June 17, 2003

Response to Niphredil
G

Niphredil, you were spot on with the whole Bree geography thing, that was exactly what I was talking about. I don't think you will find any more changes to the map because nowhere else so far has such a big chunk of the story been skipped.

I too have heard the writers saying that they were disappointed not to be able to include the Old Forest and that the purists in them believed that just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen (I think it was on the writers' commentry to Fellowship) but with the map change to me this loses credibility. This may sound silly, but of all the changes that've been made too the book I think that this one disappoints me the most.

I would also like to say that of all the extra bits added to The Two Towers, my favourite had to be the Warg attack. Here we got to see a fair bit of inventive new action, different enough from the previous battle scenes to keep me interested (and battle scenes really can bore me to death sometimes) and without it Legolas and Gimli would have been criminally underused over the film. I just wish it had been in its proper place, just before Moria, so that Gandalf could've bee involved. The subsequent 'death' and rescue by Brego of Aragorn was drivel though, surely the screentime would've been better used giving u a Shelob cliffhanger; I can't for the life of me understand why this didn't happen. Does anyone have any idea how the remaining quarter (approximately) of The Two Towers plus the whole of RotK are going to squeeze into a three hour movie? Even without The Scouring of the Shire it'll be difficut, think about the battles. Helm's Deep was devoted 40 minutes so by rights Pelennor Fields and the Black Gate should have about an hour each. Something's going to be pretty badly cut but I daren't tink what.

G.