September 13, 2003

Sauron at the Black Gate and Aragorn of RotK
Bob Praz

In reply to Frodo: from what I've heard from PJ, Sauron will NOT appear in physical form at the Black Gate. Don't believe me? Here's a direct quote from the LOTR magazine, which interviewed PJ:
"People should wait and see the film and see how we deal with Sauron, but at the end of the day, we are not doing anything too dissimilar to the book. I feel that Sauron has to really remain true to the way he is used in the book, and he is really only ever a metaphysical presence of evil - he is not in physical form by the time the events of the third age take place. We are really going to stick with what is in the book."
So there you have it, unless PJ is lying, Sauron is not going to duel with Aragorn at the Black Gate (at least not in hand-to-hand combat). A few interesting questions, however, is how PJ is going to treat these two characters in the third movie. I mean, PJ and others have hinted that Sauron may be a little different (in fact, there's already a difference between how we saw Sauron in FOTR and how he was seen in TTT), so what does that mean? Will he somehow be more present in the movie? How will PJ treat the sequence of Aragorn challenging Sauron through the Palantir? We will see the shadow of the Dark Lord rise into the sky during the fall of Mordor?
If you have any thoughts or answers on this, I'd like to read about them.

Also, I haven't heard any uproars about the fact that, in the movie, Aragorn will enter the Paths of the Dead with only his companions Gimli and Legolas. Which brings us to conclude that neither the Dunedain nor the Sons of Elrond will appear in the movie. I had somewhat guessed this before, but now I'm very curious to see WHO IS GOING TO BRING NARSIL? the only people I can think of now are, as I've mentioned before, Elrond or Arwen. Elrond, since we have heard rumors and reports that there were pick-up shots for ROTK conducted between him and Aragorn in a tent. There is evidence to show that this tent is within a large camp near Dunharrow that we have often seen in footage and pictures of ROTK. As for Arwen, we know she doesn't go to Valinor in TTT, so either she turns back after and returns to Rivendell (as we glimpsed in the TTT trailer footage of her running up to her father and dropping a cloak behind her), or she runs away to, let's say, Gondor to deliver, perhaps, Narsil? So my question again is: what do you think?
All I can be reasonably sure about is that Aragorn gets Narsil in the Dunharrow camp, but we'll see...

P.S.: In waiting for both the TTT EE and ROTK, my sanity grows thin, and is now hanging by a thread...