wings, there's just no contest. Smaug really is the most amazing dragon I've ever seen and everything else I've seen in Middle-Earth now seems poorer by his absence. Nazgul? Who cares. Balrog? One scene wonder (though I have to admit a personality would've gone a long way towards keeping ol' Shadow and Flame in the running). Army of ghosts? Ok, the army of ghosts is still awesome, though it's forever tainted by the absolute stupidest decision in the films, which was to release them before Sauron was defeated. I'll give you the eagles not being our bitch/ being afraid of being shot down (as I pretend not to notice you hiding the Battle of Five Armies), but telling the invincible army of murder ghosts sworn to your service "ok you're good to take the rest of eternity off" while the hordes of Mordor are breathing down your neck? No, I am not down with that.

But yeah, Smaug. Smaug was magnificent. Smaug was threatening. Smaug was there. Besides the excellent design and performance there are two things that go into my appreciation of Smaug. One the idea of dragons as super-intelligent sentient beings who can fuck with you, in addition to all the other ways they're better than you (and can kill you). I've never been much for dragons in the past, and while I did encounter intelligent dragons in Skyrim, I was still mostly meh on them. Giant flying lizards, woohoo. But Smaug made me a believer, and I want more. The second thing is, he is a magical being that actually does something magical. I once read that Tolkien hated Shakespeare because when the latter wrote "the trees moved" in Macbeth (I believe) but then revealed them to be dudes holding logs and branches, Tolkien went "that's bullshit, trees should move if it's supernatural". And thus we got Ents. I have a similar misgiving about the Tolkienverse- If there's magic shit like wizards and elves and dragons and demons then I want to see some awesome magical shit go down! Yes, yes, the wizards are playing by teh rules and magic is dying, yadda yadda, I know the explanation. Doesn't mean I still don't want to see magical shit hit the fan. So among the other great things he is, Smaug is a (regrettably) rare case where that does happen. By contrast, for all his power and legendary accomplishments Sauron... does nothing. He goes down like a bitch in teh prologue and then spends the rest of the story as a disembodied eye growling at people in jump cuts. I mean I get the symbolic meaning, the themes, and I'm down with all that, I really am. But I think it would've been more effective if instead of growling cuts to a flaming eye or "voice of the ring whispers unintelligible nonsense" while Elijah Wood rolls his eyes to the back of his head we had Sauron actually speak to people and tempt them to do evil like the Satan analogue he is, that might've been something. As it is, I'll take the Magnificent Bastard dragon (who to be fair, also goes down like a bitch) over the flaming eye (though the eye is unique). When Smaug died all I could think was "what a waste", and also "there's still an entire movie to go?" When Sauron died all I thought of was "fucking Eagles, man."

"With a great effort Frodo sat upright and brandished his sword.

‘Go back!’ he cried. ‘Go back to the Land of Mordor, and follow me no more!’ His voice sounded thin and shrill in his own ears. The Riders halted, but Frodo had not the power of Bombadil. His enemies laughed at him with a harsh and chilling laughter. ‘Come back! Come back!’ they called. ‘To Mordor we will take you!’ ‘Go back!’ he whispered.

‘The Ring! The Ring!’ they cried with deadly voices; and immediately their leader urged his horse forward into the water, followed closely by two others.

‘By Elbereth and Lúthien the Fair,’ said Frodo with a last, effort, lifting up his sword, ‘you shall have neither the Ring nor me!’"

One of Frodo's bravest moment in the series, and they gave it to Arwen.



In the book Sam is the only Ring-bearer to carry and use the One Ring and not seriously tempted to keep it. He's the real hero of the story.



One reason I wished tehy had kept the Scouring of the SHire in the movies. It demonstrated how much all four hobbits had grown, and Merry and Pippen in particular

www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2000/04/21

When Gimli described what happened to Merry, he said the spirits drew weapons, but he wasn't sure if they could actually hurt the living with them.  The terror was the only weapon they needed.

In fact, it was TOO good.  Their affect terrified both sides of the fight.

But yeah, they'd have to explain that the army Aragorn brought to Minas Tirith was actually the forces of Pelegir and Dol Amroth that were under siege from Umbar.