March 11, 2004

Q: Quest of Mount Doom
Elendur

I hope you all realize I'm not condeming the Quest of Mount Doom from Rivendell to Orodruin. I just walk to focus in two major incidents on the way there.

First: "Go home Sam." Frodo is telling Sam to go down into the Morgul Vale, through Ithilien, across the Dead Marshes, over the Emyn Muil, up the Anduin, through Moria... There is NO WAY he would make it and there is NO WAY Frodo would send him. There's a bigger problem though. The Ring has a considerable amount of power over Frodo, but Gollum DOES NOT. The filmakers have Sam say "He[Gollum]'s poisened you against me!" It doesn't happen. They just made it up. They're not taking something from the book and making it more obvious to the audience, they're just making it up.

Second: I haven't seen anyone mention this but I think it's a big problem. The filmakers passed up their best chance in the trilogy to show the effects of the Ring. I mean the "Samwise the Strong" scene. Sam, possibly the character with the greatest willpower in all of LOTR, is tempted by the Ring. It could have been great.

-Elendur

PS- To Eiuol: Reading the books first is definitely better for two reasons. The first is that since the books are so much better(I think we all agree on that) I would much rather know ahead of time what will happen in the movies than the books. The second is that if you see the movies first you will constantly be comparing the books to the movies: I would rather compare the movies to the books(again, because the books are better).