September 5, 2003

Eagles, Balrogs and Mount Doom
Elfowitz

In Fellowship of the Ring in the Mines of Moria, Gandalf says to Aragorn, "Swords are no more use here." It's quite funny to see the beginning of The Two Towers with Gandalf beating the xxxx (lava, whatever) out of the Balrog with, yes you guessed it - a Sword.

Second point and I am not entirely convinced by PJ's explanation of this. Why is it that Gandalf didn't simply get one of the eagles, Gwaihir or whoever to fly Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom and drop the Ring in? PJ says that eagles are a separate race and can't be used at the whim of Gandalf or others like a taxi service. OK, fair enough but suddenly right at the end of the book, the eagles are everywhere including picking Frodo up from Mount Doom. Never an eagle to be seen and then three show up at once. I know, I know, there would have been no story but it would be good to have a really good explanation of why the eagles were only able to offer Frodo a return trip from Mount Doom. Were the eagle air traffic controllers on strike? Answers please!

Someone mentioned that in Tolkien's original writing, Sam pushed Gollum into the crack of Oroduin at the end. That would be a fantastic ending, I am so suprised that Tolkien changed this brilliant dénouement in favour or Gollum just falling in. For me it would be a brilliant end to the film if Sam pushes Gollum in. I think everyone would cheer and compared to some of the big changes made elsewhere in the film trilogy, I don't think this one would be a significant one.

Someone on here was wondering whether they had spelt a word properly. I have just one thing to say - DICTIONARY!!! They are quite cheap to buy, have lots of words in them (spelt correctly) and best of all, the words are in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. I do recommend the purchase of one.