February 27, 2003

Technical Comments on TTT
Eric K.

A lot of well-written comments about the deviations of the movies from the books (for what it's worth, I think the 2 best deviations in the series so far were the addition of the Elves at Helm's Deep, and the nature of Gandalf's escape from Sarumon in the first movie. I think the 2 worst deviations were bringing Frodo to Gondor and showing the ring to the Nazgul -- why would all 9 Nazgul not have been on him in minutes after that -- and the omission of most of Galadriel's gifts in the first movie, particularly the elven cloaks. Both movies give the elven cloaks very short shift, and I can't understand why, as they could have been done very slicky on the screen. Notice that they were hardly seen during Merry and Pippen's escape from the orcs. Only at the Mordor Black Gate do the elven cloaks really see any action, and that sequence was completely made up!)

But instead of focusing on the deviations from the books, I wanted to point out some technical aspects of TTT that struck me as weird. Specifically:

When Gandalf and Eomer charge their horses into the orcs at the end of the Helm's Deep battle, we are shown row after row of orcs with their pikes extended into the air. (not just the first row, but also the rows behind) Remember that there were many more orcs with pikes than there were horses. Wouldn't a group of horses charging into that have gotten impaled? In the movie, they ride the horses right through without a problem. I wouldn't have had a problem with this, except that PJ explicitly goes out of his way to emphasize the pikes extended into the air, and then he shows the cavalry going through them like a knife going through butter. It didn't feel right. (he should have shown the orcs with sword, or axes, or some other weapon that would have been much more difficult to use in that situation against charging horses)

Maybe it was just me, but somehow the Nazgul seemed much less menancing in the second movie than they were in the first. I can't say why -- they were depicted in the movie exactly as described in the book, on black flying beasts, but they didn't strike fear into my heart in TTT like in FOTR. Maybe it was less of the terrifying screams, maybe it was that they were generally shown in the daytime, and not at night, but they did not scare me in TTT.

Did the Eye of Sauron look different in the second movie than in the first? In the first it looked more apocalyptic, with fires extending into seeming eternity. In the second, it almost looked more like radioactive rays extending between 2 electric towers. This is a really minor criticism, much less severe than the first 2, but it just struck me as odd.